Climatologists Rescued From Their Snowy Fossil Fueled Hell By Fossil Fueled Helicopter

Hooray! (I’ve cleaned the story up a bit)

(NBC News) All 52 passengers who were stranded aboard an ice-locked (fossil fueled) ship in Antarctica for more than a week were rescued by (fossil fueled) helicopter early Thursday, officials said.

The (fossil fueled) Akademic Shokalskiy sent out a distress call on Christmas morning after it became surrounded by sea ice while on a scientific mission climate change spreading awareness stunt more than 1,700 miles south of Australia.

On Thursday, a (fossil fueled) helicopter from a (fossil fueled) Chinese ice-breaking ship Xue Long — or Snow Dragon — transported groups from a makeshift helipad which the passengers had stomped out in the ice near the (fossil fueled) ship.

The  Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) tweeted at 6.20 a.m. ET Thursday that all of the 52 passengers had been airlifted from the (fossil fueled) Akademik Shokalskiy and were now on board the (fossil fueled) Aurora Australis ice-breaker.

Climahysteric leader Chris Turney had the cajones to tweet this yesterday

Because temperatures below -15F are warm.

The New Nostradamus of the North notes that the Australian taxpayers will probably be on the hook for the cost to rescue the climate alarmists.

Marc Morano is calling it the Clitanic.

Read: Climatologists Rescued From Their Snowy Fossil Fueled Hell By Fossil Fueled Helicopter »

White House: We’ll Decide Whether Someone Is Hurt By Contraception Mandate

No, really

(Politico) The Obama administration Wednesday said the Affordable Care Act contraceptive coverage regulations are fair – and they don’t really hurt the Denver-based religious organization that got a temporary New Year’s Eve reprieve from Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

“We defer to the Department of Justice on litigation matters, but remain confident that our final rules strike the balance of providing women with free contraceptive coverage while preventing non-profit religious employers with religious objections to contraceptive coverage from having to contract, arrange, pay, or refer for such coverage,” a White House official said.

Obviously, Team Obama knows if you’re hurt more than you do. Your feelings are just a part of their daily talking points and executive orders.

Let’s not forget that the contraception mandate, which includes sterilization procedures and abortifacients, is not a mandated requirement per It’s The Law. It does not appear within the text of the the Affordable Care Act. This was created by the bureaucrats who were given massive authority to craft the law by the law. The ACA wouldn’t be harmed in the least if they did away with the rule. But, Team Obama and the Dems needed a way to pander to their unhinged liberal base, and especially the 30 and under crowd, so free condoms, birth control pills, and Plan B are being used as candy bars to continue voting Democrat.

Read: White House: We’ll Decide Whether Someone Is Hurt By Contraception Mandate »

Here We Go: Another Climatologist Prognosticates That World Will Warm Faster Than Feared

You do have to admire the stick-to-it-ness of Warmists, who are more dogmatic than followers of Charles Manson and Jim Jones, Heaven’s Gate Church or Westboro Baptist nuts

(Telegraph) As the planet marked its fourth hottest year on record, a study published in the journal Nature found increasing levels of carbon dioxide will lead to thinner ocean clouds and reduce their cooling impact, causing temperature rises of at least 5.6F (3C) over the course of the century.

The team of scientists said the findings show some climate models have been too “optimistic” and previous estimates of a minimum temperature rise of only 2.7F (1.5C) could now be discounted. The optimistic models did not properly assess the impact of water evaporation, which sometimes rises only a short distance into the atmosphere and causes updraughts that reduce cloud cover, the study found.

”These models have been predicting a lower climate sensitivity but we believe they’re incorrect,” Professor Steven Sherwood, from the University of New South Wales, told The Sydney Morning Herald.

”The net effect of [climate change] is you have less cloud cover.”

This is truly hilarious. And typical garbage in-garbage out soothsaying

(No Tricks Zone) Because of the huge uncertainties involved in climate modeling, Prof. Essex, a leading international expert in computer modeling, calls projections for decades and centuries ahead using even today’s state of the art “Welcome to Wonderland”. The climate system is just too complex and it would take even today’s most powerful computer billions of years to run through a proper algorithm.

The results that today’s models put out are based on the crude assumptions that get fed in. When a model maker guesses that the globe is going to heat up, then that’s what his model will show.

No Tricks Zone highlights this explanation of how well the models have worked so far (which I highlighted yesterday, as well)

87 0f 90 models have failed. The actual global temperatures have fallen outside the prognostication of the models. There’s been no statistically significant warming in 17 years. Since 1990 there’s been a miniscule increase of 0.28F. Since 1997 just 0.14F. No child born this century has seen warming. (see this chart of real world data at Real Science)

Now, as P Gosselin at No Tricks Zone points out, maybe Prof. Sherwood ends up being correct. Because nature is a chaotic system. And previous warm periods during the Holocene were much warmer. What Warmists are doing is simply guessing based on very expensive computer models.

Nice to see one of them actually include water vapor. Of course, NASA satellite data actually shows a decrease in water vapor. And cloud cover, while it can trap heat, is more associated with a long term cooling period. Anyhow, people in the North should have fun with all the global warming snow and wind and cold and ice from Winter Storm Hercules (seriously, Weather Channel? Seriously?)

Crossed at Right Wing News.

Read: Here We Go: Another Climatologist Prognosticates That World Will Warm Faster Than Feared »

Android Today: “Oh My Goat”

I’ve been a bit slack with Android recommendations, but here’s a good one. A fun little sorta side scroller called Oh My Goat. The main character, Patrick the Goat has been turned into a cube, along with all his animal friends. It takes great reflexes and timing. Check it out.

Read: Android Today: “Oh My Goat” »

The Australian Is Not Afraid To Publish The Skeptical View

More and more news outlets, along with other web outlets such as Reddit Science, are banning “skeptics” because of Free Speech or something, the something being that they are pretty much afraid to debate and have their cult disinfected with sunlight. Here’s Jo Nova on The Australian

The giant boondoggle is coming undone.

What makes this article remarkable is the strong language coming from a credible source on the front page of a major national daily. We have crossed another line in the decline and fall of the Great Global Warming Scare.  Maurice Newman is chairman of the Prime Minister’s Business Advisory Council , was Chairman of the ABC, and of the board of the Australian Stock Exchange. He was Chancellor of Macquarie University until 2008. The Op-Ed and news article today sums up the worst of the last five years of climate, and is the first time I can recall seeing a well respected commentator use such unequivocal and damning language and so prominently. There is no hedging here, no pandering. Newman obviously reads skeptical blogs and is very aware of what is going on. Ponder that he was Chairman of their ABC, and if someone of his sensible insight could not clean it up, we need far more drastic action (that’s another topic we will explore soon).

His opinion piece in the Australian (Crowds go cold on climate cost), is discussed on the front page as a news item titled “Climate policies helped kill manufacturing, says Maurice Newman”. A broader audience amongst the intellectual hierarchy of Australia now knows they can ramp up their dismissals. Skeptics have gained ground.

Warmists will really not like having their cult challenged.

From Newman’s op-ed

“Australia, too, has become hostage to climate change madness. It has been a major factor in the decimation of our manufacturing industry. The Australian dollar and industrial relations policies are blamed. But, for some manufacturers, the strong dollar has been a benefit, while high relative wages have long been a feature of the Australian industrial landscape. It is the unprecedented cost of energy, driven by the Renewable Energy Target and carbon tax, which, at the margin, has destroyed our competitiveness. And for all the propaganda about “green employment”, Australia seems to be living the European experience where, for every green job created, two to three jobs are lost in the real economy.

“The scientific delusion, the religion behind the climate crusade, is crumbling. Global temperatures have gone nowhere for 17 years. According to climatologist Roy Spencer’s research, “Over the period of satellite measurement, 1979-2012, both the surface and satellite observations produce linear temperature trends which are below 87 of the 90 climate models used in the comparison” – that is, 97 per cent were wrong.

“If the IPCC were your financial adviser, you would have sacked it long ago….

Some of his quotes were used in the front page article. Both the op-ed and the article are behind a pay-wall, thanks to Jo for showing us a few quotes. Here’s what you get if you hit the link to the article

THE unprecedented cost of energy driven by the renewable energy target and the carbon tax had destroyed the nation’s competitiveness, Tony Abbott’s chief business adviser has declared. Maurice Newman also says climate change policies driven by “scientific delusion” have been a major factor in the collapse of Australia’s manufacturing sector.

“Climate change” policies are doing the same around the world. Destroying jobs and economies. Much like most of the rest of the policies from the far Left.

Read: The Australian Is Not Afraid To Publish The Skeptical View »

If All You See…

… is a horrid fossil fueled vehicle necessary to get across all the fossil fuels created snow, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is The Independent Sentinel, with a post on how it’s easier to open a business in Siberia than California.

Read: If All You See… »

Climate Alarmists Still Stuck On Ship In Antarctica

Well, supposedly they had a good time for New Year’s Eve

(Guardian) Passengers aboard a scientific research ship stuck in sea ice near the coast of Antarctica are preparing to spend another night on the vessel after plans to evacuate them by helicopter were aborted.

The rescue mission was cancelled in the early hours of Wednesday because of hazardous weather conditions. Stranded passengers began the new year with muted celebrations aboard the MV Akademik Shokalskiy.

The passengers, about 50 scientists, academics and journalists, have been trapped on the vessel in thick pack ice off the coast of Antarctica since Christmas Day.

Several attempts to evacuate the Shokalskiy using icebreakers have been thwarted by the dense sea ice, which is up to 5 metres thick in some places.

If the weather breaks, another attempt will be made to rescue them from the really bad global warming on Thursday, which, because of the time differences, would be sometime tonight (east coast time). If they’re able to be rescued, they’ll be ferried to a Chinese fossil fueled ship, then jump back on a fossil fueled helicopter to a fossil fueled Australian ice breaker. If they can’t be rescued, a fossil fueled American ice breaker is 10 days away. Either way, they’ll eventually (we hope), make it back to New Zealand (where the fossil fueled trip started…well, except for all the fossil fueled plane rides to NZ) or Australia. Then can take fossil fueled airplane trips home. All to let us know that climate change caused by fossil fuels is Bad.

Oh, and the ice is so bad that the Chinese ice breaker has been staying away and moving constantly.

Newsbusters notes that 96% of the media outlets covering the ship fail to note why the ship was there

In fact, rather than point out the mission of the scientists to find evidence of climate change, the networks often referred to the stranded people as “passengers,” “trackers” and even “tourists,” with no mention of climate change or global warming. Chris Turney, the expedition’s leader, is a professor of climate change at the University of South Wales. According to Turney’s personal website, the purpose of the expedition is to “discover and communicate the environmental changes taking place in the south.”

Interesting. The Guardian story in quoted also refers to the passengers in the same way, and doesn’t mention “climate change” as the purpose of the cruise.

Andrew Bolt is calling it The Ship Of Fools, and notes how the media and those trapped on the ship are trying to pretend that the cruise was both not about global warming and that all the ice shows global warming still occurring.

More: Andrew Revkin offers this hilarious tidbit

If you follow the discussion around #SpiritOfMawson — the Twitter hashtag for the project — you’ll also note how this misadventure has energized climate change contrarians, offering a distraction from serious research on the impact of climate change on Antarctica.

If they were serious then a) they wouldn’t be take massive fossil fueled trips and b) they wouldn’t be blaming snow and cold on “climate change”. Also, this “serious” cruise was actually meant to be a photo GOP, not science.

Ann Althouse further beats up Mr. Revkin.

Read: Climate Alarmists Still Stuck On Ship In Antarctica »

New Year’s Resolutions

In case you missed it, I’m a rather private person. I do not talk much about Me. I’m rather private out in the Real Worldâ„¢, as well, unless I really know someone. Even then, I tend to deflect more to the person or people I’m talking to.

Anyhow, for a first, I’ll give you my New Year’s resolutions, partly to put them out there in order to stimulate me following through.

My first is to lose weight. Over the past 2 years, since July 2012, I have been going to the gym 3-5 times a week, typically for 45-60 minutes each time. This was after years of not getting much exercise, and having a job that was relatively sedentary. I was usually standing most of the day, but not moving all that much in the stores. I didn’t do much at home, beyond some golf now and then. The dealbreaker was when pants with a 38 waist started feeling a bit tight, and walking by the windows at work, of which we have a lot. I did not like the view.

So, I have been working on losing weight over the past 6 months. I’ve gone from 205 to 187. I wanted to be at 180 by the end of the year, alas, holiday season.

So my resolution is to get into a 34 waist or less. I’m able to get into a 36 now. I’d like to get down to 150-160 by the end of June. I’ve always had big hips from swimming and soccer, so a 34 would be about right.

My other resolution is not as important, namely, playing more golf. Which is more about being outside (though I am outside a lot at work). It’s not bad that I rarely play (played maybe 6 times the whole year), I’m usually going to the gym instead. But, hey, I live at a golf course.

BTW, last years was to seriously cut back on smoking. I have done that, mostly by switching to e-cigs. Down to a half pack or less daily. I ordered a better e-cig, I’ve been using Blu. The new one is more for “vaping”. Some of the flavors make it easy to not grab a real cigarette.

What are your resolutions?

PS: since someone DM’d me, I have replaced lots of fat with muscle. I’m lifting generally at least double what I had been able to lift when I first started. I also feel really bad when I don’t go to the gym.

Read: New Year’s Resolutions »

2014: Annual New Year’s Prediction Challenge For Climate Alarmists

Happy New Year’s! Welcome to 2014, and the 4th year of my prediction challenge, which virtually no Warmists will take. And one year closer to End Of Life As We Know it. 2150 and 2200 are fast approaching, the primary dates that the climate alarmists always want to use to denote when Earth is going to burn, baby, burn in fire, dan dan daaaan, fire, dan dan daaaaan. 2013 saw historically low numbers for wildfires and tornadoes. There were no landfalling U.S. hurricanes. Still no major hurricanes making landfall since 2008. There were only 13 named Atlantic storms, with only two hurricanes (the average since 1980 is 12.1 storms and 6.4 hurricanes, with 2.7 major hurricanes). The two hurricanes were just category 1 storms. Only two storms made US landfall, and only one was still a tropical storm at landfall. Thousands of cold temperature high temp records were set. There was barely a spring across the US and much of the northern hemisphere. In other words, the weather just didn’t cooperate with Warmist predictions.

No child born over the last 17 years has seen statistically significant warming, and no child born this century has seen any warming.

New Year’s is usually a time when we make resolutions which we abandon when we realize that chocolate, bacon, and beer are great (and bacon cooked in beer and covered with chocolate!) In the blogosphere, we often make predictions for the New Year. Instead, how about a challenge?

For a long time, the alarmists have been making predictions as to what the climate will do. They say in 10 years, 50, 100. Instead, why not, say, make predictions for……2014! What I want for them to do, from the biggest of big climahypocrites, such as Al Gore, James Hansen, Barack Obama, and Leonardo DiCaprio, to the smallest climate dupes, is tell us exactly what the climate will do this year. For some of these questions, I’m using the USA, but, alarmists from around the world can use their own country/region, if they like:

  • What will the average temperature of the Earth be for 2014? Most scientists place it at 59 degrees F (15 C). How far above, or below, will it be?
  • What will the average temperature be for the USA?  The rough average for the USA is 53 F.
  • How many tropical systems will there be in the Atlantic? How many will hit the USA?
  • What will the four seasons do in 2014? Warmer, colder, hotter, wetter? Tell us
  • What will each month look like in the USA? How about in your home state?
  • Which months will be above average, and which ones below, temperature wise?
  • What states will have big floods, and during what months?
  • What will tornado season look like?
  • How many destructive thunderstorms will there be, and in which states?
  • How many “extreme” weather events will there be?
  • How much ice will the poles gain/lose?
  • Will the Arctic be ice free this summer?
  • What will the average precipitation be for your home city? Average temperature? Average low’s and highs?
  • How many earthquakes will there be (since, apparently, climate change/globull warming creates earthquakes)?
  • Pick an island, and tell us how much the sea will rise around it.

There are many, many, many more questions that can be asked, but, I know what the alarmists are thinking: “Teach, that is weather, not climate! I refuse to participate!” Ah, but, what, exactly, is climate? Let’s pull a couple good definitions

  • Climate encompasses the statistics of temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, wind, rainfall, atmospheric particle count and numerous other meteorological elements in a given region over long periods of time
  • Climate is the average weather conditions at a particular place over a long period of time. Climate is the long-term predictable state of the atmosphere. It is affected by physical features such as mountains, rivers, positioning of the globe, plateaus, deserts, depressions and much more.
  • The general or typical atmospheric conditions for a place and/or period of time. Conditions include rainfall, temperature, thunderstorms, lightning, freezes, etc.

Notice, “long term predictable.” Weather and other natural forces create climate. And right now the alarmists are saying “but, Teach, one year is not considered to be a “long period of time!”” Well, you have plenty of data available for the long term, and, with all your vast knowledge of what the climate is doing, due to man’s release of greenhouse gases, surely you alarmists can make predictions for 2014 based on that long term data, and be mostly correct, right? Surely, you aren’t afraid to make predictions for this year, and tell us what the climate during 2011 will do, right? But, you have to make your predictions, and can’t go back and change them up as the year goes on, the way many organizations, like NOAA, the Met Office, and the IPCC do. And at the end of the year, we will see how well you have done.

Of course, if you use any of the models from Warmist groups, you’ll be bound to fail

There’s your real “97% consensus”, though we can substitute the squishy feelings based word “consensus” with that sciencey word “data”.

 

Any alarmist up for the challenge? And no cheating be reading the Farmer’s Almanac, which tends to be right way more than the Met, NASA, UN IPCC, and other alarmist groups are. Forget about your PR blitzes, “spreading awareness” campaigns, your advocacy, your stunts, and tell us what will happen. If you’re correct, for a change, maybe people will start to believe you again.

Oh, and a second challenge: live your life in 2014 in the manner you tell everyone else to live. Go “carbon neutral”. Give up your fossil fueled vehicles.

Read: 2014: Annual New Year’s Prediction Challenge For Climate Alarmists »

Happy New Year! Obamacare’s Only Going To Get Worse

HHS Head Kathleen Sebelius thinks it’s going to be a great year for the “Affordable” Care Act….because she kinda has to

(Fox News) Sebelius acknowledged there could continue to be hiccups going into 2014. “There always are,” she said. “People change plans every year.”

But she predicted a relatively smooth transition and said she doesn’t see more delays in the future.

Perhaps she should have talked to Justice Sonia Sotomayor

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor late Tuesday halted a birth control mandate in ObamaCare for a Catholic group, one day before parts of the health care law are set to go into effect.

In her order, Sotomayor said the government is temporarily prevented from enforcing contraceptive coverage requirements against the Denver-based group, Little Sisters of the Poor Home for the Aged, and must respond by 10 a.m. Friday.

Because a group of nuns needed a contraception mandate. This sets an interesting mandate: the Constitution requires that everyone be treated the same under the law. It also states that the federal government shall not pass any law that restricts freedom of religion. If Sotomayor is willing to give an emergency injunction for this group, shouldn’t all the other groups who object be given the same injunction?

Then you have the big tax on insurers kicking in this year. The White House is now stating that the 7 million signups by March 31 was never their goal. But they won’t say what the new goal is.

Oh, and then there’s the notion that only 50% (at best) of signups in 17 non-federally run states have actually paid (I’m giving you the Hot Air link since the Wall Street Journal article is behind a paywall)

Normally, insurers require payment for coverage before the coverage begins. They count an enrollment as complete only when the first month’s premium has been received from a customer. As of Monday, however, only about half of enrollees billed for plans offered by more than 100 insurers in 17 states had paid their first month’s premium, said Mark Waterstraat, chief strategy officer at Benaissance, a third-party billing firm that works for those insurers…

Yet Team Obama expects the insurance companies to cover the people who haven’t paid as of yet.

There are all sorts of taxes that will kick in this new year because of Obamacare. Then we have the huge number of companies with 50+ employees which will start doing all sorts of fun things, like moving employees to part time, hiring replacement employees at part time hours, and dropping their health insurance offerings. Some that will continue offering insurance will be offering plans that are much more costly, especially for the deductible, this year or for 2015. I can tell you that the plan at my company is changing. Open enrollment starts near the end of January. And the company will be hold 3 separate 45 minute forums on the plans, something they’ve never done before. I’m expecting my deductible, currently $400, to skyrocket to $6,600, which is the normal deductible for the lowest cost Exchange plan in Wake County, NC.

Let’s also not forget the huge number of lawsuits pending against Obamacare in various forms. You have the contraception mandate ones, but another massive one regards subsidies for those who obtain insurance through the federal exchanges. The Law as written only allows subsidies for those in states with state run exchanges.

So Happy 2014, Obamacare: now that the rubber is actually meeting the road, things will work as well as a compact car driving over a backwoods dirt road after a 9.1 earthquake.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

Read: Happy New Year! Obamacare’s Only Going To Get Worse »

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