Climate & Environment Review: April 26, 2006

Climate & Environment Review:
April 26, 2006

Climate & Environment Weekly is brought to you by The Center for Science and Public Policy (CSPP). CSPP is a non-profit, non-partisan public policy organization.

CSPP relies on scientific experts in many nations and the vast body of peer-reviewed literature to help lawmakers, policy makers, and the media distinguish between scientific findings that are agenda-driven and those that are based on accepted scientific methods and practices. In a timely manner, the Center's Science Watch Team alerts policy makers, the media, and the public to unreliable scientific claims and unjustified alarmism which often lead to public harm. We strive for a fair and balanced examination of science.

North Dakota Region Citizens to Breathe Cleaner Air in $100 Million NSR Power Plant Settlement
"(Washington, D.C. - April 24, 2006) The air quality in North Dakota and surrounding regions will improve significantly because the federal government and the state of North Dakota are requiring two utilities to reduce emissions of two harmful pollutants by more than 33,000 tons per year... >>Read More<<

Press Statement by API President and CEO Red Cavaney
* "Over the last five years, U.S. oil and gas companies invested nearly $100 billion in emerging energy technologies, including renewables, in North America alone - 73 percent of the total $135 billion spent by U.S. companies and the federal government."... >>Read More<<

A UN CONSPIRACY? GREENPEACE ATTACKS UNITED NATIONS REPORT
KIEV The environmental group Greenpeace said Tuesday in a report that more than 90,000 people were likely to die of cancers caused by radiation from the Chernobyl explosion, challenging a United Nations report that predicted the death toll would be about one-tenth as much... >>Read More<<

Bush on Gas Prices - Who's He Kidding?
With gasoline prices close to $3 a gallon, President Bush this morning gave a disingenuous speech to an alternative fuels association about what he was going to do to stem the rising tide... >>Read More<<

Global warming behind record 2005 storms-US expert
MONTEREY, Calif., April 24 (Reuters) - A leading U.S. government storm researcher said on Monday that the record hurricane season last year can be attributed to global warming... >>Read More<<

NUCLEAR FUEL CONSIDERATIONS FOR THE 21ST CENTURY
There are many external influences that may control the path that nuclear power deployment follows. In the next 50 years several events may unfold. Fear of the consequences of the greenhouse effect may produce a carbon tax that would make nuclear power economically superior very quickly... >>Read More<<

GREENPEACE VS. THE UNITED NATIONS
Greenpeace on Tuesday released a report claiming the death toll from Chernobyl is many times higher than a 2005 UN estimate. But is the report based on "bad science" as critics claim?... >>Read More<<

AS CAMERON COMPLETELY LOSES IT, 'OUR GEORGE' STARTS TO GET IT ....
I have to say that David Cameron, as the Green Guru, makes me wince. He is embarrassing, a kind of middle class Coriolanus dinner party 'See my wounds' type of party host, with yummy mummy in tow. Melanie Phillips is just the right sort of commentator to out the red-faced Boy Wonder on his sled: 'Even greener than he thinks... >>Read More<<

Medieval Warm Period vs. Current Warm Period
D'Arrigo et al. (2006) note that the Northern Hemispheric temperature reconstruction of Mann et al. (1999), which is the one preferred by most climate alarmists, "demonstrates minimal temperature amplitude (e.g., during the 'Medieval Warm Period' and 'Little Ice Age') while others (Briffa, 2000; Esper et al., 2002; Cook et al., 2004; Moberg et al., 2005) exhibit more pronounced variability... >>Read More<<

EPA and Arizona State Tackle Urban Heat Islands
(Washington, D.C. - April 24, 2006) Innovative, renewable technology to help mitigate urban heat islands and lower energy consumption is the focus of research at the new National Center of Excellence on SMART Innovations for Urban Climate and Energy... >>Read More<<

USHCN Temperature Record of the Week: Dupree, SD
To bolster our claim that "There Has Been No Net Global Warming for the Past 70 Years," each week we highlight the temperature record of one of the 1221 U.S. Historical Climatology Network (USHCN) stations from 1930-2000... >>Read More<<

MORE DOUBTS ABOUT YOUNGER DRYAS THEORY
Brand and McCarthy (2005) conclude that the oxygen isotopic values for the mollusc Hiatella arctica from a composite section in the West-Central Champlain Sea (CS), spanning 12,980-10,980 cal yr BP, demonstrate the onset of cooling with the Younger Dryas (YD) event and the influx of isotopically light glacial meltwater from Lake Agassiz during the event... >>Read More<<

Climate Change's Gravy Train
In an open letter to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, 60 leading scientists called upon him to "re-visit the science on global warming and review the policies inherited from his leftwing predecessor."... >>Read More<<

Mortality (Tick-Borne Diseases) – Summary
Claim: Warming is responsible for the increased incidents of Lyme disease. Science: Fabrication. Leading specialists have found the opposite to be true: “Mean temperatures show weak and inconsistent correlations with incidence.”... >>Read More<<

Coral Bleaching - What (or Who) Dunnit?
Thanks to a Senate hearing on global warming this week, Americans can expect a plateful of charges about dangers to our oceans and, in particular, coral reefs. They should take it all with a pinch of sea salt... >>Read More<<

CANADA LIKELY TO JOIN ASIA-PACIFIC CLIMATE PACT
OTTAWA -- Environment Minister Rona Ambrose says Canada is considering joining a U.S.-led effort to curb greenhouse emissions outside the framework of the Kyoto Protocol... >>Read More<<

Radioactive Lies
Twenty years ago the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded in the Soviet republic of Ukraine. It burned for ten days, spreading radioactive materials over neighboring Soviet republics and into Europe, and contaminated millions of adults and children... >>Read More<<

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE SCIENTIFIC CONSENSUS ON CLIMATE CHANGE?
New Delhi, Apr 25: The clamour over climate change the world over notwithstanding, the country's weather agency believes that variation in rain and temperatures over the country being experienced over the years fall within the "natural variability"... >>Read More<<

THE GLOBAL WARMING DILEMMA - TO SCARE, OR NOT TO SCARE
I've read three separate things in the past couple days that issue similar warnings:
First, a much-discussed BBC Radio 4 show on "overselling climate change" Before your hackles rise: there were no "skeptics" interviewed for the piece, only experienced climate scientists... >>Read More<<

TOWARD THE 21ST CENTURY NUCLEAR-SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY
Energy security is vital for the steady growth of the world's welfare and economy and although many novel non-nuclear energy sources are being explored, much less attention is given to nuclear energy... >>Read More<<

NASA Expert Tells Alarmists to Cool Down Climate Hype
(CNSNews.com) - NASA scientist James Hansen warned that environmental activists and the media better be more cautious with their rhetoric regarding "global warming."... >>Read More<<

Bush Faces Dissent From Republicans on Climate Change
April 24 (Bloomberg) -- Representative Bob Inglis, a South Carolina Republican, says he ``pooh-poohed'' global warming until he trekked to the South Pole in January... >>Read More<<

A REVIEW OF THE HYDROGEN FUTURES LITERATURE
Forecasts, scenarios, visions, backcasts and roadmaps to the hydrogen economy: A review of the hydrogen futures literature... >>Read More<<

The Greening of the Earth (1982-1999)
The authors analyzed, for the majority of earth's land surface, a near 20-year time series (1982-1999) of a vegetation indicator - the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) - calculated from data obtained from the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) carried aboard U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration satellites... >>Read More<<

Conflicted about Conflicts of Interest?
On climate change, do the media, scientists, and commentators treat possible conflicts of interest equally across the political spectrum? Based on the anecdote reported below, it appears not... >>Read More<<

No climate change In india
New Delhi, Apr 25: The clamour over climate change the world over notwithstanding, the country's weather agency believes that variation in rain and temperatures over the country being experienced over the years
fall within the "natural variability"... >>Read More<<

NUCLEAR POWER IN THE WORLD TODAY
The first commercial nuclear power stations started operation in the 1950s.
There are now some 440 commercial nuclear power reactors operating in 31 countries, with over 364,000 MWe of total capacity... >>Read More<<

THE MYTHS OF CHERNOBYL
The 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear accident of April 26, 1986 is prompting a new wave of alarmist claims about its impact on human health and the environment... >>Read More<<

REPORT: IEA TO SUPPORT NUCLEAR ENERGY
LONDON, April 21 (UPI) -- Civilian nuclear programs are the best way to tackle global energy insecurity, the International Energy Agency is expected to say in a study... >>Read More<<