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Obama: Let's Take The Van

Posted by Average Voter on Monday, November 09, 2009 6:28:46 PM
     How about this cool new ride the government is going to pay a cool $1.4 million dollars for...
 
 
 
  The price of the van doesn't really justify the fuel savings does it? But then again, why sell 35 of them to the general public at $40,000 a piece when you can sell one to the govenment for $1.4 million? Wonder if they got rid of the mags if the price would go down any?
 
   
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Cheating The System

Posted by Average Voter on Monday, November 09, 2009 6:14:15 PM
   The auto makers are getting offered up a pretty sweet deal to build electric cars. They need help meeting the new average fuel economy standard of 35.5 MPG that will come into effect in 2016.
 
The Obama administration is proposing to spur production of electric cars with a "build one, get one free" offer: Build one "zero emission" battery-powered vehicle, and get to count it as up to two vehicles when figuring the average fuel efficiency of a new-vehicle fleet.

The details of federal fuel economy rules are what those of us who refused to take math and science classes in college will be forced to read in purgatory. But government and industry officials familiar with the proposal say it works something like this:

Say Green Motors Co. builds 200 cars that emit 300 grams of carbon dioxide a mile, and 50 all-electric cars that don't burn any petroleum to operate. Those electric cars would get a rating of 0 grams of carbon per mile, and the car maker could use a multiplier of 1.2 to 2 when counting them toward a fleet-wide average calculation. So, in the best case for the car maker, 50 electric vehicles becomes 100. And instead of averaging 300 grams per mile per vehicle, Green Motors' fleet averages 200 grams per mile per vehicle—even though the company did nothing to the bulk of its vehicles.
 
   Well, I like incentives, and this is an incentive. There are several problems that will have to be overcome with this deal. First off, they will have to find buyers of electric cars. Second, they will have to build "recharging stations" to boost the battery on long trips. Third, how are states like California going to handle the increase in power generation; they already have rolling blackouts during the summer months. Nothing like coming out to your car in the morning only to find it is not charged yet. Fourth, they have already determined that there may not be enough lithium on the planet to build as many electric cars as Obama wants on the road. And last but not least, once we start mining the entire planet looking for the lithium, how long before the eco-nutters get all bent out shape over that?
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Carbon Caused Market Crash

Posted by Average Voter on Sunday, November 08, 2009 8:30:27 PM
   You know this could happen...

Plans to expand carbon markets at UN climate talks this December could trigger a second ’sub-prime’ style financial collapse and fail to protect the world from a global warming catastrophe, according to a report from Friends of the Earth.

The trade in carbon permits and credits, primarily based in Europe, was worth $126 billion in 2008 and is predicted to reach $3.1 trillion by 2020 if a global carbon market takes off, according to Friends of the Earth.

However, the majority of the trade is not between polluting industries and factories covered by carbon trading schemes, but by banks and investors who profit from speculation on the carbon markets by packaging carbon credits into increasingly complex financial products similar to sub-prime mortgages, which triggered the recent economic crash, according to the researchers.
 
   As I have noted before in this blog, somebody is going to get rich on the cap and trade B.S. and it for sure will not be you or me. And what will it do for emissions? Litlle or nothing. This current global recession is doing more for global emissions than any cap and trade program ever would.
 
 
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New Bumper Music On Fox

Posted by Average Voter on Saturday, November 07, 2009 9:49:06 PM
   Our friends over at Minnesotans For Global Warming got their song on Fox News.
 
 
   Here is the full length video of the song...
 
 
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The Fake News-Or Is It?

Posted by Average Voter on Saturday, November 07, 2009 8:15:52 PM
   The problem with most left wingers, is they don't know the difference between the real news and fake news. So it comes as no surprise that  The Thin Green Line thinks Jon Stewarts show is real news. He is upset that Jon Stewart is not all on board and up to speed with Al Gore on climate change.
 
I wrote earlier this week about the seemingly endless ad hominem attacks that Al Gore withstands as skeptics attempt to discredit his message about climate change.

Et tu, Jon Stewart?

First, a disclaimer: Gore hardly knocked it out of the park in the interview he did with the comic genius earlier this week. But I thought Stewart reverted to some cliche and willfully unintelligent perspectives in his interview—which is frankly out of character. If you watch regularly, you know that Stewart can hold his own talking about the economy, the budget, the health care debate...so why not renewable energy, which is not so hard to fathom?
 
   Here is the video...
 
Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Al Gore
 
   
   Of course, Fox News is not real news either.
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Colbert Report Takes On Global Warming

Posted by Average Voter on Saturday, November 07, 2009 10:47:05 AM
   Debate...Colbert style.
 
The Colbert Report Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Formidable Opponent - Global Warming With Al Gore
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor U.S. Speedskating
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British Officials Give Up On Climate Treaty

Posted by Average Voter on Saturday, November 07, 2009 10:38:24 AM
   Climate negotiators in Britian are not enthused with the direction the climate talks are headed before the upcoming meetings in Copenhagen next month.
 
British officials preparing for next month’s UN summit in Copenhagen said the best that could be hoped for was that national leaders would make “political agreements” on emission cuts and payments to help poor countries to adapt to climate change. These agreements would be non-binding, however, and could later be revised or rescinded by national parliaments.
 
   That's right, no signed deal.
 
The admission that no treaty will be signed at Copenhagen marks the failure of the process agreed at a UN meeting in Bali in December 2007, when industrialised countries agreed to deliver a binding climate-change agreement within two years. The delay has angered developing countries, which say they are already suffering from man-made climate change.
 
   Guess they didn't expect the economy to turn out like it is, or public sentiment towards global warming.
 
 
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It's About The Children

Posted by Average Voter on Saturday, November 07, 2009 10:21:09 AM
   A new traveling climate change museum is in Mexico City indoctrinating the youth of the world, with images of polar bears in landfills and dead coral.
 
   It's all part of an exhibit that was created, according to the article, by a group of international scientists.
 
It is part of growing efforts to raise the profile of climate change surrounding the December 7-18 Copenhagen meeting, which will seek to seal a treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol, whose obligations to cut emissions expire in 2012.

Mexico has promised to slash its carbon pollution by 50 percent before 2050, although environmental activists say it could do more to reduce fuel burning, a major source of carbon dioxide emissions.

"I think that if everyone in the country starts to think about what we're doing to our own planet, hopefully things will change," said museum visitor and schoolgirl Imelda Moreno Ramirez.
 
   That is nice, isn't it?
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Let's Blame Mother Earth

Posted by Average Voter on Saturday, November 07, 2009 10:06:38 AM
   We can now blame lightning strikes for ozone depleting, greenhouse bringing Nitrogen Oxide.
 
Laboratory and field experiments have revealed that the core of some lightning bolts reaches 30,000 Kelvin (53,540 ºF), a temperature hot enough to instantly melt sand and break oxygen and nitrogen molecules into individual atoms.
And then there is this: each of those billion lightning flashes produces a puff of nitrogen oxide gas (NOx) that reacts with sunlight and other gases in the atmosphere to produce ozone. Near Earth's surface, ozone can harm human and plant health; higher in the atmosphere, it is a potent greenhouse gas; and in the stratosphere, its blocks cancer-causing ultraviolet radiation.
 
   There is nothing safe any longer.
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The U.K. Makes Climate Change Belief Equal To Religion

Posted by Average Voter on Thursday, November 05, 2009 6:56:25 PM
 
   This story is from the Telegraph, linked through the N.Y. Times.
 
An executive has won the right to sue his employer on the basis that he was unfairly dismissed for his green views after a judge ruled that environmentalism had the same weight in law as religious and philosophical beliefs.
In a landmark ruling, Mr Justice Michael Burton said that "a belief in man-made climate change ... is capable, if genuinely held, of being a philosophical belief for the purpose of the 2003 Religion and Belief Regulations".

   Well, what do you say to that exactly? And just in case you are not clear...
 
"This philosophical belief that is based on scientific evidence has now been given the same protection in law as faith-based religious belief.
 
 
"Belief in man-made climate change is not a new religion, it is a philosophical belief that reflects my moral and ethical values and is underlined by the overwhelming scientific evidence."
 
His lawyer Shah Qureshi, head of employment law at Bindmans LLP, argued that if the ruling had gone against them, "the end result would be that the more evidence there is to support your views, the less likely it would be for you to enjoy protection against discrimination".
 
   Discrimination? So, in the U.K. you cannot disciminate based on sex, age, religion, or your environmental views. This is a window into the future of the U.S. in five years. Maybe less if they pass cap and trade.
 
 
 
   Pretty nifty, eh?
 
   
 
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Al Gore Answers Some Questions

Posted by Average Voter on Monday, November 02, 2009 3:23:54 PM
   Spiegel Online had a question and answer session with Al Gore, and he is "optimistic".
 
The part of the article I thought entertaining was this exchange:

SPIEGEL: Seventeen years ago you, a young Senator from Tennessee, and Bill Clinton, a young governor from Arkansas, moved into the White House on the promise of change. Clinton played the saxophone and there was a feeling of spring in the air. Why has it been so much tougher for Barack Obama?

Gore: It was hard for us, too. Just remember the resistance to our health care reform bill. Obama's progress on health care has already surpassed what we were able to do on health care. He will get a climate change bill adopted. So I am optimistic. These are still the early days of the Obama presidency. He had a bad summer, but he is having a good fall.
 
   By whos standard are you going by regarding his "good fall"? According to this chart, he's tanking::
 
They go on...

SPIEGEL: Isn't it getting harder and harder to remain an optimist?

Gore: I think there is a realistic basis for optimism. The Internet empowers individuals to play a more active role in the political process, as Obama's campaign has manifested. They felt shut out of the conversation of democracy during the television age, but they are coming back. It is not an accident that virtually every progressive reform movement in the world is now based on the internet. There are more than 1 million, perhaps as many as 2 million grass-roots organizations that have been established worldwide on the issue of the climate crisis, most of them on the Internet.
   And thanks to Al Gore for inventing the internet! Okay, maybe not literally, but he was instrumental in it!
 
 
 
 
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Could They Make It Worse?

Posted by Average Voter on Monday, November 02, 2009 2:50:05 PM
   After reading this NY Times article on geoengineering, you have to wonder if these scientists are grasping at straws. Depending on which type of geoengineering idea you like, it seems possible these scientists could actually make matters worse regarding the climate.
 
   The first category includes proposals to shoot sulfate particles into the upper atmosphere, creating a cooling haze that mimics the effects of a volcanic eruption, and a similar plan to use thousands of special ships to spew sea salt into the sky, encouraging the formation of clouds. Scientists believe many approaches in this category could cool the Earth rapidly -- but they might produce unacceptable side effects.

"The risks are so high with some of these reflection options," said Tim Lenton, a professor of Earth system science at the University of East Anglia. "We need to do more research, but we need to reserve them for use in case of emergency."

There are also engineering challenges to overcome. Because sulfate doesn't linger in the atmosphere, temperatures would shoot up quickly if injections ended before the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere stabilized at a safe level -- meaning that the world would likely have to commit to continue geoengineering for generations.
   
   That sounds like a nightmare; an expensive nightmare.

"The thing that's always frustrated me," said Philip Boyd, a professor of ocean biochemistry at the University of Otago in New Zealand, is that geoengineering "has great press coverage. It has that science fiction component that makes good copy. But there's been precious little or no science done."

David Keith, the University of Calgary scientist, agreed. "The actual number of real, serious science done on this topic is pitifully small," he said.
 
   Until recently, all these ideas were considered science fiction. The fact is, if it comes to the point were we have to use these kind of methods, it is probably to late anyway. Sounds to me like these scientists are looking for some funding. They should first sign the wall.
   
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Another "Grassroots" Climate Organization

Posted by Average Voter on Sunday, November 01, 2009 7:26:54 PM
   Al Gore is pushing this one.   The Repower America Wall.

The Wall is a place where literally thousands and thousands of people committed to a revolutionary new energy future for our nation and the world are coming together -- to express our hopes, share our resolve, and step up to a leadership role in building a grassroots movement for change like nothing America has ever seen. It's an opportunity for you to be part of the climate movement in a new way, in a way that takes us beyond ourselves.

By asking people from all over the country to share their thoughts and images on the Wall, we are fueling a campaign that brings together the power of national media with the strength and connection of on-the-ground organizing in a way that no one has ever done before. Your voice, and the voices of your friends, neighbors and colleagues, will become the language of our campaign on TV, in print, on billboards, online, and in brand new ways that you will help us invent as we create the Wall.
 
   This actually may be a good idea. Give this thing a couple of months, and we can collect names off the wall so we can keep track of all the enviro-nutters; get names, addresses and other vital info. Or maybe not.
 
   Actually, I think those of us who are more on the side of not being sure about global warming, should start our own wall. The wall should be made out of old growth trees and 55 gallon oil drums. Everyone who comes to the wall will only be admitted if they own an SUV or have at least on vehicle that gets less than 20 miles a gallon. We will have everybody sign ther name with lead based paint.
 
   Maybe I am being a little nutty myself, but how else do you combat these relentless climate-campaigns?
 
   Anyway, if you want to join Mr. Gore and 'Repower America" then click here.
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Your Old Kitchen Cabinets Are Under Attack

Posted by Average Voter on Sunday, November 01, 2009 10:57:50 AM
   The problem with throwing anything away these days is that the greenies have found away for it to be bad. Even your old worn-out kitchen cabnits that have served you well for 30 years, are going to cause global warming at the landfill.

While it would be satisfying to imagine your discarded kitchen goods recycled into other products, the sad truth is there’s a better than evens chance they’ll end up in landfill.

Though wood is biodegradable and might not create as many long-term landfill problems as other manufactured products, it creates methane, a greenhouse gas 20 times as potent as carbon dioxide, as it gently rots away.
 
   See, even biodegradable stuff can't be thrown away anymore. There is nothing you can do that will not harm the planet in some way. Obviously we must leave the planet before we kill it. But where ever we go, won't it be the same thing?
 
   There is a scene in the movie The Matrix, that pretty much sums up what the environmental nutters think of the human race:
 
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Saucing Up The Story

Posted by Average Voter on Sunday, November 01, 2009 10:28:47 AM
   You have to read the news carefully to see the slant, unless of course your reading the SF Chronicle. This artilce is about the military and their planning for possible rising sea levels and droughts.
 
   They start the article by presenting ficticous scenerious:
 
 An island in the Indian Ocean, vital to the U.S. military, disappears as the sea level rises. Rivers critical to India and Pakistan shrink, increasing military tensions in South Asia. Drought, famine and disease forces population shifts and political turmoil in the Middle East.
   U.S. defense and intelligence agencies, viewing these and other potential impacts of global warming, have concluded if they materialize it would become ever more likely global alliances will shift, the need to respond to massive relief efforts will increase and American forces will become entangled in more regional military conflicts.
   It is a bleak picture of national security that backers of a climate bill in Congress hope will draw in reluctant Republicans who have denounced the bill as an energy tax and jobs killer because it would shift the country away from fossil fuels by limiting carbon dioxide emissions from power plants and industrial facilities.
 
   So, it is all laid out nice and neat for you. The military needs to be prepared for all of these possible scenarious and the republicans are to blame if they don't pass the cap and trade bill.
 
   The military, as a matter of protocol, must take into acount all kinds of scenarios. They must be able to respond to all kinds of problems ranging from military coups of friendly countries too yes, even climate change. They must be able to put training excercises together so they can be prepared for just those type of things. But that does not translate into passing bills in congress. If that were the case, we would need to pass legislation to build a defense sheild to protect the Earth from astroids? (Of course, that is now classified)   
 
   Further down in the article they point out the obligatory Republican who shares their climate change fears. Of course, the only one they could find is retired.

Former Republican Sen. John Warner, a longtime chairman of the Armed Services Committee and a close ally of the military, has been touring the country to talk about climate change and national security.

"We are talking about energy insecurity, water and food shortages, and climate-driven social instability," says Warner. "We ignore these threats at the peril of our national security and at great risk to those in uniform."

Among the flash points:

_ Himalayan glaciers are likely to recede, producing fresh water shortages in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and parts of China.

_ Receding Arctic ice could trigger a territorial conflict involving Russia, the United States, Canada and others.

_ Sea level rise in Bangladesh, and drought in other parts of the world could unleash a flood of cross-border "climate refugees" and violence.

_ The Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, an atoll only a few feet above sea level, likely would disappear, taking away a critical U.S. military staging area.

      Then, at the very end of the article, they allow the other side their perspective; two whole paragraphs.

At Wednesday's hearing, retired Army Major General Robert Scales, who said he had "deep reservations" about the science of climate change, worried that if fossil fuels were curtailed it would reduce the availability of diesel and jet fuel "that might reduce our ability to go to war."

On the prospects of global political and military instability from climate change, Scales said, "such unlikely events would cause enormous suffering and social dislocation. But the history record strongly suggests that such devastating humanitarian disasters rarely if ever result in large-scale wars."

      So, just in case you are wondering where the S.F. Chronicle stands on this debate, this article should about clear that up.





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