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Rash, unwise policy and unmitigated political opportunism Africa wants $67 bln a year in global warming funds. African leaders will ask rich nations for $67 billion per year to mitigate the impact of global warming on the world's poorest continent, according to a draft resolution seen by Reuters on Monday [8/24/2009]. The Editor says... Show us the unmitigated "impact" first! Obama Makes U.S. Taxpayers Bail Out Foreigners. The House of Representatives has passed the so-called American Clean Energy and Security Act. While allegedly designed to combat the questionable phenomenon of global warming, the bill will actually boost both job-creation and the production of greenhouse gas emissions in other countries at the expense of the American economy. As Stephen Moore of the Wall Street Journal has said, the bill should be called the "full employment act for India and China." 40 years later, the moon landings have unintended consequences. Plan to Combat Global Warming? Pie in the Sky. Whenever you hear a politician start a sentence with, "If we can put a man on the moon...," grab your wallet. For years, Democrats, enthralled by the cargo cult of the Kennedy presidency, have used the moon landing as proof that no big government ambition is beyond our reach. ... The problem with the "if we can put a man on the moon, we can certainly spend trillions on this or that" formulation is that it sees political and scientific accomplishments as interchangeable. Six Ways Democrats Are Hurting America. [#6] The Democrats have said "yes" to decimating the economy to fight "global warming." Ironically, the globe hasn't actually warmed since 1998, but the Democrats still want to impose the largest tax increase in history to fight this non-existent problem. How much will it cost the average family? Somewhere between $1600 to $4000 a year in higher costs. Waxman Won't Compromise on 20% Carbon Cap in Climate Measure. House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman said he won't compromise on his proposed 20 percent reduction in greenhouse gases over the next decade in the face of criticism from lawmakers who say the economy could suffer. 'Stimulating' Scientists Into Proving Global Warming. The trillion-dollar plus porkapalooza Wreak-America Bill just passed by Congress will throw a huge amount of money into scientific research. This will be a good thing for certain scientists, but a very, very bad thing for science. ... The new Wreak-America Bill will throw billions of dollars more into global warming research, a field in which data cooking has become an open scandal. Once again, the data is being adjusted to confirm the establishment theory: humans are responsible for global warming. Global Cooling Alert. I suspect that many global warming alarmists are well aware that time is running out for them. If nothing is done and global temperatures decline in coming years — as they inevitably will, the only question is when — the alarmists will have been refuted. On the other hand, if they succeed in pushing through industry-destroying caps on carbon emissions around the world, and especially here in the U.S., they will take credit for the cooling when it comes, claiming it as vindication of their theories. 'Intelligence' committee threatens national security. Led by U.S. Rep. Sylvestre Reyes of Texas, a coalition of D.C. Democrats say national security will be better served if CIA cash is used for global warming research — because apparently there just aren't enough people studying the issue out there. It's also an odd necessity because if you adhere to the notion that the "science is settled," which the Democrats almost universally believe, then why even bother studying it anymore? The Climate Alarmist Manifesto: Just as class struggle forms the nucleus of Marxism, so does it sit at the very core of the Left's climate alarmism. At a glance, the regressive nature of fiscal Carbon control schemes, be they taxation or cap-and-trade, would appear to be antithetical to liberal thinking. But beneath the veneer of both the domestic and international green agenda lies a devious wealth-redistribution plan compared to which all predecessors pale. Rising Oil Prices and Global Warming: Connecting the Facts. Global warming activists and politicians want to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions by decreasing the energy derived from fossil fuels such as gasoline and coal. … Because 86% of our current energy use comes from fossil fuels (those energy sources that emit the largest amount of greenhouse gasses), these policies will raise the price of gasoline, home heating and cooling, and the myriad of other energy products we consume in our daily lives. From a "global warming perspective", such reductions are the desired outcome. California to be home to $600 million global warming research center. California will establish a high-profile, $600 million research center to devise solutions for global warming, the Public Utilities Commission decided in a 5-0 vote Thursday [4/10/2008]. The California Institute for Climate Solutions will have a $60 million budget each year for 10 years. The money will come from ratepayers of the state's major utilities, including Pacific Gas & Electric, which serves much of Northern California. Global Warming Equals Socialism. For decades, environmentalism has been the Left's best excuse for increasing government control over our actions in ways both large and small. It's for Mother Earth! It's for the children! It's for the whales! But until now, the doomsday-scenario environmental scares they've trumped up haven't been large enough to give the sinister prize they want most of all: total control of American politics, economic activity, and even individual behavior. Unmasking Global Warming: The Case of Mikhail Gorbachev. The most remarkable aspect of the man-made global warming claim is the lack of solid scientific evidence for it. Yet there are those whose apparent goal it is to advance this theory at all costs. Blatant in their disregard of the facts, they try to convince as many as would believe of the real nature of this alleged danger. But since this activism does not rest on scientific evidence or hard facts, it must be driven by motives other than those publicly stated. When green was easy: Now that the Soviet Union has collapsed and socialism in general has miserably failed, the left has been reenergized by New Age environmentalism, like Marxism a quasireligion that provides an even more comprehensive justification for restricting individual freedom and its economic expression in the form of market capitalism. The leftist project of replacing socialism with environmentalism as an ideological organizing principle has culminated with global warming theory, an apocalyptic scenario that has proved much more salable than anything Karl Marx could come up with. Globalists Love Global Warming. A common charge leveled against those who question the official orthodoxy of the global warming religion is that they are acting as stooges for the western establishment and big business interests. If this is the case, then why do the high priests of the elite and kingpin oil men continue to fan the flames of global warming hysteria? Cap and Burn: For months, Democrats and the environmental lobby promoted last week's Senate global-warming debate as a political watershed. It was going to be the historic turning point in U.S. climate change policy. In the event, their bill collapsed in a little more than three days. … By [Friday morning 6/6/2008], Majority Leader Harry Reid had already made it plain that he wanted the bill off the floor as quickly as possible — despite calling climate change "the most critical issue of our time." A Heat Wave, But ... Even the U.S. government, courtesy of NASA, has admitted that the Earth is now a decade into a cooling cycle and it is likely to last at least two or three more decades. [So] Why do both candidates for President keep talking about global warming? Global Warming Replaces 9/11 As Justification To Do Anything. What is more dangerous? A temperature fluctuation that has been mirrored and exceeded ten times in the last thousand years alone without any lasting impact on the eco-system, or an excuse for western governments to tighten the shackles of fascism around our ankles in the name of saving the planet? How the world was misled about global warming and now climate change: Once you realize humans are not causing global warming and/or climate change, then you need an explanation for how and why so many people appear to think they are. In two previous articles … we examined the philosophical and historical context of climate change and specifically the focus on humans as the cause. … Now we need to examine how politics took over climate science through exploitation of public fear and lack of knowledge. McCain and Climate Change: Sci-Fi as Policy. Without amazing breakthroughs, to even come close to such goals as reducing carbon emissions to 80 percent of 1990 levels by 2050 — when, keep in mind, the economy could be four times as large as it was a decade and a half ago — would require draconian decreases in economic growth tantamount to a global depression. Wrecking economies for no good reason. Following Al Gore's Academy Award and Nobel Prize, the popular culture is consumed with concern over global warming and any contribution to the same by human emissions of carbon dioxide. How realistic are these fears? The answer is "not very." Global Warming Madness and How to Stop It. Public policies being proposed at the international, national, and state levels in the name of "stopping global warming" would result in a massive increase in the size and power of the state. To reduce emissions, governments must raise energy costs directly, with taxes, or indirectly, with mandates and subsidies. Either way, hundreds of billions of dollars a year in wealth or economic activity will be sucked up and redistributed by governments. For advocates of limited government, the debate over global warming is one of the preeminent issues of our time. The gift that keeps on giving. "Every generation needs a holier-than-thou, ideological mantra … to wrap themselves virtuously." Global warming is the gift that keeps on giving to climate hysterics. For those already pre-disposed to being anti-western, anti-development, anti-growth, anti-capitalist and most of all, anti-U.S., it's the perfect propaganda tool. If You Think Taxes Are High Now... Just Wait Until Congress Tries to 'Fix' Global Warming. As millions of American taxpayers face this year's looming tax filing deadline, the free-market grassroots group Americans for Prosperity today warned that families stand to take a huge hit if proposed so-called "global warming solutions" are implemented — without having any significant impact on global temperatures. Bill Clinton: "We Just Have to Slow Down Our Economy" to Fight Global Warming. Former President Bill Clinton was in Denver, Colorado, stumping for his wife yesterday [1/30/2008]. In a long … speech, he characterized what the U.S. and other industrialized nations need to do to combat global warming this way: "We just have to slow down our economy and cut back our greenhouse gas emissions 'cause we have to save the planet for our grandchildren." Slow The Economy? Chill, Bill. In a typically verbose speech, [Bill Clinton] put forth his idea of what the U.S. and other industrialized nations need to do: "We just have to slow down our economy and cut back our greenhouse gas emissions 'cause we have to save our planet for our grandchildren." Sounds like he should cut back on his own. We've been among those who have warned that something along the lines of the Kyoto Protocol would derail the U.S. economy and be a recipe for global poverty. We've never heard anyone advocate an economic slowdown or claiming such an event would actually create jobs. The Editor says... Apparently Bill Clinton believes that if less money changes hands, the earth will cool down. The Real Cost of Tackling Climate Change: We all ought to reflect on what an 80% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2050 really means. … These targets would send us back to emissions levels last witnessed when the cotton gin was in daily use. Spanish court prohibits ski station because of global warming. A Spanish court has prohibited the construction of a ski station partially because global warming would make it economically unviable, media reported Wednesday [4/2/2008]. The court accepted the arguments of ecologists who opposed the construction of a ski station in the San Glorio mountain pass in northern Leon province for environmental reasons. The station would have been partly located in a nature park housing a bear population. The court also justified its decision with the unprecedented argument that global warming would make the ski station economically unviable. 'Global Warming' as Pathological Science. Today's Global Warming campaign is endangering real, honest science. Global Warming superstition has become an international power grab, and good science suffers as a result. Global Warming: The All-Purpose Farce to Control Your Life. Everything you do has a carbon footprint and could be regulated by the government. If the Democrats have their way, you could face new limits on what you eat for breakfast, the way you travel to work, … the medicines you take, the clothes you wear, the DVDs you watch, everything — everything! "Carbon footprint" is code for limitless government intrusion into every detail of your life. Greenhouse cuts would land us in the Middle Ages, says Labor sceptic. [Peter] Walsh, who was at the forefront of Labor's conversion to economic rationalism in the 1980s … points out that the Romans grew grapes in northern England in the first millennium and the Vikings grew cereals in Greenland in the second millennium. "Those much warmer periods cannot reasonably be attributed to anthropogenic greenhouse gases," he says. He also says the temperature on Mars has risen in a similar way to that on Earth. Rep. John Dingell wants his colleagues to be honest about the costs of tackling global warming. His position arguably makes [Rep. John] Dingell the lone honest broker in the global warming debate. But it also makes him a headache for all his Democratic friends, who'd prefer he just play political nice. … He talks about the immense pressure he was under earlier this year to write a quick energy bill that included everything from new standards for light bulbs to a massive new system for regulating CO2. Global Warming Is No Match for Capitalism. The theory that human activities are adversely affecting the global climate has attracted many supporters — not because of the soundness of the science, which few people are competent to judge, but because acting to stop this supposed threat would benefit their particular interests. Fighting Climate Change, Gun Control and Income Tax Laws: In the past 65 million years, the Earth's temperature has increased and decreased with no help from mankind. My questions to the anti-climate change warriors are: Can mankind really stop climate change, and what is the "correct" Earth temperature? Global Warming: Just Another Liberal Orthodoxy. So much of today's "conventional wisdom" represents neither convention nor wisdom, but instead results from a fundamentally leftist worldview, combined with a truly juvenile dosage of wishful thinking. Consider a few such pillars of the liberal faith, and more specifically how fragile they quickly become when placed under the hot lights of honest scrutiny. 10 More Differences Between Liberals And Conservatives. Conservatives have kept an open mind about global warming, but we have seen little hard proof that mankind is responsible for the small, roughly 1° global temperature increase over the last century. Saying that it is "scientific consensus" that mankind is causing global warming means little when more than 17,100 American scientists disagree. Book review: The Satanic Gases. Michaels and Balling examine the role played by politics, the media, and science in the creation of our present perceptions of humanity's effect on climate, particularly global warming. Their main thesis is that politicians and the media have blown this issue out of proportion, manipulating currently known information in order to fulfill their own objectives. The authors also assert that the current scientific paradigm accepts as fact both global warming and humankind's contributions to its acceleration. Scientists therefore tend to ignore contradictory data. States Suing EPA Over Global Warming. In a petition filed Wednesday [4/2/2008], the plaintiffs said the 5-4 ruling in April 2007 required the Environmental Protection Agency to decide whether to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, including carbon dioxide, from motor vehicles. The EPA has instead done nothing, they said. "The EPA's failure to act in the face of these incontestable dangers is a shameful dereliction of duty," Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley said. The Editor says... There are no "incontestable dangers" in this case. Lots of people are skeptical, not just me. Global warming: 21st century eugenics. In the end, the truth will prevail. If it takes a century for the global warming theory to collapse, the bodies of people who were denied electricity — and the heat, clean water and refrigeration it can provide — will weigh more heavily than the Holocaust upon a society that should have learned from its mistaken belief in eugenics. Global Warming: A Verdict in Search of Evidence. Despite the shrill cries of doom, the NAS report is not cause for alarm. It introduces no new science to the debate, and actually reinforces the fact that there is a great deal we don't know about climate — especially whether or not human activities are having any impact. Environmental special interests, the media, certain politicians, and international bureaucrats all want to distort perceptions of global warming to serve their own agendas. The next time you hear claims that global warming has been "proven", be sure to read the fine print. Vanities of the Warmist: The conceit that scientists and bureaucrats can use the power the state to manage nature has lead to disaster in the past, and will again if the global warmists keep getting their way. … Like our ancestors of yore, today's environmentalists believe the government can control the environment better than Mother Nature can. Are we to suppose that the people who give us the DMV and the IRS are going to "manage" the globe in the same efficient and benevolent manner? The Emperor's New Climate, Part Two. Patrick J. Michaels — a climatologist, professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia, says: "No one in Washington gets large grants by saying something isn't a problem. Meanwhile, the $10 billion thrown at climate modeling research in the last 15 years was wasted." The Emperor's New Climate, Part Three: The UN and European Union (EU) support the Kyoto treaty because it establishes their authority to set CO2 standards, collect fees, and regulate transportation. For the EU, there's also the chance to entangle the powerful U.S. economy in a web of regulation sufficient to bring it to the 17th-century level of innovation and efficiency that Europe now enjoys. The Emperor's New Climate, Part Four: Disaster Does Not Loom. Feeding the horses and donkeys formerly needed for transportation and farming tied up twice the acreage used today by all our roads and highways, oil pipelines, refineries, and wells. Much of that extra acreage has reverted to trees. Excellent! The Misuse of Science in Environmental Management: Includes three sections, covering the debates over air pollution, stratospheric ozone, and global warming. Earth First! (People Later). The "science" of global warming is nothing more than a cover for their irrational emotional needs. It's religion for people who are too cool to go to church. All that yearning, the need for something bigger, transcendent: Hey the planet's heating up and I've been placed here to save it! When Al Gore says, "The Earth has a fever," no one calls him on his cartoon personification — as if the Earth has a temperature it prefers. Global Warming's Trillion-Dollar Turkey: Is it really worth trillions of taxpayer dollars over 90 years to perhaps reduce global temperatures by 0.13-0.18° Celsius? If you can't answer that question, consider this. Under the no-action scenario, average global temperature might be 1.2° Celsius higher in 2095 than it is today, once again using conservative IPCC assumptions and formulas. Under the maximum-regulation scenario, average global temperature might be 1.03° Celsius higher than today. (For reference purposes, the estimated total increase in average global temperature for the 20th century was about 0.50° Celsius.) Baby Steps On the Road to Serfdom: President Bush has crafted a political compromise on global warming designed to placate Europeans and greens fretting over the effects of CO2 emissions on climate change. Bush Administration Speaks with Forked Tongue on Global Warming: What is the president's policy on global warming? Bush Must Withdraw Global Warming Report: How this bull's eye was painted on the President's back is a dismaying story because it reveals the White House's continuing political incompetence in dealing with environmental issues and its continuing toleration of opponents of the President's policies inside his administration. EPA Global Warming Report Violates White House Agreement To Settle Lawsuit: As a result of the lawsuit filed in October 2000, the Bush Administration ultimately agreed in September 2001 to withdraw the National Assessment and stated that its unlawfully produced conclusions are "not policy positions or official statements of the U.S. government." EPA has ignored this agreement in issuing its report to the United Nations. Global Warming Hot Air Courtesy of the U.N. The Truth on Global Warming: The new Bush Administration seems to be schizophrenic on the issue. Bush himself clearly understands the science and the economics, but want to appear conciliatory. He is pressured by members of his cabinet, most specifically EPA Administrator Christie Todd Whitman, whose understanding of the issue is deficient at best. Throwing cold water on the cherished tradition of beach bonfires. Every weekend, hundreds of people stream down Imperial Highway as early as 6 a.m. to grab one of Dockweiler's 60 fire rings, roast marshmallows and listen to the surf as the light fades away. Bureaucrats and homeowners, however, are robbing us of this romantic legacy. Of the 108 state parks and beaches in California, only 24 allow fires, and some have early curfews. Beach bonfires may be banned. [Seattle Parks and Recreation] staff is recommending reducing bonfires at the two beaches this summer and possibly banning them altogether next year. … According to a memo to the park board from the staff released Thursday [6/5/2008], "The overall policy question for the Board is whether it is good policy for Seattle Parks to continue public beach fires when the carbon … emissions produced by thousands of beach fires per year contributes to global warming." The Editor has a few... Questions for the Seattle Parks and Recreation Department: Do you really think that a bonfire on the beach — or a million bonfires on the beach — would measurably increase the temperature all over the world? Do you know what "a drop in a bucket" means? Prince Charles: 100 months to save the world. The Prince of Wales is to issue a stark warning that nations have "less than 100 months to act" to save the planet from irreversible damage due to climate change. This is an original compilation, Copyright © 2013 by Andrew K. Dart The Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act Before the general public catches the clue bus and realizes that there is no "global warming" problem to solve, and no practical action to take, the US Congress is urgently trying to use global warming as the latest excuse to expand the size and strnegth of the federal government. Having almost exhausted the public relations value of the previous bogeyman, "terrorism", Uncle Sam needs a new gimmick, and global warming is it. The hapless news media are playing along as usual and not asking any questions. The Big Chill: The core of the Boxer-Lieberman-Warner legislation is that an expanded government, not the market economy, must control our society. … The bill does focus on some global warming objectives — although it is an America-only program estimated to lower global CO2 emissions only by about 1.4% — but it is less about that and more a step towards traditional socialism. The government would take control of our economy and regulate everything from electricity, oil and gas to imported shoes, our food, how high we may set our thermostats, and what kinds of light bulbs we may use. Contrary to Gore, sky's not falling. This isn't an energy bill. It's a hidden tax bill. It's estimated by Lieberman that emissions permits will have a market value of $7 trillion by 2050. In other words, a ton of money will pour into Washington to be spent on "many things." McCain and Obama support legislation at least as horrendous. Only the people can stop it, just as they stopped the comprehensive immigration bill of recent memory. Detractors say anti-pollution bill before Senate could lead to $8 gas. Depending on who's talking, the bill could either help save the planet or help bankrupt the country. Effect of the Lieberman-Warner Global Warming Legislation on States: The Senate's leading climate-change bill, while aiming to combat global warming by reducing carbon dioxide in the air, actually poses "extraordinary perils" for Americans and the economy, according to a new study from The Heritage Foundation. The study, produced by Heritage's Center for Data Analysis (CDA), forecasts severe consequences — including crushing energy costs, millions of jobs lost and falling household income — if Congress enacts the so-called Lieberman-Warner bill. Hurricane Lieberman-Warner: Liberal Democrats and "green" Republicans are proposing a massive reorganization of the American economy to fight so-called global warming. Worse yet, proponents of this bill are attempting to sell this eco-socialism as a "market-based" policy, and their allies in the national media are going along with the charade. The Climate Security Act: Reject this nonsense. The idea behind the bill is to reduce carbon dioxide, supposedly one of the major "greenhouse gases" that are, again supposedly, leading to a dire warming of our planet. Never mind that the "settled science" of global warming hardly is — and never mind the scientific evidence of cooling — the Climate Security Act stands to do serious, if not irreparable, harm to an already struggling economy. We Don't Need a Climate Tax on the Poor. With average gas prices across the country approaching $4 a gallon, it may be hard to believe, but the U.S. Senate is considering legislation this week that will further drive up the cost at the pump. The Senate is debating a global warming bill that will create the largest expansion of the federal government since FDR's New Deal, complete with a brand new, unelected bureaucracy. About That Global Warming Bill... On June 2, the United States Senate will begin debate on America's Climate Security Act (S. 2191), sponsored by Senators Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) and John Warner (R-VA). The Lieberman-Warner bill (LW) would restrict energy use to combat global warming. Like global warming itself, the bill has been the subject of considerable hype and little hard-nosed analysis. For this reason, there are several myths about it that need to be dispelled. Cap and Destroy: The heart of Lieberman-Warner is a cap and trade system that would turn decisions on how much and what kind of energy to use in the private sector over to government. This is the approach, you'll recall, that worked so well in the Soviet Union that that dismal country's first five-year plan lasted 74 years before the whole sorry business caved-in on [itself]. If adopted, this would be the most fundamental change in the nature of this country in the country's history. Lieberman-Warner: A State-by-State Snapshot. Well, isn't it just like Congress to take the latest fad — in this case, "global warming" — and use it to try to usher in yet more government control of your life? The "Lieberman-Warner" bill is based on unproven "science," represents massive government intrusion, and oh, yes, it could cripple the economy. Senate action on climate bill seems doomed. [The 492-page bill] would require power plants, refineries and factories to reduce their carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases by about 19 percent by 2020 and by 71 percent by midcentury. Along with capping emissions, it would establish a pollution allowance trading system to ease the transition from fossil fuel use and help people pay energy bills. Senate Democrats May Pull Climate Bill. If this week's Senate debate on a proposed cap-and-trade system for greenhouse gases was supposed to be a dress rehearsal for climate legislation, things are not looking too good for opening night. The week has been marked by parliamentary maneuvers and bitter accusations over divergent estimates of the bill's future costs. On Wednesday [6/4/2008], a group of GOP senators asked that the clerk of the Senate read the entire 491-page bill aloud, an extremely rare request. That took more than 10 hours. The Houston Chronicle is sad to report... Republican senators block global warming bill. Senate Republicans today blocked a global warming bill that would have required major reductions in greenhouse gases, after a bitter debate over its economic costs and whether it would substantially raise gasoline and other energy prices. Democratic leaders fell a dozen votes short of getting the 60 needed to end a Republican filibuster on the measure and bring the bill up for a vote. The 48-36 vote failed to reach even a majority, a disappointment to the bill's supporters. The Washington Post is similarly crestfallen... Senate Leaders Pull Measure on Climate. Although the bill — sponsored by Sens. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) and John W. Warner (R-Va.) — enjoyed bipartisan support, the week-long floor debate devolved into partisan bickering over which party was most responsive to the plight of Americans trying to cope with rising gas prices. Congress Fiddled With Warming While Earth Cooled. Last week Democrats tried to kill the economy in the name of solving a problem that doesn't exist. Republicans should hang this bill around their necks in every district where an incumbent voted for the woefully misnamed and deservedly DOA Climate Security Act, technically S.3036. Asking Americans to pony up even more at the pump with already record gasoline prices creeping higher almost daily seems offensive enough. But compelling such burden under the guise of moral imperative to curb global warming at a time when the planet is actually cooling rings downright obscene. "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed – and hence clamourous to be led to safety – by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." The alarmists' irrational zeal Global warmists seem to take Al Gore so seriously that many of them exhibit a diminished capacity for critical thinking. In fact, many people on the political left have seem to make decisions based on bumper stickers, three-second TV "sound bites" and other people's emotional outbursts rather than sound reasoning. I Pledge Allegiance to Global Warming. The concept of scientists — or journalists, or artists — signing a petition is ludicrous. The idea is that they are lending their authority to whatever cause the petition represents — but in fact they are undermining that authority, which is based on the presumption that they think for themselves. The title is off-topic, but the article is not. The Precautionary Principle and Global Warming. We saw this last January when many of the same people promoting AGW hysteria also used it to ram through the failed "stimulus" bill without reading it. It is now being used to justify taking over the sixth of the US economy represented by the health care industry. All the while, these people have been lambasting their political opponents who offer more sensible alternatives as proposing that we do "nothing." Sen. Debbie Stabenow, Energy Leader. In an interview with the Detroit News Monday [8/10/2009], Senator Debbie Stabenow (D., Mich.) — recently appointed to the Senate Energy Committee — made clear that fighting the climate crisis is her top priority. "Climate change is very real," she confessed as she embraced cap and trade's massive tax increase on Michigan industry — at the same time claiming, against all the evidence, that it would not lead to an increase in manufacturing costs or energy prices. "Global warming creates volatility. I feel it when I'm flying. The storms are more volatile. We are paying the price in more hurricanes and tornadoes." And there are sea monsters in Lake Michigan. I can feel them when I'm boating. Who's afraid of global warming? Back in the 1970s we were told that overpopulation and global cooling were going to destroy the world. Turns out they haven't. Population growth has slowed way down almost everywhere and the problem, we're told now, by governmental, universal, media and corporate elites, is global warming or, rather, man-made global warming. ... I am open to arguments on this issue, but as I have written several times it seems to me that many global warming alarmists are motivated by something that is more like religion than science. It's Getting Cold Out There. While President Obama led the charge for the G8 nations to agree to an 80 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in industrial nations by 2050, the same Russian aide dissed the standard as "likely unattainable." No worries, the language was non-binding. Global-warming believers say that they are all about science, but their emphasis is not on results so much as declarations of belief. Faith. Mystery. Promises to engage in pious acts. Global warming is a religion. This Week's Endless Global Warming Sitcom. Liberals have created a catastrophe from which only they can save us. But an actual solution would ruin all the fun — and destroy liberal employment prospects in the mass hysteria industry. So the goal of global warming proponents is to give the issue a cameo in every possible scene playing out on the world stage. The Ecopalypse, 96 Months Away? According to His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, we only have 96 months left to save the planet. I'm impressed. 96 months. Not 95. Not 97. July 2017. Put it in your diary. Usually the warm-mongers stick to the same old drone that we only have ten years left to save the planet. Nice round number. Al Gore said we only have ten years left three-and-a-half years ago, which makes him technically more of a pessimist than the Prince of Wales. Nobelist hopes "a lot of horrid things happen," to "get people concerned about climate change". Last night, FOX News host Sean Hannity looked at recent remarks made by Nobel Prize winning economist Tom Schelling. In a July 14 interview with The Atlantic Monthly, Schelling said about "global warming": "It's a tough sell. And you probably have to find ways to exaggerate the threat." The Mother of All Scares. As we are all aware, thanks to global warming, the world seems to be heading for an unprecedented catastrophe. But it is not, of course, the technicolor apocalypse we have so long been promised by the likes of Al Gore and Jim Hansen — melting icesheets, rising sea levels, hurricanes, droughts, mass-extinctions. The real disaster hanging over us through global warming lies in all those measures now being adopted by the world's politicians to meet a crisis which was never going to happen anyway. Never before in history have politicians come up with proposals so astronomically costly or potentially so damaging to their economies. Energy Secretary Offers Dire Global Warming Prediction. Caribbean nations face "very, very scary" rises in sea level and intensifying hurricanes, and Florida, Louisiana and even northern California could be overrun with rising water levels due to global warming triggered by carbon-based greenhouse gases, Energy Secretary Steven Chu said Saturday [4/18/2009]. Chu's comments followed meetings with environmental ministers attending the fifth Summit of the Americas. He did not shy away from the most perilous predictions about the potential effects of global warming. Here is an example of an irrational viewpoint: It's Time to Cool the Planet. Quite simply, as the effects of global warming have worsened, policy makers have failed to meet the challenge. ... Also let's be clear about one other thing: We will still have to radically reduce carbon emissions, and do so quickly. We will still have to eliminate the use of fossil fuels, and adopt substantially more sustainable agricultural methods. We will still have to deal with the effects of ecosystems damaged by carbon overload. The Editor says... There are only a few things wrong with these ideas. (1) The planet is cooling itself already, without our help. (2) There are no "effects of global warming" because there hasn't been much of it. (Hundreds of things are blamed on global warming, but the connections are dubious at best.) (3) Any time someone insists that we need to act "radically" and "quickly", you should react with a great deal of healthy skepticism. (4) To "eliminate the use of fossil fuels", it would be necessary to return to pre-industrial America — a land without cars, trucks, airplanes, or locomotives. Aren't these the same people so urgently asking for billions of dollars to be spent on repairing roads and bridges? Why bother,if there will be no cars? (5) There are no "ecosystems damaged by carbon overload"; in fact, some scientists say we're in a CO2 drought already, and the world's plant life could use a lot more carbon dioxide. I didn't bother to read any further in this article. I've seen enough. An All-Out Deification of Nature. Since the introduction of bumper stickers calling for us to respect "Mother Earth," we have been careening towards an all-out deification of nature. And as the last decade has witnessed an unprecedented push for green cars, green energy, and green government policies, it seems environmentalism has finally become less about saving the planet and more about worshiping it. ... There is an undeniable infatuation with nature in our post-modern culture, and like all infatuations, this one causes people to rush to support solutions that are flatly outlandish in their claims. Global Warming Ruled a Religion by British Judge. A fired British executive is suing his former employer on the grounds that he was unfairly dismissed due to religious views — his belief in global warming. ... The judge ruled that [Tim] Nicholson's extreme green views fit the definition of "a philosophical belief under the Employment Equality (Religion and Belief) Regulations, 2003." The crumbling case for global warming: One young radical turned up at the Heartland Institute's climate change skeptics' conference in New York this week to declare that he had never witnessed so much hypocrisy. How, he asked the panelists of a session on European policy, could they sleep at night? Clearly puzzled, one of the panelists asked him with which parts of their presentations he disagreed. "Oh," he said "I didn't come here to listen to the presentations." Political Elite Losing Touch With America on Global Warming. Senator John Kerry stressed that the economy cannot be a scapegoat for not implementing carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas reductions. He went so far as to call doing nothing a "suicide pact". Report: rising seas could cost California more than $100B. A rising sea level caused by a warming climate could cost California an estimated $100 billion in property loss by the end of the century, two-thirds of which will occur in the San Francisco Bay area, a new state-commissioned study has found. The Editor says... The end of the century is still 91 years away, and by then a loaf of bread "could cost" $100 billion. (Just ask the people of Zimbabwe how that's possible.) This is just another in a long series of doomsday predictions written for the people who form their opinions based on something they read on a bumper sticker or a tabloid headline. Here is another rebuttal: California's Wet Dream: This so-called "study" was concocted by the Pacific Institute (www.pacinst.org), a nonprofit propaganda outfit in Oakland. The hogwash was paid for by the California Energy Commission, Caltrans and the state Ocean Protection Council. I have no idea how much money was shelled out to fund this poppycock, but I can assure you, it was a blasted waste of taxpayer dough. Update on the "Chu Effect". One month ago, Secretary of Energy Dr. Steven Chu warned of apocalyptic drought in California. "We're looking at a scenario where there's no more agriculture in California." And, he added, "I don't actually see how they can keep their cities going" either." USA today warned: "Calif. facing worst drought in modern history"[.] Almost immediately after Dr. Chu's pronouncement, the rain and snow started in earnest. As of today, all California Snowtel stations report normal snow depth and water content, as do all stations in Colorado where California gets much of their water from. Obviously a public school student. Climate change takes a mental toll. Last year, an anxious, depressed 17-year-old boy was admitted to the psychiatric unit at the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne. He was refusing to drink water. Worried about drought related to climate change, the young man was convinced that if he drank, millions of people would die. The Australian doctors wrote the case up as the first known instance of "climate change delusion." Return of the Warm-Monger: People who do not believe in a Creator are living in a world defined entirely by chance. As easily as it emerged in randomness, it could disintegrate into chaos. Their lives are fragile tendrils clinging for support to the slender reed of a world governed by habit rather than purpose. They are only too easily gulled by the soothsayers, the naysayers, the doomsayers. Drowning in drivel. You might think the moral of this farce is not to trust even million-hit websites such as WorldNetDaily … But the real moral is that global warming fear-mongering is now so shameless and grotesque that otherwise sane people are prepared to believe half [of Australia] is about to head for the boats. You might also think Bell must be on his nutty lonesome to fall for a story so wild. But don't admired global warming cultists say things just as extreme, to huge applause? Penguins on thin ice as 2C increase threatens to halve Emperor numbers. Half of the Emperor penguins in the Antarctic could vanish within 40 years due to climate change, according to a new WWF report. The environment charity has warned that if the global temperature is allowed to rise by more than two degrees it could spell the end for many colonies of the iconic species. Bias alert: The "report" comes from the WWF, which the author of the article fails to identify as the World Wildlife Fund, an environmental activist group. (At the risk of repeating myself, these are — ironically — some of the same people who preach "survival of the fittest" in public schools.) In this case, they are pushing for the passage of a law (in Scotland) to restrict industrial activity, or raise taxes, in order to "save" the penguins. If they were pushing a law to help "save" mosquitoes, chances are the effort wouldn't work as well. The penguin, like the polar bear before it, is being used for emotional leverage. Global Warming as Mass Neurosis. If even slight global cooling remains evidence of global warming, what isn't evidence of global warming? What we have here is a nonfalsifiable hypothesis, logically indistinguishable from claims for the existence of God. This doesn't mean God doesn't exist, or that global warming isn't happening. It does mean it isn't science. Live Earth: useful as a green bracelet. And now we're asked to put our hands in the air like we really care about the environment at Live Earth, a multinational phantasmagoric series of stadium concerts on July 7, with the grand aim of "raising awareness of global warming". Our $99 concert tickets, which I am sure will be printed on recycled paper, do not go towards any concrete measures to halt global warming, or to repair any damage done to the Earth. The proceeds don't go directly to purchasing solar batteries for anyone or subsidising public transport anywhere. The event just goes to raising awareness. How Global Warming Activism Hurts the Poor: The National Religious Partnership on the Environment (NRPE) organized Mainline Protestants, Roman Catholics, Evangelicals and Jews in a special statement to the U.S. Congress pleading for a joint crusade against Global Warming and poverty. The Religious Left prefers to deny that reducing global economic growth, even if it could affect the climate, is no way to help the poor. Instead, the Religious Left wraps its Global Warming agenda in the mantle of caring for the poor. The Hedonistic Left and Global Warming: The elitists who make the most noise about the "purity" of nature never apply that concern to human nature: they have made careers out of corrupting it. The self-appointed prophets of an environmental apocalypse from Hollywood and New York are the forces most responsible for engineering a secularist culture which is remarkable in the history of all cultures for its moral obliviousness and its utter indifference to the future, much less the moral welfare of children. The vanity of global warming: Human beings are vain creatures, given to imagining we are able to influence events far beyond our control. … Queensland university student Sarah Bishop believes she can influence the weather. The 22-year-old will walk 1000km from Brisbane to Sydney next month in a bold bid to adjust the planet's temperature. Time Magazine Commits Criminal Journalism: The cover of the April 9th issue of Time magazine was nothing less than an act of criminal journalism. It wasn't merely inaccurate; it was a deliberate act of deception. Against the background of a frying pan in which there was an egg whose yoke depicts the globe, the headline blared "Global Warming" with subtitles that claimed, "Climbing temperatures. Melting glaciers. Rising Seas. All over the earth we're feeling the heat. Why isn't Washington?" Zealotry over global warming could damage our Earth far more than climate change. Given that nowadays pretty well every adverse development in the natural world is automatically attributed to global warming, perhaps the most surprising fact about it is that it is not, in fact, happening at all. The truth is that there has so far been no recorded global warming at all this century. Warming warnings get overheated. Much of the global warming debate is perhaps best described as a constant outbidding by frantic campaigners, producing a barrage of ever-more scary scenarios in an attempt to get the public to accept their civilisation-changing proposals. Unfortunately, the general public — while concerned about the environment — is distinctly unwilling to support questionable solutions with costs running into tens of trillions of pounds. Predictably, this makes the campaigners reach for even more outlandish scares. Global Warming Alarmists Use Carbon Copy Responses. The author of "Oil companies could find better uses for record profits" protests that an oil producer donates money to global warming "denier" groups like The Heartland Institute. Automobiles don't run on wind, geothermal, solar or biomass power. Nor will they ever. I would like to see the letter-writer's reaction if she woke up tomorrow and there was no gas available for her car. Help for Americans. Hardly a day goes by without some kind of warning that mankind's use of fossil fuels, especially in the U.S., is causing global warming. [John] Stossel looks at the numbers. Half of this century's global warming happened between 1900 and 1945. Stossel asks, "If man is responsible, why wasn't there much more warming in the second half of the century? We burned much more fuel during that time." The gods of global warming. On American campuses, belief in global warming and man's contribution to it approaches the theological. Actual meteorologists take a more nuanced approach. "When it gets cold, they call it climate change," meteorologist Joe Bastardi told Fox-TV's Bill O'Reilly. "When it goes the other way, they call it global warming." Stop the Extremists on Global Warming— An open letter to ExxonMobil shareholders. Environmentalists Erroneously Cite Pork-Barrel Spending as Evidence of Global Warming. Environmentalists continue to use every means of measuring the temperature of the planet except a thermometer. A case in point is the recent claim that the rising number of presidential disaster declarations — often used as a means of dishing out government pork rather than helping the needy — is a sign that the planet is warming. The Truth on Global Warming: The subject of global warming has become an international political issue, often with its staunchest supporters using the supposed evidence of warming as a weapon to attack the American economy. Global Warming: Calls for dramatic emissions reductions are usually accompanied by lurid rhetoric about weather and climate disasters. The purpose of this document is to provide the facts that counter such emotional appeals. Hot and Bothered: The plural of anecdote is not data. It is all too easy to remember the unusual and forget the typical. That is why interesting stories require justification with scientific data. Thoughts on Global Warming: The facts don't seem to matter much when it comes to going after industry: invent a nice problem (it helps if it will end civilization as we know it) and then find a convenient scapegoat (industry being generally available for this purpose). Bingo: all kinds of money comes your way to do studies on "the problem", etc. etc. You can make a nice living this way! Science for Sale: The Global Warming Scam: Alaska is melting, at least according to the New York Times. Forests are dying, thawing permafrost is causing pavements to buckle, and Native American villages are crumbling. Times reporter Timothy Egan broke this sensational story in the June 16 Sunday edition, complete with color pictures of the buckling highways and eroding shorelines. Global Warming Alarmists Propose Limiting Population ... to the Point of Extinction. In a statistical study entitled "Reproduction and the Carbon Legacies of Individuals," published in Global Environmental Change by Murtaugh and Shlax of Oregon State University, ... the authors propose that the potential savings from reduced reproduction rates among humans are some 20 times more effective than the savings wrought by life style changes. It is clear that the authors follow the Liberal mantra of the ends justify the means. If we can reduce carbon emissions by reducing the number of children, then we should do it, they gloat. It appears that carbon reductions trump even "life" itself. Five Ways that Insanity Has Become the New Normal in America: There are few things stranger than watching a "debate" over global warming. One side constantly quotes scientific facts, makes logical arguments, and tries to appeal to reason. These people are called "anti-science" by the side that "argues" by comparing their opponents to Holocaust deniers, spins apocalyptic doomsday scenarios out of whole cloth, and is constantly dinged for stretching the truth on the few scientific facts they do talk about. These people are the ones who supposedly "put science first" in the debate. Offshore Oil Drilling Ban Will Be Restored 'By Any Means Necessary,' Democratic Congressman Says. "When we talk about drilling, the new thing we have to think about is the Arctic," said [Rep. Jay] Inslee. "There is a dangerous irony occurring. We are drilling, burning oil, sending CO2 up into the atmosphere, creating global warming — and it's melting the Arctic making it possible for people to drill." "Now there is this gold rush to start punching oil wells in a place we just desecrated because of global warming," said Inslee. "That's one place we have to get a new moratorium where there hasn't been one before, because there has always been ice there before." Lack of logic in those who claim to be logical. The dogmatism of believers in human caused climate change, despite overwhelming contradictory evidence, is religious in its fervor. It is similar to the adoption of environmentalism as a religion by many for whom climate change is simply a subset. The question is how has this occurred? To get the answer you need to consider a series of events that at first seem unrelated. Global warming must stay below 2°C or world faces ruin, scientists declare. [Scroll down] Professor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, director of the Postdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, a convenor of the symposium, likened the urgency for action on climate change to the threat of thermonuclear weapons during the Cold War. "We are facing a crisis as deep as the arms race of the 1950s and 1960s and the Cold War notion of mutually assured destruction," he said. "Today we have mutually assured increases in greenhouse gases." It's not easy being green. Although it is clear that something can easily be both ridiculous and prominent, somehow I underestimated the staying power of environmentalism. I did so partly because I underestimated the mesmerizing power of this version of paganism on the collective consciousness of our secular elites: too sophisticated to subscribe openly to traditional religion but who nonetheless yearned for a token of spiritual uplift with which they could flatter themselves and impress others. Hey Paul Krugman, Here are 2.4 Billion More Traitors. Two days after the [cap and trade] vote, Paul Krugman, a columnist for the New York Times excoriated the 212 members of the House who voted against the legislation, saying that they were "deniers" about the dangers of climate change and that they were committing a "form of treason — treason against the planet." Of course, everyone — and columnists in particular — is entitled to their own measure of hyperbole. But Krugman neglected to inform the Chinese and the Indians — all 2.4 billion of them — that they were committing treason against the planet, too. 'Treason against the planet'. Reading Krugman's rant, it hit me — folks like him have become the Joe McCarthys of modern American liberalism. Actually, Krugman sounded a lot like the infamous Sen. McCarthy and the House Committee on Un-American Activities in their glory days of "exposing" dirty commies plotting to destroy the U.S. in the 1950s Only now, in his June 29 Times column, Krugman was denouncing dirty "deniers" (apparently, almost everyone who disagrees with him) for plotting to destroy the planet. Global Warming: Science or Religion? Unfortunately, many scientists — whether because they are true believers in AGW theory or because public fear of climate change has proven to be a funding bonanza for their area of research — refuse to accept any counter evidence as disproving AGW or to admit that alternative hypotheses might explain better than AGW much of climatic phenomena we have recently experienced. Neither record numbers of record-setting summer low temperatures, nor any appreciable warming for over a decade — all while CO2 levels continue to increase — can shake those vested in the AGW theory from their belief,despite the fact that both trends fly in the face of every climate model's predictions. Junk climate science a cover for fanatics. The world has only five years to implement a destructive low-carbon economy or the planet will hit a "point of no return", we were warned yesterday [10/18/2009]. But the report, by Climate Risk, for the World Wildlife Foundation, did not admit that even if we start destroying our economies, the nations of the world will continue to develop, the poor will become richer, and there's every chance that the world will continue to cool as it has for the past 11 years. Brown Says Less Than 50 Days to 'Save the Planet'. Yesterday [10/19/2009] British Prime Minister Gordon Brown issue dire warnings about global catastrophes that are to come if world leaders fail to come to an agreement and sign the Climate Treaty in Copenhagen this December. His hyperbole sounds a lot like that of Al Gore in his movie, "An Inconvenient Truth." The Editor says... What interesting precision Mr. Brown exhibits. So I wonder... 48 days from now, will he be able to tell us the exact hour and minute that the planet is doomed? Of course, this doesn't mean that Global Warming is a religion... In a precedent-setting ruling, a judge in the UK upholds Mr Tim Nicholson's right to sue his former employer because he was fired over his environmental beliefs and his green lifestyle. After Climategate, Pachaurigate and Glaciergate: Amazongate. I'm trying to write a Climategate book but the way things are going by the time I'm finished there won't be anything left to say: the battle will already have been won and the only people left who still believe in Man Made Global Warming will be the eco-loon equivalents of those wartime Japanese soldiers left abandoned and forgotten on remote Pacific atolls. Back to the Environmental Issues Page Back to the Global Warming Index Page Back to the Home page 
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Document location https://www.akdart.com/warming16.html Updated August 13, 2012. ©2012-2024 by Andrew K. Dart |