Florida joins California suit against EPA

As expected, Florida has joined California's lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency over the right to regulate vehicle emissions as a way to combat global warming. To read more, go to our sister blog, the Fueling Station.

--Craig Pittman

w

Comments

because the chip knows EVERYTHING gas&oilrelated -- forgetting for just a moment he tanked THREE "awl bidnesses" and broke sec rules with at least one of them -- florida and all these states will have to spend money to make the epa do what is supposed to do.

lies about war
lies about economy
lies about energy
lies about environment

this creature cannot open his yap without LYING!!

[Sick of Irresponsible GOP]

GOP environmental effort in FL:

1. Cut taxes and thereby gut state regualtory efforts.
2. Challenge and eliminate Federal regulatory efforts.
3. Now the corporations can do exactly as they please.

Problem Solved!

There has to be a photo op in this for Chuck!

That's all this is -- a press release and photo op. No way the legislature passes these restrictions.

[Charlis is a joke, yall]

And all of you thought a single man who supports abortion rights would be a conservative.

Bottom's up, Y'all.

[Bottom's up, Y'all]

By Patrick J. Michaels
Published 2/5/2008 12:07:29 AM
The Washington Post recently ran a shocking above-the-fold article warning us of "Escalating Ice Loss Found in Antarctica." A new paper by Eric Rignot of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory shows a net loss of ice where most scientists thought the opposite would occur.

The Post went full-bore with this one, spreading the article on to an entire interior page. The piece ends by noting that Rajenda Pachauri, head of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), is so concerned that he's is personally going down to inspect the situation.

He should. Before he even gets to Antarctica, Pachauri is going to see something even more surprising than Rignot's finding. Despite a warming Southern Ocean, the amount of ice surrounding Antarctica is now at the highest level ever measured for this time of the year, since satellites first began to monitor it almost thirty years ago. This represents a continuation of the record set last winter (our summer).

Thanks to the miracles of modern technology, we can also look at the departure from the average for ice mass in a given month. At present, the coverage of ice surrounding Antarctica is almost exactly two million square miles above where it is historically supposed to be at this time of year. It's farther above normal than it has ever been for any month in climatologic records. Around now, because it's summer down there and the ice is headed towards its annual low point, there should be about seven million square miles of it. That means, as data in University of Illinois' web publication Cryosphere Today shows, that there is nearly 30% more ice down in Antarctica than usual for this time of the year.

All of the IPCC's models of Antarctica in the 21st century forecast a gain in ice, as a warmer surrounding ocean evaporates more water, which subsequently falls in the form of snow when it hits the continent. It's simply too cold for rain in Antarctica, and it'll stay that way for a very long time.

Concerning Antarctica as a whole, the IPCC's new climate compendium notes "the lack of warming reflected in atmospheric temperatures averaged across the region." Other studies, such as Peter Doran's in Nature in 2003, show actual cooling in recent decades. (There is a small area of significant warming in the peninsula that points towards South America, but this is less than 2% of Antarctica's total land mass.)

There's brand new evidence, just published in mid-January in Geophysical Research Letters, of a striking increase in snowfall over that peninsula. The few snowfall records that are available elsewhere in Antarctica show considerable variation from decade to decade, so discriminating the "signal" of increased snowfall caused by global warming from all the rest of the "noise" may be very difficult indeed.

We see the same problem with hurricanes and global warming. Their strength and numbers vary considerably from year to year. 2005 was the most active year ever measured in the Atlantic Basin, while 2007 was one of the weakest in history. How do you find the fingerprint of global warming amidst such variation?

So it's not warming up, and the snowfall data are equivocal, yet the continent is experiencing a net loss of ice. How can this be, and is it even important? The current hypothesis is that warmer waters beneath the surface are somehow loosening the ice. That's plausible, but again, there's precious little proof of it.

And further, the bottom line is that there is more ice than ever surrounding Antarctica.

One of the tired tropes that reverberate throughout global warming reporting is that inconvenient facts get left out. In this case, it's blatant. Midway through the Post's page-long article comes a statement that "these new findings come as the Arctic is losing ice at a dramatic rate." Wouldn't that have been an appropriate place to note that, despite a small recent loss of ice from the Antarctic landmass, the ice field surrounding Antarctica is now larger than ever measured?

We need a national cap on carbon emissions, similar to what the Democratic Presidential Candidates are proposing. It is the only way to realistically combat global warming, forcing red states to adhere to national standards. I support a 20 percent decrease by 2012 and 80 percent by 2050. What does your U.S. Senator or Representative support?

2:35 If your Senator or Representative is a GOP, they support hiding behind wacko fringe science reports intended to prove that global warming is a hoax. Like the one posted by 2:17, for example.

As Bill Clinton says -- we have to slow our economy to prevent global warming. So are all the Democrats in favor of a permanent US recession to appease the Chicken Littles of global warming?

I support a selective recession - for certain industries which are obviously reaping huge profits by influencing the Republicans to ignore the problem of global warming. I would also point out that the GOP is all in favor of a sudden global disaster rather than a slow recession, as they are already proving by their policies which are designed to feather their own nests while abandoning the vast majority of both parties to be left behind to suffer the consequences.

[Brett L]

Great. Maybe we can experience California style (ie negative) commercial growth. I'm soo glad Charlie picked the Governator as his role model. I'm sure this will help our budget crisis become permanent.

[How to stop global warming]

Get a big super duper rocket and blast it at the Sun and knock her so hard that it bounces back some h'reds of miles so that those damn sun spots don't heat up this earth.

It's hot out here, y'all.

3:25

would you support a "selective" recession if your job was in one of those industries?

jackass

This is unbelievable! How stupid can Charlie be???

[Bottom's up, Y'all]

It's hot out there and we are all gonna die, y'all.

[Bottom's Up, Y'all]

I know this from a good and respected source, but Charlie has been drinkning the cool-aid from the liberal fascists. Some even say it is AL Gore who made up the grape concoction. And Charlie drank every last drop, y'all.

Thank you Governor Crist. There are many of your Republican supporters who are darn glad there is finally a Republican who gives a d a m n about the environment. I am sick of the special interests and lobbyist on this post. The real Republican every day citizens are with you.

[It's Al Gore, Y'all]

We are on a little itty bitty planet and we have doomed it. The Sun, of course, has nothing to do with it. And did y'all see that it is snowing in China--worst in 100 years and it's damn cold. Put more coal on the fire baby--cause it's cold outside, y'all.

[It's Ark time, Y'all]

Al Gore, having heard from his Global Warming God (some say it's not a divine figure, but Leo DiCaprio has Gore captivated with his eyes or brain or something) is building an ArK and he is reserving a spot for Charlie "I sweat alot because of Global Warming" Crist as first mate or something.

It's hot out there yall.

Thank you Governor Crist. We can't keep crapping in our own nest.

It is amazing to me that grown-ups actually buy in to the Al Gore fairy tale!

[It's still hot out there]

I need an iced tea with a ginger snap, y'all.

[The chicken or the egg]

Did the CO2 levels rise before each and every global warming occurence since creation, or did it rise after because the warming period allowed life to flourish (high CO2 means alot of life going on---not like mars or venus--with no life at all). Maybe the rising CO2 actually cooled the earth if it was a lag effect.

[Question]

Is Al Gore a Martian? He does look like an alien. Or maybe he is just a scientologist.

“It is amazing to me that grown-ups actually buy in to the Al Gore fairy tale!”

It is amazing to me that grown-ups who attacked Gore for claiming to have invented the internet, now accuse him of inventing Global Warming!

You pinheads don’t know if you’re coming or going anymore, do you?

[it's the weather, y'all]

it's still hot out here, y'all. but that because it's an election year and all that hot air is increasing the global mean temperature. shouldn't we tax politicians for causing this, y'all.

and shouldn't we tax politicians for stilling from social security to pay for their pet pork projects, y'all.

Y'all, it's Kool Aid, not Cool aid. U fool. You know? Y'all