Friday, June 29, 2012

Rutgers climate scientist says extreme weather isn't man-caused climate change. CO2 in US steadily down since 2005

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CO2 in the US has steadily decreased since 2005. If the US were warmer it wouldn't be because of CO2. Colorado climatologist says 2012 looks much like 1910 when warm temperatures hit early and many fires were experienced.

6/28/12, "Are Colorado's wildfires caused by global warming?" CSMonitor.com, Stephanie Pappas


"The immediate driver of these fires is a lack of moisture and a ridge of heat that has settled over the central United States, said New Jersey state climatologist Dave Robinson, who also directs the Global Snow Lab at Rutgers University. After record snowpack last year, the Rocky Mountains did a 180 this year, Robinson said, seeing little moisture and early snowmelt.

"March and April are supposed to be your snowy months [in Colorado], and they weren't," Robinson told LiveScience. "Thus, the fire danger."

Meanwhile, a high-pressure system in the central part of the country is preventing cloud formation and allowing the sun to bake the ground, heating things up....

"You can't say it's climate change just because it's an extreme condition," said Colorado state climatologist Nolan Doesken. So far, Doesken told LiveScience, the spring of 2012 looks much like the spring of 1910, when warm temperatures hit early.

  • That year, he said, was a bad one for fires."...

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4/21/12, "Why [CO2] Emissions Are Declining in the U.S. But Not in Europe," by Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus, newgeography.com

"As we note below in a new article for Yale360, a funny thing happened: U.S. emissions started going down in 2005 and are expected to decline further over the next decade."

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5/6/12, "US Leads EU in CO2 Reductions," Walter Russell Mead, American Interest

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"Ten years ago, the feds had a fleet of 44 firefighting planes. Today, the number is down to nine for the entire country. Last summer, Obama's National Forest Service canceled a key federal contract with Sacramento-based Aero Union just as last season's wildfires were raging. Aero Union had supplied eight vital air tankers to Washington's dwindling aerial firefighting fleet. Two weeks later, the company closed down, and 60 employees lost their jobs. Aero Union had been a leader in the business for a half-century."

6/20/12, "How Obama Bureaucrats Fueled Western Wildfires," Michelle Malkin, Townhall.com, Colorado Springs, Colorado

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6/16/12, The fire was started by lightning on June 4 but wasn't reported to feds until June 9. Part of it is on federal forest land so the federal government had to be consulted. Then the Obama official decided congress had to be consulted. All this while fires continued. "Vilsack praised Congress for allowing the government to contract additional aircraft particularly heavy tankers — to fight wildfires across the West." Our fire fighting air fleet had dwindled to almost nothing yet Obama canceled a fleet of 6 or 7 able tankers in 2011 knowing they were badly needed. The GOP didn't stop him.

6/16/12, "Wildfire destroys most homes in Colo. history," AP via CBS News

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Man who accidentally started forest fire couldn't report it for awhile because there was no cell phone reception in the area:

5/19/12, "Feds say Colorado wildfire started on camp stove," AP

"There is no cell phone service in the area where the fire started....Hundreds of firefighters are battling a blaze fueled by warm, dry weather in northern Colorado that federal officials say started with a camp stove."...

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The federal government says "it can't afford to" do life-saving necessary thinning.

6/20/12, "Forest-thinning strategy credited for saving Alpine from 2011 fire," Arizona Republic, S. McKinnon

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6/29/12, UK Guardian vs CS Monitor, two different takes on Colorado fires

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