A Reuters article describes an Obama administration to get 16 “major economies” to sign up to a “climate change” pact, but observers are unsure whether this is because the administration wants to substitute a weaker pact in place of a UN-sponsored one or whether it truly wants to lead the way.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Barack Obama on Saturday invited 16 “major economies” including the European Union and the United Nations to take part in a forum on climate change to facilitate a U.N. pact on global warming. … Bush’s “major economies” initiative drew scepticism from participants, who were wary the process was his administration’s way of circumventing broader U.N. talks to forge an international deal. …
The president, who took office in January, has said he wants the United States to take the lead in global warming talks. … In a statement, the White House said the forum would “help generate the political leadership necessary” to achieve an international pact to cut greenhouse gas emissions later this year.
AdvertisementIt said the meeting would spur dialogue among developed and developing countries about the issue, “and advance the exploration of concrete initiatives and joint ventures that increase the supply of clean energy while cutting greenhouse gas emissions.” The major economies include: Australia, Brazil, Britain, Canada, China, the European Union, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Russia, South Africa and the United States. Denmark, which is hosting the U.N. meeting in December to forge a pact that would take over from the Kyoto Protocol, was also invited. …
Obama wants to cut U.S. emissions by roughly 15 percent back to 1990 levels by 2020 — tougher than Bush, who saw U.S. emissions peaking as late as 2025.
The “climate change” issue is in large part about money. Fox News described a UN document which saw the new “Green Economy” as a way to transfer “trillions of dollars” from one set of hands to another. If Obama wants to lead the process rather than leave it to the UN, it is in part about who controls the redistribution as much as it is about the ‘environment’.
A United Nations document on “climate change” that will be distributed to a major environmental conclave next week envisions a huge reordering of the world economy, likely involving trillions of dollars in wealth transfer, millions of job losses and gains, new taxes, industrial relocations, new tariffs and subsidies, and complicated payments for greenhouse gas abatement schemes and carbon taxes — all under the supervision of the world body.
Those and other results are blandly discussed in a discretely worded United Nations “information note” on potential consequences of the measures that industrialized countries will likely have to take to implement the Copenhagen Accord, the successor to the Kyoto Treaty, after it is negotiated and signed by December 2009. The Obama administration has said it supports the treaty process if, in the words of a U.S. State Department spokesman, it can come up with an “effective framework” for dealing with global warming.
Follow the money.
Tip Jar
The topic that dare not speak its name.
Definetly a job for a community organizer.
Definetly.
Duncan Moore
Duncan Moore
Steals from the rich
Gives to the poor
Another of the Residents fuffle.
Damn, next thing you know President Cover-Boy will be demanding our “lupins”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLkhx0eqK5w
Stand and deliver!
All based on a scientific hoax. Bad science. A disproved hypothesis. And to persist down this road is THEFT from our people and our nation. This is THE trojan horse that the international socialist oligarchs like Soros and Strong want to set up inside our nation to finally do us in.
I’m afraid that the only choice we are going to get will be the 2010 and 2012 elections which, if they go our way, will give us the opportunity to repudiate and reverse this policy.
I do not think the Democrats will refuse Pelosi, Reid, the president, or his masters. This is going to go through.
One of the unintended consequences of this will be that eventually many people will no longer trust the scientific community. And you know what? The scientific community deserves the scorn of the people, because its members did not do enough to nip this thing in the bud. They screwed us over royally so they could get funding for their projects.
They sold us out for trinkets.
How about rather than “deal with global warming” someone demonstrates that global warming is more than an “eat the rich” cult?
If China surpassed the US as the world’s largest carbon “polluter” while the US has not reduced its greenhouse gas “pollution” it follows there must be more of this evil warming stuff in the atmosphere over the last ten years, say. But temperatures have not risen while the “pollution” has increased in this same time. At least it’s understandable why there can be no more talk about the “science” involved.
It’s clear to me that the Obama Administration truly wants to lead the way. Why not? The Administration believes that human activities are warming the climate and therefore will cause human catastrophes. If that’s what you believe, the leading the way is the right and necessary thing to do. There’s nothing to apologize for.
By contrast, the policy of the Bush Administration seemed to be indifference.
* Is the climate warming?
* If so, is the warming caused by human activities?
* If so, should human activities be modified?
It would have been too much to expect that the Bush Administration would have led the way in addressing these issues, but it would have been nice if the Bush Administration had at least deigned to state some opinions, participate in the debates and express some concerns.
I think that this apparent Republican indifference and even contempt toward concerns about major changes of the climate is a big reason why younger voters switched massively toward the Democrats in 2008.
Tony, the nature of science is that there must always be talk about the science involved. But al-Gore attempts to cut off the introduction of contrary evidence by shaming people into accepting his premise that the science is “settled”. The scientific method doesn’t allow for things to “settle”.
This will effectively destroy our economy and put us into international receivership. Why? Because our economy will not be able to grow enough to support the debt it is taking on. Our currency will be devalued under the weight of falling demand for our federal government’s notes, bills, and bonds.
Finally, the oligarchs have their man in our White House who will help them destroy our country. They have their helpers in Congress and the Senate.
Question is: how is this going to play out after 2012 when Obama is out and the Democrats are out. If we threaten to repudiate this crushing tax and wealth redistribution, how will the oligarchs, the U.N., Russia and China react?
This thing will either be the end of our country, as we know it, or it will propel a reaction from the people that finally wakes them up to the dangers out there.
4. fred:
All based on a scientific hoax.
Exactly Fred. And now the follow the money dictum has lost it’s jena se qua given the total meltdown of Wall Street and the power grab by the FED. Now following the money will stop being effective as the increasingly powerful federal vortex creates a black hole where once our rights existed.
The mismanagement is criminal, the constitution under severe stress. The Resident poltroon is a danger to our liberty, has no “feel’ for understanding what being an a US citizen means and is daily proving his flaccid leadership.
Mr. Sylwester,
Put up, or shut up. Prove to me that AGW is a true hypothesis. Show me that it is proven.
Now I think we are onto what BHO actually visualizes. A world in which all the wealth
is equal and all we cattle graze contently upon our alloted browse.
Is this joker narcisstic enough to consider himself and those whom he favors a superior form of being? Afraid so. Can he surround himself with others like him, both here and abroad? Again, the prudent man must say yes.
What really drives such neo-humanists? INMLTHO they seek to achieve personal immortality of the flesh. And once that gets denied, want nothing to survive after them.
They live in a fantasy world, but can do immense damage to the real one.
Mike @6. Mike, do feel it’s your job to show up here and spout the conventional wisdom? We can go to CNN for that.
Though you are probably right that at least part of the reason the youts flocked toward the Democrats was because they have been brainwashed on Globaloney. You are equally right that the Republicans have locked their lips when it comes to “warming.” Clearly, they are too cowardly to contest the conventional wisdom and bear the brunt of the media mockery that goes along with contesting it (in the eyes of a Jon Stewart, for instance, expressing doubts on AGW is akin to saying the earth is flat).
Nevertheless, just because the cowards and sellouts in DC with an R next to their name refuse to say anything, that still doesn’t make it true. It’s phony, phony, phony. There is zippo proof of AGW beyond computer models that can’t even predict the known past, much less the future. If you really don’t know this by now, here’s a quick primer for you:
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/03/023144.php
As for the Obama administration, if you really think they are concerned about “human catastrophes,” then you are simply naive and foolhardy. Give me a break.
6. Mike Sylwester
If China and India hadn’t already stated they have NO intention of surpressing their growth by shackleling it with regulations predicated on highly suspect data, and given that nature in the form of active volcanos world wide pump out more toxic gases than all the nations combined then your points would have some strength. As it is they are weak and are aimed at harming only the US economy.
Get China and India to retard the use of “older ” but productive technologies, back it up with data that is real and maybe you’ll get there.
Er, Fred: I don’t think that Mike said AGW was proven. He said that the Gore-bots and Obamaroids consider it proven or at least
consider it their perogative to forcibly silence any questioning of their premise.
The Republican “contempt” towards AGW is just like the Republican “contempt” towards poverty, etc. The Stupid Party always thinks the Evil Party is misguided and lets the Evil Party paint it as being evil.
Having said all that, I do not consider Mike’s prescription to be any more adequate than Dubyas indifference. An astute PSYOP counterpunch is called for, followed by punitive measures against the fearmongerers.
And nope, I do not have such a campaign handy at the moment, darn it.
13. Dave
I really won’t go into the illogic of comparing comtempt for one thing extending to contempt for an entirely different thing. That is obvious. But you are right in one sense.
The Republicans did have contempt for poverty which is why they changed the tax codes which produced the largest migration of people out of poverty and into a socio-economic class higher than they had previously been. That is how the Republicans dealt with their contempt for poverty. They did more to eradicate it that any Marxist redistributionist Democratic program has ever done. The Democratic programs have kept the poor exactly that and way down on the plantation.
The case AGAINST AGW is essentially open and shut, Mike. When all is said and done, it turns out to be just another instance of leftist psychopathology.
Falling global temps the past 7 years despite CO2 increases, no rise in ocean temps as were predicted, fraudulent data supporting GW every time you turn around, less than 1% human contribution to greenhouse gasses anyway, 30% of greenhouse gas naturally occurring water vapor, the list goes on and on.
Keeping the global warming jackasses at bay will stand as one of Bush’s greatest achievements. It enabled us to sit back and laugh at the fools who signed on and wasted wealth trying to combat a phantasm.
The only consolation is that, if the administration really believes in such rubbish, it betrays a level of ignorance that suggests we can hope to get rid of these clowns sooner rather than later. OTOH, he/they may well be sociopaths who are just trying to use the gullible, especially the young who insist that we have the benefit of their inexperience, to bankrupt the white people with blue eyes who are responsible for the failure of everyone else.
Habu, I used to be a Democrat. Then I learned they were the new carpetbaggers and scalawags. Whatever their latest cause was, it was for the purpose of returning to that lawless era.
How the Stupid Party of then became the Evil Party it is today is the interesting study.
I think there is plenty of evidence that the climate is warming in many areas of the planet. I am not convinced that the warming is caused significantly by human activities. On the other hand, it seems plausible to me that the warming might be caused significantly by human activities.
I think the Republican Party should treat the issue objectively and seriously. We should not dismiss the issue as merely a hoax or merely as a pretext to socialize the world’s economy. As evidence develops that the climate is warming because of human activities, the Republican Party should support the USA’s global leadership in adjusting to the problem.
Dr Frankenstein did dream
Of monsters to create
And in his eye a simple gleam
That one day he’d be great
In ’45 that dream came true
As nations far and wide
Urged by the old red white and blue
Got on board for the ride
United Nations it was called
Though united it was not
And from the first it truly galled
As crooks and swindlers got
A seat at the big table next
To guys who foot the bill
Who pretty soon were sorely vexed
And wished that they could kill
The monster they had wished to be
A symbol of world peace
But turned into a foaming sea
Of trouble without cease
If Dr Frankenstein were here
He’d sure know what to do
He’d shove a great big sharpened spear
Right up the old kazoo
Mike,
I’ve read academic papers detailing findings from polar region ice core samples. CO2 follows, not leads, warming periods. Therefore, it cannot be the cause of global warming periods. In addition, there have been periods when there was far higher levels of CO2 during very cold temperatures. So, looking at it from the vantage point of causation, the hypothesis cannot stand. And even if one wants to make the case of correlation, it probably does not stand up to hard scrutiny.
Also, to classify CO2, a natural element, as a pollutant is beyond asinine. The variability of CO2 over long periods of earth’s history prior to even the existence of man or any appreciable human activity is beyond dispute.
This isn’t about science. It’s about using a very flawed and flimsy con in order to justify the looting of the United States of America by international organizations, foreign powers, NGO’S, and international oligarchs like Soros and Strong. I am outraged by this. It is rape. To call it anything other than that is to hesitate to name the Devil.
maineman:
The case AGAINST AGW is essentially open and shut
A lot of credible scientific organizations disagree with you about that.
I don’t claim to have any expertise on this issue. However, the idea that the continually increasing release of enormous amounts of stuff into the atmosphere might eventually affect the climate seems plausible to me.
The world’s climate has changed significantly in the past, and there are strong indications that the climate has been changing significantly during recent years. Many regions seem to be warming. Humans have been releasing enormous amounts of stuff into the atmosphere.
This situation should raise serious concerns. A political party that remains indifferent and contemptuous toward this situation might have difficulty winning elections.
The scheme presented by Fox News looks like stealing from the poor in order to give to a New Class of administrators. Renewable energy is a good idea, but I do not like this “cap and trade” at all; it looks like precisely the more of the same kind of shell game that got the world financial system into the mess it is in today.
I do find it rather interesting how Barack Obama seems to be moving to limit the salaries of corporate CEO’s that run into the millions. George Soros’s fortune runs into the billions, and his leverage goes far beyond his personal fortune. If Barack Obama truly wants to redistribute the fortune of the ultra-rich, he should consider that he will be regarded as little more than a puppet of George Soros if he leaves that particular speculator alone while raising taxes upon the moderately wealthy instead. Barack Obama may talk about the damage speculators have done to the world economy, but is he really prepared to challenge the presumed authority of George Soros and his army of think tanks? I won’t hold my breath.
Mike,
The warming period of 1975 through 1998 was driven by… the sun.
Look, opposing “climate change” legislation may be, at the moment, in your opinion a killer for the Republicans. But it does not follow that majority opinion, in the voting public or in the scientific community, constitutes truth or proof of anything other than the herd instinct and failure of due diligence.
I would rather be right and outvoted than be wrong and popular. My observation of history is that, while it does not always work this way, much of the time the truth eventually wins out.
The trumpeted “scientific consensus” may just be a hyped bluff by people who are trying to intimidate the opposing viewpoints into surrendering. I happen to think this is what is happening, because a lot of people are afraid of losing federal funding and losing their jobs. People will also go along with “the consensus” to avoid the pain of reprisal being taken against them. And don’t say this is not happening, because it has indeed happened.
Mike Sylwester @20:
“A lot of credible scientific organizations disagree with you about that.”
Really? Links and more links, otherwise, be quiet.
Might I suggest ‘Glowball Warming’? Big yellow one rises every day. We are at a solar output trough and temps have cooled. See Maunder minimum @
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maunder_minimum
http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/SunspotCycle.shtml
AGW is a scam of epic proportions. Follow the money. Gore squashed basic research when V-P, this has long been known. Besides, the earth underwent a great period of growth during the medieval temperature spike. You could grow grapes in the UK for heavens sake. Can’t do that now. It is too cold.
Mike Sylvester says this is why young people switched overwhelmingly to Democrats in 2008. On one hand its indicative of youth brainwashed by media trumpeting and public school and university indoctrination. It was hardly the central issue of the election, but does show young people fresh out of their parent’s houses into the unreal world of the university. They were unable or unwilling to examine the consequences of voting for socialism and globalism. When the American economy is kicked over a cliff by ruinous regulation of industry and commerce, they will maybe understand the folly of their youth.
McCain incidentally supported global warming hysteria so Mike’s synopsis of the election is incorrect.
16. Dave:
How the Stupid Party of then became the Evil Party it is today is the interesting study.
And where did you go after being a Democrat? It certainly had little to do with studying the politics of this country since FDR and his totally communist infiltrated administration and concomitant socialist programs that prolonged the Great Depression rather than being a curative.
Allow me to suggest you begin your study by reading the recently declassified Venona Papers which proved Senator McCarthy was correct even if his personal style was lousy.
But back to what you became. A Socialist? A Green? A what, because your rhetoric is definitiely hostile to the Republican Party so I think we can count you out there. Whose flag are you flying these days?
East coast bedtime.
trangbang68,
I was 21 years old in 1976 when I voted in my first election. I was just out of the Army and a few months away from starting college. I had a solid high school education (Catholic school)and I knew a few rudimentary things about the scientific method. If someone in 1976 had suggested what Al Gore has been pushing, I would have asked for the proof of causation. And if it could not be produced to my satisfaction – as young as I was then – I would never vote for a policy like this. Therefore, I can only conclude that today’s kids are indeed poorly educated and superbly indoctrinated. A recipe for disaster. BTW, I voted for Carter that year – not something I’m proud of.
Mike, you’re saying that either side might be right or wrong, but you’re going with the side that is gonna hurt everybody in the country except the people set up to profit by the transfers and retoolings: Al Gore, GE, & the assorted watermelon people. There’s a young fellow over here right now, a friend of my youngest daughter, who was telling me this eve that his dad (owner of a small oilfield service co in SW Louisiana) is shutting down the business. The new tax regime is making it better for him to cash out, let 30 employees go, put his proceeds in interest-bearing accounts.
Tell those 30 families that theoretically, in the abstract, it makes sense to go with the AGW crowd, on the chance they may be right because it does seem to you like “we’re putting an enormous amount of stuff in the air”.
To an ant your shoe sole is the universe descending. We’re ants –we’re just not that big a deal on the surface of the planet, that we could reverse the sun cycles, or the great ocean currents that play havoc with the wind and rain. And the right kind of scientists agree –the real ones, not the IPCC apparatchicks who lazily placed so many temp monitors that the most basic foundation of the IPCC report has become a joke to everyone who chooses to look into the matter.
I’d be ashamed of myself if i were you. To fall for something so preposterous. And so transparent!
habu, tovarich, thou art misreading brother dave.
AGW started out as economic warfare against the US and has remained so. Prima facie evidence for this was that during Kyoto negotiations Algore sandbagged explicit instructions to push hard for low-tech, natural carbon sinks (iE, tree planting) for mitigation which was a united North American (US and Canada) position at the time. A review of the minutes shows no push from Algore at all, leaving the Canadian rep twisting in the wind. They have been no help on the issue since. What a surprise – an ally who cannot be trusted. The purpose of the econ warfare is to keep the US from using its vast supplies of high grade low sulfur coal, a huge economic advantage for US electric generation if we had the wit to use it. So economically, in this way as so many others, to have elected a Pres who swears that there will be no new coal generation built on his watch, we might as well have elected our own worst enemy.
Anybody familiar with climatology knows one thing for sure: weather changes. Anybody who claims to have found the answer for changes in weather will next tell you they have found the Philosopher’s Stone!
I wouldn’t worry too much about this because it’s never gonna happen. I don’t care what treaties are signed.
This whole thing can be boiled down to one, easily understandable thing.
This is a massive tax on the cheapest forms of energy to force the costs to rise, thus making alternatives more competitive. The effects of this will be huge increases in the costs of everything to the average person.
If you don’t think this is political suicide (at least in the US), then imagine a bill to increase taxes on gasoline by $1.00, and think about how likely it would be that the proponents of this would be reelected if it were to pass.
The political path is clear: stop wasting time arguing with proponents about the validity of their “studies” and “models”, and start pounding this point home to the people on a daily basis.
Any treaty that we sign would have to be ratified in the Senate (if I’m wrong let me know). I doubt O could get this through the Senate as it is today, but if he does, more power to him. It’ll be one more thing that can be hung around the DEMS necks next election. Anybody remember the overwhelming support the Kyoto treaty had in the Senate?
This, and many other lefty ideas, are in effect “luxuries” that are made possible by a vibrant, growing economy. This is an issue that will die a very quick death as the global economy continues to flounder.
AGW?
The physics says No. (Just look around: you’ll find it. Or if you need to be led by the hand, just ask and we’ll direct you.)
The data say No (just look at the last 11 years).
The computer models say No (all the tropical mid-altitude effects aren’t happening).
The sunspots say No (What’s happening looks like the beginning of the Maunder Minimum).
So why is this ugly business happening? I don’t know. When we might be well into a fairly serious big-or-little Ice Age, we’re being fed this Global Warming business?
For our part, we’re looking at moving South. Since 1 degree F. equates to ~50 miles of latitude, we’re looking to shift from NW Washington to roughly 500 miles south: 10 degrees of temp change.
50 years ago you could grow citrus in southern Georgia. Now northern Florida is iffy.
The Taiga (the transitional belt between arboreal forest and tundra in both the NWT and Siberia) has moved 400 miles south in the last 50 years or so.
Are we so dadblamed sure that Anthropogenic Global Warming is real? On what evidence?
Two thoughts about global warming:
Although I am a skeptic that we face a global-warming catastrophe induced by human-generated CO2, I would not like to see us at the Belmont Club declare it an impossibility. It seems to me that would be as impervious to new evidence and as unscientific as the position of those who declare anthropogenic global warming is now proved beyond a doubt.
Should the evidence truly lead to the conclusion that anthropogenic global warming is occurring and is a problem, it does not necessarily follow that the best solutions are the costly and economically-disruptive ones prescribed by those predicting catastrophe. It may well be that it would be less costly and humanity would be far better off if we tried to find ways to adapt to global warming rather than trying to prevent it. However, certainty on both sides of the argument might interfere with developing a less costly, less disruptive adaptive approach.
Best wishes,
Jim
Little item on Fox News the other day.
For the new “green energy” (bad name, because CO2 emissions actually make the planet greener) about 70% to 80% of the money spent will be on manufacturing. And most of that occurs outside of the U.S.
It’s not just a bad idea but yet another wealth transfer scheme.
Meanwhile, we hear that Mrs Clinton’s State Dept plans a vast increase in its power. And how do they do that? By spreading money around overseas. Coincidence?
Jim Nicholas,
What you say makes sense if you think that this issue is being raised in good faith, and the proponents are actually trying to develop the optimal solution, one that takes into account both the environmental and economic sides of the equation.
I don’t see much evidence of that.
The cult of global warming, where its leader Al Gore compares “denialists” to the “people who want black people to stay in the back of the bus” is just a part of the new rule. When Bush was elected, he took the position of serving the people. Now that Obama is elected, he thinks he is empowered to rule us.
Obama and the Dems constantly pretend that they are objective about “science” but they act out ultra-liberal anti-scientific dogma at every turn. If carbon-free energy were important, Obama wouldn’t have shut down Yucca Flats, after more than 20 years and $10B of science was invested in a nuclear storage solution. There was no science involved in that decision, it was pure leftist, anti-technology dogmatism. Likewise the huffing and puffing about stem cell research. Bush never outlawed such research, he simply denied federal funding. If it’s such a promising area of science, I’m a positive universities and corporations would invest in the research without being artificially supported by gov funds.
This treating Republicans as anti-scientific is typical of liberals and their Jacobin bent. They consider themselves better than everyone else, and they confuse their hysterical dogma for rationality.
Let’s concede for a moment that the infinitesimal amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere that come out of our exhaust pipes can warm the climate. What caused all of the ancient cycles of warming and cooling when there were no exhaust pipes to cause them? Couldn’t whatever mysterious force (the Sun) caused warming in the past, still be active? The climate hysterics arguments are childish, like a Cargo Cult, and that’s why Al Gore must crush all science around the issue.
In their false approach to the science of global climate, they betray a truth about this dialog between left and right. Conservatives think liberals have bad ideas (global warming). Liberals think conservatives are bad people (want to destroy the planet).
Dtmack: You raise a good point. I think its rather curious at best and definitive at worst that all of the solutions to Global Warming involve vast new bureaucracies internationally and additional empowerment of existing ones nationally, along with higher taxes.
No one who is concerned about GW appears to be thinking of any technology or economic solutions that would make it more favorable for the consumer to choose solutions rather than impose external requirements on everyone.
At the Pentagon I observed repeatedly how government agencies and private firms both constantly sought to expand their “customers” by seeking the Denizens of DC to impose solutions. I do not believe it was a coincidence that Ozone Depletion became a big issue as the patents on Freon expired. Neither do I think it was happenstance that Carbon Dioxide became definable as a pollutant just after we got so many smokestacks and tailpipes cleaned up.
Follow The Money: I would suggest that a law be passed making each and every scientist, politician, NGO, and private firm that promoted GW pecuniarily liable for all the costs incurred when GW is revealed as One Big Ass Mistake, America. A $10T plus bill out in the future ought to give even those people pause. And let’s go ahead and build the slave labor camps for these people now so they will be ready when that day comes.
I see a large number of different people on a monthly basis in multiple pharmacy practices.
Out of the ones that “think”, and there is surprisingly few of them, liberal & conservative, dem & repub, rich & poor, sick & healthy, none believe in global warming. ZERO, NONE, NOBODY.
It’s just another SCAM, that’s what they think.
I think they’re right. They usually are.
But they were mostly wrong about Obama, and not just the ones that voted for him, and that’s their admission.
They thought he was just another democrat, now they think he is everything from the anti-christ to a crook, including terrorist, idiot, foreign spy/plant, commie, marxist, socialist and just about every other negative you can think of.
They’re right.
Buddy Larson (#30)
you’re saying that either side might be right or wrong, but you’re going with the side that is gonna hurt everybody in the country except the people set up to profit by the transfers and retoolings
I’m not going with either side yet. I’m saying that the Republican Party should treat the issue seriously and objectively.
Does anybody know whether President Bush had an opinion about the subject? He was President for the last eight years, but I have no idea whether he had an opinion and or what his opinion was. It seems the subject did not concern or interest him at all. That’s one reason that young voters turned against the Republican Party.
From a post I’m working on for RDWaterPower:
Before I get started let me show you some serious eye candy I found this past month. The noise to signal ratio for the last couple of years on global warming is running about 100/1. Here’s a very good explanation of why. Take a look at this National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) graphic of mean temperatures in the USA. Notice the sudden drop off at the end?
Here’s also a NASA graph of the sunspot cycle along with NASA’s prediction for when the sunspot cycle will turn up again.. It shows we’re at a solar minimum. Here’s something more interesting. Here’s a graphic that shows how NASA’s prediction of the next upturn in the solar cycle has changed since 2004. It keeps being pushed further out into the future. That might help to explain the increasing cacophony in the global warming debate.
It may well turn out to be that carbon dioxide will turn out to be a case of correlation without causation in the global warming debate. Here is the Best Discussion of Global Warming that I’ve ever seen.
How do we know what we know is really so?
We send our kids to college in the hope that one day they may learn to ask this question – and, perhaps, seek reasonable answers.
Science leads the way: Observation. Hypothesis. Experiment. Theory. Peer Review. The ultimate test is how well a belief survives analytic criticism. If it leads to a conclusion such as, “We should burn corn and eat coal”, we laugh it out of existence.
With such thoughts in mind, let me urge readers to Google, “The Virtues of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide” at Human Events. Dr. Arthuur Robinson presents compelling evidence that human-caused, greenhouse gas, global warming – is a joke!
Mike Sylwester,
I expect by the time we get to 2012 this will be a non-issue.
Many of the young people who voted for Obama will have graduated from college by then, and I think they’ll be more concerned about the lack of job prospects than they will about GW.
One of the charms of being young in an affluent, well run society, is the ability to hold beliefs without having to examine the consequences if your beliefs were put into practice.
In hard times people get more serious, and tend to concentrate on the here and now. Putting food in your belly and a roof over your head is paramount – theoretical concerns about global warming will be put on the backburner, if they’re thought of at all.
Bush spoke out many times, and was viciously reviled for his position on the global warming / West destroying climate cult.
“The fundamental question is whether or not we will be able to grow our economy and be good stewards of the environment at the same time,” Bush said during a question-and-answer session after a speech on the U.S. budget in Arkansas.
“I’m interested in good policy. Kyoto, I thought, was bad policy,” Bush said.
The above statement reflects his consistent position on the issue. Pretty close to the US Senate’s unanimous ‘sense of the Senate’ vote against the Kyoto Treaty in ’97, it was 97-0.
Freeman Dyson has something to say about global warming. Sad to see an 85 year old man subjected to vicious attacks from the left. Contempt is probably the appropriate response to such disrespect.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/magazine/29Dyson-t.html
I’m trying to determine what exactly Mr. Sylwester’s statements are intended to convey. Surely he cannot be serious in asserting that Republicans are not serious about anthropegenic global warming? At least here on Belmont Club we have been most serious about it, paying particular attention to the scientific veracity of the hypothesis. Many of us have read a lot more about the scientific aspects of this policy issue than the vast majority of the general public, including the young people he heralds as being the unreachables.
How are we supposed to reach these people? Are we supposed to agree with them so as to be taken seriously by a rabble that is ensconced in sloth?
None of it makes any sense to me, taken on face value. What are we supposed to say to a bunch of young people who have been told to believe the sky is falling and the earth is doomed? What if we happen to disagree, and we have very serious reasons for doing so. The scientific consensus happens to be wrong. Very serious scientists have broken with the consensus and they have posted their findings for anyone curious enough (and open minded enough)to go and read. But, no, we’re just a bunch of “deniers” in bed with oil companies, so we’re just not serious enough to be considered by our enlightened and better-educated youngsters.
38. Tony: “Conservatives think liberals have bad ideas (global warming). Liberals think conservatives are bad people (want to destroy the planet).”
Why is it that those that believe in AGW are so upset when “facts” about the hottest day of the year and the amount of ice at the poles indicate that there may be no disaster? Should they not be GLAD that “climate change” is not advancing as quickly [if at all...] as predicted? Do they WANT a disaster to occur? The answer is obvious, and has nothing to do with climate…
tom
Impeachment is looking more and more likely for Obama, given this development.
It would have been questionable in good times for Obama to layer on a whole new set of taxes, and essentially “redistribute” lots of money from one set of people to another.
Now, it’s a mortal threat to people’s entire way of life. He’s going to be fought, fought hard, and the fighting will be of a nature seen when people who are rich are threatened with poverty.
Obama is proceeding on the assumption that corrupt Chicago small-time political shakedowns can be done on a national level without making national enemies.
As Arnold once said, “Big Mistake.” At a minimum, the energy, steel, auto, agriculture, and workers of those industries will be destroyed, so Obama can get wealth. Also: consumers, the middle class, and so on will fight it tooth and nail.
Global Warming was an elite fad during good times.
Now Obama has given a Ross Perot, a Ron Paul, or anyone like that the hammer to hit him, and the elites, HARD over:
*Economic populism.
*Economic Nationalism.
If you thought the AIG bonus was a mess, think about how Obama and Dems wanting to move all industrial production to China will play out.
Someone could start a party, the “Patriotic Party” or what have you, and instantly jump-start to national prominence the way the Republicans did with the collapse of the Whigs. But we won’t see Lincoln. Rather, someone like Ron Paul.
Mike Sylwester @41:
bq. I’m saying that the Republican Party should treat the issue seriously and objectively.
Why a party? Here you hear conservative voices of all fields telling you they believe it is BS. I am trained in math and physics with a side of electronics. I tell you the science is not there.
Here is a test. Q: You believe AGW is real? A: Yes? Q: Will fewer people reduce the AGW footprint? A: Yes?
You first. Let me know that works out. I was looking for the Minority Report from Congress that lists the dissenters on AGW. Go read this one!!!!!
http://tinyurl.com/5n2rg6
RWE @39
I’m the guy who started the whole ozone depletion link to Freon business.
There are over 6,000,000,000 people on the planet, but I’m the only one who started the ball rolling. Perhaps you’ll indulge a truncated story, as the whole affair is too much for a blog post — it’d be a book.
You see I had a chemistry professor at UCI who wanted a Nobel Prize in the worst way — it was a running gag in the department. ( BTW there were only 79 Chemistry majors at the time. )
I majored in Chemistry because of some genetic quirk, it seems such an interest runs in the family genes. On a lark, I took the Chemistry Achievement test — didn’t need it to get into college — and got the top mark. Notably taking only 40 minutes for a nominally 4 hour test.
So you can understand why my Freshman Professor noted me. ( The top mark was a buzz topic for all of the grad students. Apparently three deviations above is note worthy.)
Hence my Professor allowed me to participate in his upper division course on Reaction Kinetics. ( I still have the textbook — Chemical Kinetics by Laidler 2nd ed. 1965. Since this class was filled primarily with his grad student clan to even be seated was pretty heady stuff. Unlike his well structured Freshmen lectures, this course was an almost entirely unstructured Socratic debate club that would have made Aristotle proud.
My dear Professor was an exponent of mining his acolytes for research ideas: everyone had to work up a paper proposing a line of inquiry for fresh and novel research. It was obvious that the best ideas would become fodder for his NSF grant harvesting mill.
And so I went straight to what I had long thought to be the unexplored frontier of fluorine chemistry. I was right, of course. Chemical Abstracts showed that the ONLY chemists performing any research were industry sponsored. Further the number of papers published was remarkably low: obviously most work was kept proprietary.
And so my paper pitched studying the reaction kinetics of fluorine compounds, generally. Since the only notable compounds in production were the Freons and in amounts very much greater than my dear Professor ever imagined, his interest was piqued.
He had already trolled the heavy metals for environmental impact. ( the EPA had just been founded and the NSF was kicking out grants right and left for such research — thank you Nixon ) So this line of inquiry was right up his alley, indeed he could say it was just an extension of his prior campaign. ( This, in fact, is exactly what he has done. )
Now I’m going to skip through a lot of painful personal details to get to the close: I made my sales pitch to him after having come to the conclusion that I’d have to drop out. The economics were not there, my parents effectively sabotaged my education — it’s a long and astounding tale.
My final close to him was:”If you research fluorine compounds you’ll get a Nobe… well, you’ll be world famous.” ( Didn’t want to queer the sale by pitching too high.)
The actual chemistry required to figure out the nature of chlorine promotion up to high altitudes came with speed and ease. It fell right into his lap, via Mario Molina, of whom Professor Rowland gave the project.
So now you have it blert to Rowland to Molina to result. Subsequently chemist Margaret Thatcher PM arm twisted, one by one, the assembled members of the Commonwealth into understanding Molina’s results. This was the beginning of the end for Freon. al-Gore came very much latter and now stands as the cock at sunrise proud of his ‘accomplishment.’
That this chain has morphed into AGW is a marvel for me to behold.
All of the above is true. But I will not be surprised to have a slew of comment from those with no direct knowledge of the events described.
It was just Professor Rowland and me in that classroom, all others had left. BTW, he requested that he might keep the term paper and I obliged. Instructors keeping my work had only happened a few times before, and I took it as an honor.
Nobel does not grant prizes on the basis of who started everything rolling. I admire my old Professor, even if he’s stretched the truth quite a bit about how he was ‘inspired’ into looking at the Freons as a ‘continuation’ of his original studies. So it’s not as if I’m interested in stinking up his award with blemish. He thinks so much like myself, I sometimes regarded him as a reverse clone: someone who’s wired the same as myself but is old enough to be my father.
So, yeah, I’m the butterfly that changed the flow of Freon and enviro-politics. In absolutely no way did I imagine it would take this course. And of course, I think AGW is pure bunkum.
In other words, I’m a typical Belmont Club poster.
As to your assertion: there was absolutely no linkage to patent expirations. The link if any, is to the birth of the EPA and NSF funding — and me.
Blert: Well, that is a very interesting story. Thank you for that.
But if the patents had not expired do you think the political “will” (money) for that research and subsequent actions would have been there?
The political will came from justifying the EPA and to counter the threat of a Silent Spring.
Rachel Carson is the writer that is foundational for the AGW cult which is linked to Earth Day and all of that.
RMN’s biggest sins:
Wage & Price Controls… grossly unconstitutional.
The Plumbers… grossly unconstitutional.
Affirmative Action… grossly unconstitutional.
The EPA… horrific on the economics — creates an open ended engine of government meddling without effective cost-benefit calculus.
It’s these EPA/ NSF grants that underpin the sky-is-falling alarmism. We’re now beset by a roving horde of do-betters that need justify their perches.
Beyond that, industry has learned to capture the regulators and game them against commercial and international competition. This phenomena is very worthy of a Wretchard post.
The EPA cranks out rules and regs and fines that are confiscatory — and which are a disturbing percentage of all of the Federal meddling in the economy.
At one point the EPA went all out against ‘perc.’ ( perchlorethylene — dry cleaning juice ) After shutting the industry down ( Union Carbid & Dow Chemical, et. al.) and — get this — transforming the dry cleaning industry towards a CARBON DIOXIDE super-critical process using equipment that costs six to eight times the prior method it turns out perc is not a contributor to high altitude ozone depletion. So after a horrific waste of labor and capital it stands revealed that they got everything wrong.
This will prove to be the case for AGW.
Blert, fascinating background.
I’m of the opinion that close to ALL government research funding is a bad idea, except for military/spy technology and perhaps NASA (in a good week). It distorts priorities and hugely inflates the need to cry wolf all the time. No crisis, no funding, as they say. And any crisis is immediately jumped on by politics, and almost always by the Left (I’d say “always” but I’m sure I’m forgetting something — though off hand I can’t think of a Right-driven scientific “crisis”.)
Same thing happened with AIDS. Remember how AIDS breaking out into the hetero population was ALWAYS just around the corner? Any day now, any day now…. But those few scientists willing to look at the facts were able to clearly explain how this just wasn’t going to happen. And of course, it never happened.
That didn’t stop the “scientists” from scaring the bejeezus out of everyone for years on end, and for sucking up research dollars and, worse, the very limited pool of qualified disease researchers. (As a side note, another glimpse into typical Liberal stupidity is that they always seem to believe that there are just thousands of scientists sitting around doing nothing and the only reason they are not immediately dispatched to work on the crisis-du-jour is because of Right-wing bigotry or evil.)
Blert, Thanks, nice story. Completely plausible.
I have one question for you, is Blert any relation to the word “blert” that Heinlein uses for the vocalization The Who Walks Through Walls makes?
That’s the coolest bit in a long time, blert –the freon butterfly, right here on Belmont. Somehow I’m not nearly as surprised as i ought to be, given the odds.
Y’all are so right to slam the particular damage the agencies do, under administrative law. Administrative law is executive decree, tho there is relief available thru the legislature to anyone with the staying power.
The new EPA chief, in an earlier incarnation, made GE dredge the Hudson River for PCBs –even tho GE’s discharge had been entirely legal, and even tho no one ever proved the mud was a threat to to any fish fowl plant or human. The science was ‘science-like’, and served the purpose. Long -term effect, i suppose, was the elevation to a left-wing loon, Jeffery Immelt, to CEO of GE –which was 70% off its high last time i checked on my &$%#(* stocks. Immelt of course, he of the Robin Hood Foundation where hedge fund owners coordinate the building youth-corp movement (Robin Hood, eh? good one, fellas!), and he of NBC and MSNBC which pose as commercial enterprises while acting as organs of the far left. Oh shut up buddy.
but really –that’s pretty cool, blert. Right after that, EPA killed off one of the agents in hornet spray –which i swear has led to the development around localized breeding areas of a strain of super hornets, the ones who survive the new weaker spray. Seriously –on a farm or ranch, with outbuildings and stalls and pens and pipe fenceposts (iow lots of nesting areas) one can see the changes over several years. Since the stings are vicious and thus call up lots of spraying, you get a pretty good experiment going after a few years. Superhornet is bigger, darker red, and much more territorial (aggressive).
Let’s not even get started on DDT….
And the pseudo-science babble about radioactivity lasting millions of years being a threat to life.
I live in a world gone politically insane.
I’ve had some long odds events in my life:
The Falcon and the Snowman were in my gym class! What a bunch of asocial losers even then. Insane that either one was hired to do a damn thing! ( Both were excused from participation in ANY gym activity — didn’t even suit up nor take a shower!) The Falcon’s dad used his FBI rank to terrify the gym instructors — this life long bullying was the source of the son’s resentment: absolutely nothing happened in his life without his dad interfering!
OJ Simpson gave his first public speech to my high school class — we were in the bleachers, he was at mid-field.
And I’ve already related bouncing into the young H and his tutu more than once. What are the odds on that?
There are other insanely low odds events that have happened to me, but I’ll spare you. I’m sure we’ve all got plenty of “can-you-believe-that?” events in our past.
Semiotics people say there’s no such thing as coincidence –it’s actually ‘synchronicity’. Asked to define synchronicity, they will say, “well, actually it’s much like coincidence”. Ask further, if that itself is a coincidence, you get a dirty look.
Tony @ 54…
blert became my internet nic de guerre because I blurt out my opinions, but did not want to follow conventional spelling norms.
At first, blert was a rare phenomenon under the search engins of Google.
Subsequently, blert has popped up all over the place.
However, and I do love Heinlein I picked my nic without such a reference.
Blert implicitly refers to my inadequate writing style vs a master such as Wretchard. I’m a Nobel Laureate — once removed whose contribution to the modern era is — I don’t know — what is it?
In the above I allude to historical truth. Nothing I have posted is anything but the truth.
However, acceptance of such truth has ever been brutal to the world imagination of my fellows.
Wretchard is well placed to know what it is to be ‘pre-announced’ in practically any setting. For such individuals it is quite impossible to start a conversation with a blank slate. Instead, your siblings, your kin, your peer HAVE to tell everyone far and wide that “this way someone incredible comes’ that’s a heavy burden on anyones social graces.
I’m in a double bind. If Wretchard needed my introduction I’d be hard pressed but to admit I think he’s the most brilliant thinkers I have read. There is a down side: an ordinary man faced with an extra-ordinary good man — recoils.
It is the rare man who can accept someone as extra-ordinary as the typical Belmont Clubber.
They’d rather spout blood from their ears than admit that so and so X is blowing their minds with insight.
It’s a rare human animal that can easily accept in every dimension that it’s impossible to know it all. And that includes those who have wildly above average intelligences.
Based on the postings…
The Belmont Club is composed of the brightest minds on the Web. I come here to read my betters.
And so year after year I read wonderful posts from better minds than myself…
I’d mention names/ nics but for the possible insult of someone not named in my role call of excellence.
The interaction I’m allowed within the Club is a treasure.
I just love great writing, great thinking, and a great love of culture. So shoot me.
The argument, if left to the cultists will tie you up in knots based on this very messed up premise: they will tell you that the harvesting of forests across Western Europe starting approx. 600A.D. lead to warming because of loss of that forest; then they will paint a scenario whereby they (according to their end game.)… That MMGW will lead to warming, or (then) an Ice Age (or both, in that order) and that in either/both cases (together?)- P.S. we’re screwed.
Then I make the joke that we’ve got to stoke those fires to head off an Ice Age.
I don’t think there is anything that we can do that matches what increases and/or decreases in sun activity can do with or without us. That’s what the data tells us most clearly: Sun activity affects weather here proportionately [and not disproportionately or any desperate stuff like that] to increases or decreases in sun activity, and tose form fairly stable patterns.
The cargo cult of MMGW is like any other brainwashing technique whereby the key is to get fools to start keeping two incompatible ideas in their head at once, simultaneously- kinda like Islam. for example: “The JOOZE perpetrated 9/11 because they got all jooze out of the area beforehand”/ (bookended by)/ But America deserved it because they are stingy w/ aid to Muslim lands, and besides they are the great satan.
So, the jews did something moslems want done- for them (?); and that jews want to take over the world and put us all in their power by (?) destroying America?
The two ideas are crazy enough on their own, but put them together and the only way it will ever (can) work is by taqqiyah.
And I charge the kingpins (ALgore et al) with no less knowledge of the value of taqqiyah than ur moslem friends. Or in Al’s case the delusion is just too attractive to resist. Either way those seduced by the economic pleasure of defying the laws of economics (supply/demand/ reaching economies to scale/etc) propels them in a way that compels the entrepreneur in a similar way, but that is just too arduous for the big government dreamer to admit, much less accept.
And in both cases it takes thievery, fiat, manipulation and all the rest to force this economically un-viable crap shoot on all of us “for our own good”.
Thanks Blert,
I meant to write that Heinlein uses ‘blert’ for the sound cats make, in The Cat Who Walks through Walls. I think I read it in his juvie story, The Door into Summer, too.
Following the money; as I stated before, AIG is just a funnel to transfer taxes to the banks (foreign and domestic):
http://seekingalpha.com/article/128390-exclusive-big-banks-recent-profitability-due-to-aig-scam
veracious @ 62…
But it doesn’t stop at the banks/ investment banks…
THey are but conduits to yet other bettors…
The situation is so complicated that controls and institutions break down.
AIG can’t be allowed to default because a horrific amount of the global economy is dependent on off loading risk onto it.
Indeed, international players have long assumed that AIG was in all but de jure terms a GSE. AIG is EVERYWHERE in the American economy. She is bigger that GM… Take note of H’s priorities banks before all others and AIG is the 2nd level Federal Reserve Institution.
Ben is not happy, but can’t shut off the motor.
And of the bonuses: going Bill of Particulars upon the resolving professional, $1 per year men, has been a catastrophe. Well done my Sith Lord!