Filed under: Environment, Free Markets, Freedom, Global Warming, Junk Science, Politics | Tags: Paris Accord, Socialism, Warming & Cooling is Natural
The Climate narrative insists that the globe (the whole earth) is warming (not just regional warming), and the warming that has occurred sine 1950 is remarkable, frightening, unnatural and unprecedented. It is the people’s fault—human impact. We did it with our reluctance to shut down all pipelines and rely on gentle wind and soft, warm solar rays, instead of something that would actually power a vast economy.
In 2016 a search of the peer-reviewed scientific literature has found dozens of paleoclimate reconstructions that show that modern “global” warming hasn’t been global in scale at all, for there are many regions on Earth where the climate has been cooling for decades. And even if the warming was on a global scale—the evidence shows that the modern warming is not unusual or even much different than it has been in the past.
Today’s warm temperatures don’t even come close to the maximum temperatures achieved earlier in the Holocene, or as recently as the Medieval Warm Period, 1000 years ago, when there weren’t effluents from modern transportation, factories, dreaded fossil fuels. The warming in recent decades is not even unusual within the context of the last 80 years. The warmth in the 1930s and 1940s matched or exceeded the warmth of the late 20th and 21st centuries in many of the world’s regions. There was even a widely publicized period in the 1960s and 1970s when there was substantial cooling – 0.5º C in the Northern Hemisphere and -1.5º C in the Arctic. Back then they were calling it “Nuclear Winter” and the Club of Rome got all excited about it.
Scientists have kept on publishing their work, and it has been peer-reviewed. The thing is that ordinary people don’t dig into the evidence, and a great many ordinary people just accept what they have been told by Al Gore (who is not a scientist) and others without even trying to understand the reality themselves.
You surely would not be surprised to learn that not everyone’s motives are pure, and that the aim of the Global Warming Panic crowd is political and not scientific at all. The aim has been a vast redistribution of wealth from the rich nations to the poor nations, and the destruction of Capitalism as the engine of growth and wealth on the planet that has helped to raise the poor people of the world out of hunger and poverty. (They are still, in spite of all evidence, just sure that socialism will make everybody equal and get rid of all those nasty bankers.)
Here is a collection of 60 peer-reviewed scientific papers published within the last year that undermine the “consensus” position that modern warming is unusual, global in extent, or that today’s slight warming is unusual or unprecedented. (There is, by the way no 97% consensus. That’s a talking point, not reality.)
Also, I just ran into a June 9 post from Climate Depot headlined “Unusually Thick Arctic ice pack traps boats, triggers rescue operation off Newfoundland” If you follow this link, there’s a dandy picture of boats trapped in heavy ice off La Scie, Newfoundland, and the rescue operation to save them.
Meanwhile back at the ranch, California’s endless winter still has 8 feet of snow on the ground in the central Sierra — rivaling the massive winter of 1982-83. Mammoth Mountain will still be open daily for skiers into August.
You might consider the possibility that President Trump knew what he was doing when he withdrew (to screams of agony from the Left) from the unratified Paris Climate Accords.
Filed under: Communism, Economy, Socialism, Statism | Tags: No Bailout, Now What?, Socialism, They Voted No
Well, the matter of Greece. Janet Daley describes the problem in The Telegraph.
There is no point any longer in trying to make sense of this. It has gone beyond sense. It is now incomprehensible in the strict technical meaning of the word. The “options” available are all catastrophic and delusional in varying degrees and combinations, and nobody is actually going to get to choose between them anyway – at least, nobody in Greece. To the extent that they have had any involvement – or culpability – in this matter, the Greek people must come to terms with the consequences of electing Russell Brand to head their government. Voters do have some responsibility for the choices that they make. That is what distinguishes mature democracy from the students’ union. But given the price that they are paying for that moment of mad frivolity, it seems harsh to condemn, especially as the prospect of fiscal rationality had already been ruined by the fecklessness of previous governments and external forces beyond their control.
It’s a marvelous example, once again, of the failure of socialism. We have seen it over and over, and the empty stores in Venezuela were only a harbinger of the empty stores, already, in Greece. Spare the empathy, the Greeks brought it upon themselves. A new book from James Angelos:The Full Catastrophe, looks at the widespread tax evasion and benefit fraud. How about an island where everybody pretends to be blind? Or doctors who earn only €12,000 a year — yet live in the most exclusive neighborhood in Athens?
It was rumors of the ‘Island of the blind’ that brought journalist James Angelos to Greece. Turned out that 61 of the supposedly blind residents of Zakynthos, were quite happily driving around the island, and an astonishing 496 of the 680 blind residents were not blind nor partially sighted. It was all a scam that could be traced back to one ophthalmologist and one official who cost the government €69 million. Being blind got you €724 paid in benefits once every two months, and a reduction in utility bills.
When the government called for those claiming disabilities to present themselves at government offices so official records could be updated, 36,000 failed to show up.That scam saved the government €100 million a year. When they began to check the rolls, they found that 8,500 unlikely pensioners claimed to be over age 100.
Neighborhoods of opulent mansions with their own pools were apparently occupied by virtual paupers who were living on a paltry €12,000 or only €8,000 since they were allowed to declare their own incomes for tax purposes. Official records showed that just over 300 homes in Athens most exclusive neighborhood had swimming pools, and had paid the tax for the luxury. When the bureaucrats looked at Google Earth, it appeared that the real number of pools was closer to 20,000. But well-to-do home owners promptly bought camouflage tarpaulins to conceal their existence from tax inspectors flying over.
The picture of a pensioner crying in the street when he learns that his pension has been reduced to €120 is heartwrenching. Stores are empty, medicine short, and the government is projected to run out of cash this week. Nobody plans to rescue them. Much of Southern Europe is already coping with floods of refugees from Africa and the Middle East. Bureaucrats like to buy votes with their empathy. We care about you and we will give you stuff. But bureaucrats need to stay in power, so they exert more and more control, which needs larger departments and higher salaries for the bureaucracy. And so it goes. Inflating and inflating the balloon with the inevitable result.
Filed under: Freedom, Politics | Tags: Bobby Jindal, Socialism, The Moral Case
Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal responded to a question on Mike Gallagher’s June 10 syndicated talk-radio show about the “moral case” made this week by President Obama for ObamaCare. The Wall Street Journal reprinted it in their “Notable and Quotable” column.
********************************************
Let’s call his remarks exactly what they are. He made the moral case for socialism. Let’s not sugarcoat it, that’s exactly what he believes. He doesn’t hide it, he doesn’t pretend, we shouldn’t either. This isn’t new. Those who favor socialism always make the moral case for it. The truth is, maybe they actually believe in it, but in the real world, socialism harms, it weakens the economies of countries that have tried it. It just does. Weaker economies hurt everybody in them. Socialism kills incentive, opportunity, freedom. It is the opposite of what America is all about. Look, socialism always harms the people it claims to help the most. It handicaps them, leaving them weaker, less self-determined, less free. We should have this debate out in the open. His “moral case” for ObamaCare is actually immoral. Spending money you don’t have is immoral. Borrowing more money than you can pay back is immoral. Lying to the American people is immoral, so it’s ironic he chooses to use the terms “moral case” or “moral imperative” to make the case for what I think is a very flawed law. The Supreme Court, I hope, rules the correct way. We need to repeal this, replace this. Mike, we cannot measure success by how many people are dependent on government. That’s what President Obama wants. That is the opposite of what America stands for.
Filed under: Health Care, Politics, Socialism, Statism | Tags: Alexander Tytler, Benjamin Franklin, Democrat Corruption, Democrat lies, Obama, Socialism, Thomas Jefferson
Happy Dependence Day!
Mark Steyn sums up my feelings well, with far fewer expletives. Read his piece. I know many people don’t understand how destructive this bill is. Steyn’s piece is a good starting place. We can either be a nation of free independent people, or we can be a nation of welfare recipients. We cannot be both. It doesn’t work. Our founders (and others) understood what Obama and the rest of the socialists do not:
“The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.”
~ Thomas Jefferson
“When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.”
~ Benjamin Franklin
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years.
Great nations rise and fall. The people go from bondage to spiritual truth, to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependence, from dependence back again to bondage.”
~ Alexander Tytler
Obama and the Democrats have just lurched us towards decline. We were a very abundant, very generous nation. Democrats and Obama are using greed and selfishness to try to skip straight to dependency, Dependency on Democrats. It truly is evil.
I’ll write more when I recover my optimism. The Elephant’s Child chose today to have computer problems. She’ll hopefully be back tomorrow.
Until then, America WILL overturn or repeal this. If not because we still cherish liberty, than at least because the punishment in higher premiums, higher costs, higher taxes, less employment, less opportunity will start long before any supposed benefits.
American Elephants 