Here are photos from 34,000 feet yesterday, July 29, 2016, summer in the Northern Hemisphere, beginning with the south tip of Greenland and flying west to the northeast coast of northern Canada. There are not many clouds here. This is predominantly ice and snow in the ocean and on land. Uploaded in highest possible resolution so you can zoom. 

https://plus.google.com/photos/109260649524659295963/albums/6313347817393160465?authkey=CKHaybPrh7Di0QE

by Judith Curry Right about now would be a good time for people who care about climate change to acknowledge our clean energy crisis. – Mike Shellenberger

Source: Clean energy emergency

James Hansen
• “NASA scientist who is one of the world’s leading promoters of the theory that human industrial activity causes global warming
• States that “if we do not rapidly slow fossil-fuel emissions over the next few decades … one ecological collapse will lead to another”
• Calls for taxes to be placed on carbon emissions
• Characterizes coal-fired power plants as “factories of death”

“In a June 23, 1988 speech that was a seminal event in the movement to focus public attention on global warming, Dr. James Hansen of NASA addressed the U.S. Congress and warned that unless the burning of fossil fuels were to be curtailed quickly and dramatically, the natural world suffer irreparable harm.””

“In 2001 he received the Seventh Annual Heinz Award in the Environment for his research on global warming.”

“Soon after receiving a $250,000 award from Teresa Heinz Kerry’s Heinz Family Foundation (a major funder of left-wing environmental causes), Hansen, in a move considered highly unusual for a NASA scientist, endorsed the campaign of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry in 2004. He thereafter served as the primary climate advisor for Al Gore’s 2006 documentary film, An Inconvenient Truth.”

“Warning further that “our planet is in peril,” Hansen asserts that “if we do not rapidly slow fossil-fuel emissions over the next few decades,” “[O]ne ecological collapse will lead to another.” In particular, he predicts the mass “extermination of species” and the ultimate disappearance of all the earth’s ice, resulting in a “sea level 75 meters higher.”

“On the twentieth anniversary of his 1988 speech to Congress, Hansen returned to Capitol Hill to demand that the chief executives of large fossil-fuel companies be put on trial for “high crimes against humanity and nature.”

“In 2011 it was reported that Hansen, in violation of ethics laws that regulate government contracts, had failed to publicly disclose $1.6 million he had earned in outside income, apart from his GISS salary. This included money to cover the costs associated with Hansen’s own transportation to speaking engagements and awards ceremonies around the world; legal services that were provided to him free-of-charge; and gifts from various supporters. In 2006, for instance, the World Wildlife Fund gave Hansen an engraved Montres Rolex watch worth at least $8,000, which Hansen illegally failed to report as a “gift” on his SF 278 financial-disclosure form.”

“After the 2009 eruption of the so-called “Climategate” scandal – “Chris Horner, author of Red Hot Lies: How Global Warming Alarmists Use Threats, Fraud, and Deception to Keep You Misinformed, asserts that Hansen himself doctored temperature data on two occasions—in 2001 and 2007—in attempts to show an impending climate catastrophe.”

Lots more here: http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp…especially in the highlighted links in the two pages at this link.

At the 2015 Paris climate meeting, President Obama and John Kerry pledged billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars to Korean NGO Green Climate Fund and a World Bank operation which will loan that money with strings attached to developing nations (some of whom have already blown the corruption whistle) under the auspices of “climate change.” No treaty was ratified by the U.S. Senate. Congress did not approve the agreement or the taxpayer money (i.e. more debt) committed and down payment sent by Obama pursuant to this agreement. Kerry said in Paris, “If all the industrial nations went down to zero emissions – remember what I just said, all the industrial emissions went down to zero emissions – it wouldn’t be enough, not when more than 65 percent of the world’s carbon pollution comes from the developing world.”

Others confirm these model calculations: “Using the same climate sensitivity modeling as the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, … if you included 100 percent [emission] cuts from the entire industrialized world in their modeling, then you would only avert warming by 0.278 degree C by the turn of the century.”

Securities markets were created to trade derivative securities based on carbon emissions. The trading fees on carbon derivatives have been estimated at over $10 trillion dollars per year…or about 75% of the annual GDP of the entire USA … a huge and extremely profitable commodity derivatives market that would be institutionalized by law, government policy, and international treaties…i.e. a government guaranteed market, funded by energy consumers and producers and taxpayers. In summary, they want to regulate and tax emissions of a harmless, helpful gas which is a byproduct of energy production and enrich themselves hugely in the process.

And all of this is about a colorless, odorless commodity, CO2, carbon dioxide, which, if we emit more of it, would make the world a greener and healthier place to live.

http://www.cnsnews.com/…/john-kerry-makes-stunning-climate-…

A vote for Hillary is a vote to continue this fraud.

Dr. Judith Curry takes down the AAAS in the post at this link to her website.  The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) attempts a power play on climate change but instead shoots itself in the foot. This is an example of the Iron Law of Bureaucracy.

https://judithcurry.com/2016/07/04/climate-power-play-by-the-aaas-et-al/

The management of ACS is one of the signers of the AAAS propaganda letter.  I was a member of the American Chemical Society (ACS) for many years.  I was heavily involved with an ACS subgroup in gas chromatography in the 1970’s and early 1980’s.  There was little climatology, the sciences of climate, at ACS in those years.  In fact, I and the others involved in that ACS subgroup were teaching ACS members how to measure gases, including teaching EPA employees how to measure real pollutants.

Following the climate conferences in Rio and Kyoto, ACS references and articles especially those in its weekly news magazine C&E News (Chemical and Engineering News) were biased and political, biased towards a political scheme known as ‘Global Warming’ which converged the interests of national and global governments with academic climatology, mainstream media, banking and left wing special interest groups such as Sierra Club.  It was a collusion to control trade which would have been illegal under U.S. anti-trust laws, except the collusion was organized by the federal government.

In this same period Barack Obama was on the board of the Joyce Foundation that funded the development of carbon credit derivatives trading.  A decade before, President Nixon had put in place the bureaucracy, now known as the EPA, which created the regulations that enabled the carbon commodities market, such as the market begun as the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX).  “At its founding in November 2000, it was estimated that the size of CCX’s carbon trading market could reach $500 billion. That estimate ballooned over the years to $10 trillion.” (1)

The president of the board of Joyce Foundation board became an executive of CCX and Maurice Strong, who ran the UN climate conferences, joined the CCX board.  (2) The quasi-government agency / mortgage company FANNIE MAE and a commodities broker took interest in patented systems for measuring CO2 emissions in the home, and trading systems for that, so that your home mortgage required monitoring carbon emissions which could then be traded and taxed.  Al Gore’s company, Generation Investment, “purchased a 10 percent stake in CCX and became the company’s fifth largest co-owner. In 2006, Goldman Sachs also purchased a 10 percent share of CCX.” (3)  All of that to churn a huge and extremely profitable commodity derivatives market that would be institutionalized by law, government policy, and international treaties…i.e. a government guaranteed market, funded by energy consumers and producers.

And, among other nefarious actions, the colluders want to and have already tried to use the legal system to penalize people who are skeptical of or deny this 30 to 40-year-old scheme.  Despite years of support and research funding exceeding $40 billion in the U.S. alone, the conspiracy has not been able to validate climate models which show a significant net negative result to life occurs due to higher atmospheric CO2 concentration.  Nor does geological history confirm their models.  Atmospheric CO2 concentration has already been 4 times higher than today and that occurred during long periods when life on earth was abundant and green.

Their scheme is fraud and extortion under the color of armed authority, and it appears the universities and management of science associations are also culpable.  Statements such as Dr. Judith Curry’s and many letters signed by thousands of skeptical scientists confirm this scheme is a giant power play with no redeeming value to citizens.  All of this is about a colorless, odorless commodity, CO2, carbon dioxide, which, if we emit more of it, would make the world a greener and healthier place to live.

In summary, they want to regulate and tax emissions of a harmless, helpful gas which is a byproduct of energy production and enrich themselves in the process.  Those actions increase the price of all products and services which use energy, which includes essentially everything.  Taxes, fees and cost of compliance with regulations also increase.

Conveniently, the Supreme Court has already decided that the EPA is required by the Clean Air Act of 1963 to regulate CO2 and other “greenhouse gases.”  As required by that law, the EPA made its Final Determination, which was that CO2 is a hazard to the public health.  And the Supreme Court conveniently ruled that, under the Administrative Procedures Act of 1946, agencies like the EPA can to some extent write their own policies and regulations.

We have a self-reinforcing bureaucracy that wants to outlaw free speech and resistance to its policies.  Keep in mind that EPA and its administrators have been threatened with Contempt of Congress by Democrat and Republican controlled committees for failing to produce under subpoena the data and methods it used to make its determinations and EPA’s administrators have lied in Congressional hearings.

Isn’t this a conspiracy under the RICO laws?  Isn’t this a conspiracy which is designed to control trade and extract money under false pretenses?  Indeed, it is a very elaborate, well planned and played conspiracy.  And it is a fraud conspired in collusion with some very deep pockets.

There is a very, very large class of citizens who have suffered financially significant damages.  Where are those class action lawyers when you need them?   It is a case that the government should prosecute, except in all but one problematical definition.  It is a firestorm-hot criminal case that would draw celebrity lawyers and judges and create celebrity legal careers, to be followed by a very rich and historical civil case.  Except, the government must prosecute itself, and in this case government is unquestionably biased.  The one definition that is not met by the courts is a fair trial: how do citizens in this matter get a fair trial when their opponent is making and enforcing all the rules?

If not the courts, then in what venue could such a case be decided?  Could Congress handle this case?  It could repeal or reform the Clean Air Act and the Administrative Procedures Act, wherein  Congress delegated most of its responsibilities to the agencies of the Executive branch.  But environmental special interests lobby and contribute to congressional and presidential campaigns; almost all of them are conflicted.  If you surmise that we have regressed to the corrupt bureaucracy of the Roman Empire, you would be correct.

The venue must be the court of public opinion.  Virtually all polls show that global warming/climate change is at the bottom of the public’s priorities, despite millions of dollars and years spent to convince the public otherwise.  Common sense rules and in this case, the public smells a rat.  We need a referendum process to re-regulate the EPA, and to severely downsize it and de-leverage it.  And who will enforce anti-trust laws on the federal government?  Congress is not doing it.  An Article V convention of the states is one possible venue.

(1)  http://www.nationalreview.com/planet-gore/252703/rip-al-gores-chicago-climate-exchange-has-died-greg-pollowitz

(2) http://canadafreepress.com/article/obamas-involvement-in-chicago-climate-exchange-the-rest-of-the-story

(3) http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/printgroupProfile.asp?grpid=7526

If you want to go backwards to the days of mad King George of England, whom the American Revolution defeated, and back to policies of all the other despotic kings and queens, if you want to go backwards to the medieval tyrannies of Islam, Catholic, Jewish, Shinto Buddhist and other religions, if you want to backwards to the rigid caste, class-based societies still prevalent in European countries, India and elsewhere, then stay or become a “progressive, a Democrat or a RINO.  But don’t lie to yourself.

I always try to put “progressive” in quotes because in almost all cases the true meaning is regressive or reactionary.  The practical meaning of “progressive” today is counter-revolutionary, counter to the American Revolution.  “Progressives” work for your inequality under the law and your financial and practical enslavement to nanny state governments which they control.

If you want to grow to realize your self, your family, your community and your nation, and all that is possible for you in these relationships, then you will want to be free from “progressives” and that means to understand and practice the freedom expressed in this profound quote from Calvin Coolidge, the 30th President of the United States of America.  Happy Independence Day!  Don’t squander this gift.

“If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers.” Calvin Coolidge, July 4th, 1926.

Hat tip to David Chaney for the Coolidge quote.

Think again: “In fact, officers are at much greater risk from blacks than unarmed blacks are from police. Over the last decade, an officer’s chance of getting killed by a black has been 18.5 times higher than the chance of an unarmed black getting killed by a cop.”

Excellent article here by Heather Mac Donald of the Manhattan Institute in Imprimis

https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/the-danger-of-the-black-lives-matter-movement/

The pattern is so familiar. And still, almost no one is asking the fundamental questions: Why did the US and NATO remove Muammar Gaddafi and his regime? In what way was this violent and deadly action important to U.S. national security? What was the U.S. national interest in Libya?

Investigating Benghazi ignores the problem of our reason for being in Libya and then in Benghazi and, after U.S. having already taken nefarious actions, investigates which band-aid to use after being being injured.

“The pattern is familiar: When news first breaks, say what needs to be said to escape the news cycle unscathed. Next, when the truth starts to emerge, deny wrongdoing and state that any comprehensive judgment should be withheld pending a full investigation. When the investigation commences, stonewall the investigators and accuse conservatives of being “obsessed” or on a “witch hunt.” By the time wrongdoing is finally confirmed beyond any reasonable doubt, the average voter will have forgotten why the scandal was a scandal to begin with, or, if he hasn’t forgotten — and actually did withhold judgment — the waters will have become so muddied he won’t know whom to believe.” (1)

Elizabeth Stuart contributes: “There will be people who will take up the “nothing new, no new evidence” mantra, and repeat it at every occasion as if it were the most insightful set of words ever. Every news story in every rag and mainstream broadcast will contain this phrase as if it was the only logical thing to be said. They’ll say “the GOP is conducting a witchhunt, trying to destroy Hillary’s campaign. To that, the only response possible is, DUH! We’re not the GOP, so much as conservatives, and we’re not conducting a witchhunt because we, by God Almighty, found the witch already. It’s not like she was hiding. Her name is Hillary, aka, “the pantsuited one”!

Washington D.C., mainstream media, and especially liberals and so-called “progressives” do not have the intellectual integrity to investigate – much less to stop – the continuing regime change wars in Libya, Syria, Egypt, Ukraine, and other countries. Benghazi was just a minor symptom of our collective corruption as a nation. Whether we like it or not, we are the evil empire.

Read more at:

(1) http://www.nationalreview.com/article/437262/hillary-clinton-benghazi-scandal-how-she-survived

“To be clear, so there is no confusion, anyone who believes that it is okay to plunder others’ property and that it is somehow acceptable to coerce others to their own ideological will, is not my friend. Now, if one desires to read what I write to understand the principles of liberty and freedom applied, contrasted with the ideologies of hatred, plunder, coercion, and evil–i.e. collectivism*–carry on. However, to attempt to promote collectivism of any genre’ in my domain will not be received kindly. The only ‘free’ that matters is individual liberty. All other promises of ‘free’ and ‘guaranteed’ this and that from the State, are simply promises of increasing tyranny to individuals and producers. Charlatans like Sanders and Clinton are simply peddling the age old evil of ‘we’re here to take care of you’, disguising their planned plunder of all to fund their disingenuous ‘charity’ and mostly their own wealth and power. Further, any other candidate from any party who promises to use the State to fix everything, is either naive or peddling another form of collectivism, be it fascism, communism, Statism itself, or any other hybrid. Now, if one is so naive as to believe in the socialist, collectivist rhetoric, I feel for them. But, that feeling of sadness for their foolishness and misguided understanding of historical reality goes away when their ignorance and foolishness impacts myself, my family, and future generations of Americans. To be clear, all forms of collectivism are simply evil, as they, at the core, institutionalize the coercion and plunder of all and always eventually enable a ruling oligarchic elite to tyrannize all for their own power and gain. Finally, to be clear, I didn’t force this need on my part to fight daily to restore and sustain individual liberty in America. The Collectivist in Chief and his many comrades who have accelerated the collectivization of America have forced my hand into a very strong and unwavering repudiation of their evil. Hopefully this helps anyone understand where I stand and where our ‘friendship’ stands. Carry on.” DM Chaney “Thoughts on Liberty” (Drafts)