• Climategate: Shameless Science
• No Teddy Bears: There is nothing cuddly about the WWF
• “Human role in climate change is the debate”
• 5 years later and still wasting taxpayer money in N.C.
• Global Warming: ‘Take this snow and shovel it again, Al Gore!’
• Global warming one big snow job
• Freaking Amazing: “If one wonders why the climate alarmist movement is suffering from a credibility problem, one only needs to read this”
• Chris Horner on Rising Energy Prices

Gallup:

For only the second time in more than two decades and the second straight year, Americans are more likely to say economic growth should take precedence over environmental protection when the two objectives conflict (53%) than to say the reverse (38%).

Our thoughts: this figure has been greatly affected by the highly embarrassing ClimateGate (and all its aftershocks) and the downturn in the economy. It’s fairly likely that a return to focus on “environmental protection” will occur when wallets are fat again, though it’s not clear whether that will include a return to caring about Global Warming or whether there will be a new cause celebre.

Standards be damned, the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change plans to press forward in its Nursery Rhyme scare campaign.

More info from Gallup on where global warming stands in the overall picture public concern:

And given all the talk we’ve heard in recent years about global warming, we were particularly surprised at this figure:

Bad news in this year’s “State of the Birds Report” (yes, we were surprised too).

Changes in the global climate are imposing additional stress on hundreds of species of migratory birds in the United States that are already threatened by other environmental factors, according to a new Interior Department report. The department’s annual State of the Birds report shows that nearly a third of the nation’s 800 bird species are endangered, threatened or suffering from population decline. For the first time, the report adds climate change to other factors threatening bird populations, including destruction of habitat, hunting, pesticides, invasive species and loss of wetlands. The report said oceanic and shore birds were among the most vulnerable to climate change because of rapidly changing marine ecosystems and rising sea levels.

Dessssssspicable.

We took a brief break and had a brief tech break-age, but we’re back and going gangbusters. Here are some stories catching our eye:

• Backpedal! IPCC likely to backtrack on claim that global warming will destroy rainforests
• Heh: Albert Arnold Gore, Jr., Is Back and He’s Got ‘Global Warming With Him — the MSM Too!
• Fiorina’s ‘Demon Sheep’ sequel hits Boxer on climate change
• British energy minister in hot water over climate change posters aimed at the junior set
• Still fighting for costly climate regs in California
• Global Warming Nursery Rhymes
• Climate Audit: “Shut-eyed Denial”
• Climate Skeptic: Knowledge Laundering

As polls continue to show that fear of global warming is going down, happiness with overall environmental quality are showing positive signs:

Americans grew more content over the past year with the overall quality of the environment in the country. Their “excellent” or “good” ratings now total 46%, up from 39% in March 2009. Despite these shifts, the majority (53%) continue to rate current environmental conditions as only fair or poor.

If we get to the point where people remember that global warming is not the sum total of environmental quality, we’ll be in good shape.

Were one to say, “had you heard the American administration has colluded with the energy industry to attack a recent economic study that was giving them grief,” the average response would likely include, “Oh, there goes Bush and Halliburton again.” But that’s not the story here.

The Obama Administration appears to have secretively worked with the American Wind Energy Association to attack the crucial Spanish study that showed “green jobs” mandates killed traditional jobs at a rate of 2 lost for every 1 created.

The LA Times’ Jim Tankersley reports:

For a brief period last spring, a university study out of Spain whipped up excitement among Republicans on Capitol Hill — and brought heartburn to environmentalists and renewable-energy lobbyists in the process – because it purported to show that government support for “green jobs,” a signature push by the Obama administration, ultimately hurts employment more than it helps.

Several months after the study was released, a branch of the Energy Department released an unusual research paper: a direct attack on the Spanish study and its key findings.
The “rebuttal” paper was funded by taxpayers and launched in response to government researchers’ discussions with concerned renewable energy boosters. This is the tale, from internal Energy Department emails, of how it came to exist.

More details here. Funny that the Administration isn’t complaining about these dirty energy lobbyists — even though they have yet to produce a product on economically advantageous terms (hopefully they will someday).

The “transparency” in this case came from the Competitive Enterprise Institute and a reporter … not the Administration. We hoped for change; We got wind blown up our … well, hope holes.

Great piece from Investors Business Daily on Al Gore’s recent attempt via op-ed in the Wall Street Journal to stoke declining public fears of global warming:

If hyperbole and chutzpah had a child, it would be the opening paragraph of Gore’s op-ed in Sunday’s New York Times. Gore surfaced from the global warming witness-protection program to opine that despite admissions of error and evidence of fraud by various agencies, we still face “an unimaginable calamity requiring large-scale, preventive measures to protect human civilization as we know it.”

Perhaps he’s trying to protect his investments as he knows them, for he is heavily involved in enterprises that deal with carbon offsets and green technology. If the case for climate change is shown to be demonstrably false, a lot of his green evaporates like moisture from the ocean.