Attorney Chris Horner writes in with this bombshell which shows how “evangelism” has replaced factual analysis at the EPA, which is helped along by a compliant mass media. See the attached document obtained via FOIA.
His take on it includes:
* Obtained from the ongoing “Richard Windsor” FOIA, precisely as FOIA intended this allows the American public to see what bureaucrats and, in this case, ideological activists in government say among themselves and their pressure group allies, helping us keep a proper perspective about what these same activists tell the public.
* What this memo shows is the recognition that EPA needed to move its global warming campaign away from the failed global model of discredited Big Green pressure groups and their icons, that it has proved “consistently — an unpersuasive argument to make.” In it we see the birth of the breathtakingly disingenuous “shift from making this about the polar caps [to] about our neighbor with respiratory illness…”.
It also shows the conviction that if they yell “clean air” and “children” enough they, the media and the green groups will get their way.
SPECIFICS:
Notable points consistent with what critics of this evangelism have been saying include:
– the analogy to religion and faith-based pursuit of the “mission” — “a monumental effort driven by a positive motivation” — to reach the “unchurched”, which framing they recognized “will undoubtedly raise some eyebrows internally”.
– the same is true of the candor with which the memo acknowledges Obama’s EPA would wrap [fill in the blank] agenda item in poll-tested rhetoric, to “use various hooks” — “children” naturally among their headline list, as in “highlighting the children’s health dimension to all of our major initiatives” — to try and “create a causal link” between the incoming appointees’ “mission” and the actual concerns of those impacted by the missionaries.<
[See “shift from making this about the polar caps [to] about our neighbor with respiratory illness…”] Sure enough, with the rollout of Obama’s GHG rules in June we saw the remarkable pivot after which the “global warming” agenda was suddenly, somehow in fact about “clean air” and children struggling to breathe; the American Lung Association stood in for the old faithful alarmist groups which have squandered most of their credibility in recent years, to host the president’s announcement. Observers may have scratched their heads about that; this provides the genesis.
Elsewhere the memo acknowledges the campaign, revealed further in many other “Richard Windsor” emails, of trying to rebrand a global warming movement that is so obviously a child of affluent whites to an issue of race and “EJ” or “social justice”.
Possibly most refreshing is the acknowledgement of EPA’s symbiotic relationship with a “cadre of reporters” who EPA expects to demand an agenda — according to EPA, just like pressure groups — to which demands EPA will respond.
March 09 EPA Strategy Memo to LPJ (PDF obtained via FOIA)
That’d be an interesting FOI to open up to the public. A nice crowd review could be done pretty quickly.
???? It is open to the public, now.
I see the link to the specific memo, but it there a link to the entire FOI?
How otherwise, with “environmental protection” per the priorities of progtards like our Community-Organizer-in-Chief?
And is there anyone reading here yet fixated upon the scientific aspects of the perpetually preposterous bogosity of “man-made global warming” – er, “climate change” – when factual reality has friggin’ NEVER had a thing to do with the leftards’ bastardly purposes for foisting this fraud?
It’s political, and where it’s not political, it’s religious with a nominally secular discoloration.
Just imagine what digital learning mandates and videogaming in the classroom from GlassLab will do to the typical students’ ‘understanding’ of science. They will get used to being embedded in a virtual reality that shows these models to be true.
Anytime you read the word ‘framing’ or a mention of ‘lenses’, someone is trying to control what gets perceived and what gets ignored in how we interpret daily life.
On the religious aspect, many of the leading pushers of the K-12 agenda are also heavily involved with New Age philosophies and practices and pushing Holos Consciousness (the Club of Budapest new term created with the Dalai Lama, Integral Theory (Robert Kegan, Ken Wilber), Transpersonal Psychology (Peter Senge), and others. Check out the Garrison Institute for more confessions on this nexus.
I’m not sure why I’m posting as a reply to you, however:
First – I used to work in government. The word ‘mission’ is a typical government word for ‘what this office or group is doing’. The word mission is used because of the military connection to the governmental office. So, I definitely am not surprised nor alarmed by that particular word in any particular government document. However, I would say that the paragraph specifically targeted at ‘Climate Change’ is alarming. Mostly because it doesn’t include any references to science or data or even models. The paragraph is simply ‘fluff’ meant to serve as a ‘call to arms’ — again a military term but appropriate for any government office to use for any mission of that office.
Second, to Robin:
Digital learning doesn’t need to be about advocacy of climate change nor about blind trust of the models. I don’t disagree that advocacy and blind trust of authority will be a component of EPA led digital learning about the climate. However, it is no less destructive to subvert young minds through pen, paper, and general classroom advocacy and indoctrination. I, for one, would hope that digital learning reach the classroom at a young age… however, the digital learning should show the power of scientific data analysis using observational data along with simple modeling and comparison of the two. Of course, this is highly unlikely because such useful and powerful analysis will be deemed beyond the intellect of the standard student… And so, digital learning will be all about TV learning… i.e. consumption of someone else’s ideas, ideals, and analysis through hyped video and moving musical scores…
But – it doesn’t need to be that way.
I hate bombast from wherever it comes. Only important point is about climate change “in the abstract” recognized as “unpersuasive”. Finally a consensus.
Rebranding something accurately so people understand the issues better. They should be ashamed of themselves..
Mendaciously misrepresenting the issues in order to give people and policy makers false impressions is worse than shameful. Especially when it is done by government institutions with the tax payers money.
It is a review of possible propaganda strategies. In today’s context of the politicization of science, it is a political strategy.
Except there is no accuracy. But then you have yet to learn that.
Sir Harry
Are you defending “Richard” and the EPA?
Do you agree that it is necessary to turn environmental protection into a religion, or quasi-religion in order for the ordinary folk to understand it, or failing that, to act ‘correctly’ anyway?
I find that elitist. If science communicators cannot explain something truthfully in a coherent manner, then it is not real as far as the pubic is concerned. Appeals to authority are not working anymore as the ‘authorities’ continue to discredit themselves with hollow assertions they have gnostic knowledge inaccessible to the scientific semi-literates. That’s the problem with education. If you educate the masses they understand when they are being conned.
The EPA once did great things and had integrity.
The EPA once did great things? Remember that one of their early “accomplishments” (or Great Thing) was to ban DDT based on no supporting science. The EPA administrative judge even said that the evidence didn’t support the complaints against DDT and the ban, but that he felt it important to ban it anyway. EPA has been almost nothing but a front for radical anti-capitalist Greens ever since it was created.
Crispin:
“The EPA once did great things and had integrity” ?????
I worked as a consultant to industry to 25 years dealing with EPA in every program, and I don’t know to what you are referring. Some of the early progress was good in terms of open discharges to air and water, but by the time of the `1976 regulations and statutes, it has been a knock-down-dragged-out fight over every little thing.
Not just almost, Severian. The EPA’s entire purpose is to bureaucratically wrest liberty from the people that fund it. The same is true of any of the departments given to the executive branch by the legislative. This has never occurred by accident.
Mark
“Rebranding something accurately so people understand the issues better.”
Is that what they’re doing? Kindly explain to me how that is so.
Rebranding was necessary when they realised global warming was at a standstill and people continued to put it near the bottom of their concerns. It’s hard to persuade Americans in the NE when they are about to get slammed with that “thing of the past” – again.
Updates: Up to 3 feet of snow expected in paralyzing Northeast blizzard
No Harry, it is about scaring people and appealing to emotions. More hysterics, little science. It is all too obvious.
If you don’t believe the science of AGW – which is true of pretty much everyone here except lonely old me – it might look nefarious in a ham-handed kind of way. If you do, it’s just common sense to communicate the issues in a way that people can relate to.
For example, if I’m a weather forecaster and a hurricane is coming in, I’ll tell you how low the pressure is going to be, but more importantly, I’m going to emphasize the things you really need to know – when it’s coming, how fast are the winds, and how much rain there’s going to be. If you believe that there’s a real danger, it’s important to tell people exactly how that danger is going to impact them, not to gloss over and cover up so as not to upset anyone.
I get that you don’t agree this is necessary, because you don’t recognize an underlying risk. I’m just pointing out why this is just good communication.
I had to google Richard Windsor, and the issue kind of escapes me since no evident harm has been done.
There seems to be a lot that escapes you, Sir.
=============
Harry
There is a distinct difference between the science of AGW and true science. If there is one perspective that joins the regular commenters here, it is they understand that difference.
Time will tell.
@Sir Harry Flashman, your name kind of sounds like a UK failed empire pedophile, any coincidence?
no I don’t think this looks nefarious in a ham handed kind of way….I think using my tax money to promote failed theories on climate with propaganda and lies is not just ham handed, it is criminal.
“no harm” from the head of the EPA, pretending to be someone else in, and promoting lies? Well there is a harm, the harm is that a government official in a high level of power being paid on the sweat of my brow committed a Federal crime and no charges were filed. That is a huge problem
The science of AGW has so far produced a plenty of failed predictions and a scary 100-year outlook. I will be more willing to trust it when I see a reliable 100-day weather forecast. Even 100 hours seem to be too long for a reliable forecast – other than “tomorrow will be pretty much like today”. They totally disregard this time-proven forecasting method.
@Harry Flashman: When you start out saying: “If you don’t believe the science of AGW “ it tells me that you see it (AGW) as a religion.
But then, when you go on to use the over-egged analogy of whether a weather forecaster should tell the truth about a low pressure area on its way, or lie to the viewers, I think you need to pause: If the weather forecaster had not seen any bad weather for the last 18 years and decided that there was not much chance of any in the near future, would he be covering up if he was to tell the viewers that there was not much to worry about? Or would you prefer that he scare the cr@p out of them so as to push his own belief system? (Not to mention, keep his job, salary and pension?)
I hope your not being paid to come up with this stuff.
The proper analogy is if a weatherman warns of a hurricane hitting Florida at some time in or around the year 2055 give or take 10-20 years. And today people should do what with this warning?
Apparently the absurdity escapes you.
Harry, if you really believed in the Science of AGW, you’d be asking why precious resources dedicated to saving the planet from human co2 are being wasted on unrelated stuff, and you’d believe the science so you’d know very well it’s unrelated. If you really believed….
I disagree. Simply believing something doesn’t mean you see it as a religion. Believing something without evidence is faith, believing something with evidence means you’re convinced enough by the evidence to believe the results.
Well Sir Harry (what are you a “Sir” of ??), the “Science of Climate” and of global warming if and when it occurs, and of Anthropogenic ( $3 word for “man made”) global warming, if that occurs, is simply Physics, and probably Biology too.
Some say Chemistry as well, but Chemistry is simply Applied Physics, and Biology is simply Applied Chemistry; so it all comes down to Physics in the end; which not surprisingly is simply the formal study of the Real Universe.
And some of us have spent well over half of a century studying that, as well as putting it to good use making money for paying customers.
But it seems that the majority of what passes for “Climate research”, and that includes AGW, is actually “Statistics” which is a well understood branch of mathematics; but is not ANY part of Physics. Well lots of branches of mathematics ARE indeed useful tools of Physics. Arithmetic, Algebra, Geometry, Trigonometry, Calculus, Differential Equations, would be a good starting list of useful tools of mathematics for the study of Physics.
Statistics, on the other hand, is only marginally useful, since physical systems never respond to statistical computations of system behavior. Physical systems never store up a lot of values of variables or parameters, and then for some reason decide to act on some statistical prestidigitation of those values. The Physical system responds instantly to the current value of each and every single variable or parameter in the system, and it never waits for something else to happen.
So maybe, just because you don’t understand something, doesn’t mean that everybody else doesn’t understand it either.
As for me, I’ve forgotten MOST of what I once understood very well.
But we are all ears to listen to YOUR dissertations on your “science of AGW” since you evidently are the only expert on that subject.
G
And that horrible language – The “proactive mission” is our way to tag each EPA regulatory action with a forward-looking message that speaks to the bottom line. – meaningless cliche after meanigless cliche. Only bureaucrats churn out such garbage.
Sir Harry Flashman wrote:
Well, you might be able to add me to the list of AGW believers by responding sensibly to this:
Mind you, I’m not holding my breath 😉
@SHF
I don’t know about the other WUWT denizens, but I have yet to see ANY convincing “science of AWG”. Perhaps you can enlighten me (us)?
I guess I’d start by scanning the websites of the 34 national, and 5 international academies of science, as well as the several dozen academies or institutions for chemistry, physics, geology, earth science, agriculture, meteorology, oceanography, biology, engineering and health that have issued public statements endorsing AGW. Or you could consult with the ones that have issued statements denying it, except there aren’t any.
Those conspirators really got to everyone.
…the 34 national, and 5 international academies of science…&etc.
ZZZzzz-z-z-z-z-Z-z-Z-Z-Z-z-z-z…
Some folks are just clueless about human nature. They don’t understand how easy it is to buy opinions.
It’s easy peasy, all it takes is money.
How do I know yours hasn’t been bought? Or Watt’s? Seriously, wouldn’t a couple of guys on the internet be easier to buy than tens of thousands of scientists?
Dbstealey
…
Who bought Heartland?
ooh! ooh! ask me! ask me!
yeah – they say, not prove that they endorse AGW. Several are re-evaluating their positions as a result of membership complaints. Mostly, they cite the model results in support of their position, not empirical data. One that I am most familiar with (CSIRO – I used to work there), is clearly no longer a scientific organization, merely a political one. The empirical data are saying something completely different. Still waiting for that definitive proof
Don’t be ridiculous. Any proof offered will just be dismissed as in error or part of the conspiracy. This site is basically a flat earth cult. You can ban me now.
This is not an alarmist site. You do not get banned for being an idiot, only for attacking others and side tracking the discussion. You can try to get banned that way, but you do not seem to grasp that concept very well.
Sir Harry Flashman
This may surprise you, but I didn’t pass my exams by
One is required to use the assigned text. For example, the assigned text for Geology I was required to use is still in use; I lent it to one of my son’s friends this year. It’s The Changing Earth: Exploring Geology and Evolution, James S. Monroe & Reed Wicander. It has but one passing reference to some believing that CO2 plays a major role in climate. A very great portion of that text is about climate.
Now, why don’t you address the question instead of throwing out a red herring? Oke addresses the physics of boundary layer climates. Name an authoritative text that addresses the physics of CAGW, or explain why, after more than thirty years, such a text has yet to be written.
Mr Pompous Gil
…
The reason you cannot find an authoritative text on CAGW is because there is no such thing as “CAGW” in the realm of science. Your use of “CAGW” is restricted to a specific group of people with a specific set of beliefs.
..
Try using “AGW” instead of “CAGW” and you will be more successful.
SHF says:
…the science of AGW…
Kindly explain the ‘science’.
Begin with a measurement of AGW.
All science uses measurements. Where are the measurements quantifying AGW?
Also, I flatly reject all the endless appeals to what are corrupted authorities. The would be legitimate if they listed the names of each of their dues-paying members, and how they voted.
Got names? We have the names of tens of thousands of skeptics, so…
…got names?
Didn’t think so.
The illiterate David Socrates writes:
Why don’t you name the text? So far I have been referred to exactly one book in twelve months of asking this question. It wasn’t a university text book. It didn’t address AGW, or CAGW from a physics perspective. It merely contained opinions. I already know what your opinion is. Either explain why Oke hasn’t been updated to include your AGW as such texts usually are, or why such a book has evidently not been written.
Meant to include an example. Back in the late 60s I was an undergraduate physics student. The required text was Resnick and Halliday’s Physics. From the wiki-bloody-pedia:
Oke’s Boundary Layer Climates is “the gold standard” in climatology.
I apologize Mr Pompous
…
I was under the impression you thought CAGW was an actual part of the science. I forgot that you don’t have a clue that the “C” is not a part of the science.
…
Now if you wish to view a few authoritative texst on AGW, here are a few suggestions…
..
http://www.amazon.com/Climate-Change-Science-Synthesis-Physical/dp/9400757565
http://www.cambridge.org/features/climatechange/textbooks.htm
http://www.ametsoc.org/amsedu/online/climateinfo/textbook.html
David Socrates wrote:
Like the following:
http://theenergycollective.com/charlesbarton/68505/can-anthropogenic-global-warming-be-non-catastrophic
So my unabashed admiration for Oke makes me a “science denier”? Asking for an authoritative text is also denialism I suppose. How detached from reality can you get?
I was under the impression you thought CAGW was an actual part of the science.
What ‘science’?
Post a measurement, then we can start from there.
No measurements; no science. A book doesn’t make something ‘science’. There are books on Astrology and Scientology, too. They aren’t science.
No measurements = only conjectures = opinions.
Post a scientific measurement quantifying AGW… or post your opinion.
Big difference.
as you requested.
.
citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.131.3867
Don’t bother to learn how to link. Who would read it, anyway?
If there were real measurements of AGW, they would be trumpeted 24/7/365.
There are no empirical measurements quantifying the specific fraction of AGW, out of total global warming. If anyone could produce any such measurements, and those measurements withstood falsification, they would certainly win the next Nobel Prize.
AGW is a conjecture; nothing more.
You asked, I responded
…
Next?
Your response was a non sequitur.
next.
@ Mr Socrates
First of all, thanks. You are the first to respond with actual tertiary-level texts. However, The first volume you reference appears to be co-written by John Cook, psychologist of considerable infamy.
Doesn’t inspire me to blow more than a hundred bucks! The second looks more promising, but it’s still expensive at $US89 for 180 days’ rental. I will have to think about it. Frankly the idea of renting a book doesn’t appeal. Usually I purchase second-hand, academic book prices being what they are.
Obviously from the statement you have made, it is clear you have not been involved with college level textbooks in at least a decade and maybe more. Things have changed since the last time you purchased a textbook for a class.
Sox the Clueless says:
Who bought Heartland?
I have contributed to Heartland, like plenty of other folks. We like the fact that Heartland punches far above its weight, and that is so different from buying professional organizations that I won’t bother trying to explain it to someone who can’t understand the difference.
Once again: where is the list of names of the dues-paying members of the APS, and dozens of similar organizations, and where are their vote tallies? For that matter, where are their votes?? At least 97% of dues-payers are never asked their opinions. They belong so they can network, and to keep up with their chosen field.
Climate alarmism is kept on life support with big money — big GOVERNMENT money. Billions of dollars every year, is forcibly confiscated from unwilling taxpayers to keep the HOAX alive..
Since it is a waste of time trying to explain the facts of life to climate alarmists here, why bother?
“I have contributed to Heartland,”
…
OK
…
” how easy it is to buy opinions.”
…
Got it.
…
Now we know why Heartland is such a wing-nut organization.
Because you contributed to it? Sorry, it does not work that way. You get to pay the money, but keep the nuts to yourself.
@ dbstealey
Socrates was attempting to link to a page listing cites for this vaguely interesting paper:
https://www.eumetsat.int/cs/idcplg?IdcService=GET_FILE&dDocName=pdf_conf_p50_s9_01_harries_v&allowInterrupt=1&noSaveAs=1&RevisionSelectionMethod=LatestReleased
Emphasis mine.
Thank you very much Mr Pompous GIl
..
Mr dbstealey has a very hard time operating his computer. He continually asks for direct empirical evidence, and always seems to have a problem with it when it is presented to him.
Um, no. YOu have not provided any yet. Lying is not a correct debate tactic.
@ David Socrates
You presume too much. My question is how do you reference what you no longer have access to? I have been purchasing tertiary-level academic texts for 45 years and this is the first time I have been confronted by rental. I usually get into the Co-op Bookstore at UTas a couple of times a year when they have a sale. I still receive a discount being a lifetime member. I do not recall ever seeing any signs saying: “these texts are for rental only”. My son’s friends have never mentioned such when borrowing off me to undertake courses I have taken in the past.
Ah well. I guess I’ll just have to attend O-week and check out the bookstore (and PYGs) then. It’s only a couple of weeks away.
Mr Pompous Gil
..
If you would take the time to give it some serious thought, the idea of renting textbooks is a very clever workaround for the exorbitant prices asked for published works. You may be in a different position than a student that needs the book for a class, in that you want to acquire the book for reasons that differ from that of the student. Most students welcome a method of reducing the outlays they must make for required textbooks in the program they have registered for.
David Socrates wrote:
And you can’t spell Git. And as I have noted many times over the last decade, “global” warming seems to have entirely evaded southern Tasmania. My French beans are later than usual. Good thing I grow scarlet runner beans; they prefer the cooler weather.
Current temperature (3 pm) 17°C. Long term average 23.4°C. How alarming is that?
I am so sorry Mr Git, could you please forgive the fact that in my old age, my eyesight isn’t what it used to be, and with the small font on my screen, it is common for me to mistake a “t” for an “l”
…
Now with regard to the weather you are experiencing, be thankful, as you might be aware, I happen to be in the middle of what the media has classified as a “historic” weather event. I anxiously await the failure of my elecrical supply as high winds and heavy snow is inundating the area at this very moment. I look forward to dressing up and shoveling out from the expected 2 to 3 feet of snow now falling from the sky.
@ David Socrates
Oke is $US58 new in the US. Second hand $US1 from the UK plus shipping to Australia $6.58. Doesn’t sound more expensive to me.
@ David Socrates
Have been unable to locate anyone wanting to discuss the content of Our Changing Climate. Such issues as how one accesses any equations after the rental expires. It seems to be the case that you must copy out relevant sections by hand since it’s copy-protected. No copy and pasting, no printing and no way to add glosses. Not particularly useful when you can’t remember an equation you forgot to transcribe.
@ David Socrates
In all, I decided to wait until there’s an affordable book on paper or Kindle Edition. In the meantime, I have plenty of warmist science to amuse me. Like George Monbiot’s Heat and Paul Brown’s Global Warming.
323–326°F increase since the nineteenth century? It’s definitely hotter than we thought, Neddy. Hope you survive the storm. You’re definitely not going to freeze to death in those temperatures 😉
Quote is from Global Warming, Paul Brown, Blandford (1996) p69 in the chapter called Science.
FlashHarry … time has already begun to tell the story, no catastrophic warming for over 18 years, no models even close to reality. Where’s the “hot spot”, where’s the heat hiding, where’s the influence of CO2 … ?
Old socks says:
…could you please forgive the fact that in my old age, my eyesight isn’t what it used to be, and with the small font on my screen, it is common for me to mistake a “t” for an “l”
Well, I forgive him for being old. But not for lying: the ‘t’ and the ‘l’ are far apart — and he has spelled your name right plenty of times before. Further, he snivels and complains like a girl whenever he thinks he has been insulted. I have the remedy, but I don’t thibnk he wants to see it.
Git, mr soxie is nothing but a site pest. He contributes nothing worthwhile here, he just runs interference. Worst of all, he is consistently wrong.
Slippery as an eel, too. He never posts any AGW measurements, Never posts the names of his mythical “consensus”. But, nitpick? There is no better nitpicker around. You had best not mispell a word, or ms sox will reprimand you! That takes the place of having any credible facts.
Once again: Planet Earth is telling us there is no problem, but the alarmist clique says there is a BIG problem. Which one is telling the truth?
One of them is either lying or misrepresenting. My guess is the fact-free ms sox. He has a history of that.
@dbstealey
At least he managed to come up with two titles where none have before. I gave up looking for myself some time ago and I’m surprised I hadn’t found these. Perhaps my Gurgle-fu was slipping. That said, for fairly obvious reasons I can’t trust Cook. And on reflection I’m deeply suspicious of an eBook that I can’t retain. What happens when you want to compare editions? Do they plan to slip edits in when nobody’s looking? I’m a little saddened really. There’s always Science of Doom I suppose. He makes me think! He used to post here a lot before he started his own blog.
SHF, what science? That is the entire reason this site and ones like it exist. No one here questions that CO2 does not absorb LWIR. What is questioned is whether that property has any significantly measureable climatic effect. The available temperature data has been massaged to the point that local trends in the raw measurements are reversed. The reality that each new “correction” to these data sets increments purported warming and those adjustments are not discussed nor are methodological justifications given. That is not science. Even theology does a better job or arguing out the fine points of angels dancing on pinheads.
There are many people due to ignorance do not understand the difference between propaganda and accountable accuracy. Based on your comments I do not know if you are one of those people or are instead those supporting more propaganda and labeling it accurate. At any rate I cannot read your mind and do not know your motives, so I’ll just clarify, propaganda is not interested in accuracy.
You are a silly man.
Oh. You mean like re-branding “Global Warming” as “Climate Change” hoping that the people won’t notice just how wrong the Hansenites and Mannequins are?
(Not to mention that the inhumane “War on Coal” has absolutely NO justification.)
How is more accurate to convince the public that a reduction in CO2 from present levels is going to make our air cleaner or more breathable? I suppose you could argue that making the planet less green would reduce pollen and help allergy sufferers. But then you’d have to explain how being anti-green makes you “green.”
Louis,
We breathe CO2. Our boy was a submariner in the U.S. Navy. If 5,000 ppm didn’t hurt him, why are you worried about 400 ppm? Or has the ‘carbon’ scare colonized your mind, like it has colonized the minds of the other alarmists here?
Next: CO2 doesn’t make the air any less “breathable”. If you believe otherwise, explain. But if you can’t give a credible explanation, then that point goes to skeptics — who have won every logical/scientific point in the entire debate.
Finally, the added CO2 is measurably GREENING the planet. That makes you and your fellow climate alarmists “anti-green”, no?
Yes.
Game, set and match.
Fair enough, that is what community organizers and political sheepherders do.
But what about this part: “EPA’s symbiotic relationship with a ‘[cadre of reporters’ who EPA expects to demand an agenda — according to EPA, just like pressure groups — to which demands EPA will respond.” Is that the job of “reporters”?
Sir Harry Flashman – there is NOTHING that is “accurate” about the EPA’s “rebranding” campaign.
So let’s “rebrand” Obama’s whole “green” ($$$) campaign more accurately so people really do “understand the issues better.” A good motto could be: “Throw our money into the wind, and reap the whirlwind.” The title of Chris Horner’s good book, “Power Grab,” also sums it up nicely.
Let’s be clear — ‘Green’ means MONEY, and lots of it – U.S. taxpayer & ratepayer money.
Obama himself forewarned, “My energy policies will cause electricity rates to necessarily skyrocket” (hurting the poor the most), and will “fundamentally transform the country” – ultimately transferring $Tens of Billions of dollars of American taxpayers and ratepayers money into the pockets of Obama’s uber-rich, connected crony pals (ie: Obama’s Jobs Czar, GE’s Jeffrey Immelt, Invenergy’s Michael Polski, etc…).
And for what???
All for unreliable ‘renewables,’ like wind – the energy of which is too diffuse to ever provide modern power, and the sprawling footprints and massive bird-chopping blades of which, are DESTROYING THE VERY ENVIRONMENT ‘GREEN’ ($$$) THIEVES CLAIM THEY WISH TO SAVE! Despicable!
GE’s Shepard’s Flat Wind Factory cost taxpayers $16.3 MILLION dollars per ‘job created’ – exorbitantly expensive jobs for a product which is neither “reliable,” nor “efficient” – two professed requirements of the “sustainability” movement. Studies from those long-invested in ‘renewables’ show 2 – 4 jobs LOST in the rest of the economy as a result, largely due to those “necessarily skyrocketing” electricity rates.
As Warren Buffett recently admitted, “We get tax credits if we build lots of windfarms. That’s the only reason to build them. They don’t make sense without the tax credit.”
Ever appreciative for the handouts, Ukrainian Michael Polsky – the owner of Invenergy, rewarded President Obama by holding a $35,000 a plate fundraiser at his mansion in Chicago.
President Obama is so committed to Big Wind that he’s even legalized 30-Year EAGLE KILL Permits – solely for the wind industry.
There you have it – Corporate Cronyism in all its glory, with bird murder as their crowning glory.
President Obama claims he wants to “close corporate loopholes,” while his policies (i.e.: the Wind PTC – aka: Pork-To-Cronies) continue to funnel many $Billions of taxpayer dollars to his wealthy corporate insiders – all while the unconscionable debt we are leaving for our children and grandchildren continues to mount.
So I agree Sir Harry Flashman – Let’s re-brand the issue “ACCURATELY” so people can actually understand what’s really going on.
Industrial Wind Needs Blowback (Siemens ad campaign targeting U.S. taxpayers):
http://www.masterresource.org/2014/08/siemens-ad-us-taxpayers/
The Green Corruption Files: Big Wind Energy Subsidies: A Hurricane of Carnage, Cronyism and Corruption:
http://greencorruption.blogspot.com/2013/01/big-wind-energy-subsidies-hurricane-of.html#.VMfEL3ZsqUc
$Trillions Spent, ZERO CO2 abated:
http://euanmearns.com/the-failure-of-green-energy-policies/
Wind Turbines Are Climate-Change Scarecrows:
http://www.nationalreview.com/nro-energy/364885/wind-turbines-are-climate-change-scarecrows-robert-bryce
US windfarms kill 10-20 times more than previously thought:
http://savetheeaglesinternational.org/new/us-windfarms-kill-10-20-times-more-than-previously-thought.html
U.S. Wind Turbines KILL 600,000 – 900,000 Bats a Year:
http://www.isciencetimes.com/articles/6286/20131108/wind-turbines-kill-600000-bats-birds-every-year.htm
Bye-Bye Birdie:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/386394/bye-bye-birdie-jillian-kay-melchior
It’s Rarely About the Environment Anymore:
http://townhall.com/columnists/pauldriessen/2014/10/25/its-rarely-about-the-environment-anymore-n1909581/page/full
http://www.WiseEnergy.org
“President Obama is so committed to Big Wind ”
Oh, come on. No politician in history has ever NOT been committed to big wind. What we need is a means of converting political hot air in energy.
@Duster – “What we need is a means of converting political hot air in energy.” ~ Now that would be great!
There are some politicians who have spoken out against the wind fraud – though they are few and far between. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Ten), is a long-time critic of wind; and in the house, Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan), has – on more than one occasion, introduced a bill that would repeal all energy tax credits.
What is most annoying is the guys who call themselves “Conservatives” (ie: Steve King) who continually push for more Corporate Welfare for Big Wind. King is NO Conservative, that’s for sure!
When science becomes “rebranding” you know you’ve left reality.
TRM that was excellent and pithy.
… or you know you’re in the Left’s reality…
Perfectly said @TRM. Since the EPA (& all of Big Govt) are in the business of “rebranding,” it seems reality is just an annoyance to them.
At least they acknowledge their agenda is not linked to the worries of Americans.
And I note that they think that causal links can be created.
That is only true of socially constructed issues. Physical realities have physical causes.
It is interesting that the EPA doesn’t believe in the physical reality of AGW.
It really is kind of amusing watching them flail about like Seventh Day Adventists did after the Great Disappointment (Christ failed to come as they had predicted).
The Great Pumpkin failed to appear because the pumpkin patch wasn’t sincere enough.
This time, with FEELING.
First rule of marketing, create a need, whether the need is necessary is irrelevant. once the need is placed sell your exclusive ability to fulfill the need. In the case of the EPA they are selling a worry. People have plenty of worries already and need a little more evidence than an unending stream of colorful graphs to add AGW to their worry list.
When I lived in Connecticut as a kid, the Connecticut river was polluted. Did not need any scientists to model it, show graphs, or explain the problem. No one wanted to go near the river, never mind use it for any kind of recreational activity. The point being the poor condition of the river was tangible, it could be seen and smelled. Due to that people responded, no one had to sell them, it was a demand, clean-up the river. Steps were taken, and a few decades later it is a great place for boating and fishing and river property values shot upward. In this case the government did work effectively with industry on the behalf of the public.
That the EPA instead chooses to not only make up imaginary problems, but to create real ones where none existed before is a textbook example of an incompetent organization driven by hubris and ideology.
Alx sez:
Nah. It’s just typical of any bureaucracy; expand your mission, expand your budget, expand your headcount, expand your power, and never mind the havoc or cost.
Oh wait! You’re right. Every bureaucracy winds up as an incompetent organization driven by hubris and ideology. Why should the EPA be any different? Name one TLA (Three-Letter Agency) that is not bloated, not over reaching its mission, is decreasing its headcount and budget as its original goals are accomplished, and not making a mess of things with rules that have unintended consequences.
(Theme from Jeopardy) Give up?
By just about any measure, the EPA has accomplished its original task. We have clean air, clean water, and not a lot of contaminated sites left to clean up. The EPA only needs a maintenance team in place to enforce the rules that got us this far. But n-o-o-o-o-o… it is a Bureaucracy and it is doing what all bureaucracies do.
(Now if we only had a Congress that would do its job of oversight and set the EPA right about where it needs to be. Wake me up, somebody. I’m dreaming.)
This is kind of weak tea. It’s a document proposing a strategy for a PR campaign.
That’s not malfeasance. Anyone who has read Bernay’s Propaganda will recognize that government officials have been crafting these sorts of PR campaigns since the 1920’s.
It’s like outing the head of the EPA for kissing babies.
What ever the EPA is up to, I disagree with. 🙂 Using my money for their agency corruption, lies and falsehoods. They are useless.
tarran, the Nazi Party propaganda in the years leading up to and during Adolf Hitler’s leadership of Germany was very effective for acquiring and maintaining power, and for the implementation of Nazi policies, including the pursuit of total war and the extermination of millions of people in the Holocaust, not to mention the massive loss of life (some estimate 60+ million) up to and during WWII. Their are great similarities between that propaganda machine and the current administration’s, particularly the EPA’s. I’m having real difficulty relating that to kissing babies.
Yo Milwaukeebob, how is that global warming working out for ya? LOL check out this Milwaukee Polar Plunge into lake michigan on Jan 1
http://nukeprofessional.blogspot.com/2015/01/polar-vortek-plunge-proof-that-global.html
That’s no accident. It seems that Goebbels was a fan of Bernay’s works – the story I heard is that the anti-semitic propaganda campaign was based on the ideas contained within Bernay’s paper Crystallizing Public Opinion. In the U.S. in the meantime, Bernays was working with a tobacco industry marketing group to persuade women to take up cigarette smoking – their plan ended up associating cigarettes with women’s rights, and smoking went from being unfeminine and filthy to being a social signal that one was liberated.
Really, everyone should read Propaganda. It’s pretty eye opening stuff. It’s considered the seminal work of the public relations industry. To me it’s about as shocking as the use of typewriters. Sure the Nazis used typewriters, to devastating effect, But that doesn’t mean the appearance of a typewriter makes on evil.
PR is PR. And any idea that the state can be prevented from engaging in PR is doomed to failure. There is no way to separate ‘good’ PR (“don’t break the law”) from ‘bad’ PR.
Nazi propaganda was garbage. Brutish and without subtlety. American and British propaganda has always been superior. British propaganda superiority in WWI is why Hitler was so obsessed with propaganda in his rise to power.
My tax dollars should not be used for a PR campaign. If private organizations want to do a PR campaign, that is their choice of what to do with their money. But my tax dollars should be used for objective science, not to advance a political issue through PR campaigns.
The EPA when it started was about implementing actual science into the real world. (If you dump this sh*t into the creek, you won’t want to drink it downstream.)
Now it’s about promoting that 2+2=5 because “the powers that be” are betting on 5.
tarran:
Does the head of the EPA need to garner votes? I thought it was a political appointment, not a democratic election. The EPA does not need PR: it’s role is to carry out a set of duties without bias, fear or favour. As I see it, it has failed on all three.
“Its role” – Duh.
Quite. If I thought that the EPA was a political organisation I wouldn’t have commented as I’m not a US citizen.
I only thought it was fair game because it is the working out of policy – not the justification for policy.
Nice, a red herring AND a strawman. Nice try.
How about “lethal” (EPA’s reason for testing) testing on children?
http://junkscience.com/2015/01/23/epa-banned-child-testing-but-not-until-after-it-sprayed-diesel-exhaust-up-the-noses-of-10-year-olds/comment-page-1/#comment-341359
And at least one “participant” in the adult tests died of a heart attack.
What kind of a sick bureaucracy would do this? And what sick head of the Executive branch would allow it to happen?
Should not ALL of us immediately send a note/letter and the FOI/EPA memo to our local media? Demand they write an article. Sure, a lot of them are in the pockets of the environmentalists/socialists and that is why a lot of print press is going out of business and viewership is falling on the MSM TV news shows. If you fail to tell the truth long enough, most humans who pay attention are smart enough to realize they are being lied to. Maybe if we bombard them with facts a few local ones will wake up and get off their lazy butts and actually do some real journalism, instead of just regurgitating the BS the Associated Press puts out. It’s worth a try. I’m writing my letter right now. Hey, if you do it, be sure to include that 2014 (was) The Most Dishonest Year on Record. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/01/20/2014-the-most-dishonest-year-on-record/
The insane rage generated on this site by the most mundane things is both bewildering and hilarious.
Actually, folks here are pretty clear thinking. As for rage, yes, there should be some rage for how our government (USA) is hosing the general tax payer; hardly mundane, nor confusing, nor funny. Cheers! …bloody Mary’s for breakfast….
Please recall that the “Richard Windsor” e-mail account was itself a violation of government rules; and, thus, hardly “mundane”.
Your “insane rage” monitor is currently set to very high sensitivity.
Overly-emotional people just interpret things differently. Everything is more intense to them, including the perception of danger.
The EPA took high estimates from an unproven theory and treated them as empirical facts to justify the endangerment finding. Outrage would be the appropriate response.
…but that “outrage” would hardly be “insane rage”.
Troll alert.
For somebody so totally capable of getting his own ‘knickers in a twist’ thats quite a statement!
My knickers are in no way knotted, and are in fact freshly laundered.
Good until next month, eh, Sir Harry?
harry, you might want to check your panties… you are full of it. Troll.
Isn’t that what you’re here for? Trip trap back under your bridge, troll.
Government agents will use firearms to enforce their destructive and scientifically unsupported laws, so some passion is understandable.
One thinking that by acting in a condescending way, people would view them more intelligent and informed, is what is insane or better put, a character defect.
I find the inane posting of one who posts as “Sir Harry Flashman” on this site to be both pathetic and hilarious.
Thanks, it’s folks like you that keep me going.
The insane rage generated on alarmist sites at “deniers” is both bewildering and hilarious.
Your “insane rage” applies to the alarmist cult posting here, not to rational skeptics.
No, that would videos from the likes of the 10:10 group, and most normal people would find them disgusting.
“Sir Harry Flashman
January 26, 2015 at 4:19 pm
Thanks, it’s folks like you that keep me going.”
It is mutual: your comedic interludes give many of us a daily smile.
I admire Chris Horner and his diligence. I do find his writiing style and organization of material a bit too messy reading to get the full impact.
It’s intentional, Gary; designed to give hints without saying anything substantial, attorneyspeak style.
Yes, I wish he would provide complete quotes instead of fragments so we can see the full context and draw our own conclusions. Can the emails not be released to the public for some reason?
Louis:
Which emails? The Climategate I, II, and III emails?
Those are online, along with the Harry_Read_me file. They are easy to find. You should read them if you [believe] for an instant that catastrophic AGW scare is anything other than government propaganda.
db … the emails referred to are those FOIA from the EPA with specific emphasis on the “Richard Windsor” collection regarding clandestine communications within the EPA to subvert proper science.
All current, self-described MSM investigative reporters that claim to be impartial must report this revelation to the “churched” – those common folk that have been repeatedly and for many a year been led astray by the same media outlets and reporters that have religiously (pun very much intended) “reported” (read: regurgitated the spew so forcefully fed them by the EPA in their copious Media Releases over the years) – that first-world humans have degraded the atmosphere by our mere act of living a modern life. Shameful, disingenuous, self-serving..any other descriptors? I need my Thesaurus…but I wonder if there will in fact be a trumpeting of many articles and talking-head types on the tube, telling us that in fact the former con-spiracy theorists were right all along…it was all via the “master plan”? Just..wow. The tentacles of this plan are pervasive, invasive, far-reaching. Common core, carbon (black soot? Or the gas CO2?) Which is it, Ms. And Mr. MSM reporter? Do you actually know the difference but are complicit with this whole diversion from the truth? Or – which of you will step up, and actually report the truth?? When this whole CAGW issue runs it’s course, and those vanquished by the reality and truth of what has been going on lie in the dustbin of history, will you be counted amongst the shining stars of truth and justice??? Well?? We are waiting for the report..
“All current, self-described MSM investigative reporters that claim to be impartial…”
—————————-
Does such a person exist?
In response to Michael C. Roberts mention of “All current, self-described MSM investigative reporters that claim to be impartial…” at 9:24 AM we see Alan Robertson asking:
Tsk. The ” reporters” of the MSM – or, as I like to call it, “The Democrat Party Audiovisual Club” – all CLAIM to be “impartial.”
That’s the operative word here: “claim.”
Some of ’em – having been raised, educated, and experienced in a hermetically sealed environment of left-“Liberal” bigotry – might even believe that “impartiality” claim. Heck, for all they know (and they don’t know much, do they?) they’re right down the middle of the road.
Are the media complicit?
We already know the answer. Leading MSM members have been exposed twice of collaboratively developing favorable coverage of President Obama and coverage of the left’s agenda.
First, there was “JournoList.” Then there was “Gamechanger Salon.”
Google each of these terms to learn that, yes, the media do work together and consult each other.
Okay all of you MSM “sciencey” reporters…here’s your big challenge (chance?) to ask the hard questions:
http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/2015%20Press%20Releases!OpenView
Get in there, and lay open the issues to the questions that will reveal the truth.
I dare you.
MCR
It is so obvious all the AGW junk is only a political agenda to strengthen governmental power over the masses. Their ultimate dream is Agenda 21.
The EPA memo is an absolute disgrace – nothing more nothing less. To advocate emotional blackmail – polar bears, children and the sick as a start and to completely avoid the actual main concerns of the man in the street and to stick to their own agenda of air pollution (notice no mention of CO2 but implied by association) is just plain wrong and totally misguided. In the short term this may get some purchase on the public but in the long run can only end in shame that such desperately low tactics are now being recommended by a national organisation purporting to protect the public.
I wish they would get a grip and return to impartiality. These organisations have no place in sensationalising and hysteria
At 8:26 AM on 26 January, mwh posted:
Has the EPA ever been interested in “impartiality” im the sense that their policies, regulations, and ukases have been predicated on anything other than “emotional blackmail”?
We’re not dealing with people whose interests are served by the dispassionately honest expression of factually supported environmental assessments, but actually left-leaning authoritarians drunk on power and their quest for more of it.
It’s political, and has damn-all to do with the sciences, except as a seeming of scientific validity – a “science-yness,” maybe? – serves these bastids’ purposes. The EPA is – as it ever was – the “long con” on the government payroll.
Are there other “Richard Windsor” emails available, or is this the only one?
As I recall, they released over a thousand of them. But the ones they released were mostly google alert emails for various keywords in news articles. The rest were withheld, and in typical fashion, just like with the Holder investigation, they said, “We have given you a thousand emails what more do you want?”
The thing is no longer the thing, it’s what is said about the thing.
We need a GK Chesterton badly. He warned about this sort of governemnt corruption a great deal
Likewise H. L. Mencken …
” … the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence glamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblin, most of them imaginary.”
Just need more people with all consonant initials.
glamorous = clamorous. Danged incorrect.
Incorrect = autocorrect, and I’m done posting comments on mobile devices.
Or, maybe you could actually read the little screen and do a modicum of proofing before hitting the send button?
Get a BlackBerry
Crispin in Waterloo
January 26, 2015 at 11:51 am
That would be Waterloo, Ontario then?
Was the document (“non-paper.doc”) apparently attached to the original email also included in the FOIA request? Essentially the memo we see is a summary of the document, which we don’t:
So this was a non-email to a non-person (Richard Windsor) to circulate a non-document for non-public discussions by EPA personnel directly pertaining to regulatory actions that by law must be open to oversight. They appear to be using the term “strategic communications” rather that the more generally understood “propaganda”.
I just finished reading the original article. It contains the seeds of the Global alliance for Clean Cookstoves (GACC) which is an initiative by Hillary started in 2010 when she was still Secretary, which is being directed (it seems) from within the EPA. The memo precedes and fits exactly with what happened in 2010. It is certainly EPA-compliant in its objectives. Interestingly the WHO statements about air quality, latest release is 12 Nov 2014, are directly in line with the approach given in the FOIA document. There is a Berkeley connection involved.
Methinks there is much more than meets the eye here. Getting an internal EPA program started seems to have spilled over into getting external funding coopted to support the same initiative (IAQ and children’s health, now including women’s health) via the mechanism of promoting clean stoves for 1/2 the world’s population that still cooks with solid fuels (wood coal & dung). Banning all three is one of the objectives (Hillary, 20-21 Nov 2014, NYC).
It is hard to argue against reducing the impact of bad combustion because it is so obviously bad. That’s the selling point. Polar bears, which are extremely dangerous and not endangered where there is no hunting, are more difficult to sell.
It is clear from the FOIA article that the massaging of public opinion precedes the survey of public opinion. Then, having shaped public opinion on various matters, the EPA claims it is duty-bound to respond to their ‘legitimate concerns’ or just ‘their concerns’. Interesting, That is right up there with the EPA paying NGO’s to sue the EPA so the court will order them to act where they have otherwise little justification to do so. It’s a cute trick and I would never have thought of it. You gotta admire bureaucratic inventiveness.
Anyway, follow the money, and follow other people’s money as it is applied to the problem-du-jour in service of larger agendas about which we are to remain in the dark.
Crispin, you’re absolutely right. “creation” of the need/problem (enemy) where there is none is the first step. In corporate marketing the phrase is – “Create the need, then fill it.” And in the corp. world it’s to sell a product/service, thereby keeping or creating jobs that produces MORE economic flow. In the world of government it’s all about “justifying” jobs that produce little if any additional economic flow. An integral part of both is acquiring someones money. We know how it’s done in the Corp. world and you correctly defined how in Gov. Of course the more “altruistic” sounding (“Save the children”, “Save the environment”, “Save the Polar Bears”, etc.) you can make “stealing” someones money legally, the less likely the “public” is going to look back and say, “Hey, you never actually saved the ______, you used the money for something else – like saving your job!” That happens in both worlds. One of the reasons why I do not much like Coke anymore, with their whole Polar Bear BS marketing.
Any bastard tries depriving me of my woodburning cookstove is in for an unpleasant surprise. The Git planted all those trees 30+ years ago for the express purpose of space & water heating as well as cooking!
Damn! Forgot to close the italics before “of”. How dare some American try to dictate what a Tasmanian can and can’t do!
Didn’t take long (8 months) for the writer of the memo, Mr. Brooks-LaSure, to leave the ship.
http://cenvironment.blogspot.com/2010/08/epa-loses-giant-mr-m-allyn-brooks.html
SHF: A lot of “science” is not science at all but a belief driven by someone – using selection bias, cherry picking and deep sixing information that doesn’t conform. The “science” may be accepted for years and dissenting views subverted, dissenters barred from the community and teaching privileges removed.
This is about heart disease and how a bombastic personality and money has given us bad information if you listen, you will see many parallels to the discussion on climate science today. Confirmation bias, cherry picking, and selection of of only data that confirms your beliefs is rampant.
http://www.cbc.ca/player/AudioMobile/The%2BCurrent/ID/2650068469/
It’s 25 minutes and well worth a listen just from the perspective of reviewing scientific literature and finding out how it ends up getting directed in a particular direction with belief and egocentric people, and many parallel agendas. Many similarities to climate science today though this is about “eating healthy”. Worth a listen just on its own.
Finished my bacon and eggs, time to go ride in the snow and check the wolf and cougar tracks I saw yesterday. All the best to you SHF. 🙂
Thanks Wayne, I will have a listen. Appreciate the civility.
Link is no longer working….
As regards public health, the entire pattern of what we see in “climate policy” began there (in Public Health). To this day publications that dissent from the consensus “view” that fat is bad, cholesterol levels are meaningful, and salt is a poison, are “debunked” by extraordinarily weak reasoning, and their authors are targeted by personal attack rather than reasoned refutation supported by data. As recently as 1994 an assistant deputy secretary for health attempted to prevent the publication of the results of a government funded study, because the results, while not outright contradicting standing recommendations regarding fat consumption, demonstrated that the “protective” effect was so trivial as to be indiscernible to the individual. Like climate policy, health policy is guided by “precautionary principles” not framed by string results and best practices, but by weak correlations and “what if they are right” reasoning.
The Anthropocene Age scientific paradigm rests on the idea that if any chemical can be found to be harmful in very high dosages in a lab rat, then it must be reduced to zero exposure in the environment. This extends to 10,000 chemicals now in use by people in any process to grow food or make things. See Edith Efron’s book, The Apocalyptics.
As Duster has pointed out, this same paradigm has its application in nutrition as well.The end result is that nutrients that the body needs to function properly are now being strictly controlled, and even eliminated from the food supply under the guise of the “public good,” or “public health.” Salt is one example, but B12 is the most important since it only comes from animal products.
salt ref: http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/news/20140402/cdc-salt-guidelines-too-low-for-good-health-study-suggests
Now for those who do not appreciate that this is a scientific paradigm shift brought about during the 60’s by the Cannabis Generation, I want to ask you not to overlook so easily the tremendous amounts of labor, study, and research that it takes to undo all of the bad ideas, paradigms, and destructive movements that have been taught to the following generations by the Boomers. Please, at least acknowledge this labor the rest of us have had to exert in straightening ourselves out after being totally and thoroughly miseducated by the Boomers in science, history, nutrition, occult horse manure, sex-and-drug cultural campaigns, population control, anti-agriculture activism, vegetarianist activism, anti-middle-class activism, and all manner of hatreds, schemes, and betrayals against all of the English speaking countries. The same science that convicts a benign or beneficial pesticide, herbicide, or fungicide has now fingered co2 from power generation and travel, methane from cows, nitrous oxide from crops, and cfcs from refrigerants. It has also accused the very essential nutritional needs of your body – and those of domesticated animals – as unsustainable and bad for you!
As you see, AGW is only a subcomponent of the Anthropocene Age paradigm. This scientific paradigm produces thousands of studies whose sole purpose is to convict the slightest molecular presence of harming health or of disrupting the environment.
This is probably worth a mention here, and maybe an article – anyone could write a better article that I can.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/green-party/11356354/Drugs-brothels-al-Qaeda-and-the-Beyonce-tax-the-Green-Party-plan-for-Britain.html
If anyone has a cup near their mouth, put it on a flat surface at least a foot out of reach, also put any sharp objects back in the drawer before continuing.
and then of course …
So when people start stuffing IED’s under the cars of Green officials, it’s nice to know they’ll be “address[ing] desperate motivations” instead of looking for the perps.
Talk about “rebranding”. Terrorism is “desperate motivation”
The really upsetting Consequence of the EPA is that They do think its true.
No, they don’t think its true. they just think the ends justify the lies just as Jonathan Gruber thought Obamacare was worth lying to the public to get it passed. EPA officials, like Gruber, know their lies are not true. They simply believe the “cause” justifies the deception. There are climate-gate emails that show a similar attitude among some climate scientists.
Now that conservatives control both houses of congress? I would think the EPA’s budget would take a pretty big hit.
Conservatives don’t control Congress, Republicans do. Not the same thing.
+1
X100
Just so.
We can change that in the next election cycle, if everyone will get involved right now with their local conservative groups and work to get conservatives elected and RINOs rejected!
If you fail to do that, we could end up with Jeb Bush or Mitt Romney as our 2016 RINOSAUR candidate….. and Hillary “What Does It Matter?!” Clinton or Elizabeth “Fauxcahontas” Warren as our next Dear Leader!
I read that Donald Trump is getting interested in 2016. Wouldn’t that be great … Trump to Barry, “You the weakest link, you’re fired !”
Just as it wasn’t the Progressives controlling Congress, it was the Democrats.
Each and every time I see the word “justice” proceeded by an adjective such as “economic” or “social” or “racial” (that is, “social justice,” “economic justice,” or “racial justice”) I immediately recognize that I’m dealing with hucksters, statists, neo-Marxists and others of similar ilk who have no interest in actual justice.
more solyent green:
I feel my blood boil whenever justice is preceded by an adjective because I too realize what’s up. A relatively new one is “climate”. Climate justice. ???!!
That reminds me. I saw a notice recently for an international studies seminar called, “Doing business in the climate economy”.
So true. The only real “justice” would be for every household on Earth to have cheap electricity and clean running water. How many homes could have been “justified” with 100 billion dollars?
😎
“Selective Fairness”.
The real problem with this change of strategy is that the children of the world who most suffer from air quality are the third world poor, the dung slappers, the stick gatherers. Raising the price of energy worsens that.
The EPA’s attempt at misdirection is just plain evil.
====================
The mercy of the wicked is cruel.
(Google for attribution.)
It could also be described as Energy Imperialism.
The EPA notes that people care about both clean water and drinking water systems above climate change, and the EPA has their own documentation on the severity of these issues and the costs to fix them. So do professional engineering organizations. But instead of drawing a line in the sand when it comes to funding and fixing those problems, they see the problem is that they need to do a better job of promoting the issue of climate change so that it is higher on the list.
They’ll bypass hurdles through using the “Clean Water Act”. http://www.cfact.org/2014/11/13/proposed-water-rule-puts-americans-at-epas-mercy/
Sir Harry,
Your phony misrepresentations are no more than petulant snipes.
Without providing any specific or germane beef you have nothing to offer.
So what is your objective?
Marketing, not science. That’s how I read that EPA memo.
Say rather, propaganda. It’s nothing as innocuous as trying to convince folks to buy a particular brand of dish detergent.
Don’t lose your head. Buy “Progressive Products” exclusively or you might.
The next-to-last paragraph of the memo mentions the EPA brand. They are trying to convince Americans to buy into their branded way of “thinking”. But they are avoiding the word brainwash.
It reads like something Goebbels himself would write. Why is propaganda ever so revolting?
Evangelical behavior lacks the perspective of understanding the facts within the primary issue. This is typical of fanatics, they lose sight of reality. They live in a self-created fantasy with resulting dangers of any delusion. Delusion causes lack of functionality which causes further insecurity. Insecure people form groups to defend themselves against the dangers of the majority living in reality. The insecure group with fanatical views give themselves a name. It’s called politics. The EPA is pure politics. Politics is the opposite/converse of science.
The EPA would do much better if it ran a campaign about hungry polar bears eating asthmatic children.
What most angers me about these revelations is that I’m not surprised. I should be very surprised yet I’m not, and that is not my doing. The morons we call climate scientists and journalists, more out of courtesy lately, have betrayed the public trust for a very long time.
Evangelists, ha ha.
Actually, I see a self-righteous back-to-nature member of the Cannabis Generation, issuing an organic-only, local-only agrarian society FAT WA on the rest of us, so we won’t be so materialistic.
Two can play.
It isn’t about verifiable data and science, no.
The EPA is about branding, messaging, and playing on the fears of the Collective, to achieve the Obama administration’s socialist agenda. ‘Green on the outside, Red on the inside….’
Rephrasing: It is the Environmental Propaganda Agency of the Obama administration.
Mac TK
The problem with that analysis is that the EPA does not change its stripes when the Prez is a Republicabubble. It is a long standing attitude that outlives presidents. What is happening now is Congress etc are chopping the budget of the EPA and whole departments are closing ‘by force’. The US needs an EPA but it has to be responsible to government – as part of a Department, not as a Third Force with powers parallel to the Prez and the Elected branches. The “Obama Admin” thing doesn’t fly with me. The EPA was created by Nixon. It is not about parties.
It is convenient to blame Obama for things but the problem will persist long after he has retired. Polarization is not the answer. Everything the government does has to be implemented by people accountable to the elected representatives. All else is tyranny, which was supposed to have been dealt with by the American Revolution. What’s the point of replacing an unaccountable King with an unaccountable Agency?
Can you tell I have just seen the movie “Kill the Messenger”?
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/kill_the_messenger_2015/
Wasn’t EPA / Massachusetts about the EPA not agreeing with the Greene to regulate CO2? After the SCOTUS ruling the EPA management changed and AGW activists took over. That was the moment the EPA because a politicaly driven entity for zealots
Thanks, Chris Horner, Anthony.
The church of global warming goes on, when will they ever learn?
sir Harry Flashman you said “If you don’t believe the science of AGW….” , so please explain what you explicitly mean by the “science of AGW” , your statement lacks the universal clarity of science such as the laws of thermodynamics and as such need to be clarified so I for one can understand what exactly you are claiming.
Thanks,
Joe
What’s this? Business as usual in a bureaucratic government? Okay, thanks for checking in.
Sir Harry Flashman January 26, 2015 at 12:01 pm
Time will tell.
With time, anything will ‘tell’. Harry, you’re blowing smoke up your own patoot, with that statement. You’re going to sit around and wait, then? And then what? Splendiferously chide those who will listen? Don’t let your “belief” in AGW amount to an excuse for the propagandist rhetoric from the EPA. They have an agenda, and it has squat to do with ‘science’. The EPA isn’t out to inform the masses. They are out to hoodwink them, and I think they succeeded with you.
Unless he’s a paid shill…
It has occurred to me that there is a to get rid of the EPA. It would start by by getting environmentalism declared a religion. It wouldn’t be too hard to do because it is mostly based on faith and the only time science comes in is to support the faith. If we could get the religion of environmentalism created then the first amendment of the constitution knocks the EPA off of the books. Just a thought. Compare environmental science to creation science.
Sadly, none of this will make any difference. The True Believers who follow the Global Warming Evangelists will accept no data that refutes their beliefs. They act very much like Creation “Scientists” who also ignore, alter, or dispose of any evidence that refutes creationism (or rather, supports evolution).
We all have our preferences as to writing style, but the central point of this article rings perfectly true…. the bureaucratic federal model is broken. Hopelessly.
Advocacy should never be the role of a Federal agency. Bureaucrats should only be entrusted to carry out specific tasks assigned to them by the legislative and executive branches, subject to oversight from the general public through the voting booth, and constitutional review from the judicial branch.
And, BTW, a healthy fourth estate should serve as an additional journalistic watchdog, not serve a stealth role as advocate. Once the public catches a member of the fourth estate betraying its public trust by mutating into a non-journalistic agency, then the public has every right and duty to ostracize and walk away from that member.
Just a note on the original Sir Harry Flashman………………
” Fraser decided to write Flashman’s memoirs, in which the school bully would be identified with an “illustrious Victorian soldier” experiencing many 19th-century wars and adventures and rising to high rank in the British Army, acclaimed as a great soldier, while remaining “a scoundrel, a liar, a cheat, a thief, a coward—and oh yes, a toady.”[1]
The SHF above seems to be aptly named……………….. ;^D
He’s freely admitted to same, in these pages. He also claimed a few weeks ago, that he was done with our company and would no longer post. When challenged to make good on his word, he ignored the request.
– – – – – – –
I suggest that the EPA document is more accurately characterized as planning on creating tactical mythological stories and less accurately characterized as doing something like a religion does.
Mythology is a more fundamental concept than the concept of religion; namely religion is a derivative concept of mythology. Mythologies are universal and timeless stories from which a religion borrows and then adapts to their specific historical situations. I think it is an over reach to attribute making a new religion of environmentalism to the EPA through its document; instead I think in their document they are planning creation of myths to be easily and naturally incorporated into both the already existing subjective (non-scientific) part of our general culture and also to be incorporated into existing popular / traditional religions. It looks like the EPA has plans for tactical mythological constructs / stories to be used on targeted audiences. NOTE: Perhaps the word ‘collectives’ is a better word than ‘targeted audiences’.
John
Talking of the EPA and it’s integrity, in the same breath can we mention the UNIPCC?
“UNIPCC Rev 4: INVESTMENT AND FINANCIAL FLOWS TO ADDRESS CLIMATE CHANGE BACKGROUND PAPER”
This Background paper is entitled: “INVESTMENT AND FINANCIAL FLOWS UNFCCC TO ADDRESS CLIMATE CHANGE”. (1) Clearly establishes are their objectives regarding using fiscal sink holes named (1) the “Resource Allocation Framework (RAF)” and (2) “Additional Funding Components”.
(i) A RESOURCE ALLOCATION FRAMEWORK (RAF)
“Where by: China, India and the Russian Federation are likely to receive the most under the RAF formula, followed by Brazil, Mexico and South Africa, followed by a group of countries that includes Argentina, Egypt, Indonesia, Islamic Republic of Iran, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Pakistan, Romania, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine and Venezuela.”
(ii) ADDITIONAL FUNDING COMPONENTS
“Two (2) funding components: (A) “GHG Emissions” mitigation at an estimated cost of 380Billion by 2030 and (B) “Adverse Impact” mitigation at an estimated cost of USD171Billion by 2030 of which “Coastal Zones” (Increasing Sea Level) is $11Billion.”
The Background Paper goes on to describe, as a means of sourcing additional funding, “Governments establish(ing) indirect levy’s” with Cap and Trade being named as such a levy vehicle. So there you have it: Governments now in play as the collection agency for tax payers monies (contributing) to be handed over for the UN to run their “Adaption Fund” and to be distributed as described within the RAF.
The absolutist attitude of the EPA and its lack of scientific rigor would suggest that there has to be more to this than meets the eye and those are “old” unadjusted for current value numbers.
http://unfccc.int/files/cooperation_and_support/financial_mechanism/application/pdf/background_paper.pdf
Interesting paper, Newsel. Especially the Acknowledgments page (p. 270). They are all financial institutions, with the exception of the World Wide Fund for Nature and a couple of others. This is an elite scam being perpetrated on the majority of the world.
In other words, the UN isn’t working with governments, it’s working with private banks. !!
I note that early on in the document, the Allyn Brooks-LeSure remarks upon a “mythical 100 days”. He then constrained himselves by those “mythical” 100 days. The writer seems to regard this mythical 100 days as some sort of, well, “mystical” period (of grace?) after which they would be free to unleash whatever hell they wanted upon the populace, in the guise of acting in their best interests.
Well may that be, but the correct interpretation of the “mythical 100 days” is quite different.
It refers, specifically, to Napolean. In 1814 he was imprisoned, for life, in the island of Elba (thus:- Able was I ere I saw Elba). The Western world breathed a sigh of relief and set about rebuilding Europe and France, after 20 years of bloody war, and participating in the Industrial revolution.
However, Napoleon had different ideas, and aided by numerous sympathisers, he effected an escape from Elba, and returned to France, landing somewhere by Juan les Pins.
To cut a long and fascinating historical period short, Napoleon then set off through France, gathering followers and soldiers, and headed for Paris. The newly installed French government scarpered, to a man, and Napoleon installed himself back in Paris, as President (again).
The Brits didn’t like this idea very much, and fortunately, they had a good General, named Wellington, hanging around, more-or-less unemployed, so they gave him an army (very small a army, about 30,000 rag-taggers, sort of bundled together, after all, a few days before, Europe had faced eternal peace). The Brits were luckier than they realised, for Wellington was a very fine General indeed.
He was the sort of boring General whose idea of a holiday was to ride around France pondering upon how he would fight battles there. It so happened that he had just spent some time wandering around a hill which attracted his soldier’s eye, as being a good place to fight a defensive battle, which the Brits were good at. And there he waited, and for all we know shouted “Ya-Boo” and stuff at Napoleon.
Napoleon got cross at this, some people say he was a bit under the weather at the time, anyway he attacked good old Wellington, and his Tommies.
The plan of battle appears to have been normal for the time. Napoleon blasted away for a few hours with his mighty cannon “By God, said the Duke (for that is what Wellington was,) the man’s just a pounder!” The Brits of course, did what they always excel at, they just lay down on the job. Well, to be fair, the Duke is reported to have said, when the firing started, “Lie down, men”, And so the Tommies, all 30,000 of them, just lay down in the mud, for it had rained earlier. Then eventually Napoleon stopped his carronading, and commenced his advance, and his 30,000 good French Braves, started off up that long hill towards the Brits.
After while, when he thought it was about a good time, the Duke (who’d been riding his white horse on the hill top all through the pounding) the Duke said “Stand up, men” and 30,000 Tommies stood up, rifles ready and firing.
That was Waterloo.
My point is, the writer of the article above, seems to think that “the mythical 100 days” was some sort of fairy tale, perhaps when things didn’t go so well, but then he’d be free to carry out his nefarious plans.
But the truth is quite different, in real life, in history, the actual 100 days was a measurement of the period between the beginning and the end of Napoleon’s mad dash for freedom.
Since he doesn’t know the truth about the 100 days, it is almost certain he doesn’t know the result.
After Waterloo, Napoleon was confined to a remote island in the Atlantic Ocean, never to leave. He died there. His body was eventually returned to France where it rests today.
And Allyn Brooks-LeSure?
The only way to start the process to “get rid of “, or strictly limit the EPA and other overly bureaucratic federal agencies is to elect a truly conservative President such as Ted Cruse, not a Bush or Romney or Huckabee. I would go for Sarah Palin, but she would have to lower her voice to alto.
@J. Philip Peterson
You ever worked in DC? I have. The issue is not who we elect for President. It’s all the unelected underlings who run the joint. They’ve been there for years, some, decades. They know how government works. They know where the bodies are buried. They handle the transition from one admin to the next, and that is when the biggest shenanigans go on, i.e.: they tell the incoming group that X is in the works, or they don’t tell, and simply git-er-done under the radar. The only thing that terrifies them is sunlight and an enraged populace that will turn on the sunlight. I’ve become convinced that the theatre of electing a president obscures reality.
Here’s another problem:
I worked as a consultant in DC for 9 months, sent there by Bell Labs to manage one of their products that was government-wide. When I arrived, I found out that the congressional regulations for this product had already been written by, literally, low-level assistant 20-somethings (from various congressional offices, some interns) in advance of how I and about 20 experts were assigned to make sure it would work. They produced two copies. One copy for each Brinks truck that they used to deliver to Congress. And we were then told that we had to make the system work according to the docs these complete idiots had produced. A complete utter insanity.
@J. Philip Peterson,
This is not a Republican, Democrat, Independent issue. In my view, this is where the bamboozle starts. It is ignorance on the part of the American people of how things work. And I lay it all at the feet of The Fourth Estate: the press. Ordinary working people don’t have time to investigate this stuff. They have jobs, kids, little league games, dinner, laundry, etcetera, etcetera. The Fourth Estate was formed and protected under the Constitution to represent the people under the separation of powers doctrine. Ever since that foul judge in Florida ruled that Fox News was not required to tell the truth (circa 2000/2001) we have infotainment for news, and babble for public debate with zero consequences.
So what is your suggestion to fix this?? I don’t doubt at all what you say – what is the solution?
Something similar happened to the FAA years ago. A Naval Admiral was appointed to be its director (Admiral Engan???). He was going to streamline/modernize the Agency, and get rid of a lot of the red tape. The entrenched bureaucrats in the agency fought him at every turn. He finally gave up and resigned. Most of the time, the entrenched bureaucrats think they own “their Agency”, and no one is going to tell them how to run it.
Unfortunately, when it comes to the present case of Climate Change/Global Warming, and its promotion by the Federal Government and the EPA, I believe the people advocating this Doctrine are either ignorant or evil, because of the harm, that it will end up doing to the world in general and to the poor in particular.
Ted Cruz is just going to fall on his sword for Israel and start a war with Iran.
Ted Cruz doesn’t have the spine to represent the American people and their interests. He is completely under the thumb of his religious father who is waiting for Jesus to show up in Jerusalem.
So who should be the conservative”” candidate?? Name a good one…
@J Philip Peterson,
Frankly, I don’t have a clue. What I am waiting for is someone who understands how the federal monetary system works. (That sure as hell isn’t Hillary; what few understand is that it was her husband who created the 2008 Financial Crisis, but I will lay off the description of that.)
@J Philip Peterson,
Actually, I think it’s more important to complain to the news outlets that they don’t have the balls to tell the truth, and that we’re tired of it. They have a financial interest in our eyeballs. And our ears. If the people are complaining that the news outlets aren’t touching newly-taboo subjects–pick your poison–and that the hoi polloi are rumbling for more accuracy, that is a better use of our time.
I mean, think of it logically. Who is going to be asking questions of the candidates over the next two years? I can tell you–because I know and I’ve heard it directly–that the NYC anchors and reporters at ABCNBCMSNBCFOX think all of us are idiots and morons who can be led by the nose. That’s what earning eight figures can do to you. I cancelled my cable service after I heard this, and I’m a news junkie.
The BS I hear from NPR enrages me. If you want outright stupidity on the economy, listen to Marketplace. I may not be a scientist (reason I’m here to learn from the considerable brains on this board) but I am 100% informed on how the economy really works. I mean, operationally. Dollars and cents. Not some highfalutin’ economic theory or set of theories (the University of Chicago school needs to be wiped off the surface of the earth) that mean squat.
You’ll appreciate then, Poly, that Trump is making some noise in representing true conservatives in 2016 … looks like he’s dipping in his toe to test the water.
@Streetcred,
Trump isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer. He has the nuance of a dullard.
BTW, contrary to what most people think, he only makes his money from licensing his name on the buildings that carry his name. He explained it at Wharton years ago. At that time he was taking a 3-4% fee. And he pretends he’s the builder and owner, all part of the licensing agreement. Pre-build buyers in Baja California found this out when a Trump enterprise went belly-up in late 2008. They tried to get their money back from Trump, and he had to admit that the only thing Trumpy about the project was the name. The real owners and builders were overseas and out of US jurisdiction. They were screwed last I heard.
@J. Philip Peterson,
This former Republican serving as a civil servant really nails it on Bill Moyers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?x-yt-ts=1421914688&x-yt-cl=84503534&v=EYS647HTgks
“What I am waiting for is someone who understands how the federal monetary system works”
We Can’t wait, if we do we will end up with another climate kook such as Hillary…
@J Philip Peterson,
But some congressmen do understand, J Philip Peterson. They’re just afraid to say. [I will work to make sure Hillary does not win. I’ve got a mouth like a Cuisinart, and I will use it. I don’t care about her climate position; the whole package bothers me. She’s strong, but she doesn’t have the balls to stand up to anyone.]
This will probably enrage everyone here, but we need to increase deficits to get people back to work. I realize this is completely counter-intuitive to everyone. But you have to stop and think really, really, really logically. Who makes the dollar? Not some factory in downtown China. Congress is the only entity in the whole wide world that is able to appropriate new interest-free dollars into existence, which it does by “spending.” The Federal Reserve can’t do it. Not without Congressional approval. The Federal Reserve saved the banks worldwide to the tune of $29 trillion. What did Congress do for Main Street? ZIP.
And that Congressional “spending” goes into the bank accounts of the private sector. So, how it works: the economy now has an increased money supply based on THE AMOUNT OF CONGRESSIONAL SPENDING. Got that?
So what does the US Treasury–not the Federal Reserve, the US Treasury–do next?
The US Treasury–not the Federal Reserve–ISSUES treasury securities in the amount of the spending.
Because we are the reserve currency, everyone in the country and worldwide rushes to buy them at auction on the 15th of the month. Whoever offers the most for them, gets them. They are considered the safest financial asset in the world because they are backed by the “full faith and credit of the USA.”
So people exchange their US cash for treasury securities. Anyone who has more than $250Gs in their commercial bank accounts want them because the FDIC does not insure more than $250Gs in a commercial bank.
By selling treasury securities in the amount of the Congressional “spending” the money supply is restored to balance. Spending first, then treasury securities. Or in Federal Reserve economist parlance: “Reserve add before Reserve drain.”
HOWEVER. HOWEVER. People erroneously refer to this as the government “borrowing money from the private sector to pay for the government.” Complete nonsense. (BTW, the Federal Reserve cannot purchase these treasury securities at auction, only the US private sector and foreign govts, banks, and investors.)
The deal of issuing treasury securities that offer interest goes back to our gold standard days (WWI), when the government did not want the people trading their dollars in for gold and upsetting the gold supply the government needed for international payments. So they first issued Liberty Bonds, using patriotism to get people to go along. After WWI, they called them treasury securities because pension funds, trust finds, rich individuals, and businesses liked them.
Nowadays, the Federal Reserve uses purchase and sale of treasury securities on the Open Market (via 50 “primary dealers”) to maintain the overnight interest rate that banks charge each other. The market does NOT set the interest rate, contrary to what the babes on CNBC say. In Canada, it’s called the Prime Rate. Also called the Fed Funds Rate here.
The above is how it works in Great Britain, Canada, Japan, Australia, and the US. The problem is the people don’t know. And the people have been impoverished as a result.
When the economy is ice-cold: raise the damn deficit.
I have never contributed to a political candidate. I almost did when Art Robinson ran the first time. If we had the right candidate I would contribute individually, and I believe a lot of other “silent majority” others would too…
Your #1 question of any of them should be: tell me in 10 sentences of less how federal accounting works.
Hint: a State governor must balance his budget. States operate like households. They are revenue-constrained. THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT IS NOT.
Reagan, Clinton, and Bush Jr had no clue what they were doing. You will notice that middle class wages started to decline with Reagan. The top understood what Nixon did on August 15, 1971, and made hay.
That’s also why President Obama is an idiot when it comes to the economy. His judgment is so poor that it is damaging American life, imo. He’s dragged that same lack of knowledge and judgment to the climate, sanctions against Russia (we’re going to lose our reserve currency status to China if he doesn’t stop), infrastructure [repair], jobs, and his incredible misunderstanding of what the neocons are telling him to do in the Ukraine. I cannot believe that I believed in him at one time. His Treasury Secretary, Jacob Lew, is the one who rammed through the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, the start of the Financial Crisis of 2008. You never, not ever, want a government in surplus. Never. Because it will mean the private sector is in deficit. There have been seven balanced budgets, or surpluses, in our 238 year history. Each was followed by a depression. 1836 (Andrew Jackson) was the first.
As Bloomberg wrote in 1999: the US is in surplus for the first time since 1927-1930. Sound familiar? Only delayed by the dotcom (2001) and housing bubbles.
Typo: it’s an autocorrect problem that I didn’t catch.
infrastructure repair
All three of the Presidents you mentioned were Governors before becoming president. Reagan – California, Clinton – Arkansas and GWB – Texas. So, I’m not really following your logic.
@Reg Nelson,
Correct. All three were state governors. So they applied state accounting to federal accounting. Which is wrong. In Clinton’s presidential case, they instituted a Balanced Budget Act (1997), which underscored his lack of knowledge, and his stupidity about how things worked at the federal level. Arkansas had a Balanced Budget Act, which was appropriate because it was a US state; it needs to earn income, it needs revenue to match its outlays. The federal government does not.
State governments, local governments, businesses, and households, must earn income. They are currency users, or they have to go into debt with banks. State governments, local governments, businesses, and households cannot create their own currency. In the US, that is USD. State governments, local governments, businesses, and households have to earn the currency before they can spend it.
The federal government, on the other hand, is the creator of the currency. It is not constrained by revenue. (Hold on, I will explain. Taxes do not pay for revenue.*)
Technically, that is Congress. Congress, under the Constitution, can appropriate new interest-free dollars into existence by simply voting for new “spending”, Yes, those are fiat dollars, worthless pieces of paper if in physical form. Fiat dollars have been in existence since 1934 (also during Benjamin Franklin’s time). Fiat dollars is how we paid for WWII. Fiat dollars is how the middle class was created after WWII.
Think of a teeter-totter. You can because the US dollar is a closed system. There is no entity worldwide that can create US dollars other than the United States of America. (Unless you’re a counterfeiter.)
So, one side of the USD teeter-totter is the US Government. The other side is everyone who is not the US Government. This ‘other side” is the US private sector, state and local governments, businesses, US banks, households, you and me, foreign goats, foreign banks, foreign investors: currency users.
The teeter-totter is the creator of the USD vs the users of the USD.
If the creator of the USD (the government) is in surplus, the users of the USD are in deficit. Well, actually, the foreign sector can be in surplus, but the private US sector will be in deficit. That is what came to light in September 2008. Staggering debt on the part of the US private sector.
————————-
*Taxes are a thermostat. When the economy is ice-cold and you have unemployment, you cut taxes. In fact, unemployment is the proof (the sign) that you need to cut taxes and increase spending. When the economy is running hot and there is full employment, you apply taxes to remove money from the economy, otherwise you risk inflation: too many dollars chaining too few goods.. We are not at that stage.
The federal government does not need taxes for revenue. In fact, the definition of the word ‘deficit’ as it applies to the USA is an accounting artifact that registers the difference, after the fact, between what Congress is spending and what it is taking in in taxes. It is an accounting number, nothing more. It indicates that the federal government has needed to spend more to produce jobs for Americans out of work because of an economic downturn.
“foreign goats” should obviously be “foreign govts.” Thank you autocorrect.
More autocorrect nonsense: “too many dollars chaining too few goods..” should read “too many dollars chasing too few goods.”
pc- You’re one of the exceedingly few who have ever used the term,neocon correctly.
@ policycritic You are mistaken if you think the States have balanced budget. There are billions of dollars of unfunded pension obligation that are never included in the calculations. In addition to this, there are numerous specific bond issues that end up being borrowed\funneled into the general fund.
You can argue whether the State’s debt crises is worse than the Federal debt crisis, if you want, but it’s splitting hairs, both are doomed at some pointed, some more quickly than others.
@Reg Nelson,
I am not saying that US states have balanced budgets. I am saying that they are constrained by a need to produce revenue. Somehow.
The federal government is not.
@Alan Robertson,
Thx.
We must act now.
We must use lots of buzzwords.
We must use lots of “quotes”.
For those who are interested, author of email M A Brooks-LaSure is now in Melbourne Australia.
Victoria
Consulate-General of the United States of America
Consulate-General:
Level 6, 553 St Kilda Road
Melbourne Vic 3004
Mr Michael Allyn BROOKS-LASURE
Vice-Consul
Mrs Chiquita White BROOKS-LASURE
The epa’s malignant hypocrisy was well exemplified when they banned the only over.the.counter asthma remedy that worked. It was called Asmanefrin and it worked in seconds, providing life-saving relief to someone suffocating from asthma. The epa banned this cheap, available, lifesaver on the grounds that the propellant might harm the ozone in antarctica.
Please observe the implied heirarchy of values. The antarctic ozone MEME trumps human life now.
So it is utter malevolent cynicism that they propose to cause much more damage to human life now – only this time they will claim asthmatic neighbors as the justification.
EPA is has become the inquisition.
“If we…make this about our neighbor with respiratory illness”
And yet it is CAGW skeptics who are accused of being anti-science.
The US has spent $TRILLIONS since the 1980’s in anti-pollution technologies and environmental rules & reg compliance costs resulting in the reduction of REAL pollutants by 50%~99% as can be shown by EPA’s air quality data:
http://www.epa.gov/airtrends/aqtrends.html
As this FOIA memo shows, the EPA, government hacks and the MSM fifth column are encouraged to create the narrative that US air quality is getting worse and worse, even though EPA’s very own data shows they’ve improved significantly since the 1980’s and are continuing to do so.
I bet “97%” of Americans aren’t aware of the incredible decrease in REAL US air pollution emissions since the 1980’s… Hell, in a recent survey of US high school graduates, 50% couldn’t even locate the state of New York on a US map….
Isn’t interesting that on July 02, 2013 (July 4th would have been more ironic), the Obama administration repealed the law prohibiting domestic-oriented government propaganda:
http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/07/14/u-s-repeals-propaganda-ban-spreads-government-made-news-to-americans/
It’s deplorable how our government and the 5th-column MSM are exploiting propaganda to achieve their CAGW agenda.
EPA has been implying that CO2 causes asthma. Any MSM reports about this???
I got to this party late, but can’t resist…
Sir Harry Flashman wrote:
Not quite everyone:
not these 31,000+ qualified professionals
Or this agency: http://www.principia-scientific.org/japanese-space-agency-agrees-with-skeptics-on-climate-change.html
Or this group of nobodies that nobody ever heard of… http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/25/seven-eminent-physicists-that-are-skeptical-of-agw/
I tend to have a bit more confidence in the above than I do in the Penn State hockey team…
There are quite a few more, but the point of this thread is about objectivity and honesty. Something as lacking at the EPA recently as it is in the character of the fictional Sir Harry, whose name you borrowed.
Bill Murphy,
Correctomundo, and welcome to the party!
“Everyone” to the alarmist crowd means the tiny subset that agrees with their Chicken Little goofiness.
It’s no wonder the alarmist clique refuses to engage in any fair, moderated debates any more. They were slaughtered so badly when they tried, that now they just depend on their clueless lemmings to carry the ball for them.
I do miss the debates, though. It was always fun watching the audience being polled before and after — and seeing how a few facts could change a lot of minds.
“not these 31,000+ qualified professionals” Debunked numerous times. Basically a bunch of random names. If you don’t believe that, I invite you to test it yourself – start googling the names randomly and see how many actual scientists you turn up.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kevin-grandia/the-30000-global-warming_b_243092.html
“Or this agency: http://www.principia-scientific.org/japanese-space-agency-agrees-with-skeptics-on-climate-change.html”
That headline is untrue; it’s just something the writer made up on the basis of data the agency produced. Go to the agency site and look up what they actually have to say about AGW (hint – they accept it). I’ll help, by directing you to the paper where they discuss their mission to monitor it: http://suzaku.eorc.jaxa.jp/GCOM_W/w_amsr2/GCOM_RA_3rd_Guide_AppendixC.pdf
“As mentioned in the fourth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), warming of the climate system is unequivocal as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures and widespread melting of snow and ice.. ”
Since you were ready to accept them as a valid source of information when you thought they denied climate change, I assume you are, as a critical thinker, equally ready to accept the validity of their ACTUAL view?
“Or this group of nobodies that nobody ever heard of… http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/25/seven-eminent-physicists-that-are-skeptical-of-agw/” This is real, all these scientists have expressed some kind of skepticism about AGW. None of them it may be noted, are climate scientists.
Four of them are dead, so it’s hard to say if the increasing evidence might have altered their views at all.
Freeman Dyson, the 90 year old iconclast was quoted last year in an interview “I spend maybe 1 percent of my time on climate, and that’s the only field in which I’m opposed to the majority….What I’m convinced of is that we don’t understand climate, and so that’s sort of a neutral position. I’m not saying the majority is necessarily wrong. I’m saying that they don’t understand what they’re seeing. It will take a lot of very hard work before that question is settled, so I shall remain neutral until something very different happens.”
Laughlin, also a retired physicist, commenting outside his area of expertise – some other scientist response – “http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/17/scientists-react-to-a-nobelists-climate-thoughts/?_r=0”
And Giaevver – yep, another retired 85 year old physicist and definitely a denier, Don’t get me wrong – my view is we can’t dismiss minds like this, but since they don’t work in the field and haven’t responded (that I’ve found) to the legitimate criticisms of their claims, I’m not going to consider them as useful sources of information on climate change.
The OISM petition started out as the Oregon Petition.
It had a lot of problems with fake names in it.
It has never regained credibility
..
To this day, there is no way to verify any of the signatories.
Quite, although if you actually read the paper you linked to, you will see it is carefully worded to be virtually completely agnostic — there is no statement anywhere advocating either a pro or con stance on the AGW issue. Rather, JAXA appears (in the paper you linked) to be a science organization doing science. To wit:
“Establish and demonstrate a global, long-term Earth-observing
system for understanding climate variability and the water-energy cycle.
Enhance the capability of climate prediction and provide information to policy
makers through process studies and model improvements in concert with climate
model research institutions.”
So may I assume you are, as a critical thinker, equally ready to accept the validity of their ACTUAL view?
More importantly, this particular thread is about politics overriding science at EPA, and by extension NOAA, NASA, BOM etc. As one of the “Seven Eminent Physicists” put it (my bold):
That is the important part. The Petition Project may be bogus, but so — clearly — is the “97%” Did HuffPo report on that?
What’s also clear is that your presence here is politically motivated, has little to do with science and everything to do with an agenda. The real science is not setteled anywhere except in certain political circles. I accept that my great grandkids *may* have to deal with a NYC under 50 meters of sea water, but my non-professional opinion is that they will more probably have to deal with a NYC under 300M of ice – again. I suggest that you and I both shut the flip up and let the science decide — without politics or agendas,
Flushman says:
…Debunked numerous times.
And your ‘source’ is Huffpo?? Get a grip. They are as scientific as PeeWee Herman. When I clicked on it, the first words that jumped out were: “denier propaganda”. That tells me that your stupid source is the true propaganda.
You clearly know nothing about the OISM Petition. Then you go on with your stupid assertions regarding Bill Murphy’s other citations:
Since you were ready to accept them as a valid source of information
And more ad hominem carp:
…yep, another retired 85 year old physicist and definitely a denier…
Ad-hom much? That 85 year old has forgotten more than you will ever be able to learn about the subject. And trying to denigrate Prof. Freeman Dyson is another loser’s tactic.
Next:
“Or this group of nobodies that nobody ever heard of…
Just because you and your ilk haven’t heard of them means exactly nothing; it just displays your ignorance.
And:
None of them it may be noted, are climate scientists….
And what are you? You’re just an ignorant pattern of pixels. Aren’t you?
Then you wrap up your ad-hom nonsense with:
definitely a denier, Don’t get me wrong…
I don’t get you wrong. I know you better than you know yourself. For a while I was willing to give you a fair chance even though others weren’t, but no more. You are just playing the man, not the ball… and what are YOUR qualifications, anyway? What’s your CV? Do you even have a CV? How are you qualifed to pass judgement on eminent scientists like Freeman Dyson, whom Dr Richard Feynman stated would have received the Nobel Prize, except for the fact that no more than three names are allowed per Nobel?
You are as religiously deluded as Algore — and just as ignorant. The past President of the National Academy of Sciences asked thousands of American scientists and engineers — every one of them with degrees in the hard sciences, including more than 9,000 PhD’s — to co-sign a statement regarding the upcoming Kyoto Protocol. But a zero like you, an anonymous coward as Anthony says, presumes to know enough to criticize? You don’t.
The consternation expressed by the alarmist cult over the fact that tens of thousands of scientists and engineers ridicule the repeatedly-debunked catastrophic “climate change” narrative is displayed in your ad hominem comments above. It must really suck to be put in your place by people who know the score. You know it, too, or you wouldn’t have wasted your time desperately trying to dig up the worthless opinions of like-minded fools.
I used to think you just had a different opinion, and I respected that. No more. You’re just another lemming, gobbling up the repeatedly discredited “carbon” and “climate change” nonsense.
I checked the petition, and your name is not on it.
..
Why?
I don’t see any AGW measurements.
Why not?
And don’t change the subject as usual. If you’re flushman’s pal, explain why he’s so full of carp. Taking lessons from you?
Are you qualified to sign it?
Yes.
And from the terminally ignorant:
It had a lot of problems with fake names in it. It has never regained credibility
…says the clown who never had any credibility to begin with.
Mmmmmm….I get it….now I know why you haven’t signed it.
…
You still get nothing.
If it sucked I wouldn’t keep coming back.
I really don’t think you read anything I write anyway.I didn’t criticize Dyson at all, in fact I pointed out that while he is certainly not a supporter of AGW science, he is, in his own words, on the fence. And yes, he is MUCH smarter than me.
===================================
““Or this group of nobodies that nobody ever heard of…
Just because you and your ilk haven’t heard of them means exactly nothing; it just displays your ignorance.”
I didn’t call them nobodies, the original commenter did, I just cut and pasted as a reference to my response. Keep an eye on the quotation marks.
======================================
” Then you go on with your stupid assertions regarding Bill Murphy’s other citations:
Since you were ready to accept them as a valid source of information ”
What does this mean? I disagreed with his statement that the Japanese Space Agency denied AGW, and offered proof by referring him directly to their website where it says the exact opposite. How is that a “stupid assertion”? Nothing could be more profoundly based in fact.
===========================================
“And your ‘source’ is Huffpo?? ” Surely if there’s an ad hom statement, that would be it. Knowing someone would get their panties in a bunch at the source, I invited you to check names on the petition yourself. If you can’t be bothered to do your own homework, don’t waste time criticizing those who have.
I didn’t call them nobodies, the original commenter did, I just…&blah, blah, etc.
Got your number, and all the tapdancing in the world won’t change things.
If you had commented on something based on verifiable facts I’d respect that. But your long ad hominem screed is based on the fact that there are at least 32,000 scientific skeptics of man-made global warming, and… you’ve got nothing to counter it.
Lol I suggest we agree to disagree. I respect your convictions.
“If you had commented on something based on verifiable facts I’d respect that.”
…
Too funny….you can’t verify the signatures on the OISM petition, yet you tout that on this blog all the time.
Flashman says:
I suggest we agree to disagree. I respect your convictions.
Likewise. Done deal.
Now, if the clown stops bird-dogging my posts, we could MovOn. But soxie is fixated on me, there is no doubt. He can’t help himself. That must really suck.
Willard can’t sign your OISM petition either…….too bad
Still fixated, eh, chump? Still bird-dogging.
What a pathetic life. Daddy left you “a boatload of money”, and this is what you’re doing?
Did I mention, “Pathetic”?
Tsk tsk tsk…
…
You can’t post a 20x link.
You talk about a petition that can’t be verified, nor have you signed it yourself
..
Too funny
I’m reading this as neither SHF or David Socrates can verify the signatures on the petition.
And, since they can’t, with their superior divining skills, then apparently no one can.
Well, except for those who have.
Links to principia… decrease credibility.
Links to principia diminish credibility.
Alan Robertson,
Links to Principia destroy credibility.
And to Birddog:
As you know beyond any doubt, I can post that link to CO2. It is amusing to the grown-ups here that you cannot bring yourself to agree that you were wrong.
Simply agree, and I will post it. Otherwise, go pound sand, chump.
Re: the OISM Petition, the birddog sez:
I checked the petition, and your name is not on it.
And:
To this day, there is no way to verify any of the signatories.
So which is it? You can’t have it both ways.
OK, carry on bird-dogging my comments. That’s your whole life, after all, and I wouldn’t want to disrupt your total fixation on me.
Reblogged this on Centinel2012 and commented:
To this administration in all its agencies under the direction of the tyrant Obama nothing matters but obedience to the message that he wants of sustainability not telling anyone that it also means the destruction of the country!
What Americans probably don’t realize because it is such a part of the American culture, is that this memo reflects both the strengths and the weaknesses of the American legal and cultural system: the “quarterback”. The quarterback is the center guy whose insight determines the outcome of the game. Everyone else blocks or carries; only the quarterback determines the play. Lisa Jackson is the quarterback of the EPA here, and Obama is the quarterback of the political scene. Al Gore is a quarterback, McKibben is a lesser one but a quarterback. The American culture looks to such a guy to understand the bigger picture, not just present it to the rest of the team but inform the rest of their team what their roles are in fulfilling the picture he has determined is best.
The quarterback is the social lone hero. Without him, nothing gets done, private, selfish interests prevail and the world goes to hell in a hand-basket. Think Dirty Harry or Eisenhower on a social scene.
The strength of the quarterback system is obvious. There is a clear plan and no opponents. Everyone knows his place and gets going. The weakness is that that personality and passion are deeply embedded and not for discussion. A Bush wants This and, gadnabit, This gets done. Later an Obama-Jackson want That, and gadnabit, That gets done. There is no sense of general social direction, just the in-the-moment take of the person in control of the ball.
The celebrity DeCaprio is part of the quarterback system no less than Al Gore. And with just as much reason to be followed. It’s the job of the average American to do as he is directed, not to question how the game is being played.
The quarterback system means there are Great Leap Forwards and Great Leap Backwards. A man was put on the moon by the great quarterback Kennedy. The European economy is collapsing because of the environmental quarterbacks in Brussels, and the American energy system under attack because of the environmental quarterback in Washington. In former times the quarterback was a King, in more former times, a General. The American socio-political system is still dealing with a conceptual replacement of George III or George Washington.
So who should be the conservative”” candidate?? Name a good one…
Scott Walker
I like him so far – what is his view on energy and “climate change”?
Not sure but I will email him tonight and respond if I get a response.
Governor Walker, I think you are doing a great job.
However, I am also encouraging people to think of you as USA president or VP.
Before I continue on that, I would like some straight answers….
What are your views on energy and climate change?
PS I am the one who coined the term “cheesehead” in 1981 while at Northwestern University. No trademarks, unfortunately, lol.
Steveo aka
badger777
Sir Harry, Do we really have to remind you how many times scientists and their learned societies have been wrong, wrong, wrong. I am a scientist myself, of the biomedical type, and the only value I can see for any of the learned societies of which I am a member is to present to congress evidence of why funds spent on biomedical sciences have been of value. I have strongly objected on the few occasions when organizations of which I am a member have veered into advocacy or politics. However, it seems that organizations related to climate have somehow become involved in advocacy as a major component of their mission. Eventually, I think they will regret this. There are already many, many examples of predictions of very bad things that would happen due to climate change that have not (remembers millions of climate refugees or ice free arctic?). In any other field of science, this would lead to ostracism and loss of influence of the predictors. Yet, in climate science, they seem to only increase in control and status. This suggests to me that something other than science is inducing the responses of these organizations (maybe $$$$$$$$?).
Well said….but no doubt will fall on deaf ears with SHC. I truly believe Gore is his shining example.
This must be real – there is no way anything as absurd as “This is not about targeting Dunkin’ Donuts” could be made up.