The Best Kind Of Environmentalism 07/30/08 9:52am
This is the kind of environmentalism I like. Financed by private investors, tested by private firms, bought by private individuals and firms for private use to benefit them and the world in general. No government subsidy. No government mandate. No government punishment (because it doesn't benefit a preferred social group or lobbing entity). No government tax to kill it.
This is "SkySails" [Link To Article], a propulsion boosting sail that can be retrofitted onto ocean going ships (or built into new I suspect) to tow them along using wind power thereby saving fuel. Tested on 13 identical ships, Sky Sails says:
". . . savings of more than 15% can be achieved. 'Wind is always cheaper than oil and in the light of oil prices going up every day and new emissions regulations, more and more shipping companies are convinced of the performance capability of the SkySails propulsion,' . . . "
The captain of the ship in the video above estimates a savings of 4 tons of fuel a day. SkySails also says that some 60,000 of the approximately 100,000 existing ships worldwide are suited for retrofitting with SkySails propulsion. Just an idea whose time has come.
The only gripe I have with the article is near the end where SkySails proclaims: "With SkySails technology employed systematically throughout the world, it would be possible to save over 150 million tons of climate-damaging CO2 emissions every year." There still is no proof that CO2 emissions from man are damaging the climate. In fact the opposite opinion has been growing from previous "climate alarmists" (see my "Global Warming™ — Grab Your Gloves And Galoshes"
post just below). Obviously SkySails feels that they are unable to make a case on just the fuel savings and speed benefit alone (which they should easily be able to do), so they mindlessly perpetuate an untrue and unsubstantiated claim. Shame on them for that, it hurts us all but you gotta give props where props is due . . . viva SkySails!! PERMALINK
Global Warming™ — Grab Your Gloves And Galoshes 07/22/08 9:52am
I started to smell some reports on this about nine or ten months ago (maybe as long as 18 months) and the facts are fast starting to build to an obvious crescendo. The planet is cooling. And fast.
One the latest articles has been written by Dr. David Evans, a consultant to the Australian Greenhouse Office from 1999 to 2005. Dr. Evans, previously a Global Warming™ alarmist (his term not mine), now points out that since 1999 the evidence of CO2 being the cause of Global Warming™ has weakened. The money shot from Dr. Evans:
1. The greenhouse signature is missing. We have been looking and measuring for years, and cannot find it.
Each possible cause of global warming has a different pattern of where in the planet the warming occurs first and the most. The signature of an increased greenhouse effect is a hot spot about 10km up in the atmosphere over the tropics. We have been measuring the atmosphere for decades using radiosondes: weather balloons with thermometers that radio back the temperature as the balloon ascends through the atmosphere. They show no hot spot. Whatsoever.
If there is no hot spot then an increased greenhouse effect is not the cause of global warming. So we know for sure that carbon emissions are not a significant cause of the global warming. If we had found the greenhouse signature then I would be an alarmist again.
Rather than me take away all of Dr. Evan's fun you can read the full article [here]. Meanwhile a few months ago a Canadian outfit (the National Post) layed out a number of facts that have been cited by the more level-headed among us but derided by the eco-facists [Link]. Some of the points:
~ In one year we've had the fastest temperature change ever recorded, up or down [Link].
~ Record cold temperatures in January and early February all over the globe.
~ Arctic ice has not only recovered, it is actually 10 to 20 cm thicker than at this time last year.
~ Oleg Sorokhtin, at the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, shrugged off manmade climate change as "a drop in the bucket." and based on the new evidence is advising people to "stock up on fur coats."
Meanwhile, DailyTech, a very good science blog, is reporting that a "Twelve-month long drop in world temperatures wipes out a century of warming". Read that [Here] or a NOAA report here [Here].
It's no secret where I stand on the Global Warming™ or the Climate Change™ issue (the eco-facists keep changing it to suit the argument). I believe that Global Warming™ from man's activity is a bunch of hooey. That is not to say that we shouldn't be good stewards of the environment (no peeing in the rivers). Just on the face of it doesn't make common sense. For example, C02 is only 2% of the total of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and of that portion, man contributes .28%! I find it hard to fathom that a quarter of a percent wreaks the havoc the enviro-facists subscribe to. Just on that fact alone, the theory of Human Induced Global Warming™ is crazy. Add to that inaccurate climate modeling, facts not matching the statements (enviro-fascists like Al Gore say that C02 levels cause temperature rises when they actually follow by as much as 800 years), evidence that Global Warming™ is caused simply by the activity of the sun and you have a theory that is starting to come apart at the seams.
So where do we go from here? Who knows. At this point the politicians, always behind the curve, and their sycophants on the political left with skin in the game (Al Gore for example), are trying to ride Global Warming into controlling every aspect of your life. From the cars you drive (and how far) to stuffing you into block apartments to where you buy food to how you carry it home. If they are left unchallenged the top down control of society that the book "1984" outlines will be a mere walk in the park in comparison. PERMALINK
Easy To Read Primer On Global Warming™ Published 02/19/08 9:27am
Quite a few people have a hard time getting their brain around Global Warming™. I admit that it took me a time to grasp the facts of it, as opposed to the dribs-and-drabs sound bites we get from an essentially ignorant media. In my darker moments I smell a media conspiracy but that's another subject altogether.
But this next bit is important. The National Center for Policy Analysis has produced a very simple to understand Global Warming Primer. Go here: [Link]. The primer is based on a review of currently available scientific data.
I suggest that anybody who is even minutely interested in GW to peruse it. It is simple to understand (using graphs and charts) and the facts are unimpeachable. I found pages 5-8 interesting with page 8 being the payoff.
Obviously, this primer was compiled before the recent research that is signaling that we are now entering a cooling period (reduced sun activity) that could end-up being quite cold. More on that later. PERMALINK
Columnist Responds To My Big Question™ 02/16/08 10:27pm
Well, I finally got a Global Warmest (Human Induced variant) to answer my Big Question™. For those of you who are not familiar with my Big Question Quest™, I have distilled, what I believe to be the seminal question about Global Warming™, into a few easy to understand sentences that most any moron can answer. If they know the answer that is (I sure don't know what it is). No mind numbing twenty-five cent words from academia. Just some common sense. I have been asking this question around quite a bit, to different journalists and pundits, through postings on blogs or direct communication vie e-mail. And have yet to get an answer . . . until a few days ago from a columnist working for Seattle’s preeminent leftist daily - the Seattle P.I. From none other than (drum roll please) politics and public affairs columnist Joel Connelly. Mr. Connelly has written a number of times about Human Induced Global Warming™ and frankly, the guy doesn’t really get it, apparently parrotting whomever/whatever sounds good to him. But the important part is that he thinks he gets it. Without further ado, my e-mail to Joel:
Joel, The climate has been warming and cooling since the dawn of time. Nothing we are experiencing today hasn't happened before. At one space in time they were growing wine grapes in the UK. At another space in time the Brits were skating on the Thames. Through it all mankind, human kind and plants got along just fine. It is also fact that humans, animals and plants survive warmer weather much better than cold.
So, knowing that long term variations in climate are a given what makes present day environmentalists like yourself, so sure that this climate we have right now is the right one? Knowing that nothing we are experiencing today climate-wise hasn't happened before, what facts show that this climate should be preserved at all costs?
Sincerely,
Lo and behold, Mr. Connelly (quite quickly, must have got him at a good time) responded in typical leftist fashion, not with facts or logic but name calling (I'm a “new Holocost denier”):
Extreme arrogance does not excuse ignorance. Just take a look at our forests and glaciers, at recent fires and heat waves and early season storms, at the melting of the polar ice cap and the movement of species. Global warming deniers are the new Holocaust deniers, but more dangerous . . . One group denies what's about to happen, the other refuses to acknowledge what has happened.
Jc
Some of you may notice that Joel didn’t answer the question. I responded directly:
It seems that you cannot read. Or if you did read it you did not understand. I have not denied anything about global warming. We have also had the coldest temperatures on record. The Antarctic ice pack is the thickest since records keeping began. Any scientist will tell you that wild fires have little to do with global warming. You need to use proper examples. Will you answer the question or not?
Regards,
So here I sit. A few days now, waiting for Mr. Connelly to respond. When he does I will update this post. I'm hopeful. Maybe he'll get some big wig at the university to give him some ammunition.
UPDATE: As of today, 6/20/08, Mr. Connelly hasn't replied. Not that I really expected him to at this point. As soon as I get some spare time I will pester him again and see what he says.
Record Temperatures Set All Over The Globe 12/19/07 11:27am
Yes, you heard it right, record temperatures all over the world. Antarctica is getting colder. South America has experienced one of the coldest winters in decades. Snow fell in Buenos Aires for the first time since 1918. Two hundred people died in Peru from the cold. Johannesburg had the first significant snowfall in 26 years. Townsville (Australia) underwent the longest period of continuously cold weather since 1941. Record cold in California, South Carolina and other states. Destructive Missouri ice storm leaves at least 36 people dead. This is Global Warming™? A recent article by Richard Demming entitled "Year of global cooling" outlines these and other extreme cold weather situations all over the globe. [Read It Here]
And none of these weather situations are a secret. They (and the data) are out there for all to see, including Mr. Gore. But the simple fact is that Global Warming™ passed from science to political sledge hammer quite some time ago, the facts be damned. The facts: The slight warming we have experienced the past century and a half (0.7 degrees Celsius) is nothing unusual and well within the normal planetary temperature fluctuations. Also: In spite of the increased CO2 in the atmosphere the mean planet temperature hasn't increased in 9 years. Another fact: Global Warming™ is a 300 billion a year industry and that industry will go to far extremes to keep the dollars rolling in. Factiod Fo': Some scientists have been saying lately that the earth has been in a cooling trend for the last 8 years or so. [Link] You may call me cynical but I think that the recent ramp-up of doomsday scenarios [Link] [Link] is a direct response to the cooling trend or lack of significant temperature increases. They must get people scared now to get law enacted before the true facts are widely accepted.
Truth be known and it will come out at some point, hopefully before we drop hundreds of trillions of dollars on UN schemes and economy crippling mandates. And that is where we are headed right now. So grab your wallet. If you think that you are immune to this hucksterism, think again. This stuff all rolls down hill, right to you and me.
UPDATE 02/12/2008 I like to update this post a bit. Seems that record cold and snows are happening without let-up. For starters Wisconsin [Link] is in a deep freeze so cold that salt won't defrost the roads, in the northwest record snowfall in the Cascades has closed passes for the first time in 11 years [Link] with road crews running out of places to put the plowed snow.
But a funny thing happens. Reports that talk of global cooling [Link] don't seem to be getting much ink while articles such as this [Link] and this [Link] get ink aplenty even though advocating non-experts like N.Y. Mayor Bloomberg [Link] (darling of the left) wouldn't know a climate model if it bit him in the ass.
Quick Take 12/19/07 10:19am
It's no secret that I believe the Global Warming™ scare mongers are driven solely by the billions of dollars that governments will and are throwing around to "prevent" Human Induced Global Warming™. Three hundred billion a year buys a lot of BMWs and tuitons to Harvard for the kiddies.
Check out this video. [Link] About half way through, the graphic-over introducing Al Gore's partner in Global Warming™ crime, lists him as: "Nobel Peace Price Co-Laureate".
Gore Accepts Nobel As More Facts Come Out On H.I. Global Warming™ 12/10/07 11:27pm
The International Journal of Climatology today published new facts on Human Induced Global Warming™. Professors David H. Douglass (of the University of Rochester), John R. Christy (of the University of Alabama), Benjamin D. Pearson and S. Fred Singer (of the University of Virginia) report that observed patterns of temperature changes over the last 30 years disagree completely with what greenhouse models predict. [Read It Here] Is this part of the "consensus" on our climate that Mr. Gore and others speak? I think not. This article comes out as Mr. Gore is in Norway picking up his Nobel hardware.
In the report Dr. Singer, said: "The current warming trend is simply part of a natural cycle of climate warming and cooling that has been seen in ice cores, deep-sea sediments, stalagmites, etc., and published in hundreds of papers in peer-reviewed journals." Let me repeat for you: published in hundreds of papers in peer-reviewed journals. So where are the eco-wackos getting thier faulty information? Almost exclusively from climate models that are off up to 2 - 3 times and don't take into consideration other factors in any planet warming we may be seeing.
But I think that the big story is that the current warming trend is completely natural and not as severe as the eco-wackos so much want to believe. This story even has a little irony! As that huckster of hucksters, Mr. Gore, accepts the formerly prestigious Nobel Prize, the Midwest [Link] is being enveloped in ice storms. Is there is something Karmic going on here?
Once again I want to ask the Big Question:
With all of the radical temperature fluctuations through the ages, which climate is the best? At one point they were growing wine grapes in Britain and in others they were ice skating on the Thames. At both of these extremes mankind got along quite well as did animal kind. So, what makes this climate so important that it must be preserved at all costs? What makes the climate we have now the right one?
So please - anybody, if you have an answer for me, drop me a line at sprestek50@gmail.com and I'll post it unedited (and anonymously if you like).
Fifty Four IPCC Scientists Polled 11/10/07 10:27pm
Like the headline says, 54 IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) scientists, the UN panel most quoted by climate zealots, were polled and a report on that poll was published on November 8th of this year. [Link] Strangely and contrary to Algore and others, they haven't anything close to "consensus" among them about our climate.
More importantly for me is a question I have been asking of every eco-wacko I can communicate with:
With all of the radical temperature fluctuations through the ages, which climate is the best? At one point they were growing wine grapes in Britain (and Hippos were swimming in the Thames!). At one point glaciers covered our (North America) northern tier. At both of these extremes mankind got along quite well as did animal kind. So, what makes this climate so important that it must be preserved at all costs? What makes the climate we have now the right one?
Well it looks like the boys at the IPCC mostly agree with what I believe. A sample from that poll:
The ideal global climate:
61% doesn't exist
17% is today
13% is cooler than today
7% no opinion
2% is warmer than today
So one has to ask. If we don't really know what the ideal climate is, why are we creating all of this angst and bile trying to keep the climate at this temperature? Seems like normal people (the adults among us) could sure expend our limited energies/monies on more noble or useful pursuits. As for the eco-wackos, the climate really doesn't have much to do with their actions. It is but a Convenient Excuse (no apologies to Algore) for a deeper more pathological motivation. Anti-corporations, anti-automobile, anti-growth, anti-trade, anti, anti, anti. Name anything about 21st century American life and they are against it.
So please - anybody, I'm still looking for a credible answer to the Big Question. If you have the answer, drop me a line at sprestek50 @ gmail.com and I'll post it unedited (and anonymously if you like).
0.0001 Of A Nobel For The Environment 11/02/07 10:27am
The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) was also awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for it's work on the environment. This is important because the IPCC report is cited by every Socialist liberal (erroneously) that wants to control every aspect of what you do in your life under the rubric of "saving the planet". Well, John R. Christy, a participant in the IPCC and co-recipient of this years Nobel sees Climate Change™ a little differently than Algore. A few of his points:
~ He sees neither the catastrophe nor the "smoking gun" that says human activity is to blame for the present warming.
~ He discounts that everything is caused by human activity because everything observed has happened before. For example, the Arctic ice cap has shrunk before (and Hippos were swimming in the Thames!)
~ The MSM repeatedly reports on the shrinking Arctic ice cap but ignore record ice build-up in Antarctica (a record maximum since measurements began).
~ The net effect of forcing automobiles to average 43 miles a gallon, if pressed world-wide, would decrease warming by 0.05 degrees by the year 2100. Global temperatures vary more from day to day.
~ Like Bjorn Lomberg [Link], he believes that there are other issues (clean water, child health, HIV/AIDS for example) that far outweigh the task of marginally limiting Global Warming™ in both importance and cost.
Mr. Christy makes other just as important points so an entire read of the article [Article Link] is a must for people that wish to be informed.
And Mr. Christy isn't a local news weatherman or some obscure practitioner of some unrelated field. He is director of the Earth Science Center at the U of Alabama in Huntsville.
So once again, I beg the question: With all of the radical temperature fluctuations through the ages, which climate is the best? At one point they were growing wine grapes in Britain (and Hippos were swimming in the Thames!). At one point glaciers covered our (North America) northern tier. At both of these extremes mankind got along quite well as did animal kind. So, what makes this climate so important that it must be preserved at all costs? What makes the climate we have now the right one?
So please, anybody, if you have the answer to that question drop me a line at sprestek50 @ gmail.com and I'll post it unedited (and anonymously if you like).
Mt. Kilimanjaro And Other Delusions 10/17/07 10:27am
The one great tenet of the environmental extremism is delusion. I've often stated that the defacto leader of the movement, Al Gore, is as delusional as they come (he's also an elitist hypocrite as well, but I digress), so it all kind of fits. The eco-wackos of the movement who have cleansed themselves of the fog of this delusion (like Bjørn Lomborg [Link] author of "The Skeptical Environmentalist") have been attacked both physically and in any compliant media by the remaining "true believers" of Human Induced Climate Change™. I can understand their rage, there is a lot at stake for the socialist left: Control of free world consumer economies.
A recent article by Daniel Botkin (president of the Center For The Study Of The Environment and prof. emeritus Department Of Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology, University of California) blasts (with facts and science) a few of the bigger delusions that eco-wacko left have been pushing in the general public as of late to prove the seriousness of Global Warming™: Mass extinctions, distributions of disease, computer modeling of climate in support and the shrinking glaciers on Mount Kilimanjaro [Link] and how cooler heads should prevail.
As I've said before many times, Human Induced Climate Change™ (or Global Warming™ or Climate Change™ or whatever the are calling it now) is a completely natural phenomena that the earth has been going through since its creation. The extent to which Climate Change™ will effect us is and will be minimal. Since the rise of humankind we have been hotter and we have been cooler. Plants, animals and humanoids adapt.
This is not to say the we shouldn't be good stewards of the environment. We should as that is smart money saved and spent. But pumping billions of subsidy dollars into screwy bio-fuels like corn or switch grass and other goofy schemes (carbon trading, banning filament light bulbs) to forcibly, by government subsidy and mandate, supplant oil is complete folly.
Let's hope that the adults will start running this Global Warming™ thing.
ABC News Has No Shame 09/14/2007 11:54pm
I gotta say, sometimes the Mainstream Media (MSM) just goes out of their way to scaremonger the public and now they are at it once again. Notably ABC News. They have up on the web at this time a little diddy called "America Under Water, What Global Warming Looks Like". In it they have taken a pile of Google Earth screen shots and superimposed what major cities would look like after the polar ice caps and a large percentage of the worlds glaciers have melted, raising sea levels.
Mostly they exhibit about a one meter rise in most example cities. In my place of habitation, Seattle, they show what it would look like if the sea level rose three meters. [Link] Why three for Seattle and 1.5 for Atlanta or 1 for Hollywood Florida or some other place? Because if they used a one meter standard or even a 1.5, it wouldn't inundate anything on their wonderful scare-maps (for those of you not into the metric system a meter is 39 inches). And in classic scaremonger style, it's even a little heavy handed compared to this flood map of the same area (which, trust me, isn't very accurate either as to the height of the land that they are shown as being inundated). [Link]
Forget that some scientists are starting to report that the earth is now in a cooling phase (and has been for a few years). Think about what has been reported as sea level rise by the IPCC, the esteemed Climate Change™ authority in Enviro-Facist circles. That would be 23 inches maximum [Link]. Not two or three or even one meter. But why let rationality get in the way when you have extremism to peddle?
No wonder news organizations don't have any asses in the seats any more.
Five Hundred Call Out The Enviro-Facists 09/12/2007 11:54pm
Global Warming™ and/or Climate Change™ research is a 300 billion a year industry from mere millions a few years ago. No wonder the scare mongers are active. Three hundred billion buys a lot of BMWs and college tuition for the kiddies. Thankfully, in spite of such motivation, more and more bits on the actual reality of Climate Change™ are reaching fresh air. But you won't find those bits in the MSM. They have as much invested in Climate Change™ scare mongering as anybody. "If it bleeds it leads" has never been truer.
Now a new analysis of peer-reviewed literature reveals that more than 500 scientists have published evidence countering current man-made global warming scares. [Link]
In addition to those scientists, I'll offer my two bits on the subject as well:
~ If our climate isn't warming, it's cooling and if it isn't cooling it's warming and has been since the planet was new. The climate never stays the same. Why does it have to stay the same now?
~ A moderately warmer climate is a good thing. Humans have a tougher time handling colder rather than hotter. Crops grow better in warmer than cooler. Warmer climates from the past have always had higher crop productivity in cooler places like the UK, Sweden and Germany.
~ What makes the current crop of enviro-fascists so sure that the climate we have right now is the right one? In the end result, we are looking at a few degrees of increase over 100 years, if it lasts that long. Some have been saying lately that the earth has been in a cooling trend for the last 8 years or so. [Link]
I have never been more convinced that all of this hubbub about Climate Change™ (or whatever they are calling it now) is simply a huge excuse for the enviro-facists to control every aspect of our lives in the name of "saving the planet". But it isn't about saving the planet at all. It's about what they want and believe and these people hate consumption, capitalism, the automobile, corporations, suburbs and most anything about modern society. They are simply latter day flat-earth Luddites.
Live Earth Exposes The Real Left Cross Post originally from 07/11/2007 3:54pm
Live Earth has exposed a number of things about the politics of Global Warming™. None of them good. Robert Kennedy Junior has an interesting position that anybody who doesn't agree with him on Global Warming™ is a traitor and should be tried for treason. And he's in a position, as a U.S. Senator, to walk the talk.
You Tube video [here] (Senator Inhofe responds in this clip).
I've come to realize fully that Global Warming™ isn't about saving the planet. Beyond being big business (to the tune of 300 billion a year) it's about total, ultimate control over everything that we do world-wide by a few chosen socialist (at the least) elitists like Bobby Jr. and Al Gore and ultimately the UN, who will advocate nothing short of death to those that don't subscribe. After all, the penalty for the treason that Bobby Jr. talks about is - death.
RFK Jr. is after a huge list of people, general organizations, and corporations that don't agree with him and is naming names. I wouldn't be surprised if every lefty has the list in his/her desk drawer. If you want the full scope of Jr's paranoia go [here] (Full speech, "the list" starts at about 3:00)
These are scary times my friends.
Big Question For All Comers
07/17/2007 5:26 pm
There's one question about our climate that I have been seeking an answer on and even the eco-wackos can't seem to help me out. First a little climate background. The climate of the earth has been hot and cold and everything in between since the creation. Look, the Vikings didn't name that big island they settled "Whiteland". They called it "Greenland" for very good reason . . . it was green. Obviously is was a lot warmer then, the Vikings were farming the place.
So that kind of begs the question: With all of the radical temperature fluctuations through the ages, which climate is the best? At one point they were growing wine grapes in Britain. At one point glaciers covered our (North America) northern tier. At both of these extremes mankind got along quite well as did animal kind. So, what makes this climate so important that it must be preserved at all costs? What makes the climate we have now the right one?
Saving The Planet With Live Earth
07/10/2007 10:26 pm
This will be a short post. Only because one picture is worth a thousand words. Below is a picture of Madona's set during Live Earth seconds after she said: "There has been a lot of talk about conserving energy tonight." She got the memo so apparently conserving energy at rock concerts isn't in the cards for saving the planet. How many watts are we seeing here?
I'm not entirely sure what is happening here. Is it hubris or stupity?
