Filed under: Capitalism, Domestic Policy, Economy, Election 2012, Energy, Junk Science, Liberalism | Tags: Inadequate Investigation, Solyndra Bankruptcy, Squandering Taxpayer Money
And these voices are from some of the members of the media most in the tank for Obama. Experienced investors were even more dubious.
Filed under: Capitalism, Environment, Global Warming, Junk Science, Politics, Religion, United Nations | Tags: Conference on Sustainable Development, Hold Back Human Progress, World Wildlife Fund
Are you familiar with the World Wildlife Fund? Huge, wealthy worldwide organization, preserving wildlife, caring for the environment, doing good environmental works. If you visit their website and look at their board of directors, it’s an impressive list of the prominent and very well-to-do.
The other face of the World Wildlife Fund is as an extremist green campaigning group. In their just-issued Living Planet Report for 2012, they state that economic growth should be abandoned, that citizens of the world’s wealthy nations should prepare for poverty and that all the human race’s energy should be produced as renewable electricity within 38 years from now.
The hard greens demand that the enormous numbers of wind farms, tidal barriers and solar arrays required under their plans should be built while at the same time severely rationing supplies of concrete, steel, copper and glass. The document is endorsed by the European Space Agency (ESA) an organization which would cease to exist were the document’s recommendations to be fully carried out. They’re important. Nobody said they had to make sense.
Ben Pile, the convenor of the Oxford Salon, said simply: “The real enemy is humanity itself.”
At Rio+20 next month, the world’s elites will meet in Brazil with the aim of holding back human progress.
Forty years ago, two ideas about humanity’s relationship with the natural world caught the imagination of the richest and most influential people. The first was that the demands of a growing population were taking more from the planet than could be replaced by natural processes. The second, related idea was that there exist natural ‘limits to growth’. These two reinventions of Malthusianism became the basis of a new form of global politics, which has sought to contain human industrial and economic development ever since.
Organizations like the WWF draw their supporters for emotional reasons. Love of baby animals, love of large and noble species like African elephants, pandas, rhinoceros, giraffes; beautiful photography can be very moving.
Fears of out-of-control population growth led Malthus and then Paul Erlich, author of the 1968 prophecy The Population Bomb to fear that we would run out of food, and humanity would starve. Fortunately Norman Borlaug came along with the Green Revolution, and put that worry aside.
The Club of Rome, a talk-shop for diplomats, noted politicians and researchers fostered the development of all sorts of organizations and conferences and commissions designed to save the world. An entire ecosystem of global, national, governmental and non-governmental organizations has emerged to advocate closer integration of human productive life with environmental care and to observe “the limits to growth.” Most notable is the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change which seeks a global agreement to limit greenhouse gas emissions.
Well, all the predictions of doom didn’t happen. Average life-expectancy has increased by 10 years, the number of infants dying before the age of five has fallen from 134 per thousand to 58 per thousand. Human population has nearly doubled, and we are healthier, wealthier (even in spite of the recent downturns) and global GDP has risen threefold. We’ve learned to grow more food on less land, cured diseases, and made amazing progress, but those who joined the church of the doomed have established “sustainable development’ as an imperative of global politics. The first ‘Earth Summit’ was held in Rio leading to Agenda 21 and ‘the blueprint for a sustainable planet.’
If you are perpetually worried about very big things, with other, um, planetary leaders, you are moving in rarefied circles.The conferences are held in the world’s finest resorts, the finest people attend, the finest food and drink is served, and you discuss the finest subjects. It seems quite proper to be discussing surrendering national autonomy, solving the problem of world poverty, solving the problems on inequality.
What if you think we do pretty well with progress, that an emphasis on sustainability is not particularly useful, and that in general the planet is in pretty good shape? Doesn’t matter. These NGOs, world leaders, celebrities, and environmentalists have moved to a higher level where no such dissent is allowed. These meetings are already far beyond democratic control. The slogan is “global problems need global solutions.”
It is simply another political drive for power, this time on running the world. The participants, drunk on the association with the most important people and the most important ideas, think big thoughts. Easy. All the real dangers are caused by human intervention in natural processes, and the real enemy is humanity itself.
Filed under: Capitalism, Democrat Corruption, Economy, Energy, Junk Science, News the Media Doesn't Want You to Hear | Tags: "Clean" Energy, And Other Fantasies, Green Jobs
Obama hasn’t a lot to brag about in the way of economic recovery, so he’s trying his best to distract from the economy and turn your attention elsewhere. There is the War on Women, elevated from a matter of taxpayers not feeling that it is necessary for them to pay for women’s birth-control pills ($9. a month or less) into a vast right-wing conspiracy depriving all women of voting age of all rights to everything. The Saga of Julia was just another attempt to make the ‘war’ more believable, but that didn’t work either. How about all his ‘investments’ in clean energy?
Can President Obama name one clean energy success? In an ad campaign from President Obama, a man claims his job was saved by President Obama’s meddling in the auto industry. The man works for Johnson Controls, a company that received $299 million in taxpayer-funded subsidies from the stimulus and promised to build two factories in the United States. They built one in this country and will build the other one in Hungary. They will also be laying off workers in coming months.
A Congressional hearing on May 16 exposed more Obama Cronyism. BrightSource Energy received an even bigger loan guarantee from DOE than Solyndra did. They received $1.6 billion in April last year. Their CEO claimed that the Ivanpah project would create 1,400 jobs, which would amount to $1,43 million per job. The BrightSource chairman was nominated to be Commerce Secretary, and the company has become known as “politically connected.”
First Solar received $1.46 billion in loan guarantees, but announced last month that it will lay off another 2,000 employees. On May 7, they reported lst quarter losses of 8 cents a share, a 12% revenue decline. They are expected to join Solyndra in bankruptcy soon.
Willard & Kelsey Solar Group has gone bankrupt, but claimed they only received money from Ohio taxpayers, but they actually got $6 million from Obama’s green energy loan program as well.
A123 Systems, an electric car battery maker who shipped faulty batteries to Fisker Automotive, has seen its stock fall to $1 and is filing for bankruptcy. They got $279 million from taxpayers
Solar Trust for America declared bankruptcy on Monday after receiving a conditional commitment of $2.3 billion in loan guarantees from the Dept. of Energy. Secretary Chu hailed it as “the largest amount ever offered to a solar project.” But they never got the money.
Abound Solar announced on 2/29/12 that they were laying off 280 workers, a 70% reduction in their workforce. They received 400 million from DOE’s loan program.
Ener1, a lithium-ion battery maker filed for bankruptcy. Ener1 owns EnerDel which received $118.5 million from Obama’s “green” energy stimulus plan.
Amonix, a solar company touted by President Obama in 2010 has laid off 200 of its 300 employees. They got $5.9 million.
These energy companies were supported by Obama’s energy stimulus, and are failing or have already filed for bankruptcy. There are lots more stories , and more will come out over time. It will probably be buried on the back pages of compliant media, who hope you won’t notice.
- Evergreen Solar
- SpectraWatt
- Solyndra (received $535 million)
- Beacon Power (received $43 million)
- AES’ subsidiary Eastern Energy
- Nevada Geothermal (received $98.5 million)
- SunPower (received $1.5 billion)
- First Solar (received $1.46 billion)
- Babcock & Brown (an Australian company which received $178 million)
- Ener1 (subsidiary EnerDel received $118.5 million)
- Amonix (received 5.9 million)
- The National Renewable Energy Lab
- Fisker Automotive
- Abound Solar (received $400 million)
- Chevy Volt (taxpayers basically own GM)
- Solar Trust of America
- A123 Systems (received $279 million)
- Willard & Kelsey Solar Group (received $6 million)
- Johnson Controls (received $299 million)
There are also loans to foreign clean energy companies. It is estimated that 80% of these loans went to President Obama’s campaign donors. The President claims that he has created 2.7 million clean energy jobs. But it looks as if a remarkable number of those were considerably more temporary than expected.
ADDENDUM: More of Obama’s unfortunate “investments.”
- Raser Technologies ($33 million grant) bankrupt.
- ECOTotality $126.2 million for electric car chargers ($45 million in losses) insider trading investigation.
According to Peter Schweizer, 71% of Obama Energy Department grants and loans went to “individuals who were bundlers, members of Obama’s National Finance Committee, or large donors to the Democrat party. Collectively, they raised $457,834 for the Obama Campaign, and were in turn approved for grants or loans of nearly $11.35 Billion.” The Energy Department’s Inspector General has launched more than 100 criminal investigations” according to Politico, related to the department’s green energy programs.
Filed under: Capitalism, Democrat Corruption, Economy, Energy, Junk Science, National Security, Progressivism | Tags: "Beyond Gas", Radical Environmental Organizations, The Sierra Club
You are familiar with the Sierra Club, aren’t you? They have those lovely books and calendars with famed photographer Ansel Adams pictures of Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada Mountains. All the bookstores have them. The Sierra Club was founded as an environmental organization devoted to protecting Yosemite, the Sierras and the Redwoods. Did you know that it has become one of the most radical environmental organizations in the world?
They have just declared war on the natural-gas industry. The Sierra Club already has their “Beyond Coal” campaign, and “Beyond Oil,” and they are renaming their efforts against natural gas as “Beyond Gas”. Clever.
Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune said “As we push to retire coal plants, we’re going to work to make sure we’re not simultaneously switching to natural-gas infrastructure. And we’re going to be preventing new gas plants from being built wherever we can.
Perhaps you have read about the new discoveries of massive supplies of energy found in shale deposits, and thought gratefully about the possibility that your energy bills would go down. Not so fast. The environmental organizations and the Left want the country to depend on “clean energy,” which is, so far, embodied entirely in wind farms and solar arrays. It is hard to understand their motivation: they are zealots, they are dimwits, they are useful idiots?
•In 2011, the United States produced 23.0 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, making it the world’s largest natural gas producer.• In 2011 the U.S. produced 5.67 million barrels of oil, making it the world’s third largest oil producer. •The U.S. has 261 billion tons of coal in its proved coal reserves. •These are the world’s largest coal reserves and over 27 percent of the world’s proved coal reserves. •Proved conventional oil reserves worldwide more than doubled from 642 billion barrels in 1980 to more than 1.3 trillion barrels in 2009. •The U.S. has 486 billion tons of coal in its demonstrated reserve base, enough domestic coal to use for the next 485 years at current rates of consumption. •This doesn’t include Alaska’s coal resources, which according to government estimates, are larger than those in the lower 48 states. • The world could hold more than 700 quadrillion (700,000 trillion ) cubic feet of methane hydrates — more energy than all other fossil fuels.
♦In 2011, wind power produced 1.2 percent of the energy used in the United States. ♦ In 2011, solar power produced 0.1 percent of the energy used in the United States. ♦ In 2011, hydroelectric power contributed 3.3 percent of the energy used in the United States and 7.9 percent of the electricity. ♦ There are 104 nuclear reactors in the U.S. and construction for all began prior to 1974.
Since 1970, the six “criteria pollutants” have declined by 63 percent, even though the generation of electricity from coal-fired plants has increased by over 180 percent.
The subsidies for wind energy are running out as they were part of Obama’s stimulus plan. If they are not renewed, the wind industry probably cannot survive on its own without governmental force. Aside from all the scandal and crony capitalism in the “renewables” field, wind and solar combined cannot produce the energy we need to keep warm in the winter and cool in the summer. People die from the cold. Germany now has 15% fuel poverty — people cannot pay for the energy they need. Britain has had huge problems with fuel poverty— it wasn’t long ago that British seniors were buying up used books at jumble sales to burn for fuel. And the earth is cooling instead of warming.
The zealots apparently believe that if they just give enough money to their well-connected friends who are involved with “renewable energy” that the industry will somehow take off. If they just ban enough of our cheap, abundant resources, then people will be forced to use “renewable energy,” and if they switch us all to electric cars — oh wait, the electricity for our electric cars is produced by coal-fired or gas-fired plants. Well, they’ll force us all onto light rail and high-speed trains — oh wait… You will notice if you are paying close attention that the term “renewable energy” has dropped from favor, and been replaced by “clean energy”— the “renewable” bit only worked when we were running out of fossil fuels. Now that they are truly plentiful, they have to come up with another tactic. Just imagine if we eliminated coal and eliminated natural gas! Basic, elementary common sense and logic fail. Besides that, remember than wind and solar require 24/7 backup from regular coal or gas-fired power plants. How is this possibly supposed to work? Are they zealots, dimwits or useful idiots?
Filed under: Capitalism, Democrat Corruption, Economy, Environment, Junk Science | Tags: Big Brother, Eco-Totalitarianism, Moving Ahead for Progress
You can always tell when the Democrats have come up with a bill by the name. I thought the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” was a pretty pretentious name as ObamaCare neither protects patients nor makes anything affordable. Now comes the prospective Senate Bill 1813 the “Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act.” I reject anything named the 21st Century anything, but “Moving Ahead for Progress”— oh, puhleeze.
It gives the IRS the power to revoke passports belonging to those who are delinquent with tax debt in excess of $50,000. (That keeps a lot of Obama administration people safely at home). The potential law may also be used to measure your carbon footprint each time you get in your car.
The legislation makes it mandatory for all new cars in the U.S. to be fitted with black box-like recorders beginning in 2015. Called “Mandatory Event Data Recorders,” the devices would be capable of monitoring your speed, driving habits, braking habits, miles driven, location and distance of travel. Removal of the device would be a civil offense. The measurements would remain the property of the vehicle owner, but the government would have the authority to retrieve the data.
This is most probably another innovation of the Greens. They are very anxious to control your use of energy, and shutting down most sources of energy in favor of what they conceive of as clean energy continues unabated. Just wait till you get your Smart Meter and are connected to the Home Area Network.
Filed under: Domestic Policy, Environment, Freedom, History, Junk Science, Politics | Tags: Environmentalism, Private Property, Property Rights
Like this:
Filed under: Energy, Environment, Global Warming, Junk Science, Science/Technology | Tags: A Cold Climate is Bad, Carbon Emissions are Good, The Medieval Warm Period
I was going to ignore Earth Day because I think it is profoundly silly, and I don’t want to encourage the perpetually discontented doom-mongers.
Carbon Dioxide is a natural product that is one of the building blocks of life. Increased CO2 levels are constructive and highly beneficial to both mankind and the natural world. I don’t know the location of the picture above, though it looks like a nuclear plant. Pictures like this are always used to subtly say ‘look, evil industry is polluting the planet,” but what is coming out of the smokestacks is most likely steam— water vapor.
Back in the 1970s, the earth experienced a short-term cooling trend, and many of the perpetually discontented doom-mongers were alarmed and predicted a coming catastrophe. If it had continued, it would have been a problem, for cold is much harder to deal with than warm.
A little more warming would be nice. It’s barely 50° here, and though it may be spring, our temperatures are way below normal. Yes, this is not climate. But the Medieval Warm Period from about 900 till 1300, when it was much warmer than today, was the finest weather known to man. Wine grapes grew in England, the Vikings farmed in Greenland, and the climate was maybe 2° to 4° warmer than now. Castles and cathedrals were built throughout Europe, which is an indication of good food supplies and greater wealth. In June, 1253, Westminster Abbey alone had 428 construction workers, nearly half of them skilled stone workers and glass blowers.
CO2 is plant food, what all humans and animals breathe out, and plants breathe in CO2 and exhale oxygen. We are at a low point of CO2 in the atmosphere, around .038 ppm. Greenhouses boost CO2 to 1000 ppm, and nurserymen continue to survive, as will we.
Filed under: Capitalism, Economy, Energy, Junk Science | Tags: Brownouts and Blackouts, No Green Energy, No Green Jobs
Another day and another solar company disaster. First Solar, a solar energy company that received a $1.46 billion loan guarantee from the Department of Energy announced Monday that it will lay off 2.000 workers worldwide. In December, they laid off 100 employees at a Santa Clara, California plant. The DOE has committed the loan to a project in Riverside County in California that is expected to create 15 permanent jobs and 550 temporary construction jobs.
Now the Department of Energy is preparing to issue another bunch of loans,”subject to a robust monitoring effort to ensure that taxpayers investments are protected” loan program chief David Frantz said. He also said that the Energy Department loan program has “helped the United States keep pace in the fierce global race for clean energy technologies.” Race? What race? Everybody else if getting out. Franz added that those loans support American clean energy projects expected to provide power to nearly 3 million households and are creating tens of thousands of jobs. Construction jobs? Any permanent jobs? Or just till the outfit goes bankrupt?
The money, it seems, has already been appropriated, and you certainly can’t put it back once it has been appropriated. After all there is “intense global competition” and the nation “cannot afford to stop moving forward.” Why ever not?
For whatever reason, Obama has put a lot of faith in clean green energy. He spoke early on about halting the rise of the seas, and he really believed that there would be lots of ‘green’ jobs. He has worked very hard at shutting down fossil fuels: stalling permits in the Gulf using the excuse of safety of offshore rigs; putting the coasts out of reach for drilling; refusing to sign on to the Keystone XL pipeline; pushing electric cars and solar arrays, wind farms and high speed rail; and demanding that in just 8 more years that 30% of our energy come from renewable energy.
The evidence has been very clear that these were pipe dreams — that there was a vast gap between ‘capacity’ as the promoters described it and real power. Wind is intermittent. It doesn’t blow steadily— ever. A wind turbine needs backup 24/7 from a conventional power plant because the wind doesn’t blow steadily. The sun goes down at night, and there is no solar energy on cloudy days nor in the winter when days are short and storms are frequent and people need power more. They require backup power from a conventional power plant as well. And electric cars get their charge from a conventional power plant.
Even now, Spain has dumped their renewable energy. They can’t afford it. Germany has cut way back on subsidies and their world’s leading solar manufacturer has gone bankrupt (as did their subsidiary in this country). Germany is a northern country that gets very little sun in the winter, and solar energy isn’t practical— but the Germans do love the sun. The Chinese, who put everyone else in trouble with their cheap solar panels, have lost interest in solar energy and are going to rely on nuclear energy instead.
It’s hard to know what Mr. Obama believes about green energy? Did he see himself as the hero of the world’s move to a 21st Century clean green world? Betsy’s Page quotes a passage from the new book The Escape Artists; How Obama’s Team Fumbled the Recovery:
Energy was a particular obsession of the president-elect’s, and therefore a particular source of frustration. Week after week, [White House economic adviser Christina] Romer would march in with an estimate of the jobs all the investments in clean energy would produce; week after week, Obama would send her back to check the numbers. “I don’t get it,” he’d say. “We make these large-scale investments in infrastructure. What do you mean, there are no jobs?” But the numbers rarely budged.
There never were those green jobs promised. There were in some cases a number of jobs constructing the facilities, but running them took very few; not hundreds but ten or fifteen.Where does this notion of a world competition to power our world with solar energy come from? Don’t they read the papers? What do all those intelligence agencies do? Spain is a very sunny country, as is Portugal, as is Italy. If they can’t make it work, and they can’t, doesn’t anybody notice?
Polls from Gallup, Pew and Rasmussen show that radical environmentalism has been seriously losing influence in America for a couple of decades. Last August, a Rasmussen poll showed that 69% ;of Americans believe that scientists have falsified global warming research. Forty years ago Americans were concerned about smog and air quality, but the country has made changes to factories, and developed catalytic converters for cars.
Real life and living in the real world requires common sense and an understanding of market forces. America is a world powerhouse of cheap abundant energy from coal, natural gas and oil. One man is demanding that we shut down those sources and spend our precious wealth on trying to make the sun light our homes at night, dependably power our hospitals, keep our people warm in the winter— all things that it cannot do. Maybe if we just come up with some new and better panel, or figure out some way to store the energy from the sun, or make the clouds go away, If we just invest enough money we can make that little turquoise wedge grow to 30% in just 8 more years, can’t we?
If we just shut down all the nasty, dirty coal plants that the big environmental outfits hate so much, then everybody will have to depend on ….?
Filed under: Environment, Junk Science, Law, Politics, Science/Technology | Tags: Emperor Penguins, Endangered Species, Franciscan Manzanita
“Emperor penguins, whose long treks across Antarctic ice to mate have been immortalized by Hollywood, are heading towards extinction, scientists say. Based on predictions of sea ice extent from climate change models, the penguins are likely to see their numbers plummet by 95% by 2100. That level of decline could wreak havoc on the delicate Antarctic food chain. The research is published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.” –BBC News, 26 January 2009
“Nearly twice as many emperor penguins inhabit Antarctica as was thought. UK, US and Australian scientists used satellite technology to trace and count the iconic birds, finding them to number almost 600,000. The extent of sea ice in the Antarctic has been relatively stable in recent years (unlike in the Arctic), although this picture hides some fairly large regional variations.” –Jonathan Amos, BBC News, 13 April 2012
The effort to save species that seem in danger of becoming extinct is a noble one, but it is really hard to tell. Are these the only ones, or are there more over there— on the other side of the hill? Where do you look? Is there a natural predator that has grown too numerous? In this era of environmentalism, many would be environmentalists have erred in their enthusiasm to be the noble ones who saved a species.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all in favor of saving species if they are truly endangered; but the record of the Endangered Species Act is somewhat embarrassing. Having grown up in the back of beyond, I understand how very hard it is to find a particular plant or animal in all of nature.
If you have prowled the internet at all today, you may have run into an indignant story about how dead-broke California spent $205,ooo to relocate a plant growing in a concrete-bound median strip on a San Francisco highway. It was thought to be the last living specimen of Arctostaphylos franciscana, a form of manzanita, but it turns out that s California nursery has plenty for about $15 each.
And as I pointed out last week, the polar bears are just fine. Native peoples are more apt to know if there is a decline in numbers of a species, but there’s a need for common sense here. If the endangered species just happens to prevent something that the greenies have been complaining about, your suspicions are probably correct.
Filed under: Economy, Environment, Global Warming, Junk Science, Science/Technology | Tags: At Enormous Cost, Investigating the Obvious, James Delingpole
High up in my list of favorite writers is James Delingpole, who blogs at The Telegraph. Acerbic, grumpy, takes-no-prisoners, tolerates no nonsense and great fun, always, to read. He posted the above video with this commentary:
The harmless trace gas carbon dioxide, as any halfway literate scientist knows, is plant food – not a pollutant. That’s why in agricultural greenhouses commercial growers often raise CO2 levels to between 700 ppm (parts per million) and 1,000 ppm – which is more than twice current atmospheric CO2 levels of (approx) 392 ppm. They do this because they know CO2 increases plants’ growth rate while simultaneously reducing the amount of water they require. (H/T Bufo)
So really, you might not unreasonably think, any large-scale experiment to discover what kind of effect increased levels of CO2 has on eucalyptus trees would fall into roughly the same category as:
A large-scale experiment in the sea to discover whether or not water is wet.
A large-scale experiment in the Vatican to discover whether or not the Pope has Catholic tendencies.
A large-scale experiment in the woods of Canada and Alaska to discover whether or not bears defecate in arborial environments.
A large-scale experiment at Christmas to discover whether or not Father Christmas is a big, fat, jolly man with a white beard and a red outfit trimmed with white fur.
A large scale experiment conducted in the evening to ascertain as to whether night follows day.
A large scale experiment with ice-cream left outside on a very hot day to discover….
Etc.
It seems though that in Julia Gillard’s Australia the thirst for spending large sums of taxpayers money in order to research the blindingly obvious is still strong.
The remainder of the post is here:
Filed under: Domestic Policy, Economy, Energy, Environment, Global Warming, Junk Science, Science/Technology | Tags: CO2 and Climate, Roy W. Spencer PhD, The Misdirection of the EPA
Roy Spencer is Principal Research Scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. He has been the U.S.Science Team Leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for EOA flying on NASA’s Aqua satellite. This provides the most dependable temperature record of today’s climate. He received his Ph.D. in meteorology from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1981.
He has a wonderful ability to explain complicated science to the layman, and he has a great sense of humor. His books: Climate Confusion and The Great Global Warming Blunder, I recommend highly.
Filed under: Australia, Europe, Global Warming, Junk Science, Science/Technology, United Kingdom | Tags: Global Warming Skepticism, Obama Wants More Money, Public Skepticism
The European Union’s climate policy is in freefall. Carbon prices (they do cap-and-trade) have lost nearly 14% of their value (April 2). The already depressed carbon price dropped from €7 to a record low of €6.14 by early afternoon.
The Germans are dumping their subsidies for solar energy. The British government has rejected the bogus economics of climate change, though they are not quite ready to announce it formally.
Europe is coming to the realization that on top of all their other economic problems, they don’t need to be subsidizing expensive solar energy that hikes the power bills for the public while producing little energy.
In Canada, Lawrence Solomon writes in The Financial Post that the world is awash in oil, and in the future, the MIddle East will go back to being an obscure backwater because the world will no longer be dependent on its oil.
The Aussies are not happy with Prime Minister Julia Gaillard’s climate efforts and taxes, and are showing their displeasure at the polls, tossing out their Labour government.
And at the University of East Anglia, a new postgraduate course hopes to bring together researchers in the environmental sciences, philosophy, history and literature to develop “new ways of thinking about environmental change and social transitions.” If you have experience in writing “eco-poetry” the UEA wants to hear from you. UAE is noted as the birthphlace of ClimateGate.
Everywhere, a sensible public is becoming more skeptical of outrageous climate claims, and the climate alarmists come up with new stories of impending doom. Dr. Tim Ball, Canadian climate scientist says that “when asked what’s wrong with global warming —most can only say sea level rise.”
And here at home, in alignment with the rest of the world, the Obama administration has requested $770 million in federal funds to combat the effects of global warming in developing countries, according to a congressional report. This continues administration policy of using foreign aid to combat the effects of global warming in the developing world —despite another year of $1 trillion deficits.
According to the Congressional Research Service the administration has spent a total of $2.5 billion on the Global Climate Change Initiative on anti-global warming efforts in Latin America, Asia and Africa. If approved by Congress the latest request would boost foreign climate change spending to $3.3 billion. The money supposedly goes for adaption, clean energy, and sustainable landscapes.
CRS noted that —like most foreign aid programs — there was a high probability that foreign countries would misuse or wast GCCI funds. They also mentioned that “Congress may want to consider the fact that there is a lack of consensus on whether global warming will happen at all.”
