HOT AIR
Not since 1984, when Environmental Protection Agency agent Walter Peck shut down the high voltage laser collection system at the Ghostbusters headquarters in downtown New York City have we seen such idiocy from the EPA.
Me on the Watchdog on Wall Street Radio Show December 12, 2009
The Environmental Protection Agency has ruled in an endangerment finding that Carbon Dioxide (greenhouse gases) is a danger to public health and welfare. This will allow the EPA to set new emission standards for automobiles and force power plants, oil refineries, factories etc. to limit their output of carbon dioxide. EPA head Lisa Jackson stated, “These long overdue findings cement 2009’s place in history as the year when the U.S. government began addressing the challenge of greenhouse-gas pollution and seizing the opportunity of clean-energy reform.”
Quick question…
What do plants absorb in order to create energy via photosynthesis?
Answer: This is stuff I learned back in 6th grade science class. Plants use light energy to supply the energy needs for its cells. It also needs a few other ingredients as well. Anyone remember the equation…
6CO2+6H2O + Energy—C6 H12 O6 +6O2
How do you like them apples? A necessary ingredient in plant life, and therefore, all life, was just declared a pollutant by the EPA.
Pandora’s Box
In Greek mythology, Pandora was the first woman on earth. Zeus ordered Hephaestus, the god of craftsmanship, to create her which he proceeded to do so using water and earth. In an example of how the more things change the more they stay the same; Pandora the first woman was endowed with various talents. Aphrodite gave her beauty, which goes hand in hand with Hermes gift of persuasion. The name Pandora means, “all-gifted.”
When Prometheus made the mistake of stealing fire from heaven, Zeus decided to take his vengeance by giving Pandora to Prometheus brother Epimetheus. Pandora however, came with some baggage; actually a jar. (I know it’s called Pandora’s Box but the translation states it was a jar.) This jar was NOT TO BE OPENED UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE! Unfortunately Pandora was also gifted with curiosity and it got the best of her and she opened the jar. The jar contained everything evil, bad and nasty which escaped and spread over the whole earth and forever changed the world.
Lisa Jackson just opened up her own Pandora’s Box, this version will bring mayhem on business and the consumer throughout the United States. Our own version of Zeus, President Barack Obama, knows that cap and trade is non-starter as far legislation is concerned in Congress and he is not going to let that stop him. The White House stated to Major Garrett of Fox News that the EPA is set to take “command-and-control” of the U.S. economy if the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade anti-global warming energy bill isn’t
approved on Capitol Hill.
“If you don’t pass this legislation then the EPA is going to have to regulate in this area. And it is not going to be able to regulate on a market-based way, so it’s going to have to regulate in a command-and-control way, which will probably generate even more uncertainty.”
The almighty Zeus has spoken! Pass the bill or he will curse your economy!
We have often compared the fervor over global warming to a cult-like movement. Bret Stephens of the Wall Street Journal does a great job showing the intellectual similarities between the global warming movement and totalitarianism.
Revolutionary fervor
There’s a distinct tendency among climate alarmists toward uncompromising radicalism, a hatred of “bourgeois” values, a disgust with democratic practices. So President Obama wants to cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 83% from current levels by 2050, levels not seen since the 1870s—in effect, the Industrial Revolution in reverse. Rajendra Pachauri, head of the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, insists that “our lifestyles are unsustainable.” Al Gore gets crowds going by insisting that “civil disobedience has a role to play” in strong-arming governments to do his bidding. (This from the man who once sought to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution.)
Utopianism
In the world as it is, climate alarmists see humanity hurtling toward certain doom. In the world as it might be, humanity has seen the light and changed its patterns of behavior, becoming the green equivalent of the Soviet “new man.” At his disposal are technologies that defy the laws of thermodynamics. The problems now attributed to global warming abate or disappear.
Anti-humanism: In his 2007 best seller “The World Without Us,” environmentalist Alan Weisman considers what the planet would be like without mankind, and finds it’s no bad thing. The U.N. Population Fund complains in a recent report that “no human is genuinely ‘carbon neutral'”—its latest argument against children. John Holdren, President Obama’s science adviser, cut his teeth in the policy world as an overpopulation obsessive worried about global cooling. But whether warming or cooling, the problem for the climate alarmists, as for other totalitarians, always seems to boil down to the human race itself.
Intolerance
Why did the scientists at the heart of Climategate go to such lengths to hide or massage the data if truth needs no defense? Why launch campaigns of obstruction and vilification against gadfly Canadian researchers Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick if they were such intellectual laughingstocks? It is the unvarying habit of the totalitarian mind to treat any manner of disagreement as prima facie evidence of bad faith and treason.
Monocausalism
For the anti-Semite, the problems of the world can invariably be ascribed to the Jews; for the Communist, to the capitalists. And as the list above suggests, global warming has become the fill-in-the-blank explanation for whatever happens to be the problem.
Indifference to evidence
Climate alarmists have become brilliantly adept at changing their terms to suit their convenience. So it’s “global warming” when there’s a heat wave, but it’s “climate change” when there’s a cold snap. The earth has registered no discernable warming in the past 10 years: Very well then, they say, natural variability must be the cause. But as for the warming that did occur in the 1980s and 1990s, that plainly was evidence of man-made warming. Am I missing something here?
Grandiosity
In “SuperFreakonomics,” Steve Levitt and Stephen Dubner give favorable treatment to an idea to cool the earth by pumping sulfur dioxide into the upper atmosphere, something that could be done cheaply and quickly. Maybe it would work, or maybe it wouldn’t. But one suspects that the main reason the chapter was the subject of hysterical criticism is that it didn’t propose to deal with global warming by re-engineering the world economy. The penchant for monumentalism is yet another constant feature of the totalitarian mind.
Some other global warming stories, involving myths, diversions and bull-excrement…
Sign In Blood
The London Times reported that the Met Office, (Britain’s National Weather Service) “has embarked on an urgent exercise to bolster the reputation of climate-change science.” This is a revelation of widespread corruption and misconduct by climate scientists world-wide.
More than 1,700 scientists have agreed to sign a statement defending the “professional integrity of global warming research. They were responding to a round-robin request from the Met Office which has spent four days collecting signatures. One scientist told The Times he felt under pressure to sign. “The Met Office is a major employer of scientists and has long had a policy of only appointing and working with those who subscribe to their views on man-made global warming.”
More stuff I learned in 6th grade science class…The Scientific Method.
1. Observation and description of a phenomenon or group of phenomena.
2. Formulation of an hypothesis to explain the phenomena.
3. Use of the hypothesis to predict the existence of other phenomena or predict quantitatively the results of new observations.
4. Performance of experimental tests of the predictions by several independent experiments and properly performed experiments.
If the experiments bear out the hypothesis it may come to be regarded as a theory or law of nature. If the experiments DO NOT BEAR OUT THE HYPOTHESIS, IT MUST BE REJECTED OR MODIFIED.
Could be me…Call me crazy…But one could discern, that taking a loyalty oath to obey a hypothesis, might be a tad bit problematic if your goal is to conduct good sound science. Getting a government grant is a different story entirely.
Solar Cell Stimulus
I live in an official Green House. The state of Florida has given my home its official seal of approval. Why wouldn’t I want to live in a house that has proper insulation, windows (etc.) if it will save me money. It drives me crazy that the media portrays individuals of conservative persuasion as polluters and destroyers of the environment; or that the byproduct of capitalism is always pollution. Come up with an energy source that is more efficient and cleaner than what is available and I am game.
However forcing inefficient unproven nonsense on the market that would never survive without taxpayer subsidies results in debacles such as fluorescent bulbs laden with mercury; whereas LED technology is vastly superior; and the ridiculously inefficient, Gulf of Mexico polluting, ethanol nonsense. (Taxpayers forked over $1.95 a gallon in ethanol subsidies in 2008 on top of the retail gasoline price.)
I have been doing some research into some new green-technologies I might add to my home that would save me on my energy bill. One that looks promising is this new insulation that would pay for itself in about two and half years. The most amazing piece of technology I encountered was roof-top solar panels. Not because of their efficiency or how much money they would save me, rather the opposite. The solar salesman called me up and told me that he Google-Earthed my house and there would be plenty of room for the panels. Based upon their analysis they stated that the system would save me around $100 a month. “Not bad,” I thought, “that is about 20-25% of my monthly bill.” I then asked him what the damage would be. His answer…$35,000! I almost fell out of my seat. Being as polite as possible I asked him why anyone would purchase an energy savings device that will pay for itself in thirty years. He then told me there were great tax rebates and incentives to purchase the system. I told him I was well aware of the federal government tax breaks and that would only bring the time frame for recapturing my investment down to twenty-five years. He then told me another rebate that would take another $20,000 of my cost. That caught my attention…
Solar Man: “The State of Florida will cut you a check for $20,000 if you put this in.”
Chris: “No way. Where is the state getting the money from and why?”
Solar Man: “It’s part of the stimulus package.”
A simultaneous wave of anger and nausea hits me like a brick.
Chris: “Let me get this straight…Obama borrows tons of money from China. Obama then sends borrowed money to RINO Governor Charlie Crist. The State of Florida is in a fiscal crisis like many other states in the union. The administration then forces the State of Florida to waste enormous amounts of borrowed money on inefficient green nonsense that ultimately will work its way to some stupid Al Gore backed green solar company with great Washington D.C. lobbyists.
The sad reality is that my children and grandchildren will be paying for this crap.
How does anyone look themselves in the mirror and take this money?”
Solar Man: “I agree.”
While we are the subject of borrowing money, flushing it down the toilet and making our children and grandchildren pay it back; Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced at the Copenhagen Summit that the United States will spend $100 billion in additional funds to be sent to developing countries in the name of “climate change.”
Despots, dictators and Swiss bankers rejoice!
More money is on the way.
We are going to continue to cover this grand scheme to tax people and enrich government favored companies and Wall Street as long as issue is alive. Stay tuned!
Sources:
Horner Christopher U.S. Commits Unprecedented Billions, Worse to Follow Big Government 12/17/09
Taranto James I Pledge Allegiance to Global Warming The Wall Street Journal 12/10/09
Bright E. Wilson An Introduction to Scientific Research McGraw-Hill 1952
Ball Jeffrey, Forelle Charles, Talley Ian EPA Calls Greenhouse Gases a Public Threat The Wall Street Journal 12/7/09
Tapscott Mark Obama to Congress: Pass cap-and-trade, or EPA breaks the economy’s knees The Examiner 12/09/09
Stephens Bret The Totalities of Copenhagen The Wall Street Journal 12/7/09
Talley Ian EPA Declares Greenhouse Gases a Danger The Wall Street Journal 12/8/09
