In what could be one of the most significant regulatory changes since its founding, the EPA has moved toward imposing limits on greenhouse gases with a finding that such gases now present a “serious problem . . . for future generations.” The move could have widespread environmental benefits apart from climate change in forcing more fuel efficient cars and greater limitations on power plants and industrial sources.
The EPA finding of endangerment prepares allows for the EPA to act if Congress fails to do so. The finding will unite powerful industry lobby groups for utilities, car manufacturers and others in seeking to delay or stop the change. More worrisome is the fact that such regulations take a ridiculously long time — even without such concerting opposition. That would mean that the new Administration could easily stop the process. The Bush Administration previously opposed moved to use the Clean Air At to address climate change, but the Supreme Court found that such regulations is allowed — requiring, however, the “endangerment finding” issued by the EPA.
Here is the release from the EPA:
WASHINGTON – On January 1, 2010, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will, for the first time, require large emitters of heat-trapping emissions to begin collecting greenhouse gas (GHG) data under a new reporting system. This new program will cover approximately 85 percent of the nation’s GHG emissions and apply to roughly 10,000 facilities.
“This is a major step forward in our effort to address the greenhouse gases polluting our skies,” said EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson. “For the first time, we begin collecting data from the largest facilities in this country, ones that account for approximately 85 percent of the total U.S. emissions. The American public, and industry itself, will finally gain critically important knowledge and with this information we can determine how best to reduce those emissions.”
EPA’s new reporting system will provide a better understanding of where GHGs are coming from and will guide development of the best possible policies and programs to reduce emissions. The data will also allow businesses to track their own emissions, compare them to similar facilities, and provide assistance in identifying cost effective ways to reduce emissions in the future. This comprehensive, nationwide emissions data will help in the fight against climate change.
Greenhouse gases, like carbon dioxide, are produced by burning fossil fuels and through industrial and biological processes. Fossil fuel and industrial GHG suppliers, motor vehicle and engine manufacturers, and facilities that emit 25,000 metric tons or more of CO2 equivalent per year will be required to report GHG emissions data to EPA annually. This threshold is equivalent to about the annual GHG emissions from 4,600 passenger vehicles.
The first annual reports for the largest emitting facilities, covering calendar year 2010, will be submitted to EPA in 2011. Vehicle and engine manufacturers outside of the light-duty sector will begin phasing in GHG reporting with model year 2011. Some source categories included in the proposed rule are still under review.
More information on the new reporting system and reporting requirements: http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/emissions/ghgrulemaking.html
It is a great holiday gift for environmentalists and public health advocates. It is a particularly wonderful gift for our children who will bear the costs of these pollutants to a greater degree than ourselves.
Source:PhySorg
by the way, the fact that you post record lows but not record highs is a red flag – cherry picking is rarely a sign of intellectual integrity. If you actually wanted to provide evidence of cooling (which wouldn’t be evidence against climate change in any case) you would show that there are more record lows that there are record highs – which probably isn’t true, in any case..
What a buffoon! In one single paragraph, you complains about what I do not provide, and say that even if I provided it, it wouldn’t prove anything. Thats your definition of intellectual integrity.
Just interrupting Bdaman’s one-man campaign against the scientists to provide a link to this guide to the new American federal regulatIons, from the publishers of the journal Science:
http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/12/on-eve-of-new-climate-regs.html
Bdaman,
You have to look at events for a whole year (not just a month) in order for it to be meaningful (I’ll let you work out why this is true yourself).
Do you agree with the following statement?
If you don’t agree with it, then you were misrepresenting a link as supporting your argument when, in fact, it was a link to the site of a scientist that unequivocally states that climate change is happening and is caused by humans (you know, part of that consensus that you like to ignore…) – the quote above came from his ‘main conclusions’ page:
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/main-conclusions-2/
Slarti this is from NASA not skeptical science.
Summer land surface temperature of cities in the Northeast were an average of 7 °C to 9 °C (13°F to 16 °F) warmer than surrounding rural areas over a three year period, the new research shows. The complex phenomenon that drives up temperatures is called the urban heat island effect.
Two things to focus in on (13°F to 16 °F) warmer and the new research shows
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/heat-island-sprawl.html
However, accurate comparisons have long eluded scientists because ground-based air temperature sensors tend to be unevenly distributed and prone to local bias. The lack of quantifiable definitions for urban versus non-urban areas has also hindered comparisons.
“It is the lack of cooling at nighttime, rather than high daytime temperatures, that poses a health risk,”
This means that not only is this creating more heat it is keeping the heat longer. No wonder the land based temperatures keeps going up. Thats why the satellite data is the only data to be trusted.
Record Events for Fri Dec 24, 2010 through Thu Dec 30, 2010
Total Records: 1668
Rainfall: 411
Snowfall: 541
High Temperatures: 19
Low Temperatures: 357
Lowest Max Temperatures: 281
Highest Min Temperatures: 59
357+281=638 for lows vs 19 for highs 357/19=19 to 1
There really aren’t record highs. Of course this is the United States only.
http://mapcenter.hamweather.com/records/7day/us.html?c=maxtemp
Tony
Bdaman 1, December 29, 2010 at 9:17 pm
Since then, NASA GISS has “adjusted” the U.S. data for 1934 downward
A case in point is the still ongoing race between 1934 and 1998 to be the hottest for US annual mean temperature,
U.S. U.S. U.S. U.S. U.ASS
Bdaman you say “So while you continue to make claim to my carapace of misinformation I do not see your attempt to discredit it. Saying it ’s so doesn’t make it so.”
But have you at any point acknowledged that you made the blatantly false claim the 1934 was the hottest year, when the overwhelming evidence is that nearly all of the hottest years are in the most recent decade or so? You got it wrong, most likely because you forgot that there exists a world beyond North America.
You will continue to get it wrong until you make connection with reality. It isn’t my job to correct you. The EPA did a bloody good job of correcting various misconceptions during the summer and autumn, often in a very entertaining manner. If you missed it, I commend their work to you. It’s in the public domain.
Bdaman,
Do you agree with the following statement?
Bdaman,
A scientific consensus exists (as much as you’d like to think it doesn’t) so the rational thing to do (from a public policy point of view) is to act as if it were true until such a time as the consensus dissolves. If you don’t agree with the consensus, then you are free to dispute it – and there is a way to do so, but it involves finding data or a repeatable experiment that shows the consensus to be wrong (in other words, showing that the actions of humanity have negligible impact on the climate), not posting articles about record low temperatures* on a blog… Public debate is not the appropriate venue to attack a scientific consensus – evolution will never become false no matter how many people believe in cintelligent designism nor will any other scientific consensus be changed by popular opinion. You can chose not to agree with the scientific consensus if you like, but so far it has a much better history of being correct than you do.
*[by the way, the fact that you post record lows but not record highs is a red flag – cherry picking is rarely a sign of intellectual integrity. If you actually wanted to provide evidence of cooling (which wouldn’t be evidence against climate change in any case) you would show that there are more record lows that there are record highs – which probably isn’t true, in any case…]
and who has tried to stifle the debate.
The science is settled there will be no more debate.
Well, it looks to me like the only way you can show that you’re not trying to stifle the discussion is by demonstrating intellectual rigor and honesty and engaging in substantive debate – do you think you have the cojones to do that?
I’m doing it, it’s not my problem that it’s no longer a one sided coin.
Gyges,
I read that link when you dropped it before and I think that it is entirely relevant here – while I wont hazard a guess as to whether or not Bdaman is being paid for his activities (and I wouldn’t give any credibility to his statements either way), he is certainly using the same tactics as people who are paid to stifle debate so I don’t particularly care why he is doing it so much as I’m concerned with how to counter it. I think that depending on your goal, there are 3 effective strategies:
1) Intelligent debate – to have an intelligent debate requires at least two parties (not including the troll – he wouldn’t be using these tactics if he wanted debate) and I think the only way to avoid a debate being derailed is to not feed the troll – since they will never make a substantive contribution to the debate, the only reasonable response is to ignore them.
2) Countering propaganda – I think the best strategy is factual debunking. If the counterarguments are adequately presented, it is generally readily apparent to any observers which side has more merit.
3) Entertainment – If you are just out to amuse yourself, then you can roll around in the mud with the troll however you want.
p.s. I’ll take a look at the other link you posted…
Bdaman,
Well, it looks to me like the only way you can show that you’re not trying to stifle the discussion is by demonstrating intellectual rigor and honesty and engaging in substantive debate – do you think you have the cojones to do that?
December 29, 2010 6:08 PM
Models underestimate the amount of large dust particles, which increase the sun’s influence on global temperatures
Some of the Earth’s tiniest naturally occurring particles may have just bred a big mess for climatologists. New findings reveal that models scientists have long used to estimate the causes and effects of global warming may be dramatically flawed due to errors in one of their most important inputs.
These conclusions are found in a new study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by Jasper Kok, a climatology researcher with The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR).
I. Recent Warming – Blame it on the Sun?
This is a critical finding because it shows that the Earth’s climate may be much more sensitive to solar radiation than previous models have indicated, which in turn casts doubt on anthropogenic warming theory — the idea that human carbon dioxide emissions bear the primary warming influence on the climate over the last several decades.
Solar activity also climbed over the last few decades as the Earth heated up. Based on the newly presented events, this may have had a direct forcing effect on the warming, which in turn may mean that CO2 emissions have less of a forcing effect than previously estimated.
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=20516
You cannot make those facts go away, no matter how hard you try.
Fact: Phil Jones, one of the main players in the climategate scandal is quoted as saying there has been no statistical warming the last fifteen years.
5th December 2010
Read carefully with other official data, they conceal a truth that for some, to paraphrase former US VicePresident Al Gore, is really inconvenient: for the past 15 years, global warming has stopped.
One of those leaked emails, dated October 2009, was from Kevin Trenberth, head of climate analysis at the US government’s National Centre for Atmospheric Research and the IPCC’s lead author on climate change science in its monumental 2002 and 2007 reports.
He wrote: ‘The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment, and it is a travesty that we can’t.’
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1335798/Global-warming-halted-Thats-happened-warmest-year-record.html#ixzz19cKArSk4
This may well be the hottest year ever measured–it will certainly be among the hottest.
Why because James Hansen says so?
Why because the surface temperature is extremely accurate?
Don’t you find it odd that a space agency uses land base temperatures and where it can not they estimate?
Come on Tony or Mr.Sidaway which ever you prefer can you honestly look me in the eye and tell me. At looking at your avatar it would seem that you can not.
So while you continue to make claim to my carapace of misinformation I do not see your attempt to discredit it. Saying it’s so doesn’t make it so.
Bdaman though it pains me to see people accreting to themselves a carapace of misinformation which they them hurl out in order to rate themselves from having to reconsider their opinions, if that’s what you want to do you’re welcome to it. Or you could read up on climate science and see why this very broad consensus exists (and exist it does, for all your lists of supposed dissenters).
This may well be the hottest year ever measured–it will certainly be among the hottest. And each successive decade now for some time has been hotter than the last. You cannot make those facts go away, no matter how hard you try.
And speaking of cold.
BRITAIN’S winter is the coldest since 1683 and close to being the chilliest in nearly 1,000 years.
Latest figures reveal that the average temperature since December 1 has been a perishing -1C.
That makes it the second coldest since records began in 1659.
The chilliest on record was 1683/84, when the average was -1.17C and the River Thames froze over for two months.
But with January and February to come, experts believe we could suffer the most freezing cold winter in the last 1,000 years.
http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/view/169577/Winter-may-be-coldest-in-1000-years/
Gyges does it tell you where you can sign up? I could use a little extra cash right now that Christmas is over.
Just a reminder, 3/4ths of BDAman’s argument is “It’s cold somewhere, TAKE THAT AL GORE”
It’s not just mine as my last comment shows.
http://www.alternet.org/media/149197/are_right-wing_libertarian_internet_trolls_getting_paid_to_dumb_down_online_conversations/?page=2
I seem to have dropped a mildly relevant link, has anyone seen it?
Tony there is a very interesting article from Professor Mike Hulme.
Hulme is a Professor of Climate Change in the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia. You know the University of Climategate and is the founding Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research and one of the UK’s most prominent climate scientists.
The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change misled the press and public into believing that thousands of scientists backed its claims on manmade global warming. The actual number of scientists who backed that claim was “only a few dozen experts” he states in a paper for Progress in Physical Geography, co-authored with student Martin Mahony.
http://fabiusmaximus.wordpress.com/2010/06/27/18115/
A
There are many well recognized scientist who are in a different camp than the IPCC. Here’s your short list I’m sure they are all denialist in your book as well.
1. Don Easterbrook, Professor Emeritus, Dept. of Geology, Western Washington University.
Setting up of the PDO cold phase assures global cooling for next approx. 30 years. Global warming is over. Expect 30 years of global cooling, perhaps severe 2-5°F.”
He predicts several possible cooling scenarios: The first is similar to 1945-1977 trends, the second is similar to 1880-1915 trends and the third is similar to 1790-1820 trends. His latest article states:
Expect global cooling for the next 2-3 decades that will be far more damaging than global warming would have been.”
2. Syun Akasofu, Professor of Geophysics, Emeritus, University of Alaska, also founding director of ARC
He predicts the current pattern of temperature increase of 0.5C /100 years resulting from natural causes will continue with alternating cooling as well as warming phases. He shows cooling for the next cycle until about 2030/ 2040.
3. Prof. Mojib Latif, Professor, Kiel University, Germany
He makes a prediction for one decade only, namely the next decade [2009-2019] and he basically shows the global average temperatures will decline to a range of about 14.18 C to 14.28 C from 14.39 C [eyeballing his graphs].
He also said that “you may well enter a decade or two of cooling relative to the present temperature level”, however he did not indicate when any two decades of cooling would happen or whether the second decade after the next decade will also be cooling. Read here and here.
4. Dr. Noel Keenlyside from the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences at Kiel University.
The Earth’s temperature may stay roughly the same for a decade, as natural climate cycles enter a cooling phase, scientists have predicted.”
A new computer model developed by German researchers, reported in the journal Nature, suggests the cooling will counter greenhouse warming.”
5. Professor Anastasios Tsonis, Head of Atmospheric Sciences Group University of Wisconsin, and Dr. Kyle Swanson of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
We have such a change now and can therefore expect 20 -30 years of cooler temperatures”
This is nothing like anything we’ve seen since 1950,”
Kyle Swanson of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee said. “Cooling events since then had firm causes, like eruptions or large-magnitude La Ninas. This current cooling doesn’t have one.”
Swanson thinks the trend could continue for up to 30 years.”
AND ONE OF MY FAVORITES, because I track hurricanes.
6. William M Gray, Professor Emeritus, Dept of Atmospheric Sciences, Colorado State University
A weak global cooling began from the mid-1940’s and lasted until mid-1970’s. I predict this is what we will see in the next few decades.”
ALSO ANOTHER FAVORITE Google The Cloud Mystery and you can watch on youtube. Svensmark was the one who had a heart attack at copen hagen last year.
7. Henrik Svensmark , Professor DTU, Copenhagen. Henrik Svensmark writes:
Indeed, global warming stopped and a cooling is beginning. No climate model has predicted a cooling of the Earth, on the contrary. This means that projections of future climate is unpredictable.”
8. Jarl R. Ahlbeck, D.Sc., AboAkademi University, Finland
Therefore, prolonged low solar activity periods in the future may cause the domination of a strongly negative AO and extremely cold winters in North America, Europe and Russia.”
9. Dr. Alexander Frolov, Head of Russia’s state meteorological service Rosgidromet. The Daily Mail.co.uk quotes Frolov:
‘From the scientific point of view, in terms of large scale climate cycles, we are in a period of cooling.
‘The last three years of low temperatures in Siberia, the Arctic and number of Russia mountainous regions prove that, as does the recovery of ice in the Arctic Ocean and the absence of warming signs in Siberia.”
And writes:
Mr. Tishkov, deputy head of the Geography Institute at Russian Academy of Science, said: ‘What we have been watching recently is comparatively fast changes of climate to warming, but within the framework of an overall long-term period of cooling. This is a proven scientific fact’.”
10. Mike Lockwood, Professor of Space Environmental Physics, University of Reading, UK.
The UK and continental Europe could be gripped by more frequent cold winters in the future as a result of low solar activity, say researchers.”
11. Dr. Oleg Pokrovsky, Voeikov Main Geophysical Observatory: Ria Novosti writes:
There isn’t going to be an ice age, but temperatures will drop to levels last seen in the 1950s and 1960s.
Right now all components of the climate system are entering a negative phase. The cooling will reach it’s peak in 15 years. Politicians who have geared up for warming are sitting on the wrong horse.
The Northeast Passage will freeze over and will be passable only with icebreakers.”
Pokrovsky also claims that the IPCC, which has prophesized global warming, has ignored many factors. He also noted that most American weather stations are located in cities where temperatures are always higher.
We don’t know everything that’s happening. The climate system is very complex and the IPCC is not the final truth on the matter.”
12. Girma Orssengo, b.Tech, MASc, PhD
These cool and warm PDO regimes correlate well with the cooling and warming phases of GMTA shown in Figure 3.
The model in Figure 3 predicts global cooling until 2030. This result is also supported by shifts in PDO that occurred at the end of the last century, which is expected to result in global cooling until about 2030 [7].”
In this article, a mathematical model was developed that agrees with observed Global Mean Temperature Anomaly(GMTA), and its prediction shows global cooling by about 0.42 deg C until 2030. Also, comparison of observed increase in human emission of CO2 with increase in GMTA during the 20th century shows no relationship between the two. As a result, the claim by the IPCC of climate catastrophe is not supported by the data.”
‘Fossil fuels allowed man to live his life as a proud human, but the IPCC asserts its use causes catastrophic.’ “
13. Nicola Scafetta, PhD.
Empirical evidence for a celestial origin of the climate oscillations and its implications
The partial forecast indicates that climate may stabilize or cool until 2030-2040.”
14. Dr William Livingston, astronomer & solar physicist; and 15. Dr Matthew Penn – astronomer & solar physicist
Astronomers Dr. William Livingston and Dr. Matthew Penn and a large number of solar physicists would say that now the likelihood of the Earth being seized by Maunder Minimum is now greater than the Earth being seized by a period of global warming.”
16. Joe d’Aleo – Executive Director of Certified Consultant Meteorologists. Read here: Intellicast.com
Longer term the sun is behaving like it did in the last 1700s and early 1800s, leading many to believe we are likely to experience conditions more like the early 1800s (called the Dalton Minimum) in the next few decades. That was a time of cold and snow. It was the time of Charles Dickens and his novels with snow and cold in London.”
17. Harry van Loon, Emeritus at NCAR and CORA, 18. Roland Madden, Senior scientist at NOAA, Deputy Head of Climate analysis, 19. Dave Melita, Head Meteorologist at Melita Weather Associates, and 20. William M Gray, Professor Emeritus, Dept of Atmospheric Sciences, Colorado State University
These scientists came to the same conclusions— the global warming trend is done, and a cooling trend is about to kick in.
21. Dr. David Archibald, Australia, environmental scientist:
In this presentation, I will demonstrate that the Sun drives climate, and use that demonstrated relationship to predict the Earth’s climate to 2030. It is a prediction that differs from most in the public domain. It is a prediction of imminent cooling.”
22. Dr Habibullo Abdussamatov, Head of Space Research, Lab of Pulkov Observatory.
In his presentation called The Sun Dictates the Climate, he indicated that there would be an ice age kind of temperatures in the middle of the 21st century. He showed a graph called The forecast of the natural climate change for the nearest 100 years and it showed the globa temperatures dropping by more than 1°C by 2055. According to him, a new ice age could start by 2014.”
23. Dr Fred Goldberg, Swedish climate expert.
We could have an ice age any time, says Swedish climate expert.”
24. Dr. George Kukla, a member of the Czechoslovakian Academy of Sciences and a pioneer in the field of astronomical forcing.
In the 1970s, leading scientists claimed that the world was threatened by an era of global cooling.
Based on what we’ve learned this decade, says George Kukla, those scientists – and he was among them — had it right. The world is about to enter another Ice Age.”
25. Peter Clark, Professor of Geosciences at OSU:
Sometime around now, scientists say, the Earth should be changing from a long interglacial period that has lasted the past 10,000 years and shifting back towards conditions that will ultimately lead to another ice age.”
26. James Overland, NOAA.
‘Cold and snowy winters will be the rule rather than the exception,’ said James Overland of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.”
27. Dr. Theodore Landscheidt. Predicted in 2003 that the current cooling would continue until 2030
Analysis of the sun’s varying activity in the last two millennia indicates that contrary to the IPCC’s speculation about man-made global warming as high as 5.8°C within the next hundred years, a long period of cool climate with its coldest phase around 2030 is to be expected.”
28. Matt Vooro, P. Eng.
We seem to be in the same climate cycle that we were back in 1964-1976.The last two winters [2008, 2009] have been very similar to those we had back then with all the extra snow and cold temperatures. Once the extra warming effect of the current 2009/2010 El Nino is finished, watch for colder temperatures to return due to the impact of the negative PDO, AMO, AO, NAO, ENSO/La Nina, major volcanic ash and changing solar cycles.”
29. Thomas Globig, Meteorologist, Meteo Media weather service.
‘The expected cold for the next month will bring this down significantly by year end. ‘The year 2010 will be the coldest for ten years in Germany,’ said Thomas Globig from the weather service Meteo Media talking to wetter.info. And it might even get worse: ‘It is quite possible that we are at the beginning of a Little Ice Age,’ the meteorologist said. Even the Arctic ice could spread further to the south.”
30. Piers Corbyn, Astrophysicist.
Predicting in November that winter in Europe would be “exceptionally cold and snowy, like Hell frozen over at times,” Corbyn suggested we should sooner prepare for another Ice Age than worry about global warming. Corbyn believed global warming “is complete nonsense, it’s fiction, it comes from a cult ideology. There’s no science in there, no facts to back [it] up.”
31. Dr. Karsten Brandt, Director of donnerwetter.de weather service.
It is even very probable that we will not only experience a very cold winter, but also in the coming 10 years every second winter will be too cold. Only 2 of 10 will be mild.
You can google any of the names to read the articles or if you would like the links to a particular one let me know.