Hi Brett,
Being a Roman Catholic, I find the idea preposterous. Lent, and the idea of abstinence is ultimately focused on God. The good Anglican Bishop has his sights set quite a bit lower.

Amusing at best .......not to mention mostly irrelevant.

Giving up chocolate and soda would yield better savings than these childish suggestions!

Manufacturing and transportation alone for these products would have a greater footprint than all of these suggestions put together and multiplied by 100!

Another example of paranoia based actions to satisfy imagined guilt rather than real solutions to real problems.

When I first saw, "How about giving up Carbon for Lent?", I thought this could be about giving up breathing, so I immediately had to check this out.

Guess not, but in reality, this could be a very effective method to help reduce ones carbon footprint. Perhaps, we should pass along the suggestion to the Telegraph to pass along to the appropriate audience. Just by giving up breathing for 40 days, they could make a significant contribution to reducing their carbon footprint.

I think this is a great idea, and its very feasible.

Brett,

I'm seriously considering giving up climate pr0n.

I think that this is really two guys from Monty Python's Flying Circus posing as bishops. I suspect John Cleese and Eric Idle. What do you think about that? Bernie

"What do you think of this idea?"

That's one of the reasons my ancestors left merry old England.

What do you think of this idea?

REPLY: ROFLMAO!!!! How ironic that this should be suggested. I wonder what our Progressive friends think of this? Oh, Mark? Oh, BT? Please advise. I would love to see you both spin this one! Remember, Jesus said we should be good stewards of the earth. He didn't say to tax and regulate ourselves into non-existence to do it!

DENY DENY DENY THE GLOBAL WARMING LIE!!!!!

Well, one thing everyone can agree here is you'd save money on your utility bill.

Great ideas, and there is half a percent reduction in CO2 right there. Where does the other 89.5% come from?

I don't have a problem with conservation of energy but laying a guilt trip on Christians and using lent as the vehicle is really a bit much.

As far as removing a light in a prominent place; well, they may want to rethink that one when people injure themselves in the dark.

Obviously, the bishops have bought into the whole AGW hypothesis. What if it turns out that warming is actually beneficial to mankind? Aren't the bishops doing the devil's work in that case? I wonder if the bishops will make the same sacrifices they are asking the flock to make. I don't know, but my guess is that they won't.

Now it's official: AGW belief is a religion!
Maybe they should try giving up exhaling for Lent.

If the GW shills are correct, how do they explain the fact that so many glaciers all over the globe are GROWING? The only notable shrinkage of ice is occurring over water. Instead of kvetching over GW, we should be examining the far greater likelihood that we may be on the cusp of a catastrophic drop in global temps with all of the dire consequences that would entail. At worst, GW would be disruptive and necessitate massive relocations. A global chill, on the other hand would kill millions from starvation alone, let alone the wars that would break out over limited resources.

http://www.iceagenow.com/List_of_Expanding_Glaciers.htm

These are simple things we should all be doing, regardless of it being Lent.

I miss the days where grocery stores actually gave you a choice of paper or plastic. Now there is no choice -- it's just plastic.

Reply: That's why we bring our own cloth bags to the grocery store. We used to get 3 cents back on our order per bag, but now they stopped doing that.

Interesting - it's one religion supporting another ;-)

How will any of you snickerers here be affected by any of these suggestions? You don't have to do anything to benefit anybody but themselves, as you have proudly (and repeatedly) pointed out. What do you care if people want to conserve resources? Even Dick Cheney has deemed conservation to be a "personal virtue."

Also, I would wager that any of you conservative types would fight to the death to defend somebody's right to express their religion as they choose. Why does your support end when AGW becomes involved?

UAH data is out today. January was the coldest month in the northern hemisphere since 1996.

http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/t2lt/uahncdc.lt

Looking forward to Hansen and NOAA announcing it was one of the warmest months ever.

jp,

...and the idea of abstinence is ultimately focused on God.

Why it is? That would be the god of AGW, none other than Al Gore, of the Church of the Holy Carbon Credit.

I know
Don't burn any Palms to create ash for the Ash Wednesday sacramental. Too much co2 is being released today you'll never be able to offset the palm burnings.

The AGW promoters going beyond the Pale.

How about planting trees or grass if you are worried about your carbon footprint. Don't live in oversized homes, reduce your residential footprint. The plants that live in that space will reduce your carbon input well past the years that you contribute.

Ok, everyone turn off their heaters, and everything electronic until Lent is over. Tell you bosses that you can't come into the office because your car emits carbon, the computer you use uses electricity, which emits carbon when it is made, so you can't work. Oh, and don't go buying anything at stores because the goods arrive via trucks, which, you guessed it, emit carbon!

Somehow, we'll have to all grow our own food in our own yards for the next six weeks in the dead of winter, avoid freezing to death without our heat on, and hope our creditors forgive us for not paying our bills (that uses carbon too).

I guess the Church of England's priests are going to have services in the dark and tell the whole congration to walk there?

I do remember learning in elementary school that carbon is the building block of life. At least if we give it up and we're all dead, we won't destroy the planet. Maybe the other animals who don't have such critical thinking capabiliites can make use of the infrastructure we leave them.

Mark,

"I miss the days where grocery stores actually gave you a choice of paper or plastic. Now there is no choice -- it's just plastic."

I thought they did away with the paper bags because the plastic ones were so much better for the environment - you know, saving trees and all.......

"Now there is no choice"

Reply: No, you have a choice. Bring your own bags to the store.

Hmmm, Mark you're beginning to catch on. The AGW movement, environmentalists, are all about eliminating your "freedom of choice !" For instance with the new CAFE standards recently passed by Congress, you won't be able to buy those big, safe guzzling sedans or SUV's since they'll never be able reach the new standards. We'll only get to choose from much smaller compacts. Future family vacations may require two cars instead of just one big one - one for the family and another for the luggage.

Sorta like the low-flow toilets we're forced to buy to conserve water, but end up being flushed 3 or more times - thus wasting even more !

Same thing with your light bulbs too. Once you can't get the incandescents anymore, everyone is going to have to discard their 3-way lamps and have electricians remove the dimmer switches from their homes, since they won't work with the CFL's.

And I used to think that "freedom of choice" was a staple of American liberty...........

The most important thing a person can do to reduce both heating costs and air conditioning costs is to reduce air infiltration to their home. Seal up the holes and drafts. It is unfortunate that 30 years after the US experienced the first energy shocks in the 1970's, the Federal government has not legislated requirements for better mandatory insulation and building tightness. If all homes built since 1980 had met a requirement of R19 wall insulation and not the R13 commonly used and all had an air exchange rate of no more than 1/4 the home's volume per hour, the carbon emmissions of the US would be among the lowest of all industrialized countries.

"Hmmm, Mark you're beginning to catch on. The AGW movement, environmentalists, are all about eliminating your "freedom of choice !" For instance with the new CAFE standards recently passed by Congress, you won't be able to buy those big, safe guzzling sedans or SUV's since they'll never be able reach the new standards."

If the market was able to deliver more efficient products on its own, there'd be no need for government regulations. It's interesting how, in thirty years, auto efficiency actually decreased even though technology has increased by leaps and bounds. The only time in history where auto efficiency increased was when government mandated it. Same things goes for most appliances.

"Same thing with your light bulbs too. Once you can't get the incandescents anymore, everyone is going to have to discard their 3-way lamps and have electricians remove the dimmer switches from their homes, since they won't work with the CFL's."

I'm disappointed that you have such little faith in the market that you don't think they'll come up with dimmer switches that work with fluorescents. Also, the way the inefficient, archaic, 19th century technology such as the incandescent light bulb is still widely used today provides further proof at how the market, when held to strictly its own devices, is simply NOT good at improving the efficiency of its products.

It takes government mandates to improve technology and efficiency standards. I wish I could be naive like you and believe the market can do it on its own, but history has shown otherwise.

And I used to think that "freedom of choice" was a staple of American liberty...........

Maybe I will give up being an A-hole to alarmists for 40 days?

When will the day come when all these suggestions become law? Enforced by...

The United Nations Carbon Policia. "To condemn and restrict"

Thanks again Ken Clark!

-The Rio Grande watershed in southern Colorado has the best snowpack in 29 years, with nearly double the 30-year average.

http://www.accuweather.com/news-blogs.asp?partner=forecastfox&blog=clark

No cherry picking here. The trees are all buried.

NCDC's January U.S. Summary is in.

For those of you who like to point to the alarmist nature of NOAA/NCDC, here's the alarmist intro paragraph from the summary:

For the contiguous United States, the average temperature for January was 30.5F (-0.8C), which was 0.3F (0.2C) below the 20th century mean and ranked as the 49th coolest January on record, based on preliminary data.

They're definitely pushing a leftist agenda! There's no telling how much manipulation they had to do to make it rank...64th warmest...out of 113...because that sounds so much scarier than...65th...warmest....

GSN wrote
"Also, I would wager that any of you conservative types would fight to the death to defend somebody's right to express their religion as they choose. Why does your support end when AGW becomes involved?"

Simple answer - when your religious practices impinge on my freedom and try to do ridiculous things with taxes to control what you cannot. Despite the wisecracks and generally obnoxious tone adopted by the faithful, I drive a diesel car that gets 50% more mileage than the gasoline equivalent, I recycle and have for years, my house is as energy efficient as I can make it and yes, we carry our own grocery bags to the store. I walk everywhere within three miles of my house and only use the car when I have to do multiple trips. Does that make me 'green' enough? Oh yes, I cannot tolerate extremists of any variety - political, religious or environmental. I have listened to the rhetoric, visited websites of both sides of the debate and decided to come out on the side of common sense - that makes me a skeptic. I'm not a scientist but I have done ice reconnaissance, lived in an igloo for a week, been an intelligence analyst and evaluated computer projects - been there, done that, so I'm not impressed with James Hanson's efforts. How many of the AGW people have spent time well above the Arctic Circle? 'Nuff said, I'm new here.

Over a year ago I thought I'd save money on my electric bill and eventually recover the additional cost of the CF lights and then realize an overall savings. What a houx! The CFL's are way more expensive and do not have a 10,000 hour life span that the packaging states, they blow out just as soon as a incandesent ligth does. (Reply: The CFL's that I have in my house have lasted way longer than the old bulbs, not even close! But They do not give off great light.)

I haven't saved a thing but rather spent out more than I would have on my eletric bill.

As far as the ideas put forth by the two biships goes; it's rather whacked out that they want to use a Christian season to promote the GW Holy Carbon Offset mantra. Here's a novel idea: how about Al Gore and Nanci Pelosi take a regularly scheduled commercial flight for a year rather than the private G4 jets and such they are accustomed to. I reckon that would offset enough carbon for us regular "Joe Sixpacks" for a few years or so.

As far as doing my part, I'll eliminate some clean eletricity use by buring kerosene lamps to read by in my bedromm during the 40 days.

with the exception of Scandinavia the world is freezing over!
http://wxmaps.org/pix/clim.html
click on temperature maps for each continent and go to bottom map.
But lets not forget the oceans
http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/PSB/EPS/SST/data/anomnight.2.4.2008.gif
but of course as PH says Nasa will still manage to put the heat on those temps up for Jan and Feb

Hi,
I've been reading the blog for some time now and find it very entertaining, however much of the information presented by the contributers I find somewhat contradictory and confusing. Unusually mild and warm in some parts of the globe and then the coldest winter for 100 years in parts of China and central Asia, also normal if not colder in Antartica. So its rather difficult to get the big picture. Politicians would like us to believe the the changes in climate are to a great extent due to human behaviour mainly because that puts them in the driving seat and in control. With just proper legislation and tax levels the situation can be addressed successfully. Not so I'm afraid. The forces involved are just too great and unpredictable, they might as well say they can put a stop to continental shift and thus stop earthquakes. As the climate changes, as it always does, there will of course be real serious political and economic issues as countries with large food surpluses may find diminishing harvests and in other parts of the globe the reverse situation may occur. I think on the whole Brett does a great job moderating both the blog and the comments of those who post ( pun intended.) :).