Showing posts with label Climate. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Climate. Show all posts

Monday, December 01, 2008

"Cap-and-Trade": the largest tax increase in U.S. history


What would you say to your Congressional representative if they told you they were going to raise taxes on gasoline by $0.53 a gallon?

Yeah, I know. It's not printable on a family blog.

Earlier this year Democrats marketed a bill -- "The Climate Security Act" (also known as "Cap-and-Trade") -- which will do precisely that while sinking the economy even deeper into the hole as surely as night follows day.

The Lieberman-Warner bill (America's Climate Security Act) represents the largest tax increase in U.S. history and the biggest pork bill ever contemplated with trillions of dollars in giveaways. Well-heeled lobbyists are already plotting how to divide up the federal largesse... The federal Energy Information Administration says the bill would result in a 9.5% drop in manufacturing output and higher energy costs.

Senator George Voinovich said that the bill "could result in the most massive bureaucratic intrusion into the lives of Americans since the creation of the Internal Revenue Service."

Liberal blogger Matt Stoller ("The Cap-and-Trade Scam") notes that such a system is already used in Europe... to ill effect.

Given these numerous drawbacks, cap-and-trade’s principal justification appears to its political feasibility. Many environmental activists assume that a global cap-and-trade program is more achievable politically than global carbon taxes, because most of the world agreed to Kyoto and most people resist higher taxes. On close analysis, the Kyoto agreement is too weak to signify a meaningful consensus for an effective cap-and-trade system. As we will see, numerous analyses of Kyoto have found that it would have very little effect on climate change even over a 60-year period; and the first effort to apply it in an enforceable way, the European Emissions Trading Scheme, is expected to have virtually no effect on emissions.

Furthermore, the bill ignores the real polluters and instead penalizes the U.S., which is already among the cleanest of all countries on a per-capita basis.


Satellite data indicates that Beijing, China is the "air pollution capital of the world."


The World Bank has warned China is home to 16 of the Earth's 20 most air-polluted cities.


The World Resources Institute reports that, "air pollution in some Chinese cities is among the highest ever recorded, averaging more than ten times the standard proposed by the World Health Organization... In Beijing, 40 percent of autos surveyed and 70 percent of taxis failed to meet the most basic emission standards."


USA Today reports that, "[d]ecades of... pollution have allowed industrial poisons to leach into groundwater, contaminating drinking supplies and leading to a rash of cancers, residents say. In this village, where the air has a distinctive sour odor, the rate of cancer is more than 18 times the national average. In nearby Liukuaizhuang, it's 30 times the national figure..."


AFP discovered that an internal Chinese government report found that nearly half a million persons die per year from pollution. Experts believe that, "China's rapid industrialization is leading to increasing environmental damage, with air pollution likely to rise five-fold in 15 years at the current rate."


Iran is another interesting case. Its pollution problems are visible throughout the capital city of Tehran.


In a single year, 10,000 people have died from pollution-related causes in that city alone.

It begs the question: why "Cap-and-Trade"? Consider the beneficiaries of this massive new tax.

Ms. Boxer expects to scoop up auction revenues of some $3.32 trillion by 2050. Yes, that's trillion. Her friends in Congress are already salivating over this new pot of gold. The way Congress works, the most vicious floor fights won't be over whether this is a useful tax to create, but over who gets what portion of the spoils. In a conference call with reporters last Thursday, Massachusetts Senator John Kerry explained that he was disturbed by the effects of global warming on "crustaceans" and so would be pursuing changes to ensure that New England lobsters benefit from some of the loot.

...$802 billion would go for "relief" for low-income taxpayers... There's also $190 billion to fund training for "green-collar jobs," which are supposed to replace the jobs that will be lost in carbon-emitting industries. Another $288 billion would go to "wildlife adaptation," whatever that means, and another $237 billion to the states for the same goal. Some $342 billion would be spent on international aid, $171 billion for mass transit, and untold billions for alternative energy and research – and we're just starting.

Ms. Boxer would only auction about half of the carbon allowances; she reserves the rest for politically favored supplicants. These groups might be Indian tribes (big campaign donors!), or states rewarded for "taking the lead" on emissions reductions like Ms. Boxer's California. Those lucky winners would be able to sell those allowances for cash. The Senator estimates that the value of the handouts totals $3.42 trillion. For those keeping track, that's more than $6.7 trillion in revenue handouts so far.

The bill also tries to buy off businesses that might otherwise try to defeat the legislation. Thus carbon-heavy manufacturers like steel and cement will get $213 billion "to help them adjust," while fossil-fuel utilities will get $307 billion in "transition assistance." No less than $34 billion is headed to oil refiners. Given that all of these folks have powerful Senate friends, they will probably extract a larger ransom if cap and trade ever does become law.

In these turbulent economic times, Democrats and Barack Obama will propose to increase the price of gas, outsource millions of jobs to overseas providers, and create a massive new bureaucracy funded by your (additional) tax dollars.

The American Consumer summarizes the fatally flawed "Cap-and-Trade" approach.

By creating tradable financial assets worth tens of billions of dollars for governments to distribute among their industries and plants and then monitor, a global cap-and-trade program also introduces powerful incentives to cheat by corrupt and radical governments. Corrupt governments will almost certainly distribute permits in ways that favor their business supporters and understate their actual energy use and emissions.

Meanwhile, the world's worst polluters continue choking the atmosphere with toxic fumes and poisons.

"Cap-and-Trade" is sheer lunacy.

Update: The UK's Telegraph doesn't say cap-and-trade is lunacy, it simply calls it "economic suicide":

...Obama floats off still further from reality when he proposes spending $15 billion a year to encourage "clean energy" sources, such as thousands more wind turbines. He is clearly unaware that wind energy is so hopelessly ineffective that the 10,000 turbines America already has, representing "18 gigawatts of installed capacity", only generate 4.5GW of power, less than that supplied by a single giant coal-fired power station.

He talks blithely of allowing only "clean" coal-fired power plants, using "carbon capture" - burying the CO2 in holes in the ground - which would double the price of electricity, but the technology for which hasn't even yet been developed. He then babbles on about "generating five million new green jobs". This will presumably consist of hiring millions of Americans to generate power by running around on treadmills, to replace all those "dirty" coal-fired power stations which currently supply the US with half its electricity.

If this sounds like an elaborate economic suicide note, for what is still the earth's richest nation, it is still not enough for many environmentalists. Positively foaming at the mouth in The Guardian last week, George Monbiot claimed that the plight of the planet is now so grave that even "sensible programmes of the kind Obama proposes are now irrelevant". The only way to avert the "collapse of human civilisation", according to the Great Moonbat, would be "the complete decarbonisation of the global economy soon after 2050".

I would call Monbiot a moron, but that would unfairly tar all morons.

Oops! We may not be running out of oil after all!


LiveScience's Robert Roy Britt describes the discovery of an exceedingly important fungus ("Oil Creation Theory Challenged by Fuel-Making Fungus").

A newfound fungus living in rainforest trees makes biofuel more efficiently than any other known method, researchers say.

In fact, it's so good at turning plant matter into fuel that researchers say their discovery calls into question the whole theory of how crude oil was made by nature in the first place.

..."The accepted theory is that crude oil, which is used to make diesel, is formed from the remains of dead plants and animals that have been exposed to heat and pressure for millions of years," Strobel said. "If fungi like this are producing myco-diesel all over the rainforest, they may have contributed to the formation of fossil fuels."

So oil may not, in fact, be running out. And carbon dioxide (which we exhale and plants inhale) is not, in fact, a pollutant. Perhaps someone could alert our beloved Democratic leaders.

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Just say no: tell the EPA Carbon Dioxide ain't a pollutant


The time for public comment regarding the EPA's proposed carbon emissions regulations is drawing to a close. Friday, December 28th marks the end of the comment period and it's imperative that you, your friends and family tell the EPA no to more regulatory regimes that are categorically insane.

In a spate of sheer lunacy, the EPA is proposing immense new regulations aimed at suppressing carbon dioxide. You know, the gas that we exhale and that plants inhale. The key to photosynthesis. And the gas that humans are responsible for -- at the very high end of the most liberal estimate -- 3% globally.

The EPA wants to label Carbon Dioxide a pollutant. Visit http://stopEPA.com and send the EPA a message.

That is, unless you want to slap huge taxes on energy, kill hundreds of thousands of more jobs, and expend billions in taxpayer dough fighting a non-existent threat called "global warming" (I thought they were calling it "climate change", by the way, since we just had one of the coldest snaps in history).

Related Reading:

Linked by: Ace o' Spades and Fausta. Thanks! Hat tips: STACLU and Larwyn.

Sunday, November 02, 2008

In January Obama told the San Francisco Chronicle he intends to "bankrupt" the coal industry


Barack Obama told The San Francisco Chronicle that he wants to bankrupt the coal industry. His words, not mine:

Let me sort of describe my overall policy.

What I've said is that we would put a cap and trade system in place that is as aggressive, if not more aggressive, than anybody else's out there.

I was the first to call for a 100% auction on the cap and trade system, which means that every unit of carbon or greenhouse gases emitted would be charged to the polluter. That will create a market in which whatever technologies are out there that are being presented, whatever power plants that are being built, that they would have to meet the rigors of that market and the ratcheted down caps that are being placed, imposed every year.

So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can; it's just that it will bankrupt them because they're going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that's being emitted.

That will also generate billions of dollars that we can invest in solar, wind, biodiesel and other alternative energy approaches.

Let me get this straight. A bankrupt coal plant will generate "billions of dollars" for solar and wind power?

That's math only a community organizer can understand.

Not to worry: only half of U.S. electricity is produced by coal. So we can live without it.

Request: Click here to email this story to everyone you know in coal-producing states like West Virginia, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Ohio.

Update: Ace's Dave in TX observes that skyrocketing electric rates are "just a small price to pay to pave the way for the coming energy utopia when we heat our homes with faerie farts and renewable rainbows."

Update II: Fausta offers the official map of coal-producing states.

Know anyone in those areas? Let 'em know about Barack "The Bankrupter" Obama's plans.

Update III: The West Virginia Record reports that a high-level official representing the West Virginia Coal Association calls the statements "unbelievable... his comments are unfortunate... and really reflect a very uninformed voice and perspective to coal specifically and energy generally."



Hat tip: Larwyn.

Friday, October 24, 2008

Global warming "crisis" officially canceled


Marc alerts us to the incipient rebellion against the $250 billion global warming scam perpetrated by the UN and Al Gore:

New York conference expected to draw
up to 1,000 scientists and experts
Global warming crisis "cancelled" by new scientific discoveries

The organizers of a March 2008 conference that brought together more than 500 scientists, economists, and other experts on global warming today unveiled plans to hold a second conference on March 8-10, 2009, once again in New York City.

The 2009 International Conference on Climate Change will serve as a platform for scientists and policy analysts from around the world who question the theory of man-made climate change. This year's theme, "Global Warming Crisis: Cancelled," calls attention to new research findings that contradict the conclusions of the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report.

...The 2008 conference featured presentations by more than 100 prominent scientists and economists from the U.S. and around the world, including Dr. Robert Balling (Arizona State University), Dr. Stanley Goldenberg (NOAA), Dr. William Gray (Colorado State University), Dr. Yuri Izrael (IPCC), Dr. Patrick Michaels (University of Virginia), Dr. Paul Reiter (Institut Pasteur, Paris), Dr. S. Fred Singer (Science and Environmental Policy Project), Dr. Willie Soon (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics), and Dr. Roy Spencer (NASA).

The 2008 event attracted extensive media attention in the U.S. and internationally, including news coverage by The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Associated Press, Reuters, National Geographic, ABC, BBC, CBS, NBC, Fox News, and others.

"Last March we proved that the skeptics in the debate over global warming constitute the center or mainstream of the scientific community, while the alarmists are on the fringe," said Heartland President Joseph Bast. "In the past six months, the science has grown even more convincing that global warming is not a crisis. Opinion polls and political events, including the defeat of 'cap-and-trade' legislation in the U.S. Senate, also suggest this 'crisis' is over. It has been cancelled by sound science and common sense."

Related: Al Gore's testimony before Congress.

Wednesday, October 01, 2008

Why you simply must vote for Barack Obama


I've arrivitated at a substantial list of reasons I'm endorsiating Barack Obama. After serious contemplatious ruminitation, I've come to the irrefutile conclusion that it just makes sense.

Because energy prices must increase now to force a quick transition to environmentally friendly technologies:

The accompanying map depicts "The No Zone." This is the region surrounding the United States where Democrats have blocked oil exploration for decades.

Democrats oppose drilling in deepwater, even though Hurricanes Katrina and Rita proved that modern offshore drilling platforms pose virtually no pollution risk. Democrats oppose exploration in a tiny, postage-stamp sized region of Alaska. As for new refineries or nuclear energy, well, the Democrats oppose those, too. The net result of Democratic behavior is that America will become increasingly dependent on foreign oil. While alternative energy sources remain an admirable goal, they are decades away from becoming serious alternatives to oil.

Because trial lawyers need more money and power:

...Biden is one of the tort bar's staunchest allies in Congress, blocking reform at every opportunity while trying to defeat conservative judicial nominees. His quid pro quo with SimmonsCooper in Delaware helps explain why asbestos suits continue to weigh down the courts even after tens of thousands of cases have been shown to be invented. The "change" lawyers will believe in if Mr. Biden makes it to the White House is cold, hard cash...

Because Fannie Mae is an outstanding success story that has helped promote home ownership:

Among the groups denouncing the [Bush] proposal [to strengthen oversight of Fannie and Freddie] today were ...Congressional Democrats who fear that tighter regulation of the companies could sharply reduce their commitment to financing low-income and affordable housing.


”These two entities — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — are not facing any kind of financial crisis,” said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ”The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.” ...Representative Melvin L. Watt, Democrat of North Carolina, agreed.

Because our nation's borders are antiquated remnants of an elitist society and must be erased:

In case you thought there was some limit to how blatantly Democrats would betray their own country, this was passed out at the pro–illegal immigration rally in Dallas yesterday...

...The less than subtle suggestion that Texas belongs to Mexico is sure to win hearts among the MEChA set, which holds that the Southwest should be wrested away from the Gringo through massive immigration followed by ethnic cleansing.

Because the American manufacturing sector is too strong and must be weakened:

Our politicians are lucky that most Americans are too busy to follow their antics, because voters would surely howl over Nancy Pelosi's trade priorities this week... the same "fair trade" crowd that bemoans the U.S. trade deficit wants to have only one-way free trade with Latin America -- free for them to sell to us, but not for us to sell to them. Has anyone told the UAW about all those Caterpillar machinery exports to Colombia that Democrats are blocking?

Because Americans need to pour a trillion dollars into another corrupt and certain-to-fail United Nations program:

[Obama's Global Poverty Act bill] efers directly to a United Nations declaration called the Millenium Development Goal, which calls "for a 'redistribution (of) wealth and land,' cancellation of 'the debts of developing countries' and 'a fair distribution of the earth's resources.'"

It effects a "tax on the rental value of land and natural resources," a "royalty on worldwide fossil energy production - oil, natural gas, coal," "fees for the commercial use of the oceans, fees for airplane use of the skies, fees for use of the electromagnetic spectrum, fees on foreign exchange transactions, and a tax on the carbon content of fuels."

Because our intelligence services need to concentrate on global warming climate change, not Jihadists with nukes:

With the introduction of a new "Intelligence Authorization bill", Democrats intend to divert funds from national security intelligence efforts in order to consider "the effects that climate change has on national security." In other words, Democrats view global warming as a threat that justifies stripping funds away from fighting terrorism.


Also see: LGF: Video - I'm Voting Democrat because... and Frivolous vs. Magnanimous.

Saturday, September 27, 2008

The 'Hockey Stick': most discredited artifact in the history of science


The great hoaxes in the history of science -- Piltdown Man, the "Cardiff Giant", and the the Tasaday tribe -- can now welcome a new member. Ladies and gentlemen, will you please give the global warming "hockey stick" a rousing round of applause as it enters the Pantheon of Embarrassment.

Mann’s ‘Hockey Stick’ called ‘the most completely discredited artifacts in the history of science’ – September 21, 2008

Excerpt: “There was no hint that the ‘hockey stick’ is among the most completely discredited artifacts in the history of science, not least thanks to the devastating critique by Steve McIntyre, which showed that the graph’s creators had an algorithm in their program which could produce a hockey-stick shape whatever data were fed into it.

Hat tip: Marc Morano

Wednesday, September 03, 2008

Global warming activists stuck in Arctic ice


Tom Nelson (via Marc M.) reports on a "mission of ...global warming activists [who] trek to [the] Arctic... to 'show the world what is happening in the Arctic due to global warming.'"

Global warming activists 'stuck' in Arctic ice! See temps drop 'dramatically' during Arctic trek & faces frost bite!

Excerpt: Sam is travelling to the North pole on an expedition to highlight climate change and keeping a travel log for Mirror.co.uk. ... “We’re stuck” - I have slept poorly. The floating ice, while thin, is so prevalent that, throughout the night, it grinds noisily against the side of the boat in a slightly alarming fashion - imagine someone scraping their nails across an old-fashioned blackboard. The then begins earlier than normal and, unusually, I am not woken by Robbie bounding into my room. Instead the ship’s engine roars to life earlier than normal - at around 5.30 - and the MV ‘Havsel’ begins to judder ominously...

I clamber out of bed and scramble up to the bridge - all the ship’s crew are there, and they look serious. I look outside and I can see why. The sea is almost entirely congested with ice floes - I would estimate 80% plus of the sea is covered by them. There is a real risk that we could get stuck up here. We have drifted in the night into a much icier area than where we stopped last night. I wake up the team, and everyone groggily makes their way to the bridge. There’s a mixed reaction in the team to the prospect of getting stuck up here.

...My split feelings about this news remind me of another paradox of my expedition up here - the fact that I am spending my days padding in ice-cold water, with a frozen, painful backside, trying to bring to the attention of the world and its leaders the necessity of stopping the world heating up.

My alternative headline for this post is Stuck on ice... and on stupid.

Related: Troublesome Arctic sea ice defies alarmists, increases from '07.

Monday, September 01, 2008

Audacity of Hypocrisy: Gustav vs. Katrina


Townhall's Matt Lewis (hat tip: Jerry):

Flash back to 2005 when President Bush was criticized for not visiting New Orleans until after the hurricane:

"And now the best he can do is look out the window of his plane at the hurricane. His government says he'd like to visit — maybe even tomorrow — but the White House wants to make sure the president doesn't impede the rescue effort."

...compare to Obama today:

"But I don’t want to be a distraction, what I’m going to do is focus on what needs to happen after the hurricane strikes and to monitor it over the next 48 hours to make sure we are doing everything we can."

Any questions?

Thursday, August 28, 2008

Nobel Prize Loser


Amy sent this one.

There recently was a death of a 98 year old lady named Irena.

During WWII, Iliana, got permission to work in the Warsaw Ghetto, as a Plumbing/Sewer specialist.

She had an ulterior motive...

She KNEW what the Nazi's plans were for the Jews, (being German).

Iliana smuggled infants out in the bottom of her tool box she carried, and she carried in the back of her truck a Burlap sack, (for larger kids).

She also had a dog in the back, that she trained to bark when the Nazi soldiers let her in, and out of the ghetto.

The soldiers of course wanted nothing to do with the dog, and the barking covered the kids/infants noises.

During her time and course of doing this, she managed to smuggle out and save 2500 kids/infants.

She was caught, and the Nazi's broke both her legs, and arms, and beat her severely.

Iliana kept a record of the names of all the kids she smuggled out, and kept them in a glass jar, buried under a tree in her back yard.

After the war, she tried to locate any parents that may have survived it, and reunited the family.

Most of course had been gassed.

Those kids she helped got placed into foster family homes, or adopted.

Last year Iliana was up for the Nobel Peace Prize....

She LOST.

Al Gore won, for a slide show on Global Warming.

http://irenasendler.org/

And, before you ask, Snopes verified it.

Sunday, August 24, 2008

"The dirtiest place on the planet"


A VBS video captures the city of Linfen, China...

...the dirtiest place on the planet.

Spending a day breathing the air is about the same as smoking three packs of cigarettes.

The scary part is that there are a lot of cities in China like this.

Linfen produces what any country with a billion people needs: energy.

It's a city of endless factories all spewing toxic chemicals into the air and water.

There are no clouds, just a permanent smog hovering over the cityscape.

Every day thousands of coal trucks go between Linfen and the rest of China's cities.

Then they come back empty for more.

Coal is the main source of energy in China and Linfen is the hub of coal mining.

Not only does Linfen produce huge amounts of coal, but it consumes vast amounts as well...

* * *

Watch it all. And recall that China has at least 16 of the 20 most polluted cities on the planet.

While it's admirable that America continues its relentless drive toward cleaner technologies, Al Gore's plans to heavily tax the United States through his "carbon-trading" scheme will have almost no impact whatsoever until China begins to clean up its cesspool.

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Researcher: Prepare for 'Little Ice Age' (will only last 80 years!)


The recent lack of solar activity could translate into a 'little ice age' within the next ten years, according to Victor Manuel Velasco Herrera, a researcher at the Institute of Geophysics at UNAM.

An expert... predicted that in about ten years the Earth will enter a "little ice age" which will last from 60 to 80 years and may be caused by the decrease in solar activity. Victor Manuel Velasco Herrera, a researcher at the Institute of Geophysics of the UNAM [who] teaches at the Centre for Applied Sciences and Technological Development...

Velasco Herrera described as erroneous predictions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), pursuant to which the planet is experiencing a gradual increase in temperature, the so-called global warming. The models and forecasts of the IPCC "[are] incorrect because only are based on mathematical models and presented results at scenarios that do not include, for example, solar activity..."

...The phenomenon of climate change, he added, should include other kinds of factors, both internal, such as volcanoes [,] human activity, and external, such as solar activity... "In this century glaciers are growing", as seen in the Andes, Perito Moreno, Logan, the highest mountain in Canada, and with Franz-Josef Glacier, New Zealand, said Velasco Herrera... [a little Ice Age] could arrive in approximately two years... satellite data indicate[s] that this period of global cooling could even have already begun, since 2005.

Lack of solar activity suggests the possibility of a "Maunder Minimum", which presages a massive cooling event.

Solar activity fluctuates in an 11-year cycle. But so far in this cycle, the sun has been disturbingly quiet. The lack of increased activity could signal the beginning of what is known as a Maunder Minimum, an event which occurs every couple of centuries and can last as long as a century.


Such an event occurred in the 17th century. The observation of sunspots showed extraordinarily low levels of magnetism on the sun, with little or no 11-year cycle.

This solar hibernation corresponded with a period of bitter cold that began around 1650 and lasted, with intermittent spikes of warming, until 1715. Frigid winters and cold summers during that period led to massive crop failures, famine and death in Northern Europe...

This aligns with June's pronouncement by the Australian Astronomical Society warning of global cooling due to diminished solar activity.


Canadian Climatologist Dr. Timothy Ball warns:

If we are facing [a crisis] at all, I think it is that we are preparing for warming when it is looking like we are cooling. We are preparing for the wrong thing.

And in March, NPR reported that independent studies of ocean temperatures point to one stunning conclusion:

...3,000 scientific robots that are plying the ocean have sent home a puzzling message. These diving instruments suggest that the oceans have not warmed up at all over the past four or five years.... Josh Willis at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory says the oceans are what really matter when it comes to global warming... "There has been a very slight cooling, but not anything really significant," Willis says. So the buildup of heat on Earth may be on a brief hiatus... Or it's possible that scientists need to correct for some other feature of the planet they don't know about... But what this does is highlight some of the issues and send people back to the drawing board."

So much for Al Gore's vaunted "consensus" of "settled science."

Hat tip: Marc Morano.

Sunday, August 17, 2008

Troublesome Arctic sea ice defies alarmists, increases from '07


Believers in anthropogenic global warming (AGW) have some 'splaining to do.

Year-over-year the Arctic sea ice extent increased by approximately 30%.

RandomEngineer adds the color commentary: "The fact that 2008’s extent isn’t significantly BELOW the 2007 number because of the aforementioned claimed problem of lacking multi-year ice is simply remarkable. So much for the predictions of a worse year..."

"...The AGW alarmist’s 2008 predictions weren’t merely just wrong, they were in a class of abysmal prognostication skill that ranks up there with psychics..."

"...Witch doctors with chicken guts or orangutans with darts could have fared better..."

"...Oh, and it wasn’t the skeptics claiming things about wind and current. They got that from this outfit called NASA. You may have heard of them..."

Hat tips: Watts up with that and Robert Steely. Graphs: AMSR-E Sea Ice Extent: University of Alaska Fairbanks; Comparison graphs: Daily Arctic Sea Ice Maps (University of Illinois Atmospheric Sciences). Linked by: American Thinker and Say Anything. Thanks!

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Gore's 100-foot boat pushes Earth over the tipping point


Does Al Gore really buy into his global warming alarmism? At Pajamas Media, Steve Gill helps answer the question:

...he jets about in private planes that consume massive amounts of energy to spread his message of “conservation.”


...he travels in fleets of limos and SUVs to deliver speeches about the dire consequences of ignoring “man-made global warming” — and leaves the cars running throughout his entire speech in order to ensure that they will be nice and cool when he exits the building...

His supposedly “green” mansion consumes electricity that dwarfs the consumption of the typical family home.

...Gore may now be extending his excessive consumption to the water as well. In an amazing display of conspicuous consumption, even for Al Gore, his new 100-foot houseboat that docks at the Hurricane Marina in Smithville, Tennessee is creating a critical buzz among many of his former congressional constituents. Dubbed “Bio-Solar One,” which may reflect some latent Air Force One envy, Gore has proudly strutted the small-town dock claiming that his monstrous houseboat is environmentally friendly. (Only Al Gore would name his boat B.S. One and not get the joke. Or perhaps the joke is on us...

Supposedly the boat is powered by biodiesel and solar panels. The boat's builder, though, says he has “no clue” about where Gore could get biodiesel at the lake.

When I was in college, I spent my summer piloting a 48-foot Stardust Cruiser party boat around for VIPs. I burned through two gallons of fuel every 15 minutes on a good day.

Webutante:

It uses tons of fuel, but not to worry, it's tons of bio-diesel fuel. (Where do you suppose it stops for 500 gallons of bio-refueling --@ $4/gal=$2,000-- on the lake?) Oh, and as a backup, it uses solar power. Evidently, there are jet skis included, surely powered with solar panels that make everything okay.

Check out the lifelines.

If I didn't know better, I'd think these cords were supplying electricity to Moby Gore.

But after listening to the Goracle, I'm guessing his vessel is just mainlining Crisco.

Hat tips: Bear Creek Ledger, Michelle Malkin, Steve Gill (at Pajamas Media as well) and Nashville is Talking.

Monday, August 11, 2008

The staunch and unshakable positions of the American left

There is a country that is currently waging a war for oil.

And where stand the anti-war Democrats? ANSWER? Code Pink? Democracy Now? Peace Action? Stop the War Coalition? Indymedia? NoWar?

Did you hear those crickets?

There is a country utterly destroying the environment, responsible for 16 of the world's 20 most polluted cities and which has admitted nearly a half million deaths a year from smog alone.

Where are the environmentally conscious, anti-drilling Democrats concerned with global warming? The National Resources Defense Council? The Sierra Club? The Green Cross? Conservation International? Earth First? Earthjustice? Earthwatch?

I'm pretty sure those soft rustling sounds were some bindles of tumbleweed rolling through town.

If you needed cold, hard proof that today's hard left has pegged the needle on hypocrisy, well, I think you have it.*

*Note that conservatives never have to resort to sex scandals, a practice in which the opposition revels (consider Newt Gingrich, Larry Craig and Bob Packwood).