For anyone who hasn’t been paying attention, the reconquista is a radical movement calling for Mexico to “reconquer” America’s Southwest which proponents claim is land that was stolen from Mexico. But that’s not all. Reconquista propaganda also claims that the “stolen” land happens to sit on the territory of the ancient “Nation of Aztlan,” which was supposedly the cradle of Aztec civilization.

Hmm, that’s odd. I’m looking at a World Book Encyclopedia map of the Aztec empire as it existed at the height of its power, and it was totally confined to parts of southern Mexico, hundreds and hundreds of miles south of the Mexican-American border. Looks like this Aztlan thing can be dismissed out of hand as the nonsensical poppycock that it is.

And even if Aztlan had been real and had stretched from Cancun to Spokane, so what? The only argument that could possibly advance would be to give it all back to the Aztecs, an even more ridiculous notion.

But forget about Aztlan. Let’s get back to the idea that the American Southwest rightfully belongs to Mexico. Balderdash! The United States didn’t unjustly steal land from Mexico. Rather, land was legally ceded to the United States by Mexico through the Treaty of Guadalupe de Hidalgo which ended the Mexican-American War in 1848.

Yes, the United States won that war, and you could say that California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas were the spoils of war, but that doesn’t make it unjust. It certainly wasn’t unjust for the people who lived in those lands because it saved them from being a part of the eternally corrupt, unstable, poverty-ridden country of Mexico.

But that undeniable fact doesn’t mean squat to the illegals and illegal sympathizers who were displaying this popular banner during the recent immigration rallies: “If you think I’m ‘illegal’ because I’m a Mexican, learn the true history because I’m in my homeland.”

So sorry, señor, but no you’re not. And here’s the main thing you need to realize. If the American Southwest had stayed a part of Mexico, then you’d be trying to slip into the American Midwest, or the American Southeast, or the American Northeast, or the Pacific Northwest, or the Mid-Atlantic, or the Rocky Mountain West, or the Great Basin, or the Northern Plains, or anywhere other than the “homeland” you’re now making claim to. That’s because if the American Southwest had stayed a part of Mexico, then it would be just as miserable as the rest of that country.

See, it wasn’t some sort of natural, Edenic utopia where the living was intrinsically easy and the type of governance didn’t matter. The reason the American Southwest is prosperous is because it is part of America and not part of Mexico. America has the kind of political, social and economic system that generates prosperity. Mexico, on the other hand, doesn’t. Despite its beauty, vast natural resources and oil wealth, it’s a miserable basket case of a country.

But the profoundly arrogant and ignorant marchers who carried banners like the one described above have zero interest in trying to fix what’s wrong with their real homeland. It’s so much easier to just sneak into a large successful country to the north than it is to hang around and try to turn Mexico into a decent place.

So, the justification for the desired reconquista is a crock, and an illogical one at that. Nonetheless, it could still happen simply as a result of demographic trends. As Jose Angel Gutierrez, political science professor at the University of Texas at Arlington, has so aptly pointed out, “We are millions. We just have to survive. We have an aging white America. They are not making babies. They are dying. It’s a matter of time. The explosion is in our population.”

In other words, the fecund Hispanic masses are going to out-multiply the withering white masses and pull off a de facto reconquista, assuming current trends continue. It’s pretty cut and dry for the good professor who, by the way, doesn’t sound too broken up over the prospect of a dying white America.

White Americans who express the slightest anxiety over the continuation of such demographic trends or who ask their leaders to enforce the nation’s immigration laws will naturally be branded racists. Accusatory banners were all over the place during the demonstrations.

But in reality, the main concern isn’t over race, it’s over culture. If a demographic reconquista were to occur and if Hispanics fail to assimilate and Americanize themselves sufficiently, then the American Southwest becomes the cultural equivalent of northern Mexico, and it ain’t racist to not want that to happen. Just ask the reconquista and open borders crowd to name a country in the world whose people would happily stand by and watch their culture be overrun by another.

The average illegal immigrant from Mexico probably doesn’t consider himself part of a vast reconquista conspiracy. He just wants a better life for himself and his family. But that doesn’t mean that he and half of Latin America should just be able to waltz across the border whenever they please.

If the day ever comes when Hispanics outnumber native-born Americans because of a demographic reconquista fueled largely by illegal immigration, will those Americans then be able to complain about their own stolen homeland? Sure, but not without being called racist.

Tea party movement leaders say they’ve discussed the idea with several supportive lawmakers and hope to get legislation next year to recognize a new volunteer force. They say the unit would not resemble militia groups that have been raided for allegedly plotting attacks on law enforcement officers.

“Is it scary? It sure is,” said tea party leader Al Gerhart of Oklahoma City, who heads an umbrella group of tea party factions called the Oklahoma Constitutional Alliance. “But when do the states stop rolling over for the federal government?”

Thus far, the discussions have been exploratory. Even the proponents say they don’t know how an armed force would be organized nor how a state-based militia could block federal mandates. Critics also asserted that the force could inflame extremism, and that the National Guard already provides for the state’s military needs.

“Have they heard of the Oklahoma City bombing?” said Joseph Thai, a constitutional law professor at the University of Oklahoma. The state observes the 15th anniversary of the anti-government attack on Monday. Such actions could “throw fuel in the fire of radicals,” he said.

But the militia talks reflect the frustration of some grass roots groups seeking new ways of fighting recent federal initiatives, such as the health reform plan, which requires all citizens to have health insurance. Over the last year, tea party groups across the country have staged rallies and pressured politicians to protest big government and demand reduced public spending.

In strongly conservative states like Oklahoma, some legislators have also discussed further action to fight federal policies, such as state legislation and lawsuits.

State Sen. Randy Brogdon, R-Owasso, a Republican candidate for governor who has appealed for tea party support, said supporters of a state militia have talked to him, and that he believes the citizen unit would be authorized under the Second Amendment to the Constitution.

The founding fathers “were not referring to a turkey shoot or a quail hunt. They really weren’t even talking about us having the ability to protect ourselves against each other,” Brogdon said. “The Second Amendment deals directly with the right of an individual to keep and bear arms to protect themselves from an overreaching federal government.”

Another lawmaker, state Rep. Charles Key, R-Oklahoma City, said he believes there’s a good chance of introducing legislation for a state-authorized militia next year.

Tea party leader J.W. Berry of the Tulsa-based OKforTea began soliciting interest in a state militia through his newsletter under the subject “Buy more guns, more bullets.”

“It’s not a far-right crazy plan or anything like that,” Berry said. “This would be done with the full cooperation of the state Legislature.”

State militias clearly are constitutionally authorized, but have not been used in recent times, said Glenn Reynolds, a law professor at the University of Tennessee and an expert on the Second Amendment. “Whether someone should get a militia to go toe-to-toe with the federal government … now, that strikes me as kind of silly,” he said.

Some conservative legislators in Oklahoma say talk of a militia, which would be privately recruited, armed and trained, goes too far.

“If the intent is to create a militia for disaster relief, we have the National Guard,” said Sen. Steve Russell, R-Oklahoma City, a retired Army lieutenant colonel. “Anything beyond that purpose should be viewed with great concern and caution.”

Democratic Gov. Brad Henry’s communications director Paul Sund also discounted the militia discussion, saying the National Guard handles state emergencies and security.

Federal authorities say that radical militia groups have not emerged in Oklahoma, unlike many other states, in part because of the legacy of the Oklahoma City bombing. On April 19, 1995, an anti-government conspiracy led by Army veteran Tim McVeigh exploded a truckbomb outside the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, killing 168 people.

Last month, FBI agents conducted a raid on the Hutaree militia group in southern Michigan and accused members of plotting to kill law enforcement officers.

How would Democratic and Republican leaders fare on the basic performance review that most workers encounter annually? When graded on a scale of “exceeds expectations,” “meets expectations” or “fails to meet expectations,” what grade would they get on improving health care? Or focusing on the economy? Or teamwork?

Judge for yourself. After a year of debating, cajoling, refusing and posturing, Congress seems no closer to agreeing on health care reform after the president’s hire-wire bipartisan summit than they did before it. It’s the president’s top domestic priority, but he’s done little to bridge the differences that are splitting the Democratic caucus, or to win over Republicans to make up for the difference.

As Americans continued to struggle with double-digit unemployment, home foreclosures, and access to credit, the latest victim of congressional infighting this week was the Democrats’ economic agenda, including a jobs bill and an extension of COBRA and unemployment benefits, which expire Sunday for more than one million out-of-work Americans.

The week in Washington opened with what seemed like a victory for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, as the Senate passed a jobs bill he crafted by a vote of 70 to 28. Reid had infuriated Democrats and Republicans alike the week before by scuttling a popular, bipartisan $85 billion jobs package for his own smaller version, but his risk seemed to pay off when 13 Republicans crossed party lines to support his revised bill.

Reid’s measure would put $15 billion toward several plans designed to create jobs, including $13 billion for a payroll tax holiday for small businesses to hire new workers, a reauthorization of the highway trust fund to kick-start road building, and a bond issue to finance construction of schools and energy projects.

But the House of Representatives had passed its own jobs bill in December, a far broader measure that came in at $154 billion and was so different from Reid’s bill that the lower chamber would have to take up the Senate measure instead. By Thursday the House Democrats had refused to go along with the Senate legislation. They felt burned by moderates in the Senate for leaving them at the altar on an energy bill and the health care reform public option earlier this year, but three factions had more specific objections.

Rep. Jim Oberstar, the top Democrat on the Transportation Committee, wanted to know where the $75 billion in transportation moeny from the first bill had gone. The Blue Dog coalition, the fiscal hawks in the House Democratic caucus, complained that Reid’s bill violated the pay-as-you-go rules that the House had passed just weeks ago, while members of the Congressional Black Caucus said that the Senate bill had too many tax cuts and not enough spending to actually create new jobs for the people that they represent.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi assured reporters on Friday that the House would pass the bill. But the potential mutiny from Democrats’ different factions pushed a vote to next week, when Pelosi and her lieutenants will try to muster more support for Reid’s scaled-back bill.

As the Speaker attempted to whip her members into line on the House side, another jobs-related mini-drama broke out across the Capitol on the Senate side, where retiring Kentucky Republican Sen. Jim Bunning began a filibuster on a portion of the jobs bill. It was a section that Reid had stripped out days earlier but then brought back up for a vote– an extension of unemployment insurance and COBRA subsidies for more than 1 million Americans whose benefits run out this weekend.

Bunning’s objection to the measure, he said, was that it would add to the ballooning federal deficit, an outcome he suggested could be avoided by using unspent stimulus funds to pay for the bill. But Democrats attacked the Kentucky senator as being nakedly partisan.

Sen. Dick Durbin, a member of the Senate Democratic leadership, lambasted Bunning during an unusual late-night session, as Bunning objected to every effort by Democrats to pass the measure Thursday night.

“The most vulnerable families in America are going to suffer because of this political decision by one senator,” said Durbin, (D-Ill.) “We will be back, we will try to get this done. And to those families: Hang in there.”

Bunning promised, “I’ll be here as long as you are here.”

Believing they have a winning issue on their hands, Democrats mobilized against Bunning Saturday, with the White House accusing the Republican of “political gamesmanship” and several Democratic senators holding a conference call to blast Bunning’s moves. “Democrats understand that real Americans count on these benefits every week to keep the bills paid and put food on the table,” the Democrats press release read.

Without action, jobless benefits will run out Sunday for those who have been out of work the longest. But with even more deficit spending, experts warn the income taxes of future workers will have to double just to pay the interest on the national debt.

The Senate will gavel back into session for votes Tuesday, with Durbin and Bunning both promising to be there to argue their sides,but whether anything gets accomplished is anyone’s guess.

A job review for most of these members of Congress is coming up in November when voters will decide if they should keep their positions for this kind of performance. Most Americans don’t seem to think so. In Gallup’s latest poll, voters gave Congress a job approval rating of 18 percent, while a New York Times/ CBS News poll showed just 8 percent of Americans think most members of Congress deserve to be re-elected.

The message to Congress in those numbers– the unemployment benefits you extend next week could be your own.

The chief defence offered by the warmists to all those revelations centred on the IPCC’s last 2007 report is that they were only a few marginal mistakes scattered through a vast, 3,000-page document. OK, they say, it might have been wrong to predict that the Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035; that global warming was about to destroy 40 per cent of the Amazon rainforest and cut African crop yields by 50 per cent; that sea levels were rising dangerously; that hurricanes, droughts and other “extreme weather events” were getting worse. These were a handful of isolated errors in a massive report; behind them the mighty edifice of global warming orthodoxy remains unscathed. The “science is settled”, the “consensus” is intact.

But this completely misses the point. Put the errors together and it can be seen that one after another they tick off all the central, iconic issues of the entire global warming saga. Apart from those non-vanishing polar bears, no fears of climate change have been played on more insistently than these: the destruction of Himalayan glaciers and Amazonian rainforest; famine in Africa; fast-rising sea levels; the threat of hurricanes, droughts, floods and heatwaves all becoming more frequent.

All these alarms were given special prominence in the IPCC’s 2007 report and each of them has now been shown to be based, not on hard evidence, but on scare stories, derived not from proper scientists but from environmental activists. Those glaciers are not vanishing; the damage to the rainforest is not from climate change but logging and agriculture; African crop yields are more likely to increase than diminish; the modest rise in sea levels is slowing not accelerating; hurricane activity is lower than it was 60 years ago; droughts were more frequent in the past; there has been no increase in floods or heatwaves.

Furthermore, it has also emerged in almost every case that the decision to include these scare stories rather than hard scientific evidence was deliberate. As several IPCC scientists have pointed out about the scare over Himalayan glaciers, for instance, those responsible for including it were well aware that proper science said something quite different. But it was inserted nevertheless – because that was the story wanted by those in charge.

In addition, we can now read in shocking detail the truth of the outrageous efforts made to ensure that the same 2007 report was able to keep on board IPCC’s most shameless stunt of all – the notorious “hockey stick” graph purporting to show that in the late 20th century, temperatures had been hurtling up to unprecedented levels. This was deemed necessary because, after the graph was made the centrepiece of the IPCC’s 2001 report, it had been exposed as no more than a statistical illusion. (For a full account see Andrew Montford’s The Hockey Stick Illusion, and also my own book The Real Global Warming Disaster.)

n other words, in crucial respects the IPCC’s 2007 report was no more than reckless propaganda, designed to panic the world’s politicians into agreeing at Copenhagen in 2009 that we should all pay by far the largest single bill ever presented to the human race, amounting to tens of trillions of dollars. And as we know, faced with the prospect of this financial and economic abyss, December’s Copenhagen conference ended in shambles, with virtually nothing agreed.

What is staggering is the speed and the scale of the unravelling – assisted of course, just before Copenhagen, by “Climategate”, the emails and computer codes leaked from East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit. Their significance was the light they shone on the activities of a small group of British and US scientists at the heart of the IPCC, as they discussed ways of manipulating data to show the world warming faster than the evidence justified; fighting off legitimate requests for data from outside experts to hide their manipulations; and conspiring to silence their critics by excluding their work from scientific journals and the IPCC’s 2007 report itself. (Again, a devastating analysis of this story has just been published by Stephen Mosher and Tom Fuller in Climategate: The CRUtape Letters).

Almost as revealing as the leaked documents themselves, however, was the recent interview given to the BBC by the CRU’s suspended director, Dr Phil Jones, who has played a central role in the global warming scare for 20 years, not least as custodian of the most prestigious of the four global temperature records relied on by the IPCC. In his interview Jones seemed to be chucking overboard one key prop of warmest faith after another, as he admitted that the world might have been hotter during the Medieval Warm Period 1,000 years ago than it is today, that before any rise in CO2 levels temperatures rose faster between 1860 and 1880 than they have done in the past 30 years, and that in the past decade their trend has been falling rather than rising.

The implications of all this for the warming scare, as it has been presented to us over the past two decades, can scarcely be overestimated. The reputation of the IPCC is in shreds. And this is to say nothing of the personal reputation of the man who was the mastermind of its 2007 report, its chairman, Dr Rajendra Pachauri.

It was in this newspaper that we first revealed how Pachauri has earned millions of pounds for his Delhi-based research institute Teri, and further details are still emerging of how he has parlayed his position into a worldwide business empire, including 17 lucrative contracts from the EU alone. But we should not expect the truth to break in too suddenly on this mass of vested interests. Too many people have too much at stake to allow the faith in man-made global warming, which has sustained them so long and which is today making so many of them rich, to be abandoned. The so-called investigations into Climategate and Dr Michael “Hockey Stick” Mann seem like no more than empty establishment whitewashes. There is little reason to expect that the inquiry into the record of the IPCC and Dr Pachauri that is now being set up by the UN Environment Programme and the world’s politicians will be very different.

Since 1988, when the greatest scare the world has seen got under way, hundreds of billions
of pounds have been poured into academic research projects designed not to test the CO2 warming thesis but to take it as a given fact, and to use computer models to make its impacts seem as scary as possible. The new global “carbon trading” market, already worth $126 billion a year, could soon be worth trillions. Governments, including our own, are calling for hundreds of billions more to be chucked into absurd “carbon-saving” energy schemes, with the cost to be met by all of us in soaring taxes and energy bills.

With all this mighty army of gullible politicians, dutiful officials, busy carbon traders, eager “renewables” developers and compliant, funding-hungry academics standing to benefit from the greatest perversion of the principles of true science the world has ever seen, who are we to protest that their emperor has no clothes? (How apt that that fairy tale should have been written in Copenhagen.) Let all that fluffy white “global warming” continue to fall from the skies, while people shiver in homes that, increasingly, they will find they can no longer afford to heat. We have called into being a true Frankenstein’s monster. It will take a mighty long time to cut it down to size.

* Data for vital ‘hockey stick graph’ has gone missing
* There has been no global warming since 1995
* Warming periods have happened before – but NOT due to man-made changes

Finally, one of the chief scientists at the center of the “Climategate” scandal admitted this weekend that there has been no significant global warming in the last 15 years.

The Daily Mail Online reported:

–The academic at the centre of the ‘Climategate’ affair, whose raw data is crucial to the theory of climate change, has admitted that he has trouble ‘keeping track’ of the information.

Colleagues say that the reason Professor Phil Jones has refused Freedom of Information requests is that he may have actually lost the relevant papers.

Professor Jones told the BBC yesterday there was truth in the observations of colleagues that he lacked organisational skills, that his office was swamped with piles of paper and that his record keeping is ‘not as good as it should be’.

The data is crucial to the famous ‘hockey stick graph’ used by climate change advocates to support the theory.

Professor Jones also conceded the possibility that the world was warmer in medieval times than now – suggesting global warming may not be a man-made phenomenon.

And he said that for the past 15 years there has been no ‘statistically significant’ warming.

The admissions will be seized on by sceptics as fresh evidence that there are serious flaws at the heart of the science of climate change and the orthodoxy that recent rises in temperature are largely man-made.–

More… The U.N. panel of climate experts overstated how much of the Netherlands is below sea level, according to a preliminary report on Saturday.

The lemming site Real Climate has even closed off all comments….I can’t imagine why? Could be they’re hiding out because they’re full of crap???

Lush green lawns may not be as good for the environment as you might think.

A new study suggests that, in certain parts of the country, total emissions would actually be lower if there weren’t any lawns.

Previous studies have demonstrated that lawns comprised of turfgrass can potentially function as carbon sinks since they help remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. But the maintenance of lawns — fertilizer production, mowing, leaf blowing and other lawn management practices — may generate greenhouse gas emissions that ultimately exceed four times the carbon they end up storing, according to the study.

“Lawns look great — they’re nice and green and healthy, and they’re photosynthesizing a lot of organic carbon,” said researcher Amy Townsend-Small,who co-authored the study. “But the carbon-storing benefits of lawns are counteracted by fuel consumption.”

To reach their conclusion, the researchers sampled grass from four parks around Irvine, Calif. that contained either ornamental lawn turf or athletic field turf, which tended to be more trampled and required replanting and frequent aeration. Samples were taken from the soil and air above the turf, and analyzed to measure carbon sequestration and nitrous oxide emissions. The investigators then compared that data to the amount of carbon dioxide emissions that resulted from maintaining the turf, which included fuel consumption, irrigation and fertilizer production.

The results, detailed in the forthcoming issue of the journal Geophysical Research Letters, showed that nitrous oxide emissions from lawns were comparable to those found in agricultural farms, which are considered among the largest emitters of nitrous oxide globally. In ornamental lawns, nitrous oxide emissions from fertilization offset just 10 percent to 30 percent of the carbon that was sequestered. But day-to-day management required fossil fuel consumption that released about four times more carbon dioxide than the plots could take up.

Athletic fields fared even worse. They didn’t trap nearly as much carbon as ornamental grass but required just as much emission-generating care.

“It’s impossible for these lawns to be net greenhouse gas sinks because too much fuel is used to maintain them,” Townsend-Small said.

The al-Qaida leader blamed the United States and other industrialized nations for climate change and said the only way to prevent disaster was to break the American economy, calling on the world to boycott U.S. goods and stop using the dollar. “Bin Laden and Al Gore are now on the same page so global warming must be true.”

Read more:Yahoo news

Another item of global warming discussion is the CO2 emissions caused by vehicles and the quest for alternative fuel methods. Again, who are we to consider the CO2 levels in the atmosphere as high? What is this claim based upon? Next, how do all
of the major global warming supporters travel? They drive their “green” electric automobiles to the airport, where they board a jet that has four engines much larger than that of an automobile engine. While they sit on the tarmac, these four massive engines spew outrageous amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. More greenhouse gases mean more global warming. That is how it works, right? I haven’t seen too many of these global warming supporters taking trains or driving their environment friendly vehicles across country. They fly.

Lastly, if CFC’s are so harmful to our ozone, why haven’t they been outlawed? I remember the cries of their being a hole in the ozone layer and how we could all burn up from the rays of the sun. Again, should we fear holes in the ozone? How do we know that holes in the ozone are not normal? In 1973, chlorine was identified as the catalytic in ozone destruction. That was 25 years ago, yet chlorine is still used in large proportions. When a thin spot was found in the ozone layer over Antarctica in 1985, it was found to be the result of atmospheric dynamics, solar radiation, and chemical reactions. The thickness of the ozone was seen to change during different seasons (CFCs and Ozone Depletion, n.d.).

So, if the ozone was seen to change and vary, yet this discovery took a very long time to discover, how are we to know that a similar trend is not true to this global warming hoax? Temperatures, glacial readings, and other conditions used to support the notion of global warming have not been recorded for a long enough period of time to make rash decisions. There is especially not enough information of the idea that our presidential candidates should be debating what to do about it. The hoax of global warming needs to be put to rest finally so that some of the lesser educated public does not run out and vote for a presidential candidate because of their views on a phantom problem.

Experts appointed by the United Nations said rising temperatures were to blame for an increase in the number and severity of natural disasters such as hurricanes and floods.

But it has emerged that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change based the statement, made in 2007, on an unpublished report that had not been properly reviewed by other scientists.

The report’s author has since withdrawn the claim, saying there is not enough evidence to link climate change to worsening natural disasters, and criticised the use of his data as ‘completely misleading’.

It follows the IPCC’s admission that it was wrong to state in its influential 2007 Fourth Assessment Report that Himalayan glaciers could melt by 2035.

That assertion was based on ‘ speculation’ featured in an eight-year-old article in New Scientist magazine.

The latest revelation means more embarrassment for the climate change lobby because worsening natural disasters were a central plank of arguments at the recent UN climate summit in Copenhagen. Barack Obama used the claims when he said last autumn: ‘More powerful storms and floods threaten every continent.’
Ed Miliband

Unfounded: Secretary of State for Climate change Ed Miliband claimed increased severity of flooding was attributable to global warming

Climate change minister Ed Miliband has claimed that floods such as those which devastated parts of Cumbria last year could be widespread if global warming goes unchecked.

He said last month: ‘Events in Cumbria give a foretaste of the kind of weather runaway climate change could bring. Abroad, the melting of the Himalayan glaciers that feed the great rivers of south Asia could put millions of people at risk of drought.’

The IPCC’s 2007 report said the world had ’suffered rapidly rising costs due to extreme weather-related events since the 1970s’, suggesting global warming was to blame.

But the claim was taken from a then unpublished report by Robert Muir-Wood, head of research at London-based consultancy Risk Management Solutions.

When Dr Muir-Wood released the report he added the caveat: ‘We find insufficient evidence to claim a statistical relationship between global temperature increase and catastrophe losses [damage caused by natural disasters].’

The IPCC said it would investigate the false claim and could withdraw it.

Professor Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, vice-chairman of the IPCC, said: ‘We are re-assessing the evidence and will publish a report on natural disasters and extreme weather with the latest findings.’

Dr Muir-Wood attacked the way his evidence was used. He said: ‘The idea that catastrophes are rising in cost partly because of climate change is completely misleading. We could not tell if it was just an association or cause and effect. ‘Also, our study included 2004 and 2005 which was when there were some major hurricanes. If you took those years away then the significance of climate change vanished.’

The disparity comes about in part because subsidies for purchasing health insurance under the plan from congressional Democrats are pegged to federal poverty guidelines. That has the effect of limiting subsidies for married couples with a combined income, compared to if the individuals are single.

People who get their health insurance through an employer wouldn’t be affected. Only people that buy subsidized insurance through new exchanges set up by the legislation stand to be impacted. About 17 million people would receive such subsidies in 2016 under the House plan, the Congressional Budget Office estimates.

The bills cap the annual amount people making less than 400% of the federal poverty level must pay for health insurance premiums, ranging from 1.5% of income for the poorest to 11% at the top end, under the House plan.

For an unmarried couple with income of $25,000 each, combined premiums would be capped at $3,076 per year, under the House bill. If the couple gets married, with a combined income of $50,000, their annual premium cap jumps to $5,160 — a “penalty” of $2,084. Those figures were included in a memo prepared by House Republican staff.

The disparity is slightly smaller in the Senate version of health-care legislation, chiefly because premium subsidies in the House bill are more targeted towards low-wage earners.

Under the Senate bill, a couple with $50,000 combined income would pay $3,450 in annual premiums if unmarried, and $5,100 if married — a difference of $1,650.

Republicans say the effect on married couples whose combined income makes them ineligible for subsidies is even greater — up to $5,000 or more — but that is more difficult to measure because it includes assumptions about the price of insurance policies.

Democratic staff who helped to write the bill confirmed the existence of the penalty, but said it cannot be remedied without creating other inequities.

For instance, they said making the subsidies neutral towards marriage would lead to a married couple with only one bread-winner getting a more generous subsidy than a single parent at the same income-level.

If the bill passes in its current form, it would be far from the first example of federal and social benefits creating incentives to remain single. Under current law, marriage can have a negative impact on a person’s ability to claim the earned income tax credit and welfare benefits including food stamps.

But it has caught the attention of some conservative groups, who claim that the prospect of reduced subsidies will dissuade people from tying the knot.

This seems to not only penalize the married, but also those who would have the most to gain from marriage — the poor,