The candidates could not be farther apart
Walter Donway writes:
I recently published a personal manifesto on the controversial question—a.k.a. adult pillow fight—of global warming/climate change. The weather used to be a safe topic of conversation, avoiding politics and religion, but now epitomizes the type of divisive political question that scuttles family reunions. Critics of “Big Climate Alarmism,” and I am one, compare it point for point with religious dogma. In reply, advocates of the view that CO2 generated by man’s activities is heating up the Earth’s atmosphere, with potentially calamitous consequences, assert that anyone who fails to see the Big Truth is like those wackos who deny that the WWII Nazi-extermination-camp Holocaust ever occurred. Who would have thought that discussing the weather conditions of not tomorrow but in 2050 could end lifelong friendships?
I am not going to debate global warming/climate change, here. I have another agenda.
In the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, which at present demands our breathless attention to personal health issues, Clinton’s email servers, Trump’s admiration of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, Trump’s Obama “birther” obsession, and Clinton’s supposed deceptions, there nevertheless are remarkably—even startlingly—clear differences between the candidates that bear upon the future of the Great Republic and the world.
One example is the candidates’ positions on global warming/climate change. True, through the angry noise of the campaign, amplified in the echo chambers of the media, I barely discern any substantive issue. And yet, five minutes of Googling reveals a stark and (yes!) well-articulated, black-and-white difference between the candidates.
…
Yes, something is at stake when the chattering classes, including our candidates for president in 2016, have a difference of opinion over “Big Climate Alarmism.”
What characterizes Hillary Clinton is pride in what the Obama administration has accomplished in the McKibben “war of the worlds” scenario. Her position is that more must done, building on these policies, and must be done urgently.
Donald Trump is a “global warming denier.” To me, that begins to sound like an honorable designation. He seems to understand in an easy, commonsensical way that the climate changes; he understands that theories of climate change evolve; and he understands that one live scenario—advanced by solar scientists, now in disrepute for contradicting Big Climate alarmism—is that we face a coming ice age. And that to devote all resources on the basis of a national emergency to mothballing fossil fuel energy, and to erecting a worldwide structure of wind and solar power, would leave humanity utterly naked and unprepared for a new ice age Victims of the fatally wrong decision for humankind, promoted by the scientists it had come to trust, who really only wanted to be accepted by their peers and make a good living.
But Trump does not buy either scenario. He says, as quoted, “Let’s see.” But, for now, he says, do not make the American economy and jobs hostage to weather forecasting 50 or 100 years into the future.
Follow the link the read the rest of this article,
So the big question, will they even mention climate at all tonight?
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Looks like everyone agrees with me.
Oh wait, there’s only one vote. Never mind.
I voted for Trump. He might say something like: ‘the US shouldn’t waste the taxpayers’ money on the climate change nonsense; instead we should concentrate on eliminating poverty and diseases among the unprivileged. With Clinton you would get bogus climate change tax, no climate change taxations with the Trump administration’.
I recommend Trump propose “practice what you preach” laws and rules for research grants. A college or university must certify that its officers and faculty do not attend academic conferences except those held as video conferences, as a precondition for research funding. Likewise, all non-profit groups promoting reduced carbon, would have their tax-exempt status revoked unless their members attended only those eco-confabs held in a video-conference form. Trump could note that such laws and rules would prevent those, who fervently believe that their fossil-fuel travels to/from their little Gaia gab-fests KILL BABIES!!! and KILL POLAR BEARS!!!, from conducting their murderous activities on the taxpayer dime–no grab-ass, brazen-hypocrite, carbon-piggie hive-swarm being worth even one dead baby or even one dead polar bear.
And, of course, Trump could point out that academic conferences, held in a video form, allow Third World women Climate Scientists of color from impoverished nations to participate in such conferences on an equal footing with that tight-knit, good-ol-boy net work of privileged white dorks, technically of the male persuasion, who currently run the Gaia-hustle show as a taxpayer-funded, perks-magnet, CO2-spew, frequent-flyer, jet-set, goof-off normative closed-shop.
I think you missed a couple of Insults there Mike
I’m not going to watch whatever it is that is supposed to be happening tonight.
I was under the impression that there was to be a debate. They haven’t actually had a Presidential Candidate debate in all the years I have been in the USA, which is since the Kennedy era; so I don’t expect that there will be one now.
These days they seem to have a quiz, along the line of the spelling bee, where each appearant is given a different question and is asked to spell out their answer to that question.
And of course it would never be fair in a spelling bee to ask somebody to spell a word that somebody else already spelled.
Usually in a debate, the two parties are given a common proposition; like ” What are you going to do. should you become President of the United States. It could be divided into acts or movements or episodes, so each party could respond , as the other spells out its positions.
But I’ll likely be watching the Wuhan Women’s Open from China.
I’m not planning to do anything at all in response to what these two combatants say; and I’m not authorized to choose one over the other. But I sure as hell do hope that those who do have that privilege choose wisely.
The consequences are likely to be at least as dramatic as choosing the wrong cup to drink from the fountain of immortality.
G
Environment and climate has become another surrogate victim group for Imternational socialism. The Clintons and Obama is involved.
Are
A better poll would be: On what channel will you watch the debate? We might be able to get a Lewandowskyesque paper out of that pole (anybody that says C-span gets their results tossed-out immediately).
I thought I was watching the debate a couple of nights ago. Turns out it was a repeat of Alien vs Predator.
Which was Trump and which was Hillary?
She did bring it up, and Trump denied being a denier. Another opportunity lost.
A suggested read is Sowell’s “Visions of the Anointed”.
Second that!
I thought you were talking about Roger.
Had me going for a bit.
g
Just what I was going to say!
The Vision of the Anointed
For one explanation of why the BS persists, consider Listen Liberal by Thomas Frank.
Frank points out that the Democrat party has embraced a new, well graduated, elite. They don’t have to listen to anyone else and will believe anything said by other members of the elite because they are where they are based on their merit.
Another book worth consideration is ‘Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know?’ by Philip Tetlock. He shows that experts have no skill predicting the outcome of complex systems. A dart-throwing monkey does better.
So, we have this well graduated elite running things even though they are wrong more often than they are right. Why is this?
I will not recommend that most people read The Master and His Emissary. It’s a slog. The author makes the point that too many of us operate predominantly in our left brains. The trouble is that the right brain supplies context and operates as our BS filter.
What happens to people whose right brain is disabled? They underestimate the difficulty of projects and are usually disappointed with the results of their efforts.
We are taught to analyze everything using our left brain skills and to worship experts who do so. We are never taught to critcally evaluate the track record of such experts.
Society is in a very bad place and it is largely the fault of our colleges and universities (except, of course, for the schools of engineering).
cB, we have the well edjucated elites running things these days because of demographics. Obama recieved a smaller share of the white vote in 2012 than Dukakis did a quarter century earlier in 1988. Intellectuals never had a chance in the past. The present (and the future) is a whole new ball game…
Thomas Frank refers to the new elite as well graduated rather than well educated. link
There are darn few women’s study graduates that I would dignify by calling them intellectual.
America was founded by intellectuals. The period was called the American Enlightenment. The difference is that the intellectuals then didn’t worship theory and didn’t think complexity is a good thing. They were smart, wise, and well educated. Today’s so called intellectuals are just smart.
Love it, but even better for deeper understanding is “a conflict of visions”
In my opinion, the only way the issue comes up, is if the moderator brings it up.
Since the moderators will no doubt be in their usual “protect the Democrat” mode. There’s no way they are going to bring it up since the issue is a big loser for Democrats.
Trump will bring up CAGW when he jumps Hillary’s arse about her promising to put coal miners out a job and coal operators out of business in order to save the world from the deadly effects of Climate Change caused by CO2 emissions from burning coal.
What a biased post. Accuses Trump of several things then for Hillary’s lies they are labeled “supposed deceptions”.
Here it the paragraph that looks like it was taken from MSNBC or the DNC:
“In the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, which at present demands our breathless attention to personal health issues, Clinton’s email servers, Trump’s admiration of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, Trump’s Obama “birther” obsession, and Clinton’s supposed deceptions, there nevertheless are remarkably—even startlingly—clear differences between the candidates that bear upon the future of the Great Republic and the world.”
It’s yet another third rail, and a highly polarized one at that.
Sparks may fly.
==========
Take a look at her the last time she said ‘Five Hundred Million Solar Panels’.
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Clinton is only a voice machine ( with bad research )
Trump is a player, he loves pressing buttons, ( and the voice machine has hundreds of thousands )
we have more to fear from the contents of Hillary’s diaper than CO2. The contents of her digestive system
have all the possible diseases and horrors as the mythical Pandora’s Box, no pun.
It’s misogynistic what’s being done to her, even if by herself.
===========
I’m betting it will be Lester Holt that first brings it up.
Lets hope he does. Trump will be well briefed on China and India COP21 and the Obama China foolishness (essentialy commiting US to economic suicide) and that plays to his jobs, his America first, and his energy cards.
Hillary would counter with Obama like climate nonsense and Trump could then call her out with simple facts. Observed sensitivity half of modeled. Except for a rapidly cooling 2015 El Nino blip, no warming this century. Models falsified by absence of tropical troposphere hot spot. SLR not accelerating unless you ignore tide gauges after 1979 and stick on provably too high (because of the closure problem) sat alt. Arctic ice has not disappeared. Planet has greened. Renewables are impossibly intermittent; Germany’s Energiewende has doubled electricity prices but has not cut emissions at all because of necessary brown coal backup. Hillary’s 500 million solar panels would be made in China, and won’t work at night…
If he’s doing his job according to the ordinary rules, he will leave the facts and fact checking to the debaters. In this case, we don’t know what the rules are.
The rules: Trump must speak while standing on a special small dais paid for by the MSM and provided by Brunswick. Hillary will sit and follow the laser pointer her handler operates. The MSM are all to cheer at everything Hillary says and boo at all of Trump’s responses. The moderator will be neutral, confining himselt to occasional eyerolls, sneers, and disbelieving shakes of his head when Trump speaks. Afterwards, the MSM journalists will vote to determine how badly Trump did, on a scale of minus 10 to minus 20.
The issue has a little potential to gain, and it can harm badly. No candidate will broach it first.
That is the vote I would have made had that choice been available. I may, after all be one of the 6 or so topics already determined. Another choice should have been ‘yes, it will be brought up, but only in passing and not discussed because of other factors ie insults, jeers, put-downs and irredeemable allegations.
It’s really AD 2100 that they’re all worked up about.
Trying to predict weather a week from now is widely derided, but stating with 99% certainty the average of weather during the interval 2071 to 2100 is accepted as a matter of faith by the true believers.
Gabro…That comment more than any other you have written shows you have not clue about the difference between climate and weather. Let me guess, you are going to vote for Trump. The man who said “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.” Seems he knows about as much as you do.
simon, that comment more than any other you have written shows you have no clue that the weather next week and the “climate” 100 years hence are relying on the same computer models. To miss next week is easily explained and no big deal; to miss next century? well that is the issue isn’t it?
They won’t bring it up because Trump’s common sense on the matter would be more popular. The only ones who agree with Clinton’s climate vision are a very tiny fringe minority of Americans.
And they are already voting for her.
I’ll take option 4: Lester Holt (NBC) will bring it up.
I’ll go with that too. The American public doesn’t care about climate change so why would someone looking for votes bother to bring it up?
http://legalinsurrection.com/2015/01/whats-your-top-priority-in-2016-let-this-poll-help-you-pick/
And Lester Holt will be self appointed fact checker … i.e. CAGW is present, catastrophic, and incontrovertible … whatever the elites want to be true …
And Trump says, “let’s talk about something that is actually important instead, shall we”
Not sure about the global warming item, but there will definitely be no mention of domestic terrorism like recent mall shooters and bomb makers.
Of course they will.
Will Trump really shake up Climate/Energy Policy?
See: Trump picks top skeptic to lead EPA transition
Trump makes some good hires. Pense was an excellent choice, and these guys look like good choices, too.
I guess being a a highly successful businessman, he probably has an innate abilty to measure other people’s abilities and talents, and hire the right folks for the job.
I sure hope he gets to exercise his expertise on the U.S. economy. A person like him is just what we need to get our fiscal house in order.
TA, the big QUE for me is how much Trump actually knows about economics as opposed to business… The federal reserve has already begun the process of raising interest rates to SLOW the economy (as of december 2015). If Trump gets in and doesn’t yank the current fed chair, then the fed will oppose his efforts every step of the way. AND the federal reserve always wins. If Trump ramps up the economy, the fed will simply counter by raising interest rates just as fast. It will be fascinating to watch an emerging Trump economy to see what actually happens…
fonzi: “TA, the big QUE for me is how much Trump actually knows about economics as opposed to business”
Trump appears to me to be a pretty smart, well-rounded guy who is capable of understanding these things. Time will tell. I heard Trump say the other day that he had been studying the NAFTA agreement. As an aside, he said, with a smile, I like looking at stuff like that.” So maybe it’s in his blood. 🙂
As for people opposing Trump once he gets in Office: I think Trump is going to do what he has always done: appeal to the People. If the Congress or the Fed obstructs something Trump thinks needs to be done, then Trump will take it to the People, and the People will let their representatives know how they want them to vote.
Trump won’t have to trash the U.S. Constitution to get his way, he will just convince the People he is correct, and then they will bombard the switchboards of Congress with Congress’ new instructions.
What really causes falling productivity growth — an energy-based explanation
Productivity Slump Threatens Economy’s Long-Term Growth
TA, the problem is that no one will really know that the fed is obstructing. (people will think that the fed is just doing whateverthehell the fed does). This has precedent with the 2008 Pelosi stimulus. The fed back then was not at all interested in stimulating the economy, but congress was. So pelosi did for 100 billion dollars that which the fed could have done for free. By summer ’08, the fed had deemed the stimulus a success. Inflation was up around 5% (making bernanke nervous) and the fed was actually thinking about canceling out what the pelosi stimulus had done by raising rates. It would have been high comedy were it not for the price tag. If Trump doesn’t know economics (again as opposed to business), then we’re likely to see the same sort of thing. And no one will really know…
The economy is pretty much bumping along bottom, and the federal reserve wants to slow it down.
That thar is scary, I don’t care who you are.
The real reason why the federal reserve is raising interest rates is to prevent inflation from getting out of control. They are hoping that the economy is doing well enough to withstand the higher interest rates, but they aren’t sure. Neither is anyone else.
fonzi, the problem is that government spending never boosts the economy.
All it does is transfer money from one pocket to another.
Hi, Mark, yeah, the fed has begun raising interest rates to stave off inflation. The higher interest rates slow the economy making people poorer, poorer people spend less money and thus demand inflation is held in check. So when the fed raises interest rates it is to slow down the economy and eventually shut it down at about 4% unemployment. (only allowing economic expansion for population growth at that point) It’s the action of the slowing down of the economy which curbs the inflation…
As far as government spending goes, conventional wisdom is that it does boost the economy. (of course, that depends on whose conventional wisdom your talking about… ☺) i just gave bernanke’s take on the pelosi stimulus above. Makes sense to me. Think of it this way… it’s not just the transfer of money from rich to poor, no, it’s more like the poor spending rich people’s money for them. It’s really no different than if rich people were spending it themselves. It just get’s rich people’s money out of the banks and into circulation…
Response to: afonzarelli September 27, 2016 at 1:09 pm
That is the Keynisan fallacy. Spending is part of the equation, but productivity is what staves off inflation. Productivity is good. You see, conservatives have it more correct as I will try to explain in plane English.
If you reduce interest rates, people have no incentive to save, less incentive to produce and more incentive to buy. With less production, more dollars, prices go up. You get inflation not because of growth, but because people buy up everything without making as many things.
You want to make college expensive? Give people grant money. More people buy up the seats, prices increase because there are more customers — spending other people’s money.
You want to make health care more expensive? You give it away at no cost to the use, or your subsidize it. People won’t care what it costs, since they have no skin in the game.
What happens is you start to run out of stuff (that is not being produced).
Productivity creates wealth. When people earn money, they make things or do things of value, prices come down, people get more stuff for less money. Low inflation.
Higher interest rates:
— rewards people who save (they get interest) and have a retirement they can count on.
— increases the value of the money (fewer dollars per unit of GDP),
— and the people who borrow, only borrow when they have a good investment to make. Good investments are ones that have a positive return on investment.
I’m glad to see you and Robert of Ottawa mention this news, because it is very good news.
They will only bring it up if they think they can score some points/persuade the voter.
As their positions are fairly clear and it is unlikely to change voting intentions the probability is no – unless prompted by a question.
Of more importance to the debate will be to draw attention to candidates weaknesses if they can – Hilary: health, emails. Donald: fences, muslims, mexicans, immigration, inexperience.
“-Hilary: health, emails.”
and bill…
I just hope the more highly evolved exoplanets are tuning this one out. Highly evolved as in beliefs and everyday conduct showing concrete evidence matters in science, science policy, and other aspects of society.
Tonight’s Debate Topics
http://www.uspresidentialelectionnews.com/2016/09/topics-released-for-first-trump-clinton-debate/#wCrsab3JTIkG2VzU.99
I’m surprised by how many people taking the poll think Clinton will bring up ‘Climate Change’ over Trump. CAGW is an albatross few politicians want around their neck at a time like this. Obama sure didn’t four years ago, and that bird only stinks more now.
Her pal Bernie has probably given her an earful about it. It just seems more her style to bring it up, perhaps amongst a laundry list of things than for Trump to.
“I’m surprised by how many people taking the poll think Clinton will bring up ‘Climate Change’ over Trump.”
Hillary won’t bring it up, she is already about to lose Pennsylvania to Trump over the Obama administration cutting all the coal jobs. Hillary wants this issue to go away.
She’s not that smart….
Well…Now…my “climate changed” it’s called Autumn…😉
And mine, in the Southern hemisphere, is called “Spring”!
Southern hemisphere doesn’t count (we out number you)… ☺
Sure it counts – it’s got all that area with no thermometers to confuse the warming adjustments.
So Hemi has the lead in ice They can melt till the cows come home and not make much difference. Too much damn coastline adjacent to warm evaporating oceans.
Big question is how much further below -94 deg. C can they go, down there without just cracking in half ?
g
My climate is changing, too. It is supposed to drop to 48 F tonight. Chilly!
Clinton will probably be afraid to bring up climate change and instead stick with things like trump univetsity and islamophobia
I think Clinton owes enough to people like Soros and Steyer she will feel obligated to mention climate change. Trump has the problem of portraying her as a zealot, and preferably a deluded zealot, or a total sellout to the greens.
It should come up considering the far reaching impact of the proposed “solutions”
Trump may want to point out that Obama/Clinton trade signatures on meaningless climate treaties for real give-aways that cost us jobs and security. The John Kerry plan.
Hillary brings it up all the time saying things like “Donald Trump does not even believe in climate change”! As if it is the biggest insult possible. A disqualifier.
As usual, warmistas and thier adherents have everything exactly backwards, the inverse contrapositive of the truth. (Okay, maybe it is the reverse of the truth, but inverse contrapositive sounds more emphatic.)
If she does, he has a killer ome minute return:
‘Of course the climate changes, thank goodness the last ice age ended. I just don’t think very much of it is anthropogenic. And I think your plan to throw hundreds of thousands of American fossil fuel workers out of work–which you promised to do–is unAmerican. And I think Obama’s climate deal with China, which you support, is a very bad deal for America. He promised to make our energy much more expensive and unreliable, while China continues building more coal generating plants at least until 2030 in order to take still more manufacturing jobs away from Americans. You, Hillary, are the one in denial.
… and he needs to define anthropogenic as he is talking. He got where he is in the polls, in part, by using small words that the slowpokes can understand.
“… I just don’t think very much of it is anthropogenic – very little of it is caused by Joe the plumber in Indiana, or John the miner West Virginia, or human activities in general – and those are the people that will be harmed if Mrs. Clinton gets her way. She has promised to get rid of mining jobs – impacting hundreds of thousands of American fossil fuel workers ….”
DM, yes. Even better.
I voted no. I don’t think either candidate will bring it up. Clinton won’t because it’s a poisonous issue for her. She’s already said she is going to put people out of work and businesses out of business because of climate change. Trump won’t , or probably shouldn’t, because it’ll alienate people he’s trying to woo for votes. But then again, what do I know, my crystal ball broke a long time ago.
Trump very well could bring up energy policy, and how he plans to push coal and oil, which of course is a direct punch in the gut to Hilary’s plans to continue Obama’s Legacy of Stupid™, and the Warmist ideology.