Keystone XL pipeline passes Obama's climate criteria

New York Times:

The State Department released a report on Friday that could pave the way toward President Obama’s approval of the Keystone XL oil pipeline.

... In a major speech on the environment last summer, Mr. Obama said that he would approve the pipeline only if it would not “significantly exacerbate” the problem of carbon pollution. He said the pipeline’s net effects on the climate would be “absolutely critical” to his decision.

... The conclusions of the report appear to indicate that the project has passed Mr. Obama’s climate criteria, an outcome expected to outrage environmentalists,... 

... The report released on Friday, however, is far from the final decision on the project. The State Department must next determine whether the pipeline is in the national interest. ...

Related: Peter Foster -The real barrier to Keystone XL approval lies with the White House

Trudeau fires his Liberal Senators

Trudeau to his senators: You're fired!

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau fired all his senators Wednesday morning.  And in doing so, the third party in the House of Commons effectively resigned its position as the official Opposition in the Senate. ...

... "These independent senators will no longer be part of the parliamentary and operational team of the Liberal Party of Canada," Trudeau later told reporters. "As far as political operatives, these senators will no longer be Liberal organizers, fundraisers, activists in any form."

... At first, these senators were stunned. But after an hour or two of talking it over, the gang Trudeau "fired" came out of their closed-door meeting to tell reporters that, henceforth, they would call themselves the Senate Liberal Caucus. And they will, er, act like Liberals. Later, when the Senate got going, this group insisted they would carry on as the official Opposition in the Senate. ...

Even Liberal attack-dog and Trudeau fan-boy, Warren Kinsella, thinks it's a dumb idea. On Brian Lilley's Byline, Kinsella called it an "absurd stunt".  Lilley also pointed out that Trudeau's gambit was contrary to the Liberal's own constitution which defines the Liberal caucus as including Liberal appointees to the Senate.

It sounds like the Liberals are a very confused bunch.  Obviously Liberal Senators had no say in Trudeau's grand "decision" to eject them.

Here's another decent summary of events:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper pounced on the apparent contradiction after Trudeau asked in the House of Commons whether the Conservatives would be following his party’s lead.

“I gather the change announced by the leader today is that unelected Liberal senators will become unelected senators who happen to be Liberal,” Harper said.

The prime minister also cited [Liberal Senate leader] Cowan’s comment about not expecting much to change, saying: “That has to be the understatement of the year.”

 This could be fun!

Robson's excellent overview of the Earth's climate

John Robson isn't a climate scientist, nor does he claim to be.  But he's a very smart, reasonable guy.  On Friday's Byline show he presented a layman's overview of the history of the Earth's climate in relation to CO2 and the chaotic nature of the climate system.



To summarize, John's main points were:

(1) historically, temperature is completely uncorrelated with atmospheric CO2 levels
(2) atmospheric concentrations of CO2 have been far above today's level for most of the planet's history (more than 20 times higher at one point)
(3) today's CO2 concentrations are near historic lows
(4) the earth's average global temperature today is well below historic averages
(5) the climate system is chaotic, sometimes unstable and generally unpredictable
(6) UN "Climate Change Convention Executive Secretary", Christiana Figueres (channeling Justin Trudeau's admiration of China), is a dope.

Bottom line takeaways:

(1) Is there global warming? Robson didn't discuss it.  From recent data, apparently a little.
(2) Should we be alarmed by it? Hardly.
(3) Can we trust UN climate change policy? No frackin' way!

CBC climate propaganda (aka lies)

CBC "News" edits CBC's Ghomeshi interview with Neil Young:

Global warming - "a textbook case of pseudo-science"

Every unusual weather event, a hot summer, a miserably cold winter - all are taken as proof of the theory of catastrophic man-made global warming.  Everything confirms it, there is no counter evidence -  Freezing is the new Warming:

... What interests me is how global warming is degrading, in plain sight, into a textbook case of pseudoscience—all while remaining an unassailable article of belief among those who think of themselves as pro-science.

One of the famous characteristics of pseudo-science is that it is "unfalsifiable." That is, the theory is constructed in such a way that there is no evidence that could possibly refute it. ...

[via Mark Steyn]

Update: A couple of links from Springer in the comments:

Science paper doubts IPCC, so whole journal gets terminated!

Is a mini ice age on the way?

The T-Star's shakedown targets

Last month The Toronto Star's loopy chairman wrote to 70 Toronto "elites"  in an attempt to intimidate them into denouncing Mayor Rob Ford (see Conrad Black's column).  Today, The (loopy) Star published a list of responders (and non-responders) along with their comments.  Many predictably went along with the Star's idiocy and dumped all over Ford as requested.  But many others either didn't respond at all or told the Star to drop dead.  Peter Kent's reply stands out (my bold):

WHENEVER A REPORTER FOR THE TORONTO STAR MIGHT WISH TO ASK FOR MY THOUGHTS ON AN ISSUE OF THE DAY, I STAND READY TO RESPOND.

HOWEVER, AND DESPITE YOUR “EXTENDED DEADLINE” I WILL NOT ANSWER THE DEMANDS IN YOUR LETTER OF DECEMBER 16TH, 2013, WHICH I CONSIDER TO BE A CRUDELY CRAFTED, VEILED THREAT THAT I (AND OTHERS) ENDORSE AN EDITORIAL COLUMN WRITTEN BY TORSTAR CHAIR JOHN HONDERICH . . . OR FACE CONSEQUENCES IN YOUR EVENTUAL STORY.

YOUR LETTER IS A PRIME EXAMPLE OF WHAT MIGHT BEST BE DESCRIBED AS CRUSADE JOURNALISM; A NEWSPAPER'S ATTEMPT TO IMPOSE ITS EDITORIAL WILL FAR BEYOND THE BOUNDARIES OF ACCEPTABLE JOURNALISTIC PRACTICE.

MR. HONDERICH IS CERTAINLY ENTITLED TO HIS OPINION.

I WILL NOT BE BULLIED INTO COMMENTING ON THAT OPINION.

YOUR MANNER OF NEWS-GATHERING IS, I BELIEVE, AN UNFORTUNATE EXAMPLE OF THE DECLINE OF A CRAFT I ONCE PROUDLY PRACTISED.

[via Blue Like You]

The shoddy science of sceptic-bashing

Ben Pile of Climate Resistance in an interesting essay at spiked, "The pathologising of climate scepticism", dissects a controversial paper by psychologist Stephan Lewandowsky:

A recent study by Stephan Lewandowsky, a psychologist at the University of Western Australia, aimed to identify climate change sceptics’ tendency towards conspiracy theories.

... It seems fairly obvious that Lewandowsky was at best mistaken. The data simply do not support his conclusions.

... Lewandowsky worked from his prejudice — that all sceptics are, a priori, wrong. His objective was to expose the ‘motivated reasoning’ that lies behind climate scepticism. But in doing so, he managed only to expose his own bad faith. ...

concluding:

... A culture of intransigence has developed in the shadow of the compact between politics and science, which can be seen in the Lewandowsky affair in microcosm. Lewandowsky’s work unwittingly demonstrates that what is passed off as peer reviewed and published ‘science’, even in today’s world, is no more scientific than the worst ramblings of the least qualified and nuttiest climate change denier on the internet.

... The consequence of this should be alarming to everyone who takes an interest in the climate and other scientific debates, no matter what their view on climate change.  ...

A tad long, but worth the read.

Vancouver Coastal Health funding radical drug user group

genuiNEWitty:

The Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU) is probably the best example of the radical left making a mockery out of the city’s taxpayers. Funded through organizations like Vancouver Coastal Health ($250,437 in 2011), the group has been known for paying addicts to attend anti-gentrification protests, and using their government funded space as the headquarters for an anti-police group known for making racist and hateful attacks. ...

2013 a bad year for Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warmists

Just the Facts:

... Regardless of efforts to nebulize CAGW to explain all forms of climatic and weather variation, in 2013 every loosely falsifiable prediction of the CAGW narrative seems to have failed. The apparent complete failure of the CAGW narrative in 2013 could make the most fundamentalist agnostic wonder if Mother Nature sometimes takes sides ...

Pope Francis - economic naif / dunce

Peter Foster on the Pope’s economic naivete and ignorance:

 ... the serious issue of whether the Pope knows what he’s talking about when it comes to his professed concern for the poor. 

The appropriate approach to poverty is not to sanctify it but eradicate it . ... if Pope Francis really is concerned about relieving poverty, his reflexive anti-capitalist attitudes are pointing precisely in the wrong direction.

Pope John Paul II actually praised the free market as “the most efficient instrument for utilizing resources and effectively responding to needs. ... his successors  ... returned to the Church’s more traditional anti-capitalist stance, now larded with environmental concerns and support for UN-based global governance. ... Pope Francis came out of the Vatican gate in March sounding like the theological wing of the Occupy movement ...

... if the poor are truly his priority, then surely what is important is not “the gap” but the massive reductions in levels of absolute poverty in recent decades ... one can’t help asking whether the Pope is more concerned with relieving the poor or bringing down the rich.

he exposed his own economic confusion, first in implying that social benefits come only from charitable intention  ... and second in peddling the canard that promotion of markets represents some kind of quasi religious faith...