Per the world’s greatest climatologist, Richard Lindzen, co-opting science is easy.

A lot of science is myth. Witness Anthropogenic Global Warming.

MUST SEE TV: MIT’S DR. RICHARD LINDZEN DEBUNKS AGW

There is no worthwhile debate on this topic.

Gore gives every penny of profit to charity, or so he states.

He insists, he is proud of it. He puts his money where his mouth is, but there is no gain in it for him, because he gives all profits to charity.

The Green Bubble is still growing . . .

Gore’s Dual Role in Spotlight: Advocate and Investor

By JOHN M. BRODER
Published: November 2, 2009

WASHINGTON — Former Vice President Al Gore thought he had spotted a winner last year when a small California firm sought financing for an energy-saving technology from the venture capital firm where Mr. Gore is a partner.

The company, Silver Spring Networks, produces hardware and software to make the electricity grid more efficient. It came to Mr. Gore’s firm, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, one of Silicon Valley’s top venture capital providers, looking for $75 million to expand its partnerships with utilities seeking to install millions of so-called smart meters in homes and businesses.

Mr. Gore and his partners decided to back the company, and in gratitude Silver Spring retained him and John Doerr, another Kleiner Perkins partner, as unpaid corporate advisers.

The deal appeared to pay off in a big way last week, when the Energy Department announced $3.4 billion in smart grid grants. Of the total, more than $560 million went to utilities with which Silver Spring has contracts. Kleiner Perkins and its partners, including Mr. Gore, could recoup their investment many times over in coming years.

Silver Spring Networks is a foot soldier in the global green energy revolution Mr. Gore hopes to lead. Few people have been as vocal about the urgency of global warming and the need to reinvent the way the world produces and consumes energy. And few have put as much money behind their advocacy as Mr. Gore and are as well positioned to profit from this green transformation, if and when it comes.

Critics, mostly on the political right and among global warming skeptics, say Mr. Gore is poised to become the world’s first “carbon billionaire,” profiteering from government policies he supports that would direct billions of dollars to the business ventures he has invested in.

Representative Marsha Blackburn, Republican of Tennessee, asserted at a hearing this year that Mr. Gore stood to benefit personally from the energy and climate policies he was urging Congress to adopt.

Mr. Gore says that he is simply putting his money where his mouth is.

“Do you think there is something wrong with being active in business in this country?” Mr. Gore said. “I am proud of it. I am proud of it.”

Story continues here . . .

It just cannot happen again

The supply of Maunder Minima has been used up; there aren’t any more MMs left in the supply cabinet.

Just because Maunder Minima (Little Ice Ages) have been happening with regularity every 350 years or so – and the last Maunder Minima was about 350 years ago – does not mean there are any more Maunder Minima possible on Earth. Quite the contrary.

Top scientists just don’t need to worry about Maunder Minima. Where’s the cash in it?

Whatever mechanism it was that caused Maunder Minima every 350 years for the past 7500 years; well, that mechanism is very weak compared to the strong greenhouse effect and recent intense global warming of 0.03 degrees centigrade since the 1850s which could only have been caused by the human industrial revolution and resulting anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions which started precisely in 1850.

Never mind that 1850 was the end of a prolonged Little Ice Age.

It – that mechanism which causes MMs – just has to be weak. OK? Al Gore and his top scientists told me, from their highly accurate computer models.

Instead, sea level will rise 220 feet in the next 50 years; that has happened zero times in the last 7500 years, thus there are a lot of Al Gore Cataclysms stored up in the supply cabinet and ready for action. Probably they all will strike in the next 50 years, unless we pay Al Gore $500 Trillion Dollars.

Besides all this, the next Maunder Minimum when it happens on schedule in the next few years as foreshadowed explicitly by the present profound solar somnolence, will be called the Al Gore Minimum, anyway.

See also: All Systems Go, For A Tragic Al Gore Minimum

All systems are a strong “go” for the next little ice age; the Al Gore Minimum. At this point, it looks more like a full-blown Maunder event than the less devastating Dalton Minimum

Global, very prolonged, temperature drop

27 Oct 09 – Observations of the Sun show that what lies ahead “is not catastrophic warming, but a global, and very prolonged, temperature drop,” says Dr. Habibullo Abdussamatov, head of space research laboratory of the Pulkovo Observatory.

In each of 18 deep minima of solar activity of the Maunder Minimum type for the last 7500 years, there have been periods of deep temperature decline, while in the periods of high sunspot maxima, there have been periods of global warming.

“Such changes in the climate of the Earth could be caused only by lasting and significant changes in the Sun,” says Dr. Abdussamatov, “because there was absolutely no industrial effect on nature in those times.”

The most significant solar event in the 20th century was the extraordinarily high level and the prolonged increase in the intensity of the energy radiated by the Sun.

“A similar rise in solar radiation has not been observed in at least 700 years. However, its consequence – the global warming of climate that followed – was not an anomalous event in the life of the Earth.

“Climate on the Earth has periodically changed, and our planet has repeatedly survived global warming, comparable to that of the current period, after each of which episodes the temperature has dropped deeply. Neither temperature drop nor warming lasts longer than the 200-year fluctuations of size and luminosity of the Sun.

“The intense solar energy flow radiated since the beginning of the 1990’s is slowly decreasing and, in spite of conventional opinion, there is now an unavoidable advance toward a global temperature decrease, a deep temperature drop comparable to the Maunder minimum,” says Dr. Abdussamatov.

Read that again. “A deep temperature drop comparable to the
Maunder minimum.” That was the coldest part of The Little Ice Age!

“Consequently, we should expect not the catastrophic melting of ice, but, on the contrary, the gradual growth of ice caps at the poles. It has already begun: the area of ice cover in the Arctic in September 2008 (4.52 mln. km2), in spite of all forecasts, rose by 390 thousand km2 above that of a year ago (when it was 4.13 mln. km2) and in the subsequent four months it grew substantially further.”

See entire article, entitled Sun Defines The Climate,
by Habibullo Abdussamatov, Dr. Sc.
Head of Space research laboratory of the Pulkovo Observatory,
Head of the Russian/Ukrainian joint project Astrometria
(translated from Russian by Lucy Hancock)

October, 27 2009 PDF here.

$425 Million (estimated) 250 MW Wind Farm

The Smoky Hills in central Kansas (20 miles west of Salina) are described as one of the windiest places in America. But the wind doesn’t always blow there. Imagine all 155 wind turbines standing motionless, becalmed. I saw it on October 16.

250 MW of wind power, costing an estimated $425 Million installed (that is about one-half of a billion dollars) requires about 90% backup capacity to be available on line almost instantly.

If you don’t count the capital investment above, the fast-start absolutely reliable backup supply, and the power transmission costs, wind power only costs about 3.3 times what electricity from coal costs.

But wind power is subsidized heavily by government, and government has a virtually endless source of money called taxes. So it really doesn’t matter how comparatively inefficient wind power is.

The cost of energy is blowing in the Kansas wind

[...]
Hertel said when you look at the cost as wholesale fuel costs, not including capital costs, wind costs 5 cents per megawatt hour, compared to 10 to 12 cents per megawatt hour for natural gas. Coal averages only 1.5 cents per megawatt hour.

“Therefore, using 2008 dollars, the cost for energy from a wind/natural gas facility is more expensive than the cost of power from coal-fired unit,” Hertel said. “If the Holcomb Expansion Project is not built, and we have to rely on wind and gas facilities, the difference in the price for energy would result in an increased cost of $46,909,800 per year for Sunflower’s customers. The annual increase in residential electric bills would be approximately $600 per year.”

Lisa Linowes, executive director of the Industrial Wind Action Group, said wind supporters often try to pass off the misconception that wind is free when in fact there are costs to consider which fall into two main categories of redundant generation and transmission costs.

Linowes said that because wind power is intermittent and can’t be depended other reliable forms of generation must still be utilized at the times when the wind is not blowing.

“If the winds diminish suddenly or act erratically, the energy the turbines would have delivered would need to be quickly replaced in order to ensure constant service,” Linowes told Kansas Liberty. “This backup generation made available at a moment’s notice is very expensive and should be factored in as part of the cost of wind-powered electricity.”

Linowes said the other factor, the cost of transmission lines, is a more serious issue as energy produced from wind can’t be transported the same as energy produced by natural gas or coal, and so many miles of new transmission lines may be needed to deliver the energy wind-driven units produce.

Wind also receives a disproportionate share of government subsidies. Wind receives a subsidy more than 50 times greater than that paid for coal on the basis of megawatt hours, according to the Industrial Wind Action Group, basing its conclusion on a report released by the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

“These transmission costs, which are borne by the ratepayers and in some instances by the taxpayers, easily run into the billions of dollars,” Linowes said. “Bearing in mind that ratepayers are also being asked to pay for upgrades to our existing transmission lines due to aging infrastructure, the cost to build new transmission to wind facilities is additional and could be substantial.”

Linowes said that, in the case of wind, “there may be no direct fuel cost allocations, but we do need to understand and factor in the delivery cost allocations, a factor often omitted.”
[...]

Greedy Farmers have taken unwise risks and planted seed potatos during climate change; even though FNMA and FMAC didn’t order them to.

Obama will appoint a slightly experienced (black nationalist Marxist attorney spitting image of himself for diversity) food czar to take over management of the farm industry; hope and change in operation.

Sure, food prices may go up slightly through the roof, but the ones doing the paying will be the rich former slave-holders, after all, who have long milked the free market system. The gravy train is over. Affordable food for SEIU and ACORN; that is what we need.

Cold Temperatures Threaten Seed Potato Crop

Missoulian, AP Story

10-12-2009

BOZEMAN – Record-low temperatures in southwestern Idaho are threatening to destroy at least a portion of this season’s crop of seed potatoes.

Spuds still in the ground could be saved by a layer of snow; a dusting had fallen on Bozeman and the surrounding region by Sunday.

Nina Zydak, director of the Montana State University Potato Lab, said most area farmers have already started digging.

But many farmers expect to lose some of their potatoes.

“It’s over,” Larry Van Dyke, who owns Van Dyke Farms in Townsend, told the Bozeman Chronicle.

He says when it’s this cold for too long, the frost penetrates and the taters are toast.

The main goal now is to make sure the spoiled potatoes don’t make it into his cellar.

Temperatures on Saturday evening dipped to 17 degrees; the last time it was this cold, this early, in southwestern Idaho was more than two decades ago, in 1985.

Arctic temps are dropping astonishingly fast.

The Polar Bears are in serious trouble, now.

The Chicago Bears got lucky, this weekend. Wait ’til November.

What happened to “Global Warming?” (From BBC!)

But it is true. For the last 11 years we have not observed any increase in global temperatures.

And our climate models did not forecast it, even though man-made carbon dioxide, the gas thought to be responsible for warming our planet, has continued to rise.

Ocean Heat Content: Dropping again From WUWT:

Arctic Freeze Is ON!

Cold records, all-time record lows, not just broken, but smashed by 7-8 degrees, in Denver, on October 9/10.

Carbon dioxide still going up, though.

Carbon dioxide warming was nice while it lasted

Denver breaks 104 year old cold temperature record as Arctic chill sets in

H/T: Tom Nelson

Our highly advanced computer models show that at the present rate of advance, Arctic sea ice will consume Washington, D.C. in only 89 years.

Can we hold out until then?

Huge, Alarming Advance in Arctic Sea Ice

See also: SBVOR Arctic Sea Ice & Polar Bear Commentary
(You can always get the updated (daily I think) Arctic Sea Ice Extent graphic here; scroll down)

Al Gore and Finland needed bigtime $$$CASH to build $100K electric sports cars. The market should be huge (grin), but $530 Million is a lot of cash.

They found a sucker.

Our commander-in-chief, wants to fund foreign car manufacturing operations, in competition with GM (himself), not to mention the viable, free-market domestic concern, Ford.

For some reason, free-market capital would not fund it. Wonder why.

H/T: Gore Lied Video: Al Gore-backed Fisker Automotive gets $529M US government loan to bankroll production of $89,000 hybrid sports car

Climate Scientists Access $5 Billion Gov't Funded Computer Model

The scientists have proved, using this highly advanced and sophisticated model, that a temperature increase of more than 2 degrees Celsius caused by human-induced carbon dioxide emissions is now likely.

They are expecting a prize, too.

This highly advanced computer climate model anticipates no possibility of Earth’s temperature going down; so there is no need to worry about another Dalton Minimum, obviously.

Elsewhere, prospects for a healthy sunspot cycle 24 have degraded further, since February. Indeed, global warming stopped and a cooling is beginning.

Disclaimer: The US Government is a not-for-profit “organization.”

H/T: Wheel! – - Of! – - Silly!

A new analysis of climate risk, published by researchers at MIT and elsewhere, shows that even moderate carbon-reduction policies now can substantially lower the risk of future climate change. It also shows that quick, global emissions reductions would be required in order to provide a good chance of avoiding a temperature increase of more than 2 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial level — a widely discussed target.