Thousands of coal miners swarm Capitol Hill, slam EPA regs at rally
http://washingtonexaminer.com/lawmakers-coal-industry-slam-epa-regs-at-capitol-hill-rally/article/2538133…
New review paper finds Medieval and Roman Warm periods were worldwide and warmer than the present
New review paper finds Medieval and Roman Warm periods were worldwide and warmer than the present
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2013/10/new-review-paper-finds-medieval-and.html
A new review paper by SPPI and CO2 Science summarizes the literature on the Medieval Warm Period and the world’s oceans and concludes,
Yes, climate change is real … just like the world’s climate alarmists vehemently contend. In fact, it’s the norm. And in the several oceanic studies briefly reviewed above, as well as studies pertaining to the terrestrial surface of the planet, Earth’s climate has been recognized as having shifted over the past century or so from the coldest period of the current interglacial to a significantly warmer state, but one that appears not yet to have achieved the level of warmth characteristic of the prior Medieval Warm Period or the earlier Roman Warm Period, as is also demonstrated by the hundreds of other such studies reviewed on the co2science.org website. And since none of these “warm-ups,” as well as still earlier ones, were driven by increases in the air’s CO2 concentration (which hovered around 285 ppm until the Industrial Revolution started it on its upward course towards today’s 400 ppm), there is no compelling reason to believe that the 20th century warming of the globe was driven by concurrent anthropogenic CO2 emissions.
For the Full Report in PDF Form, please click here.
[Illustrations, footnotes and references available in PDF version]
Excerpts:
Keigwin (1996) introduced his classic paleoclimatic study of the northern Sargasso Sea by stating that “it is important to document natural climate variability in order to understand the effects of anthropogenic forcing.” And, therefore, working with two subcores of a sediment box core retrieved from 33°41.6’N, 57°36.7’W of the undulating plateau of the northeast Bermuda Rise, he measured the oxygen isotope ratios (?18O) of the white variety of the planktonic foraminifera Globigerinoides ruber, which lives year-round in the upper 25 meters of the northern Sargasso Sea and has a relatively constant annual mass flux and shell flux to the sediments. Calibrating these data against temperature and salinity data obtained at Ocean Station “S” (32°N, 62°30’W) over the prior 42 years, he first determined that “temperature accounts for about two-thirds of the isotopic signal, whereas salinity accounts for one-third.” And based on these results, he calculated sea surface temperatures (SSTs) of the prior three millennia, after which he “stacked the temperature proxy data from the two subcores by averaging results in …
WSJ: U.S. carbon emissions fell in 2012, thanks to the oil and gas industry
WSJ: U.S. carbon emissions fell in 2012, thanks to the oil and gas industry
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2013/10/wsj-us-carbon-emissions-fell-in-2012.html
Natural Decarbonation
U.S. carbon emissions fell in 2012, thanks to the oil and gas industry.WSJ.COM 10/29/13: One of President Obama’s steadfast second-term priorities is his regulatory “climate action plan.” If the point is to reduce carbon emissions, the evidence suggests he’d accomplish more counting on capitalism.The federal Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported last week, to too little media fanfare, that U.S. energy-related carbon-dioxide emissions declined 3.8% in 2012, bringing C02 emissions to their lowest level since 1994. The only year since 1990 with a steeper decline was 2009 amid an economic recession. The 2012 decline occurred even as the economy grew 2.8%.Much of the 2012 decline was due to a warm first quarter that reduced the use of heating fuels, as well as fewer transportation emissions, as Americans drove less and overall vehicle miles were flat compared to 2011.More notable is that 2012 saw the largest drop in the overall “carbon intensity” of the economy since the feds began keeping records in 1949. The EIA reports that the boom in natural-gas production “substantially reduced the carbon intensity of electricity generation in 2012.” The switch to natural gas, mainly from coal, was so substantial that the resulting CO2-emissions decreases offset what was an “overall decline” last year in renewable power generation.The EIA report also cited such Administration policies as mandates for more fuel-efficient cars as contributing to the carbon decline. But those mandates played a token role in the overall reduction, though they have cost consumers in higher costs for vehicles.If you’re scoring at home, this means that the innovation of the private oil and gas industry in extracting natural gas from oil shale has done more to reduce CO2 emissions than have all of the Obama Administration’s subsidies, mandates and crony-capitalist schemes for renewable energy.Mr. Obama should say a prayer of thanks every day for the fracking and horizontal drilling revolutions, which have so far managed to avoid the crippling grasp of Washington regulators. If Mr. Obama is looking for a slogan for his “climate action plan,” here’s an idea: Keep on frackin’.
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