MaxRedline

Those Ignorant Deniers

For a long time, now, skeptics of the Religion of Man-Made Global Warming have been derided by the acolytes as scientifically illiterate. However, it turns out that according to a new study, if anybody needs to bone up on science, it's the alarmists.

A study published Sunday in the journal Nature Climate Change finds that people who are not that worried about the effects of global warming tend to have a slightly higher level of scientific knowledge than those who are worried. 

Where is your Gore now?

Finally, A Use For Politicians

The main problem with wind power is that it's generally stupidly deployed: leaving aside the siting issues that result in them turning wildlife into puree, what do they typically do? They build big farms and hook them straight into the grid - and that's just stupid. If you're going to insist upon using 17th-century technology, then use it as it was intended.

Windmills are essentially useless when hooked into the power grid; they were designed to harness wind in an entirely different manner. They can be very effective at pumping water from one place to another; a procedure known as storing energy. That can't happen when they're hooked into the power grid because there's no reasonable way to store excess generated power.

A more appropriate approach would be to use the windmills to pump water into large reservoirs. When electricity is needed, water from the reservoirs could flow through tubines, generating power on demand. If implemented correctly (i.e., without governmental interference) it is likely that a number of power generating dams could be removed from service in the Pacific Northwest without requiring backup generating systems. In Portland, we could install windmills at Portland City Hall, Metro, And Tri-Met. With all the hot air blowing around in just those locations, we could power the Portland area five days a week.

Obviously, this concept could not be applied to maritime "highways" on the Columbia and Snake sytems, but could prove suitable in the highly-contested Klamath and other systems. Wind power used to fill reservoirs might well resolve issues relating to both fish and agriculture, provide power, and resolve potential health issues relating to algal blooms by allowing free-flowing rivers while temporarily holding some waters in the reservoirs.

This is not to say that it provides a panacea; in the Klamath area, for example, the snake-oil folks who harvest algae and peddle it as nutritional supplements would be mightily put out. The other usual suspects, like Portland Audubon and their pals, would likely complain about habitat loss. On the one hand, these poseurs want the dams removed along the Klamath - but on the other hand, doing so would eradicate valued birdie habitat. So they'd doubtless litigate about that, as they do with just about everything.

Let's just assume that there's nothing that can be done to satisfy Portland Audubon, HSUS, and other groups that exist primarily to line the pockets of their executives. No matter what you do, they're going to litigate. So, build that cost into the windfarm/reservoir system; you still eventually come out ahead.

Too Big To Fail

Peter Rogoff, FTA head, was in town the other day to throw fed taxpayer dollars into the pot for the Portland/Milwaukie loot rail line, at which time he stated that opposition in Clackamas County can't halt it.

Clackamas County opponents have qualified a measure for the September Special Election ballot requiring a public vote on the county's $25 million share. Two light rail opponents have also made it onto the November ballot for two commission seats.

Rogoff, however, believes many, if not most, Clackamas County residents want the line.

"Transit projects create jobs and provide needed transportation options, especially in these days of $4 a gallon gas," Rogoff said.

And were it a transit project, rather than a deveoper project, there would likely be no opposition. Nobody objects to more and better bus service, for example. They do object - and rightly so - to exorbitant waste of funds on the Portland Agenda. Studies clearly show that the Portland model, in which commuters are forced into downtown Portland, is fundamentally flawed.

As it happens, Broward County has one of the strongest transit systems among other mid-sized metro areas in the United States (population: 1 to 5 million).

So what's the key to Broward's success? That's the question at the heart of a report published online earlier this month in the journal Urban Studies. A Florida State research team led by urban planning scholar Gregory Thompson considered the history of Broward County transit and evaluated its performance on a number of metrics. What they found, in short, is further evidence in favor of multi-destination systems that get people from home to work rather than simply from home to downtown.

If that's what Portland, Metro, and Tri-Met adopted, they wouldn't have an uprising on their hands.

 

Indians Hit The Brakes On Obama's "Green" Schemes

The hypocrisy of the Left in pushing "green" energy has been extensively documented, both on this site and on countless others. Many discussions have been fielded regarding the Cuisinarts of the Air and their deadly effects on everything from endangered species of birds to pollinating bats, while others have centered upon the impacts of vast solar arrays upon habitat and ecological balance. None of which is of any importance in the Barky administration; they're even fighting green groups here in Oregon in an effort to build a Cuisinart farm on Steens Mountain so that all the power thus generated can be shipped off to California.

But now, they've encountered an obstacle that they can't dance around: they've done gone and ticked off the Indians.

The Feb. 27 letter from the chairman of the Colorado River Indian Tribes was pleading and tough. It asked President Obama to slow the federal government's "frantic pursuit" of massive solar energy projects in the Mojave Desert because of possible damage to Native American cultural resources.

The Obama administration didn't respond.

Well, you know what? These aren't any Elizabeth Warren Indians; these are the real deal. And for starters, they've put a halt to the $1 billion Genesis solar array under construction in the Mojave desert because it's tearing up sacred land. And how ticked off are they? Enough to bring all of Barky's fast-tracked subsidized "renewable" stuff to a screeching halt.

Now the tribes, joined by others in the desert, are not merely asking the Obama administration to go slow because of potential harm. They are demanding it. Backed by the legally powerful Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, the Indians say Genesis and the transmission line corridor are proof of damage to sacred lands. They are readying court challenges that could alter solar and wind energy projects across the desert.

This is one of the big problems that Barky and his boys have: they don't understand "renewable energy" and they don't care; all they're interested in doing is handing millions to cronies - the environment be damned, endangered species be damned...but now the damned Indians are stepping in, and there's not a damned thing he can do about it. If they actually understood the concepts, they wouldn't be tearing up our public lands to build gigantic farms far removed from the actual points of distribution.

If they did anything more than pay lip service to "green and sustainable", like perhaps some research, they'd realize a couple of things: (1) solar and wind will never, ever, under any circumstances, account for more than 3 to 5% of electrical energy sources. (2) Generating sites should be as close to distribution points as possible. This means that you mount your Cuisinarts and solar arrays on top of buildings in downtown Portland, The Dalles, Burns, or wherever. You don't stick them on Steens Mountain or in the Mojave. Barky, do you even have a clue as to how many people live in Harney County? No? Then STFU.

Anybody with half a brain would stop subsidizing the Cuisinart and solar developers, and look into in-line hydro generation. That, friends, is actually "green" - and proven technology. Unfortunately, you can't point to it like you can a wind or solar farm and get your picture taken of yourself wearing a hard-hat and pointing at something.

No, in-line just ain't sexy. So they don't care. Look: pretty much every town has a water system. In a place like Portland, it's mostly gravity-fed. So since water's going to be flowing through the pipes anyway, doesn't it make sense to install small turbines in those pipes to generate electricity? There's the problem: it makes too much sense.

Genocidal Eco-Fascism

As has been mentioned before, the "green" religion is all about control - and eventually, population reduction. All the bad people will die, and the green shall inherit the earth.

This is Finnish writer Pentti Linkola — a man who demands that the human population reduce its size to around 500 million and abandon modern technology and the pursuit of economic growth — in his own words.

He likens Earth today to an overflowing lifeboat:

What to do, when a ship carrying a hundred passengers suddenly capsizes and there is only one lifeboat? When the lifeboat is full, those who hate life will try to load it with more people and sink the lot. Those who love and respect life will take the ship’s axe and sever the extra hands that cling to the sides.

He sees America as the root of the problem:

The United States symbolises the worst ideologies in the world: growth and freedom.

Unlike most greenies, he's honest about it. He believes that an entity such as the UN should undertake population reduction by means of nuclear, chemical, and/or biological weapons. It's necessary to Save The Planet™. Naturally, he's been unwilling to go first. That's for the little people to do; it's necessary for them to die. Much like Paul Ehrlich, who cautioned in the 1960's that the human "Population Bomb" was about to detonate, greenies to this day preach doom and gloom.

The latest entry comes from (of course) a "study" by World Wildlife Fund:

Humans will need two Earths to support our lifestyles by 2030 because we are draining the world’s resources so quickly, a new report has warned.

Produced by the World Wildlife Fund, the Zoological Society of London, the Global Footprint Network and the European Space Agency, the 2012 Living Planet Report measures humans’ ecological footprint on the planet.

At the moment, the picture is bleak, according to Jim Leape, Director General of WWF International, with resources being drained 50 per cent faster than they can be replenished.

He said: “We’re all familiar with the stories of what we’re doing to Planet Earth, the ways in which we’re changing the climate, depleting the world’s fisheries, destroying the world’s forests. …

“The report tells us that we’re already using the earth’s resources 50 per cent faster than it can be replenished, and that, if we don’t change our ways, by 2030 we will need two planets to support us.”

It's interesting how they keep moving the goal-posts: in 1970, we were told that by the year 2000, our planet would be encased in glacial ice, clear to the equator. By the mid-1980's it was clear that that wasn't going to happen, so they switched to a new fear: global warming. Since the early 1990's, we've been inundated with "studies" and other propaganda warning of famine, flood, rising sea levels (as much as 20 feet by 2020), loss of polar ice-caps, polar bears drowned to extinction, and more.

Now, the ice-caps are still there. There are more polar bears than at any time in history. So it was time to change the narrative again: now, the bogeyman is "climate change".

But throughout all of these iterations, one thing has remained constant:

It's All Your Fault.

You must be stopped, for the good of all. That whole "Life, liberty, and the pusuit of happiness" thing? Forget about it - it's just a piece of paper scribbled on by a bunch of unenlightened slave-holders.

We'll run out of oil any second now, as the "Peak Oil" crowds have been telling us for the past half-century.

Now the brain-trust at WWF assures us that a mere eighteen years from now, we'll require two earths. Carrying capacity, and all you see. You don't? Well then you'll just have to trust them on it. You'll have to change your ways, or else! Or else what? Face it, greenies - your track record sucks, and a lot of folks have had about enough of your blathering.

 

 

Organic Alert

Are you into "green", "sustainable", "organic"? New research indicates that you're probably a self-righteous jerk. Chill out. Have a Snickers™.

3 Months Old - Just Coming To Light

The "Columbia River Crossing" (replacement for the current I-5 bridges) - with loot rail into Vancouver, Wash. has long been "projected" to cost a mere $4.5 billion. Turns out, construction costs would be considerably higher: $10 billion. There's a surprise.

More surprising is that the February 2012 article just turned up in the newsfeed today, which almost makes one wonder if the data's been deliberately withheld. But greengrocer Eileen says that Vancouver's "going to love it". At $10 billion +, they'd better.

Can't Claim That Our Government Overlords Weren't Warned

The norovirus mini-epidemic that was traced to a "green" reuseable bag is something that our overlords were warned about before they implemented their self-righteous, feel-good ban on plastic bags.

The industry has been fighting attempts to fight local and state bans on single-use plastic check-out bags, and one of their arguments has been that reusable bags are unsanitary.

"The public health issue is real and we raised it last session and it was ignored," said Anna Richter Taylor, a Portland-based spokeswoman for Hilex Poly, a major plastic bag manufacturer.

Unlike most "green" bags, the plastic bags aren't absorbent - and moreover, they're better for the environment, as they are produced from a waste product. As well, unlike the "green" reuseable bags, the plastic ones require less energy to produce, and are recyclable.

Related articles

• Strickland bill seeks health warning on reusable grocery bags (vcstar.com)

Regulations, Small Business, Your Life

As you may have noticed, the economy isn't really going anywhere - it doesn't matter what the government tells you, you see it all around you. It's dead, Jim. With all the blather about "job creation", constantly trumpeted by every candidate for every office, including dog-catcher, why isn't it happening?

One word:

Government.

As Ronald Reagan so succinctly put it, "Government is the problem." They set up agencies, staffed by lifetime bureaucrats, who then write rules with no Executive or Legislative oversight. At present, less than half-way through 2012, some four thousand new rules are already in the pipeline. And the net effect of all of this rule-making is economic strangulation.

The Environmental Protection Agency is among the most egregious, and numerous examples of their overreach can be found at a glance. From energy generation to construction to the local hardware store, their impedance touches nearly every aspect of American life today - and most is entirely unnecessary.

"I don't think that with all of the different regulations coming out of Washington, which are supposed to be for the general betterment, that they realize the adverse effects," Chapdelaine said. "Look at the shipping regulations they put on spray paint. It means we can't buy that product in bulk anymore because it's regulated as a hazardous material."

For example, the EPA is reviewing 330 regulations covering things such as farm and construction dust to carbon dioxide emissions, Patterson said.

"Our stance is, let's rein in some the regulations being created, and let small business owners get back to creating jobs," Patterson said. "If the government could foster an environment where business can grow and add jobs, our small businesses can hire people in their communities and put people back to work."

Unfortunately, our media and schools push the extremism promoted by groups such as Sierra Club and 350. With increasing frequency, we're seeing indoctrinated high-school students, prodded on by Leftist groups, bringing litigation against governments over global warming climate change.

Of course, it's not just federal agencies and rabid protectionists at work - state and local governments have gone deep into the regulatory environment as well, and even land-owners who do the "green" thing often attract their ire, as a resident of Longview, Wash. discovered when he erected a windmill on his acreage.

It's becoming increasingly apparent that in order to effect at least a degree of sanity in government, it's going to be necessary to elect individuals with the backbone to begin reducing the scope of many agencies at the local, state, and federal levels - and dismantling some entirely. The Left's always looking to yell and slobber, anyway. Let's give 'em something to scream about.

Then warm up their bottles and put them to bed.

Related articles

• Government Regulations Are Killing Middle Class Opportunity (usnews.com)
• Washington not a 'friendly' state for small business: Report (bizjournals.com)
• Texas No. 2 most business-friendly state (bizjournals.com)
• CEI's Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation (openmarket.org)

Bicycle Boulevards, Greenways, and More

Portland may be broke, but that's no reason to stop spending your money. Let's see...there's a freeway and a light rail line, on either side of which are neighborhoods with streets, bike lanes, and sidewalks. Nope! Not good enough. What the city really needs to do is to blow another few million on a paved bike trail next to the light rail line. Yeah - that's the ticket!