Guest post by Alec Rawls
The graphics were changed in the last two days, but Conn Carroll at the Washington Examiner took a screenshot of Obama’s “All of the Above” energy policy page on Tuesday. “Notice anything missing?” he asks:
The updated graphics actually retain the same omission. They still omit the source of almost half of all U.S. electricity generation (coal), and only add the non-existent eco-unicorn called “clean coal”:
Of course what the CO2 alarmists call “dirty coal” is perfectly clean. The only difference is that it produces CO2—that most healthful gas, the beginning of the food chain for all life on earth—which remains alarmingly close to the minimum levels needed to sustain life.
To rid coal-burning emissions of this eco-villain the going cost is $761 per ton of sequestered carbon: “staggeringly, wildly, mind-blowingly higher than any other conceivable measure designed to cut greenhouse-gas emissions.” So still no coal in Obama’s plan. Our existing energy infrastructure is to be jettisoned, as Obama promised in 2008:
If somebody wants to build a coal plant, they can — it’s just that it will bankrupt them, because they are going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s being emitted.
Obama’s EPA rules already block all new coal plant construction, so his graphics are just looking forward to his true objectives: all-but-coal for now, with oil and nuclear to disappear next.
That slick “clean coal” logo indicates that the coal omission was not a mistake
The Obamatons had the clean-coal stupidity all ready to go, indicating a conscious decision to leave it out. This is reinforced by the absence of the clean-coal logo, not just from their pick-a-topic selector, but also from their header logo. Another of Obama’s eco-pages still has the original header:
That page now includes a clean coal section but the Google cache from May 3rd shows that it was recently added. The people who put these pages together are so anti-coal that they couldn’t even bring themselves to include the utterly phony “clean coal” in their proclaimed “All of the Above” energy strategy. That shows a extraordinary level of zealotry.
Kinda fits with the longstanding “climate denier” smear (recently on display), where people who don’t buy CO2 alarmism are likened to those who deny the holocaust of the Jews during WWII. The alarmists are all projection all the time. Their supposed scientists at the IPCc are omitting virtually all of the evidence for a solar driver of climate from AR5, and here their political leaders are trying to disappear the primary energy source upon which modern society currently relies, yet it is supposedly the rest of us who are conspiring to cover stuff up.
The conniving mind cannot conceive of another mode of being.
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@ur momisugly Smokey – No need to become so emotive.
I simply asked if perhaps you can show me where you, Alec, Gail and Jim have indicated that that more is not better, or for a limit?
I give up! Gnight>
@ur momisugly Smokey say “if all you do is ask deceptive questions”
Sorry, but how is asking clarifying questions deceptive? Or are you just uncomfortable with someone being skeptical of assertions being made here?
>>
Tom says:
May 11, 2012 at 8:06 pm
@jim – is there something wrong in asking on topic questions of people making assertions.
<<
Yes, if it’s to waste everyone’s time.
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For example, you take issue with npt putting limits on things but isn’t that what Alec and Gail and Smokey are arguing for?
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I take issue with trolls wasting everyone’s time.
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Did not Alec say CO2 is healthy without qualification.
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If you start engaging with posters instead of acting like a troll, maybe I’ll answer your silly assertions.
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Tom says:
May 11, 2012 at 8:27 pm
Oh, and perhaps you can show me where you, Alec, Gail and Jim have indicated that that more is not better, or for a limit?
<<
Ibidem.
Jim
I have long defended the right of trolls to post, and have advocated responding to them in order to discredit them. This Tom character is a whole new class of troll. He has clearly studied NLP, uses it reasonably effectively, and produces nothing worth refuting. He deserves to be drop kicked into oblivion.
@ur momisugly Jim – how is it wasting time exploring the assertions the people make? I mean, if the assertion has merit what harm is there in exploring it?
For example, Jim says “Should we burn all coal this way or run some of it through our energy extracting systems. Our coal burning operations also run “cleaner” than natural coal seam fires”
That suggests that the CO2 released from the coal seam fires is greater than our impact from the dawn of the industrial revolution. Is that indeed the case? And doesn’t that assertion engage in the more is better argument?
Is trying to understand what you said a wait of time?
@ur momisugly OSS – “Right, one rabbit stew coming right up.”
Great clips!
Tom says:
May 11, 2012 at 8:28 pm
Alec said “Trying to reduce CO2 is also “geo-engineering.”
That is rubbish, that is like saying that stopping polluting is also polluting.
Tom, if only in the interests of salvaging or improving your own mental health I suggest that it’s high time for you get to work on your own fairly obvious full-blown phobia to “CO2”, whose existence at current, increasing, and much higher levels in the past has essentially been proven to have either no significant adverse effect climatically or even the opposite effect as compared to the disaster-delivering agent you have been dogmatically taught to think it is by the CO2 = CAGW lobby, including the EPA which has been instrumental in demonizing CO2 by incorrectly postulating that it is a “pollutant”.
There is no evidence whatsoever that CO2 is a pollutant. Our own human bodies carry a ballpark concentration of CO2 at about 56,000 ppm which is still pretty easily maintainable at an atmospheric CO2 concentration of at least 10,000 ppm. [All we have to do is to be able to eliminate the CO2 we produce internally as a result of living so as to keep body pH at around pH = 7.37 – 7.41 [+/-]. The gradient between exhaled CO2 = 40,000 ppm and atmospheric CO2 = 10,000 ppm is still 30,000 ppm, so increased rate and depth of breathing can handle this increased atmopheric CO2 concentration of 10,000 ppm without any significant threat to human life and living.]
This being the case, you simply must realize that you are not in control of your own thought process if you have accepted the CO2 = pollutant propaganda, since you have fallen prey to a bona fide phobia – which for example whole countries such as India and China have in fact not fallen prey to!
Aside from the EPA’s CO2 as “pollutant” lie, even the UN’s UNFCCC severly hedged against the validity of the ipcc’s CO2 = CAGW climate change “science” by excluding countries containing ~5 billion of the earth’s ~6.7 billion people from having to follow its Kyoto Protocols, thus apparently only very half-heartedly directed at reducing fossil fuel CO2 output. Again, India and China obviously don’t buy the ipcc’s climate “science”.
To start with I suggest that you totally ignore the thoroughly discredited “might-could” disasterizing pleas from “mainstream” Climate Science; and immediately forget the Precautionary Principle, under which everything becomes a lethal threat simply because nothing can be proven to not possibly constitute the cause for a disaster or apocalypse, including using the PP itself!
Tom, in this case the CO2 = CAGW lobby has got you running around like a chicken with its head cut off, and that is simply no way for you to live your own life.
Tom says:
BlahBlahBlah …. (with his pinky raised, of course)
================================================
I went Troll hunting and look who I found!
He just wants to hear himself type.
He gets an ego boost (sorely needed it seems) whenever anyone responds to him.
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Tom says:
May 11, 2012 at 9:05 pm
<<
More content free posting.
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Is trying to understand what you said a wait of time?
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Trolling is a waste of time.
Jim
@ur momisugly JPeden – so the human body is a good proxy for the entire planet ecosystem response to CO2? No, don’t believe that is true.
JPeden says – “There is no evidence whatsoever that CO2 is a pollutant.” Oh, so there is no level at which it becomes problematic in anyway? None? Ever?
@davidmhoffer said “According to UAH, RSS, GISS and HadCrut, the earth has been cooling since 1998. ”
Odd, as the GISS data actually said this.
“NASA Finds 2011 Ninth-Warmest Year on Record
01.19.12
The global average surface temperature in 2011 was the ninth warmest since 1880, according to NASA scientists. The finding continues a trend in which nine of the 10 warmest years in the modern meteorological record have occurred since the year 2000.
NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York, which monitors global surface temperatures on an ongoing basis, released an updated analysis that shows temperatures around the globe in 2011 compared to the average global temperature from the mid-20th century. The comparison shows how Earth continues to experience warmer temperatures than several decades ago. The average temperature around the globe in 2011 was 0.92 degrees F (0.51 C) warmer than the mid-20th century baseline.”
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/2011-temps.html
Oh, and what was the sun doing at that point?
@ur momisugly Gunga Din, so why is it that anyone simply behaving as a good skeptic by asking questions about assumptions gets everyone gets so worked up and triggers such a rousing barrage of inbound personal attacks/smears? Odd in light of Anthony making an astute (seriously) observation that personal attacks/smears serve no good purpose, but anyway..
They are merely questions my good man. Questions to better understand the big, bold, sweeping and certain assertions being made. Bully for them! Now how can that be so problematic as to get everyone all lathered up? Especially when there such grand things being discussed as planetary Geo-Engineering. Who among us wouldn’t like to know the specifics of exactly how that is done precisely. Riveting stuff, I think you would have to agree?
@ur momisugly Jim, wait, so you are saying your owner assertion was a waste of time? Clearly not my good man, chin up. I shall ask again since it deserves follow-up.
Jim says “Should we burn all coal this way or run some of it through our energy extracting systems. Our coal burning operations also run “cleaner” than natural coal seam fires”
That suggests that the CO2 released from the coal seam fires is greater than our impact from the dawn of the industrial revolution. Is that indeed the case? And doesn’t that assertion engage in the more is better argument?
Tom says:
May 11, 2012 at 10:00 pm
@davidmhoffer said “According to UAH, RSS, GISS and HadCrut, the earth has been cooling since 1998. ”
Odd, as the GISS data actually said this.>>>>>>>>
That’s an out of context quote from a completely different thread! Further, it is an abvious use of neuro-linguistic programming, a strange (and dangerous) branch of psychology being put to ill use.
Ban him.
[snip]
• • •
OK, it is clear other commenters are getting weary of Tom Deutsch (who already outed his name here yesterday in several comments before switching back to just “Tom”).
And I’ve grown tired as well especially since Tom is a shape shifter in violation of site policy. So far, he has had these personas here (at least the ones I’ve found, there may be more), all coming from the same Cox communications IP block, and with four different email addresses, three of which appear fake.
Tom
Tom Deutsch
Bystander
FairPlay
Moderate Republican
WUWT site policy says:
A real working email address that you own (as a commenter) is required, so that I may contact you if needed. False or misleading email addresses may earn banishment. Changing handles and/or changing email addresses to get around this will also earn the same fate.
Therefore, I’m pulling the handle for you.
Enjoy your weekend, Anthony
Okay, I won’t mention any troll’s name. I’ll just point out that there is only one side fo this debate that wants to go to huge civilization-destroying lengths to try to target a particular level of CO2. As for MY side of the debate, well, AS I ALREADY SAID, while I think CO2 is beneficial in pretty much any amount that man can produce, I am very much against government taking any steps to try to influence the level of CO2 one way or the other.
If we start to drop into another Little Ice Age then we will indeed need to be ready to jump in with some geo-engineering, but CO2 is by all indications too much of a pipsqueak to be of much help. My idea, which I have stated here several times, is that we should be developing an optimum technology for quickly spreading mass amounts of soot across the great white north in order to decrease its albedo and stop albedo feedback effects powering continuing cooling.
Albedo is one of several feedback effects that is weak in the warming direction but strong in the cooling direction. Temperate latitudes cover vastly more surface area than polar latitudes so as ice and snow expand towards temperate latitudes the magnitude of the albedo feedback increases dramatically. We had better be ready to interdict it. Warming is benign, but cooling is devastating. Nothing gobbles up the biosphere like being buried under a mile of ice.
Really really dirty coal, in the old fashioned sooty sense, is what we need to engineer, and forget using it for electricity generation. Power lines from northern regions to population centers would not be worth building. We just need a soot-spewing technology that can be deployed quickly and widely.
Tom says:
May 11, 2012 at 9:55 pm
JPeden says – “There is no evidence whatsoever that CO2 is a pollutant.” Oh, so there is no level at which it becomes problematic in anyway? None? Ever?
Tom, again I beg of you, please…please, for your own sake…forget the Precautionary Principle or any similar train of thought! How will you be able to function in life if you think everything is a “pollutant”? Just look where it’s got you so far!
Sorry, when I left my comment I didn’t see that the troll had already been banned. I didn’t want to annoy other commentors by feeding the troll so I referred to him obliquely, but if I had seen Tom was banned I would have dropped my first paragraph. The rest of my comment is general interest, about the need to be ready to do something about dangerous global cooling should it start to be evidenced.
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Tom says:
May 11, 2012 at 9:55 pm
JPeden says – “There is no evidence whatsoever that CO2 is a pollutant.” Oh, so there is no level at which it becomes problematic in anyway? None? Ever?
<<
Low CO2 level is a problem now. That’s why green plants evolved a whole new pathway. The old pathway is called C3. About 95% of all green plants use this pathway, but it’s wasteful (like trolls). About half of the CO2 processed in this fashion is lost. It wasn’t a problem until CO2 levels drop to the low levels we have now.
So a new pathway evolved–called C4. About 1% of green plants use this less wasteful pathway (efficiency is another matter). (The remaining green plants use CAM pathway.)
What’s interesting is that under increasing CO2 levels, it was assumed that C3 plants would benefit, but C4 would not. It turns out that all green plants benefit from increased levels of CO2.
Commercial greenhouses increase their CO2 levels to about 1000 ppm. That’s three times the current levels. The reason is obvious. CO2 has a fertilizing effect on green plants.
Jim
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Tom says:
May 11, 2012 at 10:16 pm
That suggests that the CO2 released from the coal seam fires is greater than our impact from the dawn of the industrial revolution. Is that indeed the case?
<<
Actually what I asked was what you previously implied: since it’s natural, should we burn all of our coal in this way? You ignored my question and made up something I didn’t ask, say, suggest, or imply.
But your question is interesting. Why don’t you research it and report back here after your ban expires.
Jim
Tom went into all-flame-out mode in this thread – he had been a small time drive by troll for years under his other monikers, but on this thread he really exploded. It reminds me of some trolls at Breitbart who answer every comment on a thread to make it unreadable.
So obviously the Obama-EPA trolls don’t want people to have debates about coal power, they want it dead, dead, dead.
Alec, if you’re still reading: This hurts them. Do more of it!
Tom says:
May 11, 2012 at 5:29 pm
@ur momisugly Otter – Alec is arguing that CO2 is clean, it is natural, and healthful and should not be restricted in any way. In other words more is better.
====
http://theroadtoemmaus.org/RdLb/11Phl/Sci/CO2&Health.html
“Conclusion
Over the last 350 million years CO2 has varied by 10 fold, approximately 250 ppm to 2,500 ppm with an average level of 1,500 ppm. This average level happens to be the optimum level for plants, it seems by evolutionary design, and is the reason that this level of CO2 is used in greenhouses Since plants and animals evolved together it’s likely that humans also evolved to function best at some higher level.
However, at 380 ppm we are not far from the lower end of that 10-fold range. Because so many people benefit from enhanced levels of CO2, it appears that our present atmosphere is already lower than the minimum to which some people can adapt. Scientific studies and established medical practices leave no doubt that increased levels of CO2 help people with respiratory problems and, some time in our lives, that will include nearly every one of us.”
For those who are concerned about burning coal, there is a small silver lining to those dark clouds (artistic licence, they are rarely dark ;)), those trace elements released do some good, and a recent report on mercury levels in natural soils as opposed to downwind of coal powered stations found that many natural areas had higher levels than the downwind areas.
nora.nerc.ac.uk/586/1/Biofortification.pdf (selenium lack since clean air act)
people.csail.mit.edu/…/sulfur_obesity_alzheimers_muscle_wasting.ht.. (sulphur lack ditto)
Adding to my post: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/05/11/if-obama-is-going-to-kill-coal-he-has-to-hide-the-body/#comment-983121
Carbon dioxide is essential to the maintain the pH balance in our bodies – cancer is over acidification – you can actively participate in keeping your levels in the alkaline by the foods you eat and taking bicarbonate of soda which releases carbon dioxide on meeting the acid in your stomach. Athletes after physical exertion and those gasping for breath because of some shock or other are not trying to get more oxygen into the lungs, the lungs have plenty, but more carbon dioxide; it is carbon dioxide which is required for transportation of oxygen into the blood – breathe into a paper bag a few times.
http://www.awaken.cc/awaken/pagesE/library/CancerSoda.html
History: http://members.westnet.com.au/pkolb/henders.htm
“But even as early as 1885, Miescher, a Swiss physiologist, in a paper that is one of the masterpieces of physiology, had summarized all the evidence then available and reached the conclusion that it is the variations in the amount of carbon dioxide which principally induce the immediate adjustments of respiration. In a classic phrase inspired by the insight of genius he wrote: “Over the oxygen supply of the body carbon dioxide spreads its protecting wings.” He died before he could complete his work and his death may be said to have closed the second chapter in the history of respiration and the functions of carbon dioxide in the body.
The Breath of Life.—- The first 3 decades of the present century have witnessed an extraordinary reversal of standpoint and increase of interest in regard to the functional importance of carbon dioxide in the animal body. Moreover, discoveries in this field, which were initially purely scientific and theoretical, are now finding a wide range of clinical applications for the alleviation of suffering and the saving of life.
Before considering these matters, it will be best that the mind be cleared of certain deep rooted misconceptions that have long opposed the truth and impeded its applications. It will be seen that carbon dioxide is truly the breath of life.”