Plunging Towards Gomorrah
Global Warming
This is my long-run forecast in brief:
The material conditions of life will continue to get better for most people, in most countries, most of the time, indefinitely. Within a century or two, all nations and most of humanity will be at or above today’s Western living standards.
I also speculate, however, that many people will continue to think and say that the conditions of life are getting worse.
- Julian Simon Professor of Economics, University of Maryland (1932-98)
Daily Flush: Ethics, Romans, Wal-Mart and a Win for the Republic
Jul 22nd
Most Ethical Congress Watch: It seems like a million years ago, but in November 2006, Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats captured the majority in Congress. At the time the newly crowned Speaker of the House talked a big game.
“The American people voted to restore integrity and honesty in Washington, D.C., and the Democrats intend to lead the most honest, most open and most ethical Congress in history,” Pelosi said. She added, “And nowhere did the American people make it more clear that we need a new direction than in the war in Iraq. ‘Stay the course’ has not made our country safer, has not honored our commitment to our troops and has not made the region more stable. We cannot continue down this catastrophic path.” She called on the Bush administration to work with Democrats “to find a solution to the war in Iraq.”
I remember shortly after the Democrats took over the Congress that we immediately pulled out of Iraq. Well, I guess it didn’t quite turn out like that. The Democrats messed up that whole ethics thing as well. Charles Rangel joins the ranks of politicians caught up in ethics charges. This is hardly newsworthy. Corrupt politicians are a dime a dozen, but when you promise to “lead the most honest, most open and most ethical Congress in history” and fail catastrophically, it has to be pointed out. And what happened to transparency? Everyone loves to hear that we’ll find out what’s in a bill after it’s been passed. That’s comforting! Why would anyone be cynical about politics?
Most Biased Is? Big Journalism has completed the Top Ten Most Left-Biased American Journalists and the winner is Helen Thomas. I don’t know. Helen Thomas hasn’t been relevant since Antoninus Pius was a Roman emperor. Oh yeah, she didn’t like the Jews back then either; however, it was a lot more acceptable back then. What is truth?
Ego Watch: A recent Rasmussen poll shows Charlie “The Ego” Crist trails Marco Rubio in the Senate race. I point this out because I really don’t like Crist. I would rather have Lindsay Lohan as my senator than Charlie Crist. She would be an awesome Senator and far more ethical than most of the yahoos currently sitting in that august body.
Wal-Mart Deserves Nobel Prize: That’s what Mark J. Perry says and who can blame him? Perry links to an article that explains how apparel jobs created by Wal-Mart in Bangladesh appear to bolster school enrollments of girls, especially for young girls. Wal-Mart should be praised for how they’ve reduced poverty worldwide; however, progressives like IKEA and Target better because…. I’m not sure, but I think it has something to do with doing what everyone else is doing. Progressives are very susceptible to peer pressure. Winning the Nobel Prize is no big deal anyway since it’s been reduced to an honorary award given to failed presidents and terrorists.
Climate Bill Dead? Never underestimate the Democrats’ ability to pass unpopular legislation, but it looks like the climate change bill is dead. Score one for the Republic. The bill accomplishes nothing except to make the price of goods increase and make some hippies feel better about themselves, which is really what it’s all about. Imagine all the people, and so on and so forth.
Editorial Note: My annual trip to Priest Lake in my own private Idaho starts on Saturday, so I’ll be gone until August 2. Club Soda is going to be busy as well, so that means no posts for a week, unless Club Soda is struck with divine inspiration. I know… How will you survive? I don’t know. Read a book, play an instrument, or dream of Lindsay Lohan’s first day of freedom. I shall do the latter, but don’t tell my wife.
How Not to Measure Temperature: NOAA
Jul 16th
The NOAA will be making headlines with the “news” that the last three months have been the “hottest on record.” They’re kind of right. The only problem is the way they’re recording. The recording stations the NOAA uses scattered throughout the world are flawed. Watts Up With That? has documented how bad they are in the United States. Here’s another example where the station recorded a temperature five degrees warmer than it actually was… You see, any time a temperature station is put on a roof, a sidewalk or next to a parking lot, the data recorded is worthless. The satellite data is .8 degrees cooler than the NOAA data. I’m not sure how they’re getting away with such flawed data.
Hence, anytime you see a headline citing “extreme temperatures” and it’s based on the NOAA just ignore it. I know I will.
The Economist Believes in Weird Science
Jul 12th
I think I’m falling out of love with The Economist. It continues to be a great source of information about foreign affairs, but it’s becoming less of a source for “economics.” This is especially true when they endorsed the hideously awful ObamaCare bill simply because it was “something.” That’s not intelligent; it’s simply bad economics. Another area where they’ve missed the boat is the theory of man-made global warming. The great Climategate whitewash has begun.
Greenhouse gases still warm planets, carbon dioxide is still a greenhouse gas and the amount of it in the Earth’s atmosphere is still shooting up. The temperature rose over the 20th century in a way that follows from these basic truths. Other mechanisms at play in the climate complicate the issue, but none of them offers a remotely satisfactory alternative explanation for the temperature rise.
Really, is this the best they could come up with to defend the theory? Yes, temperatures increased in the twentieth century. There wasn’t a spike, it wasn’t alarming, and history is littered with centuries of increasing and decreasing temperatures. “In a way that follows from these basics truths.” Huh? I think I’m giving up on this issue because the people who choose to believe this hogwash are beyond reasoning with anymore. No matter what happens there will always be a group of people who believe things are getting worse. They’ll always have a group of thick headed scientists to check off on the theory. What concerns me is that The Economist shouldn’t be falling for idiotic apocalyptic scenarios. Didn’t we learn anything from Thomas Malthus?
Here's a panel of leading experts.
Throughout history politicians have fanned the flames of paranoia, moving us on from one imaginary disaster to the next. Every time it’s sold as being done in our best interest and every time it only ends up doing more harm than good. The writers at The Economist should know better, but instead they believe in that age old shallow argument that we have to do “something.”
The Oil Spill and 7 Degrees of Kevin… Costner?
May 25th
- Waterworld – Quite Possibly the best movie ever…..EVER!!!!!
Like many Floridians and Americans in general, I am intently following the coverage of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. I have been fishing and diving in these waters for over 20 years, so it is infuriating to watch the mediocre response from BP, our arguably infallible federal government, and the unfortunately non-empowered local governments.
According to an article found on the always unbiased (see sarcasm) NPR website, Lisa Jackson, administrator of the EPA, says that the federal government is doing a great job so far. She goes on to say that we should not criticize their efforts for failure to do so would be “Monday-Morning Quarterbacking.” I hope someone is checking Jackson’s bank statements for a large direct deposit from John Q Taxpayer into her checking account made possible by the Karl Obama Administration.
BP has already dumped 655,000 gallons of a toxic oil dispersant into the gulf called Corexit. Jackson’s EPA gave BP 24 hours to use a less toxic, more effective dispersant, but BP outright refused… with no consequences. Way to stick to your guns, Fed and EPA!! Good thing there aren’t any wealthy oil lobbyists in Washington or I would be suspicious of this lack of consequences (see more sarcasm).
By the way, using a dispersant for an oil spill is the equivalent of someone defecating in your bottle of drinking water, dumping a bunch of toxic chemicals in the water that only make the feces break down into smaller chunks and then yelling, “Drink up!”
However, my anger over the lack of response and obvious corruption was temporarily curtailed by an article about Kevin Costner and his oil/water separating centrifuge. This brought to light a long series of crazy coincidences between Kevin Costner, the oil spill and the must-see 1995 blockbuster movie Waterworld.
1) Both the movie and the oil spill in the Gulf are disasters of epic proportions.
2) Kevin started the company Ocean Therapy Solutions after the Exxon Valdez spill. Coincidentally, the ship full of oil featured in the movie was the Exxon Valdez.
3) The bad guys in the movie were called smokers because all of their engines ran on nothing but oil.
4) Kevin Costner co-starred with Elizabeth Mary Mastrantonio in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (another must-see). Mastrantonio later starred in The Abyss, which is completely set under water.
5) The so-called Waterworld is created due to global warming melting the ice caps, which every actor in Hollywood, including Kevin, believes is caused by human influence… or should I say the “ancients”?
6) When Kevin dives down to see the submerged city in the movie, it is clearly the city of Denver because your can see the Norwest Building, which is shaped like a cash register. Club Soda currently resides in Denver, future underwater megapolis now sweltering in dry 60-degree temperatures.
7) Dennis Hopper plays the villain in the movie and his character’s name is Deacon. My name….the Deacon.
Finally, if Kevin’s oil-water separator (I find it hard to believe that it’s really difficult to separate two things that are notorious for not mixing) is embraced by BP or the Fed, he and his company will most likely generate millions in profit. This makes me think that the original explosion of the rig was a conspiracy created by none other than…
"With this arrow I will finally break even on that stupid movie" - KC
Climate Change Officially Jumps the Shark
Apr 16th
President Obama became Head Shark Jumper in January 2009. Congratulations!
Let’s face it. This whole “green” thing has officially jumped the shark and turned into an Urban Legend of mythic proportions. For instance, I have a friend who took issue with one of my posts and compared my indifference to Global Warming (or whatever it is depending on the current weather) to someone who wouldn’t do anything if an asteroid was on a collision course with the earth. The argument was a little more nuanced than that, but that was the crux of it.
This idea that climate change is leading to catastrophe and apocalypse is absurd. Why is it that Global Warmongers can never see the silver linings? Is warming catastrophic? Sure, if you live on Venus. But Venus is a greenhouse gone made because it’s so close to the sun, not because Venusians are drinking coffee from Styrofoam cups.
The truth is that a warmer earth is a friendlier earth. According to “scientists,” or at least those engaged in studying the history of climate change:
By 5000 to 3000 BC average global temperatures reached their maximum level during the Holocene and were 1 to 2 degrees Celsius warmer than they are today. Climatologists call this period the Climatic Optimum. During the Climatic Optimum, many of the Earth’s great ancient civilizations began and flourished. In Africa, the Nile River had three times its present volume, indicating a much larger tropical region.
Hmmmm. Let’s see… So an earth 1 to 2 degrees C warmer than it is today is called an “Optimum” by so-called climatologists. But according to Global Warmongers, an earth that warms will rain destruction on mankind and the various species which he (or she) shares with them. Can we at least wait until the earth reaches its Optimum before we regulate ourselves back to the Stone Age?
When environmentalists predict disaster, gird your loins and hold onto your wallet, because “environmentalism” is a penny-ante version of Liberation Theology (a.ka., Marxism). It is less science and more like religion. It has its holy days (Earth Day), its priesthood (scientists in search of grants) and its Apocalypse (climate change).
Like any religious cult, when they predict doomsday and it doesn’t happen they find an excuse and move on to the next doomsday prediction. In the past few decades we’ve had the Population Bomb (didn’t happen), the DDT scare (wasn’t true) and now Global Warming. But, of course, Global Warming is morphing into Climate Change, because how the hell can you argue against that? The climate changes all the time and always has! So there!
Richard Cowan, Reuters, and Poor Journalism
Apr 15th
Here at The Daily Plunge we’ve been diligent in posting about the horrendous coverage of climate change in the United States. There’s no other issue today where people are so hideously uninformed and where press bias is so prevalent. Take this article about the climate change bill in in the Senate by Richard Cowan at Reuters.
Despite vocal climate change skeptics in the United States, leading scientific groups have been hoping the United States, the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases after China, would take action.The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported on Thursday the world’s combined land and ocean surface temperatures in March were the hottest on record.
Who defines “leading scientific groups?” Are they the ones who manipulate data or hide the decline? Richard Cowan has written a lot of articles about climate change and not one article about Climategate. What about the increasing ice in the Arctic? The cold winter in the northern hemisphere? Am I supposed to be concerned that March is supposedly the warmest on record? What about the medieval warming period? How does cap and trade reduce temperatures? Do we want to reduce temperatures? What is the optimal temperature? Are people stupid? I think we know the answer to that question.
Theater of the Absurd: Climate Change and Skiing
Apr 7th
Arapahoe Basin, a ski area west of Denver, is holding its second annual Save Our Snow Spectacular, the announcement of which, ironically enough, came the same morning you couldn’t get there because of all the snow in the Colorado high country.
The Little Ice Age was great for skiing, but not so great if you were a European farmer.
While the concept of the event is admirable, which is basically to raise awareness about conserving and protecting our natural resources, some of the event’s supporting organizations hold extreme views that bear scrutiny.
The main beneficiary of the event, the High Country Conservation Center, claims that climate change debate is irrelevant. In other words, if you disagree with the so-called scientific “consensus” shut up! This philosophy flies in the face of the scientific method, essentially stifling scientific inquiry.
While the High Country Conservation Center may claim consensus, there is none, unless you call consensus “everyone who agrees with us.” For more on this attitude among climate-change/global warming true believers and how the numbers are skewed to cause a false alarm about warming, go to the Watts Up With That? blog’s section on Climategate.
Yesterday, the University of California at Santa Barbara released the global climate change findings of one of its geologists: “[UCSB geologist Lorraine Lisiecki] concludes that the pattern of climate change over the past million years likely involves complicated interactions between different parts of the climate system, as well as three different orbital systems. The first two orbital systems are the orbit’s eccentricity, and tilt. The third is ‘precession,’ or a change in the orientation of the rotation axis.”
So there is consensus that the earth’s climate changes; it has been for billions of years. The disparity in opinion is about its cause and relative severity. Some believe it’s a complicated interaction of events directly related to the earth’s orbit and the changing intensity of the sun. The sun, by the way, is a medium sized star which accounts for 99.86 percent of the solar system’s entire mass.
However, according to those who hold the human-caused view of climate change/global warming/global cooling or whatever it is based on current weather patterns, the sun is really a non-factor despite its ubiquitous presence here and its impact on the surrounding planets.
On the Climate Change page at its website, the High Country Conservation Center further states: “Even if you disagree with the consensus of the scientific community, there is something called the Precautionary Principle that dictates that action even without 100% certainty is prudent.”
One wonders if the High Country Conservation Center applies the Precautionary Principle equally to all matters of science, including climate change. The Precautionary Principle cuts both ways, and should not be used as an argument unless the person or organization making it is prepared to be 100 percent consistent in applying it.
Another participating group, called Protect Our Winters, goes a step further. It claims that climate change can be reversed! If climate change were reversed wouldn’t that also be climate change? If we had the power to set the earth’s thermostat, so to speak, who gets to decide what the ideal climate is? The ski areas? The beach resorts? Icelanders? At what point in history do we hit reset button? 1980? 1985? 1654? 5 million B.C.?
The fact is that if one were able to create the ideal climate in North America (whatever that is), it would affect the climate negatively somewhere else. The system itself is far too complicated to simply “reverse” it and revel in the successful reversal without having to apologize to someone in Asia or Europe about the extra cold weather they can now expect. Thanks for nothing, those who know what’s best for everyone else in the world!
Protect Our Winters also advocates on behalf of the climate policy bill that passed the U.S. House of Representatives, but was stalled in the Senate. Most Americans are opposed to the bill, also known as Cap and Trade or Cap and Tax to its more vocal opponents, because it regulates individual consumption and will force energy costs through the roof in favor of inefficient and unproven alternative energy sources.
Most fair-minded people are in favor of conservation and want to protect the environment as much as possible. What irks them is the intervention of a massive centralized and uncaring bureaucracy that is increasingly infringing on their individual liberties while funneling a greater portion of their income into pointless programs and governmental agencies.
Ironically, while the ski resorts support such groups, the policies pursued by those groups will ensure that fewer people have the discretionary income available to ski as they pay more for energy and the ski resorts jack up prices to pay for their increased costs. But that’s how it works in socialist societies; the gap between the haves and have-nots increases until all that’s left is a rich and powerful minority.
For more information, please peruse a history book. I also recommend Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations, Friedrich von Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom or any of the writings by America’s founders, including The Constitution of the United States of America and The Federalist Papers.
Al Gore Has Become Irelevent
Feb 28th
It was only a matter of time before Al Gore climbed out of his hole. Gore has an op-ed today in the New York Times and he’s still beating the dead horse he’s been riding for decades. The Vice President who cried wolf has been warning us for decades about global warming. Nothing alarming has happened to the climate in that time except the coverage of the climate. Anyway, it appears Gore has changed his talking points on climategate since his last ill-informed statement back in December
Unfortunately, the reality of the danger we are courting has not been changed by the discovery of at least two mistakes in the thousands of pages of careful scientific work over the last 22 years by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
The careful scientific work by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change? The sheer fact that the IPCC exists is an example of “governmental bias.” Is it really shocking that an entire panel created to study climate change found climate change? When “big oil” funds a scientific study the results are ignored by the alarmists. Alarmists have kindly ignored the big bucks being made thanks to climate change. For the past decade the climage change business has been booming. Al Gore has a financial stake in climate change and the mastermind of the 2007 IPCC report Dr Rajendra Pachauri is making money as well.
It was in this newspaper that we first revealed how Pachauri has earned millions of pounds for his Delhi-based research institute Teri, and further details are still emerging of how he has parlayed his position into a worldwide business empire, including 17 lucrative contracts from the EU alone. But we should not expect the truth to break in too suddenly on this mass of vested interests. Too many people have too much at stake to allow the faith in man-made global warming, which has sustained them so long and which is today making so many of them rich, to be abandoned.
The truth is finally starting to come on this sad tale. Al Gore has always been a political opportunist. Gore’s name on the Nobel Peace Prize disgraced the award long before Obama made it official. Gore’s Oscar for An Inconvenient Truth may go down in history as one of Hollywood’s most ignorant moments of all time (that’s saying something). In a way this is the worst thing that ever could happen to Gore. Losing the election was painful, but Gore has always cared deeply about what others think of him. As the fraud and bad science add up on the theory of man-made global so does the ridicule for Al Gore.
Gore is now remembered for two things he invented. Everyone knows Al Gore didn’t event the internet, but for many Gore is the face of the Global Warming swindle. Maybe I’m wrong. I’ve been wrong about Al Gore before, but something tells me the gig is up.
Climate Change Program Manager
Feb 26th
The job market is difficult these days, but it’s not a bad time to look for government jobs. While companies lay off employees left and right the government only adds and keeps jobs. Great, right? Club Soda forwarded me this job for the National Park Service. The position is for a Climate Change Program Manager.
The Climate Change Program Manager provides overall leadership and management of National Park Service responsibilities, policies, and interests in climate change programs in within the National Park System. The Climate Change office coordinates acquisition and application of broad-based scientific and planning expertise and technologies to support climate change and associated programs.
This job pays between $103,000 to $155,000 per year. Does this sound like a position that is useful? I won’t even go into the whole tired climate change nonsense. The National Park Service has been one of the most poorly run departments in the United States. It’s a shame because 50 years ago it was one of the best departments. Thanks to a growing bureaucracy full of clueless do-gooders it has become a terrible waste of taxpayer dollars.
The Department of the Interior needs to be downsized and broken into smaller departments. Smaller groups are more effective at allocating resources. When a bloated bureaucracy gets involved useless positions like a Climate Change Program Manager are invented to push a political agenda. The amount of wasted money in these government departments is staggering.
Obama and Nuclear Power
Feb 16th
I’ll put aside the sheer stupidity of the climate change legislation in Congress for a moment. The Obama administration is talking about jump-starting nuclear power in the United States. The U.S. should be leading the way when it comes to nuclear power, but thanks to unfounded paranoia (much of it on the left) it’s been nearly impossible to get a plant built.
“We also hope that Republicans and others, supporters of nuclear (power), will take note that the administration is prepared to provide leadership on issues that are important to solving our energy future and creating a different energy future,” she said.
Promoting nuclear power makes so much common sense that this issue shouldn’t be used as political leverage. However, when I read something like “the administration is prepared to provide leadership” I am not encouraged. Republicans shouldn’t sign on to the climate change bill just for a couple of nuclear power plants.
Anyway, one positive externality from the Global Warming shenanigans is the fact the alarmists are now so scared about the climate they’re prepared to accept nuclear power.
Supporters of nuclear power argue more reactors will be needed for the United States to tackle global warming effectively because nuclear is a much cleaner energy source than coal-fired power plants, which spew greenhouse gases.
Just for the record there are a lot of supporters of nuclear power who don’t care about this climate change nonsense. Hey, if a few nuclear power plants help these alarmists sleep better at night that’s fine with me. Obama could do more to help this process along, but this is at least a step in the right direction.
