Dam letter

Mr. Ryan DeVries
2088 Dagget
Pierson, MI 49339
SUBJECT: DEQ File No. 97-59-0023; T11N; R10W, Sec. 20;

Site Location: Montcalm County

Dear Mr. DeVries:

It has come to the attention of the Department of Environmental Quality
that there has been recent unauthorized activity on the above referenced
parcel of property. You have been certified as the legal landowner
and/or contractor who did the following unauthorized activity:

Construction and maintenance of two wood debris dams across the outlet
stream of Spring Pond.

A permit must be issued prior to the start of this type of activity. A
review of the Department's files shows that no permits have been issued.

Therefore, the Department has determined that this activity is in
violation of Part 301, Inland Lakes and Streams, of the Natural Resource
and Environmental Protection Act, Act 451 of the Public Acts of 1994,
being sections 324.30101 to 324.30113 of the Michigan Compiled Laws
annotated.

The Department has been informed that one or both of the dams partially
failed during a recent rain event, causing debris and flooding at
downstream locations. We find that dams of this nature are inherently
hazardous and cannot be permitted.

The Department therefore orders you to cease and desist all activities
at this location, and to restore the stream to a free-flow condition by
removing all wood and brush forming the dams from the stream channel.
All restoration work shall be completed no later than January 31, 2002.

Please notify this office when the restoration has been completed so
that a follow-up site inspection may be scheduled by our staff. Failure
to comply with this request or any further unauthorized activity on the
site may result in this case being referred for elevated enforcement
action.

We anticipate and would appreciate your full cooperation in this matter.
Please feel free to contact me at this office if you have any questions.

Sincerely,
David L. Price
District Representative
Land and Water Management Division
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

RESPONSE:

Dear Mr. Price,

Re: DEQ File No. 97-59-0023; T11N; R10W, Sec. 20;
Montcalm County

Reference your certified letter dated 12/17/2000 has been referred to me
to respond to. First of all, Mr. Ryan De Vries is not the legal
landowner and/or contractor at 2088 Dagget, Pierson, Michigan.

I am the legal owner and a couple of beavers are in the (State
unauthorized) process of constructing and maintaining two wood "debris"
dams across the outlet stream of my Spring Pond.

While I did not pay for, authorize, nor supervise their dam project, I
think they would be highly offended that you call their skillful use of
natural building materials "debris." I would like to challenge your
department to attempt to emulate their dam project any time and/or any
place you choose. I believe I can safely state there is no way you could
ever match their dam skills, their dam resourcefulness, their dam
ingenuity, their dam persistence, their dam determination and/or their
dam work ethic.

As to your request, I do not think the beavers are aware that they must
first fill out a dam permit prior to the start of this type of dam
activity. My first dam question to you is:
(1) Are you trying to discriminate against my Spring Pond Beavers? or,
(2) do you require all beavers throughout this State to conform to said
dam request?

If you are not discriminating against these particular beavers, through
the Freedom of Information Act I request completed copies of all those
other applicable beaver dam permits that have been issued. Perhaps we
will see if there really is a dam violation of P! art 301, Inland Lakes
and Streams, of the Natural Resource and Environmental Protection Act,
Act 451 of the Public Acts of 1994, being sections 324.3010,1 to
324.30113 of the Michigan Compiled Laws, annotated. I have several
concerns. My first concern is aren't the beavers entitled to legal
representation?

The Spring Pond Beavers are financially destitute and are unable to pay
for said representation - so the State will have to provide them with a
lawyer.

The Department's dam concern that either one or both of the dams failed
during a recent rain event causing flooding is proof that this is a
natural occurrence, which the Department is required to protect. In
other words, we should leave the Spring Pond Beavers alone rather than
harrass them and call their dam names. If you want the stream "restored"
to a dam free-flow condition - please contact the beavers - but if you
are going to arrest them they obviously did not pay any attention to
your dam letter (being unable to read English).

In my humble ! opinion, the Spring Pond Beavers have a right to build
their unauthorized dams as long as the sky is blue, the grass is green
and water flows downstream. They have more dam right than I do to live
and enjoy Spring Pond. If the Department of Natural Resources and
Environmental Protection lives up to its name, it should protect the
natural resources
(Beavers) and the environment (Beavers' Dams).

So, as far as the beavers and I are concerned, this dam case can be
referred for more elevated enforcement action right now. Why wait until
1/31/2002 The Spring Pond Beavers may be under the dam ice then, and
there will be no way for you or your dam staff to contact/harass them
then.

In conclusion, I would like to bring to your attention a real
environmental quality (health) problem in the area. It is the bears.
Bears are actually defecating in our woods. I definitely believe you
should be persecuting the defecating bears and leave the beavers alone.

If you are going to investigate the beaver dam, watch your step! (The
bears are not careful where they dump!)

Being unable to comply with your dam request, and being unable to
contact you on your answering machine, I am sending this response to
your office via another government organization - the USPS. Maybe,
someday, it will get there.

Sincerely,
Stephen L. Tvedten
The University of Texas at: Austin
Office Community Relations/Accounting unit
P.O. Box 7367
Austin, TX 78713

Circling the Bandwagons

Global Warming's Unscientific Message

An editorial in the Washington Times describes Ross McKitrick's efforts to publish a scientific paper that documents a fundamental error in the IPCC's 2007 report. This error involved adjusting global surface temperature readings to get a higher temperature change. However, Dr. McKitrick's efforts to have the paper published by the journals Science, Nature and the the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society were rejected. However, the paper will appear in a forthcoming edition of Statistics, Politics and Policy.



http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2010/04/06/comments-on-circling-the-bandwagonsmy-adventures-correcting-the-ipcc-by-ross-mckitrick/

French academy shames British one

Democrats are the Birthers.

It’s been almost exactly 18 months since Philip J. Berg, a Pennsylvania lawyer and Hillary Clinton supporter, filed a lawsuit demanding that his state keep Barack Obama off the presidential ballot until he provided satisfactory proof that he was born in America — something Berg said Obama couldn’t do. Today Berg appeared at CPAC, handing out a leaflet promoting his ObamaCrimes website (it argues that the president is a “citizen of Indonesia”) and seeking out reporters to promote his case.

I stumbled upon Berg as a Belgian TV station gave him a pretty polite and short interview — anyone’s guess whether they were genuinely curious or whether they were humoring him so they could move on. But as he spoke, Berg drew some more onlookers, including another reporter who taped the interview and gushed about what a fan he was of Berg’s work.

“These are people who really support this particular issue,” said Berg of the CPAC crowd. “This issue transcends party lines.”

A Superstorm for Global Warming Research

Germany:
In Spiegel Online International, Marco Evers, Olaf Stampf and Gerald Traufetter have produced a well-researched eight-part essay: (1) A Superstorm for Global Warming Research, (2) Politically Charged Science, (3) A Climate Rebel Takes on the Establishment, (4) The Smoking Gun of Climatology, (5) The Reality of Rising Sea Levels, (6) The Myth of the Monster Storm, (7) Climate Change's Winners and Losers, and (8) The Invention of the Two-Degree Target. Each part of the essay is approximately one page in length.

The Telegraph's James Delingpole writes that when the Germans give up on AGW you really know it's over.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,686697,00.html

Germany: A Superstorm for Global Warming Research
In Spiegel Online International, Marco Evers, Olaf Stampf and Gerald Traufetter have produced a well-researched eight-part essay: (1) A Superstorm for Global Warming Research, (2) Politically Charged Science, (3) A Climate Rebel Takes on the Establishment, (4) The Smoking Gun of Climatology, (5) The Reality of Rising Sea Levels, (6) The Myth of the Monster Storm, (7) Climate Change's Winners and Losers, and (8) The Invention of the Two-Degree Target. Each part of the essay is approximately one page in length.

The Telegraph's James Delingpole writes that when the Germans give up on AGW you really know it's over.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,686697,00.html
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100032460/when-the-germans-give-up-on-agw-you-really-do-know-its-all-over/

What if Sarah Palin said that?

Another Global Warming expert........???  Poor Guy it is sad to see.
 


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNZczIgVXjg

Groupthink

Groupthink is a concept that was identified by Irving Janis⁹ that refers to faulty decision-making in a group. Groups experiencing groupthink do not consider all alternatives and they desire unanimity at the expense of quality decisions. Learn more about groupthink and then complete the interactive exercise at the end of the discussion.

Conditions	Groupthink occurs when groups are highly cohesive and when they are under considerable pressure to make a quality decision.
Negative outcomes	Some negative outcomes of groupthink include: Examining few alternatives Not being critical of each other's ideas Not examining early alternatives Not seeking expert opinion Being highly selective in gathering information Not having contingency plans
Symptoms	Some symptoms of groupthink are: Having an illusion of invulnerability Rationalizing poor decisions Believing in the group's morality Sharing stereotypes which guide the decision Exercising direct pressure on others Not expressing your true feelings Maintaining an illusion of unanimity Using mindguards to protect the group from negative information
Solutions	Some solutions include: Using a policy-forming group which reports to the larger group Having leaders remain impartial Using different policy groups for different tasks Dividing into groups and then discuss differences Discussing within sub-groups and then report back Using outside experts Using a Devil's advocate to question all the group's ideas Holding a "second-chance meeting" to offer one last opportunity to choose another course of action

CLIMATEGATE II - U.S.A. VERSION

HOW GOVERNMENT CORRUPTS SCIENCE

Trillion-Dollar Green Trough

In the National Post, columnist Peter Foster regrets missing the Globe Foundation's Vancouver conference on business and the environment (second link below). According to Mr. Foster, it is "the greatest show on Earth (or at least in North America) for green policy wonks, eco consultants, aggressively growth-oriented NGOs and corporate rent seekers (all delegates carbon-neutralized)." He notes that absent from the agenda are whether climate science was sound and whether the Kyoto commitments made any sense. After a 10-year boom the alternative energy industry is foundering because governments are all subsidizing the same dead-end techniques.

Mr. Foster devotes most of his column to panning a new report by the IMF (third link below) that describes a $100 billion/year "Green Fund" for developing countries that was promised in the Copenhagen Accord. The IMF study proposes that the fund issue $1 trillion in bonds over 30 years, underpinned by $120 billion of equity endowment. In addition the fund's annual disbursements would be supported by $60 billion in carbon taxes and expanded carbon-trading schemes in developed countries (see diagram on page 10 of the IMF report.)

http://network.nationalpost.com/NP/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2010/03/25/peter-foster-trillion-dollar-green-troughs.aspx
http://www.globe2010.com/
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/spn/2010/spn1006.pdf

London Science Museum to Rename Climate Exhibition
Due to the wave of public skepticism in recent months, the 100-year-old London Science Museum will revise its new climate science gallery. Rather than scaring visitors with apocalyptic predictions of rising sea levels, the museum's exhibit will be honest about conflicting views on the scale of possible changes to the climate.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7073272.ece

Cap-and-Trade Loses its Standing as Energy Policy of Choice
In The New York Times, John Broder reports how cap-and-trade, the policy of choice for tackling climate change a year ago, has fallen out of favour in Washington. President Obama's current budget omits all mention of the subject, and two of the Senators (Kerry and Graham) preparing the new climate change bill have disavowed it. Mr. Broder believes that cap-and-trade's demise was caused by the weak economy, the Wall Street meltdown, determined industry opposition and its own complexity.

Two other Senators (Cantwell, D-Washington and Collins, R-Maine) are proposing "cap and dividend" legislation, under which licenses to pollute would be auctioned to producers and wholesalers of fossil fuels, with three-quarters of the revenue being returned to consumers in monthly cheques.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/26/science/earth/26climate.html?src=me


NASA Study Finds Atlantic "Conveyor Belt" Not Slowing
Using a new monitoring technique involving satellite and the Argo array of buoys, NASA measurements of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (which includes the Gulf Stream) show no significant slowing over the past 15 years. The latest climate models relied on in IPCC assessment reports predict that this circulation will slow down as greenhouse gases warm the planet and melting ice adds freshwater to the ocean.

http://www.thegwpf.org/the-observatory/721-nasa-study-finds-atlantic-conveyor-belt-not-slowing.html


Rajendra Pachauri: IPCC Will Adopt Neutral Advisory Role
The Chairman of the IPCC, in an interview with The Times, said that the IPCC will stop making statements demanding new taxes and other radical policies for cutting emissions. He also apologized for the organization's handling of complaints about errors in its report. In future the IPCC will focus on presenting the science of climate change, rather than advocating policies. Also, Dr. Pachauri wants more power over the IPCC secretariat and an extra $1 million/year to fund its work, on top of the $5 million it gets now.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7078140.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=797093

Germans Lose Fear of Climate Change
Leading German magazine Spiegal conducted a survey about climate change. It found that in the fall of 2006 62% were afraid of it; now the figure is 42%. Also the German Leibniz association calls for the IPCC's Rajendra Pachauri to step down. The first link below is to the original article in German, the second is a Google translation.

http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/natur/0,1518,685946,00.html
http://translate.google.com/translate?js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=1&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.spiegel.de%2Fwissenschaft%2Fnatur%2F0%2C1518%2C685946%2C00.html&sl=de&tl=en

Climategate: the parliamentary cover-up

GLOBE may be too obscure to merit its own Wikipedia entry, but that belies its wealth and influence. It funds meetings for parliamentarians worldwide with an interest in climate change, and prior to the Copenhagen Summit GLOBE issued guidelines (pdf) for legislators. Little expense is spared: in one year alone, one peer – Lord Michael Jay of Ewelme – enjoyed seven club class flights and hotel accommodation, at GLOBE’s expense. There’s no greater love a Parliamentarian can give to the global warming cause. And in return, Globe lists Oxburgh as one of 23 key legislators.

What to say to a global warming alarmist

It has been tough to keep up with all the bad news for global warming alarmists. We're on the edge of our chair, waiting for the next shoe to drop. This has been an Imelda Marcos kind of season for shoe-dropping about global warming.

At your next dinner party, here are some of the latest talking points to bring up when someone reminds you that Al Gore and the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change won Nobel prizes for their work on global warming.

ClimateGate – This scandal began the latest round of revelations when thousands of leaked documents from Britain's East Anglia Climate Research Unit showed systematic suppression and discrediting of climate skeptics' views and discarding of temperature data, suggesting a bias for making the case for warming. Why do such a thing if, as global warming defenders contend, the "science is settled?"

FOIGate – The British government has since determined someone at East Anglia committed a crime by refusing to release global warming documents sought in 95 Freedom of Information Act requests. The CRU is one of three international agencies compiling global temperature data. If their stuff's so solid, why the secrecy?

ChinaGate – An investigation by the U.K.'s left-leaning Guardian newspaper found evidence that Chinese weather station measurements not only were seriously flawed, but couldn't be located. "Where exactly are 42 weather monitoring stations in remote parts of rural China?" the paper asked. The paper's investigation also couldn't find corroboration of what Chinese scientists turned over to American scientists, leaving unanswered, "how much of the warming seen in recent decades is due to the local effects of spreading cities, rather than global warming?" The Guardian contends that researchers covered up the missing data for years.

HimalayaGate – An Indian climate official admitted in January that, as lead author of the IPCC's Asian report, he intentionally exaggerated when claiming Himalayan glaciers would melt away by 2035 in order to prod governments into action. This fraudulent claim was not based on scientific research or peer-reviewed. Instead it was originally advanced by a researcher, since hired by a global warming research organization, who later admitted it was "speculation" lifted from a popular magazine. This political, not scientific, motivation at least got some researcher funded.

PachauriGate – Rajendra Pachauri, the IPCC chairman who accepted with Al Gore the Nobel Prize for scaring people witless, at first defended the Himalaya melting scenario. Critics, he said, practiced "voodoo science." After the melting-scam perpetrator 'fessed up, Pachauri admitted to making a mistake. But, he insisted, we still should trust him.

PachauriGate II – Pachauri also claimed he didn't know before the 192-nation climate summit meeting in Copenhagen in December that the bogus Himalayan glacier claim was sheer speculation. But the London Times reported that a prominent science journalist said he had pointed out those errors in several e-mails and discussions to Pachauri, who "decided to overlook it." Stonewalling? Cover up? Pachauri says he was "preoccupied." Well, no sense spoiling the Copenhagen party, where countries like Pachauri's India hoped to wrench billions from countries like the United States to combat global warming's melting glaciers. Now there are calls for Pachauri's resignation.

SternGate – One excuse for imposing worldwide climate crackdown has been the U.K.'s 2006 Stern Report, an economic doomsday prediction commissioned by the government. Now the U.K. Telegraph reports that quietly after publication "some of these predictions had been watered down because the scientific evidence on which they were based could not be verified." Among original claims now deleted were that northwest Australia has had stronger typhoons in recent decades, and that southern Australia lost rainfall because of rising ocean temperatures. Exaggerated claims get headlines. Later, news reporters disclose the truth. Why is that?

SternGate II – A researcher now claims the Stern Report misquoted his work to suggest a firm link between global warming and more-frequent and severe floods and hurricanes. Robert Muir-Wood said his original research showed no such link. He accused Stern of "going far beyond what was an acceptable extrapolation of the evidence." We're shocked.

AmazonGate – The London Times exposed another shocker: the IPCC claim that global warming will wipe out rain forests was fraudulent, yet advanced as "peer-reveiwed" science. The Times said the assertion actually "was based on an unsubstantiated claim by green campaigners who had little scientific expertise," "authored by two green activists" and lifted from a report from the World Wildlife Fund, an environmental pressure group. The "research" was based on a popular science magazine report that didn't bother to assess rainfall. Instead, it looked at the impact of logging and burning. The original report suggested "up to 40 percent" of Brazilian rain forest was extremely sensitive to small reductions in the amount of rainfall, but the IPCC expanded that to cover the entire Amazon, the Times reported.

PeerReviewGate – The U.K. Sunday Telegraph has documented at least 16 nonpeer-reviewed reports (so far) from the advocacy group World Wildlife Fund that were used in the IPCC's climate change bible, which calls for capping manmade greenhouse gases.

RussiaGate – Even when global warming alarmists base claims on scientific measurements, they've often had their finger on the scale. Russian think tank investigators evaluated thousands of documents and e-mails leaked from the East Anglia research center and concluded readings from the coldest regions of their nation had been omitted, driving average temperatures up about half a degree.

Russia-Gate II – Speaking of Russia, a presentation last October to the Geological Society of America showed how tree-ring data from Russia indicated cooling after 1961, but was deceptively truncated and only artfully discussed in IPCC publications. Well, at least the tree-ring data made it into the IPCC report, albeit disguised and misrepresented.

U.S.Gate – If Brits can't be trusted, are Yanks more reliable? The U.S. National Climate Data Center has been manipulating weather data too, say computer expert E. Michael Smith and meteorologist Joesph D'Aleo. Forty years ago there were 6,000 surface-temperature measuring stations, but only 1,500 by 1990, which coincides with what global warming alarmists say was a record temperature increase. Most of the deleted stations were in colder regions, just as in the Russian case, resulting in misleading higher average temperatures.

IceGate – Hardly a continent has escaped global warming skewing. The IPCC based its findings of reductions in mountain ice in the Andes, Alps and in Africa on a feature story of climbers' anecdotes in a popular mountaineering magazine, and a dissertation by a Switzerland university student, quoting mountain guides. Peer-reviewed? Hype? Worse?

ResearchGate – The global warming camp is reeling so much lately it must have seemed like a major victory when a Penn State University inquiry into climate scientist Michael Mann found no misconduct regarding three accusations of climate research impropriety. But the university did find "further investigation is warranted" to determine whether Mann engaged in actions that "seriously deviated from accepted practices for proposing, conducting or reporting research or other scholarly activities." Being investigated for only one fraud is a global warming victory these days.

ReefGate – Let's not forget the alleged link between climate change and coral reef degradation. The IPCC cited not peer-reviewed literature, but advocacy articles by Greenpeace, the publicity-hungry advocacy group, as its sole source for this claim.

AfricaGate – The IPCC claim that rising temperatures could cut in half agricultural yields in African countries turns out to have come from a 2003 paper published by a Canadian environmental think tank – not a peer-reviewed scientific journal.

DutchGate – The IPCC also claimed rising sea levels endanger the 55 percent of the Netherlands it says is below sea level. The portion of the Netherlands below sea level actually is 20 percent. The Dutch environment minister said she will no longer tolerate climate researchers' errors.

AlaskaGate – Geologists for Space Studies in Geophysics and Oceanography and their U.S. and Canadian colleagues say previous studies largely overestimated by 40 percent Alaskan glacier loss for 40 years. This flawed data are fed into those computers to predict future warming.

Fold this column up and lay it next to your napkin the next time you have Al Gore or his ilk to dine. It should make interesting after-dinner conversation.

(Analysis of Policies to Reduce Oil Consumption and Greenhouse-Gas Emissions from the U.S. Transportation Sector)

Lord Oxburgh, the climate science peer, ‘has a conflict of interest’

Lord Oxburgh is to chair a scientific assessment panel that will examine the published science of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia. Climate sceptics questioned whether Lord Oxburgh, chairman of the Carbon Capture and Storage Association and the wind energy company Falck Renewables, was truly independent because he led organisations that depended on climate change being seen as an urgent problem.

ClimateGate Goes Back to 1980

Those of you who still believe that the ClimateGate scandal was just a bunch of emails in England should read this article. James Hansen of GISS appears to have systematically adjusted the historical temperature record to remove a cold patch in the ‘70s in order to exaggerate the rise since.

Réchauffement climatique : la grande manip' ?

Les climato-sceptiques s'élèvent contre les conclusions du GIEC (groupement international d'études climatiques). Arguments, contre-arguments, qui croire dans cette bataille où les vrais motivations des partis ne sont pas toujours connues ?
GIEC= (groupement international d'études climatiques)
IPCC = ( Intergovernmental panel on climate change)

En fin de traduction ça c’est vache! Enlever le Mot « Gouvernement » démontre un manque de respect enver le peuple .

Grandaddy of green, James Lovelock, warms to eco-sceptics

“I think you have to accept that the sceptics have kept us sane — some of them, anyway,” he said. “They have been a breath of fresh air. They have kept us from regarding the science of climate change as a religion. It had gone too far that way. There is a role for sceptics in science. They shouldn’t be brushed aside. It is clear that the angel side wasn’t without sin.”

The Money Trail

The Science and Public Policy Institute has published a five-page essay by Joanne Nova that compares the funding for climate skeptics with that for the climate industry. Over ten years Exxon paid $23 million to skeptics, which has since stopped, but has spent $700 million on carbon-friendly initiatives. The US government has spent $79 billion on climate research and technology since 1989. According to the World Bank, carbon trading reached a turnover of $126 billion in 2008. A commissioner from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission forecasts a $2 trillion carbon market in five years .
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http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/blogwatch/the_money_trail.pdf

Benny Peiser: The West's Policy Approach is Wrong
Interviewed in the Financial Chronicle of India, social anthropologist Benny Peiser lists the errors in the West's climate change policies. These result from the Copenhagen failure and the IPCC's problems, green taxes in Europe, and the effects of rising fuel prices on poor people and developing countries. Even if one accepts the IPCC's science, the worst case scenario resulting from climate change is that in 100 years the world will be only six times as rich as now, instead of seven.http://www.mydigitalfc.com/leisure-writing/west%E2%80%99s-policy-approach-wrong-392
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Carbon Tax Casts a Pall over UK Industry
According to The Journal, UK Energy Minister Lord Hunt admitted that the EU's emissions trading scheme could hit the North East's industrial heartland, with companies going bust or moving abroad. Nevertheless the minister considers it "entirely appropriate" that the UK be part of the European emissions trading system.

http://www.nebusiness.co.uk/business-news/latest-business-news/2010/03/11/carbon-tax-casts-a-pall-over-industry-51140-26009566/
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New Technique Shows Roman Warm Period Warmer than Present Day
The Global Warming Policy Foundation and Watts Up With That describe a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science in which researchers used shells of bivalve mollusks in Iceland to determine proxies of temperatures from 360 BC to 1660 AD. Because the mollusks live only 2-9 years and their shell growths vary with temperature, it is possible to see finer changes than with tree rings. The paper shows that the Roman Warm Period was warmer than the Medieval Warm Period. Warm and cold periods within the MWP correspond with the rise and decline of Norse settlements in Iceland and Greenland.

http://www.thegwpf.org/the-observatory/653-new-technique-shows-roman-warm-period-warmer-than-present-day.html
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/03/10/paleo-clamatology/
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Green Energy Bubbles
Writing in the National Post, columnist Terence Corcoran notes that, while investment analysts are advising their clients to get out of solar power firms and are warning about the continuing risks in wind and bioenergy schemes, two provinces in Canada continue pumping money into alternative energy. Ontario's Green Energy Act includes a "feed-in tariff" that forces power distributors to pay 44 ¢/kWh for solar, 13.5 ¢/kWh for wind power and 80 ¢/kWh for power from solar power delivered from roof top systems. In B.C., Premier Gordon Campbell promises a new fast track for alternative energy projects.

http://network.nationalpost.com/NP/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2010/03/10/terence-corcoran-green-energy-bubbles.aspx