Late last year it was reported that California’s high speed rail project wouldn’t be completed for 22 years and would end up costing about $100 billion, which is three times the initial estimate. The project received over $2 billion from the stimulus.

Gov. Jerry Brown now says the cost won’t be nearly that much, because somehow carbon fees levied on businesses (some of which would no doubt flee the state) will fund a good portion of the construction:

“It’s not going to be $100 billion,” the Democratic governor said on ABC 7′s Eyewitness Newsmakers program. “That’s way off.”

Brown’s remarks come as his administration prepares revisions to the California High-Speed Rail Authority’s latest business plan. Brown is trying to push the project through an increasingly skeptical Legislature following a series of critical reports.

“Phase 1, I’m trying to redesign it in a way that in and of itself will be justified by the state investment,” Brown said. “We do have other sources of money: For example, cap-and-trade, which is this measure where you make people who produce greenhouse gasses pay certain fees – that will be a source of funding going forward for the high speed rail.”

Brown said, “It’s going to be a lot cheaper than people are saying.”

Wait a minute. So if industry stops spewing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere right now (thereby of course saving the planet from global warming) there won’t be enough cap/trade money for the government to build the latest bankruptcy-inducing glimmer in Joe Biden’s eye? I’ve yet to hear a more convincing argument for going green.

Not unlike the government taxing tobacco and using some of the money to pay for SCHIP, the “green” movement has developed a Catch-22 dependence the very things they seek to eliminate. So keep those smokestacks spewing filth and pay those carbon fees, California industry, because Moonbeam has a “green” rail system to pay for so the planet can be saved from global warming!

At least it helps explain recent decisions like this.

I’m amazed by a bureaucratic mindset that believes forcing a portion of the price tag of a bloated project onto select areas of the private sector will lower the cost to the government, and therefore the taxpayers.

Take it away, Governor:

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

Australia is debuting a carbon tax much like the one Al Gore has proposed for the United States. A few details:

In Australia, the federal government launched plans for a $23 per tonne tax on carbon, which will affect the country’s 500 largest polluters commencing July 1, 2012. “By 2020 our carbon price will take 160 million tonnes of pollution out of the atmosphere every year,” said Australian PM Julia Gillard. ” That’s the equivalent of taking forty five million cars off the road.”

The government will exempt farmers, small business, families and road transport from the scheme, which will feature a carbon tax from 2012-2015, switching to an emissions trading scheme in 2015.

When we read about carbon taxes on “polluters,” the stories are accompanied by who is exempt from the taxes. The fact is, nobody is exempt — with the possible exception of the corporation getting hit with the tax. One example is the airline industry in Australia, which is simply doing the obvious and passing the tax along to consumers:

Qantas and Virgin both say they will be passing on the cost of the carbon tax, with average fare increases of at least $3.

Australia’s two biggest airlines are among the first major companies to give an indication to investors about the cost to the company of the carbon price, and how that impact will be passed on to customers.

The airlines say they will bear the full brunt of the $23-a-tonne starting price on carbon, which is being passed onto domestic airlines in the form of a higher jet fuel excise, without receiving any Government compensation or transition assistance.

Qantas says the estimated impact of the increased fuel costs is between $110-115 million next financial year, which it says will be passed on in full to customers in a transparent way.

Other industries will do the same. This is the inherent irony in the global warming scheme. These taxes are purportedly put in place to ultimately help protect the people at the lower end of the economic totem pole who will be “hardest hit” by global warming, but they’re the same people who are going to get stuck with the bill. The lifestyles of Al Gore or his pal Sir Richard Branson will not be negatively impacted.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

Did anybody really think the collapse of the Chicago Climate Exchange’s emissions credits trading would stop the effort to force a market for it? Not when they have more of our money with which to bring something similar back to life:

(CNSNews.com) – The Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced that it has awarded $17.4 million for pilot projects that will begin exploring how to establish a market for greenhouse gas (GHG) credits, a key component of a cap and trade system, to help reduce carbon and other emissions that apparently contribute to global warming.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said the projects were the “foundational work” for establishing an American carbon market.

“This is really sort of foundational work that’s being done,” Vilsack told reporters on a conference call on Wednesday.

The administration is determined to force a demand, much like the CEO of Government Motors wants to artificially create a market for hybrid vehicles — and can afford to do so thanks to taxpayer money. The last time carbon trading was tried in the US, the resulting ups, downs and ultimate flat-lining resembled a graph that could very well represent Anthony Weiner’s political career:

The search continues to find a way for Al Gore’s Generation Investment Management, Goldman Sachs and the rest to clean up, all on your dime (and then some). These things are almost entirely hinged upon who’s power in Washington (the above graph collapse coincides almost perfectly with the 2010 election results), so that’s yet another thing to keep in mind when choosing candidate(s) to support during the 2012 election season.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

Because designing an economy around the assumption that we’re all about to die from man-made global warming is working out so well for commerce in Spain, let’s keep the ball rolling in the United States:

(CNSNews.com) – John Bryson, nominated by President Barack Obama today to head the Department of Commerce, once said it was “incredibly important” that the United States pass cap and trade legislation and that America needed to become a global leader in combating man-made global warming.

“I regard it as incredibly important that the United States comes forth in this year with federal climate change legislation as a foundation for moving ahead,” Bryson told the U.N. International Energy Conference in late August 2009. “I think we in the U.S. have an obligation to assist in significant ways in providing leadership in this community of nations that you represent and addressing energy and climate change.”
[...]
Bryson, a co-founder of the liberal environmentalist group Natural Resources Defense Council, was most recently a member of the United Nations’ Advisory Group on Energy and Climate Change, a panel of scientific and industry experts tasked with providing advice on combating global warming.

The nomination requires Senate approval, but it may not take much to convince Scott Brown and Olympia Snowe that voting against John Bryson is a major contributor to global warming:

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

This week Newt Gingrich formally announced he’s running for president in 2012. However, when it comes to getting the conservative base on board, the campaign’s spin on his much talked about 2008 PSA with Nancy Pelosi will — not unlike trying to get Al Gore off the ground in an ultralight — never fly.

From Fox News:

“Newt does not apologize for trying to persuade his ideological opponents that his conservative solutions are the best solutions,” spokesman Rick Tyler said in an email. “His attempt to work with Speaker Pelosi is another testament to Gingrich’s willingness to debate his conservative solutions with liberals, in this case Pelosi. As it turned out, Pelosi … and Gingrich still disagree about how to best protect the environment. But Gingrich will never shy away from debating those on the left on issues like the environment, education and healthcare that they think they own.”

The 2008 ad was cut for Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection. It showed Pelosi and Gingrich sitting very close on a couch outside the U.S. Capitol.

Usually you don’t see “debates” this confrontational without somebody ending up pregnant:

Clearly Republican voters are going to have to crank the “tough love” up a notch in the coming primary months.

Okay, now let’s talk about this “Winning the Future” thing….

(h/t Climate Depot)

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

Will anybody who took part in the actual civil rights movement speak out against a pasty enviro-hypocrite who dares equate his environmental sham with the struggle for equality?

From The Hill:

Al Gore told young green energy advocates Friday that progress on global warming must come from a strong grassroots movement that can counter the oil and coal lobbies, which he alleged have “paralyzed” governments.

Gore – who compared action on global warming to the Civil Rights movement – was the keynote speaker at Power Shift 2011, a Washington, D.C. conference attended largely by college students.

If global warming legislation is akin to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, what’s Al trying to tell us? That even his father wouldn’t have voted for Cap & Trade?

After meandering into his usual examples that “prove” anthropomorphic global warming, such as the floods and droughts that never existed until the past few decades (Noah and those who lived through the dust bowl unavailable for comment), Gore finally got to what this is all about:

He called combating climate change in the country’s economic interest, comparing unchecked emissions to the sub-prime mortgage bubble that proved so damaging.

“We have got trillions of dollars of sub-prime carbon assets whose value depends on the assumption that it is perfectly all right to put these 90 million tons of pollution into the atmosphere every 24 hours,” Gore said.

Translation: Come on, sheep — every second we waste implementing our global warming policy is a million fewer dollars in my bank account!

After the speech in DC, Gore then presumably drove his Chevy Volt back to his little eco hut in California.

Related update: The UN scrubbed their “50 million global warming refugees” prediction from their website, presumably because they were freaked out by how incredibly accurate they were. The science remains settled though.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

For the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Cancun, which began today, representatives from somewhere in the neighborhood of 194 countries flew to Mexico from all around the world. Why? Well, partly to tell the rest of us we need to chill out on the long-haul flights:

In one paper Professor Kevin Anderson, Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, said the only way to reduce global emissions enough, while allowing the poor nations to continue to grow, is to halt economic growth in the rich world over the next twenty years.

This would mean a drastic change in lifestyles for many people in countries like Britain as everyone will have to buy less ‘carbon intensive’ goods and services such as long haul flights and fuel hungry cars.

Can we just go ahead and add “Climate Change Summits” to the growing list of things that cause global warming?

These climate change “scientists” are a self-fulfilling prophecy if there ever was one.

Do you think Al Gore has any plans to halt his economic growth?

(h/t Weasel Zippers)

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

Or rather, “debate.” Remember what Democrat Max Baucus said about his own colleagues — they don’t know “what the heck” they are doing as they ram through “message” bills and amendments instead of actual legislation.

And remember: Just because Reid has a draft bill doesn’t mean we’ll ever get to read it before they try to shove it down our throats.

Via the Washington Post:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced Tuesday he had assembled a “rough draft” of an energy bill and would aim to bring the legislation to the Senate floor the week of July 26.

Reid (D-Nev.) said the bill would include provisions aimed at cleaning up the Gulf of Mexico and preventing further offshore drilling disasters, along with alternative energy and conservation incentives. The package is part of a broader effort by Democrats to promote initiatives with job-creation potential, as members of Congress head out on the 2010 campaign trail.

Pay attention:

The Senate bill may target emissions from power plants, Reid said. “We’re looking at a way of making sure that when we talk about pollution, that we’re focused just on the utility section,” he told reporters Tuesday.

When pressed to specify whether the Senate would seek a “cap on utility carbon emissions,” Reid responded, “Those words are not in my vocabulary….we’re going to work on pollution.”

What does he mean by pollution? “It means there’s bad stuff in the air,” Reid responded, declining to provide further details.

In his widely-panned, bloodless Oval Office address Tuesday night (did I call this last month or what!?), President Obama tapped his Navy Secretary Ray Mabus as the new oil spill recovery czar. Doesn’t he have enough to do leading the Navy? More to the point, as my latest column below points out, don’t we have enough czars and bureaucrats tripping over each other for Gulf headlines and photo-ops already?

Meanwhile, Mark Knoller reports that Obama is scheduled to finally meet with BP execs tomorrow at 10:15am…for a whopping 20 minutes. Where is the ass-kicking czar?

The speech was a dud, but never fear, Organzing for America is here to exploit the crisis with spam solicitations and a snazzy new green Obama hardhat graphic (soon to be the new oil recover czar’s logo, too?)!

***

Stuck on stupid: Obama’s czar fetish
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2010

Here is the Obama Disaster Management Theory: In times of crisis, you can never have enough unelected, unvetted political appointees hanging around. Nearly two months after the BP oil spill, the White House will now name an oil-spill-restoration point person to oversee recovery efforts in the Gulf of Mexico. Too many czars have already spoiled this administration’s credibility. Might as well pile on another.

The new oil-spill czar is not to be mistaken for the old oil-spill czar, U.S. Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, who was officially designated the “National Incident Commander of the Unified Command for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico” on April 30. Allen was appointed by Department of Homeland Security secretary Janet Napolitano ten days after the disaster, which Napolitano claimed the administration had been on top of since, um, “Day One.”

Fifty-six days later, President Obama has deemed the leadership skills of Allen, Napolitano, Energy Secretary Steven Chu, environmental czar Carol Browner, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, and the rest of his self-declared “all hands on deck” crew insufficient. The new disaster czar also comes on top of the “National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling,” created by executive order on May 22 and “tasked with providing recommendations on how we can prevent and mitigate the impact of any future spills that result from offshore drilling.”

As I’ve noted before regarding Obama’s czar-mania, this White House has bypassed the Senate advise-and-consent role and unilaterally created a two-tiered government. It’s fronted by cabinet secretaries able to withstand public scrutiny (some of them just barely) and then managed behind the scenes by shadow secretaries with broad powers beyond congressional reach. Bureaucratic chaos serves as a useful smokescreen to obscure the true source of policy decision-making. While past administrations going back to the Nixon era have designated such “superaides,” none has exploited and extended the concept as widely as Obama has (we’re up to the 40th appointed czar, by Washington-based watchdog group Judicial Watch’s count).

It’s government by proxy and government by press release all rolled into one.

According to White House spokesman Robert Gibbs, the latest commissar will have the power to oversee government efforts “to increase the health and the vitality of the species there, the wildlife and the natural beauty that we all know is the Gulf of Mexico.” This will make the power-grabbing environmental lobby happy. And the new czar appointment will feed the photo-op-hungry news cycle. But instead of rushing to move “past the cleanup and response phase of this disaster,” shouldn’t this czar-crazy regime concentrate on the immediate mitigation tasks at hand?

Folks in the Gulf don’t need any more Romanov-style apparatchiks or blue-ribbon crony panels to show them the way toward relief. Florida public officials and foreign shippers say the protectionist Jones Act is preventing vessels from abroad from providing clean-up aid. And Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal (R) has exposed White House obstructionism and delays in approving the construction of barrier walls to stop the oil spread. After waiting weeks for approval, Jindal received a green light from the White House to put up just five barrier islands — a minuscule amount of his plan. Tired of waiting for approval of the rest of his plan, Jindal this week ordered the National Guard to circumvent the Beltway foot-dragging and start building the walls immediately.

Executive leadership doesn’t need to be outsourced when the executive in office knows how to lead. While Obama squawks, Jindal acts. While Washington appoints more gasbags, the National Guard is dropping sandbags.

The president’s czar fetish is his crisis crutch — a desperate public-relations habit that he can’t break. What 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue needs is a visit from retired Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré, the Hurricane Katrina military relief coordinator who offered timeless and timely advice for the disaster-stricken: Don’t get stuck on stupid.

I’m still on my family vacation, but wanted to pop in to spotlight today’s important Senate battle over the EPA war on carbon. It’s a subject we’ve covered here over the past year (reminders here and here that opposition to the Obama regulatory power grab is crossing party lines).

The Hill reports on Senate Democrats scrambling to control the damage:

Democratic leaders are scrambling to prevent the Senate from delivering a stinging slap to President Barack Obama on climate change.

They have offered a vote on a bill they dislike in the hopes of avoiding a loss on legislation Obama hates.

The president is threatening to veto a resolution from Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) that would ban the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from regulating carbon emissions.

But if the president were forced to use his veto to prevent legislation emerging from a Congress in which his own party enjoys substantial majorities, it would be a humiliation for him and for Democrats on Capitol Hill.

The Senate GOP conference blasted the economic impact of the EPA overreach:

More info and ways to get involved at Freedom Action.

Freedom Action urges Senators to vote Yes on Thursday on S.J. Res. 26, Senator Lisa Murkowski’s Resolution of Disapproval of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Endangerment Finding. Senate passage of the Murkowski Resolution will be the first step in stopping EPA from using the Clean Air Act to regulate the economy into stagnation. This is a key vote that will have a major impact on Americans’ future living standards.

Senators who vote No on the Murkowski Resolution are voting for a regulatory train wreck that will result in much higher energy prices, less money in consumers’ pockets to spend on other things, and lost jobs in manufacturing industries that will lose competitiveness from higher energy costs. It is therefore critically important for the Senate to pass the Murkowski Resolution on Thursday and begin the process of taking back Congress’s authority from an out-of-control EPA.

As I’ve noted before, it’s the Obama eco-appartchiks who are the real public danger and whose regulatory emissions must be contained.

***

Flashback: EPA plays hide and seek; suppressed report revealed
Related: EPA lawyers: Cap-and-trade bill is “fatally flawed”

***

GOP Sen. James Inhofe:

The debate over the Murkowski resolution began even before the resolution was introduced in January. It really began 11 years ago, when the International Center for Technology Assessment, along with 18 other organizations, petitioned EPA to regulate greenhouse gases from cars and trucks under the Clean Air Act.

I hope that what happens here is that we vote to overturn EPA’s endangerment finding. If we don’t, that doesn’t mean we stop here. We will continue to pursue all of our options to stop, delay, and obstruct EPA from overtaking our nation’s energy sector and directing and controlling the minutiae of our daily lives.

***

Update 4:30pm Eastern. The Murkowski resolution to stop the EPA power grab failed on a 47-53 vote.

The 6 Dems who voted with Rs to try and head off the eco-usurpation…

Landrieu, Lincoln, B. Nelson, M. Pryor, Bayh, Rockefeller.

Remember in November.

Next time, spare yourself the added embarrassment and just say: “I don’t know.”

Hat tip: The Hill (which hat tips Paul Mulshine of the Newark Star Ledger):

Republican Rep. Frank LoBiondo (N.J.) received heavy criticism from a Tea Party activist at a recent town hall meeting in his district.

In a YouTube video, the eighth-term congressman is grilled on his knowledge of the Constitution after he misstates the content of Article I Section I of the document.

The man who criticizes LoBiondo’s knowledge of the document is donning a “Don’t Tread on Me” t-shirt, a Revolutionary War slogan popular among Tea Party activists.

The lawmaker represents what is considered a safe seat but the video is an illustration of a recent poll that shows four in ten Tea Party activists are Democrats or independents, suggesting that Republicans may not receive their full support in the fall.

I remind you that LoBiondo is one of the notorious GOP Cap & Tax 8′ers — all of whom would do well to brush up on their constitutional knowledge. Here.

Photoshop credit: Leo Alberti

***

Update: The questioner, unfortunately, is a 9/11 Truther. Sigh. Well, even Truthers can expose real truths once in a blue moon…

Twitter reader Paul Stagg quips: “…so a crazy 9/11 truther has a better understanding of the Constitution than a congressman? I’m not really surprised.”

Ladies and gentlemen, I call your attention to the key passage in unrepentant Climate Change Republican John McCain’s Senate floor statement yesterday on cap-and-trade. Note well (hat tip: Edward John Craig/Planet Gore):

Let me say to my colleagues, I am proud of my record on climate change. I have been all over the world, and I have seen climate change. I know it is real, and I will be glad to continue this debate with my colleagues and people who do not agree with that. I believe climate change is real.

More than three months after the ClimateGate scandal broke and despite relentless new disclosures every week about the fraud, misconduct, and distortions that have served as the underpinnings of AGW theory, McCain still believes climate change “is real.”

He is “proud,” my friends, of his global warming tour and rigged Senate hearings, his flip-flops on offshore drilling, and his longtime cap-and-tax flirtations.

While even Democrat slow learners are beginning to push back against the EPA war on carbon, McCain is still siding with the cultists.

I repeat:

Attention, GOP: John McCain is the problem.

***

Commenter b-cat: “‘I have been all over the world, and I have seen climate change.‘ How is this possible? It is supposed to happen so slowly no one notices. It is akin to saying I have been all over the world, and I have seen evolution. We’re talking about small percentage points of a single degree over the course of a century.”

***

Update: Via Michael O’Brien of The Hill, here comes the Climate Change Republican Bobsy Twin…

Comprehensive climate change legislation can’t get the votes to pass in the Senate without a cap on carbon emissions, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Thursday.

Graham, one of the three Senate negotiators on a compromise climate bill, said that lawmakers could advance a cap on carbon emissions, but not the cap-and-trade system that’s been proposed in Congress and passed by the House.

“Cap and trade to regulate to regulate carbon is not going to work,” Graham said during an appearance on the Keith Larson radio show. “And at another time, I’ll tell you a way to price carbon that will create energy independence and a green economy: You can cap carbon without doing the cap and trade bill.”

***

Update: Brooke Buchanan from McCain’s office e-mails:

Saw your recent post on your blog and wanted to let you know the floor statement was dated wrong on the website and since been updated (see link below). Senator McCain actually gave the floor speech on March, 19 2009. I would appreciate updating your post to reflect.

http://mccain.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressOffice.FloorStatements&ContentRecord_id=fc9fe108-cefb-5625-da0c-ae792f8ee497&Region_id=&Issue_id=

Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.

I called ClimateGate “the global warming scandal of the century” back on November 20. Deeper and deeper it goes. Over the weekend, University of East Anglia global warming cultist Phil Jones conceded that there has been no statistically significant warming over the last 15 years:

The academic at the centre of the ‘Climategate’ affair, whose raw data is crucial to the theory of climate change, has admitted that he has trouble ‘keeping track’ of the information.

Colleagues say that the reason Professor Phil Jones has refused Freedom of Information requests is that he may have actually lost the relevant papers.

Professor Jones told the BBC yesterday there was truth in the observations of colleagues that he lacked organisational skills, that his office was swamped with piles of paper and that his record keeping is ‘not as good as it should be’.

The data is crucial to the famous ‘hockey stick graph’ used by climate change advocates to support the theory.

Professor Jones also conceded the possibility that the world was warmer in medieval times than now – suggesting global warming may not be a man-made phenomenon.

And he said that for the past 15 years there has been no ‘statistically significant’ warming.

The admissions will be seized on by sceptics as fresh evidence that there are serious flaws at the heart of the science of climate change and the orthodoxy that recent rises in temperature are largely man-made.

Professor Jones has been in the spotlight since he stepped down as director of the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit after the leaking of emails that sceptics claim show scientists were manipulating data.

The raw data, collected from hundreds of weather stations around the world and analysed by his unit, has been used for years to bolster efforts by the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to press governments to cut carbon dioxide emissions.

Anthony Watts sums up the Jones Q&A:

Specifically, the Q-and-As confirm what many skeptics have long suspected:

* Neither the rate nor magnitude of recent warming is exceptional.
* There was no significant warming from 1998-2009. According to the IPCC we should have seen a global temperature increase of at least 0.2°C per decade.
* The IPCC models may have overestimated the climate sensitivity for greenhouse gases, underestimated natural variability, or both.
* This also suggests that there is a systematic upward bias in the impacts estimates based on these models just from this factor alone.
* The logic behind attribution of current warming to well-mixed man-made greenhouse gases is faulty.
* The science is not settled, however unsettling that might be.
* There is a tendency in the IPCC reports to leave out inconvenient findings, especially in the part(s) most likely to be read by policy makers.

The MSM persists in minimizing the systemic academic fraud perpetuated by the AGW cult. Here’s the Washington Post using the weasel term “missteps” to describe the lies and cover-ups:

With its 2007 report declaring that the “warming of the climate system is unequivocal,” the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change won a Nobel Prize — and a new degree of public trust in the controversial science of global warming.

But recent revelations about flaws in that seminal report, ranging from typos in key dates to sloppy sourcing, are undermining confidence not only in the panel’s work but also in projections about climate change. Scientists who have pointed out problems in the report say the panel’s methods and mistakes — including admitting Saturday that it had overstated how much of the Netherlands was below sea level — give doubters an opening.

It wasn’t the first one. There is still a scientific consensus that humans are causing climate change. But in the past year, a cache of stolen e-mails, revealing that prominent climate scientists sought to prevent the publication of works by their detractors, has sullied their image as impartial academics. The errors in the U.N. report — a document intended to be the last nail in the coffin of climate doubt — are a serious problem that could end up forcing environmentalists to focus more on the old question of proving that climate change is a threat, instead of the new question of how to stop it.

More on the latest embarrassment:

The U.N. panel of climate experts overstated how much of the Netherlands is below sea level, according to a preliminary report on Saturday, admitting yet another flaw after a row last month over Himalayan glacier melt. A background note by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said a 2007 report wrongly stated that 55 percent of the country was below sea level since the figure included areas above sea level, prone to flooding along rivers.

The United Nations has said errors in the 2007 report of about 3,000 pages do not affect the core conclusions that human activities, led by burning fossil fuels, are warming the globe.

“The sea level statistic was used for background information only, and the updated information remains consistent with the overall conclusions,” the IPCC note dated February 12 said.

Skeptics say errors have exposed sloppiness and over-reliance on “grey literature” outside leading scientific journals.

“Skeptics say?” The mounting evidence and exposures say it all: The science is not settled. It has been warped, corrupted, and manipulated systemically. There needs to be a probe of the U.N. — and not by the U.N.:

The UN body that advises world leaders on climate change must investigate an apparent bias in its report that resulted in several exaggerations of the impact of global warming, according to its former chairman.

In an interview with The Times Robert Watson said that all the errors exposed so far in the report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) resulted in overstatements of the severity of the problem.

Professor Watson, currently chief scientific adviser to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, said that if the errors had just been innocent mistakes, as has been claimed by the current chairman, Rajendra Pachauri, some would probably have understated the impact of climate change.

The errors have emerged in the past month after simple checking of the sources cited by the 2,500 scientists who produced the report.

The report falsely claimed that Himalayan glaciers would disappear by 2035 when evidence suggests that they will survive for another 300 years. It also claimed that global warming could cut rain-fed North African crop production by up to 50 per cent by 2020. A senior IPCC contributor has since admitted that there is no evidence to support this claim.

The Dutch Government has asked the IPCC to correct its claim that more than half the Netherlands is below sea level. The environment ministry said that only 26 per cent of the country was below sea level.

Professor Watson, who served as chairman of the IPCC from 1997-2002, said: “The mistakes all appear to have gone in the direction of making it seem like climate change is more serious by overstating the impact. That is worrying. The IPCC needs to look at this trend in the errors and ask why it happened.”

And more: IPCC warnings about African crops also bogus.

Oh, and Donald Trump is right: Al Gore should return his Nobel Prize.

Eco-hysteria doesn’t deliver world peace. It threatens it.

The Massachusetts Miracle wasn’t just a wake-up call for Democrats. It was a wake-up call for Big Government Republicans, Business-As-Usual Republicans, McCain Republicans, and Climate Change Republicans. Lindsey Graham is all four, of course.

In October, he penned an enviro-nitwit op-ed with John Kerry signing on to the Democrats’ massive cap-and-tax plan.

He’s singing a different tune now:

Republicans, industry executives and some Democrats have already written cap and trade’s obituary, at least for this year. And even some of the system’s most ardent supporters now say they must scale back their ambitions and focus on job-creating energy projects and energy efficiency measures if they are to have any hope of dealing with climate change in this Congress.

“Realistically, the cap-and-trade bills in the House and the Senate are going nowhere,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, who is trying to fashion a bipartisan package of climate and energy measures. “They’re not business-friendly enough, and they don’t lead to meaningful energy independence.”

Mr. Graham said the public was demanding that any energy legislation from Washington focus on creating jobs, whether by drilling for offshore oil or building wind turbines.

“What is dead is some massive cap-and-trade system that regulates carbon in a fashion that drives up energy costs,” he said.

No thanks to you, buddy.

***

Has Sen. Graham breathed a word about the ever-exploding ClimateGate scandal? One word? Ever?

The latest on the Himalayan debacle:

The head of a panel of United Nations climate scientists said Saturday he would not resign despite a recent admission that a panel report warning Himalayan glaciers could be gone by 2035 was hundreds of years off.

The claim, made in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s voluminous, Nobel-winning report, came in a paragraph with several errors. Data indicates the ice could melt by 2350. The assertion went virtually unnoticed until The Sunday Times said the projection seemed to be based on a news report.

The scientists are investigating how the forecast got into the report and apologized Thursday for the mistakes, adding that they were not intentional. But the errors have opened the door for attacks from climate change skeptics.

But Rajendra Pachauri, who heads the panel, said no action would be taken against the authors of the report and he would not resign.

“I have no intention of resigning from my position,” Pachauri said on Saturday, adding the errors were unintentional and not significant in comparison to the entire report. The mistakes also do not negate the fact that worldwide, glaciers are melting faster than ever, he said.

He added that such mistakes must be avoided because effective climate change policy depends on good, credible science. He said he is now working on the fifth IPCC assessment report dealing with sea level rise and ice sheets, oceans, clouds and carbon accounting. The report is expected by 2014.

Pew shows global warming is dead last among voters’ concerns.

New Yale and George Mason research shows similar results.

***

Flashback November 4, 2009 – Graham panders to the enviro-Leftists. “The green economy is coming.”

***

More flashbacks…

Ugh: McCain & Company melting on cap-and-tax By Michelle Malkin • October 8, 2009 10:41 AM

Beware the Climate Change Republicans By Michelle Malkin • September 21, 2009 12:14 PM

McCain on offshore drilling: For it before he was against it before he was for it again; Update: McCain’s astounding flip-flop on windfall profits tax, plus a new global warming alarmist ad By Michelle Malkin • June 16, 2008 04:28 PM

McCain’s “climate change” tour bypasses cooler heads By Michelle Malkin • May 12, 2008 10:43 AM

Digging deeper: The enviro-nitwit-ization of the GOP By Michelle Malkin • December 13, 2007 02:08 AM

1) First, watch the news report from Pennsylvania — where Mann is under investigation by Penn State:

Background from the Commonwealth Foundation. They’ve called for an independent investigation and expose Penn State’s conflicts of interests in the matter.

2) The Foundry flags Mann’s $514,000 stimulus windfall (via Mindy Belz at World Magazine).

3) The Philly Inquirer has a sympathetic profile of Mann. This American Thinker parody of Mann’s CYA is far more enlightening.