Britannia Radio

Having these reports to hand I feel that I ought to send them out 
despite the fact that thery are utterly batty.  If one is to believe 
the Washington Post 's report - the US East  Coast media are 
extremely 'liberal' in the American sense of the word - Gore appears 
to have mesmerised Congress into accepting all the lies and 
misquoting of statistics that are the trademarks of Al Gore. He even 
appears to ignore the fact that this very week the doyen of NASA's 
statisticians has denounced his reports!

Then the EU Observer moves rapidly away from the climate to the real 
Brussels obsession - the future of the Lisbon Treaty/ Constitution 
and the effects the Cloimate lobby might have on that!  It's all 
about power, see!

The world is more likely to starve to death from a combination of 
Global Cooling and bankruptcy brought on by the vast waste of Carbon 
policies than by the non-existent man-made climate change.  When will 
these damned politicians realise that nothing man can do can equal 
the power of sunspot activity and volcanic eruptions to change the 
weather.

Talking of which - Wrap up warm in the south of England and 
especially in the east early next week!  Below freezing temperatures 
are forecast with SNOW!

C
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WASHINGTON POST   28.1.09
Gore Delivers 'Inconvenient Truth' Lecture to Senate Committee
Former Vice President Asks Congress to Move Quickly to Stem Climate 
Change
By Juliet Eilperin. Washington Post Staff Writer

Former vice president Al Gore urged lawmakers today to adopt a 
binding carbon cap and push for a new international climate pact by 
the end of this year in order to avert catastrophic global warming.

Appearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Gore 
delivered a short slide show that amounted to an update of his Oscar-
winning documentary "An Inconvenient Truth," lecturing some of his 
former colleagues that even if the world halted greenhouse gas 
emissions now, it could experience a temperature rise of between 2.5 
to 7.5 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100.

"This would bring a screeching halt to human civilization and 
threaten life everywhere on Earth, and this is by the end of this 
century," Gore said.

The high-tech display included a graphic illustration of how the 
Arctic's permanent summer ice cover has melted in recent decades, a 
pulsating image the Nobel Peace Prize winner described as "30 years 
in less than 30 seconds," and a short video clip of a scientist who 
ignited the methane gas seeping out of the melting Arctic permafrost.

After the audience watched the flames leap up and the researcher 
scurry away, Gore remarked, "She's okay. The question is, are we?"

Gore received a largely sympathetic hearing from the panel.

"Frankly, the science is screaming at us," said the committee's 
chairman,  John Kerry (D-Mass.), who added the United States would 
not make the mistake of leaving emerging economies out of any future 
climate agreement.

"A global problem demands a global effort, and today we are working 
toward a solution with a role for developed and developing countries 
alike, which will be vital as we work to build consensus here at home 
in tough economic times," Kerry said.

Gore didn't sugarcoat his message to senators today. Although 
politicians including President Obama have touted the importance of 
exploring "clean coal technology," the former vice president said it 
would not be available for years: "We must avoid becoming vulnerable 
to the illusion that this is near at hand. It is not."

However Indiana  Sen. Richard Lugar, the committee's top Republican, 
asked Gore to draw on his experience as "a practicing politician" to 
explain how senators could muster a broad bipartisan majority for any 
international treaty that could come out of Copenhagen at the end of 
the year.

After distancing himself from his political past -- "I'm a recovering 
politician. I'm on about Step Nine" -- the former Democratic 
presidential nominee said the chances of a treaty passing the Senate 
should be boosted by developing countries' willingness to embrace 
binding climate goals, coupled with the new scientific evidence of 
recent warming.

  Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), who supports a carbon tax rather than a 
cap-and-trade system, said he thought the only way to construct a 
bipartisan coalition on climate change was to be honest about what it 
means to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
"I think we can build consensus around transparency," Corker said, 
adding that when it comes to addressing global warming, "We're really 
talking about increasing the price of carbon."

Corker, who suggested Congress would be better off passing a carbon 
dioxide tax that would be fully refundable to taxpayers, said even 
lawmakers who have some reservations about a carbon cap's economic 
impact need to acknowledge it probably will become reality.
"We're now firing with real bullets," he said. "The stars are 
aligning, and my sense is this year something may actually occur."
=========================
EU OBSERVER    29.1.09
Gore doubts EU leadership abilities

HONOR MAHONY

Former US vice-president Al Gore has raised strong doubts about the 
European Union's ability to give global leadership, particularly on 
climate change - an area where the EU prides itself as setting an 
example to others.
"Some have speculated that sometime in the future, if the European 
Union actually unifies to a much higher degree, and has a president, 
and an effective legislative body that has real power, they might 
somehow emerge, with potential for global leadership. I'm not going 
to hold my breath," he said during a testimony to the Senate Foreign 
Relations Committee on tackling climate change.

"I don't want to be too proud, you know, to be chest-beating about 
that, but I think the United States is the only nation that can lead 
the world," continued Mr Gore, according to AFP news agency.

Referring to global warming, he said: "This is the one challenge that 
could completely end human civilization."

His comments come as the EU has just unveiled proposals for securing 
international agreement on how to tackle climate change after 2012, 
when the current arrangement expires.

The talks will take place in Copenhagen this year. Until now, the EU 
has made much of the fact that it has led the field in setting up an 
emissions trading system - where industry trades pollution credits - 
and agreed to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in the bloc by 20 
percent by 2020.

It has also been easy for the EU to date to have the moral upper hand 
over the US on climate change issues with the previous US 
administration having a poor environment record.

However, US president Barack Obama has already sounded a different 
note and pledged that Washington will take the environment dossier in 
hand.

If Washington pulls its weight on climate change, it will throw 
Europe's green credentials into the spotlight, with individual EU 
member states often bickering over what green goals to set, how they 
should be achieved and who should pay for them.

The Gore comments also touch on a wider debate in Europe on EU 
leadership. A reform of the EU's institutional rules, known as the 
Lisbon Treaty, would give the bloc a permanent president and foreign 
minister and increase the power of the European Parliament.

But analysts wonder whether the 27 member states - particularly big 
players such as Germany, France and the UK - will ever be able to 
unite behind a president or foreign minister to give them the 
political room they need to be able to properly represent the 
European Union.