Australian climatologist: Humans have been warming the planet "at the rate of four Hiroshima bombs of heat every second"

Down under, the global warming alarmists must be quite desperate, if they think that this kind of arguments will convince anybody:

The planet has been building up temperatures at the rate of four Hiroshima bombs of heat every second, and it's all our fault, say climate scientists.

Hurricane Katrina and superstorm Sandy are just two examples of how extreme weather will intensify, Australia's Climate Action Summit has heard.

Humans are emitting more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than any other time in history, says John Cook, Climate Communication Fellow from the Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland.

"All these heat-trapping greenhouse gases in our atmosphere mean ... our planet has been building up heat at the rate of about four Hiroshima bombs every second - consider that going continuously for several decades.''

Read the entire article here

Finally, some good news about shale gas in Poland

Lately,  most reports about shale gas exploration in Poland have been negative. That's why it is nice to have some good news:

Wisent Oil and Gas, partly owned by Poland's Petrolinvest and the U.S. Hallwood Resources, found its initial shale oil and gas operations in Poland promising and decided on further drilling, the company said on Friday.

Its decision to hire the Warsaw based United Oilfield Services for drilling comes in a time when hopes for shale gas in Poland have diminished after three global firms left disappointed with poor drilling results and an uncertain legal environment.

Until now 46 wells have been drilled in Poland, with few key hydraulic fracturing processes taking place on more than 100 licences awarded to companies, but experts say that hundreds of wells are needed to show whether shale gas output is profitable.

The European Court of Auditors again criticizes the wasteful ways of Brussels bigwigs

One good reason to say no to the European Union is the continuous waste of taxpayers' going on in Brussels . The EU's main  audit authority, the European Court of Auditors, has in the past criticized the a great number of wasteful EU projects, but to no avail. 

Yes, the the Brussels bigwigs always promise to take action in order to stop the waste, but in reality almost nothing gets done. 

In this year's report the audit authority has found a lot to criticize about in the lavish aid given to Egypt: 

Egypt is one of the largest recipients of E.U. aid under a program called the European Neighborhood Policy, which seeks to promote stability and democracy among 16 recipients, including the Palestinian territories and Belarus.

In the case of Egypt, up to €600 million, or $800 million, of direct aid to support sectors like health and education could not be properly traced because of the lack of an adequate audit trail, according to the European Court of Auditors, an E.U. body that reviews major areas of spending by the bloc.

The audit agency’s criticism will sting the E.U. authorities — in particular Catherine Ashton, the bloc’s foreign policy chief, and Stefan Fule, its commissioner for the neighborhood policy — at a time when they and their colleagues are under unprecedented pressure to justify their effectiveness amid rising disenchantment with the European Union.

“The softly-softly approach has not worked, and the time has come for a more focused approach which will produce meaningful results and guarantee better value for the European taxpayers’ money,” Karel Pinxten, a member of the court, told reporters.

The report by the court will also call into question whether the European Union is keeping close enough tabs on spending for Egypt worth about €5 billion that was agreed to in November 2012 during a meeting between Ms. Ashton and the Egyptian president, Mohamed Morsi.

The court, which publishes up to 20 so-called special reports each year focusing on major areas of E.U. expenditure, said its criteria for success were whether aid had been effective in improving management of public finances, reducing corruption and promoting human rights and democracy.

But Ms. Ashton’s and Mr. Fule’s departments had failed to use their leverage to promote those goals, and they failed, even once the lack of progress had become apparent, to take “decisive action to ensure accountability for considerable E.U. funds,” the court said in a statement summarizing its 50-page report.

Ms. Ashton’s department also failed to use its leverage to counteract the “negative attitude of Egyptian authorities” to encourage greater respect for human rights and democracy, the statement said.

The findings, which cover the period from 2007 through September 2012, call into question a European approach to development aid, known as budget support, that relies on transferring large amounts of money directly to recipient governments in countries like Egypt. The bloc was the only major donor giving that kind of direct support to Egypt, the court’s report noted.

Read the entire NYT article here

Researchers in Finland have found a way to combat global warming: Reindeer!

Could Rudolf be the solution in the fight against disastrous global warming?

Researchers at the University of Turku, Finland, have found a way to protect humanity from dangerous global warming - Reindeer! 

According to Professor Lauri Oksanen of the University of Turku, grazing by reindeer keep arctic vegetation in check, thus reducing the solar heat absorption that leads to a self-reinforcing cycle of climate change.

Snow cover and mostly barren tundra reflect large portions of the sun's rays. When darker shrubs and trees spring up in arctic areas they absorb more energy, heating up their surroundings and the earth's atmosphere.

Researchers in Finland have now carried out a comparison between an area in Norway where reindeer are not allowed to graze in the summer, and a similar area in Finland where grazing reindeer have kept shrubs and tree from growing.

They have found that the heat radiated by the overgrown area in Norway is at a much higher level.

"The heat difference between what happens there and in the Finnish area during three spring months, March, April and May, would be enough to melt a cubic kilometre of ice. That is no small matter,” explains Professor Lauri Oksanen.

(image by wikipedia)

The Washington Post on Barack Obama's failed "reset" policy with dictator Putin's mafia state

Barack Obama is clearly unable or unwilling to admit that his "reset" policy with Vladimir Putin's mafia state is a complete failure. During his tour of Europe this week, Obama has portrayed the corrupt Russian dictator as somebody with whom he can build a "constructive,cooperative relationship". Nothing could be further from the truth. 

The Washington Post's editorial is spot on: 

Neither in that speech nor in his joint public appearance with Mr. Putin on Monday did Mr. Obama make any reference to Russian politics or human rights.

This is a vision entirely at odds with Mr. Putin’s record since he returned to the office of president last year. In an attempt to suppress swelling protests against his rigged reelection and the massively corrupt autocracy he presides over, Mr. Putin has launched what both Russian and Western human rights groups describe as the most intense and pervasive campaign of political repression since the downfall of the Soviet Union. Not just opposition leaders but also former senior Kremlin officials have been prosecuted or driven into exile; independent civic and human rights groups are being systematically stripped of funding and legal protection.

Having lost the support of the urban middle class in cities such as Moscow and St. Petersburg, Mr. Putin has been fortifying his base among Russia’s nationalists and Orthodox Christians. That means basing his foreign policy on anti-Americanism. U.S. aid programs have been shut down and Americans banned from adopting Russian children. An intense propaganda campaign is being waged by government-backed media, one of which recently claimed that the Obama administration has secretly allied with al-Qaeda. More substantively, Mr. Putin has devoted himself to thwarting the Western goal of regime change in Syria, a stance that serves his political goals at home as much as it does in the Middle East.

Unless and until President Bashar al-Assad loses Syria’s civil war — something Russia is trying to prevent with massive supplies of weapons — Mr. Putin will not alter this stance. Nor is he likely to seriously engage with Mr. Obama on the proposed reductions of nuclear weapons. Instead, he will use the issue to demand a dismantling of NATO’s missile defense architecture in Europe. Any serious progress on economic and commercial issues would require the Kremlin to purge corrupt bureaucrats and end its shakedowns of foreign firms — yet there, too, Mr. Putin is headed in the opposite direction.

It makes sense to maintain lines of communication with the Russian leader. But a strategy of silence on human rights in hope of cutting deals is neither realistic nor pragmatic. In fact, it is starry-eyed in its stubborn optimism, in spite of all the evidence, that bargains in keeping with U.S. interests remain likely.

"The Hotel Carbon Measurement Initiative" - another fake environmentalist project

An organization calling itself the International Tourism Partnership (ITP), working together with the World Travel & Tourism Council and 23 hospitality companies, has introduced the latest humbug in the hotel business, "The Hotel Carbon Measurement Initiative". The director of ITP claims that corporate customers are "increasingly hungry for this information":

A new carbon initiative has been adopted by over 15,000 hotels around the world, according to BreakingTravelNews.com. The Hotel Carbon Measurement Initiative allows them to calculate and communicate the carbon footprint of guests' hotel stays and meetings in a way that is consistent and transparent.

The measurement was developed by the International Tourism Partnership, the World Travel & Tourism Council and 23 leading global hospitality companies to bring this new methodology to their properties and to communicate the new initiative to a wide range of stakeholders, which includes industry associations, certification bodies and corporate customers. ++

"The industry's willingness and ability to come together to make sense of the carbon issue, for the benefit of the customer, is a significant achievement and a great example of practical, effective collaboration on a critical environmental concern," Stephen Farrant, the director of ITP, said. "With such a high volume of hotels globally now measuring their carbon footprint in a consistent way, and with corporate customers increasingly hungry for this information, this is a great step forward on World Environment Day."

Fortunately there are more than 500,000 other hotels in the world, which have chosen not to participate in this fake environmentalist project. However, Mr. Farrant could actually be right about corporate customers being hungry for the information about which hotels have chosen to join his Carbon Measurement humbug - in order to avoid them them in the future. 

A former East German "secretary for agitation and propaganda" welcoming the US President

Obama and Merkel behind a wall of armored glass at the Brandeburger Gate.

US President Barack Obama, who is on his first official visit to Germany, was this afternoon -on the previous East German side of the Brandenburger Gate - welcomed by a former secretary for "agitation and propaganda" of the DDR Communist Party youth organization Freie Deutsche Jugend at the Academy of Sciences in East Berlin (who also happens to be the present German chancellor). 

While listening to Merkel praising the fight for freedom (in which she played no part) in the Soviet satellite DDR, the President apparently felt a need to demonstrate the informal nature of this official visit, by quenching his thirst in this way:

Or was it that the hosts had forgotten to provide glasses?


PS

The speeches at the Brandenburger Gate were of course full of praise for the "close relationship" between the two countries. The sad reality is, however, that Germany has for years chosen not to be a close ally of the United States.