Posts with the tag 'Climate Change'
Ah, what a wonderous thing is global warming - it even causes glaciers:
The glaciers on Mount Shasta in California are growing because of global warming, experts say.
“When people look at glaciers around the world, the majority of them are shrinking,” said Slawek Tulaczyk, a University of California, Santa Cruz, professor who studied the glaciers.
But the seven glaciers on Shasta, part of the Cascade mountains in northern California, “seem to be benefiting from the warming ocean,” he said.
As the ocean warms, more moisture evaporates. As moisture moves inland, it falls as snow — enough on Shasta to more than offset a 1 C temperature rise in the past century.
The three smallest of the Shasta glaciers are more than twice the length they were in 1950.
Other glaciers in Norway, Sweden, New Zealand and Pakistan were in the same position as Shasta, but are now shrinking because rising temperatures have more than offset the increased snowfall.
Of course, they go on to say that 90% of the world’s glaciers are shrinking - which sounds like a made-up stat simply because most glaciers are in pretty inaccessible areas and thus can’t be measured and, more importantly, haven’t really been measured for any length of time which would permit us to say, definitively, that Glacier A is getting smaller overall than it used to be.
But is there anything that global warming can’t be used for? I heard on the radio the other day that global warming is causing a rise in kidney stones…I fully expect that global warming will eventually be blamed for literally everything…and the coolest thing about it is that no matter what happens, the global warming zealots can say it proves they are right…glaciers shrinking? Global warming. Glaciers growing? Global warming…and no fair pointing out that is some are growing and some are shrinking, wouldn’t this tend to indicate a cyclical nature of our climate rather than a theory that we’re all gonna die unless we listen to Al Gore?
Tags: Climate Change, global warming
July 16th, 2008
Can’t win for losing with these nuts:
Faced with a surge in the number of proposed solar power plants, the federal government has placed a moratorium on new solar projects on public land until it studies their environmental impact, which is expected to take about two years.
The Bureau of Land Management says an extensive environmental study is needed to determine how large solar plants might affect millions of acres it oversees in six Western states — Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah.
But the decision to freeze new solar proposals temporarily, reached late last month, has caused widespread concern in the alternative-energy industry, as fledgling solar companies must wait to see if they can realize their hopes of harnessing power from swaths of sun-baked public land, just as the demand for viable alternative energy is accelerating.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” said Holly Gordon, vice president for legislative and regulatory affairs for Ausra, a solar thermal energy company in Palo Alto, Calif. “The Bureau of Land Management land has some of the best solar resources in the world. This could completely stunt the growth of the industry”…
…Alex Daue, an outreach coordinator for the Wilderness Society, an environmental conservation group, praised the government for assessing the implications of large-scale solar development.
Some enviros say “go solar” and then other say “halt construction because there’s a squirrel out there”(and yes, the fate of a rat with a fluffy tail - ie, a squirrel - is one of the concerns). Pick one, already. Life ain’t perfect and there’s always a trade-off - in order to go solor we are going to have to actually build stuff, which will mean that part of that natural environment you whackos are always on about will have to be modified for human use…but the payoff will be less greenhouse emissions and thus we’ll be “fixing” that global warming nonsense you’ve been having a heart attack about lately.
Tags: Climate Change, global warming, oil price, solar energy
June 27th, 2008
From NRO’s The Corner:
A friend on the Hill writes:
Today marked a new low for the way congressional Democrats deal with national security. This morning, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Permanent Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming held a joint hearing on a “National Intelligence Assessment” on global climate change. This analysis was ordered by the Democratic Congress last year and was issued a few weeks ago. Some highlights (or low-lights) from the hearing:
1) In response to a question by Global Warming Committee member Greg Walden (R-OR), the Intelligence Community admitted they had “low to medium confidence” in the accuracy of this estimate because intelligence officers lack the expertise to write such an estimate (it was mostly contracted out to other organizations) and climate change science is so uncertain. As Walden started to ask about why an analysis of such low reliability was issued, Congressman Ed Markey (D-MA), the Global Warming Committee Chairman, cut him off and told him he was out of time even though Markey let all the previous Democrats speak substantially past their time limits.
2) Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Peter asked what intelligence was used for this estimate and whether intelligence collection requirements were prepared. National Intelligence Council Chairman Thomas Fingar said no clandestine intelligence was used and that intelligence officers extrapolated what would happen if the “mid-level estimates” by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change were correct. When Hoekstra asked why the U.S. Intelligence Community would write an major analysis of low to medium confidence that contained no intelligence, Fingar answered, “because you [Congress] told us to.”
3) Hoekstra noted that intelligence assessments of high confidence have proven to be wrong and he wondered why an intelligence assessment of low to medium confidence would even be published. In an attempt to dispel the debate over confidence, Intelligence Committee member Congresswoman Anna Eshoo (D-CA) responded by noting that the 2002 Iraq WMD NIE had high confidence in its findings. Some Republicans thought Rep. Eshoo’s statement actually made their case about the futility of issuing an intelligence assessment that intelligence officers cannot fully back.
If Obama gets in, we can expect mountains of nonsense like this - a whole slew of laws, hearings, regulations and campaigns which sound like they’re about something, but are really about liberals burnishing their own self-image. One of the many problems with liberals is that their ranks are heavily laced with bureaucrats, lawyers, judges, activists, community organizers…people who, in short, don’t actually do anything in the sense of actually producing an end product usable by Joe Average. Of course there is an intelligence estimate on global warming…because it is the biggest threat we face, and we’re going to really go after it, including the CIA! And liberals who thought this up will pat themselves on the back and thing they’ve done something - just as they do after they recycle, or vote for a guy who will increase government spending.
The irrationality here is astounding, but not actually surprising - given that the Democrats (who absurdly call themselves “the reality based community” on the strength of their rejection of Christian teaching on abortion and sexuality) have cut themselves off from the source of reason and are adrift on a sea of inconsequential, mental cobweb spinning. The more one thinks about it, the more silly the whole concept of allowing a Democrat to run the show becomes - they just don’t have what it takes to run a government…heck, they don’t have what it takes to run a boy scout troop (that does take some personal responsibility, ya know?).
Tags: Climate Change, global warming, liberal lies
June 26th, 2008
After years of propaganda even more relentless than that we’ve had in the United States, turns out that most Brits still doubt the enviro-whacko global warming narrative:
Ipsos MORI polled 1,039 adults and found that six out of 10 agreed that ‘many scientific experts still question if humans are contributing to climate change’, and that four out of 10 ’sometimes think climate change might not be as bad as people say’. In both cases, another 20 per cent were not convinced either way. Despite this, three quarters still professed to be concerned about climate change.
Those most worried were more likely to have a degree, be in social classes A or B, have a higher income, said Phil Downing, Ipsos MORI’s head of environmental research.
‘People are broadly concerned, but not entirely convinced,’ said Downing. ‘Despite many attempts to broaden the environment movement, it doesn’t seem to have become fully embedded as a mainstream concern,’ he said.
The common sense of the average person just doesn’t swallow this sort of nonsense - as Lincoln said, you can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all the people all the time. Average temperaturs - as far as we know, and to call our data “incomplete” is to over-state our knowledge - have rise, but over the past 10 years they’ve been stable, which is something absolutely impossible if the anthropogenic global warming theory is correct. And yet there go the environmentalists and various cheerleaders saying it is real and we must act fast. Its gotten so bad that even President Bush and John McCain have signed off on this, though I wonder if part of the motivation for this would be a desire to get past an un-winnable debate (we long ago lost the global warming debates to the enviro-whackos - only time and the actual fact that we don’t all die will prove them wrong) and move forward on to environmental clean up on the perfectly reasonable position that its good to clean up messes and, meanwhile, if we GOPers stay in charge of it we won’t get regressive, impoverishing, anti-human laws and regulations as the left fanatically desires.
Tags: Climate Change, global warming
June 22nd, 2008
According to this rather nasty greenhouse calculator courtesy of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation - the test is a series of questions entirely loaded towards proving any normal person to be an environmental cretin. The more normal you are, the larger the pig you’ll be and thus the earlier you should have croaked so that you can save the planet - though in all the times I’ve heard us being told to save the planet, I’ve never really heard a good explanation of what we’re saving it for…given that the inevitible end of the earth is, well, the end of the earth and that pile of recycled soda cans won’t be doing anyone a bit of good when that happens.
Anyways, if you live in an apartment with four or more people, always walk/bike, spend less than 10 grand a year and donate money to enviornmentalist causes, then the calculator will tell you that you can live forever; the new sainthood for our secular materialists is St. Sustainable…the belief in nothing outside the material world and in the utter worthlessness of mankind and his wicked deeds.
Thanks, but I think I’ll remain human…
Tags: Climate Change, global warming, junk science
June 14th, 2008
The news story:
Each April, weather wizard William Gray emerges from his burrow near the Rocky Mountains to offer his forecast for the six-month hurricane season that starts June 1. And the news media are there, breathlessly awaiting his every word.
It’s a lot like Groundhog Day - and the results are worth just about as much.
“The hairs on the back of my neck don’t stand up,” ho-hums Craig Fugate, director of emergency management for Florida, the state that got raked by four hurricanes - three of them “major” - in 2004. When it comes to preparing, he says, these long-range forecasts “are not useful at all.”
But climate models which claim to tell us what the global average temperature will be in 50 years are useful?
The problem the anthropogenic global warming enthusiasts have is that anyone who actually sits down and thinks about will come to the “you can’t possibly know that” conclusion.
Tags: Climate Change, global warming
May 31st, 2008
Lets see if the Goron has any guts at all:
Washington - Czech President Vaclav Klaus said Tuesday he is ready to debate Al Gore about global warming, as he presented the English version of his latest book that argues environmentalism poses a threat to basic human freedoms. “I many times tried to talk to have a public exchange of views with him, and he’s not too much willing to make such a conversation,” Klaus said. “So I’m ready to do it.”
Klaus was speaking a the National Press Building in Washington to present his new book, Blue Planet in Green Shackles - What Is Endangered: Climate or Freedom?, before meeting with Vice President Dick Cheney Wednesday.
“My answer is it is our freedom and, I might add, and our prosperity,” he said.
Gore a former US vice president who has become a leading international voice in the cause against global warming, was co-winner of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize. Gore’s effort was highlighted by his Oscar winning documentary film An Inconvienent Truth.
Klaus, an economist, said he opposed the “climate alarmism” perpetuated by environmentalism trying to impose their ideals, comparing it to the decades of communist rule he experienced growing up in Soviet-dominated Czechoslovakia.
“Like their (communist) predecessors, they will be certain that they have the right to sacrifice man and his freedom to make their idea reality,” he said.
“In the past, it was in the name of the Marxists or of the proletariat - this time, in the name of the planet,” he added.
Klaus said a free market should be used to address environmental concerns and said he oppposed as unrealistic regulations or greenhouse gas capping systems designed to reduce the impact of climate change.
“It could be even true that we are now at a stage where mere facts, reason and truths are powerless in the face of the global warming propaganda,” he said.
Klaus alleged that the global warming was being championed by scientists and other environmentalists whose careers and funding requires selling the public on global warming.
That pretty much says it all about the motivations behind global warming alarmism - just another attempt at making a utopia on earth, and the only thing we have to sacrifice is the Common Man…’cause the elites, once again, have need of his blood and treasure for one more attempt at getting it right.
I think, though, that Klaus is right about facts and reason having no place here - it is my view that we have utterly lost the global warming debate; not on facts and reason, but because of relentless, alarmist propaganda, all too often joined in by politicians on the make and grant-mongering institutions and individuals. But if Gore has the courage of his convictions - if he really thinks that the truths of global warming are so solid - then he’ll take Klaus up on his challenge…and if he doesn’t, then just what are we to make of such an act of cowardice?
Tags: Al Gore, Climate Change, global warming, liberal lies, Vaclav Klaus
May 28th, 2008
Ah, spring:
There’s nothing like a little fresh snow and lots of old mud to liven up an early summer hike.
Which is exactly what people are likely to find near the peaks of Vermont’s higher mountains this Memorial Day weekend, due to the snowy winter and some fresh flurries this week.
At 5 p.m. Tuesday, 18 inches of snow remained on the ground near the top of Mount Mansfield, Vermont’s highest peak. The snow cover includes some of the 3.5 inches of fresh fluff that descended on the mountaintop Monday. More light snow is likely over northern Vermont summits today and Thursday…
One day, it might even start acting like global warming is happening…
Tags: Climate Change, global warming
May 22nd, 2008
From Newsbusters:
The names of over 31,000 American scientists that reject the theory of anthropogenic global warming are to be revealed on Monday.
Although this will occur at the National Press Club in Washington, DC., it seems a metaphysical certitude media will completely ignore the event.
According to the report, this is actually a re-do of a petition done in 1999 in which 19,000 odd people signed - but critics alleged some duplicate names and claimed that some of the signatories weren’t scientists…this list is apparantly designed to be critic-proof on that level…31,072 signatories, all with degrees, 9,021 of which are PhDs.
The main point here is that claims of settled science are bogus - a complete fabrication from start to finish on the part of the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) enthusiasts, and the fact that they would bald-faced lie about this basic element of their claims throws into question the honesty and motivation of all of those who advocate the alarmist global warming position. Unfortunately, as I noted earlier, we’ve lost the debate, at least temporarily - via a propaganda campaign which would have made Stalin proud, the AGW people have swept the opposition from the table and convinced a majority of the population that AGW is not only real, but a dire threat to all life on earth. We can’t break through this propaganda - at the moment.
In the next few years as evidence of catastrophe fails to materialise (and wasn’t Gore saying three or four years ago that we only had ten years left to get a handle on this?), the reference back to this petition and all the other evidence that AGW wasn’t all it was cracked up to be will become a flood as people start to realise they’ve been - once again - connned by the environmentalist movement. At that point, we’ll be able to strike back against this, and actually insert a bit of real science into the debate.
Tags: Climate Change, global warming
May 19th, 2008
McCain is getting a lot of positive press about his climate change speech - juxtaposing the speech with the “take the gloves off” note to Newsweek, I begin to see a strategy here of hitting out both right and left…nothing like making everyone catch up with you - it means you control the terms of the debate.
Edwards endorsement of Obama has a lot of people talking of him being the Veep, again. I say: bring it ON!!!! Talk about handing us the election on a silver platter…two lawyers who are hip deep in questionable actions running against a war hero…
How much wood would a wood chuck chuck if a wood chuck would chuck wood?
Not much, they’re pretty small.
Discuss these and other burning questions of the day.
Tags: Barack Obama, Climate Change, global warming, John Edwards, John McCain, Veepstakes, wood chucks
May 15th, 2008
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