The Last Frost

A memo sent to The New York Times seems to show an obvious attempt to control the flow of information regarding climate change and polar wildlife by this administration. It was circulated at the Federal Fish and Wildlife Service and require a "spokesman" be named before any trip is conducted for the sake of climate change. The idea being that only people who agree with a certain view will be allowed to speak out on the issues.

Certainly sounds like a roundabout way of gagging federal employees who don't agree with the current administrations view, disturbing stuff.

Memos Tell Officials How to Discuss Climate [New York Times]

I came across an interesting post on the blog ShoeMoney.com. Apparently they've received an email attempting to extort them out of $200 a month. If they do not comply the sender known as "dragon dragon" will use "special robots" to disable the site's Google adsense account.

What does this have to do with global warming and climate change you might ask? Well the scam artist is claiming to need the money for a magnetic energy machine prototype. He even promises to repay all the money after he "registers" the machine. I love this line though, "If you collaborate with me, you have helped to the science. And if not, I will have to close your Google AdSense account."

You can read about the so called machine at the blog given in the email scam: Magnet-Machine.blogspot.com  

Inventor Seeks Funding For Energy Machine From AdSense Publishers [ShoeMoney]

A new solar powered street lamp may help cities curb energy consumption while sprucing up the neighborhood a little. The lamps have a retro design, except for the modern solar panels adorning the side the lamp post.

I'm not sure what a regular street lamp wholesales for but this lamp is estimated to cost up to 8K for the 2000+ lumen version. Still it's a great solution to a necessary albeit wasteful safety feature for our roads.

Aesthetic Street Lights: 19th Century Design, 21st Century Solar Power - [Green Options]

It's disturbing, but it seems like the so called conservative movement (in the U.S. at least) has whole heartedly latched onto the recent theory that the recent warming on Mars proves global warming is natural and not man-made. I think the picture to the left illustrates this best. I feel like the one on the left when I read about things like this.

Our old pal Senator Inhofe from Oklahoma is reported to have handed out flyers at this years CPAC that say Mars is experiencing global warming even without SUVs. CPAC is the Conservative Political Action Conference and was held last week in Washington D.C. I'll cover more about the events at this conference in a later post.

So, Habibullo Abdussamatov purports to have proven that there is an unequivocal link between the warming here on Earth and the warming on Mars. So being the free thinking skeptic that I am, here are a few reasons why any intelligent human being should take this man's "theory" with a grain of salt.

1. The theory is being proposed by a man who isn't even a climate scientist, he's the head of an astronomical observatory in Russia.
2. His work is not accepted as accurate by the majority of his peers.
3. Abdussamatov even denies the existence of the greenhouse effect, which is very well known, absolute scientific fact and the reason you're alive and reading this.
4. We hardly understand what's happening with our own climate much less the climate of a rock between 36 and 250 million miles away from us.
5. Even on the off chance that he is correct, it does not negate the mass of widely accepted scientific research that suggests otherwise.

I can go on and on, but the truth is that this idea should be taken for what it is… an idea and not much more.

This is a very interesting idea and it could have an element of truth to it. The sun could certainly be responsible for part of the warming trend we've been seeing on our own planet.

Just because two things follow a similar trend, doesn't mean that they're connected or caused by the same thing. Global warming skeptics have used this very same argument against the link between atmospheric CO2 levels and global temperature, which is now widely accepted as fact. Although it's possible there is a connection between warming on Mars and Warming on Earth, that does not negate the accepted fact that Human activities here on Earth are warming the Earth as well.

Mars Melt Hints at Solar, Not Human, Cause for Warming, Scientist Says [National Geographic.com]