From the “photo fraud on a large scale” department comes this exercise in bullshit (yes, that’s the right word, sorry if I offended your delicate senses) from some “artistic” greens as pointed out by Steve Goddard, and as pushed as some sort of significant event (to fake a satellite shot) over at Joe Romm’s blog. Here’s the ground level photo of the event:
I’ll have to hand it to him, McKibben was able to get a bunch of people to go out and stand in a ditch holding up blue cards and tarps for a photo op to fool a satellite, which is something I’d expect North Korea or Iraq to do.
But, McKibben, as usual with many “artists”, such as the Santa Fe Art Institute who provided the flash mob, is working in the abstract. He’s doing this to “save the planet”, so the ends justifies the means. Here’s the resulting satellite image of their event from Digital Globe, who they duped into donating (according to them) a half million dollars in satellite time:
I put the annotation on it to make sure you don’t get it confused with the “WUWT flash flood mob” that I staged from my spare bedroom this afternoon:
For all of McKibben’s manipulation of some weak minded people standing in a dry river bed holding up blue cards and tarps to fake out a satellite image, I’ll point out I can achieve the very same effect right here with Google Earth (35.660090° -106.016311°, rotated about 90° clockwise) and a paint program without wasting anyone’s time or emitting tons of CO2 to transport people to the event or having them respirate on-site.
From the Santa Fe Art Institute:
What? They are inviting 5000 people to drive from Santa Fe and park at the Mall? How does that fit it with reducing CO2? Oh wait, carpooling, yeah that’s the ticket. Over 1000 people actually showed up (so they say, an enterprising person could click the very top image and select the highest res photo and actually count people) out of the 5000 expected, so at least they succeeded in reduce that carbon footprint a bit.
Well, I daresay I came up with a nearly identical and artful result, and my carbon footprint was a mere fraction of what 350.org duped these 1000+ people into doing.
Then there’s this statement in the invitation:
Human-induced climate change is well-studied and documented and is a result, in large part, of burning of fossil fuels. Major impacts on human health in New Mexico have already been observed and, as warming progresses, they will likely increase. Some of the most profound changes are concerned with water, which is certainly scarce and precious here already. Because New Mexico relies heavily on snowpack for its snow-fed rivers, water stress will endanger ecosystems, economies, physical and mental health.
But, as Steve Goddard points out, that claim from these, plus the caption from Romm in the top photo is, well…BS. Goddard writes:
I worked one summer in the 1980s as a wilderness ranger in the mountains above Santa Fe and have some familiarity with the drainage. The river has been dammed above the city since 1881. There isn’t any water in the river bed because it all gets diverted to the city, Indian casinos and golf courses. National Geographic describes the problem.
Santa Fe suffers from chronic water extraction that leaves its bed a dry ditch for most of the year. “Everybody can agree that a healthy, flowing Santa Fe River is good for the community of Santa Fe,” Fahlund said.
“I think that the governor and the mayor are both solidly behind this, and I think that they are going to put some water back in the river. But it’s a matter of the timing and the permanence of that.”
The city’s growing water needs have drained the Santa Fe’s flow at the expense of dams and wells
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/04/070418-ten-rivers.html
Santa Fe had their second snowiest winter in the forty year WRCC record last year, and five of the top ten years have been in the last decade.
All you have to do is look at Google Earth, just east and west of Santa Fe, to see where all the water from snowmelt ended up:
And as Steve Goddard suggests, this video from Penn and Teller pretty well sums up the premise of 350.org: [warning: adult language, f-bombs]
here’s part 2
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The reverse in the Delaware River Basin, guys and gals. They dam up all the lakes
for water for NYC to the north. Since the lakes are dammed, if a 3 inch rainstorm comes along and they have to release the water into the Delaware, its like having a 6 inch rainstorm. Signs on the Delaware river near New Hope are asking to be saved from global warming because of all the flooding.
This is very interesting because if lakes were near 100% capacity with a hurricane moving nnw at the Delmarva, driving a storm surge UP Delaware bay, ala Narragansett in 38 and 54, then a release of water out of the lakes with the
usual heavy rains in front of a northeast hurricane, combined with the “normal” drainage of a the Delaware river basin, could produce a storm surge meeting a river
flood very close to the ports of Philadelphia and Wilmington.
I wonder what would get the blame for that. a) global warming b) climate change
c) climate disruption d) some future name for all this.
Did you ever wonder where the pixie dust and unicorns who build windmills and solar power and where does the electricity come from to recharge the electric cars.
We are clearly reaching the point where they are too dumb to know how dumb they look.
r says:
November 21, 2010 at 6:19 pm
So, speaking of misinformation… and unintended results….
Has anybody noticed that they banned phosphates in dishwashing detergent?
A while back, they banned phosphates in laundry soap. It sounds like a good idea but…
I was at a science fair last year. One of the students was testing laundry grey water with different detergents to see which made plants grow better. To his alarm, they all died. All of them. I knew this student, he was serious and capable.
At least phosphate is a fertilizer for plants. It makes them grow. It seems the new alternative laundry soaps kills plants. Can anybody confirm this? Anybody use grey water on their garden?
===========
Yes I use grey water and NO it doesnt kill my plants, sanity should tell that kid that you DO add the rinse water to it to dilute it and you dont use it everyday either, a weekly dose as in real life is fine.it actually helps STOP soils becoming nonwetting in summer in Aus. some commercial wetting agents are simply a soap concentrate anyway:-)
phosphates didnt do much for the cleaning, and DO cause algal blooms when it hits the effluent outflows in rivers and seas, theres a heavy abuse of phosphates in commercial chem fertilisers already we do not need more.
funny thing?
since they cleaned up the Sulphur in fuels and scrubbed it from coal plants the soils now need added sulphur in many areas where they didnt use it before…
the paint? all that toxic paint???? and what? did they do with the now NONrecyclable cardboard after????
and as above the fuel and the travel etc etc
Idiots!
Of that 1,000+ people, the number who were taxpayers in the private sector?
My high guess would be 2.
And of course, we shouldn’t forget the carbon footprint of those nice pieces of plastic which will now be used to………………..?
I am now officially a Penn and Teller fan!!! Still laughing at the Al Gore no-thanks!!!
All the best…. Jeff
How much you want to bet they are holding climate change conference in a warmer city on purpose, after last year’s fiasco?
“OMG it’s hot in winter, it’s worse than… etc etc”.
P.S. Love Penn and Teller, they should do an updated episode of global warming, this one is missing a lot of new info.
Back in the old wild west, damming a river was fight’n words. It had noth’n to do with weather. It had to do with some land owner up stream wanting to store water so they could have a bigger herd. Cities and counties have done exactly what a greedy land owner did when the West was one big fight in the dirt. If these folks really wanted to let their art talk, they would be at the dams, not down river. Unless of course, the people who were at this art sit-in were from among the dumb and dumber. Can you imagine, way back when, the lower stream ranchers staging such a mamby pamby, light in the loafers protest against the upstream land owner dam?
These water reservoir dams are there because the people let the dams be there. Every small “take” by a governmental organization will eventually bite a huge chunk out of your behind. So shut up and take your medicine. The old saying should be the caption of these photos. “Be careful what you ask for, you just might get it.”
Blue Kool-Aid everywhere and not a drop to drink!
“From the “photo fraud on a large scale” department comes this exercise in bullshit (yes, that’s the right word, sorry if I offended your delicate senses)”
Anthony I love it when you talk dirty.
But seriously don’t these people have something better to do with their time?
Ralph says:
November 21, 2010 at 6:58 pm
“With global warming decreasing snow melt”
So global warming causes droughts AND decreasing snow melts now?
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And increasing glacier melts, too.
Very clever stuff, this global warming thing. It can target just about anything the zealots want it to.
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Vorlath says:
November 21, 2010 at 8:57 pm
Proof of why aliens have not visited Earth yet.
*********************************
– I like it. You made me laugh out loud!
I think the color choice was wrong. When water flows in the river bed, I doubt that it will be BLUE in color. I think that it would be brown-green to muddy.
Warren: From the Land of Sky Blue Waters………….Hamms
They need to dip their butts in “Agua Fria” (Cold Water) 🙂
What kind of pot are selling over there that causes those effects?
Michael C. Roberts- that is the biggest bunch of hysterical Bravo Sierra I have read in
a long time. Those buoy studies happen to be in the middle of a warming PDO period,
Now not so warm. I had memorable trip across the Columbia Bar in the middle of July!
What about the recorded wave that broke over Cape Blanco in about 1883, I can’t find the reference for it, but remember reading about it from a History of the Hughes
Family. It was approximately 120ft. in height. If beach erosion is going on well that is because of-beach erosion.. Natural, happens all the time people are always wanting to
build on the beach- then they look up on the bank above, and see driftwood above their home. Guess what? logic would dictate that the Ocean had been there sometime in the recent past! Then they blame AGW for the fact that their home is now on its way to Japan,rather than natural forces….
Robert says:
November 21, 2010 at 10:43 pm
DesertYote says:
November 21, 2010 at 8:44 pm
It would have been a hoot if the the dam operates had decide to release water in preparation for the winter rains while this was going on. That would have been some real performance art!
Discovery Channel is off course still no science channel, but a flashflood in a dry riverbed is the last thing that you want to happen accoording to all those survival-specialists.
Do these people ever watch anything outside the AGW scare stories? It might be useful if you are organising stunts like this.
##
I grew up in the Phoenix area. I am well aware of the nature of dry river beds. I spent my formative years studying desert riparian habitat. On top of that, for 6 years I use to walk my dog every weekend in or around the Salt River and Indian Bend Wash. A controlled water release from a dam, a flash flood does not make. That was why I included all the details in the scenario I created. A real flash flood is no joke. I posted a link to the flood history of the Salt in an earlier post.
I believe it’s powdered aluminum. It has a nasty effect on the brain.
r says:
November 21, 2010 at 6:19 pm
So, speaking of misinformation… and unintended results….
Has anybody noticed that they banned phosphates in dishwashing detergent?
There is a lot on this out on the web. Simple solution? Add TSP to your dishwasher detergent. Problem solved. Here’s one interesting comment among many on numerous sites- seems there is an underground movement out there to re-phosphatize dishwasher detergent:
By jove; it works Anthony; I can see the vegetation that is sprouting just downstream of the WUWT flash flood on the right of the river.
See what those Art -efacts forgot, is that if you block the sunlght from raching the ground with a tarp; then nothing will grow. And I know that from actual scientifica experimentation, done with the help of my own r4esearch grant. My wife wanted me to stop putting Roundup on the weeds that grow all over our back yard; because she wanted to grow some food there. So I covered the whole back yard with a black plastic sheet, held down by a whole bunch of her broken pottery shards; and that killed everything under neath stone dead. Well the plastic ultimately started turning back into fossil fuel; so I had to get rid of it, and the weeds are coming back; and no my wife hasn’t planted a thing out there. Pretty soon the back yard is going to be “shovel ready” for installation of one more official owl box measuring station; but that is going to have to wait until I go out and buy a Webber grill to keep the thermometer warm.
The NCDC data for New Mexico shows flat-to-increasing, not decreasing, precipitation in New Mexico:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/cag3/cag3.html
And, the same is true for the precipitation data from the two closest USHCN tations (Jemez and Las Vegas), available here:
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/epubs/ndp/ushcn/ushcn_map_interface.html
Just watched the Penn and Teller video. Its funny. And, shocking news, one of the best parts – the eco-stress therapy group – was in Santa Fe.
I assume some of them were part of this blue tarp circus.
It seems like an array of parties are piling into the carbon offset game:
“Beginning in January, UPS WorldShip 2011 Version 14.0 will be available to
customers. This newest version will include the following enhancements:
· UPS carbon neutral: For a small per package fee, you can use UPS carbon
neutral to easily offset the carbon dioxide emissions generated by the
transportation of your shipment. Fees collected are used to fund environmentally
responsible projects around the world.”
Once the Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming Narrative is fully debunked, I wonder if companies such as UPS will be culpable for carbon offset fees collected under false pretenses and thus exposed to potential litigation…
Bob Tisdale says:
November 22, 2010 at 1:42 am
“…or having them respirate on-site.”
Sheesh. What were they thinking?
———————————————-
Why not?
They don’t respirate->they turn blue and die as well as no need for the blue tarps.
All in all it’s fewer people on earth and no need for China to manufacture the oil based tarps!
It’s what these people want, right?
I’ve always been intrigued by the fact that supposedly enlightened minds of the Left are so inclined to participate in primitive rituals like this one. I’m not sure why, but my intuition tells me that this is a reflection of something very basic to this particular cast of mind. (It seems to involve both narcissism and magical thinking.)
At any rate, it shows that at the end of the day these people would prefer not to think, but just wallow in feeling.