Thursday - May 29, 2008

The phoney climate change war is upon us.  (Found in a Liberal? paper)

From The TimesMay 27, 2008

Personal carbon credits: the trick
The phoney climate change war is upon us. We’re are being drawn into a Blitz spirit
Mick Hume

Get out your gas masks and tin hats. We are under attack from a noxious army of doom-troopers demanding that we treat climate change as a rerun of the Second World War. In the latest move to militarise everyday life, the Environmental Audit Committee of MPs has seriously proposed energy rationing, aka “personal carbon credits”.

What next? Little (green) Hitlers patrolling the streets yelling “Put that high-energy light out!”?

Or a campaign to bring back rickets? Everybody from the Prince of Wales to liberal newspapers and former Labour ministers now compares climate change to the war. Baroness Young of Old Scone, head of the Environment Agency, says this is “World War Three”. If it’s not breaking the Official Secrets Act, could somebody explain what on earth they are on about?

The notion of a “war on carbon” makes even less sense than the glorious “wars” on terror/drugs/crime/whatever.

No, these evocations of the past appear political rather than practical. The aim is to create an ersatz Blitz Spirit that could bring people together behind a phoney war on global warming. Governments desperate for a unifying cause are naturally sympathetic. But they are also aware that hard-up Brits who see few bombs falling are unlikely to be too keen on making wartime sacrifices. Thus new Labour, which previously admitted it might “need to go back to rationing”, has retreated from the carbon credits proposal, fearful of further voter desertions.

What solution do the doom-troopers propose to the problem of public resistance? Let’s suspend democracy, like we did in the good old days! While one leading liberal writer insists that all the main parties must include identical austerity measures in their manifestos (not much change there then), another feminist veteran, Rosie Boycott, demands that they dump party politics altogether and form a national coalition based on Churchill’s wartime Government. Altogether now: “We will fight them in the recycling bins...”

The most depressing thing for me is that the Left is leading this retreat into wartime bunkers with relish, claiming that sharing out the misery is “progressive”. Whatever happened to raising people’s living standards and tackling serious social problems by moving forwards rather than back? That’s why it was called “progress”. And if you do want a lesson from history, note that the US economy met the challenge of the Second World War by doubling its output.

When the misery of rationing finally ended in 1954, people held ceremonies to celebrate and the power minister publicly burnt a big replica ration book. No doubt today he would be dragged over the coals for the war crime of carbon emission.

http://tinyurl.com/5rtukl

Posted by Drew458     on 05/29/2008 at 07:48 AM   
Filed Under: • Climate-Weather • Environment •  
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   Thursday - May 22, 2008

Crime so awful, so depraved and immoral and silly, I don’t know if y’all are ready for it.

"T’aint Funny McGee” Crime is Crime after all and we can’t make exceptions.
(for you Yanks, that’s $600)

Mother fined £300 for putting bins out early
By Urmee Khan

Last Updated: 4:07AM BST 22/05/2008 |

A woman has been fined nearly £300 for leaving her bins out a day before they were due to be collected.
Zoe Watmough, 22, left the bins, a grey one and a green one for recycling, outside her home on a Wednesday ready for collection the next day.

Council officers issued her with a £75 fine claiming that the bins had been put out 24 hours before they were due to be emptied.

But the mother-of-three refused to pay and ended up facing magistrates in Bolton, where she was fined £125 and ordered to pay £125 costs and a £15 victim surcharge.

Speaking on Wednesday, Miss Watmough said: “I am flabbergasted at the outcome. All I did was put my rubbish out the night before it was due to be collected.

“Surely households up and down the country do that every week. The next thing I knew, I got a letter from the council which said I was getting a fine. There was no way I could afford to pay it.”

She added: “Everybody in this area puts their bins out the day before collection. I don’t see what the problem is. I have not hurt anyone, caused any obstruction or even littered the area. The fact is, I can’t afford to pay the fine.”

The court heard that Miss Watmough had already been sent a warning under environmental health rules by council officers who spotted her bins on the street on a Tuesday last November. Officers claimed that the bins had been put out 48 hours before collection.

Bolton council said it was pursuing prosecutions over bins left on streets because of the number of arson attacks by youths.

A spokesman said: “Officers visited on Jan 23 to find bins belonging to Miss Watmough on the public highway. On this occasion no other bins from neighbouring properties were in the street.

“Miss Watmough was issued a fixed penalty notice for failing to return her waste bins to her property. This penalty was not paid in the specified time period of 14 days and legal proceedings were initiated.”

Disputes between residents and councils over bin collection are increasingly common.

Last week Barry Freezer, a 73-year-old retired milkman, mistakenly put cabbage stalks in with his garden waste and was reprimanded by Norwich city council. Binmen claimed that the trimmings were kitchen rubbish.

The same council had refused to empty the bin of partially-sighted Lenny Woodward, 95, because he put a ketchup bottle and an empty coffee jar in the wrong bin.

“Everybody in this area puts their bins out the day before collection. I don’t see what the problem is.”

http://tinyurl.com/4s72no

Posted by Drew458     on 05/22/2008 at 09:30 AM   
Filed Under: • Crime • Environment •  
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   Friday - May 16, 2008

Save The Earth: Stop Breathing Right Now!!!

Ok, now that Global Warming has wimped out and become Climate Change, and now that the Carbon Credits thing has begun to show itself as the scam that it is, the Eco-freaks have come up with a new gas we should all be afraid of. Nitrogen. Which makes up a mere 78% or thereabouts of our atmosphere. Nitrogen. You know, that stuff that plants can’t live without. The stuff that everything can’t live without actually. So now there’s too much of it, in the wrong form. And it’s all humanity’s fault, although the blame really ought to be given to Bush!! Well, just because. Why not, everything else is.

While carbon dioxide has been getting lots of publicity in climate change, reactive forms of nitrogen are also building up in the environment, scientists warn.

“The public does not yet know much about nitrogen, but in many ways it is as big an issue as carbon, and due to the interactions of nitrogen and carbon, makes the challenge of providing food and energy to the world’s peoples without harming the global environment a tremendous challenge,” University of Virginia environmental sciences professor James Galloway said in a statement.

“We are accumulating reactive nitrogen in the environment at alarming rates, and this may prove to be as serious as putting carbon dioxide in the atmosphere,” said Galloway, author of a paper and co-author of a second on the topic in Friday’s issue of the journal Science.

While nitrogen alone is inert and harmless, reactive nitrogen compounds — such as ammonia — have been released by its use in nitrogen-based fertilizers and the large-scale burning of fossil fuels.

Various forms of nitrogen contribute to greenhouse warming, smog, haze, acid rain dead zones with little or no life along the coasts, and depletion of the ozone layer in the stratosphere, the researchers concluded.

The researchers propose ways to reduce nitrogen use, ranging from encouraging its uptake by plants to recovering and reusing nitrogen from manure and sewage and decreasing nitrogen emissions from fossil fuel combustion.

Let’s start a betting pool to guess which gas will be next in the Fear The Air shellgame. I’ll take hydrogen by next February. But I can guarantee you somebody is going to make a lot of money off of this. That’s how it always works. Raise the Fear, Reap the Profits. What a bunch of ester releasing, nitrogen rich, organic compost. Mooo!

Read all about this terrible problem right here at the INI (International Nitrogen Initiative) webpage brochure:

The Problem
There are two major problems with nitrogen: some regions of the world do not have enough reactive
nitrogen to sustain human life, resulting in hunger and malnutrition, while other regions have too much
nitrogen (due mainly to the burning of fossil fuel and to the inefficient incorporation of nitrogen into food
products) resulting in a large number of major human health and ecological effects.

The Challenge
The challenge of nitrogen is how to optimize the use of nitrogen to sustain human life while minimizing the
negative impacts on the environment and human health. It is critical to the health of humans and
ecosystems that this challenge be met. It is doubly critical because without action, future populations will
be more stressed either due to nitrogen limitations or due to nitrogen excesses.

So you can tell already what The Solution is going to be, right? OF COURSE it will be “fairer distribution” and the only way to make that happen is Worldwide Socialism! This Greenie Bullshit is so damned transparent. Shine a light under any bush and you’ll find that the roots are Red.

( I can see another solution. The general gist of the nitrogen movement will be to ban artificial fertilizers. Guaranteed. The hippies have been crying about that for decades. But the Turd World doesn’t have enough nitrogen in the soil for their agriculture. And nitrogen is released by organic decomposition. So let’s clean up our act, and send all our raw sewage to these countries. Spread it around evenly, about a foot deep. After that nobody will be able to say that they’re Piss Poor anymore, they’ll have plenty of nitrogen, and the odds are they won’t notice the smell anyway. )

Posted by Drew458     on 05/16/2008 at 11:10 AM   
Filed Under: • Climate-Weather • Commies • Environment •  
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You can’t make this stuff up

A council spent £1 million protecting a colony of rare newts on a building site only to discover that none lived there.

Leicestershire County Council delayed a major road-building scheme for three months after evidence of great crested newts was found on the site. The species is protected by law, but after the authority paid hundreds of thousands of pounds for special newt-fencing and traps, not one of the rare creatures was discovered.

The action was taken on the strength of a report from environmental experts, which found there could have been between one and 10 of the 6in amphibians on the site.

Officials yesterday lodged a complaint with the government, claiming the outlay would have a knock-on effect on local services.

The council leader David Parsons said: “I’m not happy that we have gone a million pounds over on the bypass and then found no great crested newts.

“It’s completely unacceptable. I’ve written to the minister concerned, and all he can say to me is that it’s because of European Union regulations.”

The possible colony was found near the £15 million Earl Shilton bypass in Leicester during surveys last summer. A 1,000-yard exclusion zone was erected around ponds while further tests were carried out and hundreds of thousands of pounds was spent on newt-proof fences and traps to move the amphibians when hibernation ended in spring.

Workers were even required to inspect the traps twice a day once temperatures rose above 41F (5C).

But Derek Needham, council engineering manager, confirmed yesterday: “We have caught a number of normal newts but no great crested newts.”

Officials at the council, which commissioned the road, could have faced a large fine or even jail if they had failed to protect a colony. Mr Parsons said: “We have to safeguard wildlife, but we need a change in the law. This is an awful lot of money, and the public will take it badly.”

I bet the newts were eaten by some endangered heron or something. Fargin greenies, just out of control. Screw the little wigglers, build the damn road.

Posted by Drew458     on 05/16/2008 at 11:00 AM   
Filed Under: • Environment • Stoopid-People •  
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   Thursday - April 24, 2008

a sing along.  “I’mmmm Dweeming ov a Gween Pwanet” nah, just doesn’t have that ring to it.

That’s 14 million US bucks folks.  A case of more money then taste say I.

Editorial from The Telegraph

Eco plague inflated Orchid House priceLast Updated: 12:01am BST 24/04/2008

Orchid House is not just a country home - it is an eco-home. And thanks to those three little letters, and its position in a Cotswold nature reserve, it has been sold for £7.2 million.

Earth: Eco-home in Cotswolds fetches record £7.2m

In this case, the “eco” description is probably apt, given the whizzy technology employed in the house’s construction and operation.

Yet that prefix has, since its arrival in the late 1960s, become something of a plague, not to mention a weapon in the hands of the marketeers: a tax on cars is billed as an “eco-tax”, and drivers are meant to cough up with glee; new towns plonked in the countryside are “eco-towns”, and so must be welcomed by councils and locals alike.

We await the first criminal to defend himself as an “eco-thief” - arguing in mitigation that by stealing his victim’s car, or television, he has also cut their carbon emissions.

http://tinyurl.com/54kr7h

Posted by Drew458     on 04/24/2008 at 09:59 AM   
Filed Under: • Environment •  
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   Wednesday - April 23, 2008

£75 charge for parents who do the school run in a 4x4 ‘gas guzzler’ (That’s $100 USA)

Are they doing something similiar back home? (USA) Seems I read or heard about it.

Anyway, I think it’s another way to scam the folks who can buy one of these. How about larger families? What’s next? An ASBO for a family with more then one child?  Two or three kids means ya need a bigger car.  Selfish unpatriotic planet killers.
Btw ... about 18 months ago, maybe more, a new regulation came into being with regard to the size and fit of child safety seats in cars. Even for kids as old as 10.  Now I’m not certain on this one point, but it may include 11 year olds as well.

Well, the damn safety seats which are mandatory are rather largish and cumbersome.  It’s my understanding that they won’t fit into really smaller cars, and I’ve no idea how that’s been addressed.  But, I have read that due to the size of these safety seats, many with multiple children have bought larger cars to accommodate the seats required by health and safety.

Thing that bothers me about this is that the cars in question are legal. The ppl who bought them have already paid a pretty hefty tax to own one. I haven’t a clue as to gas milage on these things, but if they’re so god awful bad then why allow their import?  If you allow them to be imported and taxed, what right does some self appointed busy body have to show disapproval by extra taxes?
But on the other hand now.  There is this.

This story centers around London. Think New York but much worse. Very narrow streets, HUGE congestion problems that never end and show no signs of doing so any time soon.

Many of these “people movers” are owned not by large families but by small ones. They are also the status symbol of the folks who can afford the luxury.
There are no garages in 80% of London.  You park in the street or often make some other arrangements.  Know too that to live in London and own one of these cars take a lot of $$$$. Or in the case here, ££££.  These generally are banking or investment types or folks often referred to as the movers and, they don’t usually have large families. Maybe one or two children.  Their very large cars take up a lot of room, and when it comes to taking the kiddies to school it’s been found that very many DO NOT car pool and in fact use these things to drop off just one child at school.

London has one thing in common with cities like NY in that many don’t have cars.  I’ve known ppl in both places who simply get around by subway (called the tube here) or by bus.  Sometimes train.  Never occurred to me to ask what they did on weekends.  I also know that some have cars they don’t use except to go further afield.  But make no mistake, the bigger cars, the 4x4s, the “people movers” do take a lot of space and really do add to problems of parking etc. This is NOT a new issue. It’s impossible to get around one of these vehicles on a London street if you needed to.  The problem of small parking spaces, narrow streets and overlarge cars in crowded spaces is a serious problem.

Having said all that .... I’m still bothered because the following article doesn’t mention all that.  No.  The problem among the busy bodies is apparently “emission
levels” of large cars.  They want to drive down, they say, the amount of carbon emissions caused by what they see as gas guzzlers.  Well, what if one 4x4 is actually being used to car pool several children. Isn’t that better then three or four smaller cars on the road?  And anyway, I have to return to my first point with regard to a car legally imported and taxed already.  If emissions are going to be the sticking point, then the tax should occur at the point of purchase all up
front. 

£75 charge for parents who do the school run in a 4x4 ‘gas guzzler’
By GWYNETH REES - More by this author »

Last updated at 20:39pm on 20th April 2008


Parents driving “gas guzzlers” on the school run are to be charged £75 a year.

Those who use 4x4s and people carriers will be hardest hit by plans to start charging parents to park in bays outside schools.

The fees will vary according to how “green” a car is, and those in smaller vehicles with lower emissions will pay nothing at all.

The scheme is currently being tested in the London borough of Richmond Upon Thames.

If it proves successful, it will be rolled out across the country.

Campaign groups and motoring organisations yesterday reacted with fury to the plans.

Sheila Rainger, of the RAC Foundation motoring charity, said: “This is yet another stealth tax that is hitting the family budget. For many parents, it is necessary to have a large car as they have three children who need car seats.

“It is very worrying that tax bands linked to carbon emissions are being used more and more frequently as a means of penalising motorists.

“At a time when fuel is going up, many people don’t have the money to pay for these additional charges.

“It would be better if there were incentives to drive smaller cars - such as parking closer to the school - than financial penalties for those driving larger cars.”

Margaret Morrissey, of the National Confederation of Parent Teacher Associations, called the scheme “unfair and unrealistic”.

She said: “Mums and small children are such an easy target for councils.

“They should try offering some parking provisions and stop this nonsense. Many families have three or four children and they need the space to fit child seats.”

Previously, parents in Richmond could pick up a free permit from schools allowing them to park for free on double yellow lines or in bays for ten minutes.

But under the new scheme, to be introduced in September, those driving cars with higher carbon dioxide emissions will be charged £75 a year for such a permit.

Drivers of low-polluting cars will escape any charge.

In the trial, 13 schools will allow only parents with a permit to park for 15 minutes in a local bay.

The Local Government Association has already warned that the scheme will be rolled out across the country in the near future.

It follows a move by Richmond Council in 2006 to link the price of residents’ parking permits to engine emissions.

Those with larger cars saw their permit prices triple.

Last month, the Liberal Democrat-run council in the borough also announced it was changing its 200-vehicle public transport fleet to run on biodiesel, made from recycled cooking oil.

A spokesman for the council defended the move to charge, saying it was just following the Government’s lead.

He said: “The Government is trying to reduce school-run car use and we support it.

“We want to drive down carbon dioxide emissions and become the most sustainable county in the country.”

The council claimed that parents on the school run account for a fifth of the traffic on the borough’s roads at 8.50am during term time.
http://tinyurl.com/4ng6on

Posted by Drew458     on 04/23/2008 at 07:54 AM   
Filed Under: • Environment •  
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   Monday - March 24, 2008

15mph speed limit to force people out of cars

An idea whose time has come?
Good grief.  What next?
Global warming?  Hey ... according to the weather dudes this has been the coldest Easter in 25 years here in the UK.

The gument btw wants to force supermarkets to give up plastic bags.  That one alone deserves it’s own moonbat award.

15mph speed limit to force people out of cars
By David ThomasLast Updated: 5:23pm GMT 24/03/2008

Speed limits of just 15 miles-per-hour are to be introduced on major roads in planned new towns across the country as part of an effort to reduce global warming.

Have your say: What do you make of the 15mph plans?
Caroline Flint, the housing minister, will unveil the measure when she publishes planning guidelines later this week for up to 15 “eco-towns” across the UK, which will house 100,000 people.

New speed limits will be designed to encourage cycling
The Government wants the towns designed and built to encourage people to stay out of their cars.

It will introduce the low speed limit as a means of getting people to use public transport, walk more or use bicycles, with the aim of cutting pollution and increasing the quality of life for local residents.

The measure has been attacked by pro-car campaigners who called it “lunacy” and fear it is a pilot project ahead of limit cuts in other towns and cities.

Nigel Humphries, of the Association of British Drivers (ABD), said the move was the latest in a long line of attacks on drivers by the Government and questioned whether the move would make people abandon cars.

“It is ridiculous. It is another step towards the return of the man with the red flag walking in front of the car. The Government has got to think of a different way. It just shows how flawed the idea of eco-towns is if they have to bully people into getting out of their cars in this way.”

Under the plans, the central areas of the new towns would be pedestrianised, with the 15mph limit introduced on “key roads” into the centre. All homes would be built within 400 yards of public transport stop and 800 yards from shops.

This, the Government argues, will mean just 25 to 40 per cent of journeys will require a car, compared with the current national average of 85 per cent.

Mrs Flint on Monday said the Government had an opportunity to “deliver a programme which will genuinely revolutionise the way people live” and would not shy award from controversial ideas.

She said: “These developments will be exemplars for the rest of the world, not just the rest of the country. It’s critical that we get it right - and I make no apology for setting the bar as high as possible.”

The RAC questioned whether a blanket 15mph ban was appropriate in all cases, saying a case-by-case approach was needed.

“If they are just looking at it from a vehicle emissions point of view, they need to look at individual situations,” a spokesman said.

“The Government should use individual studies and monitoring after three months to see if the limit is still working.”

A shortlist of carbon neutral eco-towns will be drawn up from the current list of 60 possible sites in the coming weeks. But several prospective sites are already the focus of opposition from local residents.

Plans for a new town of 15,000 homes near the picturesque village of Weston-on-the-Green in Oxfordshire are being opposed by local residents, led by the parents of former British tennis champion Tim Henman.

http://tinyurl.com/yq9jny

Posted by Drew458     on 03/24/2008 at 04:48 PM   
Filed Under: • Environment • Miscellaneous •  
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   Friday - January 18, 2008

the politics of fear, along with a big helping of BS

Get out your hip-boots folks, here it comes:

The new Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards - set by Congress and signed into law by President Bush in the new energy bill - will require vehicles to get 35 miles per gallon by the year 2020 and will add somewhere between $900 and $10,000 to the cost of buying a car, dependent upon which expert is consulted.

Bob Lutz, vice chairman at General Motors, predicts the highest increase per vehicle -between $4,000 and $10,000 - with the average about $6,000.

“No matter what the cost is - $900 or $9,000 - is the consumer willing to pay that much more or should they be forced to pay that much more because of a government mandate?” Kelsey Zahourek, federal affairs manager with Americans for Tax Reform, told Cybercast News Service.

In fact, Zahourek said, because the CAFE standards are a federal regulation, the cost to consumers is no different than a new tax.

“If the cost is incurred due to a government regulation, it’s just a hidden form of taxation,” Zahourek said.

“Like my colleague Sam Kazman likes to say, ‘CAFE kills,’” Ebell told Cybercast News Service. Ebell cited a 2001 study by the National Academy of Sciences that examined the earlier CAFE standards imposed in the 1970s.
...
“It also noted that downsizing of vehicles in the 1970s and 1980s may have contributed to an additional 1,300 to 2,600 fatalities (alone)” - a number that could add up to thousands more deaths on American highways under the new CAFE standards, Ebell said.

There could be other victims of the CAFE standards, said Ebell. The American men and women who work for automakers could face job cuts, a possibility that would be devastating in states like Michigan, which has the highest unemployment in the nation at 7.4 percent.

“It seems to me that when Congress says over and over again that they care about protecting American jobs and then pass something like this, I think they are being incredibly short-sighted,” Ebell said.

I’m not a fan of CAFE requirements. I’d much rather we exploit all the other energy sources we have and refuse to use. But if it has to be, then it has to be. It’s for The Chiiildren^tm after all.

Original article here

Posted by Drew458     on 01/18/2008 at 03:17 PM   
Filed Under: • Environment • Government • Motorvators •  
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   Monday - October 22, 2007

The Debate IS NOT Over

Via Misha and the Jawa Report, we see another great smackdown by John Stossel (PBUH) against the bull of man-made global warming.

Posted by Drew458     on 10/22/2007 at 09:58 AM   
Filed Under: • Climate-Weather • Environment •  
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   Wednesday - July 18, 2007

What’s that Smell?

Hypocrisy, my friends, that’s what it is.

Seems that besides burning up tankers full of jet fuel, spewing tons of CO² into the air and generally making an ass of himself, the Goracle^© flew back to the land of the free and partook of one of the world’s most threatened fish species.

ONLY one week after Live Earth, Al Gore’s green credentials slipped while hosting his daughter’s wedding in Beverly Hills.

Gore and his guests at the weekend ceremony dined on Chilean sea bass - arguably one of the world’s most threatened fish species.

Also known as Patagonian toothfish, the species is under pressure from illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing activities in the Southern Ocean, jeopardising the sustainability of remaining stocks.

The species is currently managed by the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Living Marine Resources, the body which introduced a catch and trade documentation scheme as an attempt to tackle illegal poaching of this species.

Imagine.  A Leftist who DEMANDS that you change your ways is not ashamed at all to do as he pleases.

ScienceBlogs puts it this way:

Gore: Ate Bass, Looks Like an Ass

Al Gore’s daughter got married last week and apparently the event was so sacred it called for eating one of the world’s most endangered fish: Chilean sea bass (which is not actually a ‘bass’). Now Gore is justifiably under scrutiny by the media and charged with eco-hypocrisy.

The D.C.-based National Environmental Trust launched the Take a Pass on Chilean Sea Bass campaign in 2002. Maybe Gore was still busy treating the wounds after the ill-fated 2000 campaign, but really: how can someone so in tune to the problem of global warming be so in the dark about Chilean sea bass?

Even Randy I’m-still-eating-fish Olson found this to be a shocking PR blunder by Gore

Posted by Drew458     on 07/18/2007 at 11:05 AM   
Filed Under: • Environment • Outrageous •  
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   Sunday - July 15, 2007

Polarization

\Po’lar*i*az"tion\, n. [Cf. F. polarisation][1913 Webster] 1. The act of polarizing; the state of being polarized, or of having polarity.

Selections from Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward:

Polarization: anteposition, confrontation, disparity, division, hostility, mutual repulsion.

(Thanks to the Hypertext Webster Gateway at http://www.bennetyee.org/)

- - -

I think the Thesaurus’ words were more what I was thinking of. Angles of reflection of light aren’t really what this post is all about.

Rather, it has to do with the (mostly) childish attitudes that come from the various camps when it comes to the issues of the day. It can range from “Nuke ‘em ‘til they glow” to “Can’t we all just get along?” to what it means to have single-tiered health care in Canada to what exactly is going on with our environment.

Children with asthma are now commonplace. It wasn’t like that when I was a kid. We seem to bump into people with life-threatening nut allergies on a more regular basis. It wasn’t like that when I was a kid either. So tell me, are we just getting better at diagnosing these ailments, or is there really an increase? If there is, have we brought it upon ourselves?

Quite frankly, I don’t know.

The reason I don’t know is because you can’t get a bloody straight answer out of anyone.

Environmentalists would have us believe that the cause is and has been our presence on this fragile planet. Anti-environmentalists (is there a better word?) would counter that we have more trees today than in any time in history.

Good God - are trees toxic after all?

Nobody seems willing to come forward and say things like “it’s not such a good idea to dump raw sewage in the river, but on the other hand, spraying for bugs ain’t such a bad idea”.

And that’s what’s missing. Middle-ground.

I’m not talking about feel-good crap like “carbon credits” either (quite easily the biggest scam since $60/bbl oil).

No, I’m talking about the rational discourse that is and will be required in order to solve any of the environmental problems we might have. This discourse does not involve one side or the other jumping up and down screeching “I told you so!” each time another (possibly pseudo-) scientific report hits the stands.

2005 was one of the worst Atlantic hurricane seasons on record. Lives lost - billions in repairs. But uh-oh, here comes 2006. The “experts” get trotted out claiming *this* season will be the worst ever. Um, nope. It was one of the lightest. Looks like ‘07 is going to be closer to ‘06 than ‘05 too. No worries. Let’s stage a putzch at the weather service. Can’t have contradictory ideas, can we?

But why is it different? Why is it we can experience such a dramatic lessening of the environmental conditions that cause hurricanes from one year to the next? Why that quickly? Isn’t weather supposed to be long-term? What happened?

Well, the truth is - are you ready for it? - the truth is WE DON’T KNOW.

There. I said it. An admission of meteorological ignorance from a lay person. About as rare as hen’s teeth, if you ask me, but an admission anyway. Funny part, it wasn’t that hard to say (or type).

We live in a world where weather pontification rules. It’s either “yer fer us, or you’re agin us”.

And it’s crap.

Anybody and his dog can use one-sided trumped-up statistics to support his claim, and they do. And they’re trotted out on the evening news for their 60 seconds of fame and, assuming they can get in a word edgewise with the politically-motivated show host, a five-second sound bite.

This problem isn’t about sound bites. It’s about a) Is there really a problem?, b) If so, how big is it?, and c) If it’s threatening us, what do we do about it?

I’m going to admit ignorance again, and say I don’t have the answers to “a”, “b”, or “c”. I do, however, know what the answer *isn’t*:

Ask me “weather” I’m dreaming. (Or having a nightmare, for those that might have seen the holographic Al Gore).

Posted by Somnambulist57     on 07/15/2007 at 02:32 PM   
Filed Under: • Environment •  
• Comments (4) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

   Wednesday - June 20, 2007

That’s Inconvenient

See on RightWingNews.

China has overtaken the United States as the world’s biggest producer of carbon dioxide, the chief greenhouse gas, figures released today show.

The surprising announcement will increase anxiety about China’s growing role in driving man-made global warming and will pile pressure onto world politicians to agree a new global agreement on climate change that includes the booming Chinese economy. China’s emissions had not been expected to overtake those from the US, formerly the world’s biggest polluter, for several years, although some reports predicted it could happen as early as next year.

Well, that’s problematic, isn’t it?  Are the patchouli-drenched watermelons now going to turn their angst toward China and away from the U.S.?  Of course not.

The whole Kyoto “treaty” was designed to pusnish and hamstring America.  It has nothing to do with actually helping reduce “greenhouse gasses” at all.  Plus, in the words of John Hawkins:

Indeed.

Posted by Drew458     on 06/20/2007 at 09:46 AM   
Filed Under: • Climate-Weather • Commies • Environment •  
• Comments (8) • Trackbacks(1)  Permalink •  

   Friday - May 25, 2007

Look Who’s Coming to Dinner

NewsBusters has the scoop

Put aside for a minute the chuckles over a leftist magazine, dedicated to the poor of the earth and the worship of Mother Earth, holding a cruise for the rich on a big, polluting cruise ship. Guess who’s coming to dinner on The Nation’s Tenth Annual Seminar Cruise? Mary Mapes, touted on the Nation Cruise website as the “Peabody Award Winning Former CBS News Producer.” It should read: “Phony Document Specialist/Celebrated Smearer of Bush’s National Guard Record.”

I wonder if she’ll be speaking about journalistic integrity?

For those who would protest this environmental violation, the Nation Cruise website also pleads its case that “The Nation has partnered with EcoLogic to reforest an area in Guatemala recently devastated by mudslides, planting enough trees to offset the carbon emissions produced by each Nation cruise passenger on this 7-day cruise.” Of course, “the cost is $11 and is strictly optional.” Imagine: the cruise could cost $8600 per person, but you can’t spare the carbon offset change?

Posted by Drew458     on 05/25/2007 at 02:03 PM   
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists • Environment •  
• Comments (1) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

   Thursday - May 24, 2007

The Gallery of Gore

Zombie made it to the AlGore Lovefest in Marin County yesterday....and has photos!

“The Dream Team” - Heh - Yes, please run this ticket, I can’t wait.

I hope he was giving away carbon offsets with a book signing.

Posted by Drew458     on 05/24/2007 at 10:40 PM   
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists • Environment •  
• Comments (9) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

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