the Wednesday Edition

So, researchers in the Yukon find a chunk of permafrost that has been frozen for 700,000 years. It survived much more Global Warmy periods in the earth’s past. No massive escape of carbon, no polar bears were stopped from reproducing in record numbers:

When it melts, some experts fear it will quicken the pace of global warming significantly.

But the discovery of a cone-shaped wedge of subterranean ice near Dawson City, Yukon, that did not melt during balmier times shows that permafrost is more “stubborn” than first believed, researcher Duane Froese of the University of Alberta’s earth and atmospheric science department told AFP.

And so, current climate models that predict “extensive and severe degradation of permafrost in response to global warming, with a potential for release of large volumes of stored carbon” should be revised, the study says.

Commence braying in 3, 2, 1…

Environmental groups immediately lambasted Froese’s conclusions, saying all evidence so far points to a melting permafrost, causing sinkholes to open up, and homes and forests to tilt.

Emphasis mine. It shows that they may need to have their mellons bounced off the permafrost to realize this is called NEW evidence. I swear, for people who claim to be open minded they sure don’t want to open their eyes.

My head hurts so badly when I see a report like this one. Maybe because i can’t stop banging my head on the desk or maybe because the squirrels have gone feral but it just hurts. With everything else in the world that can really lead to our destruction in the world and all the evidence against the impending doom that is Global Warming Climate Change is it really necessary to crank it up a notch?

PARIS (Reuters) - The world needs tougher action to combat global warming than a plan by President George W. Bush to halt a rise in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions only by 2025, delegates at a climate conference in Paris said on Thursday.

South Africa, one of 17 nations at the two-day global warming talks that started on Thursday, called Bush’s proposals “disappointing” and unambitious when many other industrialized economies are already cutting emissions.

Oh boo-hoo! South Africa’s disappointed. Well guess what… I’m disappointed that South Africa cleared a Chinese ship full of arms bound for Zimbabwe.

“This is disappointing,” one senior European official said in Paris. “But Bush will be leaving office soon. What he says doesn’t matter so much any more.”

Republican presidential candidate John McCain and Democratic hopefuls Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have all urged tougher caps on emissions than those proposed by Bush.

And here is a senior European official who thinks what he says matters at all.

I’m all about limiting pollution. I love having green spaces and no smog. I don’t like junk science and people telling me the debate is over.