What Nolan Finley really means

No links in this post. Just some plain English translations of Nolan Finley's
recent column spreading unfounded terror among the citizenry.......

EPA raises risk of blackouts  As an opinion columnist, I do not need a source or any data or attribution for this statement, unlike the poor schlubs in the newsroom who are required to substantiate statements they make in their stories. Can you imagine?!

NOLAN FINLEY

An especially stormy summer gives us a taste of what life would be like if the electric umbilical cord attached to the side of our homes were to run dry.

Prepare to panic

Silent air conditioners and refrigerators full of spoiling food is the shared experience in countless neighborhoods hit by weather related power outages.

Saved by the backup

A generous generating reserve in the state kept the power interruptions fewer than they might have been. Despite an unrelenting heat wave, no blackouts occurred because of shortages in electricity supplies, says Steve Kurmas, president and chief operating officer of Detroit Edison, a DTE Energy subsidiary. The utilities did their jobs. I’m about to use their talking points to string together this column.

DTE has a production capacity that exceeds normal demand by 26 percent, and is more than twice the standard 12 percent reserve, Kurmas says. That's largely because the recession wiped out so many customers in this region. So when demand peaks, DTE can ramp up production to cover the load, even on hottest days. Customers are paying to maintain capacity they don’t need, but on a handful of days a year, the utility is able to fire up the oldest, least efficient, most expensive and dirtiest coal plants to meet demand. It may well be less expensive to buy that  energy from the electric grid, but exploring that would collapse the premise of the column.

EPA energy killers You thought I was going to use "job killers" again, didn't you!

That's the situation today. Four years from now, who knows?

Between now and then, DTE will have to shutter 10 coal-burning units, reducing capacity by 20 percent to meet new Environmental Protection Agency regulations on coal plants. Updating the plants to comply with the new EPA standards in the three-year period allowed would be massively expensive. So DTE will take them off line. Anybody with brainwave activity would question my contention that the utility will shut down 10 coal plants in 36 months, but I'm counting on no one applying critical thinking here.

That will reduce reserves to 6 percent and leave the system vulnerable to blackouts on scorching hot days like the ones we've had this month. Now you may panic.  I remain calm because I know full well the huge lobbying power of the coal industry will easily tie the whole thing up in court for a decade.

Kurmas says DTE has no intention of allowing reserve capacity to drop so low. The utility also is not panicking because they know this too. The company is taking time to assess the regulations, and to get some clarifications from the EPA. Michiganders are going to be funding a new team of utility company lobbyists and lawyers to castrate this idea. If there's a change in the White House next year, it will likely mean a new regulatory ballgame. We all know a new administration will mean more delays, if not a complete about face. Utility lobbyists can outlast any president.

But the plan now is to replace the coal burners with plants that operate on natural gas. That's cleaner power, but costlier. I am pointedly ignoring mountains of credible evidence that energy efficiency programs have vast potential to meet energy needs at a fraction of the cost of gas, nuclear, coal, windmills, solar, etc. Instead, I will pretend natural gas plants are our only option. I'm also not going to mention the conclusions of our state's Public Service Commission, which foresees no need for a new coal plant for more than a decade.

Watch your wallets

Kurmas says to expect electricity bills to soar by 25 to 35 percent. Panic, I tell you! I need not provide any source for this claim, because you can trust the man from the utility company. For residential customers, that'll leave less money to spend on other goods and services, further closing the damper on the economy.

For power-intensive businesses, such as manufacturers, it will mean higher operating costs that will have to be offset either by raising prices or trimming workers. Manufacturers can lower their costs with energy efficiency upgrades, but you'll have to read that elsewhere. We're against that because dope-smoking hippie environmentalists are for it.

The consequences of the coal mandate will be huge. And yet such a momentous change was pushed through by regulatory fiat, without a vote by our elected representatives.

President Barack Obama has proven wholly inept at putting Americans back to work. But as an economy killer, he is without equal. I stray from the topic here to take a generalized, gratuitous shot at the President, who by most accounts is moderately liberal but by the Detroit News’s standards is a raving, communist devil.

The EPA's move to turn the occasional summertime power outage into a daily threat is just the latest example.

nfinley@detnews.com

(313) 222-2064

Nolan Finley is editorial page editor of The News. Read more of his recent columns and read his blog at detnews.com/finley. Also watch him at 7:30 p.m. Fridays on “Am I Right?” on Detroit Public TV, Channel 56.

Detroit News duo vie to pen most outlandish, spiteful tirade against all things environmental

Editorial columnists gone wild!

Pointing out errors, inconsistencies and tortured logic in Detroit News editorial writers’ ugly screeds against environmentalists and all they stand for could be a full-time job. Since Mitten State is only part-time – and because the News tells us that environmentalists hate jobs – we valiantly resist the urge to spend too much time playing Whack-a-Mole with them. Alas, pair of jaw-droppingly stupid columns this week are too irresistible to let pass by.

First, News editorial board member and cartoonist Henry Payne invoked the visage of Nazis in his column titled Sieg Heil, warmingmongers!. He warns darkly of coming “civil unrest” and “grim war” in the United States because of President Obama’s “radical green vision.”

Yes. Civil unrest and grim war. From the radical green vision of a president who’s backing so-called ”clean” coal; expanding oil drilling in previously off-limits areas of the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska coastlines;  and authorizing massive taxpayer subsidies for new nuclear plants.

(Aside: The News’ editorialists rail constantly against taxpayer subsidies for clean energy like wind and solar. On the topic of taxpayer subsidies for coal, gas, oil and nuclear power they are as quiet as church mice.)

Feeling challenged to up the ante in their game of  batshit-crazy, Payne’s colleague Manny Lopez ginned up an incomprehensibly inane blog post incorporating climate change with lunatic murderer Charlie Manson, Koran-burning Pastor Terry Jones and Al Gore. 

On a junior high schooler’s Facebook page the post would be judged a failed attempt at clever. From the Opinion Page Editor of the state’s second-largest newspaper, it’s just embarrassing.
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D'OH!! Climate skeptic scientists' data inconvenient for billionaire oil magnates who helped fund it

So two oil magnate billionaire brothers walk into a bar scientific discussion. They spend a bunch of money to help fund a fresh analysis of climate change data conducted by a scientist who’s outspokenly critical of the consensus on global warming.

The brothers are enthused, since they have a lot to gain if the nation believes that burning up fossil fuel as quickly as we can pry it out of the earth is a good thing.

The skeptic community is enthused, since they believe this man is one of the only scientists not on the planet that is part of an evil conspiracy to perpetrate a massive hoax on the world’s people in order to, um .... get more grants or something.The scientist is the toast of anti-government hacks like Michigan's own Oakland University teacher who goes by the name The Blog Prof.

The ending of this story has not been written. But there was a pretty damn good foreshadowing of it the other day  when the scientist testified before Congress. The results so far, the scientist said to the chagrin of the billionaire brothers, are nearly identical to the results obtained by all the other leading scientific organizations on the planet and reported by the International Panel on Climate Change.

This has infuriated the skeptics who once vowed to accept the conclusions of this lone, honest scientist. Even if the conclusions challenged their theory. Now they say this man, clearly, is part of the evil conspiracy.

As Linda Ellerbee used to say, “…and so it goes.”

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New data: Clean energy in Michigan comes in cheaper than coal; utility says it will only cost one-third of original projections

Everyone knows renewable energy is way more expensive than the ‘cheap’ coal touted by those slick industry advertisements Right?

Two words: Bull. Puckey. And a pair of stunning new developments in Michigan make that analysis abundantly clear.

First, a refresher: You’ll remember that the Michigan Legislature passed the state’s first renewable energy standard in 2008. It requires utilities to generate 10 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2015. The utilities also are required to administer energy efficiency programs to help customers reduce their use.

You’ll also recall that the anti-tax and anti-government zealots – along with the fossil fuel lobby – opposed the measures vehemently. Their mouthpieces at places like the Detroit News editorial page complained loudly that the programs were outrageously expensive socialist plots by “the Greens” that would bankrupt the state’s ratepayers.

Now, more than two years in, we have actual data on the cost of these clean energy programs. And two documents released in February show how it’s working out:

#1: The Michigan Public Service Commission (PSC), in this analysis (PDF) released last month, reports that the cost of renewable energy in Michigan is 25 percent less expensive than electricity from a new coal fired power plant. It further reports that the cost of saving energy through the new efficiency programs is one-tenth of the cost of providing it with a new coal plant. These renewable energy costs are based on actual contract prices, not guesswork. Bottom line: Cheaper. Than. Coal.

#2: Consumers Energy Co., in a rate filing in late February, reports that meeting the renewable energy law’s requirements will cost one-third of its original projection. Instead of $1.5 billion, it will cost ratepayers $500 million to meet the 10 percent standards. Bills will be adjusted. Adjusted downward. Honestly, when was the last time a contractor started a job, and then told the customer “Geez, we didn’t think it would be so easy. We’re cutting your bill by two thirds.”?

Again: Cheaper. Than. Coal. And that’s even before we begin talking about the reduced health care and pollution costs that accompany clean energy. That’s not something you’re likely to read in a Detroit News editorial anytime soon.

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Climate conspiracy theories fall like snowflakes from Detroit News columnists' keyboards

On Feb. 2, Detroit News Opinion Page Editor Manny Lopez took his favorite whipping boy, Al Gore, to task for Gore’s suggestion that the recent Midwest snowstorm may have been intensified by climate change. He lectured “Goreacle and his lemmings” that the storm had nothing to do with climate, but was “part of that pesky little thing called weather.”

Only two days later, Detroit News cartoonist Henry Payne, who sits on the News’ editorial board with Lopez, wrote that, because of snowfall in Dallas, “global warming” had been “debunked on the grandest stage of all: The Super Bowl.” It was, he wrote, “an embarrassment of Janet Jackson-like proportions” for Gore.

Discerning readers may be puzzled how the News’ braintrust can simultaneously declare both that the snowstorm had no bearing on climate change theory and that it debunks climate change in a most humiliating way. But regular readers of the News’ editorial columnists and bloggers are not surprised.

 

In a  Feb. 3 column, Payne tells us that the only people left supporting climate change theory are "the elites and their crony capitalist backers" who are sucking up taxpayer subsidies for windmills (presumably they, not the poor little coal and oil industries are calling the shots in Washington now), asserts that a cold spell in parts of America has climate change adherents “in a panic” and spins the usual climate conspiracy theory involving thousands of crooked scientists worldwide. Plus, there’s a bonus conspiracy theory! A worldwide coordinated cover up of "the scientific scandal of the century"  by the world’s media.

Possibly the frenzy has something to do with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s recent data showing that 2010 tied the  warmest year on global record. Or, perhaps someone is angling for an invitation to a guest spot on a Fox News pundit shoutfest. Either way, News readers deserve less hysteria and more level headedness from their opinion leaders. 

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Terror in Michigan! Oak trees...no, um, the Mackinac Bridge....maybe. Wait, rattlesnakes! Yes, rattlesnakes spread fear and death...no wait, not death. But fear, yes! Be very afraid!

Leslie Pluhar died when her tiny car careened off the Mackinac Bridge in 1989.

Michael Jeffery died last year when an oak tree inexplicably fell on him as he was riding his motorcycle near Niles.

Debbie Luna died last month when a vehicle crashed into a gas pump near Grayling, sending the pump flying into her.

None of the deaths resulted in headlines that read “Mackinac Bridge creates panic among drivers” or “Oak trees strike fear into Michiganders” or “Gas stations and death: The untold story.” Yet rattlesnakes bite four people in Michigan this summer and we get: ”Massasauga rattlesnakes strike fear in region.”

Sweet Jesus! Grab the shotgun and bar the door! The Detroit News headline writers have told us what we should fear, and by gum, we're not going outside.

Michigan’s rattlesnakes haven’t killed anyone in at least 40 years, maybe more. They’re shy and sluggish and the smallest and least venomous of any in the U.S.. When they bite in defense they often don’t even release venom. The Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment has a  nice primer on the massasauga noting that the few bites that do occur often are the result of people trying to catch or kill the snake. Those folks are are Michigan's budding Darwin awardees.

Bullshit headlines like the News', and stories that fail to address the relative risk of wild animals contribute to the impression that the outdoors is a sinister, dangerous place to be avoided. 

As Richard Louv, author of “Last Child in the Woods” points out, exaggerated fears of both nature and strangers are conspiring to keeping children indoors – contributing to shorter attention spans, stunted imaginations, obesity and numerous other problems that could be treated by the balm of, say, spending the day building a fort in the backyard bushes with your friends. If it wasn't for the fact that your child would be KILLED INSTANTLY by a rattlesnake or CARRIED OFF IN THE FANGS of a coyote.

“The biggest barrier between kids and the outdoors is the fear that parents feel about strangers and about nature. All you have to do is watch CNN or Fox and you’ll see how they take a handful of crimes against children every year and repeat them over and over again. News media and entertainment media have basically scared us to death, scared us right out of nature.”

As for the stranger danger, what’s with that nasty Nancy Grace woman whose CNN Headline News show always seems to be scrolling “BREAKING NEWS: LANDFILL SEARCH UNDERWAY FOR 4-YEAR OLD BEAUTY QUEEN PENELOPE McTAVISH, STOLEN FROM HER PRINCESS-THEMED BED IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT BY STRANGERS!!!!” Sorry, that woman bugs me.

By the way, the EPA ranks indoor air pollution among the top five public health risks. Rattlesnakes aren’t even on the list.

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Detroit News lets Frank Beckmann spew more unhinged nonsense; so is Stephen Hawking part of the climate change conspiracy?

Stephen Hawking enjoying the spoils of the climate conspiracy

Conservative radio talk show host and football announcer Frank Beckmann has penned another  wild, flailing assault on climate change science in today’s Detroit News. He’s strung together unrelated threads of  factually tortured conspiracy theory sandwiched around words like “bogus” “hoax” and “grant seeking environmental alarmists.”

Frank’s columns must be increasingly embarrassing for those at the News who still believe that even the most opinionated opinion columnists should be held to certain standards of intellectual honesty. But it may be par for the course for an editorial page that continues to promote as fact climate contentions that even the most celebrated climate change skeptic-climatologists have denounced.

It would take a huge word count to address each of Frank’s scattershot accusations and pseudo-facts that sail around untethered by accuracy or context. So I leave you with two links:

First, this link from NOAA where you can see lower on the page the “climate dashboard” that shows actual recorded observations for global temperatures, carbon dioxide, sun energy, Arctic sea ice and sea level.

Secondly, this video with Stephen Hawking and Carl Sagan talking about the greenhouse effect.

Hawking says “…one of the most serious consequences of our actions is global warming brought about by rising levels of CO2 from the burning of fossil fuels. The danger is that the temperature increase may become self-sustaining, if it hasn’t done so already.”

Hawking, of course, is a literal genius the world’s most celebrated cosmologist and physicist. But Beckmann might well categorize him as just another “environmental alarmist” who has “fouled the air with their fraud.”

DEBATE FAIL!: Great Lakes? Energy? Transportation? Rebuilding cities? IGNORED.

Michigan is smack in the middle of the world’s most astounding water system – 18 percent of the world’s fresh surface water surrounds us. It provides 40 million people with drinking water; fuels our water-intensive industrial economy and fertilizes our farmers’ bounty. It is threatened by sewage overflows, deposition of hazardous chemicals, and by Asian carp and other invasives.

We are on the cutting edge of advanced automotive batteries, have a burgeoning clean energy technology industrial sector and a vital tourism economy (all are growing – the only economic sectors in Michigan to do so recently).

We have world-class sand dunes, vast forests, fertile farmland and fantastic hunting, fishing, hiking, birdwatching, boating, mushroom picking, frog-spearing, cricket listening and Petoskey-stone hunting. Stone skipping, too. We also have a few cool cities where smart young college graduates want to live work and play. But not nearly enough.

So how did an hour-long gubernatorial debate take place tonight without any…ANY…mention of the role Michigan’s natural resources play in our economy and quality of life?

Not. a. single. one. Not in their opening or closing comments. Not in the questions from the moderators. The Center for Michigan says you can find the replay right here starting Monday, if you have trouble getting to sleep.

Thumbs down to moderators Stephen Henderson of the Detroit Free Press and Nolan Finley of the Detroit News for ignoring energy, transportation, vibrant cities, and the future of the Great Lakes in favor of queries like “would you forego your salary as governor?” (as if that would make a difference) or “are you tough enough” to play political hardball? (seriously Nolan, how could that question elicit anything other than a minute-long infomercial?)

And thumbs down to Virg Bernero and Rick Snyder for utterly failing to incorporate our state’s important natural assets into any of your answers.

Oh, wait. I rewound the DVR and did find that Bernero did mention “…the green automotive future, the green technology, wind turbines…” during a frenetic monologue about manufacturing. So…there you have it.

Should either candidate want to feign interest in Michigan’s water, land or air,here’s a start. Until then, the hell with it. If this is all you got, I’m leaving the governor’s ballot blank in November.

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Environmental protection takes 72 percent budget hit in eight years. Who's going to be blamed when we can't adequately respond to a BP-style crisis?

The chart accompanying this Detroit News story http://bit.ly/cY6FcL illustrates exactly how drastically we've cut funding for environmental protection in Michigan during the last decade. The budget for these agencies has declined from $153 million in 2002 to $42 million proposed for 2010. That's a 72 percent cut.

If your household income was $60,000 in 2002 and you received the same cut, you'd be making  just shy of $17, 000 today.
 
We'll hear a lot about low taxes and limited government this election season. But given the choice, do Michiganders really want to see even more cuts to programs like deer check stations?  Monitoring of pollution flowing into the Great Lakes? Forest fire fighting personnel? Keeping state campgrounds open? Cleaning up contaminated industrial sites?

And when some BP-style disaster strikes and Michigan's environmental agencies do not have the resources to respond adequately, who's going to be blamed? 

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Celebrating success: The stirring comeback story of the Detroit River

Environmentalists are notoriously leery of celebrating good news. The moment you acknowledge how much cleaner a river is or how much less smog is in the air above a city, it will be seized on by some people as a good reason to gut the laws and other protections that made the improvement possible in the first place.

So with the caveat that we have a long way to go, let’s revel in the comeback of the Detroit River, as chronicled in today’s Detroit News: http://bit.ly/9jQM66

It was only a generation back that the Rouge River, which flows into the Detroit River, caught fire due to the industrial chemicals and flammable debris floating on its surface. The Detroit River still suffers from its image an industrial cesspool. Visitors are often shocked to learn that it is a world-class walleye fishery. And I’ll never forget the story of the biologist who – using a crude egg trap hastily cobbled together from duct tape and Home Depot scraps -- confirmed in 2001 the first spawning sturgeon in the river in 30 years.

John Hartig http://bit.ly/cMwgnn, featured in the News’ story, is a true hero in the battle to protect what’s left of the natural systems that nurture the river. But he’s just one of thousands of Michiganders who fought tooth-and-nail during the past 40 years to bring the river back. Those fights occurred in the halls of Washington where Congressman John Dingell helped pass the Clean Water Act, to the very shores of the Humbug Marsh where grassroots citizens fought for more than a decade to keep condos from destroying the last remaining coastal wetland along the U.S. side of the river.

The river is cleaner because of laws requiring treatment of human sewage and regulations limiting toxic chemical releases among many other measures. It’s a stirring example of how a committed citizenry, demanding strong stewardship of our natural resources from elected officials, can make a huge difference.

There are powerful lobbies trying to weaken the very laws that created this success: http://bit.ly/am4NY7. An apathetic electorate is a sure-fire way to ensure that they succeed. That’s worth considering when you you’re your votes this August and November

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Finding common ground with anti-government right wingers: iPhones are cool!

As advertised (see the post immediately below this one), there were no scientists on the Mackinac Center for Public Policy’s ‘expert’ panel at Oakland University yesterday discussing the most complex and pressing science issue of our time (climate change).

I will spare you the predictable diatribes against Al Gore, scientists, the media, liberals, environmentalists, etc.

But the most telling moment was when one panelist, the Reason Foundation’s Shikha Dalmia, to her credit, said she would not discuss climate science, because: “Unless you are a trained climate scientist you have no business talking about it as far as I’m concerned.”

The irony was lost entirely on the other panelists, who proceeded to expound on climate science at excruciating and grossly inaccurate length.

Afterward, Detroit News cartoonist and 'expert' panelist Henry Payne and I had a spirited discussion about renewable energy, the environmental community, the cost of peak-load electricity generation and iPhone apps.

We agreed. iPhones are cool.

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Anti-regulation activists come to Michigan dressed as science experts! (But did they stay at a Holiday Inn Express?)

Today, a panel of anti-government anti-regulation activists will convene on two Michigan college campuses, Oakland University and Central Michigan University: http://bit.ly/cSXA2O

They will spread this message: Thousands of climate scientists worldwide are either incompetent or have abandoned their ethical, moral and professional obligations as part of an insidious plot to fake the issue of climate change.

They could be right....and Arkansas-Pine Bluff could win the NCAA basketball tournament this year.

Here’s a more plausible explanation:

The panelists each work for organizations dedicated to eliminating government regulation. Two of the three are paid by big foundations and companies to fight government oversight. Climate change solutions almost certainly will require government oversight. Therefore, these organizations are desperately denying the science that threatens their mission: Minimizing regulation and protecting clients.

So maybe thousands of climate scientists are stupid or crooked.

Or maybe the panelists’ hatred of government regulation and/or loyalty to their funders is so great that they will do anything in order to block it.

The latter explanation is business as usual for the folks who continue to defend tobacco companies and oppose government regulations that prevent the Great Lakes from being siphoned into Asia-bound tankers for sale to the highest bidder.

It is telling that the so-called ‘expert panel’ today tackles the most pressing and complex scientific matter of our time, yet there are no scientists on the panel! Instead we get a newspaper cartoonist – Henry Payne of the Detroit News -- and two paid flacks for anti-government foundations: Paul Chesser of the Heartland Institute and Shikha Dalmia of the Reason Foundation.

The anti-science crusade has been successful, as it was against tobacco regulation a generation ago. Recent polls show a decline in the number of Americans who believe the science of climate change: http://bit.ly/cfnt8g


But even with the recent dustup over e-mails stolen from climate scientists, no major US scientific organization has changed its stance on climate. In fact, a list of 250 (and growing) U.S. scientists (mostly climatologists) have signed this open letter: http://bit.ly/b5JnK8

I’ve already filled out my NCAA bracket. People who analyze basketball for a living predict an early exit for Arkansas-Pine Bluff. I’ll root for them because I love to see the underdogs make fools of the experts. But that’s not where I’m putting my money. How about you?

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Message to neighbors of Michigan's 4,000 orphan contaminated sites: Sorry, you're on your own

Our state used to be pretty good at keeping tabs on places where abandoned industrial contamination poisoned the water and soil. When nasty stuff moved toward residential wells, a solution was found before people got sick. If toxic stuff headed for an unpolluted stream or lake, a strategy was created to  avoid a disaster.

Not any longer.

As this excellent package of stories by the Detroit News’ Jim Lynch chronicles, there are more than 4,000 such sites and no money left to monitor the pollution, much less clean it up:

http://bit.ly/dj7HdQ

These are sites where the polluters are long gone – bankrupt, dead, or untraceable. Society can pitch in to address the problems. Or we can simply write off the land, water and neighbors affected by each of these sites as expendable.

As the stories illustrate, the damage isn’t just to the environment, but to public health, economic prosperity and property values.

Even in this dismal economic climate, you would think that managing this problem would be considered a core government service, but it’s not.

No, Michigan lawmakers have been busy slashing the general fund budget of the agency that oversees these problems 75 percent in the last eight years – and there are plenty of lawmakers who wanted to take more.

In a sidebar to the News’ main story, a fellow from the Michigan Manufacturers Association suggests that the problem is a result of red tape. Presumably, if we just get the bureaucrats out of the way, things will be fine. Never mind about funding the program.

Meanwhile, contaminated plumes of groundwater are moving toward - and already have - poisoned drinking water wells. Others have, or soon will, reach unpolluted streams, lakes and ponds.

You can probably find a site near you on the News’ interactive map of some selected sites: http://bit.ly/bj0sO5

This year, we’ve got candidates for governor and for state legislative offices running for election. It would be a fine time to ask them whether they consider toxic cleanup of such “orphan” sites an essential function of government, and if so how they intend to restore funding for it.

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I CAN'T HEAR YOU: Climate skeptics find their own scientist too inconvenient to acknowledge

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Conservative columnist George Will and a horde of climate change skeptics in the blogosphere have weighed in gleefully in recent days regarding climate scientist Phil Jones’ “admission” that there has been no statistically significant global warming since 1995. The argument popped up last week on the RightMichigan blog. It’s a variation on a common argument that typically uses 1998 as the year that global temperatures supposedly stopped going up.

So I did something a little outrageous, and actually read the interview where Jones made the statement.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8511670.stm

There, we learn that “statistically significant” for scientists means at a “95 percent confidence level.” We also learn that the global temperature rise during the period in question was very close to that 95 percent confidence level, with a trend of 0.12C temperature rise per decade. That’s LOT different from saying there was no temperature rise.

But wait, there’s more!

Dr. Patrick Michaels is a climatologist in the employ of the free-market-is-the-answer-to-everything Cato Institute. He is one of the climate skeptics’ poster boys. A credentialed climatologist who is regularly trotted out to defend the status quo.

I talked with Dr. Michaels in January at a Detroit News-sponsored climate debate during the Auto Show in Detroit. He wore lime green tennis shoes with his coat and tie. But I digress.

At the Detroit debate, Dr. Michaels agreed that the planet is warming, and that manmade emissions have something to do with it. He also said the old argument that global warming stopped in 1998 is scientifically invalid and should be tossed on the scrap heap of discredited arguments. 

It was a fascinating statement that, not surprisingly, the Detroit News did not see fit to include in the edited video clips of the debate they posted online.

But it turns out that Michaels said essentially the same thing to a gathering of right-wing Heritage Foundation folks in 2008. He said the data do not back up the “no warming since 1998” contention, and warned the audience that using the argument erodes their credibility. “Make an argument that you can get killed on, and you can kill us all,” he lectured them. 

You can listen to his explanation and admonishment here, starting at about the 1:20 mark

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwnrpwctIh4

It is a bizarre and pathetic commentary when climate skeptics begin finding that even the truths of their own heroes are too inconvenient to acknowledge.

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Mike Cox: Crackpot hippie?

Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox has issued an analysis disputing Illinois’ claim that closing Chicago shipping canal locks to keep Asian Carp out of Lake Michigan would unleash economic Armageddon. Read it here: http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/83571672.html

Five years ago, Grand Valley State University researchers came to a strikingly similar conclusion regarding closing the other end of the Great Lakes to keep ocean-going vessels from spewing invasive species. Read it here: http://www.gvsu.edu/business/index.cfm?id=5A6CF558-075D-5695-1590A8CA5BA2F846

Cox says keeping the carp out would cost $70 million annually to protect a $7 billion annual sport fishing industry. GVSU said keeping the ocean ships out would cost $55 million to protect the same industry.

In 2005, those who publically called for closing the lakes to ocean ships were deemed crackpot, hippie wackos bent on destroying the economy. Government researchers who spoke out were muzzled and at least one was forced out of a job. No significant politician took up the cause.

But today those calling publically for closing the Chicago shipping locks include a bipartisan roster of lawmakers. Even WJR Radio talk show host Frank Beckmann and the Detroit News editorial board – neither of which had previously seen an environmental issue they didn’t consider a socialist plot to destroy America – are on board.

What’s the difference?

For one, the ugly, creepy, leaping Asian Carp is a visible and tangible villain that has fueled the public’s ire like no other.

Secondly, the leadership of Cox, a Republican and candidate for governor, has made it OK for other Republicans and conservatives to call for closing the Chicago shipping locks.

A cynic would say it is a naked populist ploy to capitalize on public outrage in an election year.

An optimist would say that maybe, just maybe, politicians of all stripes will recognize the power that Great Lakes protection has to mobilize Michigan citizens and voters.

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