Today Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) raked Energy Secretary Bodman over the coals — the best possible use for that fossil fuel! Within days of uncompassionately zeroing out the low-income weatherization program at a time of record energy prices, Bodman’s DOE altered the DOE website.

Until a few days ago, the website of the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) Weatherization Program describe the effort as “this country’s longest running, and perhaps most successful energy efficiency program” (click on “cached text” — thank you, Google). [Having run EERE, I can certainly attest to the accuracy of that description.] Once Bush/Bodman whacked the program, that phrase was whacked too (click here), like something out of the Ministry of Truth — Minitrue — in the book 1984.

You can see how Samuel “dear in the headlights” Bodman responded to Markey in this video clip.

Just for the record, as the website notes, over 30 years, DOE weatherized the homes of “more than 5.5 million low-income families” reducing

heating bills by 31% and overall energy bills by $358 per year at current prices. This spending, in turn, spurs low-income communities toward job growth and economic development.

So what does the Administration do? Zero the program out during an economic slowdown that itself has been driven in part by record energy prices. You just cannot make stuff up!

Below is Markey’s press release and a picture of the website before and after:

Read more

I was watching the grilling by Jay Inslee (D-WA) of Energy Secretary Bodman this morning at the House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing on the “Department of Energy’s Fiscal Year 2009 Budget Proposal.”

And Inslee got Bodman to say, “I haven’t talked to the president about cap-and-trade.” [I'm guessing their conversations are more like -- Bodman: "How 'bout them Giants?" Bush: "Turd-Blossom? What are you doing here?"]

Inslee was amazed, but it is hard to be surprised by anything this administration does or doesn’t do — Samuel Nevergen’ Bodman included.

Strangely, Bodman’s defense of our do-nothing policy vis-a-vis the Chinese is that he spent many years trying to negotiate with them on currency and he concluded:

There is no leverage with the Chinese. The only leverage is what we are willing to do.

I wrote it down, and believe that is the verbatim quote. But it would seem to me that’s an argument for us actually doing something! And in any case the Chinese clearly see little benefit to themselves from raising the value of their currency vs. the dollar — whereas I hope they see some benefit to themselves from avoiding catastrophic global warming. If not, the planet is toast.

That said, if you were China and saw the U.S. doing nothing to reduce emissions, and in fact had been lobbied behind the scenes heavily for seven years by senior U.S. officials who were telling you 1) climate change isn’t serious, 2) the U.S. wasn’t going to do anything while Bush was President, and, 3) by the way, we’d really like your help in subverting the entire international negotiating process — well, gosh, big surprise that “there is no leverage with the Chinese.”

When will this long national nightmare end???

I am not saying the “unusually ferocious winter tornado system” that hit five southern states yesterday was caused by global warming. I am saying — or rather NASA is saying — we’re probably going to have to get used to it:

NASA scientists have developed a new climate model that indicates that the most violent severe storms and tornadoes may become more common as Earth’s climate warms.

So did John Kerry go too far on MSNBC when he said:

[I] don’t want to sort of leap into the larger meaning of, you know, inappropriately, but on the other hand, the weather service has told us we are going to have more and more intense storms,” Kerry said. “And insurance companies are beginning to look at this issue and understand this is related to the intensity of storms that is related to the warming of the earth. And so it goes to global warming and larger issues that we’re not paying attention to. The fact is the hurricanes are more intensive, the storms are more intensive and the rainfall is more intense at certain places at certain times and the weather patterns have changed.

That sounds about right to me, though it wasn’t the “weather service” really, it was NASA. The conservative Business & Media Institute said Kerry was using the tragedy, which killed over 50 people, “to advance global warming alarmism.” But BMI embarrasingly undercuts its credibility by quoting one meteorologist from last year who obviously isn’t very good at forecasting:

Kerry’s assertion tornado activity is related to any type of climate change is questionable based on the writings of at least one meteorologist. Roger Edwards, a meteorologist at the Storm Prediction Center of the National Weather Center in Norman, Okla., has doubts about any global warming and tornado relationship.

“As of this writing, no scientific studies solidly relate climatic global temperature trends to tornadoes,” Edwards wrote on the Earth & Sky Web site in April 2007. “I don’t expect any such results in the near future either, because tornadoes are too small, short–lived, hard to measure and count, and too dependent on day to day, even minute to minute weather conditions.”

Doh! NASA’s paper, “Will moist convection be stronger in a warmer climate?” was actually submitted to Geophysical Research Letters in April 2007, and published in August!

Significantly, yesterday the country saw an unusually powerful tornado system:

Read more

It’s the Chinese New Year, 4706 — but you knew that, of course. And it “could bring some environmental … unpleasantries, said feng-shui expert Grandmaster Hong Liu.” Unpleasantries?

“We’re looking at volcanoes, twisters, floods and, to a greater degree, communicable diseases,” Liu said through an interpreter.

But it’s just a natural cycle that has beenn going on for thousands of years, so no big deal!

At the risk of revealing too much about myself, it is my year — the year of the Rat.

Rats are best known for their charm. Blessed with a sharp wit, they possess a marvelous sense of humor, which makes them stimulating and amusing company to have around. Generally extroverted, they may well be described as opportunists for they prefer to live off their wits rather than labor long and hard to earn their daily bread.

But you knew that — I am a blogger, after all. No long and hard labor for me. My friends might say I’m on the introverted side, but I prefer to think of myself as a closet extrovert.

And before anyone makes a politically incorrect comments about Rats, you should know:

In China, the Rat is respected and considered a courageous, enterprising person. It is deemed an honor to be born in the Year of the Rat and it is considered a privilege to be associated with a Rat. Rats know exactly where to find solutions and can take care of themselves and others without problems. They use their instinctive sense of observation to help others in times of need and are among the most fit of all the Animal signs to survive most any situation.

At the risk of revealing way too much about myself, I am not just any kind of Rat, I am a Metal Rat….

Read more