It looks like Investors Business Daily is getting in on the “grasping at anti-global-warming straws” act. They write:
Back in 1991, before Al Gore first shouted that the Earth was in the balance, the Danish Meteorological Institute released a study using data that went back centuries that showed that global temperatures closely tracked solar cycles.
To many, those data were convincing. Now, Canadian scientists are seeking additional funding for more and better “eyes” with which to observe our sun, which has a bigger impact on Earth’s climate than all the tailpipes and smokestacks on our planet combined.
And they’re worried about global cooling, not warming.
Kenneth Tapping, a solar researcher and project director for Canada’s National Research Council, is among those looking at the sun for evidence of an increase in sunspot activity.
Solar activity fluctuates in an 11-year cycle. But so far in this cycle, the sun has been disturbingly quiet. The lack of increased activity could signal the beginning of what is known as a Maunder Minimum, an event which occurs every couple of centuries and can last as long as a century.
Such an event occurred in the 17th century. The observation of sunspots showed extraordinarily low levels of magnetism on the sun, with little or no 11-year cycle.
This solar hibernation corresponded with a period of bitter cold that began around 1650 and lasted, with intermittent spikes of warming, until 1715. Frigid winters and cold summers during that period led to massive crop failures, famine and death in Northern Europe.
Tapping reports no change in the sun’s magnetic field so far this cycle and warns that if the sun remains quiet for another year or two, it may indicate a repeat of that period of drastic cooling of the Earth, bringing massive snowfall and severe weather to the Northern Hemisphere.
Tapping oversees the operation of a 60-year-old radio telescope that he calls a “stethoscope for the sun.” But he and his colleagues need better equipment.
In Canada, where radio-telescopic monitoring of the sun has been conducted since the end of World War II, a new instrument, the next-generation solar flux monitor, could measure the sun’s emissions more rapidly and accurately.
As we have noted many times, perhaps the biggest impact on the Earth’s climate over time has been the sun.
Of course, never one to think critically when somebody tells him what he wants to hear, frequent anti-AGW commenter Number9 eats this up over at TennesseeFree.com:
Better hope this is not the case. It would make Global Warming look like a good deal. This has actually happened before. It wasn’t pleasant.
Of course, I pointed out in comments that for one thing, the Maunder minimum is still quite controversial as a cause for the “Little Ice Age,” and I’ve pointed out several times that the best information we have says that solar variance could account for at most a quarter of the warming we’ve been seeing.
But I’m not a scientist. I just do basic research. And, when I noticed that the IBD never actually directly quoted Dr. Tapping, and only talked about him (all of the direct quotes come from R. Timothy Patterson, a fairly well-known AGW denier), I decided to do something that the “fine journalists” over at IBD couldn’t be bothered to do: I contacted Dr. Tapping directly and asked him about it. Dr. Tapping responds:
Hi Tom,
Thanks for the message. The stuff on the web came from a casual chat with someone who managed to misunderstand what I said and then put the result on the web, which is probably a big caution for me regarding the future.
It is true that the beginning of the next solar cycle is late, but not so late that we are getting worried, merely curious.
It is the opinion of scientists, including me, that global warming is a major issue, and that it might be too late to do anything about it already. If there is a cooling due to the solar activity cycle laying off for a bit, then the a period of solar cooling could be a much-needed respite giving us more time to attack the problem of greenhouse gases, with the caveat that if we do not, things will be far worse when things turn on again after a few decades. However, once again it is early days and we cannot at the moment conclude there is another minimum started.
Thanks for the heads-up.
Regards,
Ken
Wait, what? A business magazine and a mostly right-wing web site took a scientists statements and work out of context in the service of a political agenda? Stop the presses!
Given the history of the anti-AGW movement and their ever-moving target, $10 says they ignore how wrong they were on this one, and instead seize on the “might be too late to do anything about it” part as their next windmill to tilt at.
NOTE: Upon requesting permission to publish the above, Dr. Tapping responds:
Please feel free to quote what I said. I think it is a real shame that we sometimes see the downside of the freedom of the web, and that an investment journal would quote reports like that without going to their source.
Clearly, Dr. Tapping is a tough man to get a hold of, given that John Q. Nobody in Memphis, TN [that would be me] was able to correspond with him twice in one day. Mental note: Don’t trust anything you read in the Investors Business Daily.
And extra-special thanks to Dr. Tapping for being so cooperative in all of this.
Cross-posted at TennesseeFree.com
February 9th, 2008
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Politics, Environment, Science, Climate Change |
92 comments
(Or, as Uncle would say, “They have to lie to win.”)
Over at Tennessefree, poster Serr8d triumphantly produces a graphic that contrasts sea ice concentrations from yesterday’s date in 1980 against yesterday. (See the graphic here.) Quoth Serr8d: “Nice bit of rebounding, eh?”
Only there are two problems with his graphics, one minor and one major. The minor problem is that the 1980 graphic doesn’t include snow cover, while the 2008 graphic does, making the comparison look a bit more favorable than it ought to. But the major problem is that the dates he chose are in the winter! Anyone who knows a damn thing about the polar sea ice problem knows that winter isn’t the problem, summer is. And lookie what happens when you rewind five months from both dates, so that you have a late summer date to compare rather than a late winter date: there was substantially less sea ice this past summer than there was 28 years earlier. I don’t have exact figures, but from eyeballing it, I’d say it’s something like 33% less. See that graphic here.
And they wonder why I accuse them of cherry-picking.
Meanwhile, Serr8d also clings (for dear life) to the tired, old “it’s really the sun that’s doing it” even though solar intensity has been decreasing for the last several years, even as the planet continues to warm, and even though the most generous estimates say that solar activity could account for a quarter at most of current warming trends.
Still, if my past experiences with AGW deniers are any indication, the odds of a retraction, correction, or other mea culpa approach zero.
February 8th, 2008
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Politics, Environment, Science, Climate Change |
3 comments
So the president signed the new energy bill today. It’s progress, to be sure, but I’m having a hard time getting too excited about it. For one thing, it’s a watered-down bill compared to what was originally proposed, with renewable energy funding stripped out, less-aggressive CAFE standards, and continued subsidies for oil and coal. For another, the new CAFE standards don’t take effect until 2020. For those keeping score at home, that’s twelve years away. 2010 or 2012 would have been something to get excited about. As it is, it’s better than nothing, and it’s worlds better than what a GOP congress would have given us, but still: Meh.
Your thoughts?
December 19th, 2007
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Politics, Environment, Climate Change |
2 comments
Remember all the hubbub a while back about Al Gore’s house? He said at the time that his house was being renovated to become more energy efficient, and it seems he’s a man of his word:
Al Gore, who was criticized for high electric bills at his Tennessee mansion, has completed a host of improvements to make the home more energy efficient, and a building-industry group has praised the house as one of the nation’s most environmentally friendly.
The former vice president has installed solar panels, a rainwater-collection system and geothermal heating. He also replaced all incandescent lights with compact fluorescent or light-emitting diode bulbs.
“Short of tearing it down and staring anew, I don’t know how it could have been rated any higher,” said Kim Shinn of the U.S. Green Building Council, which gave the house its second-highest rating for sustainable design.
…snip…
Shinn said Gore’s renovations are impressive because his home, which is more than 80 years old, had to meet the same rigorous standards as new construction.
“One of the things that is tremendously powerful about what the Gores have done is demonstrate that you can take a home that was a dog, and absolute energy pig, and do things to correct [that],” Shinn said.
December 13th, 2007
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Environment, Climate Change |
19 comments
This is not good:
The Arctic ice cap has collapsed at an unprecedented rate this summer and levels of sea ice in the region now stand at record lows, scientists have announced.
Experts say they are “stunned” by the loss of ice, with an area almost twice as big as the UK disappearing in the last week alone.
So much ice has melted this summer that the Northwest passage across the top of Canada is fully navigable, and observers say the Northeast passage along Russia’s Arctic coast could open later this month.
If the increased rate of melting continues, the summertime Arctic could be totally free of ice by 2030.
But global warming is a myth that will have no effect on our lives and we should just all ignore it anyway because it costs to much to fix and the damn dirty hippies want to take my Hummer away and force me to drive a horse drawn wagon in the snow, up hill, both ways while the use hysteria about the non-existent global warming that’s melting the Arctic much faster than predicted to establish their One world Socialist government with its Global Warming Collective farms and mandatory dirt hut residences and Hillary Clinton as King and Al Gore as Pope.
September 5th, 2007
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Politics, Environment, Climate Change |
12 comments
More signs of the effects of global climate change?:
About twice as many Atlantic hurricanes form each year on average than a century ago, according to a new statistical analysis of hurricanes and tropical storms in the north Atlantic. The study concludes that warmer sea surface temperatures (SSTs) and altered wind patterns associated with global climate change are fueling much of the increase.
The study, by Greg Holland of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and Peter Webster of Georgia Institute of Technology, will be published online July 30 in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London.
“These numbers are a strong indication that climate change is a major factor in the increasing number of Atlantic hurricanes,” says Holland.
The analysis identifies three periods since 1900, separated by sharp transitions, during which the average number of hurricanes and tropical storms increased dramatically and then remained elevated and relatively steady. The first period, between 1900 and 1930, saw an average of six Atlantic tropical cyclones (or major storms), of which four were hurricanes and two were tropical storms. From 1930 to 1940, the annual average increased to 10, consisting of five hurricanes and five tropical storms. In the final study period, from 1995 to 2005, the average reached 15, of which eight were hurricanes and seven were tropical storms.
This is suggestive because we know that the global climate has warmed considerably over that same period. It also is what one would expect to find if the Atlantic were warming: the extra energy in the water would translate to more storms being created and those storms that are created being more powerful. This study does not address the last question, however. It just looks at the frequency of storms. It does note that the ratio of hurricanes to tropical storms has remained the same. That could support the notion that global warming is not having an effect on the strength of severe storms in the Atlantic. It could also mean nothing of the sort: climate change could be making storms much stronger than they normally would be, resulting in the same ratio of tropical storms to hurricanes but more powerful hurricanes and tropical storms in general.
At any rate, this study looks to be more evidence that we are making the planet more and more hostile to our presence.
UPDATE: [tgirsch] Link
August 3rd, 2007
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Environment, Science, Climate Change |
10 comments
I would love to see this paper:
Verdes, now at Novartis Pharma, examined data on temperature anomalies, the strength of the radiation emitted from the Sun, and volcanic activity. The relatively recent increases in solar radiation, combined with reduced volcanic activity, contribute to the increase in world temperatures. However, Verdes’ analysis demonstrates that these natural causes do not completely explain the observed warming.
Verdes calculated the amount of non-natural influence required to match the increases in temperature observed in the last 150 years. He plotted the influence over time. Then, he compared it to the evolution of greenhouse gasses, taking into account the cooling due to aerosols. With allowances for error, he found that influences attributable to greenhouse gasses mirror the graph of non-natural influence needed to explain the observed temperature increase of recent decades.
His research shows that, if you look at global warming as a puzzle, and you put together the natural factors such as increased solar radiation and reduced volcanic activity, a hole remains. The human factors of greenhouse gas and aerosol emission complete the picture.
This makes intuitive sense — add up all the known effects and then see if they can account for the known change in temperatures. If they cannot, then either there is some natural factor or combination of natural factors that we are unaware of or human beings are causing the difference. When you take note of the other evidence in support of human contributions to global warming, this approach could act as strong corroboration of the existing scientific consensus. But I would liek to see the math, and I would really like to see how they deal with the issue of potential “unknown” natural effects.
August 2nd, 2007
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General, Environment, Science, Climate Change |
18 comments
Life works in mysterious ways:
A method for making instant steam, without the need for electricity, promises to be useful for tackling antibiotic resistant ‘superbugs’ like MRSA and C. difficile, as well as removing chewing gum from pavements and powering environmentally friendly cars, reports Nina Morgan in Chemistry & Industry, the magazine of the SCI. ‘The value of instant steam lies in creating truly portable steam that can be generated intermittently on demand,’ says Dave Wardle, business development director at Oxford Catalysts.
The company is already in talks with UK specialist steam supplier OspreyDeepclean about possible applications for steam cleaning hospitals, Wardle adds. An as-yet unpublished 2006 study at University College London Hospital, commissioned by OspreyDeepclean, showed that dry steam applied at temperatures ranging from 150 to 180 C could destroy bacteria, including MRSA and Clostridium difficile, in less than two seconds, without the use of chemicals.
Ina ll seriousness, this could be fantastic news. We as a culture have helped evolve, through our careless and over-use of antibiotics — a class of superbugs that antibiotics cannot kill. Without an effective means of fighting these bugs, mortality rates in hospitals will contiue to climb and there is the very real possibility that we will start seeing these bugs outside of hospital environments. Obviously, this method does nothing for people who have contract one of these infections, but it does appears as if it could work wonderfully as a preventive measure. A simple, effective, easy to use and almost instantaneous disenfciting process would go a long way to making our hospitals much more superbug resistant.
And giving us chewing gum free sidewalks, let’s not forgot …
July 30th, 2007
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Environment, Science, Health |
2 comments
This 32-year-old clown who lives in his mother’s townhouse in an expensive part of Washington, DC, bought a Hummer too big to fit in his mother’s garage. He then paid extra to have it jacked up and fitted with super-sized tires. It gets 14mpg and he justifies it by saying he needs it to create the right “image” for the “sports marketing” company he wants to start. He parked the 7-foot-tall penis substitute on the street, and within a week somebody vandalized it, slashing all the tires, breaking all the windows, and keying “FOR THE ENVIRON” [sic] into the paint.
Tough break. That’ll probably put a real dent in his startup bobble-head doll business. Along with the $38,000 he paid for the thing (used), replacing all the tires and windows might even delay his moving out of his mother’s house, not that he appears to be in any hurry. I’m all for the environment, but vandalizing ridiculous cars is probably not the best way to deal with the issues. And if whoever did it gets caught, they should be made to pay restitution fully equal to the cost of a set of windows and tires . . . for a Prius.
All that being said, however, why exactly did the Washington Post give this story more than 20 column inches in today’s paper? A rich white loser in NW DC got his car vandalized? That’s the lead story in the B-section of the paper that broke the Watergate case?!
It’s the complicity in this jerkoff’s insular sense of entitlement that bugs me about this. The article notes that he’s aware of the stupidity and wastefulness of such a machine - he just doesn’t care. But apparently the Post doesn’t care either - and by that I mean not only do they think that his financial inconvenience is more important than his indifference to the environment, but they think that he, individually, is more important than everything they didn’t write about that day.
Washington, for those who don’t know, is divided geographically and economically. The Northwest map quadrant is the affluent section; it houses Georgetown and American Universities, the trendy neighborhoods and popular bars and clubs, the legal and lobbying industry clusters, much of the federal government real estate, the foreign embassies, the exclusive residential neighborhoods like this guy’s mother’s street, and almost all the white people. The Southwest is mostly governmental. The Eastern quadrants are heavily residential/commercial, almost entirely black, and largely a wasteland. Everything you hear about upper-class Washington - the Georgtown political parties, the Embassy Row receptions, the catered fundraisers, the insider salons - that’s Northwest. Everything you hear about ghetto Washington - the local-government bungling, the murders, the drugs, the ravaged school system and dilapidated hospitals - that’s Northeast.
The idea of the Washington Post devoting 20 paragraphs and an anguished photo to the story of a single car vandalism in the NE would be gut-splittingly ludicrous. Murders go unreported there, by the dozens. Every lesser crime, every imaginable urban misery, occurs there in handfuls, or scores, or hundreds of repetitions on a daily basis. The political destruction of local government by Congressional Republicans, and that government’s own ineptitude, are an ongoing, deadly story. Almost none of it makes the hometown paper. Certainly anyone who called the Post City desk and said they lived near the University of the District of Columbia (NE), and not American University (NW), and they’d had their tires slashed and wanted the paper to send over a reporter and photographer to run a sympathetic profile about how they’d been victimized by those mean liberals would be laughed off the line; the reporter could dine off the story of that prole’s presumption for months. But one aggrieved white guy on the border of Chevy Chase is news no matter what happens; the fact that he’s unhappy about anything is reason enough to give him all the attention he wants.
I think this reporter should be required to log at least two dozen human-interest bylines from within walking distance of the Brentwood Metro station before she’s allowed to write about white people again. And as for Hummer-boy, here’s something to entertain himself with while he’s waiting for his new paint job to dry.
July 18th, 2007
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General, Politics, Economics, Environment, Culture, Media, News & Current Events, Race |
53 comments
This week’s Shepherd Express (a Milwaukee Indy paper) has a pretty good article on what to make of increasing cooperation among corporations and environmental groups:
Many environmental activists seem to welcome the notion of a convergence of business interests and green interests, but it all seems too good to be true. If eco-friendly policies are entirely “win-win,” then why did corporations resist them for so long? It is hard to believe that the conflict between profit maximization and environmental protection, which characterized the entire history of the ecological movement, has suddenly evaporated.
Either corporations are fooling themselves, in which case they will eventually realize there is no environmental free lunch and renege on their green promises, or they are fooling us and are perpetrating a massive public relations hoax. A third interpretation is that companies are taking voluntary steps that are genuine but inadequate to solve the problems at hand and are mainly meant to prevent stricter, enforceable government regulation.
In any event, it would behoove enviros to be more skeptical of corporate green claims and less eager to jump into bed with business. It certainly makes sense to seek specific concessions from corporations and offer moderate praise when they comply, but activists should maintain an arm’s-length relationship to business and not see themselves as partners. After all, the real purpose of the environmental movement is not simply to make technical adjustments to the way business operates (that’s the job of consultants) but rather to push for fundamental and systemic changes.
Read the whole thing.
June 21st, 2007
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Economics, Environment |
10 comments
The indie paper from my original home town of Milwaukee has this nice piece on the little things that city is doing to become more green. It’s worth a read.
On question I have, however, is this: A lot of what’s being done involves using porous hardscape materials and green roofs in an effort to reduce stormwater runoff. But what happens when it gets cold, and water freezes? Are you at increased risk of buckling, cracking, etc., or are these designed with the cold in mind to somehow avoid these problems? I’d have to think the latter, given the harsh winters up there, but I just don’t see how.
April 20th, 2007
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Environment |
9 comments
It snowed in Cincinnati yesterday, exactly two weeks into spring. Glenn Reynolds believes, apparently sincerely, that that proves global warming isn’t real.
HAS AL GORE BEEN TO CINCINNATI LATELY? Because I’m visiting my brother here and drove the last hour or so through heavy snowfall. It’s freezing (literally) and it’s April. Ugh.
Greenhouse effect? Global warming? Faster, please.
Insty interpreted: “I’m a seriously stupid fucker who makes global-level policy recommendations on the basis of my personal religious, or in some cases, skin temperature, considerations alone. Complex planet-wide phenomena can be verified by what happens on one day in my direct line of sight.”
April 7th, 2007
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General, Politics, Religion, Environment, Science, News & Current Events, Climate Change |
8 comments
The New York Times Business section (so, OK, expectations aren’t high, but still . . .) has an article today on a lawsuit against the manufacturers of the artificial sweetener “Splenda”. The issue hinges to some extent on how the sweetener is synthesized, and the reporter tries to explain this horrifically complex process to the reader. It’s not a pretty sight.
April 6th, 2007
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General, Politics, School, Economics, Environment, Writing, Culture, Science, Health, Education, Media, Food & Cooking, Technology, News & Current Events, Math |
5 comments
Justice Scalia is making no sense. In his dissent to the recent ruling that the laws governing the EPA require it to treat greenhouse gasses as pollutants Scalia wrote this:
In his own, additional dissent, Justice Scalia argued that even if global warming is a crisis requiring immediate attention, it is the job of Congress and the President—not the courts—to address it. “No matter how important the underlying policy issues at stake, this court has no business substituting its own desired outcome for the reasoned judgment of the responsible agency.”
This is breathtakingly deceitful. Congress has dealt with the issue. As the majority recognized, the law that Congress wrote does cover greenhouse gases. The Executive said, essentially, “no, I think it means this” and the people affected by the inaction of the Executive went to Court to get a ruling on the actual meaning of the law. That is what courts do. Scalia is either delusional or deliberately trying to make the routine attempt to enforce the law sound like an end-run around the normal legislative process. The only way Scalia’s position makes any sense is if he thinks that Congress should have to write a new law every time the Executive refuses to follow the old one.
But that is a very stupid idea. Scalia would adopt a system where the Executive is free to ignore the Congress and Congress’s only recourse is to write new laws. Laws that the executive could then ignore again by the simply expedient of claiming that the law does not say what Congress means it to say. Scalia, then, would completely destroy the ability of the elected representatives of the people of the United States to control anything the executive does. His reasoning would mean, in plain terms, that the Executive could ignore any law it wanted to simply by stating that it “interprets” the law differently. Without the intervention of a court, the Executive would never have to obey any laws it does not want to.
Imagine if contracts worked like Scalia seems to think that the rule of law works. You sign a contract expecting it to be fulfilled by the date in the contract and to all the terms of the contract. The person doing the work does not adhere to the guidelines of the contract claiming that he doesn’t have to because he interprets “caulking the bathtub” as “putting anything in the cracks between the bathtub and the walls” and fills them with molasses. You take the man to court, but unfortunately for you, Justice Scalai hears your case and tells you that the courts don;t belong in this dispute — it is a matter for you and the other signatory to work out. Maybe you should write another contract and get him to sign that one. It is just as stupid when Scalia tells that to Congress.
Obviously there is no reading of the Constitution — originalist, textualist, man-from-mars-ist — that could support the notion that the executive can disobey the law just by disputing what it says and that courts have no right to adjudicate the disagreement. That way lies the power of kings, and the one thing that all honest Constitutional scholars agree upon is that the Constitution was designed to forever keep kings out of our governance. To get around this, Scalia must pretend that the routine is the extraordinary and that the courts have no business forcing the executive to obey the law. That is not an argument to be taken seriously. It is an argument meant to provide a fig leaf of cover for the fact that Scalia is attempting to legislate his persoanl policy preference instead of dealing with the law as it is written.
April 4th, 2007
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Politics, Environment |
11 comments
Charles Karel Bouley, at the Huffington Post, has a lacerating column today that is breathtaking for its incisiveness and audacity.
He riffs on the recent cancer-related stories in the media, and has a few testy things to say about Tony Snow, so, unquestionably, the wingers will quote two angry sentences from it, dump their usual vitriol on the blogger, and scamper, still blissfully oblivious. But for those who can read and think and who try to care, here’s the medicine you need:
if [CNN] wants to do some good, they’ll talk about the real cancers in this country, and there are plenty; no, not the tumors growing in Elizabeth or the lesions in Tony Snow, but the terminal cancers festering in the political system, in the heartland of America, and on the news networks.
First, let’s talk about the cancer that is festering in the American news media. . . . Our news is one step short of Entertainment Tonight, Inside Edition or American’s Most Wanted. Our journalists don’t ask tough questions, don’t do much research, take press releases as fact, report things from the web that have no basis in fact, and if a celebrity OD’s they go in to overdrive. And we, the nation, are dying because of this. . . .
What about the cancer that is in Washington D.C. these days? We’ll call it elected official fearanoma. I openly laughed this week when I read the Chuck Hagels interview where he said that if things don’t change he’s aware that impeachment is a possible solution. . . . So, Mr. Hagel, you FINALLY read the Constitution? It just dawned on you that impeachment is an option when the president has become a dictator? Please, keep reading, it’s a good document. . . . [B]ecause some of you are running for president, others running for reelection and yet others living in some haze of complacency. Your cancer is terminal. You are weakened by it and do nothing. You’re not taking aggressive steps to cure it.
And then there’s the possibly terminal case of Lack of Reality Carcinoma. We are at war and we, the people, sacrifice nothing, demand nothing, expect nothing. Instead of tax increases, you get a tax break. Instead of demanding that Hummer stop producing their gas guzzling completely unnecessary vehicles for the self indulgent and retool their factories to make the Cougar vehicles that are needed in Iraq to keep our troops safe from IEDs you rent limos made of these beasts . . . . Your light bill should be double, the same with gas at the pump. Why? To make the companies switch to green fuels, renewable resources. Most of you haven’t called your power company to see if you are getting greener energy, don’t know your carbon imprint on the planet, nothing. Why is this important? Because Osama attacked us because we have bases is Saudi Arabia. We are at war in Iraq protecting oil reserves and are about to go to war with Iran. We need to leave the middle east entirely and that means leave their oil behind. Not in 100 years, but now. We have the technology, but you have to pay for it. And you won’t. Do you go to city council meetings and demand that all new construction in your city is energy self-sufficient? Have you priced solar for your home? Do you drive a hybrid if you can? What’s the last thing you said to your Congressman? Senator? Sacrifice, we simply haven’t. Most of you haven’t even sacrificed your children, and that includes George Bush. For most of you, it ’s not your kids fighting. No, the cancer of apathy, of gluttony, of conspicuous consumption grows stronger every day. . . .
It is not a given that the U.S. will remain the world’s super power forever. In fact, history says it won’t. If we don’t cure these aggressive cancers growing in our media, in our government and in our society, we will fade away and become a shell of what we once were.
There’s more. Read it.
March 27th, 2007
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General, Politics, Economics, Environment, Culture, Iraq, News & Current Events, Fiasco, Climate Change |
6 comments
Just a couple of things that continue to bug me on this:
- Some people (like commenter Fred, here) are accusing Gore of being a hypocrite. But I have to wonder, on what basis? If you can give an example of Gore advocating that we widely mandate a standard, but that he should be personally exempt from that standard, then sure. But to my knowledge, he has done no such thing. This is exactly the same kind of flawed logic that suggests that anyone who believes we should increase taxes should voluntarily be paying more taxes now, or that anyone who supports the Iraq war should personally volunteer to go fight in it (or, at the very least, voluntarily pay extra taxes to help pay for it). But if Gore were a hypocrite, then isn’t Inhofe at least as bad for putting forth a pledge that he himself would never even consider signing?
- Commenter Ted suggests that Gore could set a better example by “downsizing his residence,” but this suggestion ignores what would happen to the existing residence after he left. If Gore moves out, and the new occupant reverts back to non-green power sources, what you wind up with is a net increase in carbon output, which would be exactly counter-productive. Sure, Gore could try to draw up some sort of contract that requires the new occupant to continue using green power, but how would that be any different from Gore just staying put? The other option would be to raze the house and replace it with smaller, more efficient ones; but I’m not sure what the net result would be given the energy required for (and pollution generated by) such an endeavor.
March 26th, 2007
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Politics, Environment |
7 comments
Senator Inhofe thinks he’s clever:
GORE REFUSES TO TAKE PERSONAL ENERGY ETHICS PLEDGE
WASHINGTON, DC – Former Vice President Al Gore refused to take a “Personal Energy Ethics Pledge” today to consume no more energy than the average American household. The pledge was presented to Gore by Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Ranking Member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, during today’s global warming hearing.
Senator Inhofe showed Gore a film frame from “An Inconvenient Truth” where it asks viewers: “Are you ready to change the way you live?”
Gore has been criticized for excessive home energy usage at his residence in Tennessee. His electricity usage is reportedly 20 times higher than the average American household.
It has been reported that many of these so-called carbon offset projects would have been done anyway. Also, carbon offset projects such as planting trees can take decades or even a century to sequester the carbon emitted today. So energy usage today results in greenhouse gases remaining in the atmosphere for decades, even with the purchase of so-called carbon offsets.
“There are hundreds of thousands of people who adore you and would follow your example by reducing their energy usage if you did. Don’t give us the run-around on carbon offsets or the gimmicks the wealthy do,” Senator Inhofe told Gore.
“Are you willing to make a commitment here today by taking this pledge to consume no more energy for use in your residence than the average American household by one year from today?” Senator Inhofe asked.
Senator Inhofe then presented Vice President Gore with the following “Personal Energy Ethics Pledge:
As a believer:
· that human-caused global warming is a moral, ethical, and spiritual issue affecting our survival;
· that home energy use is a key component of overall energy use;
· that reducing my fossil fuel-based home energy usage will lead to lower greenhouse gas emissions; and
· that leaders on moral issues should lead by example;
I pledge to consume no more energy for use in my residence than the average American household by March 21, 2008.”
Gore refused to take the pledge.
Because the entire property of a former Vice President, housing multiple residences, office space, and a Secret Service detail, is just like a two-bedroom apartment in Queens.
Well, as long as we’re making pointless and arbitrary demands . . .
Waiting . . .
March 21st, 2007
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General, Politics, Environment, Culture, News & Current Events, Climate Change |
17 comments
- Is it just me or is Johnny Cash really a punk singer born a few years too early and a few thousand miles out of place?
- John Calipari wants Memphis fans to root for Tennessee. Sorry, no. Nothing against the team or their coach, but have you seen that stupid white T on that neon-bright orange background? When people wear shirts with the Tennessee logo, especially ones that are nothing but the T on the bright-orange-eye-destroying background. they look like Sesame Street muppets. they look their chant should be “Go Vols!” But “This basketball team has been brought to you by the letter T and the number 0, which is not oly the number of football players we are going to graduate in the next decade but also looks kinda like the letter O, for eye-destroying-bright orange.” Grown people shouldn’t dress as Random Monster #3 from Sesame Street and I wouldn’t feel right doing anything to encourage those people.
- Saw some of the Gore testimony. Can anyone imagine Bush speaking extemporaneously about any subject at all with one millionth of the eloquence or command of material that Gore displayed?
- The Blackhawks are now officially eliminated from playoff contention. You would think that, sooner or later, after more thana decade of this, I would stop approaching each season optimistically. Sports fans are truly delusional.
- Memo to Memphis drivers: its okay to use your turn signal. It’s not okay to try and take up both lanes of a two lane road. This is not that hard a concept: I get a lane, you get a lane. See? Nice and fair.
- Why does my spell checker refuse to recognize that “okay” is a real word?
March 21st, 2007
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I do too have a life, Bloggin, Environment |
2 comments
The Bush Administration has alternately said that the science on global warming is not settled and that global warming is a great threat. In either case, don’t you think that people who believed those either of those statements would want to do much more research on the matter? If you are a skeptic who thins the problem is being hyped, wouldn’t you want the hard science to prove the believers wrong? And if you believed it was a problem, wouldn’t you want to study the problem to gain as much information about it as you could? Ahh, but you, my friend, are an intelligent, thoughtful, reasonable human being who places an emphasis on truth and reality.
In other words, you are not a member of the Bush Administration:
“It became clear that the new constraints on my communications were going to be a real impediment when I was forced to take down from our website our routine posting of updated global temperature analysis.”
Since then, Nasa has slashed its budget for the study of Earth sciences, which has been cut by 20 per cent compared to an increase of between 1 and 3 per cent in other areas of Nasa’s science spending.
The agency’s “mission statement” has also been changed so that there is no longer a reference to saving our home planet, Dr Hansen says.
NASA programs and satellites have been at the forefront of gathering data about our planet almost form their first launches. For certain kinds of information, there are no better sources than the ones NASA can provide. Anyone who took the issue of global warming seriously — anyone who cared more about reality than about temporary political gain — would not cut their funding and would not try to pretend that NASA should not be charged with such activity. These cuts and moves only make sense if the Bush Administration was convinced that global warming was real and could be affected by human activity but didn’t want to actually change any human activity.
March 20th, 2007
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Environment, Climate Change |
6 comments
From the “all linky no thinky” file. I’m certainly not endorsing any of these ideas, but it makes for interesting reading.
March 15th, 2007
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Environment, Science, Climate Change |
7 comments
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