Breitbart.com;

Scientists who probed two kilometers (1.2 miles) through a Greenland glacier to recover the oldest plant DNA on record said Thursday the planet was far warmer hundreds of thousands of years ago than is generally believed.
DNA of trees, plants and insects including butterflies and spiders from beneath the southern Greenland glacier was estimated to date to 450,000 to 900,000 years ago, according to the remnants retrieved from this long-vanished boreal forest.
That contrasts sharply with the prevailing view that a lush forest of this kind could only have existed in Greenland as recently as 2.4 million years ago, according to a summary of the study, which is published Thursday in the journal Science.
The samples suggest the temperature probably reached 10 degrees C (50 degrees Fahrenheit) in the summer and -17 C (1 F) in the winter.
They also indicated that during the last period between ice ages, 116,000-130,000 years ago, when temperatures were on average 5 C (9 F) higher than now, the glaciers on Greenland did not completely melt away.
“These findings allow us to make a more accurate environmental reconstruction of the time period from which these samples were taken,” said Martin Sharp, a glaciologist at the University of Alberta, Canada, and a co-author of the paper.
“What we’ve learned is that this part of the world was significantly warmer than most people thought.”

Science Daily;

Discoveries of a butterfly species’ DNA in the Far East and Western Europe may rewrite the known history of the Pleistocene Ice Age.
Italian researchers Valerio Sbordoni and Paolo Gratton of the Rome Tor Vergata University said traces of the species’ DNA have been found beyond the range once associated with the insect’s history, the Italian news agency ANSA said Wednesday.
The Italian duo, along with Polish Academy of Sciences researcher Maciek Konopinski, used the new data to create an updated map of the world’s greenery during the global ice age more than 10,000 years ago.
“The evidence from the mitochondrial DNA strongly suggests that large patches of the world’s forests survived the impact of the last Ice Age and were alive and well as far back as 150,000 years ago,” Sbordoni told ANSA. “There were definitely oases in which the Parnassius mnemosyne butterfly thrived, especially in the Carpathians and the ancient German region of Pannonia.”

1937 – Canada’s hottest day on record; temperatures reach 45.0C (114F) in Midale and Yellow Grass, both in southern Saskatchewan. *

And still the dust blew.
On June 24 it blew with such fury that it forced the Moose Jaw fair to cancel its horse races and shut down. The force of the storms blowing across southern Saskatchewan was felt as far east as Winnipeg, where once again a dust haze obscured the sun.
Highways became so drifted with dust as to be impassable. South of Moose Jaw the blowing alkali from dried-up Johnstone Lake coated the countryside a dirty white and drove everybody indoors. Sixty miles to the south, near the town of Rockglen, Fife Lake, which had once been thirty-five miles long, dried up completely. Far to the east in the Oxbow area, the Lake of the Rivers went dry and in the process a great mass of prehistoric buffalo bones was uncovered. The farmers of the area lived that year on the returns they got from the fertilizer plants for the carloads of bones them managed to harvest. Near Arcola, the trains were dealyed by the myriads of grasshoppers that lit on the rails and were ground to grease.
The Saskatchewan crop was destroyed by the fourth week of June. Then the heat got worse. At the end of June, 100-degree temperatures were common everywhere and the areas as far north as Prince Albert got a bitter taste of what Regina and Moose Jaw had experienced in 1936. The peak came on July 5 when it touched 110 degrees at Regina, Moose Jaw, and a dozen other southern comminities. For the rest of the summer ninety-degree heat was the rule, for the hot weather extended well into August, and the records established all over on August 23, when it went well over the 100-degree mark again.
There had been hotter Junes than 1937, hotter Julys, and hotter Augusts, but taken together there had never been a longer and hotter summer. – James H. Gray – The Winter Years

What’s a green revolution wiithout a massacre?

Armed groups in Colombia are driving peasants off their land to make way for plantations of palm oil, a biofuel that is being promoted as an environmentally friendly source of energy.
Surging demand for “green” fuel has prompted rightwing paramilitaries to seize swaths of territory, according to activists and farmers. Thousands of families are believed to have fled a campaign of killing and intimidation, swelling Colombia’s population of 3 million displaced people and adding to one of the world’s worst refugee crises after Darfur and Congo.
[…]
“As a consequence of the development of palm by secretive business practices and the use of threats, people have been displaced and [the businesses] have claimed land for themselves,” he said. His claim was backed up by witnesses and groups such as Christian Aid and the National Indigenous Organisation of Colombia.
The revelations tarnish what has been considered an economic and environmental success story. The fruit of the palm oil tree produces a vegetable oil also used in cooking, employs 80,000 people, and is increasingly being turned into biofuel.
“Four years ago Colombia had 172,000 hectares of palm oil,” President Alvaro Uribe told the Guardian. “This year we expect to finish with nearly 400,000.”
“Four years ago Colombia didn’t produce a litre of biofuel. Today, because of our administration, Colombia produces 1.2m litres per day.” Investment in new installations would continue to boost production, he added.
However the lawlessness created by four decades of insurgency in the countryside has enabled rightwing paramilitaries, and also possibly leftwing rebels, to join the boom. Unlike coca, the armed groups’ main income source, palm oil is a legal crop and therefore safe from state-backed eradication efforts.

Before you chime in with kneejerk outrage, think of the big picture, not to mention the opportunities.
Dead Peasant Carbon Credits.
It could work.
(h/t reader Karl.)

Another inconvenient box office ;

Continued weak demand for the singing saviors of climate change
With the worldwide “Live Earth” concert on July 7, Hamburg wants to protect the climate and take its place next to other metropolitan venues such as London, Tokyo and Sydney. But only half of the tickets have been sold. Hamburg tourist officials are giving away the tickets in promotional packages.

Perhaps they can recycle the empty seats as carbon credits. As it stands, the City of Hamburg looks to be on the hook, with the concert unlikely to break even.
(Someone might put them in touch with the Saskatchewan government – world leaders in flogging Al Gore tickets).
More;

Kevin Wall, Al Gore’s new-found partner producer of Live Earth previously founded Network Live to make money, not save the poor. It did neither.
It failed as a business and as an effort to fight poverty. Next he saw Al Gore’s film and, lo and behold, Control Room was born. It’s partners? MSN, DirectTV, Qualcom, etc…. It don’t mean a thing, if it don’t bring the green – and I don’t mean as regards the environment. Same opportunist, different snake oil. zzzzzzzzzzz

The concerts are in trouble in Turkey and South Africa as well.

The Johannesburg leg of the Live Earth concerts has shifted venues due to lack of ticket sales at original venue.
The show will now take place at the 18,000 capacity Coca Cola Dome in the city as opposed to the original venue in Maropeng.
[…]
The Istanbul leg of the event was cancelled last week, due to lack of sponsorship interest.

And a big shout out to Saskatchewan premier Lorne Calvert for prompting SaskTel’s first-ever contribution to a US presidential campaign;

Al Gore visit postponed. Former US vice president Al Gore will not be able to make it to Taiwan this September to address the issue of global warming, Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Tien Chiu-chin said yesterday. Tien, who invited Gore to visit Taiwan to promote awareness on global warming, told reporters yesterday that she received an e-mail from the Harry Walker Agency, which has the exclusive right to arrange Gore’s speeches, saying that Gore had canceled all his scheduled events in the next six months. The visit to Taiwan had been postponed to next year, she added. Tien said the reason for the cancelation was that Gore was considering a presidential bid.

By the way – since the blow by from the Goracle, it still hasn’t warmed up around here properly.

Michael Crighton, September 15, 2003;

I studied anthropology in college, and one of the things I learned was that certain human social structures always reappear. They can’t be eliminated from society. One of those structures is religion. Today it is said we live in a secular society in which many people—the best people, the most enlightened people—do not believe in any religion. But I think that you cannot eliminate religion from the psyche of mankind. If you suppress it in one form, it merely re-emerges in another form. You can not believe in God, but you still have to believe in something that gives meaning to your life, and shapes your sense of the world. Such a belief is religious.
Today, one of the most powerful religions in the Western World is environmentalism. Environmentalism seems to be the religion of choice for urban atheists. Why do I say it’s a religion? Well, just look at the beliefs. If you look carefully, you see that environmentalism is in fact a perfect 21st century remapping of traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs and myths.
There’s an initial Eden, a paradise, a state of grace and unity with nature, there’s a fall from grace into a state of pollution as a result of eating from the tree of knowledge, and as a result of our actions there is a judgment day coming for us all. We are all energy sinners, doomed to die, unless we seek salvation, which is now called sustainability. Sustainability is salvation in the church of the environment. Just as organic food is its communion, that pesticide-free wafer that the right people with the right beliefs, imbibe.
Eden, the fall of man, the loss of grace, the coming doomsday—these are deeply held mythic structures. They are profoundly conservative beliefs. They may even be hard-wired in the brain, for all I know. I certainly don’t want to talk anybody out of them, as I don’t want to talk anybody out of a belief that Jesus Christ is the son of God who rose from the dead. But the reason I don’t want to talk anybody out of these beliefs is that I know that I can’t talk anybody out of them. These are not facts that can be argued. These are issues of faith.
And so it is, sadly, with environmentalism. Increasingly it seems facts aren’t necessary, because the tenets of environmentalism are all about belief. It’s about whether you are going to be a sinner, or saved. Whether you are going to be one of the people on the side of salvation, or on the side of doom. Whether you are going to be one of us, or one of them.

A complete list of things caused by global warming;

Agricultural land increase, Africa devastated, African aid threatened, air pressure changes, Alaska reshaped, allergies increase, Alps melting, Amazon a desert, American dream end, amphibians breeding earlier (or not), ancient forests dramatically changed, animals head for the hills, Antarctic grass flourishes, anxiety, algal blooms, archaeological sites threatened, Arctic bogs melt, Arctic in bloom, Arctic lakes disappear, asthma, atmospheric defiance, atmospheric circulation modified, avalanches reduced, avalanches increased, bananas destroyed, bananas grow, bet for $10,000, better beer…

DavidSuzuki.org;

“The debate is over about whether or not climate change is real.”

You know, you’d think a geneticist would know better.

A massive international study of the human genome has caused scientists to rethink some of the most basic concepts of cellular function. Genes, it turns out, may be relatively minor players in genetic processes that are far more subtle and complicated than previously imagined.
Among the critical findings: A huge amount of DNA long regarded as useless — and dismissively labeled “junk DNA” — now appears to be essential to the regulatory processes that control cells. Also, the regions of DNA lying between genes may be powerful triggers for diseases — and may hold the key for potential cures.
[…]
[Thomas D. Tullius , professor of chemistry at Boston University] – “There were huge surprises; this research has upset a lot of thinking about how the genome works.”
He added in an interview: “There now appear to be thousands of places in the genome that were long thought to be useless or meaningless, but which we now see to have a functional role. But we don’t really understand what that role is.”
Most startling, according to researchers, is that some areas of the genome looming as crucial are regions that don’t contain specific instructions for making proteins. That recognition amounts to a sea change in basic biology.

Via Maxed Out Mama who notes that this isn’t really news. Evidence that so-called “junk” dna wasn’t junk at all has been mounting for some time.

Among other items, it calls into question very basic tenets of evolutionary gene studies based on gene “clocks” and it calls into severe question the statement that we share almost all of our DNA with our closest primate relatives. It’s so radical that it’s hard to construct a parallel. Something on the order of geologists holding a press conference and announcing that the world is flat after all.

It isn’t just new findings about “junk” dna that’s undermining the fashionable field of evolutionary genetics. In 2004* I pointed to this two year old item on new discoveries in mitochondrial dna, the very underpinning of these genetic “clocks” that purport to tell us, among other things, when it was that domestic dogs diverged from their wolf ancestors, and that all current humans have a single common female ancestor, a “mitochondrial Eve”.

For decades biologists have assumed that mitochondria – the cells’ power stations – are inherited solely through the maternal line.
Mitochondria in the sperm from the father were presumed to be destroyed immediately after conception, leaving behind only those from the mother. But Marianne Schwartz and John Vissing from the University Hospital Rigshospitalet in Copenhagen, have discovered that one of their patients inherited the majority of his mitochondria from his father.
[…]
The researchers think inheritance of paternal mitochondrial DNA is probably very rare. But the findings will have implications for a number of branches of biology. Evolutionary biologists often date the divergence of species by the differences in genetic sequences in mitochondrial DNA. Even if paternal DNA is inherited very rarely, it could invalidate many of their findings. It will also have implications for scientists investigating inherited metabolic diseases.

Yet despite its obvious significance, this is information that aparently still manages to elude a good many in the field.
Now, why might that be?
(emphasis mine)

One of these is not like the other.

The Briffa data deletions;

“If a practising scientist selected a 1987 data set over more recent versions, failed to cite it correctly, altered the appearance of the data without a clear explanation and didn’t include the data from the last 20 years then I think we’d all be asking serious questions about their professionalism.”

Read the whole thing – or as much as you still can. Note at the end that the IPCC forced the deletion of the embarrassing content.
More detailed discussion of Briffa.

A global warming believer denies Al Gore;

Dr. Mote is the co-author of an article in the July/August issue of American Scientist magazine that debunks claims by Mr. Gore and others that Kilimanjaro’s famous glaciers are melting away because of problems humans have created.
The ice cover has shrunk by 90 per cent over the past century, the article states, but not because of global warming.
Drawing on the research of other scientists who have studied Kilimanjaro over the past several decades, the article points out that the mountain’s glaciers have been in decline for well over a century.
Most of that predates the era in which humans began pumping harmful amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
[…]
“Kilimanjaro,” the authors write, “… has gained and lost ice through processes that bear only indirect connections, if any, to recent trends in global climate.”
Dr. Mote believes Mr. Gore should stop using the before-and-after pictures of Kilimanjaro’s ice cap that provides a defining moment of his global warming slide show. Dr. Mote had, in fact, intended to tell Mr. Gore this himself when the former U.S. vice-president was in Seattle last year to give his slide-show presentation.
But he lost his nerve.

“I think the evidence is quite clear that carbon offsets cause whirlwinds.”

Via Climate Audit.

John Brignell;

Huxley was one of a long tradition of British sceptical philosophers. From the Bacons, through the likes of Locke, Hume and Russell, to the magnificent climax of Popper’s statement of the principle of falsifiability, the scientific method was painfully established, only to be abandoned in a few short decades. It is one of the great ironies of modern history that the nation that was the cradle of the scientific method came to lead the process of its abandonment. The great difference, then, is that religion demands belief, while science requires disbelief. There is a great variety of faiths. Atheism is just as much a faith as theism. There is no evidence either way. There is no fundamental clash between faith and science – they do not intersect. The difficulties arise, however, when one pretends to be the other.
The Royal Society, as a major part of the flowering of the tradition, was founded on the basis of scepticism. Its motto “On the word of no one” was a stout affirmation. Now suddenly, following their successful coup, the Greens have changed this motto of centuries to one that manages to be both banal and sinister – “Respect the facts.” When people start talking about “the facts” it is time to start looking for the fictions. Real science does not talk about facts; it talks about observations, which might turn out to be inaccurate or even irrelevant.
The global warmers like to use the name of science, but they do not like its methods. They promote slogans such a “The science is settled” when real scientists know that science is never settled. They were not, however, always so wise. In 1900, for example, the great Lord Kelvin famously stated, “There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more precise measurement.” Within a few years classical physics was shattered by Einstein and his contemporaries. Since then, in science, the debate is never closed.
The world might (or might not) have warmed by a fraction of a degree. This might (or might not) be all (or in part) due to the activities of mankind. It all depends on the quality of observations and the validity of various hypotheses. Science is at ease with this situation. It accepts various theories, such as gravitation or evolution, as the least bad available and of the most practical use, but it does not believe. Religion is different.

White House Fact Sheet: A New International Climate Change Framework

Today, President Bush Announced U.S. Support For An Effort To Develop A New Post-2012 Framework On Climate Change By The End Of 2008. The plan recognizes that it is essential that a new framework include both major developed and developing economies that generate the majority of greenhouse gas emissions and consume the most energy, and that climate change must be addressed in a way that enhances energy security and promotes economic growth.
Under The President’s Proposal, The United States Will Convene The Major Emitters And Energy Consumers To Advance And Complete The New Framework By The End Of 2008.

Europe is “furious”.
Greenpeace is squawking.
Via Planet Gore, where they believe we’ve witnessed a Bush coup in wrestling the agenda on climate change out of the hands of the UN and Europe. Exerpts follow.
Steve Hayward;

“It seems to me that lots of people are missing a notable feature of Bush’s proposal to convene a “Big 15” to contemplate long-range greenhouse gas emissions targets: Bush is in effect threatening to put the UN’s IPCC out of business as the main diplomatic forum for global climate policy. Whatever else may be said—both good and bad—about Bush’s initiative, putting the UN out of the climate business can’t entirely be a bad thing.”

Iain Murray

You’re right, of course. This was the logical end-point of the IPCC process. Once the science had become accepted to the point where everyone agreed that some political action needed to be taken, the IPCC would no longer be needed. If the science is as “settled” as it is claimed, then there’s no need for an intergovernmental panel on the issue any more. It becomes an economic and political question – and governments that aren’t experts on climatology are pretty good at economic analysis and political bargaining.

Chris Horner:

President Bush stunned the Europeans with his Thursday announcement, playing their game as well as they do but from a better position: US carbon dioxide emissions from 2000-2006 are flat. Europe’s are up and steadily rising, 6 years out of the 9* since Kyoto was agreed, in fact; US CO2 emissions over that same period are equally superior.
The truth which the Administration refuses to say (more than once) is that big-talking Europe is a bossy non-performer. Bush diplomatically doesn’t say so, but instead preempted a planned political trap at the G-8 talks by clearly delineating the US position, incompatible with and pulling the rug out from under G-8 president Germany’s plan. German and G-8 president Angela Merkel planned to draw the US to an event to have pies thrown at them, then strong-arm them into agreeing to something the US otherwise rejected. That is, to replicate what happened at the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992.
[…]
Better, Bush reiterated his “do your own thing” policy that China and other significant players have made unavoidably clear is a non-negotiable condition precedent. Immediately garnering the support of world leaders such as Japan’s Abe and the departing-but-Kyotophilic Tony Blair is priceless.
In short, with an offering far more credible on the global stage than Kyoto, Bush changed the news story and split European and relevant global opinion […]
He also did this without changing policy. Who knows, maybe the White House now “gets it” so much that, if our EU friends keep pushing it, we will hear about actual emissions performance since Kyoto was agreed.

Let’s hope so.

Lawrence Solomon, Financial Post;

More than six months ago, I began writing this series, The Deniers. When I began, I accepted the prevailing view that scientists overwhelmingly believe that climate change threatens the planet. I doubted only claims that the dissenters were either kooks on the margins of science or sell-outs in the pockets of the oil companies.
My series set out to profile the dissenters — those who deny that the science is settled on climate change — and to have their views heard. To demonstrate that dissent is credible, I chose high-ranking scientists at the world’s premier scientific establishments. I considered stopping after writing six profiles, thinking I had made my point, but continued the series due to feedback from readers. I next planned to stop writing after 10 profiles, then 12, but the feedback increased. Now, after profiling more than 20 deniers, I do not know when I will stop — the list of distinguished scientists who question the IPCC grows daily, as does the number of emails I receive, many from scientists who express gratitude for my series.

Of course, none of this is news unless you limit your media consumption to the rock hard stupid coverage provided by CTV[1][2] which – as much as it pains me to say this – is inferior to even the propoganda laden fare provided by the CBC.
Footnotes:
[1] CTV National News – “Canada’s #1 source for Florida weather.”

[2] David Akin – “Climate reporting for the under 7 set”. Please, Mr. Akin – science is not your forte. Statements like “even if we reduced C02 levels to zero, temperatures would continue to rise for the next 100 years” (from an on-air report last month) are an insult to the intelligence of viewers – and raise serious questions about your own.

Looking up at the swarm buzzing my ornamental crab last week, I considered going back to the house to get my camera.
“Hey, guys – I think I found those bees you were looking for.”

There are some 20,000 species of bees in the world, and many thousands more types of pollinating insects. What you’re hearing about, “colony collapse disorder,” affects one species of bee – the European honey bee. […] The “significant percentage” of failing hives is still a drop in the bucket when viewed against the global population of honey bees, and there are lots of beekeepers (even in the U.S., which appears hardest hit) who have not had, and may never have, significant losses of colonies. Plenty of honey bees remain to replace the ones that have died. It’s not yet time to scream that the sky is falling.

And, oh boy – where have we heard this before?

Sixth, it’s never a good idea to trust what the media are telling you. At least once in the present case the media got something completely wrong and created a huge mess: The story about cell phones was basically a misrepresentation of what one pair of reporters wrote about a study that they misinterpreted. In a nutshell, the original research didn’t involve cell phones, and the researchers never said their research was related to honey bee colony die-offs. Even details like the alleged Einstein quote are dubious. No one has yet found proof that Einstein said anything about bees dying off – the earliest documented appearance of the “quote” is 1994 and, yes, Albert was dead at the time.

As I’ve said in the past – if you believe everything you read in the newspaper, try getting interviewed sometime.
h/t

Data collection – IPCC style!

I decided I’d drop some more fun with entropy your way. Here is the USHCN station of climate record in Redding, CA GISS number # 425725920010 and used in the climate modeling database. […]
Like Marysville, the site is surrounded by asphalt, and the surface is unnatural – its wood chips over weedmat, and I’ll have to say it was hot as heck to walk on during mid-day..
But the kicker is the “accessories” they’ve added for convenience of running the hygrometer and for night observations. Yes it is another fine high-quality USHCN climate recording site. I wonder how many times they forgot to turn off the light? It looks like there might be room for a hot plate to keep your coffee warm while making observations.

At Tahoe City California, GISS ID 425724880010…

Final picture. It seems the groundskeeper likes to burn the trash and paper he picks up on the grounds, guess where he does it?

www.mineyourownbusiness.org

Not that it’s hard, since the UN is producing propaganda, but this story’s interesting:

Last week, NewsBusters readers were introduced to Portland, Maine’s fabulous fifteen-year-old, Kristen Byrnes, whose website “Ponder the Maunder” marvelously takes on anthropogenic global warming myths including those being advanced by soon-to-be-Dr. Al Gore.
As will be revealed post haste, this newest – and likely youngest – member of the growing list of folks skeptical about man’s role in climate change actually walks the walk better than she talks the talk.

Kevin Trenberth[1], who is listed as a contributing author of the 2007 IPCC climate summary, surprised me, given his belief in anthropogenic global warming (AGW), when he said “climate models are markedly deficient by not adequately representing tropical cyclones.” Sea surface temperatures get too warm in the models due to improper handling of “surface energy exchanges from hurricanes in the global energetics of the climate system”. I’ve posted about several of the problems with the models before but this was confirmation from a major researcher.
In a study on the number of tropical cyclones, Gregg Holland presented his conclusion that there has been a doubling of the number of tropical cyclone in the Atlantic basin over the past 100 years and the increase had little to do with natural variability but was caused by a warming climate trend.
Chris Landsea was the very next speaker and said “No”, the increase is due entirely to our increased ability to detect storms that we wouldn’t have even known existed a few decades ago, which is what those of us who have been in this business for quite awhile have believed for some time.
Chris Landsea’s talk at the conference has now been published in EOS, a publication of the American Geophysical Union.

From Counting Atlantic Tropical Cyclones Back to 1900 (PDF):

[…] data from the first 66 years, shown in Figure 2b, have a quite different long-term character, with an average of 75% of tropical cyclones striking land. While there were no years with more than 80% striking land from 1966 onward, there were 15 years between 1900 and 1965 in which all (100%) recorded tropical cyclones struck land that season. This difference in the long-term percentage of tropical cyclones that struck land (75% from 1900–1965 versus 59% from 1966–2006) indicates a large bias toward underreporting of tropical cyclones that remained over the open Atlantic Ocean.

Thus concludes today’s scientific consensus moment.
Thankyou.
[1] This is the same Kevin Trenberth who was a guest last week on 650 CKOM citing hurricane Katrina as indicative of global warming.