As I pointed out on Planet Gore yesterday, the U.S. needs a real energy policy which includes accessing all of the resources at our disposal in order to increase domestic oil production. According to a new poll done by Rasmussen Reports, Americans wholeheartedly agree:

A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey — conducted before McCain announced his intentions on the issue — finds that 67% of voters believe that drilling should be allowed off the coasts of California, Florida and other states. Only 18% disagree and 15% are undecided. Conservative and moderate voters strongly support this approach, while liberals are more evenly divided (46% of liberals favor drilling, 37% oppose).

It’s about time that liberals like Al Gore come up with a new crisis. Global warming (climate change) is running out of steam.

Bob Unruh of WorldNetDaily reported that 31,000 U.S. scientists - 9,000 with doctorate degrees in atmospheric science, climatology, Earth science, environment and other specialties - have signed a petition rejecting global warming.

The list of scientists includes 9,021 Ph.D.s, 6,961 at the master’s level, 2,240 medical doctors and 12,850 carrying a bachelor of science or equivalent academic degree.

Global warming assumes that human production of greenhouse gases is destroying the Earth’s climate.

Analysis The story is that the world is heating up - fast. Prominent people at NASA warn us that unless we change our carbon producing ways, civilisation as we know it will come to an end. At the same time, there are new scientific studies showing that the earth is in a 20 year long cooling period. Which view is correct? Temperature data should be simple enough to record and analyze. We all know how to read a thermometer - it is not rocket science.

Previously we looked at how US temperature data sets have been adjusted - with more recent versions of historical data sets showing a steeper rise in temperature than they used to. Here, we'll be looking at current NASA data and why their temperature maps appear hot-red, even when others are cool-blue.

One of the strangest things I’ve learned in the past year about the US Historical Climatological Network is the propensity for placement of weather stations at sewage treatment plants.

The reason of course has to do with putting a thermometer at a facility that is staffed 7 days a week. That thermomter must be manually read once a day and the readings transcribed into a logbook. Waste Water Treatment Plants (WWTP’s) fit that requirement (as they have an operator on duty, often 24/7) but they themselves are their own mini islands of waste heat and humidity, especially in winter and overnight. Yet, a significant portion of the US climate data comes from these locations.

Some have grassy areas where a climate monitoring station could be placed, such as the one in Morrison, IL, and you’d think they would place it there, away from the sewage tanks. Unfortunately, no.

The Senate's leading climate-change bill, while aiming to combat global warming by reducing carbon dioxide in the air, actually poses "extraordinary perils" for Americans and the economy, according to a new study from The Heritage Foundation.

The study, produced by Heritage's Center for Data Analysis (CDA), forecasts severe consequences—including crushing energy costs, millions of jobs lost and falling household income—if Congress enacts the so-called Lieberman-Warner bill.

What follows are 50 state-by-state breakouts of the impact the bill would have on jobs and the economy.

On May 18, 1980, the once bucolic ice-cream cone shape that defined Mount St. Helens in Washington state disappeared in monstrous blast of ash, rock, gas, and heat.

It was one of the most powerful explosions ever witnessed by humans and the force of the blast leveled hundreds of square miles of forestland, devastated wildlife and killed over 50 people.

Almost three decades later, the effects of the eruption are readily apparent to the thousands of visitors to the observation points in the sprawling Mount St. Helens volcanic monument.

But time has also muted the effects to some degree. Trees are growing back in some areas, plants have poked up through the ash, animals move through the devastated plains once again.