MaxRedline

It's A Legal Matter, Baby

"Climate Change" (code for Man-Made Global Warming) has been recognized for what we've known all along: a religious belief.  The landmark ruling comes from the U.K., but has global implications. 

His employers contended that climate change was a scientific, not a religious or philosophical belief, and thus not legally protected. Mr. Nicholson, however, insisted that climate change was a philosophical belief as “philosophy deals with matters that are not capable of scientific proof.”

The court sided with Nicholson, effectively conferring upon the "Climate Change" philosophy the status of a religious belief.

Nicholson successfully argued that Climate Change is one of those matters that are not capable of scientific proof, although that argument is patently false.  We know irrefutably that climate change occurs; where we differ from the Religion involves their belief that humans cause it, and that humans can stop it.

AlGore and his acolytes, with their "20-foot rise" in sea level and other dire "predictions" differ in no significant respect from a sweaty evangelist preaching hellfire and brimstone in a tent on the prairie.

South Kensingham Science Museum Poll Backfires

The museum’s Prove It! website, which is designed to influence politicians at the Copenhagen climate summit in December, allows members of the public to pledge their support, or lack of it, to the environmentalist cause.

But so far those backing the campaign are out-numbered nearly six-to-one by opponents. 

At the launch, a statement from the Science Museum said: "We're convinced climate change is caused by humans and requires urgent action."

Well, of course they're convinced - they'd be convinced that the moon actually is composed of cheese if it would gain them funding.

Increasingly, however, people have come to understand that "Man-made" global warming, climate change, or whatever the next buzzwords may be are ultimately driven not by science, but by money, politics, and control.

Humans aren't able to significantly affect long-term climate conditions, and despite the hype, most people realize that.  They also understand that the goal of most politicians is the imposition of control.  "Man-made" climate change seemed like a sure fit - right up until folks caught onto the scam.

As politicians want to control things, then they should set their sights upon things that can actually be affected.  This means that they should question conventional wisdom.  Unfortunately, that involves mental exercise.

Conventional wisdom, a term coined by economist John Galbraith, essentially reflects convenience: it is simple, comfortable, and by no means neccesarily true.  Conventional wisdom, for example, suggests that schoolchildren who pass tests with relatively high scores must have been learning.  Bush's "No Child Left Behind" program was based in this tenet of conventional wisdom.  It was simple, it was comfortable.  It was wrong.

It failed to consider a fundamental aspect of human behavior: cheating.  It also failed to consider who, exactly, might be doing the cheating.  However, a study conducted in (where else?) Chicago demonstrated conclusively that (presumably because it was in their best interests to have high numbers of students pass) teachers inflated scores.

Increasingly, conventional wisdom is shown to be unwise, yet it is a daily aspect of life for those who follow news media.  It's what they "report", and rarely do they stray.

Don't Look Now...

Near-record numbers of Coho salmon are returning to the Columbia river, while over on the Deschutes, the numbers of steelhead  pushing past The Dalles dam are described as "staggering".  Fishing for the wily steelhead is anticipated to be excellent clear through January of next year - well beyond the usual timeline.  Meanwhile, according to ABC, Americans increasingly are concluding that the global warming hoax is, in fact, precisely that: a hoax.

Time To Eat The Dog

Although the hype continues to be disproven, fearmongers simply respond by coming up with new twists. One of the latest involves your dog.

Your dog, it is now argued, eats up more resources in a year than driving your car.  Presumably, what this means is that if you eat a dog, then you don't need to pay to build (much less ride) light rail; you can just drive.

Of course, that connection is never actually addressed; they recommend that you go vegetarian to compensate for your dog's "eco-footprint", or better yet, go vegetarian and keep a fish or a rabbit as a pet, rather than a dog.

Notice that they refer not to the "carbon footprint"; that apparently is old and busted.  The new hotness is the "eco footprint".  Just as you may have noticed that they seldom talk any longer about AlGore's vision of Man-Made Global Warming with its attendant hurricanes and catastrophic flooding because nobody buys it, so you may have noticed that the hype remains but the terms are different:  the hotness now is "climate change" - the "effects" of which are achieved by acting as "threat multipliers".  Oh, and as noted above, the "carbon footprint" has been replaced by the "eco footprint".

The Worm Seems To Be Turning

AlGore was yakking in Madison, Wisconsin Friday, giving his pep talk about "man-made" global worming to 500 folks that he assumed were all on his side, at the Society of Environmental Journalists annual conference.

Gore has been criticized for not publicly debating his position since the release of his 2006 Oscar-winning documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth."

In what organizers said was a rarity, Gore took half a dozen questions from journalists, including one from Phelim McAleer, an Irish filmmaker who asked Gore to address nine errors in his film identified by a British court in 2007.

Gore responded that the court ruling supported the showing of his film in British schools. When McAleer tried to debate further, his microphone was cut off by the moderators.

Actually, AlGore's done this before - taking a few questions from a roomful of people that he assumes are all on his side.  When someone dares to disagree with His Grace, they mysteriously get cut off.  The little people are free to say anything they want, as long as it doesn't contradict the established tenets of the Religion.

You can bet that he's seething over the BBC's recent about-face:  The climate change correspondent of BBC News has admitted that global warming stopped in 1998 – and he reports that leading scientists believe that the earth’s cooling-off may last for decades.

Where is your Carbon Dioxide Now?

Oh, it's still being released.  People are still exhaling the stuff, building cooking fires, driving cars, heating homes.  Nothing has changed - except our awareness:  we know that carbon dioxide does not cause global warming, and a growing number of people are beginning to recognize the extent of the scam to which they've been subjected.  Awareness of the fact that human activities have no effect upon planetary climatological cycles is rapidly increasing.

Also increasing is awareness of the fact that prophets such as AlGore, along with innumerable politicians, have been pushing this false religion for two reasons: in the case of AlGore, it is largely about profit - his "cap-and-trade" shell companies might have made a lot of money if the wheels hadn't fallen off.  In the case of politicians, it's about the usual thing: control.  Government of the people and by the people and for the people is a concept that they don't understand.

Best Year For Bordeaux In 60 Years

Thanks to "perfect weather", the 2009 vintage is expected to rank as among the best on record, according to wine experts. 

"Nature has been extremely generous, it is sumptuous," said Denis Dubourdieu, director of the Bordeaux Institute of Vine and Wine Sciences and a renowned winemaker.

"It's difficult to find comparisons, you have to go back to the climatology of the 40s to find, perhaps, comparable conditions," he added.

 

This is difficult news.  Man-Made Global Warming should not allow such events to occur.  Experts on the subject, such as our own David Appell, will dully inform you that local conditions do not reflect the planetary climate.  And while that is correct, the fact remains that in France, the best condtions for wine grapes in some 60 years occurred in 2009 - while Denver, Colorado experienced the earliest snowfall in recorded history.

 

Something's happening on the planet, but it isn't man-made.  And it certainly isn't global warming.

 

 

We're Goin' To Rock Down To Electric Avenue

The Big 0 noted the other day that another push is underway to shut down Portland General Electric's Boardman coal-fired power plant in eastern Oregon.  PGE's under pressure to install half a billion dollars' worth of scrubbers and other technology to reduce the particulate haze that the plant - considered to be the "largest stationary source of pollution west of the Rockies" - produces.  Groups including NW Energy Coalition are pushing to simply close the plant - which provides nearly half of the region's electric power.

Erroneously classified as a "ratepayer advocacy group" by The Big 0, the Northwest Energy Coalition is actually a "clean, renewable" energy advocacy organization - which means that they actually work against ratepayers.  In the journalistic world of The Big 0, however, that's a minor point; not worth considering.  But here's something that is worth considering: prior to the closure of PGE's Trojan nuke plant, Oregon was a net exporter of electric energy.  That kept your rates low.  Following the closure, rates jumped up.

And NEC wants to cut off some 45% of the region's power, by closing Boardman.  Any guesses as to what that'd do to your rates?

Of course, it gets better: NEC and its affiliates also want to remove the hydro dams because they're somehow not "clean, renewable" energy sources.  While nuclear technology has been scaled down and become remarkably more efficient and safe, thanks to bed technology and improved fuel reprocessing techniques, they're agin' it.  They don't want nukes, don't want coal, don't want natural gas, don't want hydro.

Well...how are you going to plug in your electric car?  What's going to power their precious streetcars?  Solar?  Wind?  Not likely.  Environmeddlists actually oppose those, as well.

California's Mojave Desert may seem ideally suited for solar energy production, but concern over what several proposed projects might do to the aesthetics of the region and its tortoise population is setting up a potential clash between conservationists and companies seeking to develop renewable energy.

"It would destroy the entire Mojave Desert ecosystem," said David Myers, executive director of The Wildlands Conservancy.

And wind turbines?  It turns out that they are for unknown reasons fairly attractive to bats, and the spinning blades produce cavitation pockets, which cause the lungs of the animals to essentially explode - a phenomenon known as barotrauma.

So, let's see:  no nukes, no coal, no natural gas, no hydro, no solar, no wind.  Is it okay to rub a couple of sticks together? 

Old And Busted: Man-Made Global Warming

The new hotness: catastrophic impact.  According to Stephen Hawking's latest musings, asteroid impact is the greatest threat to advanced life.  If you grew up in the 1950's, you know the drill: run to the hallway, duck and cover, kiss your butt goodbye.

All of that recycling, switching to mercury-laden CFC bulbs, driving that Prius - none of it matters when the next hit comes.

Oh, and while I've mentioned this before - if you're using antibacterial soap, STOP!

To refresh, soap is simply made up of a base and an acid and has two main purposes. Soap decreases the surface tension of water and adheres to dirt, oil, bacteria, viruses and the like. When you lather the soap, this all combines together and is easily washed down the drain. Antibacterial soap does not do this job any better than regular soap.

The common factor in the manufacture of antibiotic soaps is the inclusion of the antibacterial ingredient, triclosan.  That's a problem by itself, as it selects in favor of resistant bacteria.  Unfortunately, when combined with chlorine from potable water sources in the USA, the situation gets even worse:  it forms a "super dioxin" compound, which is probably at least as bad as the selection mechanism.  It can't be removed by wastewater treatment plants, and it can't be filtered out by downstream intakes that subsequently provide water to faucets.

And So It Begins

Yesterday, in State of Connecticut et al. v. American Electric Power et al., the 2nd U.S. Court of Appeals decided that states and other plaintiffs have the right to sue electric utilities for creating a ”public nuisance” by emitting CO2 and, thus, contributing to global warming.

This development can be viewed in a couple of ways.  First and foremost, obviously, is the likely effect that such suits will have upon your wallet.  When such suits are permitted, the only effect for you, financially, will be negative.  As is the case with most environmeddlist lawsuits filed in recent years, the net result is more money yanked out of your wallet while little, if any, substantive positive results are obtained.

As noted just in the past few days, environmeddlists are going after manufacturers of multi-ply toilet paper, and the Oregon Department of Transportation has agreed to divert a couple of million dollars per year toward creation of mosquito habitat in order to head off yet another environmeddlist lawsuit threat.

In regard to the utilities, however, it's hard to summon up any degree of sympathy:  These utilities for years have lobbied for carbon cap-and-trade schemes. Instead of opposing climate alarmism, they have helped promote it.

Once again, you get to pay for their idiocy.

Environmeddlists Target Toilet Paper

And they wonder why they lack credibility.  They go after the dumbest stuff, and yes, the latest target is toilet paper.  Soft toilet paper is an environmental nightmare, according to these geniuses.  So we should either follow the You're-a-Peein's and use single-ply, post-consumer recycled paper (roughly akin to using an old Sears catalog in an outhouse) - or other, more "natural" sources.

Right.  Save The Corn-Cobs!

Meanwhile, The U.N. has declared that "climate change" is ramping up really fast, and they've published some material that they hope will have you reaching for that Sears catalog in a hurry.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, noted climatologist, Professor Mojib Latif, of Germany's Leibniz Institute, [notes] that the planet is in for a cooling period that could last from 10 to 20 years.

Global temperatures have held steady for several years, contrary to the expectations of statistical models. This month, a leading German user of these climate models predicted temperatures would fall for “one or two decades” to come.

Why the reprieve? The German, Mojib Latif, cited changing currents in the northern Atlantic Ocean. He even went a step further, saying the currents were also responsible for an unknown portion of the warming in the late 20th century.

...The German seriously undercut the idea that global warming will continue unabated as long as emissions of carbon dioxide rise, a cherished claim of climate alarmists. Nature, he acknowledged, can overwhelm or amplify whatever heating effect CO2 has. We’re still learning how.