Reuters reports that "Global Warming Seen Worse than Predicted." That headline interested me, so let's see why Reuters has that headline.

The story starts:

The climate is heating up far faster than scientists had predicted, spurred by sharp increases in greenhouse gas emissions from developing countries like China and India, a top climate scientist said on Saturday.

Wow, that sounds bad. It gets worse:

"We now have data showing that from 2000 to 2007, greenhouse gas emissions increased far more rapidly than we expected, primarily because developing countries, like China and India, saw a huge surge in electric power generation, almost all of it based on coal," Field said.

Field is Chris Field, a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Mr. Field also said that the current trajectory is "more serious" than anything predicted in 2007.

I guess I was wrong.

But, temperatures in the world haven't risen since 1998; they've actually declined. Or so says Michael Jarraud, Secretary General of the World Meteorological Organization. It's buried in this BBC news story that notes that temperatures in 2008 decreased from 2007. Perhaps Mr. Jarraud misspoke.

He didn't. It's just an inconvenient truth. John Tomlinson, a columnist in Flint, Michigan, summarized it well: Pray for global warming because we're likely to see a return of little ice age conditions than anything else. Sure, temperatures rose in 2005 but 1998 was the peak, and 2008 is cooler than 2007 which is cooler than 1998. In fact, 2008 temperatures fell to 1980 levels. Arctic ice is back to 1979 levels, and Antarctic ice is up five percent since 1980. Just more inconvenient truths.

And if CO2 emissions have increased, and temperature has decreased, wouldn't that lend credence to the idea that CO2 has nothing to do with temperature change--that is, agw? Wouldn't that be an inconvenient truth.

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Senator Roland Burris lied about what ex-Governor Blagojevich told him. I'd have been more shocked if an Illinois politician told the truth.

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Speaking of contemptuous behavior, it's looking like former Senator Ted Stevens may end up free. Judge Emmett Sullivan held three DOJ attorneys in contempt for refusing to provide to Senator Stevens' attorneys. They apparently didn't have a reason not to comply with Judge Sullivan's order; they just didn't.

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Representative Aaron Schock (R-Illinois) represents the district where Caterpillar is headquartered. You may remember that President Obama asked Caterpillar employees to call Rep. Schock and tell him to vote yes. Well, they did call but what they asked the Congressman to do was just a bit different:



President Obama's talk about Caterpillar rehiring individuals and that Caterpillar employees support the porkulus turns out to be untrue. Just some more inconvenient truths to digest.

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Pitchers and catchers reported to spring training this past week. Baseball is less than two months away. And Christmas is two months from tomorrow. Things to look forward to.