Genuine Science Is A Right-Wing Plot

As even the pseudoscientific aspects of the global warming hoax get shot down and exposed by those true scientists not in thrall to pagan climatological superstition, the blind guides of that communistic religion grow even less inclined to let facts get in the way of the forcible imposition of their faith (via Newsmax Insider):

Climate change alarmists are quick to point to diminishing Arctic sea ice as an indicator of global warming. But a faulty sensor led scientists to underestimate the extent of the ice — by an area larger than California.

The error began in early January and persisted until mid-February, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) at the University of Colorado, which releases estimates of Arctic sea ice.

The problem was caused by the malfunction of a satellite sensor used for daily updates on the extent of Arctic sea ice.

The NSIDC explained on its Web site: “On February 16, 2009, as e-mails came in from puzzled readers, it became clear that there was a significant problem — sea-ice-covered regions were showing up as open ocean . . . 

“Upon further investigation, we found that data quality had begun to degrade over the month preceding the catastrophic failure.

“As a result, our processes underestimated total sea ice extent for the affected period. Based on comparisons with sea ice extent derived from the NASA Earth Observing System Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer sensor, this underestimation grew from a negligible amount in early January to about 500,000 square kilometers (193,000 square miles) by mid-February.”

The area of California is about 163,700 square miles.

The NSIDC uses Department of Defense satellites to obtain its Arctic sea ice data, rather than more accurate National Aeronautics and Space Administration equipment, Bloomberg.com reported.

The Arctic ice cap retreated to its smallest extent on record in 2007, then posted its second-lowest annual minimum at the end of last year’s melt season, and the NSIDC said the recent error does not change its view that the ice is retreating. [emphases added]

In other words, "We were wrong, but we're still right."  Or "Don't believe your lying eyes, believe us who fill up your gullible ears with destructive, ruinous nonsense."

Speaking of which, how is Red Barry's cap-and-trade “market” approach to curbing carbon emissions working out over in the continent that is the source of his failed, discredited economic nostrums?

Not so well, it seems:

A year ago European governments allocated a limited number of carbon emission permits to their big polluters. Businesses that reduce pollution are allowed to sell spare permits to ones that need more. As demand outstrips this capped supply, and the price of permits rises, an incentive grows to invest in green energy. Why buy costly permits to keep a coal plant running when you can put the cash into clean power instead?

All this only works as the carbon price lifts. As with 1924 Château Lafite or Damian Hirst’s diamond skulls, scarcity and speculation create the value. If permits are cheap, and everyone has lots, the green incentive crashes into reverse. As recession slashes output, companies pile up permits they don’t need and sell them on. The price falls, and anyone who wants to pollute can afford to do so. The result is a system that does nothing at all for climate change but a lot for the bottom lines of mega-polluters such as the steelmaker Corus: industrial assistance in camouflage.

“I don’t know why industrials would miss this opportunity,” said one trader last week. “They are using it to compensate for the tightening of credit and the slowdown, to pay for redundancies." [emphases added]

Put another way, a cap & trade carbon credit system needs strong economic growth as a prerequisite in order to produce the desired "green" energy incentives.  But the effect of a cap & trade carbon credit system is to REDUCE growth because "green" energy are less efficient, more costly, and therefore economically perverse.  The system is currently failing in Europe because of the recession triggered by the Democrat Financial Logic Bomb, but if it's implemented here, it is guaranteed to produce economic reverses that in turn guarantee that the system cannot produce the advertised result.

In other words, if the system fails, it will fail, and if it succeeds, it will fail even worse.  And yet its adherents will insist on even more of the same as the utopianist "solution".

No better articulation of liberalism has ever been coined, IMHO.