SOURCES are listed in the next video, because of space constraints. Predictable posts are answered here. Please spend your time and effort in addressing the evidence presented in the video:

“This is a straw man argument. Of course skeptics [sic] accept that CO2 warms the atmosphere,
We just don’t think the warming will be catastrophic.”

Answer: “Skeptics” have all kinds of positions on climate science, depending on their personal beliefs and feelings. This video addresses those critics who claim there is no evidence for the link between CO2 and global temperature. Whether you want to call such changes “catastrophic” or benign, or terrible, or bad, or good is your feeling, and therefore outside the scope of the science.

“Correlation does not mean causation.”

Answer: It is still consistent with the theory. And where a mechanism has been shown that should produce a correlation, then the correlation is yet more confirmation that a theory is correct.

“Here’s a piece of evidence — there’s no hot spot”

Apart from the fact that this ‘no hot spot’ idea is another piece of Internet mythology, the idea of the ‘hot spot’ is based on a computer model. If you think computer models are all wrong, then the lack of a hot spot must be wrong.

And critics — please try to address the evidence shown in this video, rather than repeat myths that have been dealt with in my previous videos. If you’re not sure, check them out:

“Warming is due to galactic rays/cosmic rays/the sun”
See: 2. Climate Change — the objections
20 - Are cosmic rays causing global warming?
Monckton bunkum Part 5 — What, MORE errors, my lord?
1. Climate Change — the scientific debate

“There was a consensus about global cooling in the 1970s”
See: 3 - Climate Change — Anatomy of a myth

“There’s been no warming since 1998.”
See: 8. Climate Change — Has the Earth been cooling?
8a. Climate Change - Phil Jones and the ‘no warming for 15 years’
24 - Global warming has stopped? Again??

“The climate always changes”
See: 8. 5. Climate Change — isn’t it natural?
Climate Change — Has the Earth been cooling?
Monckton Bunkum Part 3 - Correlations and Himalayan glaciers

“31,000 scientists disagree”
See: 9. Climate Change - Meet the Scientists

“We’re headed for another ice age”
See: 10. Climate Change - An imminent ice age debunked
21 - “Earth facing mini-ice age!!” say the media. Now for the science….

“Global warming will cause more hurricanes”
See: 11. Climate Change — Hurricanes, atolls and coral

“A recent study found that warming will be just 1.64 degrees”
See: 12 - ‘Doubled CO2 means just 1.64 degrees of warming…’ or maybe not.

“Global warming is drowning islands “
See: 13 - Misleading media reports on sea level rise - a case study
11. Climate Change — Hurricanes, atolls and coral

“Global warming will bring an end to snow in the UK”
See: 14 - BP oil spills and an end to snow

“Greenland/arctic ice is not melting”
See: Monckton Bunkum Part 1 - Global cooling and melting ice

“There is very little amplification due to CO2 rise”
See: Monckton Bunkum Part 2 - Sensitivity

“There is no correlation between CO2 and temperature in the past”
See: 5. Climate Change — isn’t it natural?
Monckton Bunkum Part 3 - Correlations and Himalayan glaciers

“Himalayan glaciers are not melting.”
See: Monckton Bunkum Part 3 - Correlations and Himalayan glaciers

“[So-and-so] said….”
See: Monckton Bunkum Part 4 — Quotes and misquotes

“It’s been shown that climate scientists engaged in fraud”
See: 22 — Climategate mark 2 — the quotes and the context
6. Climate Change — Those hacked e-mails
7. Climate Change - “Those” e-mails and science censorship

“The Medieval Warm Period proves….”
See: 23 — Medieval Warm Period — fact vs. fiction

“CO2 always lags temperature rise”
See: 25 - Climate Change — The “800-year lag” unravelled

“I don’t believe it”
See: 26 — Science vs. the Feelies

“Evidence never convinces me, I believe whatever I hear in my head.”
See: A psychiatrist

As potential oil spills go, this one is relatively small, but it’s a harbinger of things to come if the Keystone XL project is approved: Everything You Need to Know About the Exxon Pegasus Tar Sands Spill.

In Greek legend, every time the winged horse Pegasus struck his hoof to the Earth, an “inspiring spring burst forth.” Unfortunately for residents in Mayflower, Arkansas, when the Pegasus pipeline ruptured, the only thing bursting forth was a nasty tar sands oil spill.

On Friday afternoon, the Pegasus pipeline operated by Exxon Mobil ruptured, flooding an Arkansas neighborhood with thousands of barrels of Wabasca Heavy crude from the Athabasca tar sands in Alberta.

Here’s what you need to know about the spill, with links to some reporting on this awful event, which at very least ruined the holiday weekends of many Mayflower, Arkansas residents, many of whom didn’t even know the pipeline was running through their neighborhood.

Read the whole thing…

Also see:
Because ‘Bitumen Is Not Oil,’ Pipelines Carrying Tar Sands Crude Don’t Pay Into US Oil Spill Fund
Exxon’s Duck-Killing Pipeline Won’t Pay Taxes to Oil Spill Cleanup Fund

The next giant right wing freak-out is on the horizon, approaching fast, as President Obama prepares to make good on his promise to act alone in the face of Republican anti-science craziness: Obama Will Use Nixon-Era Law to Fight Climate Change.

President Barack Obama is preparing to tell all federal agencies for the first time that they should consider the impact on global warming before approving major projects, from pipelines to highways.

The result could be significant delays for natural gas- export facilities, ports for coal sales to Asia, and even new forest roads, industry lobbyists warn.

“It’s got us very freaked out,” said Ross Eisenberg, vice president of the National Association of Manufacturers, a Washington-based group that represents 11,000 companies such as Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) and Southern Co. (SO).

And when the fossil fuel industries get freaked out, the right wing blogs and media are never far behind.

President Obama’s picks to head the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy are already provoking howls of outrage from the right wing and the energy industry shills who feed them talking points; they’re especially worked up about Gina McCarthy.

Gina McCarthy

WASHINGTON — President Obama on Monday named two people to his cabinet who will be charged with making good on his threat to use the powers of the executive branch to tackle climate change and energy policy if Congress does not act quickly.

Mr. Obama nominated Gina McCarthy, a tough-talking native of Boston and an experienced clean air regulator, to take charge at the Environmental Protection Agency, and Ernest J. Moniz, a physicist and strong advocate of natural gas and nuclear power as cleaner alternatives to coal, to run the Department of Energy.

The appointments, which require Senate confirmation, send an unmistakable signal that the president intends to mount a multifaceted campaign in his second term to tackle climate change by using all the executive branch tools at his disposal.

The energy industry mouthpieces at the Heartland Institute immediately pushed this paid announcement out on PR Newswire:

“Gina McCarthy has a long history of demonizing affordable energy and doing everything possible to shut it down. She also has a long history of making up fictitious facts to support her anti-energy ideology. McCarthy’s number-one priority at EPA will be enacting unprecedented restrictions on energy production and use that will further drive up energy prices. If Americans like dramatically rising gasoline prices and rapidly rising electricity prices, they are going to love Gina McCarthy.”

James M. Taylor
Senior Fellow for Environmental Policy
The Heartland Institute

[…]

“During litigation on the EPA’s claim that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases endanger public health, the attorney for the EPA, introduced as the technical expert, falsely asserted to the Court that the climate models used are valid. The models have never been validated and are failing miserably. The Earth stopped warming over a decade ago, contradicting the models. The models are also contradicted by the characteristics of late twentieth-century warming.

“Under Ms. McCarthy we can expect further deterioration of American science as the EPA ignores scientific facts that do not support its political agenda.”

Kenneth Haapala
Executive Vice President
Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP)

That’s what the pseudo-science wing says; now let’s go to Pat Robertson for the religious right view. Proving himself a master of the art of wingnut projectionism, old Pat went on a rant about Gina McCarthy today, denouncing environmentalists as “crazies” and “religious fanatics,” who are “unreasonable” and “doctrinaire.”

Sounds to me like Ms. McCarthy is a perfect choice for the position.

Garth Lenz is one of the world’s most famous conservation photographers (with a perfect name for it), and here he is with a TED Talk, using his stunning photography to illustrate exactly what happens to an ecosystem when we mine its tar sands to extract oil. It’s pretty shocking to see the terrible reality behind the Keystone XL debate.

Lenz gets choked up at a couple of points in his presentation, and it isn’t hard to see why.

In what was billed as the largest climate rally in U.S. history, thousands of people marched past the White House on Sunday to urge President Obama to reject a controversial pipeline and take other steps to fight climate change.

Organizers, including the Sierra Club, estimated that more than 35,000 people from 30-plus states — some dressed as polar bears — endured frigid temperatures to join the “Forward on Climate” rally, although the crowd size could not be confirmed. Their immediate target is Obama’s final decision, expected soon, on the Keystone XL oil pipeline that would carry tar sands from Canada through several U.S. states.

“This movement’s been building a long time. One of the things that’s built it is everybody’s desire to give the president the support he needs to block this Keystone pipeline,” Bill McKibben, founder of the environmental activist group, 350.org, said as protesters gathered on the National Mall.

More: Tens of Thousands Demand Action on Climate Change

A “radical shift” is plunging the Arctic Ocean towards an ice-free state for the first time in millions of years. One of the world’s foremost ice experts, Professor Peter Wadhams of Cambridge University, calls it a “global disaster” that will cause such a big boost in global temperatures that even such extreme measures as geo-engineering need to be considered urgently.

Climate science has long understood that disappearance of summer sea ice in the Arctic would be a “tipping point” in the Earth’s climate system, accelerating global temperatures and causing extreme weather and other climate changes far beyond the Arctic. Yet nearly every expert has been shocked by just how rapidly this “continent of ice” has been vanishing, and how dramatic the impacts have been already.

Climate scientists and ice experts are now using phrases like “unprecedented”, “amazing”, “extreme”, “hard to exaggerate”, “incredibly fast”, “death spiral” and “heading for oblivion”.

More: Arctic ‘Death Spiral’ Leaves Climate Scientists Shocked and Worried

Here’s an absolutely classic case of lying with statistics, as George Will abuses his position as a columnist for the Washington Post to shamelessly mislead his readers and disseminate deceptive climate change denial propaganda.

Will’s latest column makes a claim that’s true in a literal sense, but when examined more closely is nothing less than journalistic malpractice.

[President Obama] says that “the threat of climate change” is apparent in “raging fires,” “crippling drought” and “more powerful storms.” Are fires raging now more than ever? (There were a third fewer U.S. wildfires in 2012 than in 2006.)

Does it seem odd that George Will cherry-picked an arbitrary year (2006) to compare to last year?

There’s a reason for Will’s seemingly arbitrary choice, of course; when you look at the data from the National Interagency Fire Center over a longer timeframe, a very different picture emerges. David Appell graphed the data back to 1960, exposing the deception behind this denier’s claim:

Click to enlarge

As you can see, the trend is obvious: a severe increase in acreage burned over the last 20 years, and it’s accelerating dramatically. And it’s also obvious why George Will picked 2006 for his misleading comparison.

In the past, the Washington Post has refused to hold Will accountable for distortions just as egregious as this one, so I wouldn’t hold out hope for a correction or retraction.

Also see:
Where There’s a Will … There’s a Way to Distort the Truth
Shameless Flameout: Washington Post Once Again Publishes George Will’s Anti-Scientific Nonsense

The new Senator from Hawaii, Brian Schatz, is promising to do something about one of America’s most intractable issues: New Hawaii Senator Pledges to Tackle Climate Change.

Sen. Schatz is about to find out how determined and irrational the climate change denial movement is in Washington DC, but he has our support. Give ‘em hell, Senator.

The replacement for the late Hawaii Sen. Daniel Inouye (D) said Wednesday that climate change is at the top of his legislative agenda.

“For me, personally, I believe global climate change is real and it is the most urgent challenge of our generation,” Lt. Gov. Brian Schatz (D), whom Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie (D) tapped for the seat, said in brief comments Wednesday.

Schatz is expected to be sworn in Thursday afternoon. He will serve until 2014, and plans to run for the special election to fill the remaining two years of Inouye’s term. Schatz also said he would run for a full term in 2016.

Schatz will serve with incoming Sen. Rep. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), who is replacing retiring Sen. Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii).

Hirono and Schatz likely will both champion climate change.