Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Christian Science Monitor has written about a fascinating climate split in the Democrat Party, between “cynical” politicians and “young hawks” who see climate as an existential issue.
The Democrats’ climate change conundrum
A large majority of Democrats are concerned about climate change. But they’re split over how radical the remedies should be.
Climate change is a top liberal priority, but that very urgency is making the issue divisive as much as unifying for Democrats.
A wide rift has opened over a basic question: Just how ambitious should the Democratic Party be in trying to reduce carbon emissions and stabilize Earth’s climate?
Dueling views emerged as supporters of Hillary Clinton faced off against fans of Bernie Sanders in crafting the party’s 2016 platform. The Sanders camp is seeing the platform as a missed opportunity for the party to push for more meaningful action on global warming – notably a carbon tax and a ban on “fracking” as a means of fossil fuel extraction.
…
The question for Democrats is not whether to ramp up the effort on climate policy, but how and how rapidly.
“It’s a tough issue for both sides to talk about, but particularly for the left side to talk about,” says David Hopkins, a political scientist at Boston College. “When you get down to the specific policies, especially policies like a carbon tax [that] impose costs on voters, then it becomes an uncomfortable topic.”
…
One of Sanders’s delegates is Bill McKibben, a climate activist and founder of the environmental advocacy group 350.org, who last Monday wrote in Politico that the Clinton campaign was “obstructing change to the Democratic platform,” particularly on climate policies. In particular, he highlighted how two of his proposals – to call for a carbon tax and a ban on hydraulic fracturing (fracking) in the platform – were voted down 7 to 6.
“The Clinton campaign is at this point rhetorically committed to taking on our worst problems, but not willing to say how. Which is the slightly cynical way politicians have addressed issues for too long,” he wrote.
Two days later, one of Clinton’s delegates on the drafting committee, Carol Browner, shot back with her own Politico column.
“It’s perfectly fair to debate the best way to achieve our shared goal of keeping global warming below 2 degrees Celsius this century,” she wrote. “But debating the merits of different policy solutions is quite different from setting up a litmus test for what it takes to be ‘serious’ about climate change.”
…
But this approach may not pass muster with climate hawks who increasingly see climate change not as a political or policy issue, but as an urgent existential one.
“There’s been progress made, and I’m happy to see that, but that doesn’t mean I’m satisfied,” says Adam Hasz, executive coordinator for SustainUS, a youth-led environmental advocacy group.
…
Read more: http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2016/0706/The-Democrats-climate-change-conundrum
The Christian Science Monitor is a publication of the First Church of Christ, Scientist, founded in 1875.
I think the author makes a very interesting point, about the range of views in the Democrat Party, and the friction between climate hardliners who demand immediate action, and less committed Democrats who see climate as an important issue, but don’t embrace the urgency demanded by the hawks.
Whether this split will widen into civil war within the Democrat Party is an open question. The recent strong public exchange between McKibben and the Clinton team in my opinion suggests tensions are still running high. If the Clinton team is forced to distance her campaign from climate issues, say due to a vigorous effort to promote awareness of the damage climate regulations do to job security, tensions between hardline climate hawks and the Clinton team could boil over. The Democrat Party might split right down the middle.
Note: the link to the Bill McKibben Politico piece has been updated – the original link in the Christian Science Monitor post didn’t work.
I’m rooting for the climate hawks because increasing energy prices in the name of climate is such a loser of an issue outside the Democratic party. I doubt they’ll succeed because if there is one thing the Clinton team is good at, it’s reading public opinion polls.
Well they have plenty of climate change remedies they can implement, to stop climate change (of course).
I don’t remember whether it is 97 unprecedented causes of climate change or whether it is only 57; like Penguins crapping in the Southern Ocean and other break through discoveries. (and just by modeling).
SJ Merky News enviro guru extra-ordinaire, Paul Rogers, recently reported on the unprecedented discovery that California’s vast Redwood forests are the principal reason we have not gone over the carbon tipping point. These giant trees (magnificent) are storing more carbon than any other forests, including the tropical rain forests. they actually suck carbon out of the atmosphere and turn it into wood and tea leaves; excuse me, that’s tree leaves; aka pine needles.
For the uninformed, who know nowt about California’s vast redwood forests, all of those trees plus 75 cents can buy you a senior coffee at McDonalds.
Gorgeous as they are, there aren’t enough redwood trees on the planet to affect even the pristine climate of California, let alone the rest of the planet.
I guess the thesis is because of the sheer giantness of redwood trees compared to lesser species, the volume percent of redwood wood is greater than for any other kind of forest.
So add another option for the Democrats (or Republicans) to consider for global climate amelioration.
Just plant vast forests of California redwoods; sequoia sempervirens, and sequoia gigantea every where not already occupied by them.
I guess the internet claims simultaneously that there is only one and also there are two species of sequoia, aka redwoods.
I thought there was also a Chinese one that is also a part of the only one or maybe two species or three.
The absurd attention given by candidates for public office to atmospheric CO2 and the supposed but as yet unproven control of global climate by it, shows just how close to extinctification of the human species we are getting.
Rogers reports regularly on enviro issues, and is worth reading, but he is addicted to the coolade, and too involved in politicking, to earn a lot of credibility. He strictly does not want to hear any vestiges of doubt about climate change.
G
We need help.
“The absurd attention given by candidates for public office to atmospheric CO2 and the supposed but as yet unproven control of global climate by it…”: right on!
The blind climate claims by the left are based on emotion and political agenda, not science. There is a big pile of assertions but no actual evidence. Climate factors due to human activity, if any, have never been separated from natural causes. The main reason is that human factors do not exist, as all climate is due to natural causes.
It sure would be a nice thing if the Democrat Party imploded. I’m not going to hold my breath waiting for such a happy event to occur though. Besides, the Republican Party is equally at risk for implosion because of Trump. Again, I won’t hold my breath for that happy event to occur either.
SMC commented: “… the Republican Party is equally at risk for implosion…. ”
They’ve already been there, done that.
Could happen . The Dems have become the most openly criminal party .
As has the GOP. Do note the GOP leaders openly said they will hobnob with Clinton, no Trump.
Just remember that in certain prominent religious circles, it is actually taught that it is ok to lie cheat and steal in order to advance the cause, and even encouraged as advancing one’s standing in the hereafter. (or Valhalla for those of us that want to go there.)
g
george e. smith July 7, 2016 at 10:56 am: “Just remember that in certain prominent religious circles, it is actually taught that it is ok to lie cheat and steal …”
Surely can’t be any of the ‘Christian’ religions, on account of at least the edicts in 10 Commandments and other teachings …
Don’t think I ever suggested it might be so in any Christian religions. There’s a very large number of prominent religions.
g
I’m not sure if that is the optimal outcome. The presence of competing interests serves to keep the honest people honest and others from running amuck. It is the lack of healthy competition that historically predisposes leftist states to suffer from catastrophic anthropogenic misalignments (e.g. mass abortions, class diversity schemes).
Competing interests are good, not bad. They keep honest people honest and others from running amuck.
A revolt within the loony bin? How depressing! It continues to amaze me that there are so many truly ignorant people. People trying to add meaning to their meaningless lives by latching on to a pop culture cause that is pushed by the mass media for the benefit of the progressive politicians and their never ending quest for control and power.
+1
+1
A fair description for any organized religion.
It really is sad how the ignorant feel the need to spread their hatred everywhere they go.
The State-established Pro-Choice Church with its doctrine of selective morality, science, rights, laws, etc. is the prototypical example in Western civilization and a premier example globally.
+1
Religion:
The naive desperately clutching at straws to make sense of the world around tgen.
Rob Morrow religious bigot. CAGW is rooted in scientism which isa whole new faith based system.
David Smith July 7, 2016 at 2:04 pm: “Religion: The naive desperately clutching at straws to make sense of the world around [them].”
And that would include me, but, funny, I don’t fit your mold (or or is it mould?) …
“Religion:
The naive desperately clutching at straws to make sense of the world around tgen.”
Many Anti-Religion folks seem to me to have a distinct fondness for citing definitions that don’t appear in any dictionary . . (I guess it helps them to make sense of the world around them ; )
“People trying to add meaning to their meaningless lives by latching on to a pop culture cause…”
Great! You are up there with G.K. Chesterton:
“If there is one thing worse than the modern weakening of major morals, it is the modern strengthening of minor morals.”
“The past is not what it was.” – official policy statement of government climatologists.
(sometimes attributed to G.K. Chesterton in A Short History of England)
Markstoval,
Sounds more like Yogi Berra.
John D
“The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected.” GKC
1.5 thumbs up! I lost the ability to raise one in a global warming accident.
“Just how ambitious should the Democratic Party be in trying to reduce carbon emissions and stabilize Earth’s climate?” Does that mean that Democrats really think that carbon emissions have anything to do with the Earth’s climate? If they are that dumb, don’t vote for any of them. I thought they were just going along with the scam.
Higher energy cost? The external opposition will be chomping at this bit on this. The campaign ads will focus on this. Check out what they did this across the pond….
A good video.
Sallie Baliunas, Tim Patterson and I debated the Pembina Institute in 2002 in the PEGG. Our debate is now available at:
http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/KyotoAPEGA2002REV1.pdf
Our eight-point Rebuttal includes predictions that have all materialized in those countries in Western Europe that have adopted the full measure of global warming mania. My country, Canada, was foolish enough to sign the Kyoto Protocol, but then wise enough to ignore it.
[2002 article in “quotation marks”, followed by current commentary.]
On Green Energy:
8. “The ultimate agenda of pro-Kyoto advocates is to eliminate fossil fuels, but this would result in a catastrophic shortfall in global energy supply – the wasteful, inefficient energy solutions proposed by Kyoto advocates simply cannot replace fossil fuels.”
Governments that adopted “green energy” schemes such as wind and solar power are finding these schemes are not green and produce little useful energy. Their energy costs are soaring and these governments are often in retreat, dropping their green energy subsidies as fast as they politically can.
_______________
So we told you so – 14 years ago.
Regardless of the serious unresolved questions of the global warming scientific debate, wind and solar power do NOT contribute reliable, economic electric power to the grid.
This is a simple and proven hypothesis, yet trillions of dollars have been wasted globally on this green energy nonsense.
Wind power is a mature technology so it is unlikely to ever become economic.
Solar power is more costly than wind power now, but major technological improvements are still possible.
We tried to explain the fatal flaws of wind power to the public and our politicians without success. I concluded a simpler message was required, so that our politicians and their green minions could understand it.
Years ago, I wrote the following:
Wind power – it doesn’t just blow – it sucks!
Solar power – stick it where the Sun don’t shine!
Apparently this is still too complicated for our politicians and the greens.
Regards to all, Allan 🙂
When it doesn’t blow, wind power sucks!
Allan, I am sorry to say that the wynne ‘government’ in Ontario hasn’t got the intelligence to figure out what you pointed out 14 years ago. They just finished 77 600-foot-tall turbines in my are- 11 of them within a mile and a half of us- and now I hear there is yet another project in the works, somewhere on the Niagara Peninsula.
Only gravity sucks ! Well I guess the Strong Force also, but we have that caged up already.
g
Greenpeace | Pembina Institute, Sept. 2013
‘Renewable is Doable: Affordable and flexible options for Ontario’s long-term-energy plan’
Report on why Ontario does NOT need nuclear energy.
Authors are: Shawn-Patrick Stensil (Greenpeace Canada), Tim Weis, Jeffrey Harti.
https://www.pembina.org/reports/renewable-doable-2013.pdf
Stensil & Weis were both supporters of the enactment of Ontario’s Green Energy Act in 2009 which allowed many more renewable energy projects to be installed in Ontario.
Linkedin: Jeffrey Harti
Ontario Public Service
Ontario Ministry of Energy a.k.a. Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure.
Profile at: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/jeffrey-harti-8878965
Wynne government is a special mix of incompetent, corrupt and in bed with special interests.
Like the Ontario Minister of Health’s wife is on the Board of the Suzuki Foundation?
I was speaking to my mother about the problems with the wind farms in the North Sea. She said something along the lines of “I thought the Dutch mastered windmills ages ago. If they can’t get them to work right, what hope is there for the rest of us?”
The ECO Report. Oct.23, 2015
Scroll down to:
‘Ontario Shows How Policy Fosters Solar Development’
“With less solar potential than most of the US, Ontario surpasses every state but California and Arizona in installed capacity.”
The rest at: http://www.theecoreport.com/tag/ontarios-green-energy-act
Article includes a US solar map and there is a Canadian solar map on line.
Use of policy and not factual information to expand solar use.
Science is self correcting. Politics is self collapsing when a supporting truth is found to be a lie, especially one as incredibly wrong as CAGW. If by some miracle of sanity, the truth we all know was to be accepted, the Democratic party would collapse. That the consequences are so harsh is probably the single biggest reason why those on the CAGW side have such a hard time understanding why they are so incredibly wrong, even if its just an unconscious bias.
Science is not self-correcting. Every now and then a stubborn person comes along, and things change.
One might just as well say that serial murders are self-correcting, because if not caught, they will eventually die of old age.
“Science is self-correcting” is an excuse to do nothing.
I think CO2 means the scientific method, IF followed, is self correcting. The humans involved however are not.
David,
Yes, that is correct, moreover; the scientific method will eventually win, although eventually could be a long time, for example in the case of Copernicus and Galileo. In today’s fast paced, technological world, I don’t think we will have to wait that long, even though the influence politics has on week minded people is much like the influence the Church had when it replaced the scientific method with religious dogma.
So science itself follows le Chatalier’s Principle.
Mebbe ??
g
Even the scientific method is not immune to GIGO, nor is logic. We get in trouble when we elevate a method too highly over the substantive premises we plug into it.
The death penalty has an unblemished record of zero recidivism. Studies that purport to show that the death penalty does not deter crime, universally study ONLY criminals who have NOT even undergone that punishment.
G
The wind turbines have one redeeming characteristic – they will eventually provide jobs for the metal salvage industry when they are torn down.
Their Big Lie has become Too Big to Fail.
Pick a very Progressive city, say, in California. Convert it to 100% renewable power. Which would help the grid in California. Let the Progressives experience the future they so yearn for. Berkeley or Sacramento seem like good candidates.
Sorry LarryD, but the trouble with such an idea is they would still be shipping in items that have been made in blast furnaces: metal roofing, cars and so forth – things that have been manufactured using high intensity energy (not possible with renewables) outside and well away from their ‘perfect’ little city, and these things would not be counted. They could make it look like it actually works.
Stephen, your point supports my core argument that windmills and solar panels are coal-powered.
NO ONE sells those items produced using renewable energy unless it was big hydro. As California says big hydro isn’t renewable Berkeley would be teaching students using the flickering light of their hand-moulded clay lamps fueled with rendered seal fat. They will write on slates with natural chalk and erase them with ocean water. While they are there at the beach they can surf on a chiseled cedar surfboard and scrounge for shellfsh to cook over the shavings.
Isn’t energy independence wonderful?
Stephen, what you say is true, however forcing them to live on a day to day basis with intermittent “renewable” power might be enough to focus their attention on the many problems with it.
California has an untapped supply of liposuction fat for renewable energy use.
g
Or a cash conscious city in Texas?
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/mar/28/georgetown-texas-renewable-green-energy
Well there goes your idea. There are NO progressive cities in Califonia.
g
Nooool. Not Sacramento. No guilt by association, please.
What do they intend to do about China and India?
Obama persuaded India to reform its act on CO2… India will install 175GW of renewables by 2022… the funding for this is already coming in… this will reduce India’s planned coal plant build dramatically…
I’m trying to decide if you are actually this gullible.
Sacred cows in India provide “sustainable” cow excrement to burn…
Unfortunately, one can’t sustain both the sacred cows, and the human hordes.
g
India will give lip service only to Obama’s goofus, egocentric legacy ideas. The problems hey have to fix are not fixed with wind and solar. Modi pretends to be against CO2 and Obama pretends to believe him. The only difference is Modi is doing what’s best for his country.
“It’s perfectly fair to debate the best way to achieve our shared goal of keeping global warming below 2 degrees Celsius this century,”
Good Grief, the HUBRIS, like the Democratic Party can CONTROL the temperature…..
Or any human for that matter.
These people are seriously mentally challenged.
They can’t even predict the temperature a decade from now (see: “the pause”) and they seriously expect us to believe they can “control” the temperature over the course of an entire century…..
Heck, lots of stuff happened in the previous century that nobody expected back in 1900; WWI, WWII, The atomic bomb, landing on the Moon (YES IT DID HAPPEN), fracking…….
But I guess if you have a mission you must first throw objectivity out the window….
Cheers, KevinK
On behalf of my fellow Floridians who share my view, I apologize for foisting Carol Browner on the nation.
Mea Culpa.
Every single study from the last 10 years or so has put the climate sensitivity to a doubling of CO2 to under 2C, most put them well under 2C.
What do we need to do to keep temperatures from doubling by the end of the century?
Absolutely nothing.
Agreed Kevin.
We had a medieval warming which was followed by the little ice age. No one can fully explain these two recent, naturally occurring events. Or at least no explanation has been convincing to the majority. Then at the end of the cooling period called the little ice age the planet began to warm again.
Until someone or some group explains those events, we must assume that the climate is naturally cyclical and that CO2 has nothing to do with it. Or very little.
It is amazing to me that so many of our socialist or collectivist friends love the idea that there is some impending catastrophe that requires a global
tyrannygovernment to save mankind. Any long term chart of temperatures vs. CO2 concentration in the atmosphere plainly shows the lack of evidence against CO2.CO2 is innocent! Free CO2! Can I get a dozen hippy chicks to go
sleepmarch with me. I’ll pay for the signs andweedrefreshments.Round up the usual suspects! Especially CO2!
Uh, KevinK, they can’t even predict the temperature a week from now. That’s “weather”, don’t you know, and too chaotic for certainty. But 100 years from now? Piece of cake.
The mice are discussing how to bell the cat. They pretend to not notice that the cat is dead.
The cat is merely resting in the depths of the oceans, ready to leap out again and cause catastrophic warming with little notice, sometime in the future, nobody knows exactly when, but it simply must happen, the consensus says so…….
Nobody actually observed the cat slinking into it’s hiding place in the deep oceans but cats are very sneaky in that regard….
Cheers, KevinK (servant to several cats that “own” the home I mistakenly refer to as “my” residence)
The cat has a partner that also lives in the sea. It thinks coral skeletons are like catnip.
+ 1, Kevin.
Dogs have family, cats have staff.
Perfect synopsis! Particularly enjoyed the use of “pretend”.
It’s a workable “model”
Better yet, the cat was never there in the first place but modeling showed that a cat does exist. So the mice continue to hide in their holes finding was to eat less cheese all in the hopes to reduce giving the cat too much flatulence.
Democrats may fight. But, they will fall in line and back the Hildabeast. Real Democrats understand that issues are for fund raising and scaring low information voters. What they really care about is power. No Democrat other than idiot like McKibben cares that much about any issue. The rest of them will fall in line and pretend the Wicked Witch is a nice grandma.
With the FBI’s and the DOJ’s announcements completely exonerating Hillary Clinton of any criminal wrongdoing while she was Secretary of State, the 2016 presidential election is all but over.
Nothing now stands in the way of Hillary Clinton becoming President, most probably in a landslide vote of epic proportions which gives control of Congress back to the Democrats with a substantial majority in both houses. With their forthcoming victory in November, the Democrats will have a powerful mandate for pressing forward with their climate action agenda, as far and as fast as they want to take it.
If the Democrats are truly serious about greatly reducing America’s carbon emissions, they must put a price on carbon; they must enforce a mandated program of strict energy conservation measures; they must use the EPA to its maximum possible effectiveness in regulating all of America’s carbon emissions; and last but not least, they must embrace nuclear power.
If they don’t do all of those things, then their policy platform will be merely words on paper written solely for the purpose of attracting environmentally conscious voters.
And so the big question which remains to be answered is just how committed the Democrats are to actually achieving the steep emission reductions they say they want. Talk is cheap, but actions which are highly effective in reducing America’s GHG emissions will also be very expensive.
Once the Democrats are in control of Congress, will they do anything more than enact massive subsidies and tax breaks for renewable energy projects? Will they reject a carbon tax and will they refuse to enact a ban on fracking?
Once Hillary Clinton is president, will she put pressure on the EPA to go well beyond the Clean Power Plan and to use the full authority of the agency to force across-the-board reductions in all of America’s carbon emissions, not just those from coal-fired power plants?
Will the environmental activist groups continue to make a lot of noise about climate change while putting little or no pressure on the President to broaden the EPA’s regulatory agenda to cover every major source of carbon emissions? Will these groups continue to agitate for strong action on climate while ignoring the only carbon reduction strategies which have any real chance of succeeding?
Actually he was quite clear on the criminal violations, he just didn’t expect a prosecutor to want to set case law on a case that would impact the election in the time allowed, as well as required everyone on those emails would have to be charged as well, so he nuked her instead.
As I understand it, he didn’t need to make a recommendation (or otherwise) on prosecution. Why did he not simply pass on his findings to the AG’s Office and leave it to them to decide on prosecution? Then the spotlight would be on Lynch (and the Tarmac meeting).
Why did he not simply pass on his findings to the AG’s Office and leave it to them to decide on prosecution?
===========
a very good question
Watching Comey testify to Congress.
Basically, he’s saying if you’re stupid enough to not know you are breaking a law, you will not be charged.
So Hilary is to stupid to know to use a secure system for classified materials, and therfore will not be charged.
Plus here is a matching case below. Now some MSM have claimed that the Secretary of State doesn’t have the security briefings that regular gov employees do (as in you have got to be kidding me), but she did get one on entry to the job and was supposed to have one yearly after that but refused. So she felt above it or was too stupid to care. In another twist, because some of the job E-mails were addressed to Obama from her server, he had to have know about it and what was Comey going to do there (so called constitutional crisis)?? Ryan has asked intelligence committees to block her from receiving anything classified in the meantime. Another that no one has brought up is that these are the only servers that she used, just how did she conduct state department business without putting all kinds of classified data/E-mails on them; obviously couldn’t have.
“What is even more shocking is that according to Comey, “we cannot find a case that would support bringing criminal charges on these facts.”
“Well, we did. Here is the FBI itself, less than a year ago, charging one Bryan H. Nishimura, 50, of Folsom, who pleaded guilty to “unauthorized removal and retention of classified materials” without malicious intent, in other words precisely what the FBI alleges Hillary did (h/t @DavidSirota): U.S. Magistrate Judge Kendall J. Newman immediately sentenced Nishimura to two years of probation, a $7,500 fine, and forfeiture of personal media containing classified materials. Nishimura was further ordered to surrender any currently held security clearance and to never again seek such a clearance.”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-07-05/peak-fbi-corruption-meet-bryan-nishimura-found-guilty-removal-and-retention-classifi
http://www.breitbart.com/2016-presidential-race/2016/07/06/speaker-ryan-block-hillary/
Comey specifically mentioned this cases yesterday in his comments, and clearly explained how it was different, I don’t remember exactly off the top of my head, but I think he knew he was doing something wrong, which Clinton didn’t, not sure I buy that, but you are right Obama had to have, or should have known. And everyone on those classified email chains show be charged.
Imagine the circus a case like that would be prior to November.
Even more now, I think for whatever reason you want to pick, he knew they would not prosecute her, and this was him telling us she does not be server to be President and making it up to us to vote on her guilt.
Why did he not simply pass on his findings to the AG’s Office and leave it to them to decide on prosecution?
===========
Perhaps because he believed the findings would be buried by the DOJ. This way her wrongdoing gets exposed.
SR
The reason he had to make a very public recommendation was because of the meeting between Bill Clinton and Lynch tainted any decision about prosecution that the Justice department might make on its own.
It is my belief that this is exactly what he did, and why he did it.
I think he truly believes she is too stupid on this topic to be indicted.
Anyone with these issues would find this a major hurtle to getting another clearance. This is basically how he feels this would be handled if no longer with an active clearance.
I remember Nixon! He won his second election while under the cloud of the Watergate Break-in. The Attorney General, his buddy, exonerated him in this action and then slowly but surely, it blew up in his face.
emsnews,
One significant difference was that Nixon got in trouble for covering up a minor crime committed by some low level political operatives. In Clinton’s case, the cover up is about far more serious crimes that potentially rise to the level of treason which were committed by a Secretary of State who thinks she is both above the law and entitled to be the next President.
“completely exonerating”???
I’m guessing the closest you came to that briefing was a Hillary press release.
Comey spent 20 minutes outlawing the many laws that broke and all the lies that she told.
He then said that since she was sorry and didn’t mean to do it (despite the emails uncovered that made it clear that she did mean to do it) he wasn’t going to recommend prosecution.
On Drudge today theirs an article regarding defense attorneys for many people who are currently charged with less than Comey admitted that Hillary had committed.
They are declaring that they are going to use the Hillary defense when their cases come to trial.
Wouldn’t be surprised if many people already convicted use this new precedent to get their convictions over turned.
GOOD! Sauce for the goose and all that . . . .
Bill takes care of all the goosingl
Last I checked, ignorance was supposed to not be an excuse in regard to the law and the violating thereof. Jokes about the intellectual deficiencies of politicians are as old as politics, but I think this is the first time it’s ever been declared a valid legal defense. 😐
substantial majority in both houses.
=============
When given a poor choice to vote for, the people tend to vote one party for President and the other for Congress. This has the effect of tying the government up in knots, to try and minimize the damage to the voters.
The President and Congress of course blame each other for the stalemate, but really this is what the Founding Fathers intended. Better a government that does nothing than a government that does harm.
Unfortunately, this president has learned how to bypass congress by using executively controlled regulatory agencies.
SR
Got news for ya–they’re not going to do ANYTHING that has a negative impact on Wall Street. Hillary has been paid in full by Goldman Sachs etc. to make good and sure!
Can you even believe that they did not even question her under oath. I always thought that lying to any government person was a felony, whether under oath or not.
Well some say that the end part of F-B-I stands for Bunch of Idiots. I haven’t Figured out the rest of the code yet !
g
The democrats need to realize that the climate change we are experiencing is caused by the sun and the oceans and Mankind does not have the power to change it. There is no real evidence that CO2 has any effect on climate. In the IPCC’s first report they quoted a wide range of possible values for the climate sensitivity of CO2. In their last report they quoted the exact same range of values. So after more than two decades of effort they have failed to learn anything that would allow them to change the range of their guesses. The IPCC has also failed to recognize the efforts of others that have come up with climate sensitivity for CO2 that is way below the IPCC’s range of guesses. I read an article by one author that pointed out that the initial calculations of the climate sensitivity of CO2 failed to consider that doubling of CO2 will cause a small decrease in the dry lapse rate which is a cooling effect. A more correct calculation comes up with a climate sensitivity for CO2 that is 20 times less than the wrong calculation. The implication is what we have observed. CO2’s effect on climate is trivial at best. If CO2 really did effect climate then the increase over the past 30 years should have caused an increase in the environmental lapse rate in the troposphere but that has not happened. It can be shown that the average temperature at the Earth’s surface is a function of the solar irradiance. the Earth’s albedo, the heat capacity of the atmosphere and the pressure gradient. It has nothing to do with the LWIR absorption properties of so called greenhouse gases.
“The democrats need to realize that the climate change we are experiencing is caused by the sun and the oceans and Mankind does not have the power to change it.”
Sorry – not possible. Such realization requires a grasp of basic science/math/logic not readily found in a lefty’s ‘brain.’ Ironically, lefties are mostly right-brained, as abilities with math and logic are located in the left hemisphere.
So NASA has got it wrong, and the trillion-dollar oil industry is not responsible for CO2 increase?
That’s correct. You didn’t think NASA were infallible and apolitical, did you? They stated one of their most pressing issues today is “Muslim outreach”, so that should nudge you off the primrose path.
Climate change is natural and unstoppable. Oil companies might wish they were omnipotent and could affect it. In their dreams!
What is 20 times less?
5%?
Mark,
I don’t believe the sensitivity is as low as 5% of the nominal 0.8C per W/m^2 claimed, but the effect is unambiguously lower than the lower limit of 0.4C per W/m^2 that they also claim. By best guess is that the real sensitivity is about 25% of the claimed sensitivity.
BTW, specifying the sensitivity in degrees per W/m^2 obfuscates the energy behavior and contributes to why climate science is so incredibly broken. A more accurate quantification of the effect should be the dimensionless ratio of incremental W/m^2 of surface emissions per W/m^2 of incremental forcing, where an effect of 0.8C per W/m^2 means that surface emissions increase by 4.3 W/m^2 when 1 W/m^2 of forcing is applied.
If the Earth was an nearly ideal black body (like the Moon), its albedo would be 0.13 (again like the Moon), its average temperature would be based on average solar power of (1-0.13)*1366/4 = 297.1 W/m^2 (as it is on the Moon) which according to the SB Law corresponds to an average surface temperature of 269.04K or a few degrees below freezing and not the 255K zero feedback result often claimed. 1 W/m^2 of incremental post albedo input power (forcing per the IPCC’s definition) will result in 1 W/m^2 of incremental surface emissions which corresponds to a new emissions of 298.1 W/m^2 and a temperature of 269.27K corresponding to a sensitivity of 0.13C per W/m^2.
If this hypothetical BB Earth had an atmosphere comprised of only N2 and O2, the average temperature and sensitivity would be exactly the same, and no scientist on either side can possibly this first principles physics quantifying this, yet they consistently believe that adding a trace gas can increase the sensitivity by more than a factor of 4. If this was the case and an incremental W/m^2 of forcing increased surface emissions by 4.3 W/m^2 it would also require that all of the other 239 W/m^2 of accumulated forcing must have the same effect and the surface should be emitting 4.3*239 = 1027 W/m^2 corresponding to a surface temperature close to the boiling point of water.
Detractors will say that the 4.3 W/m^2 of incremental emissions comes from the additional CO2 acting on all prior forcing, which is absolutely true and is already accounted for by the 3.7 W/m^2 of EQUIVALENT forcing presumed to occur from doubling CO2. Note that the is not real forcing, only the Sun can force the system, but the equivalent incremental solar forcing that doubling CO2 represents and there is also the strong possibility that 3.7 W/m^2 of equivalent solar forcing is about a factor of 2 too big, so the effect of doubling CO2 may be overstated by as much as a factor of 8 or about 12.5% of the stated effect.
Rather than a doubling of CO2 causing an increase in global temperature of 1.2 degrees C, factoring in how adding that much CO2 will decrease the dry lapse rate in the troposphere, the calculated temperature increase would be .06 degrees C for a doubling of CO2. These calculations do not include any H2O feedback. The AGW conjecture depends upon a positive feedback from H2O providing a from two to three times amplification factor. But here they neglect that besides being the primary greenhouse gas, H2O is a major coolant in the Earth’s atmosphere moving heat energy from the Earth’s surface to where clouds form via the heat of evaporation. According to some models, more heat energy is moved by H2O via the heat of vaporization then by both convection and LWIR absorption band radiation combined. The feedback also has to be negative for the climate to have been as stable as it has been over at least the past 500 million years, enough for life to evolve. We are here. The AGW conjecture is full of flaws because it is based upon only a partial understanding of science.
It’s more than that, for much of the planet at night air temps near dew points, so there is a both a lot surface entropy being dumped as well as a reduction of water because some of the dew ends up in the water table.
Basically negative feedback to any positive feedback.
I think siamiam is being sarcastic. This completely unscientific and incorrect way of stating fractions is one of my pet peeves also. It’s idiotic!
Same thing as minus nineteen times.
g
I disagree that man will never be able to alter the parameters that are in fact affecting climate. Just not anytime in the foreseeable future.
Mr. Citizen, I disagree. We can change climate now. A full scale nuclear war would very likely change the earth’s climate greatly.
The present leadership in D.C has been trying to provoke both Russia and China. One guesses that they are trying to seek help in changing climate via the nuclear war option.
Then please tell me in your wildest imagination how Mankind will ever be able to force the sun and the oceans to provide the ideal climate when the ideal climate has not even been defined. Maybe we should first try to change the weather before we take on the climate challenge.
Any massive geo-engineering undertaking would be best carried out on a planet we’re not currently standing on. You know, just in case things go horribly wrong (or horribly right). 🙂
I could see Mars becoming a planetary-scale climate laboratory within a millennium. We could conceivably harvest enough water ice from Saturn’s rings and CO2 from Venus to jump-start a proto-climatic system.
More CO2 will not do much to increase the surface temperature of Mars. If Earth had the equivalent amount of CO2, it’s concentration would be about 6000 ppm making its effect already close to the maximum possible. Perhaps other gases that absorb different parts of the spectrum will work to warm it further, for example water vapor, but the effects of CO2 are at the end of its dynamic range. This broken idea arises from the false narrative that the effect of CO2 extends to infinity leading to a runaway GHG effect, which is precluded by physical laws in addition to the calculated and the measured absorption spectrum.
Well the extremes of climate Temperature, at say the solstices can range from about -95 to +55 deg. C with a very common range being 120 deg. C
so just how much would you want to expand that range, if we figure out how ??
G
McKibben is in with Maude Barlow in Vermont. Barlow, a Canadian, started the ant-fracking movement with her Washington, D.C. based NGO.
Barlow in Canada is with the Council of Canadians which engages in anti-fracking activities in Canada.
Barlow – that heartless woman! Those poor ants!!!
That’s enough of your ant-ics!
How do you fracture ants? With a very tiny chisel?
Well you freeze them with a CO2 fire extinguisher, and they shatter upon hitting the ground.
Well I know it works for Yellow-jacket wasps, so I assume it would work on ants too.
g
It doesn’t seem to occur to the readers of this blog that the deniers are losing badly to the believers. For whatever reason the temperature record has been flat for decades but if it inches back up we lose immediately and with great expense. Our ideas have not prevailed.
Yeah but what happens if the temperature continues to drop ( which IMO) is more likely and happening now
They point to their laughable ‘predictions’ of how warming can cause cooling (which started years ago) and tell us how they were right all along, and everyone continues to believe them.
Are you feeling depressed? Awwww… Think about the silent majority getting real sick and tired of overblown bureaucracy affecting their standard of living *globally*. Think Brexit (Farage), Trump, Hanson (Australia) – think groundswell. Hope you feel happier.
link for Hanson: http://joannenova.com.au/2016/07/shocking-potential-senator-wants-to-teach-scientific-method-climate-scepticism-in-schools/
I think it’s edged back more towards a tie. There are more scientists speaking and writing points against AGW all the time. Their research is mostly garbage. It can’t hold up.
The democrats are drunk with the notion that Globalism is a good fundamental thing and cannot be questioned. There are more than a few republicans the have bought in to to the same basic premise, especially when subsidies on ethanol or wind benefit their voting base or trade arrangements can pass themselves off as “free market” compromises. The disagreements under the umbrella of “Globalism” are just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
If you have a party dedicated to economic suicide, it has to fail at some point. This issue just becomes when. If this is “splitting down the middle” for the party, that is a foregone conclusion. It is just a matter of timing. Instead of constantly talking about policies to guarantee economic suicide, at some point they have to implement them, else, the rhetoric fizzles out.
Donald wrote:
+many, Donald Kaspar
Your insight leads me to believe you are no longer in your 20’s; maybe a gray hair or two, Donald?
Unfortunately, using the cattle prod of government, they herd before them those of us who are not interested in being led down the primrose path to certain destruction.
Note Samurai’s following comment which fills in the details.
The problem is that both major parties appear to be committed to suicide.
Only if it takes the rest of us along with them.
The US is already $20 trillion in debt, we have 96 million people that have given up looking for work and/or have made the logical choice to live off government largess, and US businesses waste $1.9 trillion/yr in regulatory compliance costs, a $500 billion/yr trade deficit, Obamacare is imploding, the US$ is collapsing, stock market, bond and real estate bubbles are about to pop, there are roughly 30 million illegal aliens living in the US, we still fighting senseless wars in the ME, we have $100+ TRILLION in un-funded liabilities, the highest corporate taxes in the world, Jihadists are conducting terrorists massive attacks around the world on a weekly basis, we’re ranked 20th in the world in math and science, etc., etc. etc. ….
The US cannot AFFORD to waste ONE MORE DIME on the disconfirmed CAGW scam. Period! (TM).
Leftists own this CAGW debacle 100.00%. Over the next 8 years, sufficient disparity between CAGW global warming projections vs. reality will be sufficient to finally disconfirm the CAGW hypothesis once and for all.
When the absurd CAGW hypothesis is finally dead and buried, the political repercussions against Leftists for wasting $trillions on the CAGW scam will be profound.
More and more people are beginning to realize that Leftists’ drive for globalization and centralized government control over the world economy is NOT working. CAGW is a HUGE and essential Leftist tool to implement their tyrannical globalist agenda.
The BREXIT vote was just one example that taxpayers have had enough of centrally-planned economies, debilitating taxes, loss of national sovereignty, excessive regulations, loss of individual rights and wasteful government spending. It will not be the last.
I hope Leftists continue to fan the flames of climate alarmism, because it will only increase the magnitude of the blowback once CAGW is tossed in the trash bin of history.
I agree with Samurai in most part, but for the prediction of a blowback. Wishful thinking. I think it will never be ‘over’, but rather people in general will put their efforts more into projects and campaigns of importance. People in general will sigh in relief rather than go on a witch hunt. I hope I’m right. There may be resentment at the wastage and collusion and control-seeking, but I think apathy and distraction will prevail generally.
Mike– Political hacks are not above the laws of the land nor the laws of physics, nor the rules of the
Scientific Method. (hmmm… I kinda like that Samuraism..)
It’s all speculation, but how I see CAGW’s demise playing out is an initial blowback against science in general and Leftist politicians (many scientists were complicit in their silence) for allowing this scam to continue for as long as it did.
Once taxpayers realize the $TRILLIONS of their hard-earned tax dollars that were wasted on the CAGW scam for absolutely no reason whatsoever, there will be a day of reckoning. Many (certainly not all) will be incensed when they learn of how the CAGW scam was just a multi-trillion dollar tool to achieve some very nefarious Leftist agendas…
We’ll see, but it seems people will have to realize that if Leftists can so blatantly lied about CAGW, they must be lying about other things as well…
Perhaps it’s wishful thinking on my part, but I hope people learn some valuable lessons following CAGW’s demise.
I DO know historians will have a heyday trying to figure out how the CAGW scam could have occurred; it’s like the entire world went temporarily insane for 30 years…
And so it goes, until it doesn’t….
“Political hacks are not above the laws of the land ”
Tell that to Hillary.
“Political hacks are not above the laws of the land ”
=============
politicians know better than to rock the boat. otherwise they could all end up in the water.
look at the long, long list of suicides of people over the years that were about to make trouble for the Clintons.
co-incidence? maybe not. lawyers meet people that have on their resumes; “fixer” as one of their job skills. get some of these people out of a jam, maybe they will return the favor, especially if the price is right. and in politics the price is always right.
..
I agree with Mike. I think about a trillion got blown on Iraq. Nobody even wants to talk about it. Or where the other 19 trillion went! Meanwhile, the West has a massive trade deficit with the Chinese, who hack our computer systems, steal industrial secrets, oppress their people and intimidate their neighbours. We don’t talk about how that makes China stronger and us weaker, either!
“SAMURAI July 6, 2016 at 9:57 pm
The BREXIT vote was just one example that taxpayers have had enough of centrally-planned economies, debilitating taxes, loss of national sovereignty, excessive regulations, loss of individual rights and wasteful government spending.”
Not at all, not at all by a long mile. The Brexit vote was all about propaganda and emotion and little on fact. Brexit voters “won” because they actually turned out to vote. Many Bremain voters didn’t and the margin was narrow.
All this goes back to 1973 where Britons did not get a choice. It was made for them, thanks Ted Heath. Almost 2 and a quarter years after, Britons got the choice and chose to remain in the Common Market (CM).
The CM has morphed in to the EEC/EU, effectively the (European Uinion of Socialist Republics) EUSR. It is no wonder that former USSR countries scrambled for insertion in to the EU. They saw a source of free money. There is only so much blood a rock can give and the “rocks” of the EU are predominantly Britain, Germany and France. They are all pretty much bankrupt!
The margin was not narrow.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-32810887
Obama’s proto-socialist extravagances have made W.Bush’s budgets look downright frugal.
Another day, another prophecy, another rejection. Of course the Left is running hot and the pressure is building. Once they went pro-choice it was a progressive slope.
Courts will not rule on scientific issues. Judges understand that scientific decisions must be made by scientist. Politicians, on the other hand, are constantly making scientific decisions with little regard for the input from scientists. I am totally frustrated by this politicalization of our science. All we can do is continuing to explain the truth that carbon dioxide is not a pollutant and mankind’s civilization is not creating a climate crisis. We must post it where ever people are reading, tell it where they are listening and shouting it on the street corners.
John,
Can we somehow get more of the skeptical but silent AMS folks to start speaking out? Where do most people learn about weather and climate? From their local evening TV newscast. I know there are smart “weathermen” out there who know the truth, we have one here in my city who has actually posted here on WUWT, and under his real name, but I notice he’s been silent for a few years, probably doesn’t want to be blacklisted as a heretic and lose his job.
Can anyone here think of anything less ‘scientific’ than Christianity?
The other day on the beach I had a great argument with a Christian who was convinced the earth was 6000 years old. Even when I showed her various types of rock rocks from distant geological eras.
‘Christian Science’ is a textbook example of an oxymoronic statement.
I don’t know why you bring religion into this discussion. For your beliefs I care not, Sir. I do care however if your actions impose restrictions on my freedom, lifestyle and security. Which is where the CAGW scare is trying to take us.
Darwin was conflicted with the same conundrum. He came to the conclusion, based on evidence in front of him, that the Earth was much much older than ~6000yrs, even though he was a man of faith and believed the Bible. A true scientist.
The Bible doesn’t say anything about the Earth being 6,000 years old. That figure comes from a human being interpreting the Scriptures and ascribing an arbitrary number to the meaning of word “Day”.
God didn’t give us the number, humans did.
Lots of humans interpret the Bible in lots of different ways. Some literally, some not. Blanket statements do not really apply.
TA, The human beings who interpret the Scriptures as saying the earth is about 6,000 years old ascribe the number 1 to the meaning of the word “day”.
SR
Who gives a fig. And why don’t you explain that to the gentleman who designed the Big Bang theory- a Catholic priest.
For your beliefs, Sir, I care not.
Mike, All I can say is tough t*tties.
I find it fascinating that there are people who actually believe that faith has to be scientific.
I find it fascinating that people think faith has to conform to every scientific fad, without realizing most scientific fads are attempts to put down faith. Just one example: the Steady State Universe was an attempt to counter “in the beginning” with “there was no beginning”.
SR
Charles
There is a simple explanation for such fanatical materialism which is rooted in literalism. Few fanatics think deeply or reflectively on inner meanings, it seems to me. That is not a comment on the religion but the adherent.
You are attributing to the religion and it’s teacher and teachings something arising from the behaviour of a supposed ‘follower’. This is a misattribution. Jesus taught using parables. He did so because it was a widely used means of illustrating abstruse concepts to ordinary people in a manner they could understand, and the common folk were familiar with it.
Allegory, parable and the inner meanings of outward appearances are essential to the training and elevation mankind from the animal to the truly human state. Literalism in the interpretation of the age of the Earth and everything in it is clearly at variance with easily accessible facts. We do not have minds with capacities in order to close them tight to reality. Thus, contradicted literal interpretations must be interpreted allegorically in order to hold any value at all. There is nothing wrong with finding a deeper understanding through the use of allegory.
Lest anyone be confused, Jesus even presaged parables by saying, “I am going to tell you a parable.” There was no actual prodigal son. It is a parable.
Young Earth Creationism is contradicted by Christian scripture and millennia of educational traditions wherein students are taught to look upon the world and see all the myriad lessons and illuminations that lie hidden within it. Knowledge is a vast ocean containing greater and lesser pearls. Locking one’s mind in the box of literalism is limiting and stunting, and in the end, closes the mind and heart rather than opens it, thus contradicting the essential purpose of religion which is inspire and carry forward an ever-advancing civilisation.
Charles
There is a simple explanation for such fanatical materialism which is rooted in literalism. Few fanatics think deeply or reflectively on inner meanings, it seems to me. That is not a comment on the religion but the adherent.
You are attributing to the religion and it’s teacher and teachings something arising from the behaviour of a supposed ‘follower’. This is a misattribution. Jesus taught using parables. He did so because it was a widely used means of illustrating abstruse concepts to ordinary people in a manner they could understand, and the common folk were familiar with it.
Allegory, parable and the inner meanings of outward appearances are essential to the training and elevation mankind from the animal to the truly human state. Literalism in the interpretation of the age of the Earth and everything in it is clearly at variance with easily accessible facts. We do not have minds with capacities in order to close them tight to reality. Thus, contradicted literal interpretations must be interpreted allegorically in order to hold any value at all. There is nothing wrong with finding a deeper understanding through the use of allegory.
Lest anyone be confused, Jesus even presaged parables by saying, “I am going to tell you a parable.” There was no actual prodigal son. It is a parable.
Young Earth Creationism is contradicted by Christian scripture and millennia of educational traditions wherein students are taught to look upon the world and see all the myriad lessons and illuminations that lie hidden within it. Knowledge is a vast ocean containing greater and lesser pearls. Locking one’s mind in the box of literalism is limiting and stunting, and in the end, closes the mind and heart rather than opens it, thus contradicting the essential purpose of religion which is inspire and carry forward an ever-advancing civilisation.
Believe it or not the Christian faith can indeed be stated fully and completely without reliance on supernatural causation or it’s twin sister, idolatry.. That in my opinion was May Baker Eddy’s principal contribution to religious thought.
You really should learn about something before you render judgement on it. Christian Science is not about reconciling the Bible with “science” WRT tangibles such as when humans appeared, the age of the earth etc. It is about pure faith in God as infinite love, and the knowledge (not just belief) that “scientific prayer” (again, don’t get sidetracked by the “scientific”) can overcome anything. Christian Scientists are far from the stereotypical dogmatic proselytizing Christians you assume they are.
You are correct. Christian Science has held mainstream religious beliefs and practices to close and refreshing scrutiny. Criticism of Christian Science is usually shallow and partisan.
charles nelson July 7, 2016 at 12:05 am: “Can anyone here think of anything less ‘scientific’ than Christianity? The other day on the beach I had a great argument with a Christian …”
Yeah, I think I found it (“Can anyone here think of anything less ‘scientific’ than Christianity?“). An opinion or ‘determination of fact’ based on a case sample of one.
Sure! Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism! The Mormons! That’s a total laugher! Hey! Scientology! One time I had a head injury and was on morphine and pretty out of it. Still couldn’t dream up anything that stupid. Christianity looks pretty good by comparison! And I’m not Christian!
Odd John. I think I am “Christian” but I am at best an agnostic and most assuredly a textbook atheist. Hard to tell.
Quibble. Mormons are a Christian denomination.
I don’t care how you bring’em, just bring’em young.
Lava flows from the 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption formed striata that look very similar to other ‘geologic columns’ claimed to have been layed down over millions of years. Yet they were layed down over a matter of days or even hours, as observers watched with their own eyes.
Objects of obvious human artifice have been found deep inside coal deposits throughout our history of mining it, where no one could have conceivably left them to be found (and there’s too many instances to convincingly argue that they were all hoaxes, anyhow, without indulging in wild conspiracy theory). If that coal took eons to form, how did those objects get there?
Mark Armitage found traces of soft-tissue in a recently unearthed triceratops horn. Instead of collecting a Nobel prize for his findings, he got canned from his university job. A modern Galileo?
Are these examples smoking gun evidence for a Young Earth? Not necessarily. But they seriously question the orthodox evolutionary timeline, and deserve to be researched further and addressed in open debate. To refuse to do so is to be guilty of the same close-minded dogma of which you accuse religious fundamentalists.
Right now wind is producing 3% of demand on the UK grid, much less than the French interconnector. That’s from 6500 bat-mashers.
Right now wind power is generating a mind blowing 1.70% of Australia’s power.
6,500 !!!
How many birds and bats does that electricity cost, I wonder.
Note that currently the American astronauts have to go to space in an upgraded Russian Soyuz craft, originally taking Yuri Gagarin to the earth’s orbit, more than 55 years ago, carried by a Russian rocket, from Russian run Kazakhstan launchpad. .
It is time the USA political leaders reorganised their priorities !
Has NASA spent all its money on other things?
I hear they are concentrating on Muslim outreach.
Have they found any – in space that is? Was that the purpose?
/sarc
The way I usually phrase the current state of affairs is:
America used to be able to send people to the Moon. Today we need to hitch a ride with the Russians just to reach Low Earth Orbit.
The SLS will be ready to make manned flights in a few years.
SLS is far too big, too powerful and too expensive to use for regular multi-annual launches to the lower and the medium altitude orbits.
Poor NASA, and us, by extension. They have no visionary at the helm, and have not had since before Dan Goldin became administrator. It’s been downhill every since Goldin showed up on the scene.
Goldin and Bill Clinton were the ones who first thought it was a good idea to tie the U.S. and Russian space station programs together, and use Soyuz to launch American crews. They thought this would make the U.S. and the Russians friends. It didn’t work out so good, did it. Told ’em.
Retiring the Space Shuttle was one of the biggest mistakes they have made so far. Totally unnecessary. And a real setback to our space program.
NASA will spend ten years developing a new launch system that won’t be any more capable than the Space Shuttle launch system, but will cost a fortune to develop.
But that’s what government bureacrats do: They create new programs to get new money. They aren’t interested in using their current resources to their fullest.
Wasn’t one of the arguments for retiring the shuttles that they were getting “too old”? I admit I have not really followed the program, but I thought that part of the reason for using the Soyuz crafts was that they were newer.
The only bright side of the shuttle retirement is that one literally flew by my house. I am still mad that I was stuck in a class when it flew into Dulles. At least my family got pics. 😛
AllyKat July 7, 2016 at 10:55 pm wrote: “Wasn’t one of the arguments for retiring the shuttles that they were getting “too old”?
The shuttles were getting old, but still had a lot of life left in them.
What NASA should have done is instead of building a whole new launch vehicle, they should have modified the Space Shuttle launch system (the External Tank, solid rocket boosters, and three rocket engines) and brought it into the 21st century.
They could use the Space Shuttle launch system to launch the new crew module they are currently building to replace the Space Shuttle. There was no need for an entirely new heavy-lift vehicle to do that job.
The new rocket engines they are developing could have been used on the Space Shuttle Launch System.
They could have changed the solid rocket boosters over to liquid-fueled boosters designed to be returned for reuse, reducing the launch costs and increasing safety.
They gain nothing by building a new heavy-lift launcher. Whatever the new one can do, the Space Shuttle Launch System could have done, without the huge added costs of money and time.
NASA will still be plagued with their basic problem however: No vision in its leadership. A new heavy-lift rocket is not a substitute for vision.
Using the Space Shuttle Launch System, NASA could already have orbiting bases around the Moon and Mars, and a lot of infrastructure in between.
Instead, because of lack of vision, we are barely in low-Earth orbit, at over $100 billion in costs, and can’t even reach there without help from outside sources.
You can have the best organization in the world, and if you don’t have a good leader, none of that matters.
McGibben: “We all agreed that America should be operating on 100 percent clean energy by 2050”
What planet are these fools living on?
Earth, unfortunately.
Oh no!!! That’s the same planet that me and my loved ones live on.
Shit, shit, shit!!! I’m going to have to take all of this far more seriously from now on.
I had presumed that we were simply discussing the plot line from a Philip K Dick novel.
if he means that we should strive to make all energy generation as clean as possible, I would have to agree. I recall when TVA (yes, a government operation) whined and cried about having to clean up their emissions at all their coal fired plants. Over time they really cleaned up those emissions and the cost was not ruinous. Note that CO2 is not a pollutant.
Let us conduct all of our modern industrial society with and eye towards being as clean as possible.
What sources to use (coal, gas, nuclear) has nothing to do with trying to be as clean as possible.
Now if that fool meant use wind and solar or some such — then he is an idiot. First, those technologies are not as clean as he thinks. Second, they are a sure path to poverty of the masses. Third, wind and solar kill wildlife and destroy the environment. The G.D. hypocrites.
All choices are a balance between cost and utility, with pollution as a negative against utility. For the most part our industry (what’s left of it) is much cleaner than 40 years ago. Where industry has relocated, we have often made the world worse as it went to less regulated places.
Interesting banner on that podium, Trump’s sure to provide some entertainment with that. Maybe the Zoology Department is big on venomous reptiles 🙂
House slaves fighting over accommodations.
We don’t really need another political echo chamber.
I am hoping that what has afflicted so many human kind is a sort of empty-skulled echo amplification and forced feedback effect that has taken a few awful ideas and bounced them back and forth, like the dull pulsing squawk that emerges from magnetic tape recorders when the playback head is routed to the recording head.
All these ideas of pure-CO2 climate hysteria, solar and wind running industrial nations, and irrational fear of nuclear power are actually emanating from a single source. Once we locate the source and mute it, these raucous echoes will diminish, sanity will prevail and humankind will return to its naturally lower background level of stupidity.
Like that proverbial woman who has a baby every three seconds. Be on the lookout for her too.
“All these ideas of pure-CO2 climate hysteria, solar and wind running industrial nations, and irrational fear of nuclear power are actually emanating from a single source. Once we locate the source and mute it, these raucous echoes will diminish, sanity will prevail and humankind will return to its naturally lower background level of stupidity.”
The CO2 hysteria is emanating from the bastardized surface temperature charts the Climate Change Gurus have foisted on mankind.
The Alarmist show you a surface temperature chart (hockeystick) that looks like the days keep getting hotter and hotter for decade after decade, from the early 20th century forward. What would you think, if you are the average Joe whose life doesn’t revolve around the hard sciences? You would probably be alarmed. You should be alarmed, if you believe what you are seeing.
The charts make it look like the temperatures are going up, up, up! How do you argue with that? Where’s the chart that says that isn’t so? Where’s the counterargument to that (other than here on WUWT)?
It doesn’t surprise me at all that a lot of people believe the CAGW hype. There is a lot of effort going into convincing them, and it is working on a lot of people.
The one fly in the Alarmists’ ointment is the temperature record for the 21st century which shows very little to no warming over the entire century to date. If the temperatures continue to decline, even the hockey-stick chart won’t be enough to convince people.
But that is pretty much what it is going to take: Temperature declines that put the lie to the CAGW theory.
Sanders is deluded – fraccing does not cause global warming. End of story.
Horribly, the only real point of reassurance is that Hillary Clinton is so dishonest she will betray the greens like everyone else she is pandering to. She must, as her promises to various conflicting groups, like Wall Street and the socialists in her party, means she must fail to satisfy at least one side.
That would be the side with the shallowest pocket.
This comment is no doubt true, I see her the same way- ultra political. But with that nose in the wind she’s also capable of doing something she knows to be destructive if it’s politically expedient.
A shameless opportunist in the proud Aaron Burr tradition. Hillary has not yet needed to go as far as to jump-ship from one party to another like Burr did, but I would not put it past her.
Here’s to hoping that the hardliners bolt to the Green party to teach Hillary a lesson.
Some Bernatics plan to (or say they do) vote for Trump. Ironically, they could even be the swing vote necessary to put Trump over the top.
To ban hydraulic fracturing in the development of wells is akin to banning diesel engines in construction. Is there any question why I see McKib as an unhinged nut.
Ooh, forgot the “?”
You mean there’s doubt?
““It’s a tough issue for both sides to talk about, but particularly for the left side to talk about”
Well, that’s hardly a surprise within the political left.
Not when their chief talent is the silencing of rational debate and the smearing of all critical voices.
Ultimately, the left will destroy itself via its own assault upon reason.
In the final days, men with a psychiatric disorder that leads them to obsess that they are a women will be able to visit a woman’s bathroom with their adopted daughter of a non-white minority.
But, when they get there – the lights won’t work and the toilet won’t flush and they will be unable to wash or dry their hands.
Inevitably the left will seek to blame their failings on infiltration by their political opponents.
Then a period of purges will follow.
And then their dreams of utopia will collapse into either stagnation or self-destruction.
It’s always the way.
The conclusion is either Pol Pot’s Cambodia or Kim Yong-un’s North Korea.
Take your pick.
But I suppose that they will claim success in having prevented dangerous sea level rise acceleration.
An easy win – considering that such acceleration was only ever a figment of their deranged imaginations.
You are possibly prophetic about our future. The side that wins will be the one with the most bullets in this country and the guts to pay the price. Makes me glad I am 72 and have a good chance of not being here when it starts.
The times are a changin’.
Superior weaponry will dominate.
The losing side in future conflicts will always end up resorting to pitching flesh and blood against the robot drones of their enemy.
Than again, industrial and technological domination has been the real winner of wars.
All that has changed now, is that the winning side do not need to approach the battlefield.
Except, perhaps, for the post-extermination clean up!!!
Good times! Lol! The world is the same mess it always is.
In the last several elections, the Democrats have gone completely “silent” on the topic of global warming.
In the lead-up, they give climate change “lip service” to placate the left-wing base and to gain donations, but once the real election starts, they stop talking about it.
How many times did Obama talk about global warming in the last election. Almost never. Once he had won the election, suddenly it was all about carbon taxes again.
The Republicans did their part by letting them off the hook in the last several Presidential and Congressional elections by not forcing the issue and making the Democrats state a position.
Climate change is a “loser” position in politics because the 20% fervent believers are already locked into voting Democrat. It is the swing voters that will switch to Republican if the Democrats take a draconian Carbon tax position or even just make it a minor issue at.
Hillary and other Democrats lose 5% in the polls when they talk about global warming. The swing vote. They don’t care about climate change but they do care when someone is talking about a new tax or a new program for the far-left. That 5% is all it takes for her to lose the election. For that reason, by September or so, one will not hear anything about climate change from the Democrats.
Trump needs to press her into taking an extreme position on it if he wants the 5% make-or-break vote. Other Republican candidates need to do the same.
JFK Put a Man on the Moon, Obama Put a Man in the Girls’ Bathroom
– See more at: https://www.conservativereview.com/commentary/2016/06/jfk-put-a-man-on-the-moon-obama-put-a-man-in-the-girls-room#sthash.DbtIzgcF.dpuf
To support the reordering of our economy to fight “climate change,” it is not enough to believe that human actions are contributing to temperature increases. No, you must also believe that the climate is so sensitive, and the human ability to control climate so carefully calibrated, that we can not just bring the temperature down, but bring it down to the “proper” level. After all, if we, by our actions, are making it dangerously warmer, we are just as likely, by other actions, to make it dangerously cooler.
How absurd that anyone who thinks this “crisis” is real would advocate dealing with it by trying to further manipulate the climate rather than by seeking to insulate ourselves from the effects of climate!
Nuts, I left out the line about what happens if we impoverish ourselves to push the temperature in one direction only to find that we’ve overdone it and gone too far in the other direction, but are left too spent to push it back again? The only rational response to a climate this fickle is not to try to micromanage it, but to protect ourselves from it.
It is a big task sorting out all the agenda in the Party cloak room.
There is the cost of the radical step to offer free college education, the cost of increasing social security benefits, the cost of the war on climate. the cost of the war on inequality, and the cost of war on U.S. businesses. But it always helps to leave the word “cost” out of the discussion and they are very good at that. Besides Bernie showed us that there is a lot of wealth out there to be tapped. All are welcome under the big tent as long as you leave rationality and the word “cost” at the door.
They always tastefully forget to mention that even in the free-college nirvanas of Scandinavia, it’s not really free. They just change when and where you pay for it. Instead of tuition and fees up front, it’s taxes taxes and more taxes once you’re out the door.
I think the desire to ban fracking altogether is based on the frustration that fracking has driven gas prices down to where fewer people and fewer countries are looking for alternate forms of energy. If they were concerned about the environment they would want to pass laws to “clean up” fracking, limiting what is used in the process, at least show some effort to compromise with the fracking industry to leave open the possibility that it could continue in some form if it could be done in a “green” manner. But the switch away from gas and petroleum is not going to get much support unless gas prices are high, and fracking is the main reason why gas prices have come down so much over the past couple years, so the leftist extremist want fracking gone altogether.
“Getting support” from the American people is outdated. It’s all decided for them now.
Let’s hope not.
It is a war against fossil fuels and corporate capital by people who can’t do arithmetic and don’t understand money or efficiency or their own consumption. A wise man once said,” if people can’t have what the other guy has, then they don’t want him to have what they don’t have” It’s mostly just jealousy and fear of the powerful. That’s why trade comes into it. People don’t feel safe from the actions of foreign entities. It needs to be addressed.
There is still no such thing as “the Democrat Party.” Yet I suspect it is not a typo to many on this blog.
There is also no such thing as the “Democratic Party” since the American left rejected democratic rule in favor of executive directives and judicial overrides. The “Democrat” label is intended to distinguish between a democratic system and Democrat system.
Thus confirming my suspicion.
The name of the party is the Democratic Party. Use of the term Democrat Party indicates a highly partisan twit preaching to the choir, and therefore renders anything else said as useless garbage. Same applies to the use of “carbon polution”. If you can’t bring yourself to say Democratic Party, just refer to “the Democrats”, instead of destroying your credibility.
cbr: “The name of the party is the Democratic Party. Use of the term Democrat Party indicates a highly partisan twit ”
Since when?
Since the history re-write? Oh, I understand now …
Democrats sure are sensitive about their name, aren’t they.
So you care,as to the label others use, with respect to your preeminent Kleptocrats?
Government by thieves for the benefit of those thieves.
Usually lasts as long as the Hosts patience.
Just because these self styled progressive, call themselves the “Democratic Party” does not mean the taxpayer is obliged to agree.
The Useless Parasites and Thieves Party of course is just a little harder to sell.
The name these people chose is pretty much opposite their known actions.
Quite amazing how those laws,only seem to apply to the little people.
So answer this question: Are you a Republican or a Democrat?
Or should the question be: are you a Republican or a Democratic?
Democrats love using the word “Democratic” because of the inference of them being the party of democracy.
How does taxation lower temperature again? I’ve forgotten the correlation. A family just decides to stop driving, eating, and conditioning their home because of a tax? Or am I missing something. Giving the government money lowers temperature? It hasn’t fixed poverty, educated our children, solved our health problems, eliminated ISIS, but it’s going to lower the planet’s temperature? Is that it? Really? Holy shit Liberals are stupid.
You won’t be able to consume as much OR drive as far; the ‘poor house’ has that effect …
Anybody know what the sexual harassment policies are at the Clinton Global Initiative University? And how they are enforced?
Bill heads a review committee .. any questions?
Bill thinks “peer” review means you sneak a peak at a woman to see if she is good enough to have sex with.
Spankings! Every Friday over drinks.
President Careless, But Not Illegal will see you now.
She just didn’t know.
I know this is vastly oversimplified, but I hope that this is a sign that “Republican vs Democrat” (in the US) is returning to how much of a tax dollar should be spent on books to educate or bombs to defend.
I said this elsewhere. I repeat it here to clarify a bit.
Gunga Din July 7, 2016 at 2:32 pm
I guess the most “you can’t see me” administration in history isn’t as transparent as it thought.
I pray we never have to see how “transparent” another Clinton administration would be.
What I meant was a difference in priorities that will still hold The US Constitution and The Bill of Rights as the limits on the US Government.
It’s hard to say where the Democrats and the Democrat-Lites (the Republicans) are going legislatively. It’s hard to separate one from the other too many times.
In the (probably butchered) words of fellow Oklahoman Will Rogers: “If there’s a man who can tell the difference between our two parties, he makes a sucker out of Solomon.”
With the exception of social issues, elections over the last 30 years have been a choice of candidates, but not of platforms. Voter apathy is perfectly understandable in such a state of affairs. If Trump accomplishes anything, it will be getting people interested in politics again, because for the first time in a long while we have a half-way real choice of platforms.
True.
I don’t think The Founders envisioned a two party system. The original didn’t have a “ticket” running, President and Vice-President. It was the guy running for President who got the most votes in the Electoral College was President and the next runner up was Vice-President. They learned real quick that that wasn’t going to work. (Imagine Al Gore being Vice-President to President G. W. Bush.)
In today’s politics in the US a vote for a third party candidate is a wasted vote.
I think we need a Constitutional tweek. (Along with Senators being being chosen by a State’s government.)
In any Federal election, Congress or Senate or President, anytime the “winner” receives less than 50.1% of the popular vote, they must face a runoff against the 2nd place candidate or ticket within one or two months.
If most of voters didn’t want them, why should they be in office?
Third party candidates and issues could no longer be completely ignored.
(We may have been spared two term of Bill Clinton.8-)
“The question for Democrats is not whether to ramp up the effort on climate policy, but how and how rapidly.”
Why is that a problem? The ends justify the means don’t they, comrades?
Worth double the price of admission – recent talk by Dinesh D’Souza on various subjects including his new movie:
“Hillary’s America 2016”
(Start at the 3:30 point to skip the introductions)
https://youtu.be/hXggkzLORLc?t=227
The FBI have just cleared her of any wrong doing with personal emails and classified documents etc. No muck sticks to these people. Any other lesser moral would be in gaol by now.
Good. If tensions continue to run hot then maybe the libs will explode into a party that bends to the will of the people (like reps under Trump) rather than expecting it’s voters to bend to the will of the party as per the present dems.
….and then we can have a government run by the people rather than the plutocrats again.