Steven Chu, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist and President Obama’s Energy Secretary, recently told a conference of Nobel laureates in London: “If you look at all the buildings and if you make the roofs white and if you make the pavement more of a concrete type of color rather than a black type of color and if you do that uniformally [sic], that would be the equivalent of ... reducing the carbon emissions due to all the cars in the world by 11 years – just taking them off the road for 11 years."

Uhhhh, what? And just how much would it cost to paint all our residential and commercial and industrial rooftops white and redo about half of all our roads? What a lame-brained idea and an even dumber thing to say out loud in public! I guess it's a good thing that Chu's Nobel in physics had nothing to do with climatology. Instead he was one of three scientists who received a joint award for developing methods to cool and trap atoms with laser light.

Now, his being a physicist presumably means he's intelligent, but it may also be that he's like a couple of people with whom I went to college -- smart as a whip but no common sense. You know, the type who can discuss almost anything about anything but can't remember to tie his own shoelaces. Yeah, that guy. We've all known at least one.

Oh, and before you get too impressed by Chu having a Nobel, so does Al "the Goracle" Gore, who never struck me as even being all that super-intelligent about anything. In fact, a lot of people have been awarded the Nobel in a lot of different fields, a lot of them for highly specialized stuff. On the other hand, for example, Yassar Arafat also won a Nobel, and for peace, no less. He shared it in 1994 with Israeli leaders Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres after their secret meetings in Norway resulted in a peace agreement between Israel and Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

But Arafat was a life-long terrorist. And Chu, Nobel prize winner or not, certainly could use a healthy dose of good old common sense -- and maybe double-check that he tied his shoelaces. But, what worries me most is that this is who Obama chose to oversee our country's energy policy?

So, we've got Democrat Representative Henry Waxman and the Democrat Congress trying their best to hurry up and pass the draconian, minimally effective (for global climate change) but maximally damaging and costly (for American businesses and consumers) Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade scheme that Obama wants sooner rather than later -- and no common sense Chu is in charge of our energy policy? Great. Just great. Oh well, just something else to worry about, folks.

Global temperature is measured through thousands of temperature reading stations located around - well, the globe. The United States alone has more than 1,000, which are supposedly among the most reliable world-wide. But Anthony Watts, of the Watts Up With That blog, and a group of about 650 volunteers, found out very differently when they actually visited and examined 70% of the U.S. stations:

"We found stations located next to the exhaust fans of air conditioning units, surrounded by asphalt parking lots and roads, on blistering-hot rooftops, and near sidewalks and buildings that absorb and radiate heat. We found 68 stations located at wastewater treatment plants, where the process of waste digestion causes temperatures to be higher than in surrounding areas.

"In fact, we found that 89 percent of the stations - nearly 9 of every 10 - fail to meet the National Weather Service's own siting requirements that stations must be 30 meters (about 100 feet) or more away from an artificial heating or radiating/reflecting heat source. In other words, 9 of every 10 stations are likely reporting higher or rising temperatures because they are badly sited.

"It gets worse. We observed that changes in the technology of temperature stations over time also has caused them to report a false warming trend. We found major gaps in the data record that were filled in with data from nearby sites, a practice that propagates and compounds errors. We found that adjustments to the data by both NOAA and another government agency, NASA, cause recent temperatures to look even higher."

The conclusion is obvious: The U.S. temperature record is unreliable. And since it is based on what are supposed to be among the more reliable temperature readings from around the world, what does that potentially say about many other nations' readings?

So, with ground temperature data revealed as unreliable, what is it that we know that we know?  Well, satellite data indicate the earth warmed from the period 1979 to around 1998, and that it has cooled since 2002. That's 19 years of warming and at least the 7 most recent years of cooling. Yet, countries around the world are instituting disastrously business-damaging programs, like carbon taxes or cap-and-trade programs. 

The U.S. Congress is considering the Waxman-Markey bill, which would enact a cap-and-trade program: (a) that would impose draconian operating conditions and carbon emission taxes on businesses, (b) that would cause energy costs to skyrocket for everyone who turns on a light switch or drives a car, and (c) that even global warming alarmist James Hansen of NASA and consumer advocate Ralph Nader say won't work. Oh, and (d) that would also raise lots and lots of money in taxes for the government to spend.

Global warming proponents tell us "the science is settled" and that any who disagree with them are merely "deniers," the same type of ignorant or unsophisticated people who deny the Holocaust or that the Earth is round. Of course one of the most prominent of these proponents, former vice president Al "The Goracle" Gore (who can sometimes say the most preposterous things with a perfectly straight face - guess it sometimes actually helps to be a little "wooden"), is ironically, hypocritically and personally responsible for a huge "carbon footprint" himself. With a monster house in Tennessee which uses more energy in a month than those of his neighbors use in a year and with all of his jetting around in a private jet for speaking engagements, fund raising and global warming alarming, Gore, like many other liberal elites who preach to the rest of us about how we should live, creates more carbon emissions in a month than you or I do in a year. But, of course, I guess he, like some other rich people salving their own consciences for their extravagant and wasteful lifestyles, makes it all right by buying what are called "carbon credits" to offset his excessive carbon emissions.

You know, I've heard the carbon credits thing talked about a lot, normally just as if in passing, like, well, everybody understands about that, but I'll admit to having never understood exactly how that works. For example, how much does, say, one carbon credit cost? Who determines what that cost is? Is it market driven or determined and regulated by government bureaucrats? If I wanted to buy some carbon credits, to whom would I make out my check? Do they give me a piece of paper, perhaps a certificate of some kind, to prove that I paid for some carbon credits? Can I deduct buying some carbon credits from my taxes?

(If anyone reading this understands how it all works (if, in fact, it actually does at all), please 'splain it to me.)

But, enough philosophy. Back to science. If the science is "settled," then why do over 30,000 scientists, many of them world-renowned, disagree with the man-made global warming alarmism? First, that doesn't sound all that "settled" to me. And, second, it now turns out that the so-called "settled science" is based on flawed data. If temperature readings are inputted to computer models which then make global warming "predictions" and 8 or 9 out of 10 of those temperature readings are wrong, then aren't the computer model predictions necessarily also wrong? Or did a basic computer principle - garbage in, garbage out (GIGO) - change all of a sudden?
 
Besides, Richard Henry Lee at the American Thinker Blog probably asks a more important question:

"...the real question is why it took a dedicated group of volunteers to find the numerous faults in our temperature record rather than the heavily funded governmental and educational institutions which are continually warning us about global warming."

Well, I think part of the answer to Mr. Lee's question lies in his wording "heavily funded governmental and educational institutions." They don't get funded anymore if there is no man-made global warming or they "solve" the problem, do they?

Perhaps it's less "environmental science" and more "economic science" which has been the point all along - and still is really in play here.