So when is Al Gore going to get his fat butt over here to shovel the snow off my driveway?

A lengthy bout of snow shoveling is just what Al Gore and the other ecoweenies deserve as punishment for the Global Warming fraud. However, they haven't accepted the obvious once more and are taking to the popular press in droves to tell us that all this cold weather and snow is yet more proof of global warming:

No matter what happens, it always confirms their basic premise that the world is getting hotter. The weather turns cold and wet? It's global warming, they say. Weather turns hot? Global warming. No change? Global warming. More hurricanes? Global warming. No hurricanes? You guessed it.

Nothing can disprove their thesis. Not even the extraordinarily frigid weather now creating havoc across most of the Northern Hemisphere. The Los Angeles Times, in a piece on the region's strangely wet and cold weather, paraphrases Jet Propulsion Laboratory climatologist Bill Patzert as saying, "In general, as the globe warms, weather conditions tend to be more extreme and volatile."

Got that? No matter what the weather, it's all due to warming. This isn't science; it's a kind of faith. Scientists go along and even stifle dissent because, frankly, hundreds of millions of dollars in research grants are at stake. But for the believers, global warming is the god that failed.

Why do we continue to listen to warmists when they're so wrong? Maybe it's because their real agenda has nothing to do with climate change at all. Earlier this month, attendees of a global warming summit in Cancun, Mexico, concluded, with virtually no economic or real scientific support, that by 2020 rich nations need to transfer $100 billion a year to poor nations to help them "mitigate" the adverse impacts of warming.

This is what global warming is really about — wealth redistribution by people whose beliefs are basically socialist.

Bzzzt - game over, ecoweenies.

How's that Global Warming stuff working out for you?

I just got inside from shoveling some global warming off the walks and I needed the following rendition of Frozen Wasteland to to warm me up. It certainly makes me hot under the collar.

h/t American Digest.

Today's Hoot: Gore Effect to Hit Copenhagen Global Warming Boondoggle

Al Gore may have canceled his $1,200 per ticket book promotion event scheduled for Thursday, Dec. 17th at the great Copenhagen Global Warming Boondoggle, but the Gore effect on the Copenhagen weather apparently lives on - Record Cold To hit Global Warming Conference (Copenhagen To Break Dec 17th Record by 7 Degrees!):

Once again it's bad timing for a global warming meeting as all time record cold temperatures are set to strike the the U.N. global warming conference in Copenhagen.

Last week "warmists" were confronted with reports that November Arctic Sea Ice growth exceeded the 1979-2000 average and that "in general, the ice edge is now at or slightly beyond its average location".

The bad timing for "warmists" this time is that Copenhagen, home to the UN global warming conference until December 18th, is set to break the all time low temperature record for December 17th.

Here is a screengrab of Copenhagen weather from Weather Underground for Dec 17th 2008 that shows the all time cold record for that date (24 degrees) was set on Dec 17th 1997:

(screen grab elided)

As can be seen from this screen grab from Weather Underground, forecasters are predicting this record will be shattered by 7 degrees as temperatures dip down to a record low of 17 degrees on Thursday December 17th:

(screen grab elided)

Actually, if you follow the Weather Underground link for the forecast, the low temperature predicted for the 17th is now up to 21 degrees, so I count it as further proof of the Gore Effect - when Crazy Al stays away the temperature rises.

Rush Limbaugh runs over Al Gore - backs up, does it again

Watch the video:

Anyone seen Al Gore lately?

Has anyone spotted Al Gore, the Lord High Bloviator of Global Warming, recently? The above is a nice snap of Al in the New Orleans snowstorm of last month, but where has the boy gotten to lately? The reason I want to know is that I have some elderly relatives up in the Chicago area who have had to pay their snowplow guy to clear their driveway roughly every other day for the last month or so. They wonder if Al might part with some of the dough he has raked in from his "Global Warming" and "Carbon Credit" scams to help them out.

Edwardsville, Alabama gets the Obama spirit!

Who says small town folks are bitter? Barry Obama should be really proud of the residents of  Edwardsvilla, Alabma who are jumping right into the Obama spirit thing:

At first glance, the town of Edwardsville, Ala., with a population of 194 people, might raise a few eyebrows with its bid to receive $375 million from the economic stimulus package being assembled by Barack Obama and lawmakers in Congress.

At second glance too.

The tiny town, located near the Georgia border and 26 miles from the nearest "big city" of Anniston (population: 24,276), added 33 proposals—about two thirds of them related to "green" energy—to the list of "ready-to-go-projects" assembled by the U.S. Conference of Mayors. Total sum: $375,076,200.

OMG, "green" energy! Paging Al Gore! Blessing required on aisle 5!

There's certainly no denying that Edwardsville has big ambitions. Through the various proposals, which include a renewable energy museum, scenic railroad, and vineyards, these small Alabama communities envision themselves becoming a cutting-edge demonstration project for energy sustainability and a hub for tourism.

Renewable energy museum, scenic railroad, and vineyards? Sounds as energy efficient as Al Gore's palatial mansion.

"Do you know how hard it is to fund some of these projects when your tax base is so low?" Phillips says. "So we just breathed this sigh of relief when we found out about the stimulus package . . . especially when it had a focus on renewable energy."

I heard the gravy train was arriving soon too, but I was just too slothful to get in my application. However, it's great to see that the poor rural folks in Edwardsville are really getting into the "Chedda" lifestyle.  Unfortunately, there are always a few wet blankets:

"This really exemplifies the problem. Why are we buying light bulbs for a local community?" asks Tom Schatz, president of the watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste. "If a municipality wants to save money, [it can] go out and buy the light bulbs. There is no reason the federal government should buy them."

Aw c'mon Tom, check this out:

One of Edwardsville's biggest proposed expenditures is for a "renewable energy museum and information dissemination center." Phillips envisions exhibits, audio tours, seminars, a research center, and a satellite lab run by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

To fund the museum, Edwardsville is requesting $32.1 million. That makes the facility the fourth most expensive museum proposed on the U.S. Conference of Mayors list—following facilities planned by Miami, Las Vegas, and Scottsdale, Ariz. (Some of those facilities have drawn their own controversy: Las Vegas's proposal for a $55 million "mob museum," for example, was used by Sen. Mitch McConnell this week as a prime example of pork spending.)

Mob museum in Las Vegas? How cool is that? Maybe they'll have a section devoted to the infamous Reid Crime Family! 

But I digress. You have to admire the chutzpah of the Edwardsville folks - why shouldn't they belly up to the bar for the free lunch just like the city slickers?

Some might wonder how many people a renewable energy museum in rural Alabama could attract. And there are other routes for museum funding, like the Institute of Museum and Library Services. If a project can't get funding through competitive grants, Schatz says, perhaps it shouldn't get funding at all.

"Clearly, no one else has been interested in funding this, so why should we be doing it now?" he asks, referring to all the projects on the U.S. Conference of Mayors list that are using the stimulus as a last-ditch funding effort. "Why should the federal government be doing something now that you couldn't do yourself?"

Tom, Tom, Tom! You just don't have the Obama spirit!

The energy museum speaks to Edwardsville's larger hope: becoming a tourist destination. The town has requested $37 million for a solar energy-enhanced "scenic railroad line." It's also asking for $9 million to go toward establishing an eventual 640 acres of vineyards, 160 acres of which would be launched first. Each of the four vineyards would be designed around the theme of a different European country and, in a bid for weddings, dotted with gazebos and chapels.

To some, the vineyards, in particular, seem dubious. The Southeast is subject to a disease that puts traditional European grape varieties out of reach, usually limiting vineyards to the muscadine grape. Partly as a result, vineyards haven't exactly been the region's strong suit. Georgia has just 1,100 acres of vineyards, while Mississippi has 400. (Compare that with California's 800,000 or even Pennsylvania's 12,000.) The 640 acres for vineyards that Edwardsville ultimately wants to establish would nearly double the vineyard acreage of the entire state of Alabama, which is currently at 650.

Ya gotta have high hopes if you want Obama and Congrees to grease your palm.

It's not yet known whether Edwardsville will get any money from the stimulus package at all. There's no guarantee as to how many projects, if any, on the mayors list will get federal funding. And although $375 million may seem like a lot of money, it's also a fraction of the $96,638,419,313 requested by all the towns on the list.

Is that good news or bad news?

I really have to get in on this stimulus scam. Hmm, I guess first I need to incorporate myself as a town and elect myself mayor. Maybe I could even get Mrs. Philosopher to vote for me if I promised her a government grant.

Where's Al Gore when you really need some hot air?

A picture from a Chicago friend illustrates the sad state of Global Warming alarmism:

Anyone who cares to notice knows that the political climate scientists have been cooking the books to try to prove that there actually is any global warming and that the evidence for man made global warming is nonexistent, but the ecoweenies have their propaganda machine ranting at full force so it may well take a really nasty winter in the USA before average folks figure out that they are being conned. Some useful tidbits via Deroy Murdock:

Actually, the odds are rising that snow, ice, and cold will grow increasingly common. As serious scientists repeatedly explain, global cooling is here. It is chilling temperatures and so-called "global-warming."

According to the National Climatic Data Center, 2008 will be America's coldest year since 1997, thanks to La Niña and precipitation in the central and eastern states. Solar quietude also may underlie global cooling. This year's sunspots and solar radiation approach the minimum in the Sun's cycle, corresponding with lower Earth temperatures. This echoes Harvard-Smithsonian astrophysicist Dr. Sallie Baliunas' belief that solar variability, much more than CO2, sways global temperatures.
...
"Global Warming is over, and Global Warming Theory has failed. There is no evidence that CO2 drives world temperatures or any consequent climate change," Imperial College London astrophysicist and long-range forecaster Piers Corbyn wrote British Members of Parliament on Oct. 28. "According to official data in every year since 1998, world temperatures have been colder than that year, yet CO2 has been rising rapidly." That evening, as the House of Commons debated legislation on so-called "global-warming," October snow fell in London for the first time since 1922.
...
So, is this all just propaganda concocted by Chevron-funded, right-wing, flat-Earthers? Ask Dr. Martin Hertzberg, a physical chemist and retired Navy meteorologist.

"As a scientist and lifelong liberal Democrat, I find the constant regurgitation of the anecdotal, fear mongering clap-trap about human-caused global warming to be a disservice to science," Hertzberg wrote in Sept. 26's USA Today. "From the El Niño year of 1998 until Jan., 2007, the average temperature of the Earth's atmosphere near its surface decreased some 0.25 C (0.45 F). From Jan., 2007 until the spring of 2008, it dropped a whopping 0.75 C (1.35 F)."

As global cooling becomes more widely recognized, Americans from Maine to Malibu should feel comfortable dreaming of a white Christmas.

I certainly am, but I expect that in Castle Gore, the Dark Prince of Climate BS is chewing the carpets. Would you buy carbon credits from anyone, much more that crazed bozo? Of course, no one seems to have mentioned this little cognitive problem to Barack Obama:

When will the "Let us take over and wreck your economy so we can save you from the climate boogey-man" gang admit the earth is cooling again, and when will they admit, "OK, since cooling is worse than warming, and our own theory is that mankind can impact global temperature by what we burn, it's now your duty to hold back the Big Freeze by going out there and burning all the fossil fuels you possibly can, as fast as you can"?

(Don't even get me started on "carbon trading," a weird scam in which the buyer acquires an invisible commodity of no earthly use to him, and both buyer and seller can benefit if they overestimate the amount being "transferred.")

Instead, on Monday, President-Elect Obama ("Delay is no longer an option; denial is no longer an acceptable response") appointed as Secretary of Energy (a position and an office not authorized in the Constitution) Steven Chu, the confirmed global warming lunatic from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory who says coal -- the stuff that powered the industrial revolution, cheap coal which will last for centuries and which can be burned more cleanly now than ever before -- "is my worst nightmare."

This gang still intends to effectively ban both coal-fired and nuclear power generation. Do they believe they can meet our current demand with famously costly, unreliable, and toxic wind, solar and geothermal? (Look up the by-products of geothermal energy, some time. Then look up "battery farms.") Of course not. The gap can only be closed by "conservation," they'll admit when you take a pencil and start to work the numbers.

And what does "conservation" mean, precisely?

They'd like us to think they mean just turning out the lights in our empty rooms, that kind of thing. But they don't.

Mr. Obama has said it, straight out. He, the Chosen One, has had it Revealed to Him that we can no longer use 25 percent of the world's energy when we have only 5 percent of the world's population.

This is nonsense. All mankind uses less than 1 percent of the solar energy that streams past us every hour. Is it "unfair" that the Japanese eat "more than their fair per capita share" of the world's fish?

Are we now to be ruled by a depraved schoolchild obsessed with sharing the toys, granted the ability to carry forward that Ding-Dong School philosophy with powers reminiscent of the kid in the old "Twilight Zone" episode who could "wish people into the cornfield"?

We should be proud that we've learned how to capture and harness the lion's share of the available energy in this system. It's not like we refused to share with others "the secret of coal" or "the secret of oil," is it? They saw how good it was; they've been racing to catch up to us ever since; that's the main reason the world has escaped the life expectancies of the Stone Age.

There's a real world out there. Purposely, artificially impoverish the nation, force us to give up our competitive economic advantages, and we'll eventually go the way of the Carthaginians.

I tend to think of the latter days of the Roman Empire, but whatever it is, it only happens if we let these loons do it to us. So - let it snow.

Save your carbon credit cash - Global Cooling on the way

Changes in the Sun’s Surface to Bring Next Climate Change (via C&S):

January 2, 2008

Today, the Space and Science Research Center, (SSRC) in Orlando, Florida announces that it has confirmed the recent web announcement of NASA solar physicists that there are substantial changes occurring in the sun’s surface. The SSRC has further researched these changes and has concluded they will bring about the next climate change to one of a long lasting cold era.

Today, Director of the SSRC, John Casey has reaffirmed earlier research he led that independently discovered the sun’s changes are the result of a family of cycles that bring about climate shifts from cold climate to warm and back again.

“We today confirm the recent announcement by NASA that there are historic and important changes taking place on the sun’s surface. This will have only one outcome - a new climate change is coming that will bring an extended period of deep cold to the planet. This is not however a unique event for the planet although it is critically important news to this and the next generations. It is but the normal sequence of alternating climate changes that has been going on for thousands of years. Further according to our research, this series of solar cycles are so predictable that they can be used to roughly forecast the next series of climate changes many decades in advance. I have verified the accuracy of these cycles’ behavior over the last 1,100 years relative to temperatures on Earth, to well over 90%.”
...
When asked about what this will mean to the average person on the street, Casey was firm. “The last time this particular cycle regenerated was over 200 years ago. I call it the “Bi-Centennial Cycle” solar cycle. It took place between 1793 and 1830, the so-called Dalton Minimum, a period of extreme cold that resulted in what historian John D. Post called the ‘last great subsistence crisis.’ With that cold came massive crops losses, food riots, famine and disease. I believe this next climate change will be much stronger and has the potential to once more cause widespread crop losses globally with the resultant ill effects. The key difference for this next Bi-Centennial Cycle’s impact versus the last is that we will have over 8 billion mouths to feed in the next coldest years where as we had only 1 billion the last time. Among other effects like social and economic disruption, we are facing the real prospect of the ‘perfect storm of global food shortages’ in the next climate change. In answer to the question, everyone on the street will be affected.”

Hmm, this can work for the lefties too - someone call Barbara Boxer and the UN and get them working on a new super-duper plan. As for Al Gore, there's no need for him suffer an interruption in his cash flow. He can just ditch the carbon credits and start raising mink.

First it was toilets, now it's light bulbs

The last time the Donks controlled Congress we got the Gore-Toilet (the wimp flusher that saved no water because it required extra flushes and led to toilet smuggling). Well, the Donks are back in control of Congress and guess what? Now it's Gore-bulbs:

You know the energy bill that Congress passed and President Bush signed into law today? Tucked into the legislation is a provision that mandates the phase-out of the 125-year-old incandescent bulb in the next four to 12 years in favor of a new generation of trendy, supposedly energy-efficient Gorebulbs.

No one bothered to check the fine print at the White House?

These feel-good dim bulbs give you crappy lighting, don’t live up to their longevity promises, and are a pain in the neck to dispose of–but they sure make enviro-nitwits and Big Greenie water-carriers feel good about themselves.

I tried the compact fluorescents some years back because I have some ceiling fixtures in the out buildings whose bulbs are a pain to change and I liked the idea of 5-year life. Well, despite the package claims they were noticeably dimmer than incandescents and lasted no longer. When they burned out, I threw them in the trash like I and 99% of the citizenry do with all burned out fluorescents. Now we're supposed to save them for some sort of hazardous waste disposal. Sounds like a heck of a plan to me.

Still there is some good news. Most global warming profiteering is for the swells like Al Gore, but here's a way for the little guy to cash in. I'm just going to clear some space and stock up with cases of incandescents. I'll see ya on eBay in a few years.

Bad news for Al Gore's carbon credit profits

Well respected BBC Science Correspondent and Science Editor Dr. David Whitehouse mentions the unmentionable (if you are an ecoweenie or professional UN bureaucrat or investor in carbon credit scams with Al Gore) in Has Global Warming Stopped?

'The fact is that the global temperature of 2007 is statistically the same as 2006 and every year since 2001'

Global warming stopped? Surely not. What heresy is this? Haven’t we been told that the science of global warming is settled beyond doubt and that all that’s left to the so-called sceptics is the odd errant glacier that refuses to melt?

Aren’t we told that if we don’t act now rising temperatures will render most of the surface of the Earth uninhabitable within our lifetimes? But as we digest these apocalyptic comments, read the recent IPCC’s Synthesis report that says climate change could become irreversible. Witness the drama at Bali as news emerges that something is not quite right in the global warming camp.

With only few days remaining in 2007, the indications are the global temperature for this year is the same as that for 2006 – there has been no warming over the 12 months.

But is this just a blip in the ever upward trend you may ask? No.

The fact is that the global temperature of 2007 is statistically the same as 2006 as well as every year since 2001. Global warming has, temporarily or permanently, ceased. Temperatures across the world are not increasing as they should according to the fundamental theory behind global warming – the greenhouse effect. Something else is happening and it is vital that we find out what or else we may spend hundreds of billions of pounds needlessly.

I'm sure Al Gore would explain to poor misguided Dr. Whitehouse that it has very little to do with any actual global warming and everything to do with political control of those pesky little people not to mention ill gotten gains from carbon credit scams like Al Gore's Generation Investment Management.

There's good news about Global Warming!

The good news about Global Warming is that you can get research grants to study any goofy thing you want.

Divorce Found to Harm The Environment With Higher Energy, Water Use

Divorce is not just a family matter. It exacts a serious toll on the environment by boosting the energy and water consumption of those who used to live together, according to a study by two Michigan State University researchers.

The analysis found that cohabiting couples and families around the globe use resources more efficiently than households that have split up. The researchers calculated that in 2005, divorced American households used between 42 and 61 percent more resources per person than before they separated, spending 46 percent more per person on electricity and 56 percent more on water.

Their paper, published yesterday in the Proceedings of The National Academy of Sciences, also found that if the divorced couples had stayed together in 2005, the United States would have saved 73 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity and 627 billion gallons of water in that year alone.

Married households use energy and water more efficiently than divorced ones because they share these resources -- including lighting and heating -- among more people, said Jianguo Liu, one of the paper's co-authors. Moreover, the divorced households they surveyed between 1998 and 2002 used up more space, occupying between 33 and 95 percent more rooms per person than in married households.

"Hopefully this will inform people about the environmental impact of divorce," Liu said in an interview yesterday. "For a long time we've blamed industries for environmental problems. One thing we've ignored is the household."

I'm shocked I tell ya! Of course actual marriage isn't the eco-friendly part, it's the cohabitation so I guess there's a new argument in favor of shacking up. Please, don't anyone tell Barbara Boxer - she'll be wanting us all to live in communes.

Eco-friendly kangaroo farts could help global warming: scientists (that really is the title):

SYDNEY (AFP) - Australian scientists are trying to give kangaroo-style stomachs to cattle and sheep in a bid to cut the emission of greenhouse gases blamed for global warming, researchers say.

Thanks to special bacteria in their stomachs, kangaroo flatulence contains no methane and scientists want to transfer that bacteria to cattle and sheep who emit large quantities of the harmful gas.

While the usual image of greenhouse gas pollution is a billowing smokestack pushing out carbon dioxide, livestock passing wind contribute a surprisingly high percentage of total emissions in some countries.

"Fourteen percent of emissions from all sources in Australia is from enteric methane from cattle and sheep," said Athol Klieve, a senior research scientist with the Queensland state government.

"And if you look at another country such as New Zealand, which has got a much higher agricultural base, they're actually up around 50 percent," he told AFP.

Forget the kangaroo-style stomach I want to see Elsie hopping around on her back legs! Actually they ought to experiment on Al Gore - he emits more gas than a feedlot.

Remember Al Gore before you buy any product from Apple

Al Gore's primary job on Apple's board of directors (besides picking up his paycheck) seems to be to provide an aura of authenticity to the dubious report absolving Steve Jobs in the stock options backdating scandal. I guess that must have been a valuable service since Steve Jobs is boosting Big Weird Al for president and after the Goron was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last week under other dubious circumstances, Apple decided to devote their home page for a couple of days to a little brown nosing (see above).

I know some folks that were interested in the Apple iPhone before it launched, but dropped it like a hot potato when they found out about Al's involvement in Apple. It may be hard to do the same if you are a longtime Macintosh user, but there's no excuse for buying any of Apple's consumer electronics gadgets like the iPod or iPhone because there are plenty of alternatives. Do some of the other manufacturers do silly stuff on behalf of Mother Gaia? Sure, but you have to pick off the fattest targets which are certainly Big Weird Al and Apple.

Hey, Tipper! Empty out the bottom dresser drawer!

Click the (lightly edited) picture for ... er, enlargement

The Register reveals a new program in the UK that will surely warm the cockles of Al Gore's heart - a recycling program for old, worn out vibrators. Here's the pitch (some vibrator photos likely NSFW):

New recycling regulations mean that all electrical equipment - including sex toys! - must be disposed of at a designated electrical waste collection centre. This means that you shouldn’t just chuck your dead vibrator in the kitchen bin!

More than 1,000 electrical waste centres have been set up at recycling sites around the UK. But who wants the hassle and embarrassment of taking your dog-eared defunct sex toy down to the tip? Nobody! That's where the LoveHoney Rabbit Amnesty can help.

Send your old rabbit vibrator to LoveHoney Rabbit Amnesty and we will:

• Carefully dispose of your old vibrator
• Donate £1 to a green charity
• Ensure as much of it is recycled as possible
• Send you a new rabbit vibrator for half price!

Such a deal! Al and Tipper should really get on top of this one! I also think "ecogasms" is a nice turn of phrase - maybe they'll send a truckload of their product to the Democrat convention next year?

There's bad news and good news

The bad news is that China overtakes US as world's biggest CO2 emitter. As you would expect, all the ecoweenies have their Third World loving knickers in a twist:

The surprising announcement will increase anxiety about China's growing role in driving manmade global warming and will pile pressure onto world politicians to agree [on] a new global agreement on climate change that includes the booming Chinese economy.

It's a pile all right. Speaking of which, the good news is that the USA is still ahead in production of methane (which is also a greenhouse gas) because we have Al Gore and Michael Moore. Thanks fellas, but stay downwind. Or go to China.

Today's Hoot!

(Via Viking Pundit) The Anchoress amuses with a snapshot of America:

When I reached the checkout, I asked the cashier if the a/c was broken. “No,” she informed me. “We keep the a/c temperature up because of global warming. Doing our part to save the planet!”

A male voice groused, rather loudly, “Well, that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard! If you’re running an a/c but still not cooling the building then you’re wasting energy. Either turn it off all together, or turn the temperature down, but don’t run a huge unit without without cooling the building down; that’s like running a car engine in a driveway. This is typical Al Gore liberal nonsense, make everyone suffer the same while they feel noble because they care so much about the environment!”

The other warm woman behind me piped up, “this is freakin’ ridiculous. If I have to come here to sweat, I’ll just stay home and order somethin’ online! I don’t need to be here sweating for the privilege of givin’ you my money!”

The girl behind the counter said, “in third world countries, people don’t have air conditioning!”

“America is not a third-world country!” A new voice bellowed. “Not yet, anyway, but if Gore and his rock star friends get their way his way, we will be! Hot stores, sweating! Not them, just us! We’re the ones made uncomfortable! Tell your manager to buy a freaking carbon offset and turn on the a/c!”

Just like sweaty pits Al Gore at his Tennessee mansion. Of course, if you are one of the regular folks, you can just skip the goofy carbon offset as well as any stores that want to make you suffer for their delusions.

Al Gore improves his carbon footprint

Al Gore, stung by the reports of the immense quantities of green house gas-producing energy he uses to run his vast Tennessee mansion, is spiffing up his green credentials by harnessing some of his own personal greenhouse gas emissions for transportation. Gore's personal jet powered outhouse was revealed in an article in Popular Science and you have to give Big Weird Al credit for lots of thought on this baby and for making use of that which he has in such ample supply.

Global Warming breakthrough!

Bristol boffins answer Branson's challenge:

Somebody call Al Gore and tell him he can leave the lights on in his house for as long as he likes: some academics in Bristol have solved the climate change crisis. Oh yes, and they want their $25m prize money from Richard Branson, thankyewverymuch.

Branson and Gore joined forces at the beginning of the month to offer the cash to the person who comes up with the best way of reducing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The winner, should there actually be one, will have to find a way of removing a billion tons of the gas from the atmosphere.

Now researchers at the University of Bristol have put forward their suggestion: stop breathing.

This also has the benefit of no flatulence either since methane is a greenhouse gas too.

This idea, while drastic, has the advantage of not costing anything, and requiring no significant investment in developing new technologies. The side effects are pretty messy, though, so the researchers offer a second suggestion: stop breathing so much.

Dr Mark Steer (in the background of the photograph above, in which he is accompanied by his colleague Dr. Andrew Impey) explains: "If we merely cut out one breath in three, we could decrease the amount of CO2 entering the atmosphere each year by a staggering 0.63 gigatonnes. That's the same effect as saving five million acres of land (an area the size of Wales) from deforestation."

Dang! Someone page the ecoweenies!

As well as averting the mass suicide of the planet's entire human population, this also means heading to the gym is a no-no.

In their press statement, the researchers explain that "the average person exercising at the recommended level of 30 minutes five times a week could be adding as much as 1.3kg of extra carbon dioxide to the atmosphere each year".

Just as well - most ecoweenies don't believe in soap and showers either. My only quibble: Does this mean we don't get to have any virgin sacrifices to appease the angry weather gods?

The original research report is here where one of the commenters claims precedence for a publication with additional suggestions like:

- Reduce sexual activity as much as possible. Even telephone sex can be responsible for terrestrially damaging heavy breathing.

Bad news for Bill Clinton!

- Fit your young children and pets with Envirohale ® (available directly from Trend Laboratories Inc of California). This simple device responds to excessive respiration and applies a mild electric shock to the genitalia.

You can see a snap of an early model of the Envirohale by following the link. Insist that all the Global Warming believers prove their seriousness by wearing one immediately!

Where's all that darn global warming?

I ventured down to the lower 40 today to cut up a fallen tree and I have to tell you that it was a tad chilly here in the Southland with even worse promised for tonight. I'm surely grumped - I'd planned on wearing a monokini along with my Santa beard and hat next Christmas what with all the Global Warming the ecoweenies have been promising lately. Of course it makes me feel a whole lot better to see that some Donk loving locales are feeling the bite too:

Below-Zero Temps Close Schools:

A bone-chilling Arctic cold wave with temperatures as low as 38 below zero shut down schools for thousands of youngsters Monday, halted some Amtrak
service and put car batteries on the disabled list from the northern Plains across the Great Lakes.

The cold was accompanied by snow that was measured in feet in parts of upstate New York.

With temperatures near zero and a wind chill of 25 below, school districts across Ohio canceled classes. "We have a lot of kids that walk to school. We didn't think it was worth the risk," Sandusky City Schools Superintendent Bill Pahl said.

Wisconsin's largest school district, Milwaukee Public Schools, also shut down, idling some 90,000 children, and in upstate New York 34,000 kids got the day off in Rochester because of near-zero temperatures. Schools also closed in parts of Michigan. Even in Minnesota, where February cold is the norm and people are accustomed to coping, some charter schools closed.

The temperature crashed to 38 below zero Monday morning at Hallock in
northwestern Minnesota, and to 30 below at International Falls, the weather
service said.

But wait there's more! Bitter Cold Grips Northern States:

From Minnesota to New York, some schoolchildren are getting an extra long weekend because of the bitter chill that has spread over the eastern half of the country.

Wind chills are minus 25 degrees or lower and some high temperatures today aren't expected to climb above zero.

Experts say exposed skin can get frostbite and school officials didn't want kids outside waiting for buses.

Maine is getting hammered with wind chills forecast as low as minus 45 by tonight in the western mountains.

In Michigan, there could be insult added to injury with winter storm warnings for most of the eastern Upper Peninsula and the northwest Lower Peninsula.

Amtrak shut down passenger train service in upstate New York west of Albany and numerous schools closed due to whiteouts from lake-effect snow and below zero wind chills.

Yeah, I know it's all anecdotal. But heck, the way the usual suspects get all squishy every time some of their underclass "clients" get hit by bad weather we might as well get a laugh before they explain that it's all somehow due to Global Warming, and if not, that it's all George Bush's fault.

On a more utilitarian note, has anyone seen Al Gore? Sleds work much better if you grease the runners and who's more oleaginous than Big Weird Al?

You can always count on the lefties when the going gets tough

Don’t Fight the Terrorists - Fight the Weather!:

It’s a peculiar thing that as the threat of global terrorism reaches a crescendo, so apparently does the threat of global warming—at least that’s what some would have us believe.

Tough, national-security language is borrowed from the former and applied to the latter to make the case: "I really consider this a national security issue,” celebrity activist and “An Inconvenient Truth” producer Laurie David said, and hoped the film would serve as a “wake-up call.”

“Truth” star Al Gore calls global warming a “planetary emergency” and speaks of a clash between “civilization and the planet.”

Likewise, Bill Clinton’s “first worry” is climate change. “It’s the only thing that I believe has the power to fundamentally end the march of civilization as we know it,” the reputedly intelligent ex-president told a World Economic Forum audience earlier this year. Leonardo DiCaprio, meanwhile, says we’re in the “11th Hour.”

No wonder that while Islamic terrorism claims lives by the thousands every year, Hollywood churns out movies about the menace of Joe McCarthy, the Crusaders, Israeli Mossad and Richard Nixon. Freud called it displacement.

Let’s be honest: people fixate on the environment when they can’t deal with real threats. Combating the climate gives the non-hawks a chance to look tough. They figure, “Let’s flex our muscle with this Mother Nature thing. Let’s take a preemptive strike at an SUV. Let’s show ‘em we can be tough too.”

Ooooo! Show us your muscles - take you hats off!

This post was carbon neutral.