James Hansen: Believe in AGW or Go to Jail

Strange words from a scientist.  Especially one who’s into future prediction (by the by, his 1988 model was touted as accurate by many AGW proponents– although the data from 2000-2008 works in the opposite direction of his dire predictions of AGW temperatures).

Here’s what Hansen said:

When you are in that kind of position, as the CEO of one the primary players who have been putting out misinformation even via organisations that affect what gets into school textbooks, then I think that’s a crime.

Dangerous words, especially as Hansen’s models were among those that sparked the AGW movement and concerns of a catastrophic climate change, a change that never happened (so James, if you predicted a change, and the change never happened, and it seems Global Warming is on hiatus, does that mean what you’re pushing into textbooks is misinformation?  Turn yourself in, criminal!)

Hansen wants BIG OIL executives to go to jail for publishing “misinformation”.  Of course, this leads to arrests of scientists who worked for BIG OIL.  Effectively, Hansen wants the AGW Brownshirts to show up and start dragging away the dissenters.  Nothing like the state policing science, eh?

Speaking of Envirofasicsts

Don’t get an Xbox– it destroys the planet!  And it could kill you!

Beautiful Jupiter

More storms have appeared on Jupiter, shown beautifully by the Hubble. Here’s a pretty shot of the biggest planet in the solar system, with new storms near the Big Red Spot.

Seems these storms may be the product of planetary warming. Makes you think…

Sick of “Greening” and “Organic Living”

You’ve all heard it.  “I’m using compact flourescent lightbulbs because they’re better for the environment.”  Or “I’m going to use cloth diapers to avoid dumping them in landfills.”  Or “I’m not going to buy anything plastic because it doesn’t biodegrade in landfills.”  These are the statements of your “Green” friends.  We’re destroying the environment through consumption.  The same ideals are being applied to food, too, and “organic eating”.  Eat less beef beacuse cattle are bad for the environment.  Same with pigs.  (Fish will be on the way out as well because we don’t want to overfish).  Soon we’ll be encouraged to eat nothing but lentils and beets, and even those in short supply because farming is bad for the environment.

I’ve been to the store and I’ve seen “organic food”.  It’s about double the price of the “inorganic” food.  It’s supposed to be healthier for you because it doesn’t contain “chemicals”.  There’s also the breads.  100% Stone ground wheat-seed fiber pods bread that costs double what wheat bread normally costs.  The difference?  The use of enriched flour, which is cheaper to use.  Dr. Oz is on Oprah telling us that we need to eat more flaxseed oil ($15 a bottle– chump change for a heart surgeon, but for a teacher with two kids, it’s a luxury) and start eating better (many of the foods he espouses are expensive as well– again, easy for a guy who makes $400,000 as a heart surgeon).

Look, Dr. Oz knows what he’s talking about.  If you’ve got the money and you want to buy the absolute best foods for you, then by all means, clean out the shelves at Whole Foods.  In the meantime, don’t guilt the lower-middle class into buying all of this expensive organic and green crap while blowing a horn that they’re killing themselves in an over-consumptive lifestyle.

Organic foods aren’t better for you.  Hate to say it, they may be worse for you.  Beef without antibiotics are more prone to disease.  If you want to eat diseased meat, go right ahead.  As for the veggies– organic means no pesticides (which means lower crop yields due to greater loss at the hands of insects which means, you guessed it, higher prices).  Now, the FDA is fanatic about what is used to preserve food.  Do you think they’d let “harmful pesticides” get into your food?  No.  There’s enforcement in place that keeps our food supply safe.  Going without pesticides simply means you’re willing to spend more for food that doesn’t have “chemicals’ because you have an inherent distrust of the chemical industry.  Thanks, by the way.

As for Green Living, I’m more than happy to live as efficiently as possible.  Recycle rainwater for garden watering– it’s a good idea.  Compact fluorescent light bulbs are an energy saver (although they may be more damaging to the environment when they are disposed of).  Hybrid cars save gas, but they save you no money, and they contain more materials that are environmentally damaging than normal cars.  Solar energy?  great idea!  Too bad it takes 20 years to offset the cost of panel installation.  What’s worse is shows like “Wasted” that make you feel guilty for using disposable diapers and ordering a pizza.

What does all of this do?  It funnels money into the Green industry.  Who’s promoting all this stuff?  The people who are heavily invested in the Green industry.  You may feel marginally better, but just remember that we’re in a slowing economy and you’re spending twice as much on bread.  With fuel costs where they are, don’t you want to save some money?

Here’s a clue– people have been eating butter and enriched flour since the 1940s, and the country hasn’t had an epidemic of people dying in their 40’s.  The key here is exercise.  We’re becoming a sedentary society.  Turn off the tv, grab the basketball, and shoot some hoops.  Run a bit.  Swim.  Walk.  Dance.  Keep moving, and burn off all those calories you’ve been eating.  And you’ll feel much better– better than you would if you shell out $5 for organic lettuce.

Global Warming Hysteria Targets Fat People

Scientists in the UK are now saying obesity is accelerating global warming. What an impact it makes is still totally ambiguous, but if the root problem is CO2 emissions, then fat people would emit more just as it takes more energy to move them around.

It’s a no brainer, really. Sure, the obese are going to contribute more to AGW, if AGW is real. But peel away the veneer and what do you find?

Don’t forget– children are bad in the eyes of the AGW zealot. Have less kids, save the world, right? China’s got that down to a tee. Kill extra kids, less resources needed, and less emissions.

Now the fat are bad. The fat are destroying the planet. They eat more, which means they need more cows for their fast food burgers, which is more styofoam waste, which means— Gah! Hamburglars everywhere!

The key here is that the AGW zealots are using AGW to force people to change– forget about freedom, this is about saving the planet! (Of course, Global Warming has taken a hiatus, but that’s beyond the point.) Let’s make a list of what people need to do to save the world from the evils of AGW:

1. Stop driving CO2 producing vehicles. (That means almost all vehicles– cars, airplanes, trucks, trains, even that moped.)
2. Stop using coal for power. (Generates CO2) And oil or methane/ethane/propane/butane for that matter.
3. Stop consuming. The more we buy, the more we need industry, which means the more we harm the planet.
4. Stop eating meat. Meat comes from farm animals, which means that’s that many more animals stressing the biosphere and putting dangerous methane and CO2 into the atmosphere. Start eating pure vegetarian diets and stop the slaughter of animals for food. (Meat is murder, and you’re murdering 6.2 billion people, you selfish bacon-loving bastard!)
5. Stop having kids. The more people there are, the more stress there is on the biosphere and the greater demand for resources, such as food and energy, two of the biggest contributors to global warming. Therefore, don’t have kids. If you do have kids, abort!
6. Stop using electricity. We can’t use fossil fuels for energy because they’re obviously bad. We can’t use hydroelectric because that requires a dam and that hurts the environment. Solar and wind are your only alternatives, and that means a ten-fold increase in electricity costs due to unreliability of the resource. Nuclear power produces really bad waste, so that can’t be an alternative.
7. Don’t use any motors, even electric ones! The more power you tap to power your motorized devices, the more CO2 has to be released. So all that Led Zepplin you’ve been listening to? Destroying the earth. Selfish 70’s dropout!
8. Stop building. Wood & stone need fuel to transport their materials. That’s a no-no! Also, cutting down old-growth forests requires fuel and it prevents those trees from reaching out and absorbing our CO2.  So, get out the yurt and live simply.

So there’s the natural progression of the AGW zealot’s argument. Become an off-the-grid vegetarian or the world is going to die. Which are you going to choose, you selfish tool? I wish I was being funny, but the environmentalists of this movement have always been after these goals, and finally they have a movement which is convincing the gullible to shed their meat-eatin’, car-drivin’, ways.

The Goracle Ties Myanmar Cyclone to AGW

Not a surprise, really.  He’s laying the blame of this horrible tragedy at the feet of industry, carbon dioxide, and the evil Internal Combustion Devil.

It’s an inconvenient truth– Al Gore doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about.

The death toll of the Myanmar Cyclone Nargis is expected to climb to a staggering 100,000 from direct and indirect causes.  It’s an area that was similarly devastated by the New Years Tsunami that killed over 200,000 people.  This cyclone hit with maximum sustained winds of 120 mph, putting it at a category 3 on the Saffir-Simpson scale of Hurricane intensity.  Coincidentally, that’s the same wind speed that Katrina had when it hit New Orleans.

The reason both of these Hurricanes are such horrible tragedies has less to do with nature and more to do with incompetent governance.  New Orleans was evacuated during Katrina.  The people left behind were not evacuated due to various reasons, and their rescue was not affected due to poor management of emergency resources.  As I mentioned before, Florida was hit with 4 hurricanes in a row the year before Katrina, and they managed to come out OK.  One hurricane hits Louisiana and nobody can land supply helicopters at the Superdome.

Myanmar is far worse.  A secretive military junta (backed by China) that slaughters innocents in secret isn’t going to be willing to chum up to Western governments wanting to supply aid.  So as they drag their feet, thousands more will die of illnesses that could have been prevented with modern medicines blocked by a reactionary government.

The tragedy of both Katrina and the Myanmar Cyclone is that faith in government is wholly misplaced.  Instead of consolidating military power, perhaps the military junta in Myanmar could have evacuated the coastline as the cyclone approached.  But they didn’t, and as a result, hundreds of thousands are dead, dying, injured or homeless.

Don’t blame Global Warming for these deaths, Al.  The blame is on a government your feckless United Nations does nothing to stop.

What’s Al Gore Hiding?

It seems as though he’s shy about having the press around when he talks.

That’s nothing new. He refuses to talk to Global Warming skeptics in an open forum. Now he’s afraid the press is going to turn on him. At a trade show.

Nice to see a man who won the Nobel Prize for promoting Global Warming is so press-shy. Wonder if it has to do with the cooling trends.

What’s Driving Current Temperatures?

It’s not carbon dioxide. In fact, the current La Nina has been so powerful it’s dropped temperatures around the planet. And in 1998 a persistent and powerful El Nino sent global temperatures rising.

What’s important about this data is it shows that there are external forcing factors that come from the oceans and the sun which dwarf atmospheric heat-trapping contributions to the biosphere.

The IPCC deftly sidestepped these external pressures when condemning mankind for warming the planet.

If the El Nino trends drop off we can expect the temperatures on the planet to drop off again. In fact, El Nino is closely associated with ice ages. More frequent El Ninos disrupt ice fields and cause a warming of the planet. Less frequent El Ninos allow for the planet to cool.

What’s clear from data on El Nino and La Nina is that there have been more El Ninos and less La Nina’s in a period from 1978 to 1998. Temperatures have seemed to level off, and possibly even drop– something that correlates well with only 1 El Nino year between 2008 and 1998 and 3 La Nina years, the current La Nina being a very strong cooling event. The global temperatures exhibit correlation with El Nino and La Nina events. If you look at the period from 1950 to present as far as heating goes, you can see the world gets warmer when there are a greater number of El Ninos to La Ninas, and when there are greater La Ninas, the temperautre trend reverses.

I’m not going to stake my academic career on 50 years of data (it would be great if we could see La Nina and El Nino charts going back 100 years and see if the temperatures in the 30’s were the result of El Nino events as well). But I find it very interesting that La Nina and El Nino events track very well with current global temperatures– and they have little to do with greenhouse warming from CO2.

El Nino and La Nina are not greatly understood by the scientific community. We know when they appear and generally why, but we’re not exactly sure what causes the formation of the events that start El Nino (which is a relaxation or increase in the trade winds).

Global Warming Roundup

From news hits in the past day:

Global Warming may have to take a backseat to global economic concerns.   Why? The dirty little secret of the CO2 police is that measures to curb CO2 pollution have an impact on the economies of the countries doing the curbing.  Instituting CO2 control measures is costly and doesn’t return much on the investment (other than SAVING THE PLANET!).  So not many people are happily trotting the AGW line when their livelihood is at stake.

The global increase in temperatures is threatening the King Penguin.  Just like any climae change cycle, populations live and die based upon their current climate and if they can adapt to newer climates.  It’s called “evolution”, and it’s a response to pressure.  Odd that the radical environmentalists want people to stop the evolution of species.  I thought we weren’t supposed to meddle in the affairs of nature?  Oh, except for causing “global warming”.  Riiight.

Global Warming Strikes South Korea!  Millions save money on heating costs!  Remember, localized warming is proof of global warming, but global cooling is not proof of global cooling.  And localized cooler temperatures?  Yeah, let’s not even go there.  Allegorical evidence is fine if you support the AGW hypothesis, but very very bad if you’re an opponent of the AGW hypothesis.

What Global Warming means for Africa, from a biased point of view.  When the world warmed up in the past, it must have wiped all life out on the African continent, because increased rain made the soil less fertile and the increased temperature and rainfall caused more droughts and desertification.  Go ahead and read it, and wonder in amazement that the African continent isn’t one big charred, dry husk.

Finally, we have an OK article about Global Warming Skepticism over at Merinews.  The author leans on active volcanism to suggest that CO2 from volcanic sources is a major source of CO2 in the atmosphere (and would explain isotopic differences, but volcanic eruptions do not explain the progressive increase of CO2, and some of that would be man-made).  Remember that CO2 takes 10-110 years to remove from the atmosphere, so any non-biocyclical influence would force an increase, something CO2 from man-made sources and volcanoes causes.

Probably the biggest kudos I can say to that argument is rapping the knuckles of the “deniers”, those who think Global Warming isn’t happening.  The overall temperature of the earth has gone up nearly 1 degree C, so yes, it’s warming.  The argument is the source of the heating, and there’s plenty of reasons to think the major component is not greenhouse gas.  But guilt seems to push us that direction…

Democrats Abandoning Democracy

It seems the party elders have had enough of this “primary” business. Half of the Democrats want Obama, another half want Hillary, and it doesn’t like anyone is going to secure the delegates needed, by the convention. So will the Superdelegates side with Hillary out of loyalty to the Clinton way? Will they side with Obama and the majority of the party’s delegates?

Or will they say “Screw it!” and just nominate someone else altogether?

If neither Mr Obama nor Mrs Clinton has the 2,025 delegates needed to win the nomination, and if both appear unable to beat Mr McCain, under one scenario a group of about 100 party elders - the “super-delegates” - could sit out the first ballot in Denver, preventing either candidate winning outright, and then offer Mr Gore the nomination for the good of the party.

Tim Mahoney, a Democrat congressman from Florida, said last week: “If it goes into the convention, don’t be surprised if someone different is at the top of the ticket.” This suggests the party would accept a Gore-Clinton or a Gore-Obama pairing.

So let me get this straight. Instead of throwing their support behind the first woman presidential nominee or the first black presidential nominee, they’re going to throw their support behind a white male! One who wasn’t even on the ballot!
All for the good of the party, of course. So how about we request a name change from “Demo”crats to “Oliga”crats to represent that yes, the party is actually run and controlled by a very small group of power brokers?

But I’m looking forward to seeing President Gore. I can’t wait until roving gangs of environmentalists are peeking in my window, making sure I’m using compact fluorescent bulbs, composting my garbage, and running my TV with a hand-crank.