The unemployment rate rose from 9.8 to 10.2 percent in October, and nonfarm payroll employment continued to decline (-190,000), the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. The largest job losses over the month were in construction, manufacturing, and retail trade.
In October, the number of unemployed persons increased by 558,000 to 15.7 million. The unemployment rate rose by 0.4 percentage point to 10.2 percent, the highest rate since April 1983. Since the start of the recession in December 2007, the number of unemployed persons has risen by 8.2 million, and the unemployment rate has grown by 5.3 percentage points. (See table A-1.)
Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rates for adult men (10.7 percent) and whites (9.5 percent) rose in October. The jobless rates for adult women (8.1 percent), teenagers (27.6 percent), blacks (15.7 percent), and Hispanics (13.1 percent) were little changed over the month. The unemployment rate for Asians was 7.5 percent, not seasonally adjusted. (See tables A-1, A-2, and A-3.)
The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks and over) was little changed over the month at 5.6 million. In October, 35.6 percent of unemployed persons were jobless for 27 weeks or more. (See table A-9.)
The civilian labor force participation rate was little changed over the month at 65.1 percent. The employment-population ratio continued to decline in October, falling to 58.5 percent. (See table A-1.)

Ed Morrissey:

The breaking of the psychological barrier of double-digit unemployment is a watershed moment for the Obama administration. It has continued to claim success in its Porkulus effort with shell-game “saved or created” metrics for jobs while unemployment rises unabated. Meanwhile, Obama pushed Congress to spend trillions of dollars we don’t have on efforts that have nothing to do with employment or revitalizing the economy. Even the latest CNN poll shows a 17-point swing to the worse for Obama on economics.
This is now Obama’s economy. He owns the double-digit unemployment level, having bought it with the $787 billion stimulus plan that he promised would keep unemployment no higher than 8%.

Mark Tapscott:

It’s time for Obama and Democratic congressional leaders Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi to step back from their radical plans to vastly expand federal power, spending, deficits and taxes, and instead reach out to conservatives in both parties who understand how to make the economy grow with tax cuts, reduced bureaucracy, and lower government spending. They also understand the urgency of achieving U.S. energy independence by quickly adopting the “all-of-the-above” policy of freeing America’s abundant conventional energy resources while encouraging alternative sources. In other words, stop playing ideological games and get serious about restoring economic growth before millions more jobs are lost.

Political Byline:

These unemployment numbers are just a ripple effect of all of this. Bush had a hand in it, as well as Obama. This is what happens when you elect faux Conservatives as Republicans and it is what happens when you elect Socialists.

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When Obama said that his stimulation package has created 1 million jobs, did he include Chinese jobs in the calculation?

China’s manufacturing sector expanded at its fastest rate in 18 months in October, the eighth straight month of expansion, and Obama just happens to have gotten back to trying to push cap-and-trade last week.

The actual amount of new jobs stimulation has created is… Well, 2.7 million have been lost.

We should remember that Obama thought the unemployment rate would only reach 9 percent if the stimulation package didn’t pass.

Again, it’s just a question of who is going to be stimulated.

With our two trillion deficit, other nations’ currencies are being stimulated, the Euro having hit $1.50 on the dollar last month.

If we ever want to buy energy in the future–not that we will if cap-and-trade passes–we will have to convert our worthless dollar now that it’s not being used for oil trading.

All the new energy jobs that cap-and-trade is going to create? Well, China is building one clean coal plant a month.

We could probably profit off clean energy, too, having 27% of the world’s coal reserves, but Obama would rather kill jobs and bankrupt the industry (his own words) than support the clean coal alternatives he lied about supporting during the campaign.

It strikes some as odd that even in a time of great job loss, when he’s bragging about how many jobs his accountants created, that Obama would knowingly push forward with this plan to raise energy rates instead of creating jobs. He’s been reaching out to the communists in Cuba, Venezuela, and Honduras, so maybe this is his latest diplomatic efforts to a communist nation, along with refusing to meet the Dalai Lama, or maybe it’s just his concessions to China in return for them holding up our increasing debt.

Or maybe it’s part of his reward to China for winning Al Gore’s support with their CO2 reduction programs.

Gore has said, “Chinese leaders are mobilizing a national effort to introduce CO2 reduction initiatives, and have already begun the largest tree-planting program the world has ever seen.”

As has been noted, their CO2 reduction efforts involve building one coal plant a month.

As for their tree-planting efforts, only 15% have survived, and they have been counting shrubs as trees.

Counting trees like Democrats count stimulus jobs.

China’s “Great Green Wall” stimulus plan has been ongoing since 1978 and has 42 years left to go. That must be what Paul Krugman is talking about when he says the stimulus hasn’t been big enough.

All this talk about stimulus is on top of the healthcare bill the Democrats still haven’t passed. Maybe if they do it right, they can stimulate the Canadian healthcare industry, which has been losing jobs for some time to people seeking healthcare in America.

Everyone around the world loves Obama. I can see why.

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The climate-change bill that has been moving slowly through the Senate will face a stark political reality when it emerges for committee debate on Tuesday: With Democrats deeply divided on the issue, unless some Republican lawmakers risk the backlash for signing on to the legislation, there is almost no hope for passage.

Most Republicans will vote no, if they know what is good for their political careers, much less their constituents. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) could face some very stiff competition come 2014 for his support of this craptacular legislation for this fake issue.

So Democratic leaders, with the support of the Obama administration, are trying to sway at least half a dozen Republicans by offering amendments to speed along their top priority: building nuclear power plants.

In other words, bribes that are things we should be doing already. Bribes that will be forgotten by Democrats minutes after the passage of a cap and tax bill. Bribes that could actually be over-written with legislation after cap and tax is passed.

“There is nowhere near 60 votes for a nuclear power bill on its own. There’s not 60 votes for a cap-and-trade bill as it’s currently constructed,” Graham said in an interview. He said combining the two measures is “the only way you’ll get to 60 votes.”

Democrats have been whining about “clean energy” for years. France uses a majority of nuclear energy. Why can’t we? Nuclear energy would seem a slam dunk. But, this whole charade is not about “going green,” but about control of countries, economies, and private citizens. Because the science is not “settled.” If anything, more and more information comes out as scientists feel emboldened to actually go against the Approved Doctrine. Two researchers at MIT have cast doubts on the UN IPCC climate modeling. A team of scientists have sent a letter saying that consensus is fake.

But, just remember: if we don’t “do something,” puppies will drown and bunnies will die. And all you skeptics are child murderers. Which is why governments, such as the Australian one, try to gag publications. It’s for your own good, especially when they lie about the overall costs. And if you are a big climate polluter, you should be treated like a murderer.

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For years, leading plaintiffs’ lawyers have promised a legal assault on industrial America for contributing to global warming.

So far, the trial bar has had limited success. The hurdles to such suits are pretty obvious: How do you apportion fault and link particular plaintiffs’ injuries to the pollution emitted by a particular group of defendants?

Today, though, plaintiffs’ lawyers may be a gloating a bit, after a favorable ruling Friday from the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans, which is regarded as one of the more conservative circuit courts in the country.  Here’s a link to the ruling.

The suit was brought by landowners in Mississippi, who claim that oil and coal companies emitted greenhouse gasses that contributed to global warming that, in turn, caused a rise in sea levels, adding to Hurricane Katrina’s ferocity. (See photo of Bay St. Louis, Miss., after the storm.)

For a nice overview of the ruling, and its significance in the climate change battle, check out this blog post by J. Russell Jackson, a Skadden Arps partner who specializes in mass tort litigation. The post likens the Katrina plaintiffs’ claims, which set out a chain of causation, to the litigation equivalent of “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.”

At first blush, this looks like just another meaningless and hysterical law suit, but, think about this for a moment. The plaintiffs are going to have to provide actual, factual, relevant, and meaningful evidence, and actually debate the merits of man made global warming in the public eye. The defense will be able to provide relevant, factual, and meaningful evidence, such as the “no warming in the last 10 years” information, all in the public eye. If the climahysteric plaintiffs lose, this could be a major slap in the face for the AGW movement.

Al Gore has been challenged to debate after debate after debate, yet, refuses to engage in one. The Washington Posts’ Andrew Freeman chickened out on a debate with Climate Depot’s Marc Morano. The US Chamber of Commerce called for a climate trial, and, rather than anyone taking them up on it, they were demonized. Lord Monckton has offered to debate any climate alarmist, and none will take him on. Perhaps this trial will shed some reality on the situation, and finally put to rest the notion of anthropogenic climate change. Until they bring it back up in a few years, of course.

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Tokyo governor Shintaro Ishihara warned on Wednesday the 2016 Olympics could be the last Games, with global warming an immediate threat to mankind.

“It could be that the 2016 Games are the last Olympics in the history of mankind,” Ishihara told reporters at a Tokyo 2016 press event ahead of the vote.

“Global warming is getting worse. We have to come up with measures without which Olympic Games could not last long.

“Scientists have said we have passed the point of no return,” said Ishihara.

Is Chicken Little Syndrome contagious? Can they come up with a shot for it? Or, perhaps, a smack with ye olde cluebat? Meanwhile, even the NY Times notices something missing from the Kerry-Boxer AGW bill

Senate leaders, in unveiling their long-expected climate bill today, followed the lead of their colleagues in the House: the word “climate” is not mentioned in the bill’s title. How far things have come, or retreated, since the Climate Stewardship Act of 2003, the Safe Climate Act of 2007 or even the Climate Security Act of 2008.

The avoidance of the C word in the bill’s title, “ Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act,” seems at odds with the urgent arguments put forward by backers of the legislation that emissions are climbing and climate is changing more drastically than previously predicted.

As the Times points out, it could have something to do with the fact that people place climate change WAAAAAAAY down on the lists of things people care about. Down at the bottom of the article, we also see more phrase changing. It’s almost like Boxer and Kerry are afraid to tell the truth.

Over to higher energy prices

President Barack Obama’s administration put the brakes on 79 applications for surface coal mining permits in four states Wednesday, saying they would violate the Clean Water Act.

Without the coal, energy prices will go up. Law of supply and demand. It’s what Obama said he wanted to do, and he was speaking specifically about coal fired plants. Oh, and let’s not forget about the job and health insurance losses that will come with this. Obama’s Porkulus in reverse.

In other AGW news

• CIA Opens Center on Climate Change and National Security
• Inhofe Responds to EPA Announcement on Climate
• Breathtakingly stupid climate fraud from Kerry and Boxer

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A climate change bill circulating in the Senate on Tuesday is slightly more ambitious than one passed in the House of Representatives, but still has many details to be worked out on how to encourage companies to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases.

The legislation by Senators Barbara Boxer and John Kerry to be formally unveiled on Wednesday aims to reduce smokestack emissions of carbon dioxide by 20 percent by 2020 and 83 percent by 2050 — from 2005 levels.

Sweet! And, such transparency! Halp us Jon Carry, halp us!

Boxer’s Environment and Public Works Committee is expected to continue working behind closed doors to fill in other details before trying to sign off on the bill by the end of October.

John McCain has already stated he could never support this legislation, and James Inhofe said that he cannot imagine it being debated and passed this year.

The Senate Democrats’ bill also aims to encourage more “clean vehicles” and to improve airliners’ fuel efficiency. It also would help those who suffer job losses from climate control efforts with a “worker adjustment assistance” program.

With a wave of the mighty fairy wand and some unicorn poots, all will be well. As Bob Ellis at The Dakota Voice writes

This bill would cost millions of American jobs, raise our electric bills by 40% or more, hinder much-needed refining capacity, hurt foreign trade, block much-needed power plant development, require home inspections and environmental retrofitting before we can sell our homes, regulate how much water we can use in our own homes,

Courtesy of the Green Hell Blog, we have a look at the draft of the Senate version of the cap and trade global warming tax bill.

Apparently, not to be outdone by the asininity and hostility toward the American people of the U.S. House, the U.S. Senate has upped the ante and called for a 20% reduction in greenhouse gases, even more egregious than the House bill.

All this to “fix” a problem that doesn’t even exist!

Whether it exists or not, bottom line, Democrats see this issue as a way of controlling more of America’s economy, its businesses, and its People.

BTW, just be thankful I didn’t add one of my special Barbara Boxer photoshops!

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It’s official. It’s getting hot down here. And if we don’t stop burning oil and coal, the Big Apple will be cooked.

According to a high tech study commissioned by a concerned Mayor Bloomberg and generously funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, climate change caused by human-created greenhouse gases is threatening the health, livelihood and security of New Yorkers—especially those who take the subway to work.

The New York City Panel on Climate Change, led by an elite? team of NASA scientists and climate experts from Columbia, CUNY and Rutgers, has concluded that unless carbon emissions are drastically reduced all over the world, New York faces dangerous increases in temperature (up to 7.5 degrees), extreme weather (hurricanes and intense storms) and sea level rise (as much as 4.5 feet).

And it continues on in that vein for quite some time. I’d ask the writer to pony up some real evidence, but, I do not think they have anyone actually named “Staff Writer” working for them. I guess no one wanted to actually take credit for the story, realizing just how unbelievably absurd it actually it. All you need to see is the picture at the story to realize how far beyond even Al Gore’s alarmism this story goes.

Meanwhile, Steven Chu says no biscuit for you

Speaking on the sidelines of a smart grid conference in Washington, Dr. Chu said he didn’t think average folks had the know-how or will to to change their behavior enough to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.

“The American public…just like your teenage kids, aren’t acting in a way that they should act,” Dr. Chu said. “The American public has to really understand in their core how important this issue is.” (In that case, the Energy Department has a few renegade teens of its own.)

You realize that he basically just called most of the American public idiots, right? Apparently, you aren’t allowed to think for yourselves, you just need to follow the Official Party Line, Comrades, and do as Dear Leader says.

Anyhow, good news! Supermodel Gisele Bundchen has become the U.N. Environmental Ambassador. And, the U.N. has no problem using kids to push their scientific fraud (via Tom Nelson)

Well, it’s a darn good think she practices what she preaches. Wait, what? She is a helicopter pilot, burning lots of fossil fuels? Huh? She owns a private plane, too, so she can “bop from the US to Sao Paulo to Paris without worrying about connections or waiting in lines?” It’s no wonder AGW ranks dead last among issues facing the country in the latest Bloomberg poll when those who are Climate Alarmists do not walk the talk.

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Global warming cap and trade costs could hit $300 billion annually, the Treasury Department admitted in documents released today – late in the afternoon and on the day of the Jewish New Year celebration. The same documents had been released by Treasury earlier this week but had important parts redacted. Now, the document is available in its entirety for public scrutiny.

The new information reveals that Treasury estimates that not only could cap and trade cost $300 billion annually, “domestic policies to address climate change and the related issues of energy security and affordability will involve significant costs and potential revenues, possibly up to several percentage points of annual GDP (i.e. equal in size to the corporate income tax).”

The documents were obtained by CEI Senior Fellow Christopher Horner through a Freedom of Information Act request and revealed in a Friday afternoon release after public attention to an earlier version raised questions of what the administration was hiding.

“Today’s release explains why the administration initially sought to keep its internal aspirations and expectations from the public: The cost of a cap-and-trade plan to businesses and consumers will be enormous,” said Horner. “This candid perspective of what could prove to be the biggest tax increase in our nation’s history now must be openly debated before the American public”.

A cap-and-trade plan, as called for by President Obama, would either immediately sell all carbon dioxide emission permits or sell nearly all after a few years of giving industry most of its permits for free.

> View the Treasury Department documents

Well, well, well. Think that won’t trickle down? Think your taxes will not skyrocket? Gas prices? Home and business energy prices? Really, the price of everything will spike. All to deal with an issue that is fake.

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At the control centre of the national Power Grid there was a nervous quiet, punctuated by short bouts of hushed conversation. They knew the crisis would occur in an hour’s time, at about 7 am. They had already made the dreadful decision as to which towns would be made to experience suffering and death by being deprived of power. This was a different world from the last time there were serious power cuts in 1970. It was now totally dependent on computer and related technologies. Owing to decisions made (or, to be more accurate, not made) in the first years of the century, the nation was grossly underpowered for such a circumstance. The domestic demand was already high, as almost everyone had left the heating on over night.

Some people had managed to get through to places of work. Cleaners turned on the lights and the great machines of industry began to hum. The power consumption crept up towards the critical point.

As it happened, pure accident relieved the men of the Grid of the responsibility of decision. In a remote rural area a giant high voltage transformer had not received its scheduled maintenance, as an indirect effect of the pressure on energy prices. Although worldwide energy was cheap and plentiful, ever-increasing green taxes, coupled with political instability, had made it otherwise. In that transformer, now working at full load, partial electrical discharges were producing solid debris and potentially explosive gases from the increasingly contaminated insulation oil. Suddenly, a bridge of conducting particles formed and a spark occurred. Into the arc poured the power supply for a whole area. The explosion was spectacular, showering the surrounding area with molten metal and blazing oil.

The adjacent area, also working at full load, experienced a surge and the automatic circuit breakers dropped out. So the dominoes began to fall across the country. By chance, an astronaut in the Spacelab was looking at a Europe whose shape was beautifully picked out by the street lights, when a black stain appeared in the middle of Britain. It spread rapidly and the entire island seemed to disappear off the face of the earth.

The first to die were among the elderly and infirm. As temperatures plunged they did not know what to do and gradually sank into a hypothermal coma. Next were younger people with disabilities such as breathing difficulties. People with gas and oil central heating suddenly had the realisation forced on them that, without electricity, their control systems did not work. Virtually untouched were people in remote rural areas, who had wood and coal burning stoves and plentiful supplies in store. Many people turned on their gas ovens and rings to try to obtain some life-giving warmth, but in consequence of the demand the gas pressure went down steadily and the distributors began to cut off supplies.

Water froze in the pipes and most households were without drinking water or sewerage. The trappings of modern civilisation, which only hours before had been taken for granted, now seemed as illusory as a mirage in the desert.

Some brave souls went out to seek supplies from the shops, but the shops had not opened. Without electricity the tills did not work and even the few who had staff who could perform mental arithmetic could not maintain accounts and stock control. Looting spread, as normally law abiding people saw the lives of their families under threat. The men at the Grid desperately tried to restore power area by area, but the consequent instant increase in demand foiled their efforts.

In hospitals emergency power generators switched in to protect those in intensive care, but some failed due to poor maintenance and the patients died. Emergency services were hopelessly overloaded and telephone networks began to break down. As local doctors’ surgeries began to open they found that they could not access patient records, which were all on computer. Seasonal flu again became a fatal disease as patients in high fever could not be kept warm.

So death and disease marched across the land. The economy collapsed and anarchy reigned. And it was all due to a Government White Paper in 2003 entitled “Our energy future – creating a low carbon economy”.

SOURCE

I think that the above piece of writing is quite brilliant and completely persuasive. It is certainly factually well-founded and it makes me glad that I live in sub-tropical Queensland where the winters are bright and sunny and utterly benign. The post is the work of Prof. John Brignell, in England. I am now however going to embarrass Prof. Brignell enormously (embarrassment is the English national emotion) by mentioning that he is a man in his latter years and not in good health. And, needless to say, his health needs are not well met by Britain’s “National Health Service”. Without being asked, I have therefore sent Prof. Brignell quite a lot of money to ensure that he can get privately what the “National Health” will not provide. And he has told me that what I have sent made a big difference. I see it as a priority to keep him alive and knowing the charitable instincts of conservative Americans, I have some confidence that some readers of this will share my view. Click here to email him.

Posted by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don’t forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me (John Ray) here

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KTH is an abbreviation of Swedish words meaning “Royal Institute of Technology”. It is one of Sweden’s largest and oldest universities

Researchers at KTH have been able to prove that the fossils of animals and plants are not necessary to generate raw oil and natural gas. This result is extremely radical as it means that it will be much easier to find these energy sources and that they may be located all over the world. “With the help of our research we even know where oil could be found in Sweden!” says Vladimir Kutcherov, Professor at the KTH Department of Energy Technology in Stockholm.

Together with two research colleagues, Professor Kutcherov has simulated the process of pressure and heat that occurs naturally in the inner strata of the earth’s crust. This process generates hydrocarbons, the primary elements of oil and natural gas. According to Vladimir Kutcherov, these results are a clear indication that oil supplies are not drying up, which has long been feared by researchers and experts in the field.

He adds that there is no chance that fossil oils, with the help of gravity or other forces, would have been able to seep down to a depth of 10.5 kilometres in, for example the US state of Texas, which is rich in oil deposits. This is, according to Vladimir Kutcherov, in addition to his own research results, further evidence that this energy sources can occur other than via fossils – something which will cause a lively discussion among researchers for a considerable period of time.

“There is no doubt that our research has shown that raw oil and natural gas occur without the inclusion of fossils. All types of rock formations can act as hosts for oil deposits,” asserts Vladimir and adds that this applies to areas of land that have previously remained unexplored as possible sources of this type of energy.

This discovery has several positive aspects. Rate of success as concerns finding oil increases dramatically – from 20 till 70 percent. As drilling for oil and natural gas is an extremely expensive process, costs levels will be radically changed for the petroleum companies and eventually also for the end user. “This means savings of many billions of kronor,” says Vladimir.

In order to identify where it is worth drilling for natural gas and oil, Professor Kutcherov has, via his research, developed a new method. The world is divided into a fine-meshed grid. This grid is the equivalent of cracks, known as migration channels, through strata underlying the earth’s crust. Good places to drill are where these cracks meet.

According to Professor Kutcherov, these research results are extremely important not least as 61 percent of the world’s energy consumption is currently based on raw oil and natural gas. The next stage in this research is more experiments, especially to refine the method that makes it easier to locate drilling points for oil and natural gas.

The research results produced by Vladimir Kutcherov, Anton Kolesnikov and Alexander Goncharov were recently published in the scientific journal Nature Geoscience, Volume 2, August.

SOURCE

Journal abstract follows:

Methane-derived hydrocarbons produced under upper-mantle conditions

By Anton Kolesnikov et al.

There is widespread evidence that petroleum originates from biological processes1, 2, 3. Whether hydrocarbons can also be produced from abiogenic precursor molecules under the high-pressure, high-temperature conditions characteristic of the upper mantle remains an open question. It has been proposed that hydrocarbons generated in the upper mantle could be transported through deep faults to shallower regions in the Earth’s crust, and contribute to petroleum reserves4, 5. Here we use in situ Raman spectroscopy in laser-heated diamond anvil cells to monitor the chemical reactivity of methane and ethane under upper-mantle conditions. We show that when methane is exposed to pressures higher than 2 GPa, and to temperatures in the range of 1,000-1,500 K, it partially reacts to form saturated hydrocarbons containing 2-4 carbons (ethane, propane and butane) and molecular hydrogen and graphite. Conversely, exposure of ethane to similar conditions results in the production of methane, suggesting that the synthesis of saturated hydrocarbons is reversible. Our results support the suggestion that hydrocarbons heavier than methane can be produced by abiogenic processes in the upper mantle.

Nature Geoscience 2, 566 – 570 (2009), 26 July 2009

Posted by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don’t forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me (John Ray) here

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