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Hurricane Forecasters Sticking To Their Guns

Posted by Aaron McLucas on Wednesday, June 04, 2008 10:31:24 PM
   Hurricane forecasters are not going to change their minds about this year being another busy hurricane season.
Maybe the third time (year) is the charm.
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More Thoughts On The Warner-Lieberman Bill

Posted by Aaron McLucas on Wednesday, June 04, 2008 10:14:56 PM
   Here is another great article on the climate change bill being debated in the senate right now, this one from the Wall Street Journal.
As he explains, we might need to get used to it because, as we know, both presidential candidates are proponents of man-made global warming and want this legislation passed.
 
This paragraph here should about scare the you-know-what out of you:
 
   But carbon auctions raise another problem when it comes to Washington. Revenues from the auctions are likely to be fish bait to industries that might qualify for some of them. Sen. Joe Lieberman estimates that the market value of all permits under his bill would be about $7 trillion by 2050. That sum would go into what he calls a Climate Change Credit Corporation, which, operating outside the budget process, would invest in various plans for developing alternative energy. You can bet that lobbyists for ethanol, nuclear and "clean" coal are already salivating at the prospect of a similar fund emerging from a bill championed by a President McCain or President Obama.
 
   Our government creates some kind of climate change credit union who has a budget of trillions of dollars, and can pick and chose who gets the money. How long before the government had to look into possible corruption charges in this credit corporation.
But since we will be living with one of these two presidential nominees that support this kind of legislation, he creates a way of reducing the possibility corruption.
 
   That's why it's important that all revenues from carbon auctions be cycled back to citizens. And rather than launch another endless debate over how and to whom – a payroll tax cut for people earning under the median wage, or a cut in capital gains? – it would be well to agree to the simplest possible formula: Every adult citizen should receive an equal share. If the carbon auction yields $150 billion in the first year, for example, each of America's 150 million adult citizens should receive a Treasury check that year of $1,000.
 
   Now that is a government working for the people...at least in a overly large and complex way. Obviously it would be better that we found a free market solution that did not have the government messing with public money. But they know better than us, and we will, if not with this bill, than with another, give them control over yet another 'problem' that needs to be dealt with.
 
 
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James Hansen Crying The Blues Again

Posted by Aaron McLucas on Wednesday, June 04, 2008 9:40:42 PM
   Over at NRO, they have put up a post on NASA's James Hansen who is making news again because he is once again being "muzzeld" by the Bush administration. And it is no wonder since we see below where he is getting his support, ignoring the fact he is already getting paid by the federal government. .

   Then, as now, his complaining is absurd on its face: the only thing he’s been told is to leave policy to the policy people, and speak as NASA only about the work he does for NASA. Meanwhile, he continues to collect Heinz-Kerry lucre, has apparently been underwritten by George Soros, and otherwise uses his taxpayer-funded perch as an ideological activist.
 
 He should be fired from NASA if you ask me 
  Do you think Mr. Hansen is an Obama supporter? Just curious?!
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Wasp Stings On The Rise In Alaska Because Of Climate Change

Posted by Aaron McLucas on Wednesday, June 04, 2008 9:11:36 PM
   More wacky environmental news for your entertainment.
It seems that the number of wasps in Alaska have increased ten fold.
 
   Wasps used to be an uncommon sight in Fairbanks until two years ago. Then huge numbers of them swarmed on the city, ten times more than normal. The number of stings grew so bad that outdoor school events were cancelled, 178 patients were treated in hospital for stings and two people died.
A study now reveals that wasp stings across northern Alaska have increased sevenfold over the past few years.
 
   So, a town with the population of 83,000 or so has 178 cases of wasp stings that need hospital attention? Maybe all those people had allergic reactions to the sting. But I am thinking that .002% of the population having severe reactions to wasp stings and sadly two people dying from them doesn't constitute an article in the London Times or any kind of scientific study to suggest that global warming is to blame.
We don't need a study to blame it on global warming! It's not even up for debate anymore, right?
 
   I like this guys response to the article:

Another unfounded "climate change" charge. I live in Fairbanks. The wasps were bad two years ago because the wasp population follows the gnat population. The gnat population ballooned, subsequently the wasp population boomed. This year, the Arctic hare is booming!

ACF, Fairbanks, USA
 
I would buy that long before man-made global warming.
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Another Environmental Crises Movie?

Posted by Aaron McLucas on Wednesday, June 04, 2008 10:36:17 AM
   Don't click on the link below or read any further if you don't want the plot line spoiled for you in the upcoming new film from M.Night Shyamalan, The Happening. If this turns out to be the case, I will be very disappointed. 
   I will still spend the money and see the film, because it is just a movie after all. But for all the limitless possibilities for a storyline of
Shymalan's style, why did it have to be about an environmental crises?
 
Final judgement will be made after I see the film.
 
The Happening Poster
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Cap And Tax...Calling The Bluff

Posted by Aaron McLucas on Wednesday, June 04, 2008 12:13:38 AM
Op-Ed columnist Robert J. Samuelson had a great article yesterday in the Washington Post, calling out the Warner-Lieberman Bill that will create a new way to collect taxes without calling it that. 

The chief political virtue of cap-and-trade -- a complex scheme to reduce greenhouse gases -- is its complexity. This allows its environmental supporters to shape public perceptions in essentially deceptive ways. Cap-and-trade would act as a tax, but it's not described as a tax. It would regulate economic activity, but it's promoted as a "free market" mechanism. Finally, it would trigger a tidal wave of influence-peddling, as lobbyists scrambled to exploit the system for different industries and localities. This would undermine whatever abstract advantages the system has.

Regulation, taxation, and opening the possibility of corruption. That is all this bill is. The Kyoto treaty was basically a failure and this will be as well. And we the consumer will end up footing a bill that will gain us little if any real decline in CO2 reduction. Of course the idea that CO2 is causing global warming or humans are causing it or whatever, is still up for debate in the real world. 
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Germanys High Hopes On Environment Hopeless

Posted by Aaron McLucas on Tuesday, June 03, 2008 12:09:06 PM
   German Chancellor Angela Merkel is having a hard time living up to the environmentalists name she made for herself when running for office. This story bashes her for all the things she has done to surcomvent the green  movement since getting into office.
 
   This is the so-called "climate chancellor?" This woman who, at the International Transport Forum in Leipzig, spoke enthusiastically about the nearby air freight hub, economic growth and the transport of goods? Who suddenly seems awkward and at a loss for words when it comes time to talk about climate protection? Who has stopped offering answers on the subject and only asks questions, like: Does it make sense to subsidize electricity from renewable sources? Is it fair to expect the owners of older cars with high CO2 emissions to pay higher taxes?   
   This is the same "climate chancellor" who opposes a speed limit on German autobahns and wants the European Union to exempt large, German-made sedans from its emissions restrictions. In fact, Angela Merkel has even stopped talking about the German goal of reducing CO2 emissions by 40 percent by 2020. Instead, she mentions values of 20 or 30 percent.
 
   And if that wasn't enough, the writers attach another story directly to the one above about her ties to the German car industry.
 
   When it comes to cars, the only thing Merkel has lost is her credibility. She is already the chief lobbyist for Mercedes, BMW, Audi and Porsche in Brussels, where CO2 limits for the European Union are currently being negotiated. New Franco-German talks on the issue are scheduled for next week.
 
   They go on to pummel Merkel with not being able to make the difficult and costly decisions for the environment and the public good, forgetting the fact the fuel and food prices are already wieghing down the average consumer.
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