The tide is turning in the global warming debate, and alarmists are running out of excuses to explain to a confused populace the inconvenient truth that there has been no warming since 1998.  Mainstream newspapers are publishing detailed stories that throw a skeptical eye over the global warming scare, noting that there is more credible evidence for a cooling trend than a warming one.

See the New York Times 'More on Whether a Big Chill is Nigh' and the UK's Daily Mail 'Global Warning' stories as examples.  There are even claims now that man-made warming (AGW) might even save the planet.

For many who have drank deep of the Al Gore kool-aid, these are very inconvenient truths to be shouted down and suppressed; but no matter how loudly they might cry 'consensus' and point at the UN IPCC, the facts are against them.  There has been no warming since 1998, the head of the IPCC has been caught vastly exaggerating even his own organization's figures and NASA's James Hansen can't get the simple data right.  Add to the mix Al Gore's own chicken-little 'climate crisis' hyperbole as he jets all over the globe enriching himself and you have a heady mix of bad science, propaganda and fraud.

Whatever the enviro-lobbyists say, subsidising inefficient green industries is not the way to tackle climate change

With a worldwide recession advancing, strong action on global warming has been thrown into jeopardy. This matters, because in little more than a year, the world will sit down in Copenhagen to negotiate the follow-on treaty to the failed Kyoto Protocol. Yet, with people losing jobs and income, immediate economic help seems to matter more than temperature differentials 100 years from now.

Many green pundits have, however, started saying that the financial crisis only makes the need for action on climate change greater. They urge America's president-elect Barack Obama to pursue a "green revolution" with big investments in renewable energy, arguing that this could create millions of new "green collar" jobs and open huge new markets. Such sentiments, no surprise, are strongly voiced by business leaders who live off such subsidies. But are such pleas smart investments for society?

[H/T to Marc] Fellow Canadians, it's time to start thinking of "fixing" global warming the same way we do "ending" child poverty. Or "settling" native land claims. Or "shortening" medical wait times.

Like these other issues, "fixing" global warming has become yet another meaningless promise that all politicians of all stripes will be paying lip service to in perpetuity.

One they will spend billions of our dollars "fixing" year after year. To no avail.

In the end, "fixing" global warming will be a boon only to present and future generations of lobbyists, activists, consultants and other rent-seekers who will be, in the famous phrase coined by Tom Wolfe, "mau-mauing the flak catchers" into eternity.

John Podesta

If congressional Republicans -- or what's left of them -- are looking for the path out of the political wilderness following last week’s electoral drubbing, there’s a shortcut to victory in 2010 being paved for them by the Greens.

Last weekend on Fox News Sunday, Barack Obama's transition chief, John Podesta, said the Obama administration would act quickly to reverse a recent Bush administration move opening up public lands in Utah to oil and gas drilling. Podesta said that it was a “mistake” for the Bush administration to allow drilling “in some of the most sensitive, fragile lands in Utah…”

So, GOP, the battle lines are drawn. Since declining oil and gas prices are likely only temporary, we remain in an energy crisis. The problem could be solved by increasing domestic oil and gas production, but the Obama administration apparently aims to stand four-square against this.

CCF Note: Our pal at The Daily Bayonet has done a ginormous job of summarizing this week's global warming deceptions, inventions, and pieces of fiction. Herewith, the week in review, skewering included:

Welcome to your weekly skeptics smorgasbord of inconvenient links and incoherent lefties.  We're all going to die of something, and it might as well be while we're having fun with denial; so grab a beverage and belly up to the bar, we're going in...

In inexplicable acts of government opposition to its basic sources of Hawaii’s electricity, Hawaii state government is now calling for public hearings on greenhouse gas emissions on Thursday Nov. 13th. (See "Public Hearing on Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions to be Held at State Capitol Auditorium" )

More than any other state, Hawaii gets most of its energy from imported oil and coal.