By Dr. Benny Peiser of the Global Warming Policy Foundation

Russia is considering limits on European flights over Siberia as countries approve possible retaliatory measures against the European Union’s move to force airlines to pay for carbon emissions. “We intend to get the EU’s carbon trading measures either canceled or postponed,” said Okulov, who was previously chief executive officer of OAO Aeroflot, Russia’s biggest airline. Russia reserves the right to reject requests from EU carriers that seek to increase flights through Siberian airspace, giving preference to Asian airlines, Okulov said. —Bloomberg, 22 February 2012

During the past decade, the European Union blazed a green trail with a series of laws mandating a low-carbon economy and promises to set an example for other parts of the world. That now seems like another era. The E.U. Emissions Trading System — the Union’s flagship climate policy, which requires industries to acquire emissions permits — has been battered by extreme volatility, tax fraud, recycling of used credits, suspicions of profiteering and online attacks. The latest complication for Europe’s green agenda is the prospect of trade wars with important partners like the United States and China at a time when the Union can least afford threats to jobs and growth. –James Kanter, The New York Times, 22 February 2012

Many households in Germany are no longer able to pay their electricity bills. As a result, around half a million households are sitting in the dark. —Die Welt, 21 February 2012

At a public meeting in the House of Commons, the climate scientist Professor Richard Lindzen of MIT made a number of declarations that unsettle the claim that global warming is backed by “settled science”. They’re not new, but some of them were new to me… If Lindzen is right, we will never be able to calculate the trillions that have been spent on the advice of “scientists in the service of politics”. –Simon Carr, The Independent, 22 February 2012

Science progresses by testing predictions against real world data obtained from direct observations and rigorous experiments. The stakes in the global-warming debate are much too high to ignore this observational evidence and declare the science settled. The computer-model predictions of alarming global warming have seriously exaggerated the warming by CO2 and have underestimated other causes. Since CO2 is not a pollutant but a substantial benefit to agriculture, and since its warming potential has been greatly exaggerated, it is time for the world to rethink its frenzied pursuit of decarbonization at any cost. — Claude Allegre + 15 co-authors, The Wall Street Journal, 21 February 2012

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