Eliot Negin at the Huffington Post is alarmed at the apparent ignorance, not only of the Republican Presidential candidates, but of the press toward the greatest danger of our age. No not the economy, but Global Warming, AKA Climate Change.
Not to let the Republican presidential hopefuls off the hook, but one reason they have largely ignored global warming is because journalists haven’t pressed them on it, especially during the televised debates. I can’t say that I have watched all 23 of the debates that have occurred so far. But I have seen a number of them, and I have read the coverage. As far as I can tell, other than a brief mention about climate science during a debate in early September, moderators have abdicated their responsibility to address one of the most critical issues of our time.
Of course, for most Americans today, the biggest issue is the economy. It reminds me of the 1992 campaign, when then-Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton challenged President George H.W. Bush. To keep the Clinton campaign focused, lead strategist James Carville hung a sign in Clinton’s Little Rock headquarters that said, in part: “The economy, stupid.” Although the sign was only meant for internal consumption, “It’s the economy, stupid” became the de facto slogan of the Clinton campaign.
The difference today is we know a lot more about the threat of global warming than we did two decades ago. We know that, next to a nuclear war, it poses the most significant long-term threat to not only our economy, but to the future of the planet. So it would be fitting to update that 20-year old sign to read “Climate change, stupid” and hang it on the stage during not only the presidential candidate debates, but during the debates for all candidates running for office this year.
Negin should hesitate, on the basis of the precautionary principle, before using the word ‘stupid’ so liberally in his own article. Focusing on economics is not necessarily a sign of retardation. He himself makes the link between Global Warming and economics, warning of dire consequences to Newt Gingrich’s Georgia unless his warnings are heeded. Since connections admittedly go both ways, any “Climate change, stupid” sign he wants to hang on the Republican podium can in justice be matched by a reciprocal request to post banner proclaiming “it’s the economy, stupid” in the office of his own NGO.
The two issues are related and interact with each other.
Not even its advocates claim that protecting the world from Global Warming is cost free. Preventing the evil of fossil fuels has meant rejecting an oil pipeline from Canada to Texas. It may mean not developing shale hydrocarbon resources, such as a giant field in California four times larger than North Dakota’s.
It most certainly means not being able to hire the workers who might have worked on those projects. Even the Green’s political allies understand this tradeoff. “The Laborers’ International Union of North America (LIUNA) left the BlueGreen Alliance on Friday, citing a disagreement with the group’s members over the Keystone XL pipeline.”
“We’re repulsed by some of our supposed brothers and sisters lining up with job killers like the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council to destroy the lives of working men and women,” LIUNA General President Terry O’Sullivan said in a statement.
Lift a glass then and remember with affection, the job you might have had.
Note the phrase “working men and women” used by the union. They may be blue collar workers, but it’s poor salesmanship to diss people who mostly drive cars they can’t park for free in Las Vegas unlike the owners of electric cars, for under Nevada state law, electric cars can park without paying.
And who owns electric cars? Why those who can afford them as they do not come cheap. Nissan’s studies show that “electric car buyers usually have higher incomes, so the higher price tags for the cars typically haven’t been an issue for those looking for an electric car. Leaf owners are in the top 15 percent of households with regards to income, according to Nissan.” Price is apparently no object to the users of electric cars. So it only makes sense to exempt them from parking fees.
The New York Times describes “the gold rush in subsidies for clean energy”. It writes, “halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, on a former cattle ranch and gypsum mine, NRG Energy is building an engineering marvel: a compound of nearly a million solar panels that will produce enough electricity to power about 100,000 homes.” At what cost? But never mind, the tab is being picked up by the taxpayer. The NYT continues:
The project is also a marvel in another, less obvious way: Taxpayers and ratepayers are providing subsidies worth almost as much as the entire $1.6 billion cost of the project. Similar subsidy packages have been given to 15 other solar- and wind-power electric plants since 2009.
The government support — which includes loan guarantees, cash grants and contracts that require electric customers to pay higher rates — largely eliminated the risk to the private investors and almost guaranteed them large profits for years to come. The beneficiaries include financial firms like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, conglomerates like General Electric, utilities like Exelon and NRG — even Google …
States like California sweetened the pot by offering their own tax breaks and by approving long-term power-purchase contracts that, while promoting clean energy, will also require ratepayers to pay billions of dollars more for electricity for as long as two decades.
There are a number of scientists who question, on empirical grounds, whether the Global Warming models are accurate, or even whether they reflect known causal relations. It is not unreasonable to suggest that the question of Global Warming ought to be periodically revisited, like any other scientific theory, instead of being used as semi-immutable truth, the basis for billions of dollars of climate engineering, energy subsidies and the costly regulation of people’s lives that go right down what kinds of light bulbs they can licitly buy.
Europe, for example, has enacted Directive 2002/91/EC, which is “moving towards new and retrofitted nearly-zero energy buildings by 2020 (2018 in the case of Public buildings), and the application of a cost-optimal methodology for setting minimum requirements for both the envelope and the technical systems”. Somebody’s got to pay for that.
And that someone is going to be the consumer and taxpayer. A study by Sheffield Hallam University in the UK concluded that “building zero carbon homes is too costly and difficult in the current economic climate” based on a survey of 20 developers who “almost unanimously expressed concern about the uncertainty surrounding the zero carbon standard, which all new homes must meet from 2016.” Since the developers are going to pass the cost on to the customers, this reflects a belief that homeowners simply won’t be able to afford it.
A developer from South Yorkshire, who wished to remain anonymous, said: ‘Right now there’s no way we could deliver our business if zero carbon was a blanket requirement. You’re looking at houses here that we sell for £85,000 for a two-bed, there’s no way you could build a house and operate a business if you were delivering code 6.’
Indeed the sheer size of the Green gravy train creates a potential moral hazard which makes it all the more imperative to listen to skeptics, to the people who have to pay the subsidies, to those who have to fork out the higher prices for this program. For surely there is a potential conflict of interest in touting the Green agenda when one benefits from it. Ordinarily such touts would be called lobbyists or interest groups.
If those who must pay the higher costs want to pay them, then that is indication of value. Those who benefit from the Green spending are less convincing in proclaiming it will save the planet. They would say that, wouldn’t they?
Thus the issue cuts two ways. The advocates of action to combat Global Warming must compete for resources used to feed, clothe, shelter and defend humanity. If environmentalism has an economic impact, so do Global Warming programs have an effect on how well — or whether people live.
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Perfect timing, wretchard, I was just getting ready to post on this very topic, more or less, also in keeping with the unlikely Reuter’s headline Obama to tout natural gas benefits in State of Union.
As a preview of tomorrow’s state of the union, and also proof that now everything in the universe is available on the Internet even 24 hours before it happens, I offer this insightful musical commentary, and proof that a type of fracking was well known even forty years ago:
Alfred E. Neuman’s “It’s A Gas!”
Yep, sure. Global warming. THAT’s the issue that keeps me awake at night.
Here’s a map of Lower 48 states shale plays.
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/united_states/united_states-shale_plays-2011.pdf
The whole point of environmentalism is to have an economic impact so big that entire economies are destroyed. After wrecking the capitalist system, environmentalists want to take control of every aspect of our lives. Its a rerun of the Bolsheviks in 1919 Russia.
Here are some paragraphs written by a British attendee at a meeting of “THE SUPREME COUNCIL OF PUBLIC ECONOMY” in Moscow, Russia Feb 20 1919. To get to the meeting one had to go up Myasnitzkaya Street, and round to the right to a building that used to be the Grand Hotel of Siberia. This hotel had been taken over and was now the headquarters of the Supreme Council of Public Economy. This was the site of the meeting.
“This Council, the theorists tell me, is intended to become the central organization of the state. The Soviets will naturally become less and less important as instruments of political transition as that transition is completed and the struggle against reaction within and without comes to an end. Then the chief business of the state will no longer be to protect itself against enemies but to develop its economic life, to increase its productivity and to improve the material conditions of the workers of whom it is composed.
All these tasks are those of the Supreme Council of Public Economy, and as the bitterness of the struggle dies away this body, which came into being almost unnoticed in the din of battle, will become more and more important in comparison with the Soviets, which were in origin not constructive organizations but the instruments of a revolution, the hardest stages of which have already been accomplished.
It is perhaps worth while to set out here the constitution of this Council. It is considered at present as the economic department of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, to which, and to the Council of People’s Commissaries, it is responsible. It regulates all production and distribution. It reports on the various estimates of the state budget and, in conjunction with the Commissariats of Finance and State Control, carries out the financing of all branches of public economy.
It consists of 69 members, and is composed as follows:—Ten representatives from the All-Russian Executive Committee, thirty from the All-Russian Industrial Productive Union (a union of Trade Unions), twenty from the ten District Councils of Public Economy, two from the All-Russian Council of Workers’ Cooperative Societies, and one representative each from the Commissariats of Supply, Ways of Communication, Labour, Agriculture, Finance, Trade and Industry, and Internal Affairs. It meets as a whole at least once in every month. The work of its members is directed by a Presidium of nine members, of which it elects eight, the President being elected by the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, and enjoying the rank of a People’s Commissar or Minister.”
I think that environmentalists would love to be in charge of a “Supreme Council of Public Economy” in N. America. Some of the statements by environmentalists would fit right into that meeting in Moscow Feb 20 1919. Maybe Eliot Negin would have been comfortable there too.
STEALING MONEY
I spoke to a very happy man recently, and he told me why he’s so happy.
I own a solar plant, he said
We run all year deep in the red
But still we make a profit huge
That keeps my girls in pearls and rouge
The governmental subsidies
Make sure the economic breeze
Blows only warm sweet air our way
And no one’s hurt, taxpayers pay
I tell you this here climate hoax
Has got to be one of those jokes
That has them rolling in the aisles
In industries that make their piles
From green jobs that just make no sense
And notice I make no pretense
Of claiming that my work is real
Like drilling oil or making steel
But this is where the action’s hot
And green will rule it, like as not
For months to come if not for years
Because by spreading needless fears
The money comes a-rolling in
To topple like a bowling pin
All criticism skeptics lie
At all our feet, why do they try?
So yes I’m happy all the time
‘Cause stealing money is no crime
The sacred circle.
Energy = the capacity to do work.
Money = the capacity to produce energy.
Money = Energy = Work = Jobs = Money
The profane circle.
Socialism = Poverty = Pollution = Regulation = Socialism
ss @ 4: The whole point of environmentalism is to have an economic impact so big that entire economies are destroyed.
So young, to be so cynical?
An idea is not responsible for those who chose to believe in it and abuse it, and there really *is* a point to environmentalism, and if you don’t believe me just compare the US today to China today – that looks rather worse than the US fifty years ago, when we were choking people to death in Pittsburg and getting close to it in Manhattan and Los Angeles, setting rivers on fire, and generally bringing a tear to Iron Eyes Cody.
Cars today get much better mileage, especially mileage versus performance, than fifty years ago, and some of that is only because it was looked for for ecological reasons at least as much as economic … though one can argue that it’s mostly more advanced computer and machine technology that might have tripped across it anyway, just because. If we really do get nice LED light bulbs by late this year, even more efficient and cost-effective AND SAFER than the CFLs, and lighting is 6x more efficient than with incandescents, that’s a nice ecological win as well as economic, and in fact because of the ecological advantage *some* increased cost is even justified.
We are eliminating habitat and killing off a lot of wild species these days, and coming to understand this all is both consciousness raising and productive in saving what we can, and it just seems to me good to know about, since we’re living in this world. We’d better get our marine biologists working overtime since we’re just about to deplete all the natural fisheries quite possibly destroying them permanently, some ecology there is more than called for. I’m glad we saved the whales.
Global warming is very likely 100% bogus, BUT environmentalism is not by itself a bad idea. The crypto-fascists could decide to simply demonize the color purple or something, it so happens they chose the element with atomic number 6 to demonize instead, even though the environmentalists themselves are made up of little more than the same element and a couple of gallons of water, some nitrogen, calcium, and a few trace pollutants.
Yeah I read the Negin article on PuffHo, and it’s as putrid a piece of lousy science and psychotic outrage as one is likely to see. And actually, it’s an issue on which Newt might just trip over his own shoelaces, and I wouldn’t mind at all if it was brought up in the debates. And finally yes, if there is anything like an idea in the head of our POTUS, it seems to be even more clearly than his Alinskyite politics, the simple-minded idea that carbon bad, green energy easy just plunk your magic twanger froggy and there it is, features large in his worldview. Perhaps we should rejoice, there seems nothing at all resembling an idea of _economics_ anywhere between his ears.
It looks like we will get a dose of Obambus Green in tomorrows SOTU speech, but I’ve already posted my preferred response to that.
Josh, there are two tragedies of the Green movement. One is the harm and pain it causes now through economic damage. The second is the environmental harm it will cause in the future when the concepts of conservation and stewardship of the environment have been tarnished by the fraudsters, hucksters, and socialist nannystaters who have latched onto the environment as their political club, not to meniton turned it into their insane Church of the Holy Gaia, Rev. Algore presiding.
No wonder the bears keep eating warmingmongers. They know AGW enthusiasts are ultimately bad for the environment.
7. Josh
Today’s environmentalism isn’t about the environment – it’s about control. Look at the “10-10-10″ video. What you are talking about is old fashioned conservation and the common sense idea that it’s stupid to wreck the natural systems in which we live. We all agree with that because we are all instinctive naturalists, but that is not today’s green environmental religion.
I may be too young
to be cynical but I’ve watched hard core environmentalists for long enough to know they don’t really care about conservation of resources, clean air and water, minimizing erosion etc. I remember the days when they wore woollen socks on their heads and rubber boots on their feet as they argued passionately about who had sent whom insulting fax messages within their group. They’ve come a long way since then.
Many of those who wept at the funeral for communism rushed immediately after to worship at the altar of environmentalism. I think they simply use the green mantle and an army of well-intentioned choristers to obscure old fashioned socialism. Donning the green mantle has worked very well for environmentalists in their quest for control.
Sorry, but I’ve seen environmentalists bite honest working people hard and take away their livelihood in the cause of anti-capitalism. In my old age I’ve drawn two lines in the dirt. I step over one to be with the Jews and I step over the other to not be with hard core environmentalists.
Some folks just never get the memo. AGW was a scam. The data was manipulated to scare people into giving con men (and women) their money. There is no indisputable evidence that the CO2 cycle creates climate change or that Humans produce enough CO2 to make a difference. If a rational persons steps back and looks at the issue, it has never been proven that global warming is harmful. Raising the planet’s temperature will create more farm land then desert. If every scrap of ice on earth melted, sea level would raise about 105mm. That about 8 inches for the non-euros amongst us.
AGW is a dead issue.
I think people purchase conservation all the time because of the price signal. We are for the most part driven to patronize the efficient way of doing things because it is cheaper. Where there are distortions in the price signal the source is usually politics; some favored group is subsidized or some disfavored group is penalized. There may be real and compelling cases for public policy intervention in a price, but that should be the exception rather than the rule.
Moreover, the aesthetic aspects of conservation have a market value. We pay for cleanliness because we like it, but often find that we can only spring for the extras when we have the basics, according to the hierarchy of needs. The greatest environmental organization ever devised is the market, not any “defense council” or advocacy group. That is more politics, more price distortion.
Any really meritorious Green idea will sell itself. If a zero carbon house or unconventional vehicle were any good it would sell. Early adopters adopt because they are the first people to discover a good thing. By and by the word spreads. But anything kept in production only through regulation, subsidies and penalties is a probably a bad product to begin with.
In the end the bad Green products will drive out the what might been good Green products because they emerge according to the law of the survival of the most connected. It is the rise of the worst. Reverse evolution. Monkey from man. That is why there were never any good department stores in the Soviet Union. Subsidies to GUM did not lead to a better retail industry. It just led to bloat, overproduction, underproduction, wastage, shortages and corruption — in a word to everything the Obama Green initiative is now becoming famous for.
Everywhere you find government managed resources in the Third World, be they fisheries, forests or land you find catastrophic mismanagement. Property rights, not government regulation, lead to conservation. But in most Third World countries the “educated” have been taught the opposite: that socialism saves.
Yet nothing could be further from the truth. The most dismal record of conservation anywhere in history is the record of socialist countries. Whether the Soviet Union or North Korea socialisms are uniformly destructive toward nature. Find a Commie and you will also find a catastrophe. No exceptions.
Why then do those who admire Communism and Socialism in the West think these ideas make them fit to manage the environment? Because they are convinced they are the best. On no apparent basis, simply on the conviction that in some remote future, they will be tops, though they have never succeeded in the past.
Socialism is the ex-future savior of the world. And yet they have the temerity to brand people heretics, or describe as stupid those who fail to agree with them.
They are certainly entitled to their own point of view. But if the things they believed in really worked then they would have owned everything by now. Without subsidies or compulsions. Still, I guess they can claim others are stupid for not being as lambent as they, for bothering to listen to them at all.
Very interesting. And how much energy does it take to build the materials for a zero carbon home compared to standard dwellings? And how long does it take before it needs upgrades that require more such materials to be made? Is there any possibility that it might be like corn derived ethanol in the US, where it takes a gallon of petroleum to produce a gallon of ethanol?
And what politicians and AGW touting celebrities have such houses? Why don’t they? Could it be that they are nasty places that only the uncouth deserve? And there are indeed dwellings that are zero carbon–cardboard boxes and mud huts; the Third World is filled with them.
But that it seems is the new class struggle, the politically connected rich trying to drive the middle class down to the ranks of the poor. But perhaps I have not stated it correctly. To be rich does not necessarily make you politically connected, but to be politically connected does make you rich. The Network provides, whether it gives you a six figure salary for a no-show job or $50,000 dollars for giving a twenty minute speech.
Money and political power are convertible. With sufficient money and knowing where to shop you can buy political power. And with political power money will flow to you in measure with that power.
There may be indeed some wisdom to the leftist notion of killing the rich people, but I personally would restrict that to the people who became rich because they were politically connected.
You tell me there’s an angel in your tree
Did he say he’d come to call on me
For things are getting desperate in our home
Living in the parish of the restless folks I know
Everybody now bring your family down to the riverside
Look to the east to see where the fat stock hide
Behind four walls of stone the rich man sleeps
It’s time we put the flame torch to their keep
Burn down the mission
If we’re gonna stay alive
Watch the black smoke fly to heaven
See the red flame light the sky
Burn down the mission
Burn it down to stay alive
It’s our only chance of living
Take all you need to live inside
Deep in the woods the squirrels are out today
My wife cried when they came to take me away
But what more could I do just to keep her warm
Than burn burn burn burn down the mission walls
Zero Carbon Mansion = Tara
The Reverend al-Gore ( ex-slaver, ex-tobacconeer, … ) would need to import an antebellum crew to carry on his estate.
The worst carbon offender — by far — the Reverend 0bama.
9. stevesmith:
You have it correct about the urge for control of others that environmentalist advocacies manifest. I reckon it’s been their campaigns for control of forestry in Canada where you have seen it; same for me in California, at a state government that’s all but owned by the enviro lobbies, abetted by enviro-friendly media and millions of gullible non-rural voters.
The forestry industry in California by now is too small a road kill to sustainably support all the over-stuffed environmentalist buzzards still feeding on it.
But it’s not just for control. Environmentalist activism also serves the age-old human urge to hate. One of the very few bases left for politically correct hatred, now that race, religion, ethnicity, gender, physical handicaps, age, and sexual preference are politically ineligible, is other people’s means of livelihood.
Those in California who grow and harvest timber and turn it into forest products are threatened, endangered targets of an environmentalist-led, government-facilitated program of occupational cleansing.
A client of mine was telling me two weeks ago about her daughter’s husband. He’s a trust funder leftist from NYC who went to school to be an “alternative energy engineer”. Having gotten there and seen how much work engineering is, and being a very impatient sort, he has decided to go to law school instead to study environmental law, because he feels he can effect the “needed” change through litigation much faster and because the market simply won’t do it.
FWIW.
Josh and Anna:
There is almost more junk science in fisheries management than there is in AGW. Much of the alleged depopulation and “dire crisis” of fisheries is based upon spurious science and propaganda put forth by management employees pursuing income stream security, and is greedily picked up by a compliant anti-capitalist press and trumpeted to a public which isn’t directly involved and is vulnerable to such scare tactics.
Vast schools of spiny dogfish now populate the Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank, to the detriment of other commercial fisheries and causing disruption of recreational fishing, yet there are a handful of scientists who get grants to study their “imminent extinction” because of their seniority and their political positioning. They get these grants every year, they continue to propose severe restrictions on commercial fishing for dogfish (which are a valuable thing for American commercial fishermen to sell to Europe, where they are relished), they get their grants renewed, and the cycle continues. But a resource that fishermen could use isn’t used at all, and in fact causes damage to other fisheries.
In Europe, where the fisheries are way more depleted than here, nearly every country has gone from a small boat entrepreneurial model for fishing to a few giant factory boats which are de facto government enterprises. When the industry transitioned from the one to the other, the number of boats and the duties of the regulators vastly diminished. Yet in each case not one euro of agency funding was cut and not one public sector job or science grant was lost. Essentially, everyone working there kept their jobs and pensions and had their workload cut by as much as 80%. Fisheries management public functionaries here in the US look upon this with envy.
A similar try is being made here in the US. The best example is the Atlantic groundfishery. For every license in the Atlantic zone there are three NOAA employees or grant recipients. If fisheries are declared recovered, job and grant losses in the public sector will be a certainty. So the data is manipulated and fudged so that no species can ever truly be “recovered”. The most recent cod “data” and the proposed restrictions are only the most recent version of this.
Couple this with fisheries director Janet Lubchenko (Obama appointee) who is overt about maintaining a fisheries policy that benefits European countries, particularly those in the Mediterranean, over fishermen here and you have a top-down attempt to distort the truth about fisheries.
Undoubtedly there are times when fisheries get into trouble. As someone who has been in and understands that industry, I tell you that the propaganda of today far outstrips any real current dangers in that regard.
Wretchard is right. Property rights and not income security oriented regulators are a better gig for the fish. The “tragedy of the commons” groupthink applied to fisheries for the pst forty or so years hasn’t helped the environment and has destroyed businesses and communities to prop up public functionaries, their pay, and their economic security.
So we have Newt famously schmoozing about Global Warming on a sofa with Nancy Pelosi, and we have Mitt Romney a known warmist: Romney: Global Warming Is Real, Humans Have Impact
And then we have Ron Paul. His opinion would matter little because he would keep the federal government out of it anyway. But for the record, this is what Ron Paul says:
“The greatest hoax I think that has been around for many, many years if not hundreds of years has been this hoax on [...] global warming.” – Ron Paul on Fox Business, Nov. 4, 2009
“[The Copenhagen treaty on climate change] can’t help the economy. It has to hurt the economy and it can’t possibly help the environment because they’re totally off track on that. It might turn out to be one of the biggest hoaxes of all history, this whole global warming terrorism that they’ve been using, but we’ll have to just wait and see, but it cannot be helpful. It’s going to hurt everybody.” – Ron Paul on the Alex Jones Show, Nov. 5, 2009
One recent article described the collapse of the carbon credits industry in Europe. Without carbon credits to level the playing field then many “green” projects cannot compete.
But it’s really the money, stupid. The carbon credits represented a huge new tax revenue that socialist governments really, really needed, especially given the way things are going.
As one Yerp official put it, “If we abandon carbon credits then Europe will return to the dark ages.”
I think it’s the reverse; they’ll start coming out of the dark ages.
As usual, the bottom line is one of morality and confidence in ourselves as human beings capable of advancing our awareness and improving our state.
The progress we’ve made, in health, the environment, race relations, have never,it seems to me, had much if anything to do with government regulators but rather to have emanated from changes in awareness that precipitated new behavior by the average citizen. Johnson’s civil rights act came AFTER a national change in consciousness and arguably caused problems while solving none. Within 2 weeks after it was passed the riots of the ’60s were underway, stoked mostly by the communists who had commandeered the civil rights movement and changed it from an argument for human dignity to one about who had the most stuff.
That’s what the statists/communists do. They expropriate arguments predicated on moral impulses and turn them into crass, destructive materialist conflicts. It’s something that cannot not be, since theirs is a materialist morality and theology that must denigrate anything, including human consciousness and individual freedom, that are contrary to the dogma that stuff rules.
I’m not so sure ANY government regulation has ever helped us to clean up our act. It had little to do, for example, with reductions in smoking, drunk driving, or unhealthy food consumption, yet wholesale changes in behavior have occurred in all of those areas and the regulation of behavior by way of enforcement seems mostly to have been a result of those changes rather than a cause.
What must be recaptured, stupid, is the confidence that we have what it takes to make our way without being controlled by our elite masters (and the recognition — re-cognition — that the road map for how to do that was given to us thousands of years ago).
They don’t want green energy; they want NO energy. They support windmills and solar panels precisery because they know they don’t work.
“The only hope for the world is to make sure there is not another United States: We can’t let other countries have the same number of cars, the amount of industrialization, we have in the U.S. We have to stop these Third World countries right where they are. And it is important to the rest of the world to make sure that they don’t suffer economically by virtue of our stopping them.” — Michael Oppenheimer, Environmental Defense Fund
“If you ask me, it’d be a little short of disastrous for us to discover a source of clean, cheap, abundant energy because of what we would do with it.” – Amory Lovins
“Like giving a machine gun to an idiot child” – Paul Ehrlich
“It’s the worst thing that could happen to our planet.” – Jeremy Rifkin
Rick S. is starting this debate in Fla. He is telling Floridian voters that if they want jobs they have to live with OIL wells off their coast.
Since Fla. is a closed primary I expect his argument to gain traction. We will also find out in Fla. just how much clout the Tea Party has. The Primary will be establishment Republicans vs conservatives.
Then again, I don’t see the 2012 election as the “critical” election it is being billed as. The GOP should take the Senate in 2012. Along with keeping the house, there is enough power there to keep Obama from anything too frisky. Keep teh won busy vetoing bills eliminating the EPA, DOE, etc. and quarterly appearances at impeachment hearings will prevent him from moving the Marxist agenda forward.
2016 will be a fresh slate. a different Democrat and Republican candidates.
I like our bench. By 2016, the old guard GOP should have been put to pasture, with candidates like Jendal, Rubio, Christie, Jeb, et. al. running.
A much better crop then in 2012.
16. ConfederateH One of Ron Paul’s many 10 rings. Now if he would just establish a coherent Defence Policy. Hiding under the bed and hoping the boogie man goes away won’t cut it.
How do you practice isolationism in an age of near instant communications? What exactly does self defence mean when an ICBM can deliver a weapons package anywhere on earth within 30 minutes? What is it about Paulbots that prevent them from understanding that in some cultures being ‘nice’ is seen as weakness and an invitation to attack?
Reaching out is all well and nice but when they bite your hand off one needs to re-think the situation.
“Not to let the Republican presidential hopefuls off the hook, but one reason they have largely ignored global warming is because journalists haven’t pressed them on it.”
Not to worry: “progressives” are on the case, and they’re trying to Alynskyize lots of public figures into parroting the Green Party line, including the meteorologists who report the weather on local television stations. Over at Watt’s Up With That, there’s some first rate reporting on the bullying tactics of a shadowy group called Forecast the Facts. And surprise, surprise…it turns out that FoF is funded by George Soros.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/22/forecastthefacts-org-political-activists-gagging-our-tv-meteorologists-on-climate-issues/
If Stalin were around today, he would be green.
Ron Paul’s policy wrt defense is specified and codified in the Constitution. He holds the Jefferson view. Didn’t Jefferson go and kick the crap out of some proto-islamists? Why, yes he did!
People that continually espouse this claptrap of Paul being isolationist are not thinking clearly. He can be personally isolationist all he wants but his duties as President would require him to defend the Republic against all enemies foreign and domestic. Do you people think the man will shirk his duties? No, I didn’t think so. The man will say what he means and will do what he says he will do. Follow the Constitution and make damn sure the rest of the con men in D.C. do as well.
THAT is all I want and require from my President and Congress and Supreme Court.
AGW is yesterday’s big lie. Today it is economic collapse of sovereign nations. The world economy is trying to self correct and the IMF, World Bank, ECB, FED et al are trying to keep the perversion intact.
Mr. Nobody’s been left at the alter and has yet to see his cohorts have gone on to another religion of power grab and social justice.
Why have they gone? Well you see the money/power has moved and to remain attached to the teat the parasites have to move too!
I disagree that the point of extreme environmentalism is economic destruction. That may be true for some of the low level foot soldiers (although most of them will be koolaid drinkers who will believe everything will work out as long as they follow orders) but it is certainly not true for those at the top of the heirarchy!
Consider the incredible utility of creating a system where *everything* is illegal in some way or another; for instance, the idea of “zero carbon” where the simple act of exhaling is a sin against Gaia. Well, obviously people have to go on living and are thus required to continually commit violations, so what is required? Why someone to offer forgiveness of these sins, of course! And the most successful and efficient means of doing this is to sell indulgences, which can masquerade as egalitarianism; the more you emit, the more you pay.
And what is the point of selling indulgences? To install a new priesthood of gatekeepers responsible for administering this system, a cadre which all segments of society will have to pay homage to for the rest of time. THIS is why so many big businesses were so eager to sign onto the plan – they had the access and the size to buy in early and stake out a piece of the income stream for themselves! And of course, once they have the blessing of the New Priesthood, they can keep their profit making potential for years, through ploys such as banning cheap, easy to make 100W light bulbs. (which would be vulnerable to competition) And of course Government on all levels sees this as the ultimate validation of their role astride humanity’s back.
If everything you do is a sin, then you need Priests to forgive that sin, and since you continue to commit sins you will continue to need forgiveness. And of course forgiveness must be obtained at a price! Without true sacrifice, there can be no moral catharsis, and of course no profits for the Gatekeepers of Morality.
Understand this, and you will understand every move made by the Environmental Elite.
Wretch, you are intentionally trying to time this with the large solar emission expected today correct?
Mr. Negin would do well to do some reading on the emails an subsequent discussions PROVING falsified and manipulated data sets. AGW has not been proven but certainly widespread corruption within it’s “study” has for anyone that cares to do a bit of reading….
I do believe there is a manmade component to CO2 having some effect on the planet’s climate. It is part of the larger natural cycle that has been going on since the earth had an atmosphere. Does that mean we are destroying the planet? Almost certainly not. Republicans may now all deny it completely for political reasons, but they are closer to the truth than the left on the impact of all of this. The most sensible advice came from the late Michael Crichton (who was a skeptic on the Chicken Little arguments being made). Improve economic conditions around the world and people will use less carbon. Technology is moving towards that all on its own. Spending trillions on a problem that does not really exist is insane and actually creates more rather than less carbon since it hampers economic growth.
The way this topic is being handled here is unfortunate. The human impact on the environment and it’s subset of resource depletion actually is the over arching issue facing our culture and the world.
So far, it is a public issue that is almost completely owned by the totalitarian left( i know, a redundent formulation). Yes, they use it to advance the typical delusions of the left and they are sincere only to the extent it advances their own fantasies.
On the other hand, the opposition, as characterized by this forum, while full of good fellows, is, how shall i put it? We’ll, it reminds one of Menken”s aphorism, “No one ever lost money betting agains the stupidity of the American people.” “Stupidity” is certainly the wrong word in this instance, but the concept is valid.
Evidence the formulation, “Any meritorious Green idea will sell itself.” Really, this is sophomoric in it’s misapprehension of the world. The jaw dropping attempt to bluster away the level of destruction of the world’s fisheries is just shameful, but it resonates with most of what is being said here.
I need to say that i do separate the AGW issue from the general trend of eating up the natural world. Looking at AGW with what i hope is an open mind, i am left (oops) to conclude that it is akin to concern about the witches among us, that occupied the intellectual concerns of Europeans for a long time.
After rubbing shoulders with the the “environmental issue” for so many years, i have concluded that the culture, as she is, is incapable of responding to the painful reality that confronts us. Discussions among very smart people, like this, confirm it to me.
If one looks, the consequence of being incapable of dealing with the issue is now visible at the horizon. Reality, WiLL have it’s way on this or any other issue. There now is no choice of paths or decisions what will lead to a good or even better outcome. However, on the whole, very little of anything of value will be lost. The self regarding drama of human culture will continue under a change of story lines, with different stage arrangement, and a much smaller audience.
21. stoicheion
“Hiding under the bed and hoping the boogie man goes away won’t cut it.
How do you practice isolationism in an age of near instant communications? What exactly does self defence mean when an ICBM can deliver a weapons package anywhere on earth within 30 minutes?”
How do you feel about government mandated seat belts, driver cell phone bans, and now they even want to ban smoking in cars? You cannot eliminate all risk. You may like to pretend otherwise, but the US has not eliminated the risks of nuclear war effects, mostly only temporally reduced it. Here in Switzerland I have a bomb shelter in my house with air filtration and food reserves, does that mean I have no risks? I would guess that you are in Virginia, do all those US nuclear weapons and trillion dollar “defense” budgets really make you immune?
@24. JFSanders
Well said.
I think it is a very good sign that AGW is not an issue in the debates. it means that AGW is a dead issue.
As for the Josh/SteveSmith debate on the merits of today’s environmentalists: once, decades ago, we were in great need of addressing our environmental failings. That was largely accomplished by the early 90′s. For the last twenty years with the exception of a small issue here and there, environmentalism has been an excuse for the government to take control over our lives and to destroy much of the economy.
Our regulatory system has been hijacked by those wanting to do us harm or plunder our nation for their own good, but not for society at large. We must return to a just, reasonable regulatory system that regulates within the boundaries set forth by the Constitution , rewards progress and punishes those seeking to do us harm.
Ron Paul’s policy wrt defense is specified and codified in the Constitution. He holds the Jefferson view. Didn’t Jefferson go and kick the crap out of some proto-islamists? Why, yes he did!
Jefferson reduced the size of the already small American navy. As a result, he was unable to defend American commercial shipping against depredations by both the British and French fleets during the Napoleonic wars. Because of the American impotence which he caused, the only recourse he had left was an embargo on British and French goods. This proved to be an economic disaster for the U.S., and led to a depression. Basically he was forced to resort to a Jimmy Carter/Obama-type approach to dealing with America’s adversaries, with similar bad results.
Maybe this a stupid question, but I’ll ask it anyway: why wouldn’t a warm period such as the Medieval Warm Period be beneficial? Which is to say, wouldn’t a warm-up have positive as well as negative effects, and is it possible that the positives would outweigh the negatives?
32. Don Rodrigo
You are correct, sir! Well said.
The rift between enviros and private-sector unions is something that the Stupid Party ought to be able to exploit, but because of their well-earned pejorative, they probably won’t.
It’s too bad. Driving a wedge between not only private-sector unions and environmentalists, but also between private and public-sector unions is one formula for electoral success. One of the ironies of a resurgent economy primed by an energy extraction and refining boom is that private-sector union memberships will also go up. If the GOP were smart, it would make this appeal directly to union members rather than the union leadership. That’s how the “Amiable Dunce” got his “Reagan Democrats.” It’s too bad that Republicans as an aggregate are butt-headed imbeciles.
JMH @ 8 said:
“The second is the environmental harm it will cause in the future when the concepts of conservation and stewardship of the environment have been tarnished by the fraudsters, hucksters, and socialist nannystaters who have latched onto the environment as their political club, not to meniton turned it into their insane Church of the Holy Gaia, Rev. Algore presiding.”
That is my pet hate against Green politics. I’m a former member of the Sierra Club. I joined the Sierra Club because it was the original conservation advocacy organization founded by one of America’s original and most effective conservationists, John Muir (he was the principle advocate towards establishment of Yosemite as a national park). At one time, the Sierra Club did good work advocating the preservation of wilderness for use by future generations. Unfortunately, socialists and moonbats slowly took over the organization starting from the grass roots and eventually working their way up to its top management (leftist are good at doing this).
It was interesting watching them at work. It was a bit like a virus taking over a cell. The virus first injects its DNA into a cell thus suppressing the cell’s original DNA and reprogramming the cell into a new function. Typically this new function is to become a virus generating machine. In the case of the Sierra Club, the socialist DNA reprogrammed it to advocate various socialist causes superseding its original function as an advocate for wilderness preservation. Eventually the Sierra Club was reduced to being part of the Left Wing cacophony barking random noise and becoming irrelevant to anything of real consequence. I withdrew from the Sierra Club after a failed attempted to publish a Letter to the Editor challenging their position on nuclear power (my letter was suppressed). At the time, the Sierra Club was already more focused on opposing nuclear power than advocating wilderness preservation. Interesting bit of trivia: At one time it was the Sierra Club’s official position to oppose controlled nuclear fusion as an energy source. The Sierra Club was so anti-nuclear that they opposed technologies that had not yet been developed.
It was a shame to witness what happened to the Sierra Club. John Muir must be spinning in his grave.
Maybe this a stupid question, but I’ll ask it anyway: why wouldn’t a warm period such as the Medieval Warm Period be beneficial? Which is to say, wouldn’t a warm-up have positive as well as negative effects
The not-stupid answer is yes, you are correct. For one, since any global warming that may be going on should really be labeled global milding, since there is no substance to the cataclysmic model of AGW.
The Holocene Optimum (sometimes called the Maximum), was so named because it was the mildest post-Ice Age period so far recorded. Pre-AGW scientists used the term “Optimum” because they assumed, correctly, that this was beneficial to human progress during the Late Neolithic-Early Bronze Age transitional period.
This is not to say that there weren’t calamities back then: An enormous raging flood in the Great Plains when an ice dam burst aabout 8,000 years ago, and another great flood a thousand years before that which turned the great internal southern European lake into the Black Sea when the Mediterranean spilled over the Hellespont (a likely source of the “Great Flood” myth). But this was a very differrent climatic change because of the thick ice sheets that were melting and retreating dramatically. Any warming that may be happening today is doing so against a much less severe and less dramatic backdrop.
A milder future also means less energy consumption.
@32. Don Rodrigo “Jefferson reduced the size of the already small American navy. As a result, he was unable to defend American commercial shipping against depredations by both the British and French fleets during the Napoleonic wars. Because of the American impotence which he caused, the only recourse he had left was an embargo on British and French goods. This proved to be an economic disaster for the U.S., and led to a depression. Basically he was forced to resort to a Jimmy Carter/Obama-type approach to dealing with America’s adversaries, with similar bad results.”
While I agree that Jefferson’s mistake in the use of embargo to effect change in behavior is true. To subscribe to the idea that Paul would behave in the same manner is not logical. Given today’s world of instant communication, Paul would have better intel and operational ability to combat “piracy” by another nation.
Paul is a Constitutionalist first and foremost. He is a Jeffersonian to be sure but one rooted in Federalist realities. You can scream the sky is falling all you want but Paul will not bring on Armageddon nor will he collapse the worm hole around us.
What he will do is level the playing field for all, ALL Americans. He will shine the antiseptic light of truth into the dark recesses of the FED and Congress. He will bring about a return of the Republic. He will return the power to the states and the citizens of the states. This will be a great thing to see.
To whit your argument does not hold. Paul has never said he would reduce our military to penury. As a matter of fact he is highly regarded by our men and women of the Armed Forces U.S..
“Maybe this a stupid question, but I’ll ask it anyway: why wouldn’t a warm period such as the Medieval Warm Period be beneficial?”
Yes of course it can be beneficial, and the chance that our present changes in climate are going to be beneficial are just as good as the chances of them not being beneficial. But there is no fear in a beneficial change in climate. The goal is to create social change through fear, in this case the fear of human caused climate disaster. It worked for quite a number of years, until Climategate opened the publics eyes.
Wretchard,
The edit function is broken. Hold on, now the edit function is back. Someone must be working on it…..
Don Rodrigo @ 32 said:
“Jefferson reduced the size of the already small American navy. As a result, he was unable to defend American commercial shipping against depredations by both the British and French fleets during the Napoleonic wars.”
Obviously, Tom Jefferson was a bright guy but like the rest of us, he could sometimes get stuck on stupid. He had this funny idea that a navy could be functional using only small boats. Fortunately under President Washington, the United States had previously constructed six frigates that were of a revolutionary design. These frigates had a special hull and were of a class midway between a conventional frigate and a ship-of-the-line (they could out-gun a conventional frigate but also outrun a conventional ship-of-the-line). Those six frigates prevented the British Navy from totally embarrassing us during the War of 1812. The USS Constitution is the last remaining survivor of those marvelous ships.
There’s a wonderful book describing this history titled “The Age Of Fighting Sail: The Story of the Naval War of 1812″ by C.S. Forestor. C.S. Forestor is the same guy who wrote the Horatio Hornblower series (he started out as an Englishman but eventually became an American). After you read “The Age Of Fighting Sail”, you’ll feel compelled to wave the American flag and sing the national anthem.
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While I agree that Jefferson’s mistake in the use of embargo to effect change in behavior is true. To subscribe to the idea that Paul would behave in the same manner is not logical. Given today’s world of instant communication, Paul would have better intel and operational ability to combat “piracy” by another nation.
Jefferson had all the “intel” he needed to deal with the very obvious threat posed by the French and the British. He blundered in reducing the size of the Navy for what can only have been doctrinaire reasons. It made no sense that between having to deal with the European combatants, Barbary Pirates, and more than doubling the size of the U.S. with the Louisiana Purchase that he would reduce the size of the navy of one of the worls largest commercial maritime nations.
I’m not criticizing Ron Paul in these posts, and you may be right about Paul’s actual positions on international affairs, but simply pointing out that Jefferson’s policy decisions may not be the best analogy for Paul’s policies.
It took a while for advertisers and propagandists to find something that sells as well as or even better than sex. But they found it: fear. Of course, fear is an emotion and it’s hard to keep one going forever.
@32. Don Rodrigo
“As a result, he was unable to defend American commercial shipping against depredations by both the British and French fleets during the Napoleonic wars.”
You are right, we need a 12 aircraft carrier navy to defend the Atlantic from the limeys and the frogs. Bravo. Okay, throw in Russia, they don’t even have 1 real aircraft carrier.
Or even the pacific, we need this massive navy to defend Hawaii against who?
In Reality we have a 12 aircraft carrier navy to defend Guam to defend Diego Garcia to defend Bahrain to defend Baghdad to defend Kabul. Its even more pathetic to Churchill’s effort to cling to the English empire after WWII. Lets not even talk about the cost of this lunacy, lets talk about who benefits from all this? It certainly isn’t the middle class in the US, who are expected to donate their children to any cause that the elite empire builders may decide upon.
The guys who benefit are the elites that Wretchard was discussing in has last thread, and the Praetorian guard and its related beneficiaries (the MIC). Well guess what, the American people are sick of this. How do I know? Because they so strongly voted
for Obama on this issue, who promptly sold them out to the MIC and the elites. And now they are flocking to Ron Paul for the same reasons, to stop this insanity and restore liberty. So the elites and the MIC are desperate to give us another non-choice like in the last election. You BC’ers are want to give us Gingrich vs Obama or Romney vs Obama. More war, more money printing, more government, bigger government, more intrusion and less freedom. All this because you guys insist that the US has to protect the Saudi oil deliveries to Japan and China.
Wretchard writes:
and then no mo uro provides the perfect example:
That’s the leftist mindset right there, that a lawyer with zero ability as an engineer is better suited to driving things than then engineers, because, well, just because. Somehow, this jackalope of an environmental law student is just a better person than the guys who are actually capable to doing the hard work needed to engineer better products and processes.
And I saw the same fishieries mismanagement growing up on the coast of Northern California. One year the salmon season was cut short because the fishermen weren’t catching as many fish as the managers had predicted. “Oh no, the stocks are too low! We’ve got to cut the season short.” The next year, when fishermen were catching more fish than the regulators predicted, the season was again cut short. “Oh no! They’re catching all the fish!” Never did the management folks stop to think maybe their estimates were wrong.
What skill, or ability, or accomplishments, have any of these people ever had? Nothing tangible. Their success is in talking, not in doing. Their greatest “creation” is a self-sustaining credential mill that provides the only validation they’re capable of obtaining. The AGW frauds aren’t even competent scientists. They don’t design and conduct experiments the way a real scientist would. Instead they generate theories and then hunt and peck through data collected by others to cherry pick some subset that supports their theory. They can’t even really do that very well, so they end up fabricating data, and then can’t even keep track of their fabricated data. Their clerical abilities aren’t up to what you’d expect of an entry level bookkeeper in Accounts Payable.
But they think they’re special. Our betters beause they say so. Some advice for the EnviroKids of today: don’t plan on making a career out of environmental gasbaggery and grant writing. Your heroes have overfished those resources and there ain’t gonna be enough left for you to catch.
44. ConfederateH
Apples and Ornages.
I was merely pointing out Jefferson’s mistake at the time. America has always endeavored to have a significant navy, often out of proportion to its standing army — Jefferson apparently blundered by making it too small. The U.S. needed an adequate navy for the times, and didn’t have one; there was no need for them to match the huge British and French fleets, but merely to have enough presence for those two big guys to think twice. The fighting reputation of American ships was well-regarded, and British and French captains were practical men. The size and mix of the modern American Navy is a matter of another debate.
r @ 33: Maybe this a stupid question, but I’ll ask it anyway: why wouldn’t a warm period such as the Medieval Warm Period be beneficial? Which is to say, wouldn’t a warm-up have positive as well as negative effects, and is it possible that the positives would outweigh the negatives?
Absolutely.
Some small and possibly valid concern is that an extended warming might melt enough antarctic ice to raise the ocean levels and drown some coastal areas. OTOH property values inland would rise along with the water levels! Fifty movie stars homes in Malibu alone might be washed away. Oh, the humanity! Also much of New Orleans, and the island nation of Vanuatu, and whatever. OTOH dolphins and manatees might be pleased. IF anything at all happens, as has not yet been seen, but might after a century or three. What if it is all a perfectly natural trend? Um, I dunno.
ebl @ 28: I do believe there is a manmade component to CO2 having some effect on the planet’s climate.
You “believe” it or you have numbers?
ss @ 9: Sorry, but I’ve seen environmentalists bite honest working people hard and take away their livelihood in the cause of anti-capitalism. In my old age I’ve drawn two lines in the dirt. I step over one to be with the Jews and I step over the other to not be with hard core environmentalists.
OK, but who exactly is hard core? Guys torching Humvee dealers and chaining themselves to trees, I guess, and the classic dickless EPA guy in Ghostbusters. I could make you a list of my unfavorite idiotic regulations.
OTOH we have the example of the oil refineries in Los Angeles, which it took twenty years of unrelenting pressure to get cleaned up. You can drive down the 405, through Torrance, Carson and Wilmington now and your nose will hardly twitch, where as late as 1990 (Later? I forget already) there were square miles that reeked of stuff that could not have been good for you, and this right in the middle of Los Angeles. And only in the last year have they extended pollution controls to trucks and ships in the harbor, though I think that raw sewage dumping by ships in transit close to coast is still not entirely banned.
It takes a certain amount of fanaticism to counter the natural sloth of big polluters to change their historic and short-term money-saving behaviors. Sometimes all we have to use are blunt instruments, and they still require skill and care so you don’t smash the wrong things, even the targets you meant to hit, and it’s not always pretty even using them optimally. Like funding the Taliban in Afghanistan against the Soviets, seemed like a good idea at the time. Some of the blowback is just the cost of doing business, I guess.
“the socialist DNA reprogrammed it to advocate various socialist causes superseding its original function as an advocate for wilderness preservation.”
Like all touchy feely issues, the left wraps themselves with causes that one is hesitant to say no to. Once they have established that they are the champions for racial equality, the children, the planet, et al, they have you at a rhetorical disadvantage in that saying no to their extremist position is conflated with hating minorities, killing puppies, and crapping in the town square.
Once a cause is perverted with partisan goals it must be refuted. Even if they will label you a baby killer. In the end this argument by guilty until proven innocent is fascist and we fought a war to kill as many fascists as we could.
@46. Don Rodrigo
“America has always endeavored to have a significant navy, often out of proportion to its standing army — Jefferson apparently blundered by making it too small. The U.S. needed an adequate navy for the times, and didn’t have one; there was no need for them to match the huge British and French fleets, but merely to have enough presence for those two big guys to think twice.”
Fine. British policy for over a century was to have more navy than the next 2 naval powers combined. Russia has 1/2 an aircraft carrier, Britain has 3/4, France 3/4, China 1/2. Using this metric the US defense budget could be cut by 66% and the US would still have 4 aircraft carriers, more than EVERY OTHER COUNTRY ON THE PLANET COMBINED!
Um, correct me if I’m wrong, but … whichever groups we funded in Afghanistan in the war with the Soviets, it wasn’t the Taliban. The Taliban was created afterward, in large measure through the efforts of Benazir Bhutto.
Annoy Mouse @ 48:
Bingo. The left are master moral exploiters. They’re doing it all for the planet, you see, how noble! How could one resist? And if one does, here comes the list of “but-fors”. But for the environmentalists, we’d all be choking on dirty air, drinking dirty water, etc. But for the labor unions, we’d be working 10 hour days 6 days a week, beside children, in a minefield, etc. All the good that has ever happened in an age is to be credited to some activists somewhere.
And, if by chance the globe doesn’t warm as predicted, then we’ll have yet another “but-for”. But for the courage of the AGW visionaries, we’d all be sunburnt to a crisp.
To a progressive, progress is impossible without themselves.
D.R….
Jefferson out-thunk himself.
He advocated a gun-boat navy… thinking that having just a handful of frigates or two 74′s would be a total waste of money since America couldn’t possibly be a player during the Napoleonic Wars.
It never quite occurred to him that the young nation would need to overpower islamic pirates and other such riffraff.
The USN built its reputation no sooner than the War of 1812.
The USS Constitution so shocked the Admiralty that RN standing orders were changed — and duly noted in the open press. (!)
The NEW RULE was that no Royal frigate was to ever seek engagements with American frigates — period.
The USN frigates were re-rated up to 4th Rate, with some contending that you’d need a 3rd Rate to meet them on an ‘even’ basis.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rating_system_of_the_Royal_Navy#Royal_Navy_rating_system_in_force_during_the_Napoleonic_Wars
First off, the early USN was severely over-manned as a rule. With so few ships America had to settle for thinning out the volunteers — usually.
Next, the early USN had virtually new ships — across the board — while the Europeans were but rarely in new vessels. And because of the budget — many failed to have copper bottoms — with consequent wildlife all over the bottom. What a drag.
And if that wasn’t bad enough, the Americans used far more lumber than the Europeans. They were short on saws and long on trees. It was this last datum that fried British noodles. The Royal Navy was built around the carronade… basically a pistol-cannon.
While it was quick to reload and reshoot — it had simply no effect at all on Old Ironsides!
This is why, with a puny navy, the US was able to punch above its weight. Each USN frigate became a ‘Bismark’ — too much for one-on-one action — too fast to normally bring to battle with any ship-of-the-line.
——
The Germans, explicitly, studied the USN’s 1812 war experiences; and they patterned both U-boat warfare and commerce raiders upon that campaign. While openly admitted by Donitz, the link is almost never brought up in WWII histories.
——
Jefferson may have over studied the classics — for one might think that he thought that rowed ‘ships’ still had military utility.
His USN was designed to merely repel RN blockades. It was a total flop — in every way.
IIRC, his cannons were unshipped to form the New York battery which famously gave its name to that area of Manhattan even to this day.
Well, at least he kept the RN out of the Hudson.
49. ConfederateH
Are you familiar with the “fleet-in-being” concept? It is applicable to not only the navy, but to the entire military establishment, army and air force included. Deterrence through strength. If we reduce to four carriers, I’m guessing that the Chinese would be thinking very strongly about building five. It’s arguable, of course, but it has merit. Try not to get too angry in your reply.
Roughcoat…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_Zia-ul-Haq
Here’s your man.
You’ve got the blood-lines entirely inverted… He’s in the anti-Bhutto camp, which is ironic — since he was made a big-shot by Bhutto.
Where do all these “green” enviro-dumbsh*ts come from? That’s what I want to know. Western civilization is dumbing down at an alarming rate.
49. ConfederateH: Fine. British policy for over a century was to have more navy than the next 2 naval powers combined. Russia has 1/2 an aircraft carrier, Britain has 3/4, France 3/4, China 1/2. Using this metric the US defense budget could be cut by 66% and the US would still have 4 aircraft carriers, more than EVERY OTHER COUNTRY ON THE PLANET COMBINED!
That means with one carrier in port while the crew rests following their six month deployment, and another one in drydock getting overhauled, and another one on REFTRA working up for a WestPac or Med Cruise, that leaves exactly one carrier actually on West Pac or in the Med. You pick which theater.
50. Roughcoat
Um, correct me if I’m wrong, but … whichever groups we funded in Afghanistan in the war with the Soviets, it wasn’t the Taliban. The Taliban was created afterward, in large measure through the efforts of Benazir Bhutto.
You are correct. I run into this strawman flasehood all the time, and mostly from the historically illiterate left. The “Taliban” (“Students of Islam”) were formed as a reaction to the post-Soviet corruption and anarchy. They enjoyed wide-spread support in those desparate times, and had the backing of the ISI. What confuses the “strawmaners” is that the ISI and the CIA supported the overall insurgency during the Soviet occupation, while the Saudis focused mainly on supporting the Islamic “foreigners” led by people like Osama bin Laden.
Mine may not a completely accurate explanation, but you will find it to be very close to what acually transpired in Afghanistan from the 1980′s onward.
no mo uro@15: “dogfish (which are a valuable thing for American commercial fishermen to sell to Europe, where they are relished)”
I would say that this is physically impossible…but then I remembered that these are the same people who willingly eat lutefisk, snails and frogs and call them “cuisine”. I suppose anything is possible on the European gastronomical front.
r @ 50: Um, correct me if I’m wrong, but … whichever groups we funded in Afghanistan in the war with the Soviets, it wasn’t the Taliban.
I don’t much distinguish between jihadi subgroups, I suppose we funded a fuzzy “mujihadeen” against the Soviets but some large part of that squad became some large part of the Taliban at some point, and I’m not sure at what point, nor where if anywhere to draw the line between that and al Qaeda. Whichever t-shirt they are wearing at the moment they equally support each other and shoot each other, and us, and my attitude is to let Allah sort them out. Their traditions go back a millenium and still seem a stronger guide to their actions than any fine discrimination and rationality that we might look for.
Or do you believe otherwise?
dr @ 57: It is my impression that the “taliban” label is an ancient tradition in Islam, the translation is “student”, but the common practice is to excuse violent “enforcement” under sharia law, so any modern “invention” is simply a move of convenience. And my interpretation of those who seek to differentiate between Taliban and al Qaeda is that it is frequently in seeking an excuse to do nothing about either or both, the adoption of the Taliban/al Qaeda labels being done specifically to engage in such paralyzing confusion in the first place.
r @ 53: If we reduce to four carriers, I’m guessing that the Chinese would be thinking very strongly about building five.
And it seems to me in game theory terms if they think of five they may think of twelve, both because they would then have the freedom to use them, and also if the US is not enforcing some measure of order on the high seas around the world, then maybe the Chinese would be forced to do so themselves, for their own economic interests, which would naturally merge into political interests.
54. blert
You’re referring to Ali (Bhutto), I’m referring to Benazir. Zia was killed in 1988. The Taliban came into being in the 1990s, during Benazir’s time in office.
Joint military training exercises will be held evenings in downtown Los Angeles through Thursday, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.
http://www.kfiam640.com/pages/NEWS.html?article=9653697#ixzz1kPErkea9
Our friendly government hard at work to keep us poor, stupid and compliant. No problem, Dear Leader will grace us with his face and voice this evening to let us know how we can fit into his Green vision of America.
Some small and possibly valid concern is that an extended warming might melt enough antarctic ice to raise the ocean levels and drown some coastal areas. OTOH property values inland would rise along with the water levels! Fifty movie stars homes in Malibu alone might be washed away.
Josh, FWIW: Satellite data has shown no sea-level rise worldwide, despite tantalizing evidence of gradual warming by other measurements over time. Locally there has been measured creeping up of water levels in various areas, but then there have been previous cycles of sea-level rises and falls in cycles over the millennia.
Also, speaking of satellites: a recently-launched NASA/NOAA satellite dedicated to climate study is supposedly the first such spacecraft ever launched for the sole purpose of climate study. If that’s the case it begs the question: why only NOW after decades of dire warnings about AGW? Granted, satellite data has been used for some time (to the chagrin of some AGW’ers, since some of that data often contradicts their assumptions), but no specially-dedicated spacecraft. You would think that it would have been a priority age ago. There were three attempts over the last 2-3 years to launch the dedicated craft, but why weren’t similar satellites not launched, say, in the early 90′s?
59. Josh
The Mujihadeen groups we supported were disparate but certainly not “fuzzy” (not sure what that means). The formation and rise to power of the Taliban out of Mujihadeen groups was not inevitable; rather, it took a deliberate effort (organization, funding, logistical support, etc.) by elements in Pakistan to bring it to power over other groups opposed to it. The Taliban had a very specific agenda and worldview that other groups did not share and opposed violently. It is important, I think, to distinguish between jihadi subgroups, especially in that part of the world; some are more (or less) dangerous than others.
blert @ 52 said:
“The NEW RULE was that no Royal frigate was to ever seek engagements with American frigates — period.”
This brings out the story of the USS Essex which I find somewhat embarrassing. refer to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Essex_%281799%29
Apparently the Essex lost its main mast to an accident shortly before going into action. That initial accident lead to a death spiral resulting in the Essex being captured by an inferior British ship.
Stories like this are very common in history where a superior military force having all the obvious advantages including a competent commanding officer is still defeated due to bad luck. The ancients understood this when they described Victory as a young woman with wings who could fly to either side for no apparent reason. This inescapable “luck” aspect about warfare is the main reason why diplomacy should always be exhausted before resorting to violence.
Don Rodrigo @ 62 asked:
“Also, speaking of satellites: a recently-launched NASA/NOAA satellite dedicated to climate study is supposedly the first such spacecraft ever launched for the sole purpose of climate study. If that’s the case it begs the question: why only NOW after decades of dire warnings about AGW?”
Because as far as Obama is concerned, the only “good” that comes from the Space Program is its ability to monitor Global Warming from orbit. Obama more or less said as much during an early campaign speech. One of his handlers later told him to back off from that story and he did not repeat it. Off course this makes sense if Global Warming is the “elephant in the room”. Once you understand the Left’s basic assumptions, some of their actions do have a sort of logic to it.
Meanwhile, back at the Obama ranch (from an article in First Things today):
“Last Thursday in Rome, Pope Benedict XVI . . . warned that (America’s) heritage of religious freedom faces “grave threats” from the “radical secularism” of political and cultural opinion leaders who are “increasingly hostile to Christianity.”
Last Friday, the day after the Pope’s address, our federal government issued a ruling that confirmed his worst fears about our country’s anti-religious and anti-Christian drift. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced a final decision to mandate that every U.S. employer must provide health insurance coverage that makes birth control, sterilization, and even abortion-causing drugs available to its employees free of charge.
The government rejected the U.S. bishops’ efforts to negotiate an exemption for faith-based employers—including Catholic hospitals, charities and colleges—that are morally opposed to abortion and contraception . . . . It is hard not to see this new mandate as a direct attack on Catholic consciences and the freedom of our Catholic institutions.
The mandate does not promote any civil liberties and it does not advance any significant public health goals. The government justifies the mandate by arguing that employers who do not provide these services are discriminating against women. But access to free contraception has never been a basic human right. And there is no evidence that birth control has any effect on women’s health; pregnancy is not a disease for which “preventive medicine” is required.
The Health Department justifies denying exemptions to Catholic charities, hospitals, and colleges because it says they are not really “religious” institutions. This may be the most troubling part of this new mandate. In effect, the government is presuming it has the competence and authority to define what religious faith is and how believers should express their faith commitments and relationship to God in society. These are powers our government has never before assumed itself to have. . . .” (Archbishop Gomez)
Eggs are no good for you! No wait, yes they are.
Butter is no good for you! No wait, yes it is.
Meat is like poison! No wait, you need to eat meat.
We can’t even figure out what’s going on in our digestive systems, much less figure out the mind-bending complexity of climate systems. So don’t tell me the “science is settled.”
One very deleterious effect of AGW is that it’s a money suck. Billions have gone into that rat hole of chicanery, while many very real environmental problems are starved.
One other aspect that makes me bats. We are constantly scolded by the Left that Americans use so much more energy per capita and create so much more waste. Ok, let’s grant that. But then why are we letting in millions of people from the third world, who quickly go from 3rd world rates of consumption to ghastly, eco-killing American rates of consumption? And what about environmental destruction via sprawl (an actual problem)? If we had clamped down on immigration thirty years ago, we’d have about 100 million fewer people in the United States. Would not that have been good for the environment?
10. stoicheion
105 mm is 4 inches.
Any carbon trading, environmental regulations to limit carbon emissions in the US and EU will be overwhelmed by the increased carbon emissions of Brazil, Russia, India, and China. They are not going to cut back mainly because their people would have the heads of any government that tried to force the issue. The only possibility would be the creditable threat of overwhelming military force which is not going to happen. If the anthropomorphic global warming advoctes are serious then they should be advocating the repeal of the endangered species act in regards to hydroelectric projects and reducing the regulatory hurdles for nucular power generating plants. It should also be noted that in the northern hemisphere when the temperatures increased it led to a higher standard of living, longer life expectancy,and increased population. Decreased temperatures led to the opposite effects. Since volcanic activity pumps huge amounts of carbon into the atmosphere and there has been no run away global warming there would appear to be a natural mechanism to act as a negative feed back for carbon emissions.
Finally, if electric cars would become popular with the general public where would the additional needed generating capacity be located? Electricity does not magicly appear but needs to be generated. Unicorn flatulance and pixie dust will not do
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zia-ul-Haq%27s_Islamization
It’s Zia…
That the players adopted new names in the 90′s should not blind us to the reality that they are creatures of Zia.
@65 maineman:
Thanks for bringing this up. William McGurn had a good article (on WSJ and RCP sites) on how the administration has stuck it’s finger in the eye of Catholics, observant Jews, and Evangelicals. The rudder has swung hard aport, yet again.
I didn’t know Obama had so many friends that he could afford to lose such a large chunk.
68. blert
Damn it, man. You’re wrong. It’s not Zia. Zia promoted Islamization in Pakistan. I’ll say this again: he was killed in 1988; the Taliban came into being in the early 1990s. Benazir Bhutto built on Zia’s foundations but the Taliban was her creation. To say otherwise is to be willfully imprecise and to distort history. There is no mention of the Taliban in the article you linked, and for good reason.
I can’t comment further in this thread, having already exceeded the prescribed limit.
I have been following the Better Place electronic car concept for a few years now. This is a for profit company valued at 1.3 bil. financed on venture capitol. I would refer readers not familiar with the idea to the website. The basic idea is an electric car with a swappable battery. You pull into the nearest swap station which looks kind of like a car wash and your old battery is automatically swapped for a fresh one. There are also multiple public charging stations and a home station.
The car has an innovative GPS system that tells you when you need a battery or charge and takes takes you to the nearest station. Renault is making the vehicles.
You purchase the car and then pay for batteries and power on a monthly plan similar to cell phone plans. The company owns the batteries so you do not need to worry about replacing them.
While this could not work well in Montana it could in a small place such as Hawaii, Denmark, or Israel. Israel is now ready to go. The first cars are on the road and they are taking orders. From what I have read people really like the vehicles and the price is reasonable given fuel cost. There are pilot projects in China and Australia as well.
I do not know if they will make money but I think it is a great example of private sector innovation.
octa bright @ 67 said:
“Any carbon trading, environmental regulations to limit carbon emissions in the US and EU will be overwhelmed by the increased carbon emissions of Brazil, Russia, India, and China. They are not going to cut back mainly because their people would have the heads of any government that tried to force the issue. The only possibility would be the creditable threat of overwhelming military force which is not going to happen.”
There are lots of hidden-agendas embedded within the AGW thing. The establishment of a single world government ruled by a “green” Dictatorship of the Proletariat are among those agendas. The funny thing is most of the useful idiots advocating the green agenda have not yet connected the dots.
I wonder if Obama has connected the dots or if he’s just a silly moonbat?
I have zero respect for Obama and it’s quite possible that he has no clue about what he’s advocating.
[Comment #4 of 4] done for this thread
14. Anna Robic
Yes it hurts doesn’t it. Green renewable wealth creation in rural small towns apparently really upsets the Greens. I’ve heard urban Greens complain about it as they discuss the price of the latest Ferrari.
47. Josh
I agree with you about cleaning up industrial pollution. The air and water that I breathe today is much cleaner than the stuff I used to play in as a kid. I thought that all the buildings in London, England were built of black stones until they cleaned the generations of soot off them. I also agree that getting a polluting corporation to change its ways and increase its production costs may require loud shouting. But it’s the richer societies that have the cleanest air and water and those riches come from economic growth – to which environmentalists seem to be absolutely opposed.
What annoys me is the apparent animosity of Greens to all the regular (often Union member) Joes who work in resource based towns and industries. Many of these resource industry people generally take a pride in the land and in their communities. Fort McMurray not so much because it’s apparently a frontier town (not been there but have been to other places in N. Alberta and to places North of 60). We left all the horrors of the Industrial Revolution behind long ago – and the environmentalists played a big and honourable part in that. Same with the improvement of Forest Practices. From the get go, filling in and reclaiming oil sands open pits was researched and has been practiced by the oil companies. It is also the law in Alberta to reclaim oil sands after extraction is complete. Why aren’t environmentalists happy and smiling about that and about modern forest practices in Canada? The rest of us who love trees and forests and our Canadian land certainly are.
Over the past 30 years environmentalism turned into socialism and against economic growth. It also turned against small town plain folks who don’t live their lives the way urban environmentalists think that they should.
Anyway, enough of this. I’m off to grumble into my soup. My sympathies about the 49ers.
Longer ago than I care to remember I helped found a garbage scavenger’s association in Tondo. What we did (and I went out scavenging myself) was push these wooden carts at night through the city to rifle the trash cans of recyclables.
We were after Waste 1 (long fiber paper), Waste 2 (newsprint of certain types), glass, cans, copper wire, metal of all sorts, etc. Now most people considered scavenging a social disease; especially the do-gooders. They were unsightly, humiliating to the self-image of the government and generally considered a blot on the landscape.
But as the scavenger spokesmen used to point out. It was a job. And a good, environmentally friendly job too. By the time the Department of Public Sanitation (DPS) trucks got to a trash dumb in the city, it had been picked clean of most recyclables.
The DPS guys themselves used to pick over what remained. If you examine period photographs you’ll see the DPS garbage trucks festooned with bamboo baskets (tiklis) in which they themselves would store what they found in the trash.
Of course, scavengers competed for routes. The best routes from Tondo were through Binondo, Escolta, Santa Cruz — where you could get good quality Waste 1 or metal and glass. The worst were the routes through the residential areas, which only yielded the odd sardine can and mostly banana peels and vegetable stems.
The business was not without hazard. But scavengers avoided medical waste, or radiologically tainted material by staying away from hospitals and morgues. You could find interesting stuff in the morgue trash, but nothing you could sell as recyclable.
The thing was, none of this was created by environmentalists. The industry sprang up to supply the demand of Chinese scrap merchants, the so-called “dealers”. Downstream of the dealers were the trash kings or “bodegeros”, who bought the scrap retail from the scavengers and pounded them into bales of metal, or baskets of ground glass for onward sales to the Chinese.
From time to time, the do-goodniks would call for abolition of scavenging. Indeed, scavengers were periodically rounded up under vagrancy laws (“bagransiya”) whenever some World Bank dignitary blew into town, perhaps to discuss an ‘environmental’ loan. But in the end, the scavengers were part of the ecosystem.
Incidentally, the trash that had already been mined by the DPS and the scavengers would wind up in the great heaps which were then burned by municipal officials. The most famous of these was the Smoky Mountain on which thousands of people lived, picking up whatever had been overlooked.
Every now and again the do-goodniks would take up the cry to relocate everybody to Sapang Palay, Bulacan or some other hick place in the foothills of the Sierra Madre and would often build these “model communities” to put them in. But they never twigged to the fact that there weren’t any jobs in these places and after the Smoky Mountaineers had been relocated they would always return to where the money was — the great hill of trash.
The situation was much the same in the uplands. Most of the Philippines is mountainous, except for the coastal plains. The people who decided the fate of the uplands were the Department of Environment and Natural Resources bureaucrats (the so called “montero”) or the environmental lobby groups. Nobody ever asked the tribesmen or the forest dwellers what should be done. They were by law, squatters, notwithstanding the fact that they’d been there, in cases, before Magellan arrived or before Mohammed was born.
While the forests were in the possession, and I am emphasize the word, possession, of the uplanders, it was effectively maintained in a state equivalent to first growth forest. But after the government was established, they bureaucrats decided they should manage it. How better than to grant logging concessions to the politicians. That’s not to say commercial forestry can’t be sustainable.
For a time, I worked on an industrial forest planation project, where people could plant trees on the flat like crops to sell them. The environmentalists hated that, and right after the wood was grown the bureaucrats showed up to prevent their harvest claiming that it had to be managed as natural forest! “You must apply for your allowble cut.” I remember engaging in a long and heated debate with the country rep of a famous environmental group who was all for the bureaucrat’s stance. “How can you manage the forests,” he said, “for profit.” He spat out that last word.
The most unfortunate legacy of the Second World War, as far as the forests were concerned, were the diffusion of the chain saw and the advent of the six by six army truck. The 6×6 had a winch on the front bumper, which was just the thing for dragging wood out of the forest. This destructive system (called the “Bataan” method of logging, for obvious reasons) basically crushed the emerging trees into the ground.
It may come as a shock to outsiders, but not to insiders, that the Philippine Government never ever resurveyed the forests after the US airforce did the intial comprehensive survey in 1946. You can see this in the maps that were still sold in the last decade. Data: US Airforce 1946.
On those maps the entire Marikina watershed, just outside of Manila, is marked primary forest. It has been housing subdivision since the 1960s. But not on the map, which records it just as it was in 1946.
Up until the point when government decided it could manage the forests, the forests were just fine. Then they built roads and managed things so they got better. And now the forests are gone. Gone. If you go to the national parks along the road in Bicol you’ll see the DENR has left a thin screen of artificially maintained trees along the highway to give a sylvan impression. But it’s nothing but a facade.
Giving the forests over to the the international banks and their environmental advisers, working through the Philippine government has caused the greatest environmental catastrophe in that country’s history. Not the Japanese occupation, nor the MacArthur’s 6th and 8th Armies have been half so damaging to the country as a whole.
Now they are selling Global Warming. Well, watch your pocket is all I can say. Nobody’s going to get rich off of “climate change”, not the tribesmen nor the uplanders, nor anyone in the Third World, nobody except these environmental professionals, the carbon traders and their bureaucratic helpers.
There was an old patriotic song current after the Second World War which goes like this, except I can’t sing or hum it without involuntarily bursting into tears.
Damn them all.
1. Josh
Perfect timing, wretchard, I was just getting ready to post on this very topic, more or less, also in keeping with the unlikely Reuter’s headline Obama to tout natural gas benefits in State of Union.
…………
There are big things going on in shale gas–DESPITE the administration. But its happening on O’s watch so he gets to claim the credit.
Generally, O’s talk at its best is saying the right thing at the right time. But his talk doesn’t have anything to do with what his administration is actually doing. There is always an enormous disconnect between words & deeds.
The best spin on O’s positive speech on shale gas will be that it will have some influence on the enviros in California who are currently blocking work on the big shale plays in there.
But likely O will whiten his words on a white background sufficiently so that the enviros in California can read whatever they want to into his speech.
“People that continually espouse this claptrap of Paul being isolationist are not thinking clearly. He can be personally isolationist all he wants but his duties as President would require him to defend the Republic against all enemies foreign and domestic. Do you people think the man will shirk his duties?”
Actually, I’m not thinking at all. I’m comparing. Comparing his words to his voting record;
http://www.votesmart.org/candidate/key-votes/296/
Congress critter Paul has voted against almost every defence related bill since his election to Congress. I say almost because I could not find one he voted for, but didn’t want to accuse him of treason because I missed a bill.
Anyone that refuses to defend America is giving aid and comfort to the enemy.
He has shirked his duties so far, why would I think he is turning over a new leaf in the twylight of his years?
In the Constitution you and Paul like to point at, the PRIMARY duty of the Federal government is to provide for the common defence. Providing for the general welfare is SECOND. If you are going to throw around the Constitution, throw the whole thing, not just the parts you cherry pick.
Whoopsie, I over-posted. I apologise.
@65 maineman: HHS has also issued -thousands- of exemptions from ObamaCare to McDonalds, restaurants in Pelosi’s district, etc., so this -is- a deliberate poke in the eye to Catholics, evangelicals, etc. Many of these organizations got sucked into supporting the passage of ObamaCare so they have only themselves to blame. Rubes, as the Blog Prof would say.
“The difference today is we know a lot more about the threat of global warming than we did two decades ago.”
Yeah, we know it’s a bunch of bullcookies.
@74. Wretchard, I heard on a program the other day *I think it was on NPR where they were pushing the agenda of “population control” in the Philippines. Seems that the govt is having a hard time of getting rice from the warehouses to the people who live in poverty. This program talked to a mother of 10 children who would have had 12 but for dengue fever and cholera taking two of them. She was a scavenger living in the slums surrounding the trash mountain.
I thought to myself, how in the world do you let that happen to yourself. Not the scavenging because that is honest work, but the 10 children? Yes, she is Catholic. But does she not have control over herself? What sort of pressure can cause a person to make an obviously poor choice to have children she cannot feed. I could not understand it. Still do not understand it.
Anyway the villain in the piece was the Cardinal of the Church who stated flatly that anyone who tried to force birth control or abortion upon his flock would be “buried”. I understand his position based upon church doctrine, but why would the people not see this is untenable and press for the church to do what is best for the people by helping them rise out of poverty. The church could finance recycling and recovery industries so that the value added material would raise those people out of poverty and break the cycle.
Help me understand.
#4
For those of you who expressed interest in my post at 65, it’s important to be clear that this is much, much more than a finger in the eye of one church or belief system. This is the the imposition of the state religion on everyone.
The problem the Catholics have is they’ve been consistent in opposing birth control (i.e. freedom to act out sexually) and infanticide. That cannot be tolerated, so the church gets targeted for punishment – not to mention that the government conveniently gets to increase its hold on the delivery of services.
This means that we will all eventually be targeted, assuming this keeps up, for straying from the dogma. That’s why Soros is trying to get the weatherpeople to spew AGW to the masses.
The plan has to be to begin punishing those who do not comply with the new church in any respect. It always has been.
Don Rodrigo #62:
Previous NOAA weather spacecraft (e.g., ATN or Advanced TIROS NOAA, which I used to launch) showed significantly less global warming than the ground stations did. Of course, it latter turned out the ground stations had employed some rather questionable practices, such as being located in areas that were once rural but were now built up, or next to air conditioner exhausts. But even in the mid-90′s the AGW people were saying “We have to do something about that satellite data!”
So either they fixed that problem or perhaps they “fixed” it.
@79 – “why would the people not see this is untenable?”
Misery with children is preferable to misery without them; besides, it’s good to have someone who can scrounge for you in your dotage. This is written in all seriousness, it is not meant to be humorous, sarcastic or cynical.
On the multiplicity of children in the Philippines.
Point 1, birth control devices are available everywhere for cheap. Condoms can be had from street vendors, drugstores, grocery stores, etc without prescription or question.
Point 2, religion has less to do with it than culture. Filipinos are “Catholic” but they are selective in their observance. The Church exhorts them to chastity and monogamy. Good luck with that. The average poor man has multiple “partners”. Marriage means nothing to the poor. It means nothing to the rich. It means something to middle class. But the middle class are hardly the problem.
For example, President Joseph Estrada had so many “wives” he would occasionally run into one and honestly say, “do I know you?” During his inauguration, he had to charter several buses to bring in his kids. Relatively impecunious men like a certain movie actor whose initials are LS had more than a hundred children. Another more recent actor with the initials RP converted to Islam principally so he could have more wives. Nur Misuari, or Muslim rebel fame, married his Muslim quota, I think, including someone 40 years younger than himself.
The poor are no better. They have kids everywhere without any intention whatsoever to support them. “I left her with a souveneir,” the saying goes. I remember listening, on the ferry to Mindoro, to a pork crackling vendor regale passengers with stories celebrating his 8 or 9 “wives”, while the audience nodded in frank admiration at his abilities.
In reality, Philippine Christianity is a syncretic addition onto the Malay past. Successful men are almost expected to have multiple families, as did the Datus of old. In fact, if you don’t have many wives at a certain social level you are suspected of being gay or worse, of having gone foreign.
Not to have the “anak sa labas” or child out of wedlock when the means of evading or paying for your pecadillos is available is downright un-Filipino. One of my acquaintainces was the former “number two” of a certain high ranking Communist official now living in Europe, who recently made news for being photographed dancing with a starlet even when he was old enough to be a senior citizen.
This may have something to do with Christ or Christianity or even the church, but I assure you, the connection is tenuous. Clergymen in the Philippines have a reputation, not for being gay or pedophiles, but being ladies’ men. In fact, one of the classic characters from the novel “Noli Me Tangere” by Jose Rizal is the personage of Father Damaso, a friar, whose children among the flock are more than one would have expected of a man of the cloth.
The economic impetus to have children is to provide an extended family upon whom you can rely on for social security. It really is like US social security, except that it is administered on a private basis, with the paterfamilias relying on his numerous brood for support.
The smarter women have resorted to polyandry. One of the classic mail order bride statements is “the bride will entertain applications from caucasians only”. In other words, Filipinos need not apply, for their ways are too well known to the ladies to hold any attractions.
The Filipino middle class are the only segment of society I know of who actually take their monogamy seriously. And very often these people emigrate to get away from the whole mess and thereby remove themselves from the gene pool anyway.
The only export worth a damn from the Philippines is people. Over 11% of the population (and probably 25% of the trained workforce) is abroad sending home money, which the government gladly takes its cut from. The Philippines may one day well make history as the only nation on earth without an internal economy. When the cruise ship Costa Concordia went down, someone noted that 300 of the crew of 1,000 were Filipinos. And the passengers testified that it was the waiters and cabin boys — in other words the Filipinos — who led them to safety.
This illustrates both the good and bad aspects of Filipino culture. They can’t build a society worth a damn, but as individuals they learn so many survival skills as to be practically inexterminable. The Filipinos on the cruise ship, by wink and nod, communicated to each other it was time get out of Dodge long before it became apparent to the more conventional sorts of people. Whether working in Afghanistan or out of a container in Saudi Arabia, or driving tanks to the front on contracted trucks during Desert Storm, it is, anything goes. In other words, “bahala na”.
One news story I remember was how US Marines on scheduled maneuvers with Filipino troops found themselves dogged by vendors selling them cokes and cigarettes. Nothing could be done to shoo them off. It’s an old story, if you look at World War 2 photos of fighting in the Cordilleras against Yamashita, you will find pictures of Igorot women carting around 30 canteens full of water to the front lines; willing no doubt to brave Nambu machine gun fire for a few bucks.
I wouldn’t try to understand Filipinos as a people. There’s enough good in them to make their sufferings a tragedy, but there’s enough dysfunction in them to make it nearly impossible to do anything about it. Yet if I were to bet, I would say that long after the Philippine archipelago has sunk into the sea there will be colonies of these fascinating yet exasperating people keeping the culture alive in every nation on the planet.
Environmentalism is a rich man’s game. Poor people simply can’t afford it. If you have any doubts go to someplace where poverty is the norm and look around. Try most any third world country (personal experience). Try Detroit, I’m told. Actually, parts of Detroit are reverting to the wild, so maybe, in this case, poverty could be good for the environment – if not for the people.
I think Idiot Negin has misspelled his name.
Thank you Wretchard for that reflection on the Filipino people. And ConfederateH, you may have reached your four for this thread, but I’d like to know how an American citizen gets a green card in Switzerland. Maybe you should collaborate with Simon Black aka Sovereign Man on that one. He’s worth a Google. Especially Americans not yet up to speed in French, Italian or German. Maybe they need a few more Russian speakers in the Swiss banking industry?
“We were after Waste 1 (long fiber paper), Waste 2 (newsprint of certain types), glass, cans, copper wire, metal of all sorts, etc. Now most people considered scavenging a social disease; especially the do-gooders. They were unsightly, humiliating to the self-image of the government and generally considered a blot on the landscape.” And Wretchard, not sure if you’ve visited the U.S. lately, but seems like every city with a large Mexican immigrant population has its roving junk collector pick up fleet expanding, not contracting what with metals prices these days. Of course, I recently talked to a Chinese lady who said someone stole her gutters. Yes, somehow stripped and took em’ all. I told her to watch out for the junk collectors who might have hacksaws.
86. Viktor (Not That Victor)
Thank you Wretchard for that reflection on the Filipino people. And ConfederateH, you may have reached your four for this thread, but I’d like to know how an American citizen gets a green card in Switzerland.
………..
Don’t both of you guys work out of the same office?
Our jolly local environmentalists often thrill to the idea of massive species extinctions caused by humans. Russell Train, one time head of the World Wildlife Fund has declared that owing to species loss “the future of the world could be altered drastically”.
So how many species are there in the world and how many are going extinct?
Well, we don’t know how many species there are. Here are some estimates:
1758 Linnaeus 9,000 species
1987 Peter Raven 2,200,000
1987 Paul Ehrlich 4,000,000
1994 Paul Ehrlich 100,000,000
1995 Actually catalogued species 1,400,000
Seems to be some uncertainty here. Paul Ehrlich wouldn’t win a “how many beans in the jar” contest.
How many are going extinct each year? Here are some estimates:
1979 N. Myers 100 species per year
1980 “Global 2000″ 274 species per day between 1980 and 2000 (100,000 per year)
1995 N. Myers 30,000 species per year
1995 E.O. Wilson 137 species per day (50,000 per year)
Oops, more uncertainty, particularly by N. Myers.
Some species naturally go extinct without help from humans. How many? – no one really knows.
Niles Eldridge in “Life in the Balance” (1998) listed a total of 489 species thought to have become extinct since about 1600 AD. Yes that’s right, only 489 over a 400 year period. This list included corals. molluscs, crustaceans, insects, fishes, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals. According to Niles, about 200 of these total extinctions were caused or contributed to by human interference.
This translates into a total extinction rate of 1.2 species per year from around 1600AD to around 2000 AD. If humans contributed to 200 of these extinctions then the natural rate of extinction would be 0.7 species per year and 0.5 species per year went extinct due to humans. Looks like mother nature kills off slightly more species per year than humans.
Now according to E.O. Wilson’s estimate of 137 species per day going extinct, one million species should have gone extinct globally between 1980 and 2000. The U.S. has about about 6% of the world’s land mass. Pro-rating Wilsons global forecast, about 60,000 species should have gone extinct in the U.S. between 1980 and 2000.
The reality is that of the 67 endangered species listed in the 1973 U.S. Endangered Species Act only seven species had gone extinct by the mid 1990′s. That’s about 0.3 species per year – less than Niles’ estimate of the natural extinction rate.
Where were the missing 100,000 annual extinctions of “Global 2000″, or the missing 50,000 annual species extinctions of E.O. Wilson? The species corpses should be piled high. Why can’t we find them? Did George Bush bury them on his ranch?
I don’t have extinction numbers updated to include the past 20 years but the next time you hear some environmentalist, or the MSM thrilling to the vision of a dreadful people-caused species massacre, just put another steak on the barbecue.
Under mother nature’s regime species come and species go. Either because they are new, or because the species catalogue is not yet complete – new species are being found each year.
Comment#4
129. Fletcher Christian
from the last thread.
The meaning of the big continental sized talk about oil fracking for a place like Singapore–is that the Chinese within the next couple years will get hold of this technology. Their oil/gas reserves on the mainland that are accessible to fracking — are said to be even greater than the reserves of the USA. This means that in a decade or two the Chinese have a shot at being energy independent.
This is just as huge for them as oil independence is for the USA.
That also means that they don’t really need to grab the oil reserves under the south china sea. In the end, it may well be cheaper to frack the oil & gas onshore.
The rationale for the Chinese military expansion has been limited resources. But what the USA is doing by being inventive–is undermining the rationale of the Chinese military.
This is as it should be. The great danger to Asia is that China will go the way of Japanese after their great industrial revolution late in 19th century–ie the Imperial Japanese Army & Navy took over. The worry is that the Chinese military will take over there–especially if they get any successes in the south china sea as the IJN did in north east asia.
Now the USA is both contesting Chinese claims to the South China Sea and providing them the means to become energy independent. By doing this huge huge thing for the Chinese–the USA in effect renders the Chinese military into a vanity organization. They don’t bring home the bacon.
This change in energy dynamics in conjunction with the results of the Hawaii conference a couple months back position the countries of south east asia to deal with China from a position of strength. (for now)
Think there’s the makings of a deal there?
Obama remarks on oil and natural gas were about as I expected–with one exception. He agreed to more offshore oil drilling. But he didn’t say where or how much. Lots of fuzzy stuff there.
He said nice things about the big revolution in natural gas. But not enough for his words to mean much of anything operationally. (but his words make cause the EPA to lessen their heat on the frackers.)
ss @ 88: Now according to E.O. Wilson’s estimate of 137 species per day going extinct…
Well, strictly speaking, biologists are a little bit leary of the idea of species at all these days. A cubic centimeter of garden dirt probably has millions of bacterial “species” today, 99% of which have never been cataloged. Worse, if you check it tomorrow, it will have lost 1% and gained a new 1%. Most of these are small variations, but where do you draw the line? Getting slightly larger, estimates are we have only cataloged half (or a quarter or 90%, your guess is as good as theirs) of existing insects. You can easily discover a new species in your back yard, and name it after your mother in law.
As the animals get larger the counts get smaller, but the issues are the same. If you cataloged all the house-cat looking things in the world genetically, you might find a couple of outliers who would qualify as new species and all alone or nearly so, not to mention the steady stream of new species recognized at dog shows, and those are all human-created.
I think I posted something here from New Scientist the other day on “tiny frogs” being discovered, much smaller than a dime. Again, such species probably come and go on a very quick basis, a few years, maybe faster.
So your point (I suppose) that environmentalists trying to save all are misguided, is very true.
And yet, without strenuous efforts, we’d lose all the big predators in the world in the wild within a couple of years. They have nowhere to hide from humans with guns, who will take them for sport (or fur) if not to protect herds of goats. But as we burn down the wild to make more room for goats, cows, wheat, corn, cocaine and poppies, and housing, it doesn’t even take guns. Again, except for the “raised consciousness” and focused efforts, it would all have been over for many large, familiar animals, decades ago. Preserving parklands is a good-hearted project, and economic too if it attracts eco-tourists. It may fail in the long term, I don’t know.
OTOH I only WISH we could shoot coyotes in Los Angeles when they walk down residential streets miles from wilderness, looking especially for cats, stealing small dogs on the leash, and threatening small children – but no, it is not allowed citizens, and rarely approved for animal control to trap or shoot them. And as a species they are nothing like threatened.
And finally, at the far end, we are still trying to learn the minimal ecology it takes to sustain a human – in space, on the moon, a closed cycle we can export. For that matter, we are individually an ecology of biological species, germs, symbiotes and commensals we have barely cataloged and do not understand. Take an antibiotic, kill your gut bacteria, suffer indigestion (diarrhia), nutritional problems, immune problems, we barely know.
A lot to learn. The screaming mimis trying to save the snail darter or holding up a shopping center because of an owl or butterfly (I’m pretty sure I’ve seen supposedly VERY range-limited blue-winged butterflies where they are not supposed to be, which might free up some beach property in Los Angeles if reported and verified, …. but I never followed up!), are generally misguided, as you suggest. But on a larger scale, the project itself is still very important and barely even begun.
A certain species of bird in San Diego held up a much needed East-West highway project for over 10 years. The bird was rare, extremely rare! After much gnashing of teeth and the expenditure of 10s of millions of dollars along with the advent of new technology, it was found that the bird was identically genetically in everyway as a ‘similar’ species in Mexico that was abundant in the millions. It turns out the bird didn’t realize it was Mexican and that it had violated the United States border as an illegal alien.
Some people just make money gumming up the works and charging ‘protection’ from frivolous lawsuits.
The problem isn’t that everyone is running around trying to kill off wildlife. The problem is that there is an industry populated with people who profit from scientifically questionable data and legal brigandry. They are setting astride intelligent progress and strangling it to death while forcing everyone to praise them. It reminds me of Saddam charging the family of the executed for the bullet and demand that they kiss his hand.
The bird was rare, extremely rare! After much gnashing of teeth and the expenditure of 10s of millions of dollars along with the advent of new technology, it was found that the bird was identically genetically in everyway as a ‘similar’ species in Mexico that was abundant in the millions
The “Northern” Spotted Owl is just the Spotted Owl in a more northerly location. Like all the other spotted owls, they don’t necessarily need old growth trees for nesting.
The original Gaia Hypothesis posited that Earth and nature had “self-correcting” mechanisms at all levels — which would include anything from the adaptability of animal species to absorbing “excess” CO2. The current crop of Gaia worshippers act as if she’s in constant need of human maintenance and hand-holding.
“The current crop of Gaia worshippers act as if she’s in constant need of human maintenance and hand-holding.”
Yes, species wont mate unless someone reaches in there and gives them a hand.
Fact Checking President Obama’s Claims About Domestic Energy Production
http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/2012/01/20/fact-checking-president-obamas-claims-about-domestic-energy-production/
W/83—
Enjoyed reading this piece on the ”multiplicity of children” but one thing I didn’t quite get is, What’s in it for the women?
Given the availability of contraception, why go along with some guy who’s impregnating multiple women? A simple desire to have kids? The man helps out with the bills?
You mentioned the ”smarter women” and polyandry but what about the usual women? Clearly they’re an equal part of the deal but I can’t quite see how they make out in all this, being left to raise the kids—old age security, as you mentioned?
The earlier piece on the forests was also enlightening but not surprising—it’s the same deal everywhere. I forwarded that to a friend who tends to see such things differently.
Here’s what I’m trying to figure out. The new electric cars run north of $40K. There’s a $7.5K subsidy for buyers paid for out of my tax money, which means the buyer has to – and can – come up with $32.5K for a car. I’ve never spent more than $18K for a car in my life. Why then am I subsidizing through my taxes the purchase of a car by someone who can afford to spend nearly twice as much as I can for one?
Viktor @ 86:
According to my village, the local trash collector that they have contracted to charges at least $25 to pick up things like a refrigerator, stove, etc., and I have to call them ahead of time to arrange it.
I did that once. Now I just take the thing out to the curb. Two Mexicans in a truck will pick that sucker up and not charge me a dime. These guys don’t touch stuff that you put in a recycling bin, but if you have something sizable and it’s made of metal they’ll grab it. Good for them! It’s an honest dollar, they’re working hard for it and it saves me money to boot.
Josh @ 91 said:
“I only WISH we could shoot coyotes in Los Angeles when they walk down residential streets miles from wilderness, looking especially for cats, stealing small dogs on the leash, and threatening small children – but no, it is not allowed citizens, and rarely approved for animal control to trap or shoot them. And as a species they are nothing like threatened.”
I almost lost a cat to a coyote (one of my cat’s hind legs was badly chewed up). Coyotes are vermin and should be fair game to anyone with a 22 rifle. Wolves and mountain lions are protected in California. These are certainly beautiful animals and should be protected within parks and nature reserves (along with coyotes). However these larger predators outside the parks are a threat to public safety. IMHO, the life of one child is worth more than all the wolves in the world. Again, if a wolf, bear or mountain lion is seen outside of a park or nature reserve, they should be fair game to anyone with a rifle. I should emphasize that I have no objection to fencing off large tracts of land as nature reserves and setting the land aside as complete functioning ecosystems that preserve endangered species. Important point here is the land needs to be properly managed to protect against forest fires, invasive species, etc. Camping and hunting on these nature reserves should be allowed only if it does not interfere with the primary function of preserving ecosystems.
On the subject of wilderness preservation, the real “elephant in the room” beyond the nonsense that Eliot Negin was barking about is the state of the world’s oceans. The oceans really are the “lungs of the world” and represent a significant fraction of the world’s biomass (most?). I have a sneaking suspicion that the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide is not due to human industrial activity but rather due to abuse of the ocean’s ecology. Over-fishing is a huge problem and entire oceanic ecosystems have collapsed due to it. Damage to coral reefs is a widely recognized problem. I’ve witnessed the damage to the ocean’s ecology with my own eyes. When I was a child, shellfish like abalone were abundant in California’s tidal pools. Now they’re almost gone from the tidal pools and can only be found in the deeper ocean (you have to wear a wet suit and use a snorkel if you want to find abalone).
@Wretchard, please excuse the following violation of the 4 post guideline…
@87. Charles
“Don’t both of you guys work out of the same office?”
Just because some people agree with Ron Paul that the Democrat and Republican tag team assault on the constitution and America’s liberties is a far graver threat than suicidal losers strapping on bombs under their burkas on the other side of the planet doesn’t mean that we “work out of the same office”.
@86. Viktor (Not That Victor)
“I’d like to know how an American citizen gets a green card in Switzerland.”
I would love to tell you my story Viktor, but I am afraid to do it. Just like I am afraid of things I write in my emails, I am afraid of online banking transactions, afraid of caches, cookies, even phone calls. I am afraid of the government, mafia, hackers and who knows what. It harkens back to the days of Czar Nicolas, only it is so much worse.
And a hat tip to RT. Very biased but so refreshing compared to the US Media, the new perspective is great. The guests, Keizer, Alyona and Capital Account are all a great improvement to CNN etc.
The NRG company mentioned by Wretchard had been leading the renewal of nuclear power in the US and had submitted the first new application for a nuke in decades.
However, you can’t finance a new nuke in the US without assurance from the government that it won’t pull the plug on the license. That was the purpose of the federal loan guarantee program for nukes.
NRG saw the way the political winds were blowing when the Obama Administration insisted on a $1 billion insurance cash premium for a $7 billion guarantee.
NRG then withdrew from its nuclear project in Texas. A month or two later, NRG suddenly bought the California solar project mentioned, the one with almost the entire capital cost subsidies by the government. Operational subsidies would follow, making it an almost risk-free, high return investment.
Not saying this was a quid pro quo but the timing and terms are VERY thought-provoking.