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?

Alternative Energy

Out at the southern junction of I-5 and I-205 near Tualatin, Oregon sits a small solar array, from which politicians reaped political hay. It just helps to power a few of the lights and signs around the interchange, but of course was hailed as bold and innovative and green and sustainable and doubtless some additional political buzzwords were tossed around at its ceremonial opening.

But if these clowns were truly serious about innovation and boldness and all of that, an opportunity to prove it sits only a few yards from the pitiful little array: if they're serious about solar, where better to place it than in the freeways themselves? Imagine miles of solar cells, embedded in many of the freeways and streets in the Portland metropolitan area, powering EV charging stations, businesses, and homes. Power from other sources could be reduced - except of course at night - and actual, significant, "green power" generated. The problem with career politicians is that they always think small.

Solar Roadways has built a 12-foot-by-12-foot prototype. Not only does the panel generate energy, it also lights up, creating a safer nighttime driving experience. 

The Latest From Japan:

Gonorrhea superbug. Once easily treatable, now not so much. Now, before you go ragging on those promiscuous little geishas, it seems that we may actually have generated a large part of the problem due to our development of cheap, quick STD tests - that don't, as it happens, test for resistance as well as presence or absence. Therein lies a big part of the problem, because the medical establishment - and governments - have simply administered the test, and if it returns a positive result, prescribed medication.

Done, and on to the next patient. If someone returns and tests positive again, the assumption has been that they've been re-infected, and so another round of antibiotics is prescribed. And the wheel spins on. But bugs are adaptive little critters, and in the case of this strain, it doesn't matter what antibiotics are prescribed. Suddenly, the fast and easy test/cure is neither - a development with profound implications for an entire array of common tests and treatments for illnesses.

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.

Dinosaur-Made Global Warming

Worker termite

It's been mentioned several times here that methane is a far more potent greenhouse gas than CO2, and it's been observed as well that the number one animal source of methane is: termites. It's been suggested that an intnsive program of termite roundups in order to fit them with tiny butt-plugs would not only create "green" jobs, but would ultimately be more productive than focusing upon carbon dioxide. As it happens, the Science Is Settled™; the debate ended.

Dinosaurs may be partly to blame for a change in climate because they created so much flatulence, according to leading scientists.

Large plant-eating sauropods would have been the main culprits because of the huge amounts of greenery they consumed.

The team calculated the animals would have collectively produced more than 520m tons of methane a year - more than all today's modern sources put together.

It is thought these huge amounts could easily have been enough to warm the planet.

It is even possible that the climate change was so catastrophic that it caused the dinosaurs eventual demise.

Farting dinosaurs caused global warming. The research will be published in an acedemic journal this week.

Related articles

• It's the Methane, S***** (Intellectually Challenged) (seattlepi.com)

You May Have Thought The Dogfighting In "Top Gun" Was Great

It was. This is better. It's real.

They Aren't Making Any More Of It

So prices are lifting up faster than you can say "dirigible". No, not talking about the greenie fantasy known as "peak oil" - this is real world: we're running out of helium. In fifty years or so, your kids may not get to be the life of the party with those funny, helium-laden squeaky voices, so they'll have to get their kicks some other way. Fortunately, we'll still have politicians, so there'll be enough hot air to fill balloons.

Related articles

• Science Says Stop Making Party Balloons, We're Running Out of Helium [Science] (gawker.com)
• Helium shortage affects North Carolina retailers (charlotte.news14.com)
• Helium shortage could spell disaster (ctv.ca)

Bad News For The High Priests

James Lovelock, the maverick scientist who became a guru to the environmental movement with his “Gaia” theory of the Earth as a single organism, has admitted to being “alarmist” about climate change and says other environmental commentators, such as Al Gore, were too.

The fact that there has been no temperature rise over the past 12 years has convinced the man who wrote just a few years ago that “before this century is over billions of us will die and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable.” He has been quoted in The Guardian that 80% of humans will perish by 2100 AD, and this climate change will last 100,000 years. According to James Lovelock, by 2040, the world population of more than six billion will have been culled by floods, drought and famine. Indeed “[t]he people of Southern Europe, as well as South-East Asia, will be fighting their way into countries such as Canada, Australia and Britain”.

He now concedes that his views were unduly alarmist and that available data don't support his earlier prophecies. Even worse, he singled out AlGore's "Inconvenient Truth" and material by Tim Flannery as others presenting alarmist prophecies.

Not that any of that matters; the Obama administration's EPA continues to push to regulate coal out of useful existence, and is attempting to regulate lead out of ammunition and fishing tackle, prompting House Republicans to write legislation intended to rein them in. The bureaucrats and environmeddlists have this whole Gaiia and Global Warming thing that they've been using as a club; don't believe for a second that they're going to give it up without a fight. Don't expect to hear much from most of the media nor from "academics", either, because they're fully vested in the Religion.

As noted previously, the extremely intelligent, lovely and charming professor Kari over at University of Oregon has publicly stated that those who are skeptical of "man-made global warming" should be viewed as racists, rounded up and forcibly "treated" for their mental disorders, and that democracy should be suspended until the Really Smart People such as herself can Save The Planet™ and get the world back on track. That could take years; possibly generations. But Kari and her colleagues at UO and elsewhere will persevere.

Doubtless, they'll hook up with Steve Zwick and burn down the homes of a few "deniers", just to make the point.

Related articles

• Daily Benefactor News - Climate Alarmist Calls For Burning Down Skeptics' Homes (thedaleygator.wordpress.com)
• Green Fascism: The Growing Threat of Eco-Tyranny (mountainrepublic.net)
• Tim Flannery: High Priest Of Gaia (garyware.me)

Democracy Is Overrated

Just ask Kari.

Following University of Oregon Professor Kari Norgaard’s presentation of a discussion document at the recent Planet Under Pressure conference, in which she called for global warming skeptics to be viewed as racists who need to be “treated” for mental disorders, every academic establishment associated with her has attempted to memory hole information concerning Norgaard’s biography and her previous work.

Musing: PeTA and the Evolution of Mankind

Well, and dogs, of course; let's say you happen to be one.
Which roof would you rather occupy: the roof of Mitt's car, or the roof of Barry's mouth? Just askin'. I can tell you right now - if I'm a dog, that guy's sitting way too close to me on the bus. I'm finding a different seat.

But, hey, PeTA's giving Barry a pass on that whole dog/food thing, so it's all good - though they do think he should eat more peas:

...grownups all should know by now the disgusting condition of slaughterhouses and fear and suffering that animals endure on factory farms and try a vegetarian diet that’s good for them, animals, and the environment,” Nicole Dao, a spokeswoman for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

There's only one little speed-bump on that road; it appears that eating meat was key to human evolution. Whoa, dang - that means that little honey-pie Nicole likely wouldn't be around to regale us all with lectures about how to live our lives if it wasn't for her meat-eating ancestors. That's got to be hard for any self-important vegetarian do-gooder to wrap her head around. Especially one who's likely never been to a farm, to a slaughterhouse, or (heaven forbid!) actually killed and eaten an animal.

It's a particularly amusing experience to watch the self-righteous doing their spiel, as though it has never occurred to them that calorie for calorie, their wondrously "green" diet selection uses more petrol than a ranch, and the destruction of acres and acres of habitat - moving the duckies and the bunnies out of their homes forever just to cover it all in soybeans - is rampant.