This is a familar set of issues in one article. – Anthony
By INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Thursday, September 25, 2008 4:20 PM PT
Environment: The solar wind is slowing, but Al Gore is still spewing hot air. The Oscar winner is promoting civil disobedience to stop energy and economic growth as the first U.S. emissions cap-and-trade program begins.
Speaking before Bill Clinton’s Global Initiative, junk science advocate Gore called on young people to take the law into their own hands because the climate, he claims, is a-changin’. He told the gathering in New York City that “the world has lost ground to the climate crisis” and the time for action is now.
“If you’re a young person looking at the future of this planet and looking at what is being done right now, and not done, I believe we have reached the stage where it is time for civil disobedience to prevent the construction of new coal plants that do not have carbon capture and sequestration,” Gore said to loud applause.
His comments come two weeks after a British jury acquitted six Greenpeace activists accused of causing property damage at a power plant. The jury felt the “protest” was acceptable because the “protesters” feared the plant would contribute to global warming.
Luddites of the world, unite!
On the same day Gore spoke, scientists involved in NASA’s Ulysses project reported that the intensity of the sun’s solar wind was at its lowest point since the beginning of the space age – one more indication that the sun, the biggest source of energy affecting the Earth, is getting quiet.
The weaker solar wind appears to be due to changes in the sun’s magnetic field, but the cause is unknown. Sunspots, which normally fluctuate in 11-year cycles, are at a virtual standstill. In August, the sun created no visible spots. The last time that happened: June 1913.
The results of the Ulysses spacecraft’s mission, according to Jet Propulsion Laboratory project scientist Ed Smith, show that “we are in a period of minimal activity that has stretched on longer than anyone anticipated.”
The consequences for Earth are enormous. The lack of increased activity could signal the start of what is known as a Maunder Minimum, an event that occurs every couple of centuries and can last as long as a century. It leads to extended periods of severe cooling such as what happened during the Little Ice Age.
It may already be happening. The four major agencies tracking Earth’s temperature, including NASA’s Goddard Institute, report that the Earth cooled 0.7 degree Celsius in 2007, the fastest decline in the age of instrumentation, putting us back to where the Earth was in 1930.
The climate is changing, but not in the direction Al Gore thinks. As the Earth demonstrably cools under a weakening sun, a 10-state coalition on Thursday held the nation’s first carbon allowance auction to deal with a warming trend that may have ended a decade ago.
They will impose a minor league version of the Lieberman-Warner economy-killing cap-and-trade rationing system in which emissions are limited by a progressively lowered cap. Emission permits are auctioned off by government, making it a cap-and-tax system. Permits can be traded or sold between companies like baseball cards.
The Lieberman-Warner bill would mandate emission cuts of 44% below 2007 levels. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that it would cost as much as $3 trillion a year in lost GDP in an economy of roughly $14 trillion. It dwarfs the current financial crisis. But then, it’s for a good cause – right, Al?
The New York-based Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, launched Thursday, strives to freeze CO2 emissions through 2014 and then gradually reduce them to 10% below current levels by 2018. The states participating are Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont.
Like its bigger cousin, it’s a job- and growth-killing plan in a time of economic crisis. As the sun slows and the Earth cools, it’ll mean higher energy prices during colder and snowier winters.
Al Gore’s hippie legions may have to wear their winter coats.
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Once again, come on down to sunny Florida. Housing prices are low, the weather is warm and we play golf year round. If the Earth continues to cool, we don’t need no stinkin’ furnaces! Better hurry, the rush will soon be on.
Cross your feet before shooting. That way, you only need one bullet.
I guess there isn’t an upper limit to stupidity.
It’s a pity we can’t see stories with this orientation on the nightly noise.
Permits can be traded or sold between companies like baseball cards. Sounds like a plan that Al can still get his hands on and make some bucks for himself. Of course when folks are dying from the cold, no one will point any fingers at Lord Gore.
To me, an example of why we should not rush in to change the world without first knowing how the world works first.
Good spot Anthony.
If the warmers are prepared to even break the law now for the “cause” (and there is no resulting punishment for it), …
… what prevents them from distorting the science (which used to result in punishment for the scientist involved but now garners accolades from the other warmers which dominate the field)?
Ignorance is not a disease; we are all born with it; but stupidity has to be taught; and there are plenty of people willing and able to teach it.
Well it looks like a “Perfect Storm” is brewing on the east coast. The financial markets are asking for a nearly three-quarters of a TRILLION dollar taxpayer bail out. Hoodlums are being released after splashing paint on a coal-fired generating plant in Great Britain, thanks in part to the intervention of a “scientist” in US taxpayer employ. Al Gore, getting a taxpayer supported pension is blathering about civil disobedience to stop coal fired generation plant construction here. Cap and trade, and carbon sequestration are still being pushed in our taxpayer paid congress and state legislatures. Several “experiments” to cool the planet are in the planning stages, most supported by taxpayer funded federal grants. The sun is quiet (it’s not on our payroll so it can do what it wants). Oh, yeah, our addition to foreign oil will cause painful withdrawals at the bank, because our taxpayer paid congress has blocked reasonable expansion of domestic energy production.
And no one’s sure what the reality is. This is like driving down the freeway at 65mph with a paper map folded over the steering wheel, trying to find the right exit while talking on the cell phone and writing down directions. Sooner or later the sound of crunching metal and breaking glass will bring the driver back to reality.
It is time to find a safe place to pull off, stop the car and get our bearings, then proceed with some sense of where our destination is.
Many of the comments on this blog are from folks who admit they don’t know, even though they have a pet theory. There is nothing wrong with that. “I don’t know but let’s find out.” is an excellent place to start. It’s the people who are so cock sure they have the truth who scare me.
“I feel much better now, Dave.” (HAL9000 computer in “2001”)
Mike
Encouraging law-breaking used to be a crime itself. I hope, like Thoreau, these civil disobeyers are willing to do the time for their beliefs. And their pied pipers, too.
Perhaps the silver, or is it now tin, lining to the cloud of economic crisis will limit the fiscal waste on Gorisms.
“the world has lost ground to the climate crisis”
That pesky sun, always throwing a monkey wrench into our crisises (crisi?)! Gore is trying to make up for it in hot air, apparently. I just wish he’d start resorting to vandalism himself so they can put him where he belongs….
I’ll be throwing extra carbon filled logs onto the fire this week end to do my part.
We are breaking record lows in central Florida.
To avoid anyone approaching their upper limit on stupidity, I’ll be glad to sell them stupidity credits so they can increase their upper limit of stupidity.
Speaking of Al Gore, here’s how his web site {climatecrisis} stacks up against WUWT. Also have got realclimate in the mix, plus WUWT old & new web address:
http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/wattsupwiththat.com?site0=realclimate.org&site1=wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com&site2=wattsupwiththat.com&site3=climatecrisis.net&y=r&z=2&h=300&w=610&c=1&u%5B%5D=realclimate.org&u%5B%5D=wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com&u%5B%5D=wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com&u%5B%5D=climatecrisis.net&x=2008-06-07T14%3A13%3A10.000Z&check=www.alexa.com&signature=4DQ6f7l6e6EWYI8FTiVhrxCq5Fo%3D&range=1m&size=Large
Al Gore still has a carbon footprint that is many, many, many times that of the average American. Is it okay to promote civil disobedience against Al?
I’ll start worrying about AGW when Al reduces his carbon footprint to less than that of the average American.
Well it looks like the Flower Power generation is rearing its head again. Protest is fine, but violence is not. Did Dr King or Gandhi ever destroy property to make a point? I think not and look what they accomplished. This sounds like a last resort of a dieing idea or religion. Throw as much as you can against the wall in the hopes some will stick type of philosophy. Didn’t Gore’s carbon trading company get backed by Lehman? Goes with the country.
Nothing like a looming recession to put the “climate crisis” on the back page. Civil disobedience is the only way they can stay in the news and on people’s minds.
The Goreacle and his mindless lemmings are in for a rude awakening. Their agenda will be non-existent during an economic downturn coupled with higher energy prices, unless they start manipulating numbers and trying to convince people they can save money by enacting his “10 years or we’re all dead” agenda — which is utter nonsense.
No one is going to pay more or lower their standard of living when the chips are already down. Which means the Eco Geeks are only going to get more and more desperate and outrageous.
Landscheidt Minimum is ringing a bell…only time will tell…
“Only two things are infinite – the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.”
Albert Einstein
Gore’s admonishment to the youth is reminiscent of Mao and his Cultural Revolution.
So the weather channel is talking about the record number of highs compared to lows this year in the US instead.
I think O’l Al really stuck his foot in it this time.
Someone please correct me if I’m wrong….
Incitment to a crime is a crime in itself. Even if an activist judge / jury let someone off for the crime as in England, civil lawsuits are much easier to prosecute.
Let’s say someone is injured or God forbid killed even by accident in one of these civil disobediences. Al Gore will be liable for the part he played.
I don’t care how good Al’s lawyers are, when you are getting hit from all directions, something will eventually stick.
If it only amounts to a few instances, he is probably safe but if it starts some type of Green Gurilla movement, He might be the one needing a financial bailout.
I sat across from the husband of a friend at a wedding reception, recently. He is the head of the physics department at a local public college.
He’s about to head up a start-up solar panel company with federal and state subsidies. Millions of tax dollars at their disposal. He grudgingly smiled and admitted that they only have a 10% chance of success.
This wouldn’t be so completely unpalatable if I didn’t know something of his history.
!.) He’s completely on-board with the AGW wackos. Absolutely 100% certain that the climate is being destroyed by us carbon-spewing viruses. Oh! And he knew NOTHING about NASA’s then up-coming conference about the sun’s quiet face and unaware that the sun was in a prolonged minimum.
2.) A few days after 9/11 he left a message on my answering machine with this query:
“Was Samson a terrorist?”
This is the mentality of many of the people sucking at the tit of the global warming hysteria windfall.
Wish I’d kept that sound bite. I swear. I wish I’d have given it to the FBI to prevent his receiving any of my tax dollars.
Ignorance is the most expensive reality in contemporary society. Algore recognizes ignorance as a marketable commodity.
As evidence of this reality, I offer the genesis of today’s economic debacle.
I am not sufficiently religious to see God’s hand in natural events, but I can’t help thinking of the recent reduction in solar activity and the cooling of the climate as God’s way of telling Al Gore that he is full of … shall we say, “carbon credit”.
“Al Gore’s hippie legions may have to wear their winter coats.” I don’t think the word “hippie” applies; in fact I look at the Gore legions as antithetical to hippiedom. The phrase “brown shirts” comes to mind, though.