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Global Warming Archive

Sunday

22

November 2009

0

COMMENTS

We're All Gonna Die! Pt. 27

Written by , Posted in Energy and the Environment

We’re all gonna die a little bit inside once the women turn to prostitution:

The effects of climate change have driven women in communities in coastal areas in poor countries like the Philippines into dangerous work, and sometimes even the flesh trade, a United Nations official said.

Suneeta Mukherjee, country representative of the United Nations Food Population Fund (UNFPA), said women in the Philippines are the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change in the country.

“Climate change could reduce income from farming and fishing, possibly driving some women into sex work and thereby increase HIV infection,” Mukherjee said during the Wednesday launch of the UNFPA annual State of World Population Report in Pasay City.

Then we’ll all die from AIDS.

Hat-tip: Stop The ACLU

Saturday

21

November 2009

2

COMMENTS

Climategate: Global Warming Conspiracy Exposed

Written by , Posted in Energy and the Environment

This is a major scientific scandal. A hacker breached the network of a government-funded, so-called “leading Climate Research Unit” in Britain, and the resulting email exposure has given the global warming community a collective black eye.  The emails demonstrate a clear pattern of data manipulation, organized resistance and obstruction to disclosure, and private admissions to publicly denied faults in the research.

The New York Times naturally couldn’t resist a little spin and damage control:

The evidence pointing to a growing human contribution to global warming is so widely accepted that the hacked material is unlikely to erode the overall argument. However, the documents will undoubtedly raise questions about the quality of research on some specific questions and the actions of some scientists.

Ridiculous.  The evidence has been so thoroughly discredited and dunked that it is unconscionable for a major media organ, even one as biased as the New York Times, to engage in this level of spin.  But while the media doesn’t get it, the public increasingly does.

Opinion polls show faith in AGW continues to be the minority position.  Meanwhile, Al Gore is facing an increasingly emboldened public backlash for both his views and his hypocrisy.

Sunday

15

November 2009

0

COMMENTS

We're All Gonna Die! Pt. 25

Written by , Posted in Energy and the Environment

And by “we,” I mean the turtles:

This resort town was long known for Leatherback Sea Turtle National Park, nightly turtle beach tours and even a sea turtle museum. So Kaja Michelson, a Swedish tourist, arrived with high expectations. “Of course we’re hoping to see turtles — that is part of the appeal,” she said.

But haphazard development, in tandem with warmer temperatures and rising seas that many scientists link to global warming, have vastly diminished the Pacific turtle population.

Only it turns out that warming isn’t really the issue:

Even before scientists found temperatures creeping upward over the past decade, sea turtles were threatened by beach development, drift net fishing and Costa Ricans’ penchant for eating turtle eggs, considered a delicacy here. But climate change may deal the fatal blow to an animal that has dwelled in the Pacific for 150 million years.

So let me get this straight.  You had diminishing turtle populations before any supposed warming, while warming only “may” hurt them.  Yet you run the story as “Turtles Are Casualties of Warming in Costa Rica.” Yep, that sounds like the New York Times to me.

Guess what? Climate changes throughout history.  If one location no longer suits the turtles, they’ll move somewhere else. That’s how nature works.  You cannot take a static snapshot of it and preserve it that way for all time.

Monday

9

November 2009

0

COMMENTS

Recycling Is Out!

Written by , Posted in Energy and the Environment

What’s an environmentalist to do when even the epitome of green living – recycling – can’t be depended upon?

California’s State Agency Buy Recycled Campaign grew out of legislation passed in 1989, when times were simpler. Garbage was the enemy. Almost no one talked about global warming.

Now that the state is a leader in the war against climate change and seeking to shrink its carbon footprint, some say it’s time to adapt and measure the effort’s climate impact.

“You can’t automatically assume recycled content is good,” said Robert Tetz, former manager of the state’s environmentally preferable purchasing program at a conference this spring.

“You have to be careful about the energy and environmental impacts we incur in the process of recycling,” he continued. “When we talk about what’s green, a lot of the 100 percent-recycled paper we’re buying in California is not green.”

You know what’s good at informing people about comparative energy use? Prices.  Any time recycling comes up I tell people the same thing: if it were really efficient to do it, someone (excluding government) would be paying you for it.  While that happens for some commonly recycled items (like aluminum cans), it doesn’t for most.

When local and state governments stepped in to subsidize, and in many cases require, the recycling of goods, it was promoting energy inefficiency.  This should have been obvious by the very fact that the state felt a need to force the behavior in the first place.

Wednesday

28

October 2009

0

COMMENTS

Not All Businesses Cowing To Administration Bullying

Written by , Posted in Energy and the Environment

Bullying is a favored tactic of this administration.  They’ve set their sights on insurance, pharmaceuticals, and energy, among many others. Don Blankenship of Massey Energy is not intimidated:

The reality, which many Americans may not realize, is that CEOs, presidents and shareholders of publicly traded companies fear that if they are clear in expressing their opinions in opposition to legislation like cap-and-trade, the government of the United States of America will exercise “extra scrutiny” in its regulation of their companies. Certainly, domestic energy companies like Massey can’t withstand much extra scrutiny or retaliatory regulation from the government.

However, the truth is the truth and lies are lies. Neither politicians nor government nor the media can change that. In Spain, an economics professor calculates that green jobs schemes have destroyed more than 110,000 jobs in that country, or 2.2 jobs destroyed for every one created. The CEO of the world’s largest renewable energy company, Eon, is warning the EU that further cuts to CO2 emissions will only raise the cost of energy, putting the region at a competitive disadvantage and driving production overseas.

The truth about global warming alarmists in the business community who say Congress must pass laws immediately to stop the planet from warming is that they are driven more by pursuit of profit than pursuit of science and real atmospheric temperatures. These companies lie for profit and at the expense of American families’ budgets, American’s homeland security, and the quality of the world’s air and water.

You see, they know cap-and-trade will hurt the American economy. That it will cost American jobs. That it will increase our dependency on foreign energy. And yes, they know that it will increase global pollution by moving production to unregulated countries like China. They also know the world is cooling. They know that cap-and-trade won’t lower the earth’s temperature. To those saying otherwise I say simply, “You lie.”

Monday

26

October 2009

0

COMMENTS

We're All Gonna Die! Pt. 24

Written by , Posted in Energy and the Environment

We’re all gonna die…unless we give up meat.

People will need to consider turning vegetarian if the world is to conquer climate change, according to a leading authority on global warming.

In an interview with The Times, Lord Stern of Brentford said: “Meat is a wasteful use of water and creates a lot of greenhouse gases. It puts enormous pressure on the world’s resources. A vegetarian diet is better.”

…Lord Stern, the author of the influential 2006 Stern Review on the cost of tackling global warming, said that a successful deal at the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December would lead to soaring costs for meat and other foods that generate large quantities of greenhouse gases.

Just in case we had forgotten why we revolted and overthrew our “Lords”, Lord Sternly Stupid here set out to remind us.

And isn’t amazing how the recommended changes to “save the planet” always happen to match up perfectly with the leftist lifestyle? That couldn’t possibly be by intent, now could it? Naaaaaw…you silly wingnut denier, it’s for the planet.

Tuesday

20

October 2009

0

COMMENTS

We're All Gonna Die! Pt. 23

Written by , Posted in Energy and the Environment

If we don’t cede our sovereignty at Copenhagen, then Gordon Brown tells us we’re all gonna die:

He added: “If we do not reach a deal at this time, let us be in no doubt: once the damage from unchecked emissions growth is done, no retrospective global agreement in some future period can undo that choice.

“By then it will be irretrievably too late. So we should never allow ourselves to lose sight of the catastrophe we face if present warming trends continue.”

What warming trends? Even the BBC recently discovered that there has been no warming at all for ten years now.  In fact, Washington DC just had its coldest Oct. 16 in 138 years.

Wednesday

26

August 2009

0

COMMENTS

Politicized EPA

Written by , Posted in Energy and the Environment

The Environmental Protection Agency has significant autonomy and regulatory authority.  It is practically a lawmaking body unto itself.  This is problematic, as it is obviously not an elected body.  It’s made worse by the fact that EPA is also heavily politicized.

Dr. Alan Carlin has become a thorn in the side of global warming fanatics by insisting that the EPA look at the actual science behind global warming. It was not good enough, he argued, to accept at face value the reports of political organizations like the United Nations.

Now, the EPA is trying to shut down the office in which Dr. Carlin works.

Monday

6

July 2009

0

COMMENTS

“Just Say No” To “Just Do It”

Written by , Posted in Energy and the Environment, Legislation

I recently sent the following letter to the New York Times:

To the Editor:

Intelligent people like Thomas Friedman shouldn’t encourage their government to behave recklessly (“Just Do It,” Op-ed, July 1st). Despite finding ample reason to criticize the “cap and trade” legislation, he calls for it to be passed anyway. His reasoning is disturbing. We must pass this bad bill because, by golly, the world needs to see that we’re serious.

Don’t we have enough examples of what happens when Congress rushes through major legislation? The Patriot Act had to be revisited and fixed years later, the massive stimulus has not done any stimulating, and no one in Congress knows what’s going on with the TARP funds.

Chicken Littles always demand that government act now and do something – anything. But our legislature, via the deliberative and detached Senate crafted by our Founders, was designed to work much slower, and for good reason. “Just do it” is a fine slogan for a shoe company, but it has no place in politics.

Sincerely,

Brian Garst

Friday

26

June 2009

0

COMMENTS

UN Stumbles Upon Some Truth

Written by , Posted in Energy and the Environment, Free Markets

Coming as a pleasant surprise, the UN reported today that open trade and economic growth helps, rather than hurts, the environment.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, further liberalization of international trade can help combat climate change and support a low carbon economy, said a joint United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and World Trade Organization (WTO) report launched today in Geneva.

The “Trade and Climate Change” report stressed that an increase and opening of trade could have a positive impact on greenhouse gases emissions by accelerating the spread of clean technology and providing opportunities for developing economies to adapt those technologies.

Many of us have always challenged the “conventional wisdom” on economic growth – that it was destructive to the environment.  The reality is quite the opposite, as new technology is almost always cleaner than the old; so the faster new technology is adopted, the better.  If Barack Obama and the Democrats are serious about their goal of thwarting global warming, they should dump trade protectionism and their economically destructive cap and trade bill.