All Climate is Local

Think globally, act locally?   All climate is local, not global.   Here in the Mid-South, temperatures have not really warmed much in 100 years.  This is true no matter what kind of correction factor is applied...normals are normals.

The Media is getting tougher on Obama? Guffaw.

Sharyl Attkisson is right about her colleagues, even if she fantasized all that stuff about her computer break-ins.   Here's the New York Times editorial board reacting to a flim-flam climate agreement between Obama and the ChiComms, with the special code language in bold:

In the United States, the agreement cuts the ground from under people like Mitch McConnell, the next Senate majority leader, and others who have long argued that there is no point in taking aggressive steps against greenhouse gases as long as major developing countries refused to do likewise.

This argument effectively undermined Senate support for ratification of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. The climate deniers in Congress will find other reasons to oppose a strong climate strategy, and are doing so even now. But the “China” argument has effectively disappeared.

They got it all in there, eh? And by the way, what exactly is a "climate denier"? Does anyone on either side deny there is climate?  And what does a "strong climate strategy" mean?  Does the NY Times think mankind can significantly alter the climate of the Earth to any significant degree (pun intended)?

No, this editorial makes it clear that climate is secondary to nailing cracker Republican men of greed in a world of need for liberals.  Like everything else they know best--if we stupid hicks would only listen to them their awesome climate strategies would make it cooler next summer.

Meanwhile this so-called agreement seems to call for China to basically do nothing until 2030, when their "cap" on peak emissions begins, while the United States agreed to CUT output by 26 percent over 2005 levels by 2025.  So our goals happen before theirs.  What a deal.   Especially considering Chiner has already exceeded our CO2 output on a yearly basis.

And of course India is not included, but it doesn't matter because the Peking Commies have zero intention of following through on this, mainly because they are liars engaged in a virtual war with the United States as it is.   Obama most assuredly knows this, he just wanted a climate cream pie to smear in McConnell's face (God knows what else he gave them to get this announcement) after the ass-kicking last Tuesday and the butt-hurt Times editorial writers wanted the same thing and are pleased.

Is it even worth mentioning that the administration seems to be bargaining--poorly--with a bunch of countries who are concurrently telling us to go to hell?   Evidently there's a smart power reason hidden in this somewhere, but us stupid voters can't see it.

AND..  11/13/14

Here's the Times helping their hero again, this time by calling illegal aliens "immigrants" that the president is planning to "shield"...

Nowhere in that image is the actual truth conveyed.  But it will get worse.  With the GOP in power Obama can now be shown by the media as the underdog, fighting for underdogs.  They will always find a way to tilt the slant heading towards the historic first female president and first "first man".

AND THERE IT IS...  11/14/14

Up on top the following was scribbled...yesterday:

With the GOP in power Obama can now be shown by the media as the underdog, fighting for underdogs.

And presto, here is today's Times:

Obama, Down but Not Out, Presses Ahead

Actually the article itself wasn't too terribly bad, it's the headline that carries the message.

Politics of Fear Again

On cue, right before an election. 

The mainstreamers are all highlighting an IPCC assessment heralding more gloom and doom if we don't dump western civilization now.   They link to a report stating things might already be irreversible (most of them using the same smokestack images of the coal-fired Plant Scherer in Georgia except CNN, who used Polar Bears).  John Kerry says climate change is like a WMD.  Evidently set off by us.     

OK, no change here, the same drill applies--these reports are issued, the politicians react, the mainstreamers cover it, then the politics of fear is distributed down through the web by like-minded sites.  Here's global warming site "Tck, Tck, Tck" (the global call for climate action) highlighting the scary assessment with a screen shot which they helpfully provide at the end ("infographic to share")...

So this site distributes a graphic of the "People's Climate March", a rally organized in part by.... communists.  Who are telling us to kill western civilization by ending fossil fuels now.  The same fossil fuels used by a majority of the participants to get to the rally.  

The real scare remains the same: leftist organizations and politicians trying to use AGW to achieve an end that has nothing to do with science.  If the movement cannot dump the political opportunists they'll never convince a majority of anyone about anything other than their quest is a carefully concealed socialist plot that will conveniently line the pockets of the organizers. 

At the same time those pushing back--and there needs to be pushback--should be careful to do so with science and logic, not just rhetoric.   There is some evidence humans have impacted the global temperature, insofar as it's possible to measure the global temperature accurately, so blanket statements refuting the issue because it snowed somewhere or because the global temperatures haven't warmed in 15 years are not helpful either and make the right look like a bunch of bumpkins. 

This should be a non-partisan issue relevant to all human beings.  After all, if we are impacting global temperatures in any serious way there will be impacts.  But it appears we may not be capable of any rational discussion on it, largely due to how the left has co-opted the issue and lied about it using their ends justify means tactics, which has triggered an often wild-eyed reply by the right.  We all deserve better.   

"The People's.." Fill in the Blank

Anytime someone has a rally or function and calls it "the People's" this or that, bank on it being a socialist rally. 

Case in point, climate change marches happened this week around the world, one big one in New York.  A reporter writing for Grist took a train trip from California to the Big Apple with about 170 attendees of "the People's Climate March" (they called it the People's Train while riding there).  In talking to one of the on board organizers she got this quote:

Make sure you have a lot of grandmothers at your protest, says Marina Skinner, who worked as a deputy field organizer for President Obama’s first campaign. “When you see an 80-year-old person, that is your walking billboard.”

And don’t be afraid to censor the protests that you are in charge of. “You are giving birth to a new movement,” Skinner says, “and one of the things that you learn in birthing class is that you are in control of your own birth.

When Obama and Biden were campaigning, if someone was holding a sign that wasn’t their message, they just told them to take that sign down. It was as simple as that. The civil rights movement did it. You can do it too.”

In other words, do anything or say anything, because the goal is so important that lying, deception or obfuscation are OK. After all it's for the planet!  And the children!  And 80 year old grandmothers!

This ends justify means principle is used by both sides in politics, but generally speaking conservatives tend to feel guilty after doing it while liberals tend to embrace it wholeheartedly.  Case in point, the president's gumby-like handling of the truth leading up to the 2012 election...


It's one thing for this principle to be used with campaign promises. It's quite another for it to be used with factual issues, such as a health care plan or the state of the climate.  Yet there's Al Gore five years ago, giving us science lessons and bold predictions that turned out to be a pile of dog poop.  The pie he got in the face for those gaffes never approached a slow day of news about Sarah Palin.  Contrast it to how Jon Stewart just came down on a few GOP congressmen.   

This week the same president who, as Stephen Colbert might say, was 'truthy' about his own health care plan and threats from foreign terrorists in 2012 will be telling everyone on Earth about the need to 'sacrifice' to save the planet.  What sacrifice?  Well, that's where the People's Climate March comes in, part of which became "Flood Wall Street":  they point to the sacrifice being the end of western capitalism.

Side Tracks

The power of nature is incredible..

 

The impact of the eruption of Mount Sangeang Api in Indonesia is being felt in air traffic patterns.  It you'd like to see why commercial jets avoid volcanic ash clouds check out this video on "Speedbird 9". 
 
As to other possible far-reaching effects, Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines exploded after erupting in 1991, sending ash and or ejecta high nto the Stratosphere. The resulting sulfuric acid droplets caused a reflective haze that caused a temporary reduction in global temperatures (along with occasional reddish sunsets for about a year thereafter). A volcanologist would obviously be able to explain it much better.  Just wondering if this eruption was factored into the climate change models.

Speaking of nature, the experts are out with their annual hurricane projection, calling for a lower than normal season due to El Nino.  Which is based on an El Nino forming.  

With that, here's some New Age nature-y mood music featuring an electric harp player...


You can see a live version of the "Down to the Moon" album here. 

The Climate is Changing, the Climate is Changing!

Here's the President (notice the green background), bizarrely telling a meteorologist that he wants to make sure his grandchildren get to enjoy a 'beautiful day', as if beautiful days will be wiped out by climate change:



The Climatologist-in-chief also infers that somehow climate change, which has been around since before the Creator created mankind and our unalienable rights, has only just now begun to happen. 

Presumably he means man-made climate change, but he didn't specifically blame mankind for ALL of it, probably preferring to let the moronic 'climate change' buzz phrase play to the many rubes who'll buy the premise that the climate has never changed as it has lately, totally proven by 120 years of observed data and recent extreme weather events which are the worst ever (at least over 120 years), but themselves not individually traceable to climate change, yet all caused by climate change.

Not surprisingly, none of the eight meteorologists asked him how many degrees C he believes we can cool the Earth by putting in more massive eyesores and solar panels across America alone, or how soon that might happen; or what might happen to the Islamist countries or places like Venezuela and Russia when their oil is no longer a hot commodity. Most just nodded their heads and thanked him for the privilege of being a mouthpiece.  Of course that's probably why they were picked.

Meanwhile, this guy wasn't invited to the ceremonies...



But that's probably because...

We don't have time for a meeting of the flat-Earth society," Obama said. "Sticking your head in the sand might make you feel safer, but it's not going to protect you from the coming storm." Earlier in his remarks,

Obama said the "overwhelming judgement of science, of chemistry, of physics, and millions of measurements" put "to rest" questions about pollution affecting the environment. "The planet is warming. Human activity is contributing to it," Obama said.

Notice via bold the Prez very carefully said "contributing to it" not "causing it".   He knows that the precise amount of human contribution is still unsettled science (and a large part of the problem in selling it to the masses), so even the climatologist-in-chief wanted some wiggle room on that--and who can blame him?  Lawyers are good at saying things without really saying them. 

The fact is, scientific knowledge is always advancing.  Theories are always being refined with new knowledge, such whether coffee or eggs are healthy or not.  But such an admission in the climate debate is inconvenient.  We only have 500 days left to act or LAX goes underwater and other horrible things.  We must act, act, act, act now, or else!!!  

In the old days an intrepid journalist might have looked at such a thing and asked, "why all the politics of fear"?  What is the real goal here?   But in our new world that debate is also over. Such a line of questioning is indicative of flat earth thinking and likely racist, and belongs only on disgraced hack outlets like Faux News.  

Moving the Climate Ball Forward

"Moving the ball forward".  It's a football reference.  Obama likes to use it to talk about his grandiose programs, such as making illegal immigrants legal or creating 'climate change hubs'.  Lately the administration has been focusing a lot on climate change, aka, global warming.

So what does CNN do?

Why, focus more on global warming. 

But not just focus on it, advocate for the administration's position.  Two stories today on their headline news webpage provide evidence. Here's one..

STELTER: So when you see a television segment that features a climate skeptic or a climate denier, how do you feel? Do you feel that network or that newspaper or that website, whatever it is, do you feel they're being irresponsible?

KAKU: Well, it's a free country. However, they should present the facts and that is that the overwhelming majority of scientists in the world who have studied the question believe that the temperatures on the planet are rising. And if there are skeptics let them present their computer program so that we can pick it apart. Let us understand this, because science is testable, reproducible and falsifiable.

AGW proponents love to conflate the accepted fact that the climate of the Earth has warmed since the Little Ice Age with the causation of said rise.  If someone disagrees that mankind caused the warming they deny the warming.  They are then called 'deniers'.  Or worse.  Because the debate is over.

The odd thing is Doctor Kaku demands to see models and studies from 'deniers' to disprove the theory, but it's doubtful he could get consensus on the exact contribution of mankind's activities to the temperature rise.  In other words OK, it's warming--what's causing it exactly?  When did it start, what year?  What's the precise contribution of humans?  Why did the Earth warm significantly in the early 20th Century?  Is 120 years of measurement data with thermometers and 35 years of satellite data enough?  Questions not answered.  But the debate is over.

The doctor talks about a 90 percent 'confidence' level that man is causing it, but that's not like saying that mankind has CAUSED 90 percent of the warming.  BIG difference.  But the debate is over.

The doctor demands scientific proof from the other side that his theory is not true when it's his side claiming it's a man-made problem.  The burden of proof is his.  Again, it's easy to prove it's warming, harder to prove how and why.  So they resort to name-calling and smearing when challenged, because the debate is over!

Only one side has Hollywood twits and well-known blowhards like Al Gore, who recently warned of another Dust Bowl if we don't go all socialist, yet he can't tell us what caused the first one back in the 1920s and 30s.  You know, back when the Washington Post was alarmed about the melting North Pole.  Only one side has journalist experts wailing idiotically about the "Polar Vortex" as if it's some kind of global-warming created abominable snowman never before seen.  Even though we saw it with a vengeance back in 1977.

Anyway, the above was on the "Reliable Sources", this morning they had a splash feature with Carol Costello entitled, "Why are we still debating global warming?"  Yeah.  So, after reporting about somebody that has developed a statistical grouping of all the opinions on the issue and narowed down the Tea Party to 15 percent (while basically putting the number of non-convinced Americans at above 50 percent when the groups are added up) Ms Costello goes on to proclaim:

The good news is, those uninformed minority voices are being quieted by nature and by those who have powerful voices. Extreme weather is forcing people to at least think about how global warming affects them directly.

And, perhaps more important, many religious leaders, including evangelicals, are now "green." They concur with the scientific community and take it a step farther. They say we have a moral obligation to save the planet.

What better illustration of how far the media will go to serve their master, ie, they will call the death and destruction from severe weather "good news" because it will show those hayseed Tea Party yahoo denier Republicans just how wrong they really are, once and for all.  Good news, another EF4 twister!  And of course they are taking their cues from the Master (even if the Flat Earth Society objects to be called flat-earthers on climate). 

If the above is not an example of advocacy journalism, nothing is. Maybe the GOP should advocate for that FCC study of newsrooms to come back--maybe they would stumble into discovering the real bias.  Just kidding on that.

Let's end with a final cut from the Reliable Sources piece, which by the way didn't include a real scientist skeptic like "heretic" Judith Curry or Dr. Roy Spencer (who recently objected to being labeled a "Nazi" for his dissenting views--the same Nazis who believed in science over religion and a cult of personality). Doctor Kaku is asked about skeptics:

STELTER: Dr. Kaku, do you think there's some room at the table for skeptics? For example, if I was to write a story about this topic and quote nine scientists who believe it's happening, should I be quoting at least one who is a skeptic? Or is this so settled that there's no room at all for something like that?

KAKU: Well, scientifically speaking, it's a settled question. But the average person out there hears the skeptics and therefore some of their arguments have to be addressed because they're out there anyway. In the scientific community, it's pretty much settled. In the court of public opinion, it is not yet settled. So it's good to present the balance, but you have to say that, with 95 percent of the scientific community behind this theory, it has more weight than another theory.

Well except good science REQUIRES listening to his 5 percent.  No reputable scientist would disagree!

Again, the game here is to conflate the temperature rise with the cause of the rise because it serves the need. Notice how the reporter is getting permission from the AGW scientist to exclude anyone who doesn't agree with the consensus narrative.  CNN didn't bother inviting an actual dissenter to debate whether dissent was valid or not.  Because the debate is over.  Truly amazing stuff.  It should scare people.
  
Obviously they don't want to clear up these misconceptions or they would, so there must be a motive to the madness.  And it's not just with climate.  Take this NY Times piece on Obama's Stimulus program over the weekend. Notice carefully what the "Paper of Record" did here:

This may be the singular tragedy of the Obama administration. Five years later, it is clear to all fair-minded economists that the stimulus did work, and that it did enormous good for the economy and for tens of millions of people. But because it fell short of its goals, and was roundly ridiculed by Republicans...

Behold!  The same strawman tactic used for global warming, ie, "all reputable scientists" becomes "all fair-minded economists", ie, nobody in their right mind would disagree that the Stimulus didn't save America.  That tactic allows them to bypass the shaky facts and go right to the flogging of dissenters.  It's a timeworn tactic narrowed by Alinsky and favored by most all statists and totalitarians with the ultimate goal of crushing dissent.  And dissent is the problem they are trying to solve now. It's the only thing standing in the way of Utopia.

Doobie Bowl Sunday

Can't claim much affection for either team.  Seattle seems more like the Cinderella squad this year, so will give it to them.  Either way, don't care who wins or loses, just hope it's a good football game. 

As to the politics, Bill O'Rilly has secured his almost-traditional pre-game Obama interview, of which he's been chest-thumping about for a week or more (along with tempering some of his normal rightward leaning views in the advent of meeting the prez).  Ho-hum.  It's hard to believe he'll ask anything truly controversial.

That said, he'll almost certainly ask tougher questions that any mainstream advocacy-journalist.  He asked 'the folks' to send him some suggestions because one will be used in the interview, so here are some hypothetical submissions..  

1.  Where were you on the night of the Benghazi attack?  Were you in regular contact with the Situation Room?   Did you issue any stand-down orders?   How and when did you realize the attack was over, and where were you at the time?   Why was the mention of "AQ" and "terrorist" removed from the original CIA talking points by unknown State and White House staff?  Did you approve this? 

2.   Have you seen the Seymour Hersh story and the report from a weapons inspector suggesting the Syrian rebels actually fired the chemical weapons that almost triggered a bombing raid on that country?  If you are not familiar with these stories/reports, why not?

3.  Sticking with Syria, Bashar Assad is not delivering the chemicals to the port in a timely fashion, as promised by the agreement.  If he continues to stall what is the remedy?  Is the bombing threat being made through back channels or directly to the Assad government?   Is Russia involved and helping?

4.  Similar question on Iran, what happens if we find them cheating before or after the 6 month preliminary disarmament negotiations?  Will new red lines be issued or does that pretty much mean bomb, bomb, bomb?

5.  If Karzai doesn't sign the BSA before leaving office will we definitely be pulling out all troops from Afghanistan?  By the way, when you say we are 'ending the war', will the enemy consider it a victory if everyone leaves and there's no BSA?  What happens if they allow AQ trainees back into the country or another attack is launched from commanders operating there?

6.  Have you changed your mind on presidential executive powers since your comments in 2008?  If so, do you owe the previous president an apology?

7.  Is Anas al-Liby, who was rendered from Libya last year, being interrogated anymore?  He seems to have lawyered up, with a report saying the Libyan government is paying his attorney fees.  Did we get anything useful out of him on possible pending attacks before he was read rights?   

8.  On the IRS targeting story, you expressed outrage upon learning of the event in the news but later called it a "phony scandal".  How did your half-brother Malik get 501 c4 status so quickly for his Barack H Obama foundation--even having it made retroactive?   Do you not see that as a form of favoritism?  Is the impression left that the IRS was used as a political attack dog something that concerns you?

9.  On a similar theme, why was your uncle Omar and aunt Zentuini allowed to remain in the country after both being ordered deported?  Were you aware of either case in advance?  Do you agree with the outcomes, and if so, do you believe there should essentially be open borders in the United States to the point of getting here means staying, and eventually citizenship?  Does it concern you that people following the legal pathway to citizenship are left looking like chumps when those ordered deported are given asylum or in the event of a general amnesty passed by Congress?      

10.   Which corporations do you think need their 'asses kicked' these days?  Looking back, do you consider that rhetoric as helpful or do you regret using it?

11.  How in the world does a website cost over a half-billion dollars?  Did you know the costs were running that high before rollout?  How did the website pass Initial Operating Capability tests?  Who signed off on these tests, assuming they occurred?   Are the contractors being paid more to fix something they should have delivered on October 1 or is it included in their agreements with the government?

12.  What do you think of the TSA whistleblower whose story is out this week, saying that TSA agents were indeed laughing and abusing the naked scanners at airports?   Surely stories like that in combination with the NSA snooping leaves many people guessing about their own government. How do you combat the negative impression left by such programs?  Should someone apologize?  

13.  You recently pointed out that atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have been falling for the last 8 years, which would include the Bush administration.  Actually, the level of carbon increase was fairly stable during the two Bush presidencies, suggesting the decline may not be due to new EPA rulemaking alone.  Do you think this leveling off/decline of US emissions is related to the observed flat trend in global temperatures since 1998?  Do you think it's useful for people like the former Vice President to be running around spouting falsehoods about climate?   Doesn't that undermine efforts to persuade the people?     

14.  Why won't you approve the Keystone Pipeline project?   Does it trouble you that the shale oil is being moved in unit oil trains that might not be safer and definitely produce more greenhouse gases than transport through a pipeline?  Doesn't Keystone fit well with your "all of the above" energy strategy laid out during the State of the Union?  

15.   Is there a war on women, and if so, who are the combatants?  Is Sarah Palin a target or a combatant?  Is it acceptable for Democrats to use a term like 'war' when discussing their political opponents when Palin was blamed for encouraging the Gabby Giffords shooting based on her use of 'target'?

16.   Pete Carroll is being called a "9/11 Truther" by some due to a reported incident where a retired US Army general visited his clubhouse and he reportedly asked if Bush blew the towers.  Whether that's true or not, as president you would have access to all the secrets of the government, right?   It's tempting to ask you to once and for all confirm such things here, but it's understandable if you can't.  It would also be nice to clear up the UFO conspiracies and maybe the TWA 800 crash, which some former investigators recently asked your NTSB to take another look at.

However there is something you can answer.  Allegedly Coach Carroll asked the general about the 9/11 attack during a discussion about Iraq. You are famously on record as calling the Iraq war 'dumb', so here's the question-- what would you have done about Saddam if he were still around when you took office in 2008?   Would you have continued the sanctions and no-fly zones indefinitely?  Or do you think Middle-East peace would be possible with his regime still in power, as in, do you think he could have been brought to the table to honestly broker a peace treaty amongst Iran, Syria, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Russia?       

Thank you sir.             

AFTERMATH  2/2/14

Hate to say "I told you so" (so here it comes) but the team with better defense usually wins the big games.  In Seattle's case they were the number one defense to boot.  Also, they were severely misunderestimated, which is often a formula for victory.  Russell Wilson wasn't the team, the team was the team.   

As to BO vs BO, or O'Reilly vs O'bama, score one for the first prevaricator.  He turned every question around as a slam on Fox News, as if nobody in the country cares about the scandals he's already proclaimed as 'phony'.  Even BO couldn't effectively cut off BHO's filibustering, allowing him to run down the clock and limit any dents in the presidential armor.  Of course BO had to worry about his career and Fox's future access so he couldn't go for the jugular so to speak, but he could have pressed the president as to what he means by holding people accountable when nobody has even been demoted or placed into less-demanding jobs.  The other questions largely backfired on BO because he can't challenge the person who was there on scene and who holds all the power.  So as predicted, yawn.

Finally, this was tweeted out from HQ prior to the game....

A few initial questions come to mind.  One, why is the president looking up?  Is he trying to throw it to some guy in the stands?   Two, where is NATO field?    

Weather or Not

Drudge is going crazy with the weather stories today, taking a cue from the mainstreamers, who are all talking about "Hercules".   By the way, who started naming winter storms and what's the criteria for getting a name anyway?

It's winter and it's cold outside today in Memphis.  No newsflash.  But the local news is highlighting an even colder "Arctic Blast" heading in over the weekend, which could be trouble.  Presuming this name thing works alphabetically as with hurricanes, what will they name this one?  How about "Imhotep".  Or would that be offensive to the Egyptians?  

Whatever the case it could be a doozy, not so much for snow but temperatures; Memphis is expected to remain in the teens on Monday according to the NWS..

We barely drop down into the teens during a normal winter, much less have a high in the teens.  The south isn't built for such temperatures; pipes and people tend to freeze.  So it's prudent for residents to take it seriously. 

Actually, it's been a cold year here overall-- 2013 was probably below average.   None of which signals an end to global warming, or climate change, or Tea Party induced planetary death, or whatever the official liberal name is now.   But it sure would be funny if Al Gore were coming to town next week for a global warming conference, assuming he wasn't on that expedition ship trapped in the summer Antarctic ice.

Arctic Ice Update

The latest on the Polar Bear Front:

About a million more square miles of ocean are covered in ice in 2013 than in 2012, a whopping 60 percent increase -- and a dramatic deviation from predictions of an "ice-free Arctic in 2013," the Daily Mail noted.

One must note that the current 2013 extent is still less than normal, but the point of this post requires a trip on the way-back machine to 2007 and the dire projections from climate scientists about the year 2013:

"Our projection of 2013 for the removal of ice in summer is not accounting for the last two minima, in 2005 and 2007," the researcher from the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California, explained to the BBC.

"So given that fact, you can argue that may be our projection of 2013 is already too conservative."

Emphasis added to emphasize the fact these scientists not only thought summers would be ice-free by 2013, but probably well BEFORE. Talk about going down in flames. Of course this hyperventilation was picked up and used by none other than Al "millions of degrees" Gore as proof that Bush was killing the planet and that we only had five years to act before doom. Yet here we are. Ready to believe yet?

Uh, CBS (and others), Got Some Science News for You....

Here's a breathless headline on CBS.com this afternoon...

Melting ice forms lake in the North Pole

The obvious implication:  oh noes, Santa and the Elves have drowned thanks to that evil heat Mizer guy!   And global warming, of course.   Chris Hayes on his MSNBC show tonight added some hysteria and the internets are full of liberal joy over the confirmation about their doomsday projections, which signals the coming world socialism solution.    

One problem--it's happened before.  Many times.  And it's been reported on before, many times.

Only a few examples. Now, which party is anti-science again? 


If challenged, and that's a big if, CBS will defend itself by saying they never blamed it on anything.  They merely reported that the meltwater was there and that temperatures had been above normal. That's true.  Nobody will be blaming the Arctic Oscillation and its negative phase, which likely caused the cooler than normal Spring and so far the near-normal summer over parts of middle America.   But that doesn't make a good sound bite.

How Many...

..degrees F does the president think he can reduce the Earth's temperature with the new EPA initiatives he will be rolling out tomorrow?  That's the question.  We deserve a hard number!

FLAT EARTH SOCIETY   6/25/13

Consider this post a meeting!   The president  basically said today that the debate is over--the Earth is warming and we must stop it.   He mentioned the US temperatures of 2012--warmest on record--a record that goes back about 120 years.  Undeniable.  But it wasn't in the top five across the globe. 

He mentioned a recent heat wave in Alaska without mentioning a record cold winter up there.  He did not mention an usually cold spring in many parts of America.  Or in the UK--coldest spring in over 50 years.  He talked about the polar ice cap at its smallest size without mentioning that it came back to almost normal size by late winter and is near normal now.      

He tried to directly compare the soot/smog pollution/acid rain problem of the 60s and 70s with CO2 "pollution", ie, a natural substance, saying that all the doomsayers were wrong about correcting acid rain.  Well yeah, some folks pushed back on those regs but he created another strawman by comparing it to carbon pollution across the entire globe.  Prices will go up if there's no alternative method to deliver energy.  And if energy suddenly becomes more expensive there will be no economic recovery.  That's not a slogan, that's a 'fact'.  

MORE  6/25/13

Here's the speech.  It's a long one--and good--he's one of the best ever at delivering them.   Couldn't help but notice the irony of him talking about the evil emissions from cars, trucks and power plants as commercial aircraft kept loudly buzzing overhead distracting him.

He also said the "seas will keep rising".  Do I need to remind anyone?   

Sky is Falling Update

One study, two stories: 

The New York Times:

Global Temperatures Highest in 4,000 Years

CNN:

We are seeing temperatures increase at a rate not seen in at least 11,300 years, researchers say.

Nice contrast. Both are referring to the same study.

In another diversion, CNN's story blames the warming on human-kind but doesn't mention the "Medieval Warm Period" as the Times does:

The cooling was interrupted, at least in the Northern Hemisphere, by a fairly brief spike during the Middle Ages, known as the Medieval Warm Period. (It was then that the Vikings settled Greenland, dying out there when the climate cooled again.)

Yet the Times doesn't explain what caused this interruption in the data over 1000 years ago. CNN doesn't mention this interruption at all but warns that the last time it's been as warm as it's projected to be in 2100 was over 130,000 years ago:

The last time Earth has been as warm as it is projected to be by 2100 was before the last Ice Age started -- over 130,000 years ago. That's too long ago to gather reliable data on, he said.

So, if Earth reaches a projected temperature by the year 2100 it will be as warm as it might have been before the last Ice Age, a period so long ago the data is unreliable.  Meaning it's also unclear what caused the Earth to be so warm back then.  Well it surely wasn't Republicans driving SUVs and building factories, that much is known. But this was perhaps the most starting conclusion from the paper:

Scientists say that if natural factors were still governing the climate, the Northern Hemisphere would probably be destined to freeze over again in several thousand years. “We were on this downward slope, presumably going back toward another ice age,” Dr. Marcott said. Instead, scientists believe the enormous increase in greenhouse gases caused by industrialization will almost certainly prevent that.

In other words, anthropogenic global warming has saved the planet? 

Well, there's no question the temperatures have been warming during the last 120 years.  The Times story mentions that the decade from 1900-1909 was among the 95 percent of coldest decades on record in the last 11,000 years (which is strange because they seem to be glossing over the Little Ice Age from a century previous).  The fact it was so anomalously cold also tends to dramatize the warming that occurred through the 1940s and again between 1980 and the 2000s. 

But since human-kind didn't cause this downward slide it's unlikely human-kind can stop our recent upward spike, even with Chavez-like command socialism or giant windmills from sea to shining sea.  What will occur--and make us forget about global warming--is the new technology that will inevitably come along and make carbon-free non-polluting energy cheap and abundant for the masses like fossil-fuels are now.  

Yes, but...

The NY Times is funny.  Almost a caricature of itself.  Today they featured a hagiography on Hillary that could have just as easily been written by her State Department Press office. Matter of fact, her own writers probably wouldn't have been as syrupy:

For now, aides say, Mrs. Clinton’s focus is on wrapping up her work at the State Department. She would like to take part in a town hall-style meeting, thank her staff and sit for some interviews. But first she has to get clearance from her doctors, who are watching her to make sure that the blood thinners they have prescribed for her clot are working.

Speaking to a meeting of a foreign policy advisory board from her home in Chappaqua, N.Y., on Thursday, Mrs. Clinton said she was crossing her fingers and encouraging her doctors to let her return next week. “I’m trying to be a compliant patient,” she said, according to a person who was in the room. “But that does require a certain level of patience, which I’ve had to cultivate over the last three and a half weeks.”

No man bites dog of course; the question is whether this kind of piece is just the Times being the Times or an attempt to set up Hillary as a martyr before her presumed Benghazi testimony. Put another way, this woman is so exhausted by her grueling work for America that anything further is asking too much.  If anyone doubts any of this they are, in the words of her spokesman, an "imbecile".

That's certainly one way to cloak her legacy should she find the stamina to run in 2016.  Perhaps the bigger question is not Benghazi--Clinton will almost surely testify at some point although the likelihood of her divulging any real answers to the real questions is slim to none. No, the real question the Times piece didn't answer or even broach is whether all that travel has produced anything positive.  What do we have to show for it? 

The left cozily thinks that Obama's mere presence in office secures our reputation in the world.  Pew Research deals in reality through polling.  Their latest world poll regarding US opinion completed in 2012 showed a positive US image of 80 percent.  The one from 2007 showed us at.... 80 percent.

But public opinion is fickle.  What about tangible results?  Is the world on the precipice of global peace and tranquility?   Well, there has been no movement on a Palestinian state. Syria's civil war has produced perhaps 60,000 dead civilians along with a threat of WMDs; Iraq is still not stable; Iran continues to push towards nuclear weapons capability while our own government released a report suggesting they are the hub of Islamic terrorism; nuclear Pakistan still holds the strings over our efforts in Afghanistan, which are going nowhere; the Muslim Brotherhood controls Egypt and Benghazi was an example of the chaos remaining in Libya.

Meanwhile, as the president trumps our coming exit from Afghanistan and the death of bin Laden the US military is sending troops to 35 African nations this year to battle emerging AQ cells (and presumably to help look for Joseph Kony).  Our embassy in the Central African Republic was recently evacuated and Obama sent US troops to Chad in response with hardly any peep from team Hillary or her staff writers at the Times.  Perhaps it was due to her Sunday doctor appointment on the 30th and the subsequent hospital visit.  And New Years, etc. 

Amidst this chaos North Korea recently launched a missile and China launched an aircraft carrier. Global warming is presumably still raging while Vladimir Putin has said "nyet" to more US adoptions.  Maybe there was a reason the Times piece didn't discuss achievements.

But to them she is the achievement.  It's not her fault the rest of the world didn't fall in line.  She once did an all-nighter on her 757.  Anyone who doesn't recognize that is an imbecile.   

The Politics of Fear

No, not something from Karl Rove. The fear of rising oceans:

A new study finds massive ice sheets at the Earth's two poles are melting three times faster than they did in the 1990's; What does that mean for shorelines?

Good Lord. The ice on Antarctica is not melting. The floating sea ice covering the north polar cap is decreasing on a yearly basis--but people need to understand it comes back every winter. It's impossible for it not to come back due to the earth's axis tilt.

If it doesn't come back in winter nobody will care anyway because the hot earth would have long ago barbecued everyone. Either that or the survivors would all have ocean-front property at Pt Barrow.  Even Mercury has ice on its polar regions.

Yet they continue to scaremonger. This morning on ABC radio news the broadcaster reported there were 19 named tropical storms this season, one a category 3, "obviously Sandy". No, sorry. Sandy was a weak category 2--as it passed across Cuba.  It was a Category 1 when it neared landfall in New Jersey it merged with a land system to become a 'superstorm', doing a lot of damage of course, but NOAA was calling it a 'post-tropical storm'.   Issac hit the Louisiana coast as a Cat 1 and most of the other named storms in the 2012 season drifted around harmlessly in the middle of the Atlantic.  Many probably wouldn't have been named at all 40 years ago.

If people want to be scared, this could do it. Not a sting operation, either. Was the story released on a Friday afternoon on purpose? Oh well, just remember, bin Laden is dead and AQ is on the ropes. It's sea level we must worry about.

Yes Tom, Climate Change Exists

Let's be clear Tom--climate change has been underway since, oh, forever.  The question pertaining to Sandy is whether a recent warming trend since the 18th Century is producing "ever more destructive storms" or was Sandy simply a collision between an unseasonably cold airmass and a hurricane?  

When it comes to hurricanes one prominent NOAA researcher says no, there's no evidence global warming is having an effect yet.  Others agree but are holding out hope!   

Now, one thing everyone knows with certainty is that more people are building homes near the ocean and areas susceptible to flooding.  Tom is absolutely correct about over-development but he seemed to be suggesting some kind of top-down governmental fix (wake up call, plan for the future, etc).  An easier way is to let the market take care of it.  You want a house right on the beach or in a flood zone?  You're gonna pay through the nose for insurance.   If people get the idea the government will be there to back them up if they make risky choices they're more likely to make risky choices.   Just look at the whole sub-prime disaster.   

Frankenstorm

"Frankenstorm"-- what some are already calling the predicted mixture of a cold front with hurricane Sandy, projected to hit the northeast corridor around Halloween. Hmm, wonder if the Weather Channel's tentative name for the first significant winter storm--"Athena", will be used, or will they abandon that and use Frankenstorm or just "Sandy"?  We await their exciting decision.   

Surely if this thing comes to pass its own spinning will pale in comparison to the spinning done about what it means and how it's handled.   One would think the political fallout could only help Obama going into the last week of the campaign (barring some kind of weirdness) as flaks point out over and over how well it was handled by FEMA, et al.  They've been looking for a story to come along and eclipse Benghazi but things have been slow lately.

What about the global warming references?  Oddly, that subject didn't come up in any of the debates.  With James Hansen NASA already predicting that 2012 will be the warmest on record no matter what happens from here out it's a bit of a head-scratcher.

A New Hockey Stick

This graph from Zerohedge made some news yesterday after the 'better than expected' jobs report..

Why, it's beginning to look like a hockey stick.  Sort of like this one..

Since Mann's hockey stick gave rise to a UN panel to mitigate a coming man-made danger, which resulted in a plan to regulate the world's economy by limiting carbon emissions, shouldn't the government's new hockey stick give rise to some kind of plan to mitigate the growing dependency crisis?   After all, that chart is rising at about the same level as CO2.  It's unsustainable. 

Those Evil Little Inhalers

News is hitting the wires today about the coming forced change in asthma inhalers at the end of the year, and of course some are blaming Obama:

Remember how Obama recently waived new ozone regulations at the EPA because they were too costly? Well, it seems that the Obama administration would rather make people with Asthma cough up money than let them make a surely inconsequential contribution to depleting the ozone layer.

But Obama is only a part of the problem. He didn't create the Montreal Protocol agreement in 1987, which banned CFCs, still used to power some inhalers. All CFCs were supposed to be phased out by now but they loosened the ban to allow for a more gradual reduction for inhalers, but according to the site Weekly Standard linked, sufferers will now need to get a prescription and pay more for their life-saving plastic pumps:

Asthma patients who rely on over-the-counter inhalers will need to switch to prescription-only alternatives as part of the federal government's latest attempt to protect the Earth's atmosphere.

The Food and Drug Administration said Thursday patients who use the epinephrine inhalers to treat mild asthma will need to switch by Dec. 31 to other types that do not contain chlorofluorocarbons, an aerosol substance once found in a variety of spray products.

Does anyone know exactly how these little pumps emit CFCs? What's the science? Are there little exhaust ports or does it just seep out? Or is it exhaled? Calling Al Gore...

Speaking of Gore, here's an oldy from the 90s talking about his use of the politics of fear to hector Bush 41:

In somber tones, Gore reminded his colleagues of previous fears about "the ozone hole over Antarctica," and insisted that our nation faces "not only a long-term, critical threat to the global environment, but also an immediate, acute emergency threat." He raved about "blind rabbits and blind salmon in the areas under the edge of the ozone hole in the Southern hemisphere," and claimed that there would be "an additional 300,000 deaths from skin cancer in the United States as a result of ozone depletion over the next few decades." He also linked ozone depletion to "extra cases of cataracts and blindness due to cataracts," and to "damage to the human immune system...."

Such an effective campaign. Arrrg, the ozone hole! Yet despite the ban scientists say the level of ozone in the Arctic was at an all-time low this past winter. The reason? Inhalers. No, actually, unusually cold air aloft:

"The Montreal Protocol actually works, and the amount of ozone-depleting gases is on the way down, but quite slowly," said Geir Braathen, a senior scientist with the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), which co-ordinates ozone data globally.

"In the meantime, we have some winters that get much colder than before and also the cold periods last longer, into the spring," he told BBC News. "So it's really a combination of the gases still there and low temperatures and then sunshine, and then you get ozone loss."

OK. CFCs are down 10 percent since Montreal (at some level in the atmosphere wherever they measure it) but they just recorded the lowest drop of ozone ever over the Arctic, explained by colder than normal temperatures aloft they can't really explain. Meanwhile the Antarctic ozone hole just keeps forming year after year. And here on the surface of the earth in temperate climes, where ozone levels have not threatened anyone lately, asthmatics are asked to do their patriotic duty by paying more for their evil little inhalers. It sure sounds like a racket, but we're always open to scientific rebuttals.

Might as Well Ban People

From the sensational Drudge headline about the European plan to ban cars in all cities by 2050, emphasis added:

Siim Kallas, the EU transport commission, insisted that Brussels directives and new taxation of fuel would be used to force people out of their cars and onto "alternative" means of transport.

"That means no more conventionally fueled cars in our city centres," he said. "Action will follow, legislation, real action to change behaviour."

Oh yes, action will most definitely follow if self-righteous morons like this guy keep pursuing their totalitarian environmentalism nonsense. Personal transportation and paper money are part of what make men free, and mankind will not give up this freedom without a fight. The question is, whatever happened to the can-do spirit of western civilization to solve problems like this and advance society?