Saturday - February 04, 2012

Italy … coldest in 26 years. Not gorbal warming. It’s climate change.

There are some spectacular photos at the link.

It’s pretty cold here and we are expecting some snow. Haven’t seen any sign of it yet but London, which is 70 miles away, has it.
Not too worried because every other time we’ve had snow here in the southern part of the country, it doesn’t last.

Have the radio on now and all they’re talking about is this new weather front and all the snow reported falling.

Colosseum closes and drivers abandon cars as snow falls on Rome for the first time in 26 YEARS

Italian capital grinds to halt as severe weather halts traffic

Locals shiver in tiled homes thanks to city’s heating restrictions

-36C temperatures across eastern Europe send death toll to 176

Military on alert in the UK as temperatures drop and snowfall is predicted

Over 11,000 villagers in Serbia trapped by snowdrifts and blizzards

Death toll in Ukraine now 122, with 38 people killed by cold last night

By EMMA REYNOLDS

The Colosseum and other ancient tourist sights closed to tourists as Rome saw snow for the first time in 26 years.

Traffic in the Italian capital ground to a halt as buses struggled to climb icy hills and authorities accustomed to a warm climate fought to cope.

Visitors were stopped from entering the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill, the former home of Rome’s ancient emperors, over fears they could slip on ice.

Snow began falling on Friday morning, leaving a light dusting on trees and cars and forming slush on the roads.

After easing for a few hours, wind-driven snow started falling again heavily in the city before midnight and continued into this morning.

The authorities ordered cars without tyre chains off the road till at least noon as vehicles were trapped for hours on the ring road after many cars skidded and frustrated drivers abandoned their vehicles having waited hours for accidents to be cleared.

PHOTOS AT SOURCE

Big freeze Britain: Forecasters warn 15cm of snow on the way as icy weather settles in across country

Temperatures as low as Himalayas overnight, plunging to nearly -11C in Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire

Heavy snow expected in Cumbria, Lincolnshire, East Anglia, North Yorkshire and the Peak District
Third of flights out of Heathrow tomorrow cancelled

15cm?  That’s only 5.9 inches.

   Monday - December 12, 2011

AMERICA - CHINA - INDIA WILL BE FORCED BY NEW AGREEMENT ON CLIMATE CONTROL

I am so tired of this subject but.
Now it’s closer to home (USA) because apparently America is on the Euro-weenie climate bandwagon.  OK I know we always have been. But I just didn’t expect this, this soon.  Not very observant of me perhaps. But considering who is in the White House, and the nest of vipers on the left, I should have expected it even sooner. 

God, how I hate the idea of us co-operating with those zealots. And I think you all must know it’s going to cost us all a lot more as well.
But be careful. You know what happened to people in the past who didn’t follow the prescribed religious line.  And this is definitely the new religion.
Watch out for Torquemada. He wears a suit and tie these days.  His many adherents can be found wearing scruffy jeans and scraggly beards and some wear commie glasses and caps and with their unwashed female friends, can usually be found either occupying some public space with profound slogans on cardboard or else holding hands singing we are the world.
Sorry but these sky is falling climate freaks just annoy me.

see the link below for all the story and the video.

Durban climate change conference: Big three of US, China and India agree to cut carbon emissions

A new deal to “save the planet” will force the world’s three biggest emitters the US, China and India to cut carbon emissions for the first time, although scientists fear it will come too late to stop global warming.

By Louise Gray, Environment Correspondent, in Durban

More than 190 countries managed to finally agree a new climate change deal amid chaotic scenes in the early hours of Sunday morning in Durban, South Africa.
As the United Nations conference overran into its second day it looked like the talks were on the brink of collapse as the EU and India argued over just two words in the text.
In the end the wording was decided in an extraordinary 10 minute ‘huddle’ between the exhausted ministers to decide the fate of future generations.
The ‘Durban Platform’ will commit all countries to a global deal on cutting carbon emissions by 2015 although it will not come into force until 2020.
The UN marked it as an “historic breakthrough to save the planet”, that makes up for the collapse of the last high profile attempt for a global deal in Copenhagen in 2009.

It was the first time that the ‘Big 3’, the US, India and China, that make up almost half of the world’s emissions, have agreed to cut emissions as part of a legal treaty.
“What we have done today is a great success for European diplomacy. We have managed to put this on the map and take the major emitters – the US, India and China – to a road map that will secure an overarching deal,” he said.
The EU has also agreed to a second commitment of the Kyoto Protocol from 2013 as part of the deal so that the world has a legal treaty to cut emissions in place before 2020.

TELEGRAPH AND VIDEO

   Saturday - October 29, 2011

Pollution? Solution!

Frack This!
New large scale efficient water purifier could silence Greenie objections to deep shale gas drilling
And save the rest of the world as a side effect


File this one under Why We Win. Via Eaglespeak.

A new desal [desalination] technology has emerged that not only can desalinate water at an affordable cost, but can also simultaneously remove harmful chemicals and disease microbes from the water.

It all started years ago when a scientist working in a small lab at a university in Arizona, had an idea. Dr. Jim Beckman, a professor at Arizona State University, asked these questions: Why couldn’t desalination technology avoid using pressure, metal parts, and large amounts of electricity? Why couldn’t the technology use no pressure and instead rely on plastic parts to avoid corrosion, and thus use almost no electricity? So Beckman went to work – and after years in the lab, he produced a system that can do just that. In order to treat the water, Altela technology uses the simplest of Mother Nature’s processes, making rain.

What does this mean, in practice? It means that all water coming from the Marcellus Shale natural gas wells, known as “frac water,” can be made cleaner than drinking water before going into the river. It means that runoff from a landfill, water that pollutes the streams, rivers and oceans ultimately can be treated on site before it is released. And it means that every village in Africa can have a small water treatment plant to stop the deaths of 3.5 million people every year from a lack of safe drinking water.

In fact, Altela’s facility in Albuquerque is busy churning out modules to do just that. Its AltelaRain® 600 systems have also been installed in Pennsylvania and are processing water from natural gas wells to keep the industry going, despite new regulations, and sustaining 156,000 jobs in Pennsylvania alone.

“We set out to revolutionize the desal treatment, and we ended up finding a solution to water treatment all over the world, from the Marcellus Shale, to the smallest village in Africa,” said CEO Ned Godshall

Altela has redefined the fundamentals of water purification, which has world-changing implications, yet the AltelaRain® technology has entirely practical and realistic applications. In straightforward terms, it takes the simplest of nature’s processes for purifying water (making rain) and through revolutionary technology, re-creates that process using readily available materials and low energy compared with conventional thermal distillation.

Because it is so simple and elegant, the technology can treat the most highly-challenged water in almost any application. And it meets or exceeds even the strictest U.S. government environmental protection (EPA) standards for discharge of the purified water.

Even the DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) validated that Altela’s system can successfully treat the water stream onsite, providing distilled water as the product.

The AltelaRain® 600 is a revolutionary modular-based water desalination system that excels at treating highly challenged wastewater. Each Module consists of twelve Altela Rain Towers and one center chase that contains all the water, air and steam plumbing to and from the twelve towers, along with the required controls, steam boiler and pumps.
The Module treats approximately 25,000 gallons per day, the equivalent of 600 barrels per day.

It looks like each module can come in on 3 flatbed trucks and be assembled on site. Each module consumes either a moderate amount of natural gas (12,000 cu ft /day) and electricity (1 Kwh); they can be run on solar power. The modules are scalable, and require only 5 hours of maintenance per week. All the dirt removed from the water is collected in tanks that can be easily swapped out and emptied or trucked away. It’s a liquid; approximately 10% of the input water. A smaller model (the ARS-4000) exists that can be shipped on a single flatbed truck and produces 4,000 barrels a day.

The AltelaRain® technology recaptures energy 3 times, and thus makes 3 gallons of pure distilled water from the energy required to make 1 gallon from conventional thermal distillation. And, Altela is the only water desalination company in the world that uses no pressure (and therefore 99% of the energy is NOT from the electricity required to operate high-pressure pumps.) It is therefore perfectly married to the burgeoning sister industry of Solar Thermal (ST) – passive solar – because Altela uses (for free) the two-thirds energy of passive solar that presently now gets wasted as low-grade low-temperature waste heat.

Such low-grade waste energy is available for water desalination when co-located with such an ST location throughout the southwest U.S. in states like New Mexico, Arizona and southern California, as well as abroad in areas such as the Middle East.
...
Through the use of its proprietary patented AltelaRain® technology, Altela desalinates and decontaminates highly challenged water using an evaporation/condensation process like nature’s own process: clean rain water from undrinkable ocean salt water. The technology is simple, elegant, and disruptive. 

I like it. Fresh water from the oceans. Mine water put back into streams that’s cleaner than what comes out of your faucet. Altela is a publicly traded company. If I was a player in the stock market, I’d give them a serious look ‘n see.

As for those anti-fracker folks who cry that a) this extraction process will steal all our drinking water, and b) even if they use produced water (water found underground at far deeper levels than the regular water table), dumping such waste water back on the surface will pollute the world and kill us all ... it looks like Altela has them beat. With a nice heavy stick. Every hour on the hour. Their system removes all the oil, dissolved gas, heavy metals, and dirt. It can even remove radioactive particles.

Produced water is water trapped in underground formations that comes to the surface during oil and gas exploration and production. It occurs naturally in formations where oil and gas are found and is millions of years old. When oil or gas is extracted, they’re brought to the surface along with this produced water as a combined fluid. The composition of this produced fluid includes a mixture of either liquid or gaseous hydrocarbons, produced water, dissolved or suspended solids, produced solids such as sand or silt, and recently injected fluids and additives that may have been placed in the formation as a result of exploration and production activities.

Nice. Now all we need is another company to produce bags of minerals to add to the distilled water, to make it proper drinking water. A little salt, a little calcium, maybe a little fluoride, whatever. Just the good ones. Heck, mineral packs could come in flavors to imitate your favorite blend of bottled water. Great Bear. De Sani. Deer Park. Poland Spring. Evian. Your choice. Those water softeners already exist. So do some of the salts. Carbonation not included.

   Friday - September 30, 2011

Hope for Change

Dig This
Court Rules In Favor of Pebble Mine

An Alaska Superior Court judge has upheld the validity of temporary, revocable land and water use permits for mineral exploration at the Pebble copper-gold-molybdenum project in the Bristol Bay region of southwest Alaska.

Project opponents have waged a lengthy legal and political battle against the massive project, frequently citing risks to salmon and other fishery in the Bristol Bay

Bristol Bay is the large inlet just above where the Aleutian Island Chain connects to the mainland. It is where most of the salmon swim through on their way to their spawning grounds.

Superior Court Judge Eric Aarseth delivered a major blow to the environmental activists who have been using regulations lawsuits and billions of dollars to prevent the Pebble Mine Project in Alaska from helping to provide American energy independence. Judge Aarseth handed down a 154-page ruling in favor of Alaska in the most recent lawsuit aimed at preventing the Pebble Mine Project from even being able to begin the permit process.

Pebble Mine is one of the largest copper deposits in the world. It is in the United States and could release us from our dependence on buying copper from China, which provides 97% of the copper used in the world.

The environmentalist have argued that the Pebble Mine MIGHT impact salmon in Bristol Bay, Alaska, even though the mine is over 200 miles north of the area.

The judge ruled that evidence “did not support the plaintiffs’ claims that mineral exploration activities in the Pebble Project area were significantly impacting or causing long term harm to concurrent uses.”

After summarizing the state’s monitoring of Pebble’s exploratory activity to ensure compliance with the terms of the permits, Aarseth wrote:

“All of these documented efforts support the conclusion that the state was proactive when issuing permits with appropriate restrictions on Pebble’s activity and not merely rubber-stamping the applications. Further, the review process as well as the field surveys/investigations indicate that the State was actively enforcing the permits issued and thus placing itself in a reasonable position to revoke the permits if necessary. Last, by responding to concerns by Nunamta both in the review process as well as in enforcing the [permit] conditions, the State showed a reasonable concern for the concurrent users of the Pebble Area.”

Aarseth found Nunamta did not meet its burden of proof to show environmental harm and concluded, “Moreover, contrary to Plaintiffs’ assertions, the weight of the evidence tends to show that exploration activities are not changing water quality in the Pebble study area.”

He was also persuaded that Pebble has a “successful reclamation program” and there was no evidence of damage to vegetation. Aarseth similarly dismissed claims of harm to caribou or fish populations.

“The evidence shows that more than 20 years after minerals were first discovered at Pebble, the site continues to have pristine water and support wildlife and fisheries resources,” Aarseth wrote. “The harms that Plaintiffs’ witnesses describe are speculative; they are neither harms occurring in fact nor did they show that the harm will necessarily occur.”

The case was Numanta Aulukestai v. State of Alaska, DNR, and Pebble Limited Partnership and the whole decision is here.



There is another similar case, Rosemont Copper, a copper mine near Tuscan Arizona that could employ 1000, also being held hostage in the court system by the EPA and its tree hugging minions.

While this ruling is a significant win for the goal of American energy Independence, it is not the end of the issue. Environmental groups have aggressively fought the Pebble Mine Project for years. This particular lawsuit has been ongoing since 2009. Since Judge Aarseth’s ruling, they say they are taking the case to the Supreme Court.

Want to get involved? Visit Resourceful Earth to see how.

   Saturday - September 24, 2011

Another unenforced law

Here’s a link to a story I saw in the MD paper I just linked to for the stink bug post.

Ospreys are raptors, fish hunting birds that live along the coast. For many years their numbers have been in steep decline, placing them on the Endangered Species list for most of my lifetime. In the past two decades they have started making a comeback up and and down the Atlantic coast, and are seen by many people as a bellwether of environmental pollution levels.  Their decline was a strong factor in the whole DDT ban thing. Although ospreys are off of the ES list now, it is still a significant federal offense - a $15,000 fine minimum - to hunt, disturb, trap., poison, or molest these birds or their nests.

40 years of human assistance has also helped these birds get their population back up to somewhere near it ought to be. People get together up and down the coast to build nest platforms for them and sometimes even set aside low impact “osprey zone” areas. Ospreys do not live here all year; they fly to South America for the winter. Once outside the USA they are no longer protected.



There has been a pair of breeding ospreys out at the end of a pier in Anne Arundel County for more than half a decade now, watched over and written about by author Janie Suss.

The female osprey, Olive, was recently shot. Dead. On purpose. By two boys with BB guns. For shits and giggles. The male got away, but this year’s clutch of eggs was lost. Caught in the act by the author, the boys - who knew about ospreys and even knew these two birds by name - confessed. She called the police and had them arrested. Last week all 5 charges against the youths were dropped.

Read more about it here, or break the news softly to your children if you are one of the many parents who has read Oscar and Olive Osprey to your children.

As the osprey head south this year, we say goodbye forever to one special bird: Olive Osprey.

Like many of her species, she was shot. Not over Cuba or the Dominican Republic, where fish farmers consider osprey birds of prey. Olive was shot as she sat on her eggs in her nest in Southern Anne Arundel County, where she had been welcomed and had gained celebrity.

Her killers were neighborhood boys.

The Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 prohibits such killings, and imposes a maximum penalty of $15,000 and 6 months in jail for each offense, even though they are misdemeanors ... and such penalties have been handed out in the recent past.

Ok, maybe you can’t fine children thousands of dollars for birdicide or put them on the chain gang, but they shouldn’t have walked off scott-free. Fine the parents perhaps? Something. Why bother to have laws if they aren’t going to be enforced? Heck, the EPA agents are armed. What on earth for, if not for things like this?

   Saturday - September 17, 2011

Pebble East, Pebble West, Does The EPA Know Best?

Pebble Mine Alaska: The Wealth Of Nations
EPA shenanigans driven by WA Senator could freeze mining of largest copper and gold deposit on earth
Fears that mine waste will destroy salmon watershed
A State’s Rights Issue?
AK to WA: Butt Out!?




Ok, this is a tough one.

One the one hand we’ve got an “almost” mine where investors have already spent hundreds of millions of dollars exploring the strata, and have found themselves on top of two of the largest copper, gold, molybdenum, silver, rhenium, palladium, and porphyry deposits on the planet. We’re talking billions of tons here. Billions. Of tons. 50 million ounces of gold, perhaps more. All proven. No conjecture. Mining jobs for 100 years. And I’m calling it an “almost” mine because it’s not really working yet, nearly 20 years after the deposits were first found. It’s taken that long to go through the beauracratic process. And it might suddenly get worse if Washington Senator Maria Cantor has her way.

On the other hand we have some fish. No, I don’t mean that sarcastically, like the Snail Darter that caused so much Endangered Species fuss some years ago. I mean fish, as in, a large part of the entire Alaskan salmon industry.

See, the Pebble Mine is on watershed land up behind Bristol Bay, which is where all the salmon swim through when it’s breeding time. And the rock that would be mined is called chalcopyrite - a porphyritic granodiorite mineral that is gold, copper, iron, and sulfide all bonded together. Add water and it turns into sulfuric acid, and the minerals drop out. Oh, and the area is seismically active, like most of Alaska. So we’re talking about a two mine approach, both of gargantuan size: an open pit mine that could be 2 miles across, and a deep shaft mine that could swiss-cheese the underground strata for miles in every direction. And to get billions of tons of minerals, that means hundreds of billions of tons of waste rock. Mine tailings. Acidified muck in giant, giant piles. Giant lakes full of toxic runoff behind earthen dams ... just waiting for the next earthquake. But let’s not mislead ourselves: though headwaters they may be, they are many miles back from the bay itself. Dozens of mile I think. 15 at least. Sorry, I’m new to this topic, and I’m suffering a bit of information overload. But the mine area is not right on the bay. It’s back in the hills. Still, the salmon swim some distance upriver to spawn, right?

Can a giant mine be run without destroying a fragile environment? Is the environment all that fragile anyway? And of course, there’s the Indigenous Native Angle, who have lived off of the salmon for centuries and feel some kind of spiritual bond with them. Not to mention the whole salmon fishing, canning, sport fishing, and state licensing industries that swim right along with them. What you’d call seriously vested interests. And let’s not forget that whole Alaskan Beneficiaries thing; I gather that the state wealth is shared out to the population, and everybody gets an annual check from the oil and gas industries. I don’t know if that concept applies to mining.

I told ya, it’s a tough one. And it gets worse.

First, a little tiny bit of background, because the scope of this thing is just so damn huge I have to paste some data on it:

In recent years, however, another potential source of immense wealth has emerged around Bristol Bay. At the headwaters of two drainages that flow into the bay, beneath lands owned by the state of Alaska, a company named Northern Dynasty Minerals has discovered a gargantuan mineral deposit. The granitic rocks hidden beneath an otherwise ordinary upland basin and rounded foothills contain riches beyond anything ever discovered in North America – and possibly the world.

The find is known as Pebble Mine, and, with its full extent yet to be determined, officials estimate that it contains 67 billion pounds of extractable copper, 82 million ounces of gold, and 4 billion pounds of molybdenum. At current prices [as of 2008], the mine’s metals are worth $345 billion to $500 billion.

Seeing how much copper has gone up in the past few years, I’d put those numbers at $750 billion or more today. And those numbers may have been before the Pebble East deep continuation was even found, and it may be just as large as the western part. So we could be looking at a trillion. Maybe more.
Years worth of exploratory drilling has shown that the recoverable deposits go down 1700 meters - more than a mile deep.

The salmon side is also quite large, in it’s own way:

Bristol Bay is home to some of the largest runs of salmon in the world, all five Pacific species spawn in the bay’s freshwater tributaries. Commercial fisheries include the world’s largest sockeye salmon fishery, which along with herring and other fisheries, account for nearly 75% of local jobs

Sport fishing is also an important part of the area’s industry. There are many lodges catering to sport fishermen exploiting the tremendous salmon and trout populations in the freshwater tributaries. Freshwater species include humpback whitefish (Coregonus Pidschian), Dolly Varden trout (Salvelinus Malma), and Rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss).

Not only the commercial and sport fish harvest is important: seasonal subsistence harvesting of salmon and year-round subsistence harvesting of freshwater fish is a critical part of life for rural residents of the Bristol Bay region, most of whom live downstream of the Pebble site.

If fully developed, the roads and other infrastructure for Pebble mine would cross - and perhaps impact - nearly two dozen of these spawning streams.

The place was first discovered in 1986, because the ore beds go right up to the surface and can be seen from airplanes. A few years worth of investigation were done, then folks took a decade off. Money problems I’d bet. Since about 2001 another company has come in and has been doing all sorts of exploration, planning, environmental studies, and filling out government forms. For a decade. Meanwhile, it’s been something for the folks in Alaska to fight about, in case hockey and dog sled racing get boring. In that Big Empty land of ice and cold, this one is a hot potato that never cools off.

just a few links - you can Google up hundreds more with ease:
http://e360.yale.edu/content/feature.msp?id=2062
http://www.alaskadispatch.com/article/pebble-no-mine-alaskas-ever-seen (this one describes the rocks as acidic, yet Wikipedia tells me they are alkaline. I’m no geologist)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_Mine
http://www.pebbleminealaska.com/
http://dnr.alaska.gov/mlw/mining/largemine/pebble/



And now we get to the story that reader Beth wrote me about, from her work at resourceful earth news, a pro industry blog from what I can tell. Well, at least the place doesn’t seem to ooze self-righteous Greenie Sap like a Sierra Club meeting.

Hi,

We need your help in stopping a critical assault on the environmental review process. We cannot overstate the importance of making people aware of this behind-the-scenes attack.

U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) recently wrote a letter to the EPA urging the agency to halt the Pebble Mine Project in Alaska. The Alaskan copper and gold mine project has been in limbo for more than three years – with $120 million spent to research how to have minimal impact on the surrounding environment near Bristol Bay. Once it has been officially proposed, the Pebble site will have to go through 67 federal, state, and local agencies for approvals and permits. If this isn’t stringent enough, I don’t know what is.

Now, Cantwell won’t even let the process work. She is changing the game altogether by moving to preempt the environmental review process the EPA put in place. The consequences couldn’t be more serious if Cantwell succeeds in her efforts. If she succeeds, *ANY Natural Resource Extraction in the United States will not be safe from the EPA and radical environmentalists.*

As Alaskan Senator Lisa Murkowski wrote, a preemptive veto of the Pebble Mine project will expand the powers of the EPA and “could have widespread and unintended consequences for any development project, including airports and other infrastructure.”

Cantwell’s actions make a mockery of the federal environmental review process and leave Americans even more dependent on foreign sources to meet our needs for natural resources and energy. More American jobs will be lost and it will be another blow to our already shaky economy.

I think the implication is that, having followed all the rules to the letter, crossed all the Ts and dotted all the Is, the mine was set to proceed, so in desperation it was time for the Gaia Squad to pull a fast one out of their bag of dirty tricks.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Washington Sen. Maria Cantwell said Monday she would oppose a proposed huge copper and gold mine near Alaska’s Bristol Bay if studies find it would harm salmon and thus put jobs in her own state at risk.

In a letter sent to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, Cantwell described Bristol Bay’s salmon population as an economic lynchpin for commercial fishermen both in Alaska and Washington. Nearly 1,000 Washington residents hold Bristol Bay commercial fishing licenses, she said.

“Thousands of my constituents have contacted me expressing their concerns regarding the potentially catastrophic and widespread long-term impacts of the proposed Pebble Mine, which would be the world’s largest man-made excavation,” Cantwell said in her letter.

Cantwell called on the Environmental Protection Agency to consider using the Clean Water Act to prohibit or restrict large-scale development around the bay if it would harm the world-class salmon-producing rivers in the region. She also expressed her support of the agency’s decision to conduct a thorough analysis of large-scale mining near the Pebble Mine project site.

Mike Heatwole, a spokesman for the Pebble Limited Partnership, told The Associated Press the senator never sought any information from the companies involved about the project or the scope of its environmental studies.

In addition to commercial fishing jobs, nearly all major seafood operations that process Bristol Bay fish are based in Washington. Cantwell’s letter said Bristol Bay commercial and recreational fisheries are worth at least $500 million annually.

The EPA announced in February that it would analyze the potential impact of the Pebble mine proposal on watersheds feeding Bristol Bay.

The Bristol Bay Native Corp. and nine federally recognized Bristol Bay Alaska native tribes have asked the EPA to use its authority under the Clean Water Act to stop the mine from being developed. The analysis is expected to be released this fall.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, today released the following statement in response to a news report that Washington Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell may seek a preemptive veto from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of the proposed Pebble Mine:

“Attempts to prejudge development in the Bristol Bay area before a permit application has even been submitted would make a mockery out of the federal environmental review process. A preemptive veto makes no more sense than a preemptive approval.

“I am fully committed to protecting Bristol Bay and the fishing industry it supports, but a preemptive veto represents a serious violation of Alaska’s state’s rights and would undermine the science-based approach long promised by this administration.

“When and if a permit application is submitted – for Pebble or any other project – an independent scientific review is exactly what happens under the environmental review process that NEPA provides,” Murkowski said.

On Feb. 7, in response to being petitioned to preemptively veto development, EPA announced plans to conduct a watershed assessment of the Bristol Bay area in Alaska. In response, Murkowski sent a letter to EPA, and recently toured the Pebble site with EPA Region 10 Administrator Dennis McLaren. During that visit, Murkowski pointed out that the wetlands throughout the Bristol Bay region are similar in character, and a preemptive veto could have widespread and unintended consequences for any development project, including airports and other infrastructure.

Today, Murkowski once again stipulated her support for the normal environmental review process and her opposition to EPA attempts to expand its authorities to include preemptive vetoes of development.

Murkowski is the Ranking Member on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and the Senate Appropriations Committee’s Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Subcommittee.

Please read Beth’s post on the Pebble Mine situation. She wants people to get involved and put some “drill here drill now” pressure on the dear Senator. And her post has more info on Pebble, some neat videos, and a bit of dirt she dug up (hur hur hur) on her. Actually, the whole blog looks like a pretty good resource to me.

Can such a mine be made and not kill all the nice fish? I bet it can. Can we afford to let yet another vast national resource lie dormant forever? I bet we can’t.

Oh, and just so you know: there is a green movement afoot that is pressuring Obama and his power mad EPA to stop ALL mining in the entire country. ALL OF IT. Coal, oil, copper, iron, trap rock, you name it. It’s bad for the environment you know. And you know what? Their tactics are EXACTLY the same ones used by Washington State Senator Cantwell.

Environmentalists love the moras of federal regulation and rulemaking as they can almost always find one rule or law that contradicts another, thereby opening a means to sue. And if, by chance, the government does actually clarify contradictory rules the environmentalist merely attempt to move the goal posts.

That’s the tactic employed by Earthworks, an environmental Non-Government Organization (NGO). The group has been running a national campaign this week aimed at pressuring the EPA to provide additional federal regulations to close what they’ve deemed “loopholes” in the Clean Water Act. Their website claims that the bill as it stands now is confusing and allows American mining companies to “dump their toxic mining waste directly into our waters!”

They’ve selected the language “closing loopholes,” but the truth is that Earthworks and its supporters are looking to add layers of federal regulations to the Clean Water Act so that it is nearly impossible for the mining industry to function in the U.S. The fact that such a move would cripple American jobs and stall economic growth isn’t an issue for Earthworks.

Gosh, follow the rules to bring your product or service to market and still find yourself damned? That sounds a whole lot like the attitude the left had towards the gun companies during the AWB days. Because, gosh, the new government rules were supposed to SHUT DOWN that whole manufacturing industry, weren’t they? Crivens, what a bunch of one trick ponies. SSDD, forever.

   Friday - July 29, 2011

gween council suggests meatless day to save planet. union says drop ded

OK, in the scheme of things this itty-bitty bit of nonsense isn’t a big story. But it sure does point out in caps and bold, how the tree hugging liberal left planet savers not only think, but what lengths they’re willing to explore to get their way.

I have no problem at all with someone making suggestions and then simply letting people make their own choice. However, you need to understand the following.
The town council’s Green Party introduced a vegetarian day, as a part of it’s election manifesto in May of this year.
How’s that for a political issue?  And to think. These wild eyed zealots get themselves elected to office.

Alright, so their grand idea has been rejected. People have spoken.  Does it matter?  Well ... only in the short term.

Take a look.

MEAT-FREE MONDAY DUMPED BY BINMEN

By Tim Ridgway

Refuse workers caused a rumpus over a plan to ban meat from the menu.

Brighton and Hove City Council’s Cityclean workers are used to a beefed-up offering at lunch with bacon butties and lashings of lamb top of the wish list.

So they were left horrified when caterers at the council’s depot in Hollingdean, Brighton, decided to offer only meat-free meals.

The idea of “meat-free Monday” formed part of the Green manifesto before the party took control of the local authority in May.

The Cityclean depot was the first to introduce the change.

But managers have been forced to shelve the scheme immediately after the workers refused to let them give chops the chop for even one day a week.

One worker said: “As a result of potential grievances and general disgust at being told no meat would be served in the staff canteen, the policy has been abandoned and they will return to serving meat every day from now on.”

Central services cabinet member Jason Kitcat said: “We are not looking to force this on staff which is why we talked to union representatives before it was introduced.

“The idea is to find ways to get staff and people to talk about the issue.

“We will continue to keep having conversations with staff to find out ways forward.”

Meat Free Monday was launched in 2009 by Paul, Stella and Mary McCartney as “a simple and straightforward idea to show everyone the value of eating less meat”. 

It claims not eating meat for one a day a week can save people money, reduce the impact on the environment and help people live healthier lives.

Supporters include Sir Richard Branson, Gwyneth Paltrow and Joanna Lumley.

A council spokesman said: “It’s disappointing if the concept hasn’t gone down too well.

“But we’ll work to communicate the benefits better and work closer with the workforce in any future plans.”

source

Humankind is by nature carnivorous.  There are many who aren’t.  Many are vegetarians. Hey, their choice.  But Sir Paul has spoken publicly about meat eaters and the ruination of the planet and environment issues related to the meat industry. If he and the gweens had their way, they’d most likely have a ban.
All for the good of humanity naturally. And the twees and fowusts and Bambi.

   Monday - April 18, 2011

stupid california tricks

I actually tripped across this (there’s lots more but I think I lost the link) and found it interesting and the usual scary/stupid California thing.

Hell, I don’t even expect to still be here in 2020. If I am, heaven knows what shape I’ll be in.
Being in love with computers and California is like being in love with an unfaithful mistress.  Yeah I know. I’ve said that before but it’s no less true now.
Gee, both begin the letter ‘C’ and I wonder if there’s a connection. Well, I’ll be.

Let me explain what happened here.  I clicked something without thinking and soon discovered I had subscribed to a feed of some kind. RSS?  I think I did that, thinking I was clicking on to a link for further info. 
So I started reading all kinds of interesting stuff not knowing how the heck I was getting it but there it all was.  And btw, this ALL started because I was looking for Sun City Real Estate.  I was getting cross eyed with those darn thumbnails and then when I did find a site I was hunting for, instead of letting me click thru the photos, they were running a slideshow and no option to slow the damn thing down, as it was running too fast. Are web designers thoughtless er what? Not all of course but I often find the sites for real estate are pretty dumb.

Well anyway, I found myself staring at this page, and before I knew it, I was engrossed. So I decided to post part of it and provide a link. That’s when disaster struck.  I couldn’t find my way back to the page. Back arrow did no good and I have a list a mile long and growing. ????
Then worse happened and I have never experienced this before.

I landed on another story and to be sure I didn’t lose it, I tried to do what I always do when I find things. Or most always.
I open up a Word doc. and paste everything in there including a link to the source, and do any editing needed there.
BUT .......
Not this time.  I got a window that opened and said I was short on memory or disk space. HUH?  NO WAY! So I opened Notepad and pasted the next story there.  So of course, I haven’t any idea what’s going on.  I only know that ever since Microsoft tech helped me last week, I’ve lost a few settings and my printer does not work even tho looking in msconfig it says that spooling is running.  MSFT tech support is calling me back tomorrow afternoon as the issue I originally called them for was left open.  I don’t know why.

Over in the world of transportation, California has mandated that diesel emissions be reduced 85% by that halcyon year, 2020.  This constitutes a multi-whammy for independent truckers, who will have to spend $8K to $20K per truck to retrofit them so that they can be operated through 2016, and will have to purchase new ones (at $80K to $250K a pop) by 2020 – although they won’t be able to get rid of their old ones for better than pennies on the dollar.

(Ed Morrissey wrote earlier this month about the highly questionable study – linking diesel emissions to premature deaths – which led to California’s adoption of the emission-lowering requirement.)

(Hey ... is Calf. following the EU?  Or is the EU taking the lead from the left in CA? Cos they want to eventually do away with diesel here.)

California isn’t worried about the impact of the diesel regulations on the trucking industry.  But it is a big fan of high-speed rail (HSR), on which it’s moving full-speed ahead.  Citizens are calling the first leg of the HSR project the “train to nowhere,” because it will link two moderate-size towns in the Central Valley, which have no commuter needs relevant to the HSR connection – and no cargo needs either, for that matter.

HSR advocates are pointing out that the train will bring jobs to the areas hit hardest by agriculture losses and farm failures, the result of 30 or more years of improvident federal and state water policies.  Myself, I’d rather have the farms.  So would the farmers.

And this is an excellent time to observe that nothing going on here is dictated by blind fate: politicians and regulators are making decisions – according to their opinions; i.e., on the same basis you and I do – about what they want to encourage and discourage.  They are consciously disfavoring agriculture and favoring high-speed rail and environmental “restoration” projects.  (Meaning, “make it like it was in 1960 again, with the salmon runs and the water in my favorite spot in the Delta”; but why not 1910, or 1840, or 1776?) Of course, HSR potentially poses threats to wildlife too, and some environmental groups are pointing that out.

But perhaps the most interesting thing about HSR is that it uses a lot of electricity.  China feeds the HSR system with coal-generated power.  Japan and France feed theirs with nuclear-generated power.  California wants to have HSR but ensure that 33% of the state’s electricity comes from renewables.  Since passive renewables are unreliable on a 24-hour average basis – winds die, clouds come – the rail system will presumably have to monopolize some of the more-reliable electricity being produced for California.

Down the road, there will be an impact, in various forms, from energy unreliability.  My guess is that it will be a combination of even higher electricity prices – a premium (or, basically, extortion) for reliability – along with periodic compromises from regulators on how well the power companies are meeting their mandated renewables goal, and (the practical measure) a proliferation of generators operated by businesses and homeowners, who will want to keep the power saw, the refrigerator, or the a/c on when the grid is overloaded.

In other words, state policy will guarantee that what you spend on electricity goes up, period.

For many power customers, there’s also the option of moving away.

WOO-HOO! I found the link. She’s pretty good. Take a look.

It’s headed, Stupid California Tricks

http://theoptimisticconservative.wordpress.com/

   Tuesday - February 15, 2011

Socialist Nations Cancel Green Initiatives

While Teh World Watches Egypt
Canada cuts funding to wind farms and solar initiatives
UK cuts funding to bio-fuel research
both nations cite lack of cost cost efficiency among reasons
Look - Protests In Iran, Yemen, Syria!
Middle East In Turmoil!!
snip snip snip snip

Times of international turmoil are great moments for domestic governments to make important announcements they don’t want to be noticed. Especially if the announcement involves a sudden reversal in policy that could seriously embarrass the government.

So Friday afternoon was an ideal time for Ontario’s Liberal government to take a big chunk of its alternative energy program and chuck it overboard. Attention was riveted on Egypt, where spectacular events were unfolding.  The perfect opportunity for Premier Dalton McGuinty to engineer yet another major reversal, while paying a minimal price among voters.

After years of touting wind projects as a critical piece of the alternative energy puzzle, the government let slip — very quietly — that offshore wind projects are no longer part of the game plan. Turns out there just isn’t enough scientific evidence that offshore wind projects do a lick of good, said Brad Duguid, the energy minister.

“It’s simply a case of recognizing we need to take a closer look at the science on freshwater offshore wind projects,” said Duguid. “Right now there’s only one in the world we’re aware of, in Sweden. There’s a number of issues that need to be looked at before anything could ever be considered for approval.”

A thousand mostly rural residents across Ontario who were awarded solar energy contracts last summer have been told their projects have been put on hold.

That has left many with tens of thousands of dollars invested in projects for which they now have no prospect of getting any income.

“I’ve got $70,000 sitting right out in my backyard,” said Brian Wilson, who lives near Belleville, of his 10-kilowatt solar array. “I can go two doors down and they’ve got $70,000 invested, too.”

But they’ve both been told that they can’t connect to the electrical grid because of technical issues.
...
The province told 20,000 applicants across Ontario last year they had been awarded contracts for solar energy under what they called their microFIT program.

About 3,700 have been connected to date.

But about 1,000 have now been told they can’t be connected in the foreseeable future, because local utilities don’t have the wires or other equipment to carry their power to the grid.

The would-be solar entrepreneurs already had one bitter battle with the provincial government last summer, when the province slashed the rate being paid for power from some types of installations.

Meanwhile, over in the UK:

Carbon Trust funding cut by 40%

Cuts to the government’s low-carbon agency will cancel grants to biofuel projects and cause dozens of redundancies

The government’s leading low-carbon agency has had its funding cut by 40%, causing the cancellation of grants to a major biofuel scheme and other projects, and dozens of redundancies.

The Carbon Trust, whose mission is “to accelerate the move to a low-carbon economy”, will receive £50m from the government in 2011-12. It will end free on-site energy surveys for businesses and 35 of its 216 employees will lose their jobs.

“Public funding still remains necessary and important to achieving our mission, especially in catalysing low-carbon innovation to overcome market failures and in supporting smaller businesses to cut carbon,” said Tom Delay, the Carbon Trust’s chief executive. But with public funding “constrained”, he said, the trust would look to the private sector for investment.
...
But Adam Harvey, a chemical engineer at Newcastle University, said: “The cut is very much against the claim of David Cameron and the government that they would regenerate the UK’s economy via green technology – it’s the exact opposite in fact.”

Harvey’s research group had received a grant from the Carbon Trust as part of an £8m effort to develop biofuels from algae, but the funding has been axed halfway through the project.

From The Daily Bayonet

Solar and wind subsidies are unsustainable and always were.  As as soon as voters woke up to the billions being wasted on greenwashing, [Canada’s] McGuinty changed tack, but he owns the green agenda and is the father of the Green Energy Act come October it may be his end.  Let’s hope so.

“Greenwashing”. What a great term. And now loads of Canadians and Britons are going to suffer, not just the wasted tax money, but because they believed their government’s Green Initiative BS, and invested loads of their own money, “knowing” that the government would continue to subsidize them. That’s all off now. Reality bites, even for the Socialists. None of this will slow Obama down a step, of course.

Angering rural voters, and battering your credibility with the environmental crowd, aren’t great ideas if you run a government that faces an election in eight months. So it’s no wonder that Ontario’s Liberals sought to hide the bad news by releasing it when (they hoped) no one was watching. But the excitement in Egypt won’t last forever, and eventually people will notice that Ontario’s government, once again, has been forced into a humiliating retreat at considerable trouble and cost to individual Ontarians.

Jiggle the lever! This one isn’t flushing down the Memory Hole fast enough!

   Tuesday - December 21, 2010

Not Slow, Not Fast

Half Fast Green Idea:
New Wind Farm For Texas
Nearly Half A Billion In Stimulus Money
Windmills Made In China



new wind farm will chop birds in Texas into stir-fry size pieces

Powerful Democrats help Chinese energy firm chase stimulus money
Sen. Reid and Obama donors back company seeking $450 million in U.S. money

Top Democratic fundraisers and lobbyists with links to the White House are behind a proposed wind farm in Texas that stands to get $450 million in stimulus money, even though a Chinese company would operate the farm and its turbines would be built in China.

The farm’s backers also have close ties with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., who, at the height of his hard-fought re-election bid this fall, helped blunt congressional criticism over stimulus dollars possibly going to create jobs in China by endorsing a proposal by the Chinese company to build a factory in his home state. Although his campaign received thousands of dollars in donations from the wind farm’s backers and Reid stood on stage with them at a campaign event they hosted, his office declined to answer any questions about the wind farm’s organizers or their plans for Nevada.

The wind farm, first announced more than a year ago, would consist of 300 2-megawatt wind turbines, each perched atop a 26-story-tall steel tower and spinning three blades — each half the length of a football field. The farm would span three counties and 36,000 acres in West Texas land best known for its oil.  Dubbed the Spinning Star wind farm, the project’s 600-megawatt capacity is, theoretically, enough to power 180,000 American homes and would be the sixth-largest wind farm in the country.

It is being planned by an unusual joint partnership between the U.S. Renewable Energy Group, a Dallas investment firm with strong ties to Washington and the Democratic Party, and A-Power Energy Generation Systems, an upstart Chinese supplier of wind turbines. Filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission indicate the Chinese are bringing financing and the turbines.

On Sept. 15, 2009, just weeks before he announced his new renewable energy venture that would tap Obama’s stimulus plan for hundreds of millions of dollars, McGarr met with Pete Rouse, one of three “senior advisers” to the president. Rouse was named acting chief-of-staff in October 2010 after Rahm Emmanuel announced his departure. Rouse was formerly the chief-of-staff for former Democratic Senate leader Tom Daschle. McGarr is the chairman of Daschle’s political action committee.

This last paragraph is a bit out of context. Read the article an it becomes clear, that the people behind this project are all big-time DNC cash donators and bundlers. ( and it’s an MSNBC article to boot, so you know this part is downplayed ) They’re tied into the Chicago Machine and the DNC Elites like white on rice. So this is just another case of Osneaky taking care of his peeps. Half a billion here, half a billion there, it’s not like it’s our money or anything. Or that the taxpayers will ever have to pay this cash back. Oh, wait. Um, never mind!

Meanwhile the Democrats continue their utterly false class warfare demagoguery on the Evil Rich™, while passing out zillions to rich folks and lobbyists who are in line with their agendas. I’m sure if this group wanted to put in the wind farm without sending a cent overseas they would not stand an ice cube’s chance in Hell of getting as much as a dollar in stimulus cash. But their plan will bleed America, so that half billion is pretty much guaranteed. Probably with another billion waiting in the wings for the inevitable cost overruns.

   Friday - December 17, 2010

New Stevie!

   Monday - December 13, 2010

cancun … where the elite meet ta eat and frolic while others pick up the tab.

DOWN, with global warming.

UP, with Climate Change.  All hail and long live the newer version of the old religion.  Tax donate till it hurts in order to help the poorer countries.

Hey, why not just let those poor countries tax the west and forget donations etc.  Hell, they’ve been taxing us for generations anyway.

Newspapers and charities insist on showing us pictures of baleful stares and pitiful poses (and mostly they are posed), of starving turd worlders. Like Somalia for one example. Haiti is another.  Oh yeah. Before I forget. 

What the sam hill is our lady Sarah doing in Haiti?  She is getting some bad input from advisors I think.  Come on, is anyone gonna believe it was her idea? Even if it were, it’s going to be seen as more political (which you know it has to be) then any warm feelings for a failed country that has been an open money pit for the west for generations.  Nothing is going to change in that blighted place for the next thousand years.  Those folks just are not up to it. Alright, maybe they’ll start to make progress in 500 years. Sarah Palin in Haiti my friends just does not appear natural.  Couldn’t her advisors find something a bit closer to home to focus on? 

Back to climate change and the horrid things man and woman kind are doing to our planet.  Leaving huge carbon footprints. One of the newest of the new deadly sins in this religion. So like 15,000 (or was it 1,500?) fat cats from around the globe, all gathered in comfy rooms at four or five star hotels in Cancun, with miles of rented limos and how many planes?  All to discuss the subject bequeathed by the prophet Gore, may he find a good piece to curl up with. 

So it now comes to this.  It’s suggested that another tax be levied on the Brit taxpayer in gween taxes, to help the poor blighted countries of the world.
As though this country hasn’t paid, and been paying for years and years and years and years and years ......  When is this BS gonna end? When exactly are people going to wake the hell up and say damn it. Enough!  Groan.

Here. Take a look.

Cancun climate change conference: Britain is urged to impose £15 billion in green taxes

British taxpayers could pay an extra £600 per year in green taxes to help poor countries cope with the floods and droughts caused by climate change, Lord Stern has suggested.

By Louise Gray, Environment Correspondent Cancun

The economist said the UK would have to contribute around £1.5 billion from 2020 to a new ‘green fund’, that is expected to be set up during global talks on climate change in Cancun this week.

The Treasury is unlikely to set up new mechanisms to raise such a small amount of cash.

Therefore it is better to raise ten times as much and use just ten per cent for the green fund. The rest can be used as the Government sees fit.

An extra £15 billion could be raised in taxes on polluting industry and power from coal, gas and petrol. Although the levies will be directly on factories or power stations, eventually it will come down to the consumers.

If every householder was to pay the same amount it would cost £600, although ultimately it is likely to be unevenly distributed as households with more cars or high energy use will pay more.

“People would see these tax rises through electricity, through cars,” said Lord Stern.

However he was keen to point out that the overall bill for households would not necessarily increase as taxes should reduce elsewhere. Also energy costs should come down as a result of improved efficiency and more renewables.

“This is a story of people paying for the damage they do, this is stopping subsidising pollution,” he said.

“This is a story of shifting the basis of taxation, it could be from VAT, it could be income tax, or they could fund schools. This is a change in the balance of taxation.”

The UK is already paying billions of pounds installing wind turbines and other green energy sources, as part of global efforts to cut carbon emissions.

more here

The hard copy version says the taxpayer SHOULD pay ... the on line version says COULD pay.

Why not just forget about it altogether?  Cos then all those fat cats would have no where to fly every year at someone else’s expense. They’d most likely have to stay home. Maybe even with their wives and or husbands.

   Monday - December 06, 2010

Doing It The Wrong Way

This looks like some major arm twisting to me. A kind of extortion, similar to Jesse Jackson’s actions against businesses. Or it is simple common sense?

Bow to my rainbow: plan for ships to be marked with emissions efficiency colors

Virgin boss Sir Richard Branson has declared war on the shipping industry with a new climate change initiative.

source

The Carbon War Room, an independent venture, wants to see an efficiency rating on every ocean going vessel to help clean up the industry. It is the first of many industries being targeted by the group who believe climate change can be solved through business rather than government summits. Ministers from 190 countries are into their second week of negotiations in Cancun, Mexico with no sign of a global deal.

Sir Richard told Sky News: “It is up to us business leaders to help those politicians deliver, they haven’t delivered so far, if they don’t deliver we can’t afford to wait. “It is up to us to get our house in order and make sure the world is safe for our children and our grandchildren.”

While shipping is a relatively clean mode of transport it accounts for over a billion tonnes of C02 a year - if it were a country it would be the world’s sixth biggest emitter. Carbon War Room believe the sector could be made at least 30% more efficient by upgrading and refitting ships. Their website http://www.shippingefficiency.org has catalogued 60,000 of the world’s ocean going vessels, with the cleanest rated ‘A’ and the worst polluters scoring ‘G’.

Peter Boyd, who is leading the project, explained: “You can go online and see an estimate of how clean or dirty the ship is. Whether you are an owner and you want to display that you are an A grade ship, whether you are a port or if you are a brand like Marks and Spencer or Sainsbury’s, you can start to pick your fleet depending on how efficient it is.”

The ratings are estimates but Carbon War Room believes there is only a one to two percent margin of error.

Industry experts welcome the move although they say it currently paints a very general picture.

Dr Simon Walmsley of WWF International told Sky News the ratings would provoke an industry reaction “and hopefully get them around the table to discuss how this can be a more accurate representation.”

“If that happens this will be fantastic, as these sort of rankings are very helpful for both customers and consumers.”

Right-o. So we’ve got a bunch of greenies here, or what? Or is it real? It shouldn’t be all that hard to figure out: ( mass of freight cargo hauled X distance traveled ) ÷ ( fuel used X weather factor ) = Efficiency Rating, and that rating implies a pollution level. Well, ceteris paribus. Which it never really is, because things are only equal in Economics 101. In the real world they never are.

One problem though: if you don’t factor in time, then sailboats will appear to be the big winners here. And if you do factor in time, you’ll soon see that the most gigantic ships are the most efficient ones, even though they pollute the most on a per ship basis. Not only that, but proper analysis will show that only 3 or 4 routes across the seas are the most efficient. And anyone who knows a bit about logistics will see the risks and problems with shipping One Big Order from point A to point B when you actually need 12 little orders to go to points C, D, E ... N. So secondary transport costs and warehousing have to figure into the equation to make it meaningful, and they never will (each company’s needs and locations are different). So this is a worthless metric. Sound and fury, signifying nothing.

On the third hand, no matter which way you slice it, this greenie rating will show that in terms of fuel efficiency and lower emissions, nuclear powered civilian owned cargo ships are the way to go. And that will blow their minds. Or cause them to argue for Obama and the One-Worlders to now take over the shipping industry.

But it does rather look like arm twisting to me: “government isn’t getting the job done, so we’ll turn to the market and let them solve it ... by publishing a list of ratings we dreamed up, causing a big ruckus and frightening dogs and little children, then we’ll twist the clean-air-guilt screws on retail businesses, then we’ll have a big meeting with all the shipping companies and see if we can’t figure out a way to make our ratings, you know, actually accurate.” Say what??

On the fourth hand, all of this is predicated on the belief that shipping customers could give a flying fart about the emissions generated by the ships they hire to bring in their cargoes. Seems to me that the only thing that matters to them is the volumetric time to cost ratio: I need a lot of my stuff and I need it right now = pay more, vs I’ll take a little and I can wait = pay less. I guess Branson thinks he’s going to run millions and millions of ad campaigns that say “Oh noes, the Dover Rover Cheese Company imported a barrel of rennet on a dirty boat! Don’t buy their products!” and that will actually have meaning? Oh please. After the 5th ad for the 3rd product for the boycott de jour NOBODY will pay it any attention whatsoever. And all any company will have to do is to bring in ONE load of stuff per year on the M/V Mr. Clean, and make an ad about it. The rest of the time they can explain away using the SS Dirty Birdy as “spreading the wealth around” to “developing third world economies” and get a total pass.

This is a dipshit idea Sir Richard. Now go wash your hair, you look like a greasy teenager.

   Friday - November 26, 2010

gorebal warming is slowing down … where will that leave the priests of the new religion?

Oh dear .. The Bunny Huggers aren’t gonna alike this.
Be interesting to learn what sort of excuses or bad names will be applied to the scientists who do not belong to the new GWarming religion.

Now before settling in on anything or accepting this report, lets wait to hear what Al Bore has to say on the subject.
He has been kind of quiet lately tho, hasn’t he?

Global warming has slowed down over the past 10 years, say scientists

By Daily Mail Reporter

The rate at which global temperatures are rising has slowed in the past decade, scientists said today.

In a report published today, the Met Office said the slow in the rate of warming was down to a combination of natural variation in the weather and pollution.

Scientists say one of the major factors is the rise in heavy industry and pollutant ‘aerosols’, particularly in Asia.

An upsurge in industrial emissions such as sulphur which are being pumped into the atmosphere reflects sunlight and could lead to a cooling effect.

Changes in the amount of water vapour in the stratosphere may also be a factor, the report suggests.

The admission will be seized upon by climate sceptics as evidence that man-made global warming has been overstated.

all the rest of it is here

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