So Sen. James “global warming is a hoax” Inhofe (R-OK) issues a report in which he claims:

Over 400 prominent scientists from more than two dozen countries recently voiced significant objections to major aspects of the so-called “consensus” on man-made global warming.

“Padded” would be an extremely generous description of this list of “prominent scientists.” Some would use the word “laughable” (though not the N.Y. Times‘ Andy Revkin, see below). For instance, since when have economists, who are pervasive on this list, become scientists, and why should we care what they think about climate science?

I’m not certain a dozen on the list would qualify as “prominent scientists,” and many of those, like Freeman Dyson — a theoretical physicist — have no expertise in climate science whatsoever. I have previously debunked his spurious and uninformed claims, although I’m not sure why one has to debunk someone who seriously pushed the idea of creating a rocket ship powered by detonating nuclear bombs! Seriously.

Even Ray Kurzweil, not a scientist but a brilliant inventor, is on the list. Why? Because he apparently told CNN and the Washington Post:

These slides that Gore puts up are ludicrous, they don’t account for anything like the technological progress we’re going to experience…. None of the global warming discussions mention the word ‘nanotechnology. Yet nanotechnology will eliminate the need for fossil fuels within 20 years…. I think global warming is real but it has been modest thus far – 1 degree f. in 100 years. It would be concern if that continued or accelerated for a long period of time, but that’s not going to happen.

And people say I’m a techno-optimist. So Kurzweil actually believes in climate science — rather than the reverse, as Inhofe claims — but thinks catastrophic global warming won’t happen because of a techno-fix that stops emissions. If wishes were horses … everyone would get trampled to death. In the real world, energy breakthroughs are very rare, as we’ve seen, and it’s even rarer when they make a difference in under several decades.

Then we have the likes of this from Inhofe’s list:

CBS Chicago affiliate Chief Meteorologist Steve Baskerville expressed skepticism that there is a “consensus” about mankind’s role in global warming.

Wow, a TV weatherman expressed skepticism. If only the IPCC had been told of this in time, they could have scrapped their entire report. Seriously, Wikipedia says “Baskerville is an alumnus of Temple University and holds a Certificate in Broadcast Meteorology from Mississippi State University.” I guess Inhofe has a pretty low bar for “prominent scientists” — but then again he once had science fiction writer Michael Crichton testify at a hearing on climate science.

I don’t mean to single out Baskerville. Inhofe has a lot of meteorologists on his list, including Weather Channel Founder John Coleman. I have previously explained why Coleman doesn’t know what he is talking about on climate, and why meteorologists in general have no inherent credibility on climatology. In any case, they obviously are NOT prominent scientists.

Then we have people like French geomagnetism (!) scientist Vincent Courtillot, geophysicist Louis Le Mou«l, geophysicist Claude All¨gre, geomagnetism (!!) scientist Frederic Fluteau, geomagnetism (!!!) scientist Yves Gallet, and scientist Agnes Genevey — whose “research” on global warming is brutally picked apart by RealClimate here and especially here (and again here by other scientists), who together “expose a pattern of suspicious errors and omissions that pervades” their work.

So, yes, the Inhofe list is utterly ignorable compared to either the IPCC report or the Bali declaration by actual prominent climate scientists. The notion it is relevant to the climate debate is laughable, as even a cursuory examination makes clear. And yet in an article unhelpfully titled, “Climate Consensus ‘Busted’?” the NYT‘s Andy Revkin amazingly writes of it:

Read more

This is a good time of year to highlight a new blog on Climate Change and Poverty from Oxfam. Oxfam does good work — I previously wrote on a study of theirs in “Weather disasters have quadrupled in 20 years.”

They don’t have a lot of content yet — they need to work on that! — but some of the better posts are:

• Bali

• George Monbiot video

• Food miles

• Climate Alarm – 20 years on from first Oxfam paper on climate change

I hope you’ve all bought LED lighting for your trees — they are much more efficient and safer, too, because they generate less heat! We have, and so has the White House and Rockefeller Center (see below).

Here is an Electric Power Research Institute fact sheet to answer all your questions on LED vs conventional Christmas lights.

Happy Holidays!

UPDATE: This post does not mean I am done blogging for the year….

It took less than 12 hours.

The Democrats got rolled again.

Bush started the day signing the energy bill that Nancy Pelosi called “earth-shattering change in terms of energy policy” and Sierra Club’s Carl Pope said “is a clean break with the failed energy policies of the past and puts us on the path toward a cleaner, greener energy future.” To get a bill the president would sign, out dropped any challenge to big oil’s obscene profits, a national renewable electricity standard, overwhelmingly popular wind and solar tax credits, and plug-in hybrid credits that might truly jumpstart an alternative automotive future.

They decided passing an energy bill and raising CAFE standards was worth any price. And now they’ve paid it.

They don’t know how to lose with dignity and purpose. They could have done a bill, with solar and wind and RPS and plug-in credits and taxes on oil companies to pay for and seen it vetoed. Then when Bush had the EPA kill the CO2 waiver too he’d have looked like the enviro monster he is. Now he disingenuously argues the energy bill provided a 50 state solution, not a patchwork, as the automakers like to say.

So now we have a do-little energy bill and years more litigation.

– Marc G. of Plugs and Cars Blog