Distractions, agendas, false realities, and policies that bring much harm but few benefits
Guest essay by Paul Driessen
The White House has released its latest National Climate Assessment. An 829-page report and 127-page “summary” were quickly followed by press releases, television appearances, interviews and photo ops with tornado victims – all to underscore President Obama’s central claims:
Human-induced climate change, “once considered an issue for the distant future, has moved firmly into the present.” It is “affecting Americans right now,” disrupting their lives. The effects of “are already being felt in every corner of the United States.” Corn producers in Iowa, oyster growers in Washington, maple syrup producers in Vermont, crop-growth cycles in Great Plains states “are all observing climate-related changes that are outside of recent experience.” Extreme weather events “have become more frequent and/or intense.”
It’s pretty scary sounding. It has to be.
It’s pretty scary sounding. It has to be. First, it is designed to distract us from topics that the President and Democrats do not want to talk about: ObamaCare, the IRS scandals, Benghazi, a host of foreign policy failures, still horrid jobless and workforce participation rates, and an abysmal 0.1% first quarter GDP growth rate that hearkens back to the Great Depression.
Second, fear-inducing “climate disruption” claims are needed to justify job-killing, economy-choking policies like the endless delays on the Keystone XL pipeline; still more wind, solar and ethanol mandates, tax breaks and subsidies; and regulatory compliance costs that have reached $1.9 trillion per year – nearly one-eighth of the entire US economy.
Third, scary hyperventilating serves to obscure important realities about Earth’s weather and climate, and even in the NCA report itself. Although atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have been rising steadily for decades, contrary to White House claims average planetary temperatures have not budged for 17 years.
No Category 3-5 hurricane has made landfall in the United States since 2005, the longest such period since at least 1900. Even with the recent Midwestern twisters, US tornado frequency remains very low, and property damage and loss of life from tornadoes have decreased over the past six decades.
Sea levels are rising at a mere seven inches per century. Antarctic sea ice recently reached a new record high. A new report says natural forces could account for as much as half of Arctic warming, and warming and cooling periods have alternated for centuries in the Arctic. Even in early May this year, some 30% of Lake Superior was still ice-covered, which appears to be unprecedented in historical records. Topping it off, a warmer planet and rising CO2 levels improve forest, grassland and crop growth, greening the planet.
Press releases on the NCA report say global temperatures, heat waves, sea levels, storms, droughts and other events are “forecast” or “projected” to increase dangerously over the next century. However, the palm reading was done by computer models – which are based on the false assumption that carbon dioxide now drives climate change, and that powerful natural forces no longer play a role. The models have never been able to predict global temperatures accurately, and the divergence between model predictions and actual measured temperatures gets worse with every passing year. The models cannot even “hindcast” temperatures over the past quarter century, without using fudge factors and other clever tricks.
Moreover, much of the White House and media spin contradicts what the NCA report actually says. For example, it concludes that “there has been no universal trend in the overall extent of drought across the continental U.S. since 1900.” Other trends in severe storms, it states, “are uncertain.”
Climate change, Johnstown Floods, Dust Bowls, extreme weather events and forest fires have been part of Earth and human history forever – and no amount of White House spin can alter that fact. To suggest that any changes in weather or climate – or any temporary increases in extreme weather events – are due to humans is patently absurd. To ignore positive trends and the 17-year absence of warming is abominable.
Fourth, sticking to the “manmade climate disaster” script is essential to protect the turf, reputations, funding and power of climate alarmists and government bureaucrats. The federal government doles out some $2.6 billion annually in grants for climate research – but only for work that reflects White House perspectives. Billions more support subsidies and loans for renewable energy programs that represent major revenue streams for companies large and small, and part of that money ends up in campaign war chests for (mostly Democrat) legislators who support the climate regulatory-industrial complex.
None of them is likely to admit any doubts, alter any claims or policies, or reduce their increasingly vitriolic attacks on skeptics of “dangerous manmade global warming.” They do not want to risk being exposed as false prophets and charlatans, or worse. Follow the money.
Last, and most important, climate disruption claims drive a regulatory agenda that few Americans support. Presidential candidate Obama said his goal was “fundamentally transforming” the United States and ensuring that electricity rates “necessarily skyrocket.” On climate change, President Obama has made it clear that he “can’t wait for an increasingly dysfunctional Congress to do its job. Where they won’t act, I will.” His Environmental Protection Agency, Department of the Interior, Department of Energy and other officials have steadfastly implemented his anti-hydrocarbon policies.
Chief Obama science advisor John Holdren famously said: “A massive campaign must be launched to … de-develop the United States … bringing our economic system (especially patterns of consumption) into line with the realities of ecology and the global resource situation.… [Economists] must design a stable, low-consumption economy in which there is a much more equitable [re]distribution of wealth.”
(The President also wants to ensure that neither a Keystone pipeline approval nor a toned-down climate agenda scuttles billionaire Tom Steyer’s $100-million contribution to Democrat congressional candidates.)
This agenda translates into greater government control over energy production and use, job creation and economic growth, and people’s lives, livelihoods, living standards, liberties, health and welfare. It means fewer opportunities and lower standards of living for poor and middle class working Americans. It means greater power and control for politicians, bureaucrats, activists and judges – but with little or no accountability for mistakes made, damage done or penalties deliberately exacted on innocent people.
A strong economy, modern technologies, and abundant, reliable, affordable energy are absolutely essential if we are to adapt to future climate changes, whatever their cause – and survive the heat waves, cold winters, floods, droughts and vicious weather events that will most certainly continue coming.
The Obama agenda will reduce our capacity to adapt, survive and thrive. It will leave more millions jobless, and reduce the ability of families to heat and cool their homes properly, assure nutritious meals, pay their rent or mortgage, and pursue their American dreams.
America’s minority and blue collar families will suffer – while Washington, DC power brokers and lobbyists will continue to enjoy standards of living, housing booms and luxury cars unknown in the nation’s heartland. Think Hunger Games or the Politburo and nomenklatura of Soviet Russia.
Worst, it will all be for nothing, even if carbon dioxide does exert a stronger influence on Earth’s climate than actual evidence suggests. While the United States slashes its hydrocarbon use, job creation, economic growth and international competitiveness, China, India, Brazil, Indonesia – and Spain, Germany, France and Great Britain – are all increasing their coal use … and CO2 emissions.
President Obama and White House advisor John Podesta are convinced that Congress and the American people have no power or ability to derail the Administration’s determination to unilaterally impose costly policies to combat “dangerous manmade climate disruption” – and that the courts will do nothing to curb their executive orders, regulatory fiats and economic disruption.
If they are right, we are in for some very rough times – and it becomes even more critical that voters learn the facts and eject Harry Reid and his Senate majority, to restore some semblance of checks and balances.
Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power – Black death.
good times…
truth hurts
excellent and spot on Paul………..
D
“America’s minority and blue collar families will suffer…”
Unfortunately, not many in those groups will read this.
Re. “not many of those groups will read this”, I left school at 14 years, it was 1942 and the UK government was more concerned at winning the war, than futhering my education. So I educated myself. Reading is the number one thing, it opens the window as it were to all available knowledge. Regards Michael Elliott, vk5ell40@gmail.com
The White House has gotten far out ahead of all but the most Lysenkoist of scientists with this fictional report. I expect to see a split in the alarmist camp. Younger scientists may not want to continue further down a path that can only lead to to the status of a laughingstock long before they reach retirement age.
Baruq is off to a strong start for “Climate Duplicicist of the Year” for 2014.
— Bad News
I just looked at the PDF I downloaded earlier, its 841 pages. Might want to fix that at the top of the post. Otherwise what your saying is all valid.
v/r,
David Riser
Tut, tut. It will all be for more taxes, control, cash for climastrologists, activists more cash and influence, profits for windmill makers, etc. It’s about money and control. It’s as simple as that.
One example. Look at the activist infiltrators in the IPCC.
Here is one example of one of the activist groups in the IPCC – the WWF.
(which was founded by a cigarette baron named Dr. Anton Rupert from South Africa)
http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2011/09/23/how-the-wwf-infiltrated-the-ipcc-%E2%80%93-part-1/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/24/the-scandal-deepens-ipcc-ar4-riddled-with-non-peer-reviewed-wwf-papers/
Then there is the temptation of the huge funding trough for the Climastrologists. He who pays the piper…………. Pal review.
When will this scandal end!
Climate change and the weather has ALWAYS been felt in every corner of the United States. What the heck is his point? My point can be read HERE and HERE. Each of those links has a list of terrible weather / ‘climate change’ for ONE YEAR!
I could go on about Holocene climate extremes. To put things into perspective take a look at the some of the dire effects on man of the Little Ice Age in
America and beyond. It was a terrible time of Great Storms disease, crop failures leading to famine and witch hunts, century-scale droughts in East Africa, increases in flood magnitude in mid-continent North America, malaria epidemics, mass migration, cod migrations north stunted, food price inflation, increased frequency of boreal forest fires, drought in equatorial Africa, social unrest and dynastic transition in ancient China, substantial decline in rural prosperity in Norway, decline in average height of northern Europeans, aridity in the circum-Caribbean region, agro-ecological, socioeconomic, and demographic catastrophes, the demise of the Norse Western Settlement in Greenland etc.
To be frank, when my ancestors came to the Hudson Valley in the 1600’s, taking over was easy after the Little Ice Age hammered the natives very hard. This is why Europe could so easily invade, frankly.
My family dealt with beaver furs. This was due to the need to have waterproof hats in Europe. Thanks to the cold, wet weather.
Nature does not have 97% confidence in the models predicting extreme weather.
and so on………………………. Hurricanes, floods, droughts, forest fires, tornadoes, nada, ziltch.
Does seem that Obama and Wife will fawn endlessly about Nigerians (caught in the global sex slave trade economy) yet care nothing for New Orleansians still struggling after ‘Katrina.’
Where fore out thou, Bush.
Bush, “right hereis I wax’n my favorite Yell’ar Chevy Camera in TexMex Dallas TX yall.”
In the future, I wonder how people will look back at all the hype and think? Will they admit they were fooled or will the people fooled lie about it and say they were never fooled?
Progressives deny history and human nature.
Hence their fascination with the central command philosophy, while they keep changing the label.
Being blind to history and ignorant of the forces that motivate men they will always act in these ways.
We continually tell our local ones why their stupid ideas will not work, what the consequences will be…But no, they must press on wasting everyones assets.
When the expected happens, they blame obstructionists, saboteurs and imaginary enemies..Or the class “If only we had spent more wealth on it”.
What is needed is a form of self selection to herd these nasty fools into living alone with the consequences.
I believe if government adherence to the law is selective, then taxes shall be elective.
So in effect it is all now back to weather, that changeable unpredictable “not seen in our lifetime” living memory type of weather event, but all wrapped up in the authority of , “it is what it is” because we say it, and backed up by the false lies of a dreamed up, 97% agreement of a selected sub group of scientists who “believe” in their beliefs.
Pure climate propaganda designed to exploit the known natural and unpredictable world weather patterns, the scary something we know we cannot resolve, therefore open to exploitation and political manipulation in the hope of doing something sometime in the future in the minds of human voters.
What an extraordinary but brilliant strategy that defeats logic, sets aside the scientific method, and allows anything even harsh dictates to be wrapped in a cloak of we need this in order to safe the [……..] insert whatever short term political goal we can sell to our gullible faithful, as it is that gullible ever trusting majority that will elect us and crush our opposition, with a religious zeal.
Arguing logic, science, observations and fact alone cannot defeat such propaganda, only time and realisation of the inevitable loss of whatever that class of humanity holds dear will shake that trust and support of the gullible faithful. Perhaps what is needed is a counter scare campaign as a predictor of the future personal loss to that voter should they follow such a leader into economic disaster and political chaos. Nothing like the stark reality of “I am worse than I was before”, to motivate the “average” intelligent voter from gullible slumber.
That is why so much political effort was put into discrediting the TEA parties, but plenty of Joe the plumbers who might be enlisted in a groundswell of public reaction are still out there and they know it.
Forgive the pun, but weather they [the silent majority?] can be motivated by science, facts, knowledge, that is still to be ascertained. We argue the toss with those known facts, they tell untruths supported by a compliant media? Who will win the battle of the hearts and minds, for that is the true target for sceptics to consider. Will logic and observable facts be enough before loss writes its own bottom line on history.
Its your country, your politics, and choice while you have it.
Good luck!
Spin? Uh, a few things. Yes, the first quarter GDP was only 0.1% as exports fell, mostly due to the bad weather. Consumer demand rose though, and to tell the whole story, fourth qtr GDP growth was 3.2% – third quarter was 4.1%. Those were pretty good compared to ‘trickle down economic growth numbers’. Population growth +16,000/month, job growth 200,000/month. Nixon, GOP adopted bad trade policy sent jobs to China, talk about redistribution, they can dodge more taxes & steal your wealth to boot. Labor participation rate went down all the Bush W administration also. Benghazi, why so silent when Bush Jr had ten Benghazi’s, really 13. http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll215/beautifulevenin/76578A29-27D7-406B-91B8-9328E1CA1678-5068-000003F69756AF59_zps9e05edb7.jpg Who are you cats to lecture about intelligence? Planes flew into sky scrapers in NYC. Foreign policy failures, the neocon script is for foreign policy failure, and they are still in there running the State Dept.
Now I agree with much of the climate/energy stuff Paul has to say, but using spin to go after spin, people are sick of that.
Obama needs to talk to the EPA and NASA ASAP.
EPA ‘likely’ speculation and fact
“Scientific studies also indicate that extreme weather events such as storms, floods, and hurricanes are likely to become more intense. However, because these extremes already vary naturally, it may be difficult over short time periods to distinguish whether changes in their intensity and frequency can be attributed to larger climate trends caused by human influences.”
Please read this Mr. President.
“What’s the Difference Between Weather and Climate?”
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/noaa-n/climate/climate_weather.html
Follow the money. Warren Buffett, Chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, on CNBC in early March: “… insuring against hurricanes in the U.S. has been extremely profitable in the past five years because few storms have made landfall.” Perhaps a rate reduction/rebate would be in order.
Did Obama get the socialist peace prize for declaring war on the American dream and the American middle class?
@Ed Mertin – I find it interesting that you give the initial estimated value for 4th quarter GDP instead of the final value that was revised down to 2.6%. Before you brag about labor participation rates during the Obama years compared to the Bush years, keep in mind that those rates are much worse now than they were then. There was also a record 52 straight months of job growth under Bush that came to an end in his last year with the onset of the recession and the implementation of bills passed by a House and Senate under new Democratic management. While I am not a fan of the high spending under Bush, the highest deficit spending came under a Democrat controlled Congress. It should also be noted that the lowest spending numbers during the Obama years have come during the time Republicans have controlled Congress.
Anyone who believes a government report about anything is hopelessly naïve. All governments lie, not just the US government. (Though in the context of foreign policy the US has been pumping some particularly egregious ones in the last ten years or so.) And these days the mass media repeat the official line regardless of how obvious false or twisted it is. (These days? In the 1920s Humber Wolfe wrote
You cannot hope
to bribe or twist,
thank God! the
British journalist.
But, seeing what
the man will do
unbribed, there’s
no occasion to.)
Fortunately, we can tease out a bit of the truth by reading conspiracy blogs written by the tin-foil hat brigade. They are impervious to the pressures that keep the respectable journos in line. Even the lizard people can’t intimidate them.
The best policy is the old standard: “Never believe anything until it has been officially denied.”
(Attributed variously to Claud Cockburn and Otto von Bismarck.)
Ed Mertin says:
May 11, 2014 at 5:44 pm
I don’t have the years left to waste refuting this bovine scat. From that “neo-con” website Bloomberg:http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-06/first-quarter-u-s-economic-slump-looking-uglier-by-the-day.html
So, now conservative Jews run the State Department?
You sir are a bloviating idiot who should not be allowed out of Mom’s basement.
Excellent points in this article. Almost none of the statements regarding extreme weather and climate can be supported with data.
Here is one measure “U.S. state temperature extremes”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._state_temperature_extremes
Note: The decade with the most extreme heat in the US was easily the 1930’s. This was also the decade with the most severe droughts.
Very few all time record high state temperature records have been set since the increase in CO2 has become significant.
Before global warming stalled out, it effected night time temperatures the most and also, higher latitudes the most. This would cause the diurnal temperature range to be slightly less, as well as the meridional(north to south) temperature disparity to be less.
Both those, especially the later would contribute to LESS extreme weather in most cases.
There is a great deal of uncertainty regarding how increasing amounts of water vapor in the atmosphere effect warming. The mathematical equations in the models have been picked with the belief it causes a positive feedback.
I think a nice real world laboratory has existed over the past 25 years in the Cornbelt.
Increased density of corn planting and evapotranspiriation during that period, has resulted in a “micro climate” to the extent that at times, dew points have increased by 5+ F vs what they were under similar conditions prior to this period.
https://www2.ucar.edu/atmosnews/opinion/4997/corn-and-climate-sweaty-topic
From 1988 to 2012, 24 straight years without a widespread drought and the best growing conditions in corn’s history were at least partially the result of the increase in this low level moisture.
Lifting condensation levels were lowered, cumulus/low level clouds increased and developed earlier in the day, rains increased. This also reduced day time temperatures, especially the high end values. It did however, increase night time temperatures as well as heat index values, especially at night to humans.
Again, this was not caused by increasing CO2 but was from increased density of corn plants and was several orders of magnitude greater than what empirical data indicates has taken place on the planet.
I believe the increase in CO2 and resulting boom to vegetative health, has increased evapotranspiriation on a global scale, so some of these effects are relevant.
Dr. Spencer has a nice graph of US Cornbelt temperatures during the key growing season months of June-July-August from 1900-2013 vs model forecasts.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/page/3/
Several things are clear:
1. The decade with the most crop threatening heat(by far) was the 1930’s as evidenced by the state record highs from above. A distant 2nd, was the 1950’s.
2. There is zero evidence to show global warming has had any effect on temperatures in this region of the world that results in the highest crop yields on the planet.
3. Climate models are flat out wrong with their upward projection of temperatures…and by an amount that means anybody using them that are aware of this data, are knowingly committing fraud……….. unless the intent is to show the complete lack of skill that climate models have in forecasting temperatures for the Cornbelt during the growing season.
Dear Ed,
The job growth numbers need to be 115,000 per month JUST to keep up with new workers entering the work force. So, 200k is squat. The real amazing fact is how BAD things are and we are still making things work. The next fall is really going to be a killer, thank you libtards. Pretty soon no one is going to give a crap about CAGW.
Ed Mertin says:
Maybe you’ll eventually come to realize that the spin pervades his climate/energy stuff too. Really has very little to do with science and a lot to do with Right-wing ideology.
When interpolation overtakes observation as “fact”, nothing good could possibly come from it.
Think about it.
Regards, Ed
According to NOAA: The difference between weather and climate is a measure of time. Weather is what conditions of the atmosphere are over a short period of time, and climate is how the atmosphere “behaves” over relatively long periods of time.
That raises the question in my mind: Is 17+ years a ‘short period’ or ‘relatively long period’?
Paul, you are missing the biggest argument of all: the alleged greenhouse warming does not exist. Everyone knows that Hansen reported the existence of the greenhouse effect to the Senate in 1988. Well, he was wrong about that, and his observations do not prove it exists. And neither has anyone else seen it. What Hansen did was to show a rising temperature curve, going from a low in 1880 to a high in 1988. That high 1988 peak, he said, is the warmest temperature in the last 100 years. There was only a half a percent chance that this could happen by accident. Hence, there was a 99 percent probability that this warming is greenhouse warming, thus proving that the greenhouse effect is real. But when you check the Congressional Record you find that he includes a non-greenhouse warming from 1910 to 1940 as part of his 100 year greenhouse warming. Radiation laws of physics dictate that to start an enhanced greenhouse warming you must simultaneously increase the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This did not happen in 1910, hence this warming was not greenhouse warming. Its sudden cessation in 1940 leads to the same conclusion: it is impossible to stop greenhouse warming unless you remove all the absorbing molecules from the air. It follows that this warming must be subtracted from his 100 year greenhouse warming. Lopping it off at 1940 removes 60 of his 100 warming years. And IPCC-AR5 does not even claim detection of the greenhouse effect before 1950. This leaves Hansen with a see-saw temperature curve consisting of 25 years of cooling followed by 23 years of warming. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know that no way can this prove the existence of the greenhouse effect. Hansen;’s claim that he has observed the greenhouse effect is simply false. But nobody checked Hansen’s science and he has been getting away with this fiction for the last 24 years. In the meantime, IPCC has been predicting climate by using a non-existent greenhouse effect in their climate models and getting wrong predictions of warming. Likewise, the missing hot spot at ten kilometer height in the tropics is also an artifact of using a non-existent greenhouse effect in their calculations. More to the present, we have no warming today and there has been none for the last 17 years, despite the predictions of Arrhenius that adding more carbon dioxide to air will warm it. This is enough to prove Arrhenius wrong. The only theory that does explain the warming pause is the Miskolczi greenhouse theory (MGT). According to MGT the increased greenhouse warming by addition of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere is neutralized by the condensation of water vapor. That is because carbon dioxide and water vapor jointly share an optimum absorption window in the IR that has a fixed optical thickness of 1.87. Addition of carbon dioxide increases the optical thickess and water vapor compensates for it by condensing until the original optical thickness is restored. This explains the missing warming they have been looking for in the ocean bottom. It is the exact reverse of what IPCC believes because the water vapor effect is negative, not positive as they still think.
[snip – we don’t discuss chemtrails or HAARP crazy talk here by policy, besides, HAARP is closed: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/07/16/extreme-irony-epa-rules-shut-down-the-mother-of-all-weather-conspiracy-theories/ -mod]
This is Obama’s New Deal. He see’s that renewable energy is the future and wants America to be at the forefront of this next technology boom. The only way to really do this is by investing great deals of money within american technology institutes and hoping what you end up with becomes a viable product. Of course it will be viable when oil and gas production starts to ramp down, but that could be centuries away so he has to push the climate change angle, It worked with the Ozone hole right!
Unfortunately technology development is a risky business and a good way to lose your shirt if your an investor so to me it seems like a rather large gamble to be taking with the worlds largest economy, but I guess everybody has to repay their debts.
pretty scary alright. the CAGW circus comes to Jakarta…with trillions in sight:
12 May: Reuters: Bruno Vander Velde: Funds plentiful, but will is weak to fuel low-carbon economy: experts
Source: CIFOR (Center for International Forestry Research)
The world’s top climate scientist told an international conference today that tackling climate change is an opportunity, not a burden, and a leading financier said there is plenty of money to fund sustainable development.
“The path we need to follow is very clear if the world wants to limit the temperature increase to 2 degrees Celsius,” Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) told delegates on the final day of the Forests Asia Summit in Jakarta…
Ministers, civil society, academia, the private sector and youth took advantage of the two-day Summit to seek ways to better manage forests and landscapes in the shift toward a ‘green economy’…
***Referring to the resources needed to finance this shift, Mark Burrows of Credit Suisse said, “this capital already exists at an enormous scale. An estimated US$225 trillion of private capital is currently allocated through the world’s financial markets.” The mood among the big investors is changing, he added. But “we need political investment to unlock financial investment.”…
“It should be clear that we are not going to repeat Kyoto … we are building momentum towards a new international climate agreement,” he (Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, Environment Minister, Peru) said.
Unlike the Kyoto Protocol, he said, “this agreement will be reached from the bottom up” and be inclusive of indigenous people, the private sector, scientists and policymakers.
“And it will bring hope to millions because it will be a core component in the international development debate,” Pulgar-Vidal said.
Dozens of commitments were made at the Summit to increase green investment, expand research and foster dialogue among different stakeholders…
http://www.trust.org/item/20140512024619-8wu2d/
Well in Australia the clean energy commission is having its funding cut. Whether it passes the senate is another obstacle. But one thing Pres.Obama has not got long to go for his last term.
Then you can vote in someone else and I think it might be a Republican if you get someone worthy of the position. Not another Sarah Palin or Hilary Clinton.
On the other hand back at the ski slope:
Weather is building a climate record over this same time.
http://www.arapahoebasin.com/ web cams great, weather has the appox new snow, the 77″ inch base, the low temps this week, and the real possibility of some snow on June 1.
Hard red winter wheat here in north Texas does not do well with all these cold nights.
Same in all wheat growing areas. Bread will cost more and soon.
11 May: Sun News Canada: Ezra Levant: A tax by any other name
Is Justin Trudeau going to bring in a carbon tax?
Geoff Regan, Trudeau’s natural resources critic, is adamant that he won’t…
Trudeau: “Every single party in the House of Commons has committed to putting a price on carbon pollution,” Trudeau said. “The Liberal Party is in a process where we will make sure that polluting costs more, but we haven’t landed on exactly how to do it.”…
Trudeau says he has been consulting about a carbon tax for at least six months. Who has he consulted? What have they said? Why would he consult foreigners – but not his own natural resources critic?
Did Trudeau consult the anti-oil Tides Foundation from San Francisco, or the anti-oil Rockefeller Brothers Fund in New York? Gerald Butts, Trudeau’s chief strategist, speechwriter and handler, worked for an environmental lobby group until last year, that accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars from those U.S. foundations to lobby against oil and gas.
Are those the foreign experts Trudeau has consulted?
Why would the leader of a Canadian political party allow himself to be lobbied by foreign interests about a tax on Canada? The U.S. doesn’t have a carbon tax, or a “price on carbon.” Why would we accept U.S. pressure to put our economy at a disadvantage? It’s a bizarre position, but it’s precisely the same position that Butts chose when he was a lobbyist: taking foreign money to hobble Canada’s energy economy…
Oh, there’s carbon tax policy being worked on by the Liberals, all right. Regan is out of the loop. And so is Trudeau. For real answers, we should ask Butts, or maybe his friends in San Francisco and New York.
http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/sunnews/straighttalk/archives/2014/05/20140511-163732.html
Only crazies are folks that wont rise to a level to see what the real issues are. If you do any, just a touch, of research it would allow you to open your mind to the truth than call something crazy chem trails are still going on. They told us there were no weapons of mass destruction .Nothing crazy about not believing KNOWN LIARS. There has been real scientific data on haarp and how it ionized and heated the atmosphere with aluminum crystals released in chem trails . Why was it covered up and secret for so long , now they say they shut it down , DO YOU KNOW WHY? any site that sensors this type comment isn’t worth reading ,its garbage with no true discussion sorry to waste my time here but Ill pass it on
pure comedy:
12 May: Business Green: Will Nichols: China’s green drive could squeeze out coal before 2020
Research paper by Lord Stern suggests China may start to reduce coal consumption from 2016 – a huge fillip for a global climate deal…
And today research by Lord Nicholas Stern, former World Bank chief economist and author of the landmark 2006 report on the economics of climate change, and Fergus Green, of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, suggests that China’s consumption of coal could reach a peak by 2020, or perhaps even earlier.
The research says that China’s stated intention to pursue more sustainable economic growth has prompted discussions on setting a target to curtail the rise in the country’s annual consumption of coal before the end of its 13th Five-Year Plan, which will run from 2016 to 2020.
“China could intensify its efforts to reduce its reliance on coal, in the form of a plan to peak its coal consumption by 2020 (or earlier), as has been suggested as a possibility in some discussions occurring in China, and phase it out thereafter,***” the report says…
http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/analysis/2343987/chinas-green-drive-could-squeeze-out-coal-before-2020
***love that “thereafter”…
jerome,
Got any data, facts, published papers in real science journals to back up what you posted herein above.
Thanks
The US government as established under the Constitution is in jeopardy. Perhaps the best example of this was during Obama’s State of the Union address, where he received a standing ovation FROM CONGRESS when he vowed to circumvent Congress in order to implement laws and policies he personally deems important…
In practice, the Constitution no longer exists. Elected officials literally laugh out loud when asked what Constitution provision allows particular laws and programs to exist. The Federal government is no longer constrained by the mere 18 enumerated powers granted to them under Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution. The Federal government can now pretty much do whatever it wishes. All that is required is a perceived need; the Constitution be damned.
The US government was founded as an entity of sovereign states whose sole purpose was to protect and defend the inalienable individual (not collectiveI rights to life, liberty and property. The new paradigm is that the US government exists to serve the hubris of political elites that think they know best how to control every aspect of peoples lives and how best to allocate a nation’s land, labor, capital and redistribution of wealth.
This elitist hubris has become so grotesque and delusional, they believe they can effectively control Earth’s climate via Executive fiat… Give me a break….
The American people are finally beginning to understand our very nation is at risk as evidenced by a Congressional approval rating of just 13% and Obama’s approval rating of just 43%. The mid-term elections present an opportunity for the GOP (not a big fan) to gain majorities of both Houses, which may perhaps slowdown the elites’ lust for power, although many in the GOP share the same elitist mentality.
Americans are getting sick and tired of the: $17.5 trillion debt, the $1 trillion/year budget deficits, the job-destroying rules and regs, the money printing, the destruction of the US$, the insane monetary policies, the bubble economy, the senseless wars, the lies, the race baiting, the double standards, the loss of privacy, the loss of freedom, the capricious enforcement of laws, the crony capitalism, the deceit and the onerous taxes to pay for it all…
The question is whether Americans still have the will and desire to restore our Republic….
We’ll soon find out.
Perhaps jerome is a “Moby”?
Krugman – the left/right meme, which takes no account of untold millions of exceptions, is a lazy MSM trick, which is fast losing its power to influence.
11 May: NYT: Paul Krugman: Crazy Climate Economics
In the right’s eyes, sinister motives lurk everywhere — for example, George Will says the only reason progressives favor trains is their goal of “diminishing Americans’ individualism in order to make them more amenable to collectivism.”
So it goes without saying that Obamacare, based on ideas originally developed at the Heritage Foundation, is a Marxist scheme — why, requiring that people purchase insurance is practically the same as sending them to gulags.
And just wait until the Environmental Protection Agency announces rules intended to slow the pace of climate change.
Until now, the right’s climate craziness has mainly been focused on attacking the science. And it has been quite a spectacle: At this point almost all card-carrying conservatives endorse the view that climate change is a gigantic hoax, that thousands of research papers showing a warming planet — 97 percent of the literature — are the product of a vast international conspiracy. But as the Obama administration moves toward actually doing something based on that science, crazy climate economics will come into its own…
What do I mean by crazy climate economics?
First, we’ll see any effort to limit pollution denounced as a tyrannical act. Pollution wasn’t always a deeply partisan issue: Economists in the George W. Bush administration wrote paeans to “market based” pollution controls, and in 2008 John McCain made proposals for cap-and-trade limits on greenhouse gases part of his presidential campaign. But when House Democrats actually passed a cap-and-trade bill in 2009, it was attacked as, you guessed it, Marxist. And these days Republicans come out in force to oppose even the most obviously needed regulations, like the plan to reduce the pollution that’s killing Chesapeake Bay…
Furthermore, it turns out that focusing climate policy on coal-fired power plants isn’t bad as a first step. Such plants aren’t the only source of greenhouse gas emissions, but they’re a large part of the problem — and the best estimates we have of the path forward suggest that reducing power-plant emissions will be a large part of any solution.
What about the argument that unilateral U.S. action won’t work, because China is the real problem? It’s true that we’re no longer No. 1 in greenhouse gases — but we’re still a strong No. 2…
So the coming firestorm over new power-plant regulations won’t be a genuine debate — just as there isn’t a genuine debate about climate science. Instead, the airwaves will be filled with conspiracy theories and wild claims about costs, all of which should be ignored. Climate policy may finally be getting somewhere; let’s not let crazy climate economics get in the way.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/12/opinion/krugman-crazy-climate-economics.html?hpw&rref=opinion&_r=0
It’s not even a full moon tonight, but the trolls and assorted crazies are thick as fleas.
Joel, help a brother out.
Please define your phrase: Right-wing ideology.
@SAMURAI
“The new paradigm is that the US government exists to serve the hubris of political elites that think they know best how to control every aspect of peoples lives and how best to allocate a nation’s land, labor, capital and redistribution of wealth.”
Are you referring to the 1% who own something like 35+5 of Americas wealth, or the top 10% who own 75% of the wealth. They certainly seemed to be calling the shots when the President rescued big banks from bankruptcy with taxpayers’ money and let them carry on while the rest of the country lost trillions in investment, etc. (And some people call him a socialist!)
Nutcases or Fruitloops. A difficult choice. No wonder so many don’t vote.
I sure wish there was more science and less political raving in your article.
John Podesta is so credulous, he believes that aliens are coming to earth in UFOs, but the government is covering it up: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/11/is-ufo-disclosure-on-the-plate-of-john-podesta_n_4428119.html
Okay. Obama’s advisers seem to have given their best
and
A)
B) http://tinyurl.com/m6bhayv
What’s next?
The day will come in the not to distant future when a President will be hooked up to a lie detector when making public statements, oh what fun to watch,
RoHa says:
May 11, 2014 at 9:47 pm
@SAMURAI
“Are you referring to the 1% who own something like 35+5 of Americas wealth, or the top 10% who own 75% of the wealth. They certainly seemed to be calling the shots when the President rescued big banks from bankruptcy with taxpayers’ money and let them carry on while the rest of the country lost trillions in investment, etc. (And some people call him a socialist!)”
==============================================
First of all, the top 1% of earners receive roughly 20% of total national income, not 40%….. The top 10% earn around 50% of total national income. Who cares? As long as THEY earned it, I’m not entitled to any of it. I’m just thankful for the wonderful goods, services and technologies these inspiring entrepreneurs provide the world.
You should also appreciate that the top 10% of entrepreneurs pay roughly 70% of all income taxes AND their corporations create millions of jobs, and these millions of employes pay 100’s of billions of taxes…. BTW, the bottom 50% of earners pay ZERO income taxes…ZERO…
The Wall Street banksters that make up part of the “evil” 1% are simply gaming the system that has been created by kleptocrats’ that: create excessive rules/regulation/mandates (which stifles competition), pay the bank bailouts, implement the INSANE monetary policies that dump $100’s of billions of printed dollars in the banksters’ vaults, which is needed to keep the real estate and stock market bubbles afloat…..
In other industries (especially manufacturing) excessive government: EPA, OSHA, anti-discrimination, minimum wage laws, ballooning healthcare costs, paperwork compliance costs, extortive union laws, licensing requirements, massive rules, regulations, mandates, high corporate tax rates, etc., etc., etc., have effectively destroyed 10’s of millions of jobs….permanently…
The answer isn’t MORE government insanity and higher taxes on success, it’s tiny governments that basically steal only 10% of GDP rather than the current 40%….
Teeny tiny governments, free-markets, one national sales tax (replacing the IRS/75,000-page tax code), shutting down the Federal Reserve, returning to a gold standard and massive deregulation of all industries are the best ways to assure general prosperity and freedom.
notoobrite, LOL. Oh yeah, but the president will most probably reply ‘No comment’ as he doesn’t know and relies on henchmen and lobbyists to do the research.
France and the UK at least are not increasing their coal use.
France has very little coal fired generating capacity and the UK is now findings it coal capacity being phased out due to regulatory decompetitivisation.
Leo, Germany isn’t replacing nuclear with coal and UK isn’t happy at all with wind turbines and importing energy from Europe.. China is increasing its coal generators. As far as Oz is concerned the clean energy commission is in for a shock, they are reducing their funds and no okaying wind turbine farms.
Just read a NYT editorial (paul Krugman) citing the Cook 97% myth. I followed the link to a journalist reference page with a brief recitation of Cook’s work along with two others. I guess that gives them cover?
When this view, I have to give a general assessment that characterizes such comprehensiveness related to the study of climate change and weather conditions. We have a one proverb that says, “where many grandmothers, children have a hernia.” So here there are too many “grandmother”.
Science, like most individuals, serving all means, even illogical, to prove something to the benefit of their policies and not for the benefit of science and mankind .. This effort to address the millennium puzzle about the true causes of climate change on our planet, will never lead to a real solution. The causes of climate change, by all logic, can not be effect of human activity. For this there is a lot of evidence, other than political.
I saw the budgets for these studies in 2011, 2012, 2013 2014 year, and it is a miracle that no one was in so much money found real evidence.
I offer forums such as: USGCRP and NSF, I’ll give you an idea and true causes of climate change for all time, for a lot less money than they spend with no real results. Make a deal and everything will be fine. Will not be known for several months. This is not to irritate anyone, because it is really illogical to so many people and organizations are looking for solutions and so spend money without a solution.
Now a serious question: How would America be willing to pay for a solution to this problem.
Where should I contact to arrange for the solution of the true causes of climate change on all the planets, not only in our. With what I have, can be explained almost all phenomena in the sun. These phenomena are only indicators of climate change, reconnection of magnetic poles of the sun, maybe an earthquake (to be checked).
Waiting for a call to solve this so far the most important issue humanity.
@ Samurai.
I said wealth, not income. And are these the people who are running the show?
***
joeldshore says:
May 11, 2014 at 7:07 pm
Maybe you’ll eventually come to realize that the spin pervades his climate/energy stuff too. Really has very little to do with science and a lot to do with Right-wing ideology.
***
Worried that your grant gravy-train might get derailed?
Including the Johnstown flood in a list of natural disasters doesn’t really help the case. That one definitely had a human cause, in the shape of a badly designed and poorly maintained earthwork dam.
Finally climate change is making it rain here! Or is it that climate change caused in not to rain last week and today it’s climate unchanging? Is climate change causing me to become more sarcastic?
Man I’m impressed how actually wimpy is the US constitiution. Can’t it be used to prevent the damage? This is the culmination of a long period of destruction of real education by the same ide-ologue_s (strategy#1) who don’t want an educated public. The coming down of the iron curtain wasn’t all good. The dyed in the wool socia_ist_s took on the task of entering and rising to the top of academic, scientific, sociological, etc institutions, the UN (new departments were created by known anti-wes_tern civilization and new-wld order types like Maurice Strong, Soros, etc.) and the first generation of the “de-educated” and indoc_trinated are now ‘lobotomized’ officials are making laws. They have cleverly and cynically used money (yours and mine) to buy the entire university-eco complex off. Surely the founding fathers must have anticipated this somewhere in the constitution. The situation is making the once-considered nutty anti-government militias into prescient geniuses.
Wow–discussions. Sweet-talking the warmists to get them off their back for the moment. Maybe China actually will be maneuvered into pledging at the 2015 IPCC confab to cut its emissions, but it’ll be an empty promise.
China has stated that it isn’t going to do anything about its CO2 emissions before 2020. When that year is reached, it’ll kick the can down the road again, most likely. Its plans out to 2040 will cause a doubling of its emissions. India’s plans for 2040 also will double its emissions. (And Russia has no plans to cut its emissions.) Indeed, China’s plans to reduce particulate emissions near its cities involve gasifying coal in Inner Mongolia and piping it in, which will substantially increase its CO2 emissions. See here (especially the charts):
http://seattletimes.com/html/specialreportspages/2023517279_chinaenergyxml.html
This has to be the biggest bunch of crap I have ever seen in my 40 years in the science business as a Meteorologist! President Obama needs to be impeached over this long-page book of lies! It’s voodoo science at it’s best! The American people are now facing their last chance and make a stand for our children and our children’s children! All I’m going to say to that; LET’S ROLL!
Was it the Congressional Research Service that issued a report several months ago, stating that this administration has so mismanaged the economy that we have now suffered permanent (as in no matter what we do now we will never get it back) economic damage of over 1% of the annual growth rate.
SAMURAI says:
May 12, 2014 at 12:13 am
RoHa says:
May 11, 2014 at 9:47 pm
@SAMURAI
“Are you referring to the 1% who own something like 35+5 of Americas wealth, or the top 10% who own 75% of the wealth. They certainly seemed to be calling the shots when the President rescued big banks from bankruptcy with taxpayers’ money and let them carry on while the rest of the country lost trillions in investment, etc. (And some people call him a socialist!)”
==============================================
First of all, the top 1% of earners receive roughly 20% of total national income, not 40%….. The top 10% earn around 50% of total national income. Who cares? As long as THEY earned it, I’m not entitled to any of it. I’m just thankful for the wonderful goods, services and technologies these inspiring entrepreneurs provide the world.
Read it again, he said ‘wealth’ not ‘income’, and it’s correct the top 1% own ~37% of the nations’s wealth.
Hugh Price says:
May 12, 2014 at 6:31 am
Including the Johnstown flood in a list of natural disasters doesn’t really help the case. That one definitely had a human cause, in the shape of a badly designed and poorly maintained earthwork dam.
——————————————-
Much the same type of man caused as New Orleans and Katrina…
Or, Sandy in NJ & NY.
cn
Last time I checked, China was building coal fired power plants at the rate of about one per week. It is in the midst of an aggressive port-building project to double the quantity of coal it can import. Absent an economic collapse, there is no way they are ever going to reduce to any significant degree their utilization of coal in the next 50 years. They need energy from all sources, as much as possible.
The political correct westerners love it when China talks about going along with these silly and vastly uneconomic alternative energy/CO2 reduction schemes. China likes to be loved, so they talk the talk and say what the elites want to hear. But keep an eye on how they walk.