Boy, this thread went to shit in a hurry! The last posts by Rap, Hero, and this "new" person just leave me shaking my head in amazement at such a glut of insanity. Hero leads the pack; writing all that rant, without a single scintilla of evidence, facts, links, cites, or ANYTHING! Hey, anyone can do that and blather on all they want, but unless you show SOMETHING to back it up, you're just making a fool of yourself. I guess you just needed to get that off your chest, but the problem is, it counts for nothing but your opinion without something to back it up...which I'm assuming you don't have.

Seriously:

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For you free speech, democracy, free thought are all good things so long as people say, think, and act as you see fit.

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Mmm, now that's a salient argument, really intelligent...is he channeling Rap?

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we're the ones that actually make the world work

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close mindedness, financial misconduct, sexual hypocrisy

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That last one is, you are saying, the EXCLUSIVE purvey of the left?!?! Scores of those on the right haven't been found guilty of any of those? Seriously??

And the kicker: America has become so censored, so narrowed, that Firefly couldn't be made today? Are you friggin' JOKING?!

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Much like the End Timers and Y2K nuts... the AGW nut jobs actually believe that storms are getting worse and happen more often as well.

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Uhhh, Rap is saying the data, the facts, every study out there, DOESN'T show quite clearly that the storms are getting worse? He hasn't heard about all those "hundred-year storms" that have been happening every few years? How does he manage to watch TV or listen to the radio and not hear that? Oh, wait, he keeps himself exclusively to right-wing TV and radio...sorry, silly question.

He won't read it, or will find some reason to discount the source without knowing a thing about it, but what the hell:

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...storms are increasing in strength, or severity. This attribute, called the Power Dissipation Index, measures the duration and intensity (wind speed) of storms, and research has found that since the mid-1970s, there has been an increase in the energy of storms. http://www.skepticalscience.com/hurricanes-global-warming.htm]
There's plenty of data backing that up at the link...not that he'd go there.

When 95% of active climate researchers actively publishing climate papers (in other words, the guys actually doing the work) endorse the consensus position, and 97% of climate experts agree humans are causing global warming, it might be time to start paying attention, if you're a rational, intelligent human being. Or not, if you work real hard at burying your head in the right-wing sand, I guess.

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climate change is NOT the cause of every storm, draught, tornado, hurricane, flood, or wildfire

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Omigawd, what a blow! And here we "lefties" have been saying it IS, all along! Oh dear...

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But this is what the Left do, hijack and distort words so that the real meaning gets lost in a maze of confusion and twisting of facts.

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Yeah, well, that's just Rap...the boy reeeely needs new material...but I do get it, you can't twist facts as long as you don't OFFER any, or believe in any...

We've posted data, with cites and material to back it up. One more time: What have you got? Either put up or shut up--well, no, of course you don't have to shut up, and you never will, but if you don't put up, you don't count. You can call people every name in the book and use every trite, over-used idiocy you want, but unless and until you offer something of SUBSTANCE, you just look foolish.

I'll leave you RWA types to stroke each other joyfully and ramble on incoherently to one another, the "points" you make aren't even worth addressing, they're so totally ridiculous.

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The top climate scientist at NASA says the Bush administration has tried to stop him from speaking out since he gave a lecture last month calling for prompt reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases linked to global warming.

[He said] such procedures had already prevented the public from fully grasping recent findings about climate change that point to risks ahead.

He fell out of favor with the White House in 2004 after giving a speech at the University of Iowa before the presidential election, in which he complained that government climate scientists were being muzzled

But Dr. Hansen said that nothing in 30 years equaled the push made since early December to keep him from publicly discussing what he says are clear-cut dangers from further delay in curbing carbon dioxide.

He said he was particularly incensed that the directives had come through telephone conversations and not through formal channels, leaving no significant trails of documents.

The fresh efforts to quiet him, Dr. Hansen said, began in a series of calls after a lecture he gave on Dec. 6 at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco. In the talk, he said that significant emission cuts could be achieved with existing technologies, particularly in the case of motor vehicles, and that without leadership by the United States,

After that speech and the release of data by Dr. Hansen on Dec. 15 showing that 2005 was probably the warmest year in at least a century, officials at the headquarters of the space agency repeatedly phoned public affairs officers, who relayed the warning to Dr. Hansen that there would be "dire consequences" if such statements continued, those officers and Dr. Hansen said in interviews.

Among the restrictions, according to Dr. Hansen and an internal draft memorandum he provided to The Times, was that his supervisors could stand in for him in any news media interviews.

In one call, George Deutsch, a recently appointed public affairs officer at NASA headquarters, rejected a request from a producer at National Public Radio to interview Dr. Hansen, said Leslie McCarthy, a public affairs officer responsible for the Goddard Institute.

Citing handwritten notes taken during the conversation, Ms. McCarthy said Mr. Deutsch called N.P.R. "the most liberal" media outlet in the country. She said that in that call and others, Mr. Deutsch said his job was "to make the president look good" and that as a White House appointee that might be Mr. Deutsch's priority.

The fight between Dr. Hansen and administration officials echoes other recent disputes. At climate laboratories of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, for example, many scientists who routinely took calls from reporters five years ago can now do so only if the interview is approved by administration officials in Washington, and then only if a public affairs officer is present or on the phone.

Where scientists' points of view on climate policy align with those of the administration, however, there are few signs of restrictions on extracurricular lectures or writing. Excerpts from http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/29/science/earth/29climate.html?pagewan
ted=all&_r=0 the beginning of June, 2006, the BBC Panorama documentary followed up on this and found that many scientists felt they were being censored and that various reports had been systematically suppressed, even altered. In one case, a major climate assessment report was due out a month before the 2004 presidential elections, but was delayed because it had such a bleak assessment, and the Bush administration did not want it to be part of the election issues. It was released shortly after the elections were over.

Just weeks before hurricane Katrina devastated parts of Southern United States, Panorama reported that “Another scientist from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) … had research which established global warming could increase the intensity of hurricanes. He was due to give an interview about his work but claims he was gagged.” After Katrina, the “NOAA website said unusual hurricane activity is not related to global warming.” When a leading scientist was asked why NOAA came out with such a statement, he suggested it was ideologically driven. [The documentary can be found at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/panorama/5005994.stm] and the transcript of the film can be found at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/panorama/5312208.stm ]

Almost a year after the story about attempts to silence NASA’s top climate scientist, many media outlets have reported on a new survey where hundreds of government scientists say they have perceived or personally experienced pressure from the Bush administration to eliminate phrases such as “climate change” and “global warming” from their reports and public statements. A US government hearing in the US is also pursuing this further as the seriousness of climate change is becoming more accepted. More at http://www.globalissues.org/article/233/climate-change-and-global-warm
ing-introduction#BushAdministrationAccusedofSilencingitsownClimateScientists]
From the documentary:

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In the last six years most industrialised nations have cut greenhouse gas emissions but under Bush America's emissions have increased by an average of one per cent a year. ... some scientists are afraid that what they see as a cover up will leave it too late for the US to have any hope of controlling climate changes brought about by global warming.

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That was in 2006. And their fears were absolutely right; it IS too late now, seven years later, since there is still no "consensus" (thanx, righties) in America and little is being done.

There's lots more, but this is sufficient to back up what Mike wrote.

As to actions in the states:

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North Carolina Bill Would Require Coastal Communities To Ignore Global Warming Science

In place of science, the bill would mandate that only the Division of Coastal Management can put out an estimate of the rate of sea-level rise — and they must use an arbitrary, low-ball formula:

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These rates shall only be determined using historical data, and these data shall be limited to the time period following the year 1900. Rates of sea-level rise may be extrapolated linearly to estimate future rates of rise but shall not include scenarios of accelerated rates of sea-level rise.

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Rob Young, a geology professor at Western Carolina University and a member of the state science panel, pointed out to the North Carolina Coastal Federation (NCCF) that this proposed law stands against the conclusions of “every major science organization on the globe.” Young notes, “Every other state in the country is planning on three-feet of sea level rise or more.” The Charlotte Observer notes:

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Maine is preparing for a rise of up to 2 meters by 2100, Delaware 1.5 meters, Louisiana 1 meter and California 1.4 meters. Southeastern Florida projects up to a 2-foot rise by 2060.

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A coastal economic development group called NC-20 attacked the state science panel’s recommendation to the N.C. Coastal Resources Commission to plan for 1 meter of SLR. And even though the panel reconfirmed its findings again in April, the Charlotte Observer reports, “NC-20, named for the 20 coastal counties, appears to be winning its campaign to undermine them”:

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The Coastal Resources Commission agreed to delete references to planning benchmarks – such as the 1-meter prediction – and new development standards for areas likely to be inundated.
The N.C. Division of Emergency Management, which is using a $5 million federal grant to analyze the impact of rising water, lowered its worst-case scenario from 1 meter to 15 inches by 2100.

Several local governments on the coast have passed resolutions against sea-level rise policies.

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One North Carolinian writing in Scientific American said the proposed bill is “exactly like saying, do not predict tomorrow’s weather based on radar images of a hurricane swirling offshore, moving west towards us with 60-mph winds and ten inches of rain. Predict the weather based on the last two weeks of fair weather with gentle breezes towards the east. Don’t use radar and barometers; use the Farmer’s Almanac and what grandpa remembers.” More at http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/05/31/493086/north-carolina-bill
-would-require-coastal-communities-to-ignore-global-warming-science/

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Nobody has to like the source; refute the FACTS PRESENTED there. North Carolina Gov. Bev Perdue returned HB 819 to the General Assembly. But HB 819 (PDF) passed, without signature June 5, 2012.

The irony is, if our righties chose to think about it, who do you think is going to PAY for all the damage that will result from using bad figures to prepare for disasters? Didja ever think of that, you who don't want the government spending your money? It's gonna spend the money anyway when disasters hit, so I guess it's worth letting the disasters hit, be worse than if they were planned for, and cost taxpayers TONS more than if they were planned for, all to keep your heads buried in the sand.

This has been going on for a couple of decades now. I probably won't still be around when you guys on the right are forced to take your heads out of the sand, and I honestly don't even want to be, because of what it will mean for millions of people in this country, and for the country as a whole. But I'd like to be a fly on the wall when each of you finally acknowledges reality, I really would. I'd like to be there to spit in your eyes for what you've all done to CAUSE all the pain and suffering that is coming because of idiots like you and lawmakers like North Carolina...

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The misleading assault on the president’s energy policies continues.

¦A conservative group’s TV ad claims “we will all pay more at the pump” because the administration “blocked” the Keystone XL pipeline.

¦Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell claims that the pipeline “could have brought 700,000 barrels of oil to the market each day.”

¦The TV ad also claims that Obama “opposed exploring for energy in Alaska,” which is only half true.

All those claims are false or misleading. Regarding the pipeline, as we’ve reported, there’s nothing stopping more Canadian oil from coming into the U.S. right now. Existing cross-border pipelines could carry perhaps 1 million additional barrels of oil per day, and surplus capacity is projected to persist for years to come even without the Keystone project.

Furthermore, Obama hasn’t “blocked” it. The Keystone’s sponsor says it expects the White House to approve the northern leg, from Hardisty, Alberta, to Steele City, Nebraska, in 2013, after it submits an application for a new route around Nebraska’s environmentally sensitive Sandhills region. Meanwhile, it is going ahead with the southern portion, which Obama has endorsed, ordering agencies to expedite permitting.

As for the claim that Obama “opposed exploring for energy in Alaska.” The truth is that Shell Oil days ago said it expects to begin drilling exploratory wells this summer in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas off Alaska’s Arctic coast, now that the Interior Department has granted approvals for the company’s oil spill response plans.
http://www.factcheck.org/2012/03/more-pipeline-piffle-and-an-alaskan-a
bsurdity/]
...aaand, we all know how well their explorations in the Chukchi have worked out, right? Further:

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The latest TV ad to heap blame on Obama is “Nine Dollar Gas” from the American Energy Alliance, an advocacy group that does not disclose the sources of its money. It is a “subsidiary” of the industry-funded Institute for Energy Research. Thomas J. Pyle, a one-time aide to former Texas congressman Tom Delay, is president of both groups. Politico reported that both groups are funded in part by brothers Charles and David Koch and their donor network.

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As to JUST the matter of jobs, here's some fact checking.

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...jobs claims are based entirely on a report by the Perryman Group, commissioned by the pipeline’s owner TransCanada, whose results have been described as “dead wrong” and “meaningless” by Council on Foreign Relations fellow Michael Levi and environmental economist Andrew Leach, neither of whom oppose the construction of the pipeline.

The only independent analysis conducted of the American job-creation potential of the Keystone XL pipeline finds that between 500 and 1400 temporary construction jobs will be created, with a negative long-term economic impact as gas prices rise in the Midwest and environmental costs are borne:



Examining TransCanada’s business operations, the Cornell Global Labor Institute report finds that TransCanada has already purchased most of the steel it intends to use for the pipeline from India; that most of the work will be conducted by people already employed by TransCanada; and that the Perryman Group included already-completed pipeline projects in its job-creation estimates.



“The operating costs for KXL are very minimal,” the Cornell Global Labor Institute report explains, “and based on the figures provided by TransCanada for the Canadian section of the pipeline, the new permanent US pipeline jobs in the US number as few as 50.”

Unlike the Perryman Group’s “opaque” methodology, the Cornell report explains its calculations with full transparency [available at http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/globallaborinstitute/research/upload/GLI_Ke
ystoneXL_Reportpdf.pdf].

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Okay, unless verifiable data refuting the above fact checks are provided, we can put an end to THAT issue, right?