Shareholders are calling on Massey Energy to seek the immediate resignation of chairman and CEO Don Blankenship in the aftermath of the West Virginia disaster that killed 29 miners, the worst in forty years. Brad Johnson has the story in this repost.

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At a hearing with top US coal executives, Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA) agreed with a statement made by another coal CEO, Massey coal baron Don Blankenship. Last year — a few months before his Upper Big Branch mine in Montcoal, WV, exploded, killing 29 miners in the worst US coal disaster in 40 years — Blankenship said that the efforts by officials to get Massey Energy to improve mine safety are as “silly as global warming.” Inslee replied that “it’s actually very true“:

It’s actually very true. Mine safety is as silly as global warming — they’re both deadly serious and they’re not silly at all.

Watch it:

In his full opening remarks, Inslee noted that several headlines tell the story of the deadly dangers of our dependence on coal — a killer tsunami in Peru caused by a glacier breaking apart, the disappearance of yet more glaciers from Glacier National Park, and the Montcoal mine disaster. “If you decide to join with us to try to find a way to have a policy that will allow coal to be burned in a way that does not put massive amounts of CO2, that does not treat the atmosphere as a garbage dump, that in fact buries it underground,” Inslee said, “coal can have a future. If you don’t, it won’t.”

The House Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming hearing was later interrupted by youth climate activists, who confronted the CEOs of Peabody Energy, Arch Coal, and Rio Tinto with lumps of dirty coal.

Volt meeting goal of 40-mile electric range, GM says

The first Chevrolet Volt cars to roll off production lines at a General Motors Co. plant in Michigan are going 40 miles on a single battery charge as promised, the plug-in hybrid electric vehicle’s head engineer said yesterday.

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Ah, the power of Drudge Report-influenced headline writers. “Global warming hoax or man made?” asks the Weather Channel’s Forecast Earth, its website on climate change and sustainability. “University investigation reveals hidden skepticism,” the subhead blares:

If you click on the link, you reach an Associated Press article on Penn State climate scientist Michael Mann. Mann has been a long-time target of polluter smear campaigns because of his groundbreaking research and effective communication on the threat of man-made global warming. The article, with only the mildly deceptive title “Pennsylvania global warming researcher calls self ‘skeptic’,” describes Mann’s reaction to the latest smear campaign, based on hacked email correspondence that involve Mann and other climate scientists:

Mann also said some people who challenge global warming are not real skeptics “because their skepticism is one-sided.” “I would call them contrarians or, frankly in some cases, climate change deniers,” he said. “I’m a skeptic. When I see a scientific claim being made, I want to see it subject to scrutiny and validation.”

Mann is trying to explain to the irresponsible journalists and copy editors that climate conspiracy theorists are not “skeptics” — they’re liars and loons.

The Weather Channel’s outrageous headline, and even the poorly framed Associated Press article, is typical of the whole “Climategate” swift-boating campaign — organizations whose job is purportedly to increase public knowledge and understand of the world around them, such as the Associated Press and the Weather Channel, write articles and headlines that lend credence to the fantastical notion that the world’s governments and scientific organizations are engaging in a corrupt conspiracy. And so an ever-increasing proportion of the body politic, hammered by disinformation sources that make explicit the accusation of such a global hoax, loses touch with the harsh scientific reality of man-made global warming.

Another day, another exoneration for climate scientists.  Here’s the Guardian‘s headline on the findings of the inquiry panel, which was led by Lord Oxburgh, the former chair of the House of Lords science and technology select committee:

Scientists cleared of malpractice in UEA’s hacked emails inquiry

Researchers ‘dedicated if slightly disorganised’, but basic science was fair, finds inquiry commissioned by university

Scientists who are “slightly disorganised”?  Off with their heads!  (see “Sen. Inhofe inquisition seeking ways to criminalize and prosecute 17 leading climate scientists“)

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All the data you need to show that the world is warming

According to the IPCC 4th Assessment Report (2007):
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The International Energy Agency (IEA) released new findings Tuesday April 13 that global oil demand will reach a record high level in 2010, as the world economy recovers and developing nations’ demand for oil grows to new heights.  IEA forecasts that average annual world oil demand will have rebounded 2% from 84.9 million barrels per day (mb/d) in 2009 to 86.6 mb/d in 2010.  Susan Lyon, Special Assistant on CAP’s Energy Opportunity team, has the story.

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