It’s not a good time to be in the Global Warmonger business. The world’s temperature has been stagnant for a decade. This is after being told by every alarmist with a microphone that we were at the “tipping point.” Yes, there are still those who are concerned about Climate Change. They still call us deniers and dumb, but their arguments are starting to be ignored. If you cry wolf over and over eventually no one listens anymore.
Bret Stephens has an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal on the Global Warming fizzle. I know, I know… liberals don’t read the Wall Street Journal. If it’s not in the New York Times, Newsweek. Salon, or the Cannibal Huffington Post they can’t read it, but Stephens makes some great points. God forbid people read things outside their comfort zone.
Consider the case of global warming, another system of doomsaying prophecy and faith in things unseen.
As with religion, it is presided over by a caste of spectacularly unattractive people pretending to an obscure form of knowledge that promises to make the seas retreat and the winds abate. As with religion, it comes with an elaborate list of virtues, vices and indulgences. As with religion, its claims are often non-falsifiable, hence the convenience of the term “climate change” when thermometers don’t oblige the expected trend lines. As with religion, it is harsh toward skeptics, heretics and other “deniers.” And as with religion, it is susceptible to the earthly temptations of money, power, politics, arrogance and deceit.
The religion marches on even in the face of Climategate 2.0. After hurricane Katrina, Al Gore blamed the storm on global warming. Now the United States is in the longest period without a category 3 hurricane in over a century. No, that’s not alarming, so no one knows about it.
The computer models that predicted alarming temperature increases have all been wrong. The Earth has warmed gradually over the past century, but nothing about the change has been alarming or unprecedented. After 25 years of dire predictions and non-stop alarmism the issue is dead. The alarmists were wrong. They’re always wrong.
With the world facing a debt crisis that threatens economic prosperity, nations can no longer afford to fund these rabbit hole theories. Alarmists have wasted billions and billions of dollars on research and advocacy. Imagine how many lives could have been saved if the money was used to provide impoverished parts of the world with clean water, or to fights diseases like malaria.
A picture of the Great Depression. The "Great Recession" is a vacation compared to the 1930s. Americans don't know what real poverty is anymore.
There’s a reason why all super prosperous nations crumble. If you look closely at the United States it’s obvious. We’re too rich to care about anything other than the next piece of entertainment. The nation grew for 150 years from the work of people trying to make a better life for themselves and for their families. They were immigrants, religious groups, and risk takers. We now stand on their shoulders. There is no land to conquer. We’re rich and entertained. We have movies, music, books, TV, video games, computers, iPod, iPads, and travel. Even the poor in this country are rich compared to the rest of the world or our ancestors.
In the 1800s, most Americans would never “go on vacation” and the idea of retirement didn’t exist. Over Thanksgiving weekend it’s good to remember how great things are compared to the past. Go to any graveyard that’s older than 100 years. Tombstones are riddled with wives who died in childbirth or of disease. Many young children died of diseases that are completely preventable today. There’s something about the human condition that quashes achievements in order to find new things for which to complain and worry.
Do we really care enough to do anything about the problems our nation is facing? Are we really serious? I’m not so sure. I got to thinking about this after watching the last GOP debate. In the debate Newt Gingrich was asked about Iran and its nuclear ambitions. Gingrich’s answer was obvious:
“We ought to have a massive, all sources energy program in the United States designed to once again create a surplus of energy here,” said Gingrich. “So we could say to the Europeans, pretty cheerfully, that with all the various sources of oil we have in the United States we could literally replace the Iranian oil.”
I don’t think anyone could disagree with his assertion, but the reality is that the United States is incapable of this approach. Good ideas die because of the well funded opposition. We could produce enough oil to satisfy Europe and drive down our gas prices. If we were serious it could be done in a decade. Unfortunately the organized left is philosophically opposed to oil. They believe in the “sustainable energy” fantasy. They believe that the world is warming at unprecedented levels. Neither is true, but liberals in science, government, higher education, and journalism believe that green energy is real.
Thanks to naive liberals in Congress the green energy fantasy has created another dependency group: the big farm industry in the Midwest that loves ethanol subsides. Subsidizing ethanol isn’t green, it’s not good for consumers, and it’s driving up food prices. Why are we doing this? It’s an unholy alliance between the “land of make believe liberals” and farmers who love subsidies. Both groups will fight change until the bitter end.
A similar problem exists on the right with the issues of illegal immigration, Medicare and defense. The list goes on and on. Everyone pays lip service to “change” but don’t you dare touch my Social Security, Medicare, subsidy, tax break, or other pet project. The reality is things aren’t bad enough. We’re in a recession, but the threat of starvation isn’t in the picture. Americans are still looking forward to the next movie, gadget, book, concert, or football game. There’s nothing inherently wrong with any of those things, but as long as Americans are consumed by the next distraction there will never be any serious reform.
Most Americans can’t name their senators or representative in Congress, but they can name their favorite TV show, movie, musician, book, or sports star. Sure, Americans have opinions on energy, war, and taxation, but it’s not much more than talking points they heard on TV. Hey, I’m not indicting anyone. I’m as guilty of distraction as the average American, but I don’t see how the current society can rise to the call. In 2008, the left had a religious experience around Barack Obama and they best he could muster was ObamaCare? That’s the great cause on the left? A nation on the brink of bankruptcy and all they have is another entitlement?
The answer to the United States’ problems isn’t a new leader. The current occupant of the White House is clueless, but he’s as clueless as the people he represents. The American people are the ones that need to wake up. The smartest man in the world could be elected next year and it won’t solve the problem with apathy.
Gossip Girl or serious journalist? After watching the Republican debate on MSNBC last night I'm leaning toward Gossip Girl.
As usual, Henshaw made some good points about last night’s Republican debate, though I’m not sure I agree with his winners and losers. Alas, it is quite difficult to come up with an objective list of winners and losers since a debate isn’t quite as easy to score as, say, a boxing match. And even boxing matches that declare a winner without a KO are sometimes controversial.
Even so, here’s my list of winners, losers and those who fought to a draw… Winners: Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and Herman Cain. Losers: Rick Perry and Jon Huntsman. Draw: Ron Paul, Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum.
Part of my problem scoring and declaring a winner is that these debates don’t allow for much explanation by any one candidate, thus they tend to stick to rhetoric and key words. Even when it’s narrowed down to two candidates during the Presidential race, debates don’t offer much substance.
Still, the candidates could make a move away from the pack by better articulating core principles. In the case of a conservative candidate, one of these core principles, and what is perhaps the most important one, is the role of the Federal government.
Ron Paul and Herman Cain came closest to hitting the mark on this, though no one’s really listening to them. The others danced around it and the moderators probably don’t know the difference between Federalism and oligarchy, though they certainly know how to gossip (“A friend of your campaign manager said that Rick Perry is a wussie. Why is he a wussie?”)
There was a golden opportunity at this debate to point out that the governors in the debate did the best they could with the circumstances specific to their states and the needs of their constituents. And that’s the point. Who best to make decisions for the welfare of its citizens than local and state government? And, who is more accountable to their voters than local and state government?
You can yammer on and on about this and that you did as governor, or that this governor had this much or this little job growth in his state, but it’s just a waste of time. Just once I’d like to see a candidate point out that an ever-encroaching Federal government endangers the individual and his liberty. The growth of the Federal government is, in fact, a move toward oligarchy; rule by the few over the many. Moreover, it’s an oligarchy that favors certain people and groups over others, destroying the concept of equality before the law. The bailouts, stimulus and health care bamboozles are striking examples of this inequality created by cronyism.
Still, I don’t know how much you can blame the candidates for their shallow answers. The moderators made it quite difficult to provide any depth by purposely pitting one candidate against the other and framing the questions to make it sound as if they were defending the indefensible. “Rick Perry, Romney said or did this. Respond,” or, “Why are Republicans so heartless?” Bullshit. Ask them a real policy question.
Speaking of BS, how about that brief foray into “science”? The Charlie Crist-like Huntsman took a sideways swipe at Perry, playing the ever-so-reasonable-and-moderate Republican card. He’s pro-science because he has not an ounce of skepticism about the wild-eyed lunatic-fringe claims of a madman (Al Gore)?
Meanwhile, Perry’s response was less than adequate. Once again, a golden opportunity to put the nail in the coffin of the climate change debate wasted. Will anyone rise to the occasion and point out simple logic? As a reminder, logical and thought-provoking arguments Perry could have made include:
- The sun may have something to do with our climate, given that it accounts for 99.86 percent of the mass of the entire solar system
- The climate has been changing for more than four billion years; it always has and it always will. This would mark the first time in the history of earth that a species was willfully unable to adapt to a changing climate. Who’s more stupid, the dinosaurs who simply didn’t know they needed to adapt, or human beings who drown in extremely slow-rising water because they thought the government was going to do something about it?
- Do Climate Changelings/Global Warmongers really believe that we have the power to regulate the earth’s thermostat, and if we did, what is the proper setting?
- Further, if we had the power to regulate the climate, who makes the decision about where to set the thermostat and who benefits from the settings? Will the entire earth be like San Diego, or will only those parts the enviro-nitwits care about live eternally in San Diego’s climate?
- Global warming is far better for life on earth than is global cooling. You can look it up. But the beauty of “climate change” is that you can claim the climate’s changing no matter what’s going on globally or locally. A little warmer this year? Climate change! Unusually cold another? Climate change! No change? Climate change!
The whole thing is absurd, as is the case for a larger and more meddlesome federal government, and yet it’s nearly impossible to get a cohesive, coherent and concise answer on either subject from the candidates. Immigration? I know that Rick Santorum’s grandparents were immigrants, but that doesn’t tell me jack diddly about his plan.
Perhaps most absurd, and also the best part of the debate, was the commercial produced by Californians for Population Stabilization, which proves beyond a reasonable doubt that there’s a special interest group for anything and everything these days.
Californians for Population Stabilization is against legal immigration. That’s right, legal immigrants are taking jobs away from Californians and Californians for Population Stabilization wants to end this travesty. What’s next? Californians against Seeing Eye Dogs and other Working Dogs?
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ryd1-xco9cg
In a geocentric universe the sun has nothing whatsoever to do with earth's climate.
That’s right. I’m waging a personal war on science at home and abroad. It is, nonetheless, a limited war whose prosecution is not aimed at destroying science. The aims of my war are simply to hold “science” accountable for its claims.
Progressives love to “question authority,” but only when the authority in question that’s being questioned does not toe the Progressive line. Those authorities that do, however, are not in line for questioning; they are to be believed without question.
And, if you do question Progressive authorities you will be smeared as a racist, a homophobe, anti-science or even as the clichéd and worn-out Nazi Holocaust denier. There will be no debate, since debate would expose the single-minded, irrational totalitarianism of Progressive ideology.
There are various areas where this applies, but I’ll tackle two of the most recent and newsworthy battles: Evolution and global warming/climate change. Recently, someone asked Rick Perry about evolution, to which he replied that it’s a theory with “gaps” in it. He also mentioned that he’s not sure how old the earth is.
Inevitably, the Progressive priesthood cried foul and began to brand Perry as an ignoramus who is waging a war on science. To add insult to injury, Perry is skeptical of man-caused climate change, or global warming, or whatever. This was too much for Rolling Stone’s Jeff Goodell, who opined:
Never mind that larger droughts in the southwestern U.S. have long been predicted by scientists who model the changes we are likely to face due to ever-rising levels of CO2 in the atmosphere.
Never mind that Texas dumps more carbon pollution into the atmosphere than any other state in the nation – higher than California and Pennsylvania combined. Were it a separate country, Texas would be the seventh largest carbon polluter in the world.
Never mind that, during his first term, Perry signed legislation to speed construction of 11 new coal plants for the state. Or that he has lead [sic] the charge to undermine the EPA’s right to limit greenhouse gas pollution.
None of this matters. Because as Perry wrote in his new book, global warming is “all one contrived phony mess that is falling apart under its own weight.” Still, the earth’s climate is changing, and so we must pray.
God help us.
Note that Goodell does not address scientific skepticism about global warming (climate change, whatever), of which there is plenty out there. Rather, his evidence is that there’s weather, Texas is trying to generate energy for its citizens and Perry believes in God. This is the typical line of reasoning on the Progressive left, since those who have completely bought into evolution and global warming have bought into a religion.
Also note Goodell’s contempt for the Constitution. Goodell says that Perry seeks to undermine the EPA’s “right” to limit greenhouse gas pollution. Under the Constitution, the EPA has no “right” to do so. That “right” is restricted to Congress and well it should be since members of Congress were duly elected by the people. Where do I go to vote out the EPA? That’s right. I can’t.
Just as Galileo’s inquisitors were fully invested in a geocentric universe, Progressives have morphed theory into dogma. Progressives are philosophically wedded to both theories – evolution and global warming – because they both degrade the individual as a polluter and cosmic accident.
Rather than a special creation with basic rights endowed by the Creator, the individual is of very little worth and should be subservient to the so-called “public” good. As a polluter and contributor to global warming, the individual needs to be restricted and restrained by those who know better, because the planet is more important than the individual. As the Apostle Paul put it: “They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator, who is forever praised. Amen.”
Please note that “those who know better” are exempt from the rules they create to restrict, restrain and regulate the masses. This brings to mind a passage from my favorite book in the Chronicles of Narnia series by C.S. Lewis:
“Well, then, it was jolly rotten of you,” said Digory.
“Rotten?” said Uncle Andrew with a puzzled look. “Oh, I see. You mean that little boys ought to keep their promises. Very true: most right and proper, I’m sure, and I’m very glad you have been taught to do it. But of course you must understand that rules of that sort, however excellent they may be for little boys – and servants – and women – and even people in general can’t possibly be expected to apply to profound students and great thinkers and sages. No, Digory. Men like me, who possess hidden wisdom, are freed from common rules just as we are cut off from common pleasures. Ours, my boy is a high and lonely destiny.”
As he said this he sighed and looked so grave and noble and mysterious that for a second Digory really thought he was saying something rather fine. But then he remembered the ugly look he had seen on his Uncle’s face the moment before Polly had vanished: and all at once he saw through Uncle Andrew’s grand words. “All it means,” he said to himself, “Is that he thinks he can do anything he likes to get anything he wants.”
Since losing the 2000 election Al Gore has become one of the saddest demagogues in politics today. Gore has refused to debate and he’s refused to apologize for his incorrect, crazy predictions. The only way Gore can make news now is to make idiotic claims. It’s no longer good enough to equate global warming skeptics to Holocaust deniers. Now global warming skeptics are the new racists.
The former vice president recalled how society succeeded in marginalizing racists and said climate change skeptics must be defeated in the same manner.
“Secondly, back to this phrase ‘win the conversation,’” he continued. “There came a time when friends or people you work with or people you were in clubs with — you’re much younger than me so you didn’t have to go through this personally — but there came a time when racist comments would come up in the course of the conversation and in years past they were just natural. Then there came a time when people would say, ‘Hey, man why do you talk that way, I mean that is wrong. I don’t go for that so don’t talk that way around me. I just don’t believe that.’ That happened in millions of conversations and slowly the conversation was won.”
I have to admit I’m getting tired of writing about the theory of global warming. What more can The Daily Plunge say about the subject? The burden of proof is not on the skeptics, it’s on the alarmists.
For ten years alarmists have warned that we were at the tipping point, the sea levels are rising, the Arctic is melting, and temperatures are rising. The press dedicates endless coverage to all these wildly false claims. Hours upon hours of brainwashing “science” programming is rammed down our throats. James Taylor at The Heartland Institute asks “where is the warming?”
The evidence is powerful, straightforward, and damning. NASA satellite instruments precisely measuring global temperatures show absolutely no warming during the past the past 10 years. This is the case for the Northern Hemisphere mid-latitudes, including the United States. This is the case for the Arctic, where the signs of human-caused global warming are supposed to be first and most powerfully felt. This is the case for global sea surface temperatures, which alarmists claim should be sucking up much of the predicted human-induced warming. This is the case for the planet as a whole.
If atmospheric carbon dioxide emissions are the sole or primary driver of global temperatures, then where is all the global warming? We’re talking 10 years of higher-than-expected increases in greenhouse gases, yet 10 years of absolutely no warming. That’s 10 years of nada, nunca, nein, zero, and zilch.
How can this be? How can “scientists” insist that the world is warming? They ignore the satellite data and use flawed stations scattered throughout the world. Global warming isn’t a problem. In a world full of war, famine, disease, and unclean water it doesn’t make sense to spend billions of dollars chasing an unproven theory. It does make sense, however, when you understand that climate alarm is a religion that seeks to impose its will on everyone.
I’m a huge fan of the Cretaceous Period. It was hot as hell and if you whined about it there was always someone around who’d rip you to shreds.
For some reason, Mitt Romney decided to weigh in on the farce that is Global Warming, or Climate Change, the term officially adopted by the chattering classes since it could mean practically anything. We’ve been down this road at The Daily Plunge repeatedly, parsing the absurdity of the Climate Change hysteria that mysteriously infects socialists, so-called progressives and other advocates of big government.
It is apparent, however, that the Republican front runner for the 2012 nomination is unaware of the absurdities. Like many of his Beltway colleagues he robotically repeats tribal knowledge, simply because it’s been repeated so often. I’m not sure that this shows his leadership ability as much as it does his ability to be suckered and manipulated.
“I believe the world is getting warmer, and I believe that humans have contributed to that,” he told a crowd of about 200 at a town hall meeting in Manchester, New Hampshire.
Here’s what kills me about such statements. First, that the world is getting warmer. This may or may not be true, based on which part of the world you’re talking about. It’s certainly debatable, which is why the media has subtly switched the conversation from Global Warming to Climate Change. Very clever, that is, since any change in weather or shifts in climate patterns can be blamed on Climate Change, a.k.a., the same freaking thing the climate has been doing for the past four billion years or so.
However, and more importantly, so what if it is getting warmer? As I have explained in previous posts, warming is good and cooling is bad. There is empirical, historical data to back up this fact. So why worry about warming? We worry, and Mitt Romney worries, because we’ve been told to worry despite the facts, and simple common sense.
Finally, humans may or may not contribute to climate change (using lowercase here to differentiate between the thing the climate has been doing for the past four billion years or so, that is – changing – as opposed to the hysterical use of the phrase). Again, this point is debatable, but so what if we’re contributing? Who’s to say that our contribution isn’t positive, particularly if we’re helping to warm the earth and make it more hospitable for living things?
It would be fantastic if we could somehow manipulate the earth’s thermostat, but I’m afraid we don’t have that power, unless we figure out some way to control the sun. And, if we could manipulate it, who makes that decision? Keep in mind that making New York City more like San Diego will have repercussions on climate in, say, Kenya (often referred to as “unintended consequences,” the progressive’s stock in trade). But who cares about Kenya? Sure as hell not the Climate Change crybabies who want us to stop burning fuel so that we change the climate (back? forward?) to some unattainable climate ideal. Ironically, Climate Change crybabies do want to change the climate, but where they want to change it to I’m not quite sure. 1990? 1856? 1365? 67 A.D.? 4,000 B.C.? 12,000,000 B.C.? But if they could change the climate, I guarantee they’d make it nice and cozy for themselves and the rest can suffer through colder winters and narrower temperate zones since the crybabies “saved the planet,” a.k.a., their own asses. In other words, screw the Third World!
In the big picture of the presidential race, Climate Change is probably not much of an issue given the totality of issues facing any presidential candidate. However, it speaks volumes about the candidate when they’re willing to embrace what’s essentially an Urban Legend writ super-large.
I wasn’t planning to vote for Romney in the primaries, but this seals the deal. America doesn’t need another baby-talking, politically-correct drone, but bold, unflinching leadership from someone who doesn’t care whether or not the media likes them.
Sharon Begley is the "science editor" for Newsweek. That sounds just about right.
This has been a particularly bad year for tornado activity. It was only a matter of time before some idiotic climate change alarmist decided to use it as “proof” that the climate is changing. Duh. It always does, always has and always will, and tornadoes are nothing new. I experienced one as a child in Georgia when I was growing up. There have been other bad tornado years in the past. Contrary to what alarmists believe the climate is cyclical. Just read this moronic claim by Sharon Begley:
From these and other extreme-weather events, one lesson is sinking in with terrifying certainty. The stable climate of the last 12,000 years is gone. Which means you haven’t seen anything yet. And we are not prepared. [emphasis added]
The climate has been stable for 12,000 years? I can picture Sharon Begley now. She’s glued to the TV and she greets every news story about the weather as an apocalyptic sign of the climate end times. Begley is no better than Harold Camping, and this is simply another piece of evidence that climate hysteria is a religion. At least no one believes Camping’s apocalyptic predictions. The Daily Beast isn’t going to publish his rants.
The floods on the Mississippi River aren’t a strange phenomenon. It happened in 1993, 1954, and 1844. It’s happened again and again. As far as deaths related to tornadoes… wouldn’t it make logical sense that increased population in the South would lead to more deaths by tornadoes? Tornado activity hasn’t been increasing. In fact, it’s been trending down since the 70s. That doesn’t stop Begley…
Even those who deny the existence of global climate change are having trouble dismissing the evidence of the last year. In the U.S. alone, nearly 1,000 tornadoes have ripped across the heartland, killing more than 500 people and inflicting $9 billion in damage.
Sharon Begley, it really isn’t very difficult to dismiss your “evidence.” It’s relatively easy when facts are presented instead of sensationalist propaganda. Sadly, a lot of people believe this garbage. Just a few days ago I overheard an acquaintance say “storms are getting worse.” Storms aren’t getting worse. They’re getting more coverage because we have cameras all over the place and we get news from all over the world.
What is getting worse is this ninny-nanny crybaby nonsense about the climate. How many times must it be repeated that the climate changes, it always has changed and always will change? Perhaps it bears repeating: The climage changes. It always has changed and always will change.
Club Soda is right, Mother Earth is angry and apparently she’s angry a lot. Here are some tweets from the past couple of days from those concerned about Mother Earth. What does Global Warming have to do with the disaster in Japan: nothing. But what did Sarah Palin have to do with the shooting in Arizona? It must be some kind of coping mechanism. People grasp at straws to cope with the disaster.
It’s logical?
There’s just so much crazy in the world.
About a year and a half ago I wrote an open letter to one Alex Jordan of Idaho Falls, Idaho. I love Idaho. I go to Priest Lake, Idaho every year and I have enjoyed the beautiful Northwest since I was a child. Young Mr. Jordan is one of those nice public school educated chaps who is concerned about the plight of the polar bears.
Still not endangered
The number of polar bears has been increasing now for some time, but that hasn’t stopped us from watching polar bears fall from the sky. It’s not really surprising then that same kid who worried about the polar bears two years ago is still worried about them today. What else is there to tell him? I don’t know if it’s an indictment on society or the educational system that we churn out this kind of ignorance.
Despite having a doodle picked by Google it took Mr. Jordan almost two years to find that I had written him an open letter. Here are the highlights of the young activist’s comments:
Well thank you Henshaw, since we’re on the topic of wishes, I wish people like you would stop being assholes and leave this alone, everyones got their own opinion on everything, I can respect that, but disregarding the fact I was misinformed or Not. I was listening to the media, like All of America does, and I was inspired to make a design about the polar bears and global warming, and if you don’t like it, you can go screw yourself
I think I missed the part where he was respecting my opinion. Anyway, it’s not really his fault, it’s the media! Evidently all those paranoid right-wingers have a real reason to be concerned. The media basically forced this kid to be ignorant. Oh, it gets better.
Ok, I’d much rather come back when you learn to play nice with the lil’ kiddies and stop being a dick head:) haha, I am 17 now, so I hope you cut me some slack again for calling a dick head ass wipe that likes to pick on kids:) so hasta luego:)
Again, where exactly is the part where he respected my opinion? I’ve seen the full spectrum today at The Daily Plunge. The Ph.D leftist and the 17 year old boy from Idaho are on opposite ends of the educational universe, but they’re both equally misinformed. Each has their own defense mechanism that allows them, at least in their minds, to get away with spouting nonsense: I’m so smart! Or, I’m so young; quit picking on me! But that’s the American way, I suppose. Who needs facts when we have excuses and feelings?
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