Record high in US in 2013 say Big Government is Greatest Threat, Democrats and Independents at 56% and 71% up from 48% and 64% in 2011-Gallup poll

Tweet .
56% of democrats and 71% of independents in 2013 up from 48% and 64% in 2011. 92% of Republicans in 2013 say Big Government is biggest threat. Scroll down for last chart showing 2009 and 2011.

12/18/13, "Record High in U.S. Say Big Government Greatest Threat," Gallup poll, Jeffrey M. Jones

"Now 72% say it is greater threat than big business or big labor."

"Seventy-two percent of Americans say big government is a greater threat to the U.S. in the future than is big business or big labor, a record high in the nearly 50-year history of this question. The prior high for big government was 65% in 1999 and 2000. Big government has always topped big business and big labor, including in the initial asking in 1965, but just 35% named it at that time.

The latest update comes from a Dec. 5-8 poll. Gallup has documented a steady increase in concern about big government since 2009, rising from 55% in March 2009 to 64% in November 2011 and 72% today.

2013 by Political party

This suggests that government policies specific to the period, such as the Affordable Care Act -- perhaps coupled with recent revelations of government spying tactics by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden -- may be factors.

Currently, 21% name big business as the greatest threat, while 5%, a record low, say big labor. The high point for big labor was 29% in 1965. No more than 11% of Americans have chosen big labor since 1995, clearly reflecting the decline of the labor movement in the United States in recent decades.

The historical high choosing big business, 38%, came in 2002, after a series of corporate scandals rocked major corporations including Enron and Tyco. Also at that time, Americans may have been less willing to choose government given the rally in support for government institutions and officials after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Americans were also more likely to view big business as a big threat during the recent recession, with more than three in 10 choosing it in 2008 and 2009, a time when many large corporations, including financial and automotive companies, failed or were in danger of failing without government intervention. But fewer Americans now view big business as a threat -- the current 21% is the lowest Gallup has measured since 1983....

Each party group currently rates big government as the greatest threat to the country, including a record-high 92% of Republicans and 71% of independents, as well as 56% of Democrats. Democrats are most likely of the partisan groups to name big business as the biggest threat, at 36%; relatively few Republicans, 4%, view big business as the most threatening.

Democrats are more likely to see
government as a threat when a Republican is in office; however, they tend to see government as less threatening than Republicans do, and their concern about big government topped out at 62% in 2005 under Bush. During the Johnson, Nixon, Carter, and Reagan administrations, party differences were much more modest than they are today. ...

Implications

Americans have consistently viewed big government as a greater threat to the United States than either big business or big labor, but never more than they do now. That may be partly a reaction to an administration that favors the use of government to solve problems. Also, the revelation of widespread government monitoring of U.S. Internet activity may be a factor in raising Americans' concern about the government. The threat of big business may seem diminished now, during a relatively calm period for big business, with rising stock values and relatively few major corporate scandals such as occurred in the early 2000s. Also, the labor movement is far less influential in U.S. policy today than in the past, including in 1965, when Gallup first asked the question.

In the future, Americans likely will continue to view big government as the greatest threat of the three, partly because of Republicans' reluctance to rely on government to solve problems, and because Democrats and independents are also inclined to view big government as a greater threat than big business or big labor. But the percentage of Americans viewing big government as the greatest threat will also likely to continue to vary, in response to current conditions in the political and business environments."

=================================

Comment: Big business and big labor may seem "less influential" today as stated above but the two partner with federal government today so in important ways are more powerful than ever. The article cites "rising stock prices" as a reason people may not be upset with big business. This may be so but again not reality. Today's stock prices are more a reflection of federal reserve actions, not business health. ed.

=================================

"The Gallup poll was conducted from Dec. 5 to 8 and was based on interviews with more than 1,000 people across the country."

12/18/13, "Gallup: Record high fear 'big government'," The Hill, Julian Hattem

"A record number of Americans think that “big government” is the biggest threat to the country, according to a new poll.

The Gallup survey released on Wednesday showed that 72 percent of people say that “big government” is a bigger threat to the country than “big labor” or “big business.”

That’s the highest percentage of Americans who have expressed the preference since the pollster began asking the question in 1965.

According to the poll, just 21 percent of Americans cite “big business” as the greatest threat to the country, and only 5 percent have concerns about “big labor.”

The recent wariness about the government could be partly due to troubles with the recent rollout of ObamaCare, as well as revelations about surveillance from the National Security Agency (NSA), Gallup noted.

Though Republicans have driven the recent trend and are more concerned about government overreach, they are not alone. The survey found that 56 percent of Democrats and 71 percent of independents also fear “big government.”

The new findings chart a steady increase in concern about the government over recent years, since a low point in 2001 that could be partly attributable to sentiments following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The size of the federal government has certainly grown in recent years.

Though there are only imperfect metrics of measuring the pace of regulatory activity at the federal government, most accounts show that federal power is increasing every year.

Fears about "big government" have always topped the poll since Gallup began asking the question nearly 50 years ago.

The previous high mark for Americans’ concerns about the federal government was in 1999 and 2000, when 65 percent of the public said they feared it more than labor or business.

The Gallup poll was conducted from Dec. 5 to 8 and was based on interviews with more than 1,000 people across the country." via Free Republic

==================================

In 2011 democrats dissatisfaction with big government increased to 48% up from 32% in 2009:

12/12/11, "In U.S., Fear of Big Government at Near-Record Level,"
Gallup poll, Elizabeth Mendes

By polit. party, trend

In 2011, "Democrats lead increase in concerns about big government."
 
"Americans' concerns about the threat of big government continue to dwarf those about big business and big labor, and by an even larger margin now than in March 2009. The 64% of Americans who say big government will be the biggest threat to the country is just one percentage point shy of the record high, while the 26% who say big business is down from the 32% recorded during the recession. Relatively few name big labor as the greatest threat....

Democrats Lead Increase in Concern About Big Government

Almost half of Democrats now say big government is the biggest threat to the nation, more than say so about big business, and far more than were concerned about big government in March 2009. The 32% of Democrats concerned about big government at that time -- shortly after President Obama took office -- was down significantly from a reading in 2006, when George W. Bush was president.

By contrast, 82% of Republicans and 64% of independents today view big government as the biggest threat, slightly higher percentages than Gallup found in 2009.

Lower percentages of Democrats, Republicans, and independents are now concerned about big business than was the case in 2009."...chart above from Gallup, 12/12/11





 .

December 7, 1941, 2400 Americans were killed by the Japanese at Pearl Harbor. This began World War II

Tweet

"On the morning of Sunday, December 7, 1941, Japanese bombers, fighter planes, and torpedo planes attacked the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. This sneak attack brought the United States into World War II."

"Tactically, Pearl Harbor was a U.S. defeat. In all, more than 2,400 soldiers, sailors and Marines were killed and almost 1,200 wounded, as well as more than 1,000 civilians, most of them by U.S. anti-aircraft artillery shells landing in residential areas.
.

Dad with his Stearman biplane

In all, eight battleships were sunk or damaged so badly it took years for them to be repaired. Two, including the USS Arizona, were total losses. In addition, 10 other major ships were heavily damaged. In addition, 165 airplanes were destroyed.

Japanese losses numbered 185 airmen and sailors, 29 aircraft, five mini-submarines and a large submarine.

But the Japanese miscalculated. Their primary target, the U.S. Navy's aircraft carriers, were out of the harbor on exercises. And when initial reports of success and fear that a response by U.S. forces was imminent led to cancellation of a planned third strike, the Imperial Japanese navy left largely undamaged the vital fuel tank farms and submarine facility at Pearl Harbor.

The carriers, their vital fuel intact, and the long arm of the submarine fleet would take the war home to the Japanese. What began at Pearl Harbor ended with Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It took almost four years, but Pearl Harbor ended up as a strategic victory for the United States."

12/6/13, "Pearl Harbor memories fading with time," USA Today, John Andrew Prime. top image from National Archives. Image of pilot is my father and a Stearman biplane in the 1940's. He was an Air Force pilot, flew missions in the Pacific, B-29's, and sometimes biplanes. He's still living as of December 7, 2013 and is 91. At the end of the war, he flew to Guam and picked up some surviving American soldiers who had been captured by the Japanese. He says the men weren't in very good shape.

• Born in Brooklyn, 1922.

.

Global warming 'pause' is widely accepted by scientists, so it's vital to ask if government will 'pause' its expensive use of taxpayer dollars to 'cure' it until picture becomes clearer-BBC News program, Neil

Tweet A BBC discussion suggests a pause in confiscation of taxpayer dollars for CO2 induced terror that's not happening. Temperatures have remained flat since 1998, while CO2 has increased globally (though US CO2 emissions have plunged). Billions of taxpayer dollars were diverted based on predictions that didn't happen which "peer reviewed literature regards as established yet unexplained:"

7/22/13, "Andrew Neil on Ed Davey climate change interview critics," BBC, Andrew Neil

Multi-billion dollar "spending decisions, paid for by consumers and taxpayers...might not have been taken (at least to the same degree or with the same haste) if global warming was not quite the imminent threat it has been depicted....The recent standstill in global temperatures is a puzzle. Experts do not know why it is occurring or how long it will last....There is no consensus. Extensive peer-reviewed literature regards it as established yet unexplained. It is widely accepted that the main climate models which inform government policy did not predict it."...(subhead, "Reputable evidence") 

"The Sunday Politics interview with Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Davey on July 14 provoked widespread reaction in the twittersphere and elsewhere, which was only to be expected given the interview was about the latest developments in global warming and the implications for government policy. 

The Sunday Politics remit and interview duration means we are able to carry out proper forensic interviews on such matters....Many of the criticisms of the Davey interview seem to misunderstand the purpose of a Sunday Politics interview.
 
This was neatly summed up in a Guardian blog by Dana Nuccitelli, who works for a multi-billion dollar US environmental business (Tetra Tech) and writes prodigiously about global warming and related matters from a very distinct perspective.    

He finished by saying: "[Andrew] Neil focussed only on the bits of evidence that seemed to support his position".

This is partly right. We did come at Mr Davey with a particular set of evidence, which was well-sourced from mainstream climate science. But it was nothing to do with advocating a "position".
 
First, the Sunday Politics does not have a position on any of the subjects on which it interrogates people. Second, it is the job of the interviewer to assemble evidence from authoritative sources which best challenge the position of the interviewee. There is hardly any purpose in presenting evidence which supports the interviewee's position - that is his or her job.
 
It is for viewers to decide how well the interviewee's position holds up under scrutiny and the strength of the contrary evidence or points put to him or her.
 
Reputable evidence
 
It is how the Sunday Politics approaches all the longer forensic interviews on the programme, no matter the subject or the interviewee. It is how it will approach any future interview with a leading light of the global warming sceptic camp. They can expect just as fair, forensic and robust an interview as Mr Davey.

Taking an opposite or challenging position from the person being interviewed is pretty much standard practice in long-form broadcast interviews.

But the contrary position has to be based on reputable evidence. The Guardian blog and other critics on Twitter alleged that the challenges put to Mr Davey were based on errors, false evidence or parroted the perspective of "deniers". That is untrue.

The main purpose of the interview was to establish if the government thought the recent and continuing pause in global temperatures meant it should re-think its policies in response to global warming.

This is a vital policy issue since the strategy of this government and the previous Labour government to decarbonise the economy involves multi-billion pound spending decisions, paid for by consumers and taxpayers, which might not have been taken (at least to the same degree or with the same haste) if global warming was not quite the imminent threat it has been depicted. 

It might also be argued that challenging interviews on matters in which there is an overwhelming consensus in Westminster - but not necessarily among voters who pay for both the licence fee and the government's energy policies - is a particularly legitimate purpose of public-service broadcasting.

No consensus

The recent standstill in global temperatures is a puzzle. Experts do not know why it is occurring or how long it will last. 

Climate scientists have proffered a variety of possible explanations. But there is no consensus. 

Extensive peer-reviewed literature regards it as established yet unexplained. It is widely accepted that the main climate models which inform government policy did not predict it (which raises interesting issues of the models' predictions about the future course of temperatures).

For many climate scientists the plateau - which may or may not have long-term significance - has come as something of a surprise. 

Recently Nature, which has published extensively on global warming, called it one of climate science's greatest mysteries.

So it is legitimate to ask if the government takes the pause seriously and if it has any implications for policy ie, if there is a pause in warming, is there a case for the government to pause or slowdown its expensive efforts to decarbonise the economy until the picture becomes clearer?

The graph we presented illustrating the temperature plateau was not constructed by the Sunday Politics but taken from a website, produced by Phil Jones, a leading figure at the Climate Research Unit, University of East Anglia, which works closely with the UK Met Office and whose work, especially on temperature measurements, has done so much to inform government policy here and abroad. The basis of the graph can be found here.

The graph we presented on screen is pretty much identical to the post-1980 data in the graph created by the CRU. It is based on HadCRUT 3 data rather than HadCRUT 4, but the discrepancy between the two is small.

We made it clear on air that the graph had been "smoothed" - not by us but by the CRU - to iron out fluctuations and to highlight the trend.

This is legitimate for TV when viewers only have a view seconds to take in a visual. We used this graph in the belief that the CRU would not do the smoothing in a manner that distorted either the post-1980s rise or the post late-1990s plateau in temperatures.

Man-made heating
 
We chose 1980 as the start date for the graph because that is roughly when the IPCC says man-made warming became the dominant factor in global temperature rises.

The IPCC said in 2007: "The rapid warming observed since the 1970s has occurred in a period when the increase in greenhouse gases has dominated over all other factors."

It said that, prior to then in the 20th century, any man-made heating was offset by other natural variations in the climate; but that human-released greenhouse gasses are the dominant explanation of the rise in temperatures post the 1970s.

Global temperatures between 1940-80 were broadly constant. They started rising in 1980; and especially here.

So it is reasonable to start the graph circa 1980 to show how temperatures rose thereafter - overwhelmingly as a result of greenhouse gasses, according to the IPCC - until the late 1990s; and then started to plateau, albeit at a high level compared with the rest of the 20th century.

Some have detected a slight decline in temperatures since circa 2004 but we did not dwell on that since it is statistically insignificant.

The 2007 IPCC study reported that the likely rise in equilibrium temperatures in response to a doubling of C02 in the atmosphere was between 2C and 4.5C, with 3C "most probable" (a slip of the tongue on air said 3%, but it was clear what was meant).

The plateau has made some climate scientists wonder about the efficacy of the IPCC central forecast, which has been seminal in informing official policy, and some are re-considering the IPCC's measurement of climate sensitivity i.e. the extent to which temperatures rise in response to any given amount of C02 emissions. 

There are reports in the media that the upcoming 2013 IPCC report might conclude that the climate is indeed more insensitive to emissions than previous concluded. We have no views on such matters, other than they are worthy of examination and debate - and have policy implications.

Mr Nuccitelli points out that temperatures have plateaued in the past, which is true. But since that was before, according to the IPCC, global warming became the dominant factor in temperature rises, it is not clear past plateaux are relevant to this debate; and the current hiatus is one of the longer ones.

It is also not clear from his blog if Mr Nuccitelli denies there is a plateau.

He has been a voluble exponent of a controversial "missing heat" theory that somehow the extra energy from global warming has started to bypass the atmosphere (hence the stalling in surface temperatures) and is storing up in the deep ocean; so perhaps he does accept the plateau.
 
Principle point
 
Mr Davey said in his interview - and others echoed the point later - that we should not concentrate just on land temperatures, but look at what was happening to ocean temperatures and the polar ice melt for evidence that global warming was continuing unabated.

This is a reasonable point. But in a 15-minute interview we wanted to stick with the metric that most viewers would understand and which has been used most to judge the course of global warming in public debate i.e. surface temperatures, which are central to the science and, for viewers, the principle point of interest.

At the Sunday Politics we are also used to public figures who try to change the metric when the one they've put their faith in does not behave as expected. We try not to let that happen.

Moreover, the purpose of the interview was not to question all aspects of climate science, just the one metric that has commanded most attention. Other possible indicators of climate change - ice melt, ocean temperatures and extreme weather events - are a matter of widespread debate in which the science most certainly is not "settled".

For example, trends in Arctic ice decline and ocean warming are not necessarily irrefutable evidence of continued global warming, though many climate scientists believe they are indeed caused by global warming.

Others point out that satellite observations began in 1979 and caught a decline in Arctic ice already in progress. So the origin of the decline could be many decades ago, and might not have been started by man (though global warming could now be exacerbating a previous "natural" melting trend).

There is evidence of great variability in sea ice in the Arctic from historical records and old newspaper cuttings from decades ago reporting the disappearance of the ice.

A new paper by the Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI) suggest that Greenland ice sheet melting is related to solar activity and "a considerable fraction of the current withdrawal could be a natural occurrence".

These are fascinating and contested matters and could easily be pursued in future interviews. The Sunday Politics has no views on their efficacy; but they are issues worthy of investigation and interrogation.

The question in the interview which stated that the Arctic ice melt this year is "normal" should have been qualified: it is normal in the sense of the much greater normal summer ice melt of recent years i.e. it has not got worse - but even that cannot be said for sure until September when the ice melt reaches its greatest extent. This illustrates that we cannot do justice to the canon of global warming in 15 minutes - and justifies the decision to stick to one well-known and crucial metric.

It is not true to say - though it was said by Mr Davey and subsequently - that we ignored ocean temperatures altogether. The HadCRUT data measures surface temperatures across the globe, including ocean surface temperatures.

There is a huge debate in climate science over the relationship between global warming and ocean temperatures. As pointed out above some scientists (and Mr Nuccitelli) believe that global warming is causing the depths of the oceans to heat up and that one day this heat will be released.

This is widely contested and even, by some, dismissed. The data is short-lived and contentious (the "warming" at depths of many hundreds of metres is being measured in hundredths of a degree C). We did not have time to go there in the interview.

We stuck to the advice of Professor Judith Curry, chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology and a world authority on global warming, that: "… the best (most mature, highest quality) data set for inferring recent climate change is the surface temperature data record."

Mr Nuccitelli is also one of the authors of the recent study of climate science abstracts which concludes that 97% of climate scientists are part of the global warming consensus.

This survey has been quoted several times by Mr Davey in interviews to assert that the science is "settled"; he did so again in our interview. It was reasonable to point out that the methodology and conclusions of the survey have been fiercely challenged by Prof Richard Tol, a respected academic quoted extensively in the Stern Report. Other academics have their misgivings.

There is now an argument underway between critics and authors about how much raw data they are prepared to make available for examination; and that neither the academic publication which carried it nor the Guardian will give Professor Tol a right of reply.

These are matters for academia. We simply wanted to point out, when Mr Davey called it in aid, that the survey, especially given the strongly partisan positions of the authors, is not uncontested.

More important, the survey's definition of "global warming consensus" is so wide as to include most who are regarded as sceptics, most of whom agree that global warming is happening and that there is a man-made contribution.

The survey was recently attacked in testimony to the US Congress by Dr Roy Spencer, Principal Research Scientist at the University of Alabama Hunstville, which carries out world-renowned and heavily-relied upon satellite measurements of global temperatures.

He told Congress the definition of consensus in the survey was so widely drawn as to be "innocuous" and would include him within the consensus even though he is often depicted by people like Mr Nuccitelli as being on the sceptical wing of climate science.

Unfounded claims

The differences that separate climate scientists even within the "consensus" are over the speed and extent of warming, the consequences (economic and environmental) and the importance of other climate factors which are not man-made and which may affect the climate's sensitivity to the rise in C02 emissions.

Only those who have been dismissed as "deniers" deny that man is playing any role whatsoever, though the word is often applied to sceptics too (and even, ridiculously, to the Sunday Politics!).

Contrary to many unfounded claims on Twitter, the research work behind our interview and the evidence it gathered was not influenced by any deniers. We relied on Nature magazine, the work of the Climate Research Unit, Professor Judith Curry of Georgia Tech and Professor Hans von Storch of Hamburg University among others, all of whom think man-made global warming is real and some of whom have been at the very heart of the climate science community. We quoted no deniers or even sceptics. All our evidence came from mainstream scientists who do not doubt the fundamental tenets of global warming.

Professor Tol is a climate economist. He has strong views on the economic impact of climate change. But we are not aware he denies it is happening.

At no stage in the interview was it ever claimed that global warming is not real or that it is not man-made. It is not for the Sunday Politics to take such positions.

 Our focus was on a global temperature plateau which could be a challenge to the forecasts of climate models which have determined government policy. The plateau could continue for the foreseeable future or melt away as temperatures resume their upward trajectory. 
 
The Sunday Politics has no views on such matters. We have put the existence of this plateau into the broader public domain. It is for others to determine its significance."

==================================

1/18/13, “Climate change: scientists puzzle over halt in global warming,” Der Spiegel, by Axel Bojanowski (translation from German)

"The British Met Office forecast even more recently that the temperature interval could continue at a high level until the end of 2017 - despite the rapidly increasing emissions of greenhouse gases. Then global warming would pause 20 years."..."The exact reasons of the temperature standstill since 1998, are not yet understood, says climate researcher Doug Smith of the Met Office."...






UK Met Office chart via Der Spiegel










.

Antarctic Ice Sheet projected to increase this century per UN IPCC 2007 report. UN IPCC says understanding is too limited to make best estimate about melting of other ice sheets such as Greenland

Tweet "For an average model, the scenario spread in sea level rise is only 0.02 m by the middle of the century."

UN IPCC, "Climate Change 2007: Working Group I: The Physical Science Basis," Chapter 10, Executive Summary, Sea Level

"Sea level is projected to rise between the present (1980–1999) and the end of this century (2090–2099) under the SRES B1 scenario by 0.18 to 0.38 m, B2 by 0.20 to 0.43 m, A1B by 0.21 to 0.48 m, A1T by 0.20 to 0.45 m, A2 by 0.23 to 0.51 m, and A1FI by 0.26 to 0.59 m. These are 5 to 95% ranges based on the spread of AOGCM results, not including uncertainty in carbon cycle feedbacks.... In all scenarios, the average rate of rise during the 21st century very likely exceeds the 1961 to 2003 average rate (1.8 ± 0.5 mm yr^–1).  

During 2090 to 2099 under A1B, the central estimate of the rate of rise is 3.8 mm yr^–1
.  
For an average model, the scenario spread in sea level rise is only 0.02 m by the middle of the century, and by the end of the century it is 0.15 m. 

Thermal expansion is the largest component, contributing 70 to 75% of the central estimate in these projections for all scenarios. Glaciers, ice caps and the Greenland Ice Sheet are also projected to contribute positively to sea level. General Circulation Models indicate that the Antarctic Ice Sheet will receive increased snowfall without experiencing substantial surface melting, thus gaining mass and contributing negatively to sea level."...

[Ed. note: Translation: No Antarctic melting is predicted, therefore no sea level rise is predicted from Antarctic melt. Antarctic growth is expected to lower sea levels.]

(continuing): "Further accelerations in ice flow of the kind recently observed in some Greenland outlet glaciers and West Antarctic ice streams could substantially increase the contribution from the ice sheets. For example, if ice discharge from these processes were to scale up in future in proportion to global average surface temperature change (taken as a measure of global climate change), it would add 0.1 to 0.2 m to the upper bound of sea level rise by 2090 to 2099. In this example, during 2090 to 2099 the rate of scaled-up Antarctic discharge would roughly balance the expected increased rate of Antarctic accumulation, being under A1B a factor of 5 to 10 greater than in recent years. Understanding of these effects is too limited to assess their likelihood or to give a best estimate.

Sea level rise during the 21st century is projected to have substantial geographical variability. The model median spatial standard deviation is 0.08 m under A1B. The patterns from different models are not generally similar in detail, but have some common features, including smaller than average sea level rise in the Southern Ocean, larger than average in the Arctic, and a narrow band of pronounced sea level rise stretching across the southern Atlantic and Indian Oceans."



.

Peer reviewed PNAS study acknowledges no global warming 1998-2008

Tweet .
7/5/11, "Reconciling anthropogenic climate change with observed temperature 1998–2008," PNAS.org

"Abstract"

"Given the widely noted increase in the warming effects of rising greenhouse gas concentrations, it has been unclear why global surface temperatures did not rise between 1998 and 2008. We find that this hiatus in warming coincides with a period of little increase in the sum of anthropogenic and natural forcings. Declining solar insolation as part of a normal eleven-year cycle, and a cyclical change from an El Nino to a La Nina dominate our measure of anthropogenic effects because rapid growth in short-lived sulfur emissions partially offsets rising greenhouse gas concentrations. As such, we find that recent global temperature records are consistent with the existing understanding of the relationship among global surface temperature, internal variability, and radiative forcing, which includes anthropogenic factors with well known warming and cooling effects.

Data for global surface temperature indicate little warming between 1998 and 2008 (1). Furthermore, global surface temperature declines 0.2 °C between 2005 and 2008. Although temperature increases in 2009 and 2010, the lack of a clear increase in global surface temperature between 1998 and 2008 (1), combined with rising concentrations of atmospheric CO₂ and other greenhouse gases, prompts some popular commentators (2, 3) to doubt the existing understanding of the relationship among radiative forcing, internal variability, and global surface temperature. This seeming disconnect may be one reason why the public is increasingly sceptical about anthropogenic climate change (4)."... 


"Robert K. Kaufmann^a,¹ ,Heikki Kauppi^b, Michael L. Mann^a, and James H. Stock^c"...

================================

Regarding aerosols:

Page 1 notes lack of scientific data on aerosols makes it impossible to accurately interpret global climate.

Jan. 15, 2013, “Global Temperature Update Through 2012, 15 January 2013,” Columbia University, J. Hansen, M. Sato, R. Rudy

(page 1): “Summary. …”The 5-year mean global temperature has been flat for a decade, which we interpret as a combination of natural variability and a slowdown in the growth rate of the net climate forcing….

(page 1, parag. 3): “The approximate stand-still of global temperature during 1940-1975 is generally attributed to an approximate balance of aerosol cooling and greenhouse gas warming during a period of rapid growth of fossil fuel use with little control on particulate air pollution, but satisfactory quantitative interpretation has been impossible because of the absence of adequate aerosol measurements 3,4.”…

-------------------------------------------------

Page 6 details problem predicting future “climate change” referenced on p. 1 above, ie lack of data on aerosols, and that the one US satellite designed to measure them crashed on takeoff and  no plans exist to restart the mission:

page 6, last parag. of report under sub-head, “Climate Change Expectations”: 

“The one major wild card in projections of future climate change is the unmeasured climate forcing due to aerosol changes and their effects on clouds. Anecdotal information indicates that particulate air pollution has increased in regions with increasing coal burning, but assessment of the climate forcing requires global measurement of detailed physical properties of the aerosols. The one satellite mission that was capable of making measurements with the required detail and accuracy was lost via a launch failure, and as yet there are no plans for a replacement mission with the needed capabilities.4″

---------------------------------------------

Links re: NASA climate satellite crashes in 2009 and 2011. 2011 satellite (referenced by Hansen) was to study aerosols:

“Perhaps that’s why the loss hurts most, because Glory “was directed very specifically at the place where our knowledge was weakest“, he said.”…”A tragedy for climate science.”…”an area that desperately needs more study.”…

3/4/11, “Raze of Glory: NASA Earth-Observing Climate Satellite Fails to Reach Orbit,” Scientific American, John Matson

“A launch malfunction sent the Glory satellite crashing into the ocean, almost exactly mimicking the 2009 loss of NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory.“…
.

============================
.

3/6/11, “Nasa crashes hit geoscience efforts,” AFP, News24, Washington

“A pair of costly satellite crashes have dealt a major blow to Nasa’s earth science efforts just as the US space agency faces scrutiny from Congress over whether climate science should be part of its focus at all.

The $424m Glory satellite to monitor aerosols and the sun’s power plunged into the Pacific on Friday shortly after launch, just two years after a similar satellite to study carbon dioxide in the atmosphere met the same fate.

“The loss of the Glory satellite is a tragedy for climate science,” said Bruce Wielicki, senior scientist for earth science at Nasa’s Langley Research Centre.”…
.

============================

Army artillery drill started Stuart Creek, Alaska, wildfire. Training took place during red flag warning in which residents are asked to avoid activities that could start fires-Newsminer

Tweet 7/6/13, "Army official: Artillery drill started Stuart Creek wildfire," Sam Friedman, newsminer.com

TWO RIVERS, Alaska, "An Army artillery exercise ignited the Stuart Creek 2 fire now threatening the community of Two Rivers, according to the Fort Wainwright garrison commander.

Col. Ron Johnson spoke to area residents this evening at a community meeting at the Pleasant Valley Community Center.

In general, the Army makes sure it has the resources to put out a fire that could start from training before allowing the training, he said.

“In this case it took some mitigation measures, they allowed the training to occur, it was artillery training, it did start a fire,” Johnson said.

The fire, which started June 25, was initially contained until it flared up last week, Johnson said.

The training took place during a red flag warning in which residents are asked to avoid conducting activities that could start fires, he said.

“It was monitored, it smoked up, they hit it again and then when the fire conditions changed it flared up and now we’ve got what we’ve got,” Johnson said.

Saturday’s meeting was organized by the firefighting crew now managing the 32,014-acre fire to give information to the Chena Hot Springs Road community that’s been under an advisory evacuation watch since Tuesday.

Johnson was not a scheduled speaker at the meeting but took the microphone to applause and laughter when a local resident asked “If the military started this fire, then why aren’t they here?”

Chena Hot Springs Road between 14 mile and 32 mile remains on evacuation watch. Warm weather is forecast for Sunday, as is wind that would blow the fire toward the community." via Free Republic




.

Obama freely admits March 2012 EPA ruling against electric utilities won't effect US CO2 emissions, rather it will send a strong signal 'internationally' and help 'stimulate investment'

Tweet "Standards of Performance for Greenhouse Gas Emissions for New Stationary Sources: Electric Utility Generating Units," EPA, Carbon Pollution Standard, Fed. Register, draft, 3/27/12

p. 49, "While this proposed rule also will not have direct impact on U.S. emissions of greenhouse gases under expected economic conditions, it provides assurance that emission rates from new fossil fuel-fired generation will not exceed the level of the standard and will send a strong signal both domestically and

internationally. Domestically, this proposed rule can further 

stimulate investment in CCS and other clean coal technologies, 

by making it clear that such technologies do provide a clear path forward for new coal-fired generating capacity.

Internationally,

this rule may encourage others

to consider less GHG-intensive forms of power generation."...via USNews.com:

4/12/12, "The Illogic of EPA Carbon Regulations," USNews.com, by Daniel Simmons

"If global warming is a problem that the EPA needs to address, then why are they working on imposing rules that the agency admits "will not have [a] direct impact of U.S. emissions of greenhouse gases?" It's tough to see how EPA regulation makes logical sense. 

Does the EPA not really care about global warming 

or are they working to end America's use of coal?

Does the EPA only want to increase the price of energy by making it harder to build low-cost electricity generation? 

What explains the EPA's actions? And why are taxpayers paying for this nonsense?

The only thing we know for sure is that the EPA claims that global warming is a problem and then announces rules that the agency admits does nothing about it. Draw your own conclusions."

.

US coal production continues to decline, Jan-Feb. 2013 total lower than Jan-Feb 2012 and Jan-Feb 2011, US DOE/ EIA

Tweet May 2013, "Monthly Energy Review," US DOE/EIA, eia.gov

page 5, Table 1.2, "Primary Energy Production by Source"

"Coal"

US coal production in first two months of 2013 lower than same period in both 2012 and 2011:

Jan 2013, 1.702
Feb 2013, 1.554
Two month total, 3.256

=================

Two month total 2012, 3.664
Two month total 2011, 3.590


.

Exit 8A, NJ Turnpike

Tweet

Exit 8A on New Jersey Turnpike, 4/20/13, "Major delays expected on N.J. Turnpike as work shifts for massive widening project," NJ Star-Ledger

Issa and Waxman share laugh, photo Dec. 9, 2008

Tweet "House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., shares a laugh with committee member Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2008, as they wait for the starts of the committee's hearing on the financial meltdown. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)"