Don't Drink the Water

Since I was following this development, I came across this story.  The premise here is that because XTO was purchased by Exxon, that this will attract environmental consciousness to the practice of how they extract natural gas, because we all know that Exxon Mobil is the corporate embodiment of pure evil.  XTO injects chemical-laced water 1,000s of feet below the surface of the earth, this fractures the shale deposits, and the gas comes out.  Radical environmentalist, in their relentless quest to ensure that no resource is ever consumed, are worried that putting chemicals thousands of feet below the surface of the earth could contaminate the water tables that lie thousands of feet above the gas deposits.

Stories like this reaffirm my tendency to never take environmentalists seriously.  We are told by the climate doom-mongers that we need to stop emitting carbon into the atmosphere, but when a company comes up with a viable alternative these environmentalists’ comrades in arms find some other ecopalypse for us to worry about.

A while back, my friend asked me if I thought global warming was just a big liberal conspiracy.  I think our rigourous scientists at the prestigious climatology department of East Anglia University have settled this matter.  However, my response to this question would be to look at the liberal solutions to any environmental “problem.”  For the average soft green, liberal, leftist, democrat environmentalist there is one obscenely predictable solution for preventing environmental doom: Exerting government power through regulation and taxation.

Thomas Friedman of the New York Times regularly claims that clean-tech is the next big thing, and divorcing our economy from oil is this generation’s moonshot.  Then, rather than propose moonshot ideas, he usually comes to the conclusion that we need to start taxing carbon.

I have recently been reading Superfreakonomics, and the authors suggest that we can cool the planet by pumping sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere from hoses suspended by balloons.  This would cost a couple hundred million dollars as opposed to cap and trade which would cost trillions.  This is a moonshot idea.  Of course to really come up with and execute a moonshot idea like this, we would actually need some scientists.

Killer Jellyfish

The Independent Bloghorn was one of the first to identify that the global warming alarmists were shifting their laser beam focus on the soon to be extinct polar bear to other animals, like the American Pika.  For more on this, you can read Polar Bear Huggers.

I am always on the lookout for stories that focus on how global warming is affecting other carbon based lifeforms.  Apparently the warm oceans is causing Jellyfish populations to surge.  Did I mention that these are killer jellyfish?  Is my prose striking fear in your heart?  It’s not?  Well perhaps you should read a passage from the article published by the AP, written by Michael Casey:

A blood-orange blob the size of a small refrigerator emerged from the dark waters, its venomous tentacles trapped in a fishing net. Within minutes, hundreds more were being hauled up, a pulsating mass crowding out the catch of mackerel and sea bass.

The fishermen leaned into the nets, grunting and grumbling as they tossed the translucent jellyfish back into the bay, giants weighing up to 200 kilograms (450 pounds), marine invaders that are putting the men’s livelihoods at risk.

The venom of the Nomura, the world’s largest jellyfish, a creature up to 2 meters (6 feet) in diameter, can ruin a whole day’s catch by tainting or killing fish stung when ensnared with them in the maze of nets here in northwest Japan‘s Wakasa Bay.

Are you scared now?  I sure hope so.  It is not very often that we find professional journalists that are so adept at conjuring up the skills they learned from their freshman creative writing class.  The vivid imagery, tactful alliterations, the incomplete sentence in paragraph 2 all combine to communicate one simple message: Be afraid…Very afraid, of KILLER JELLYFISH.

Fine, I admit it, I am scared.  Please Mr. Casey, tell me there is something that government can do to solve this problem.

Addressing the surge in jellyfish blooms in most places will require long-term fixes, such as introducing fishing quotas and pollution controls, as well as capping greenhouse gas emissions to control global warming, experts said.

Whatever it takes, whatever the costs, I hope we can all do our part to fight back this invasion.

The Department of Commerce promotes job creation, economic growth, sustainable development, and

improved living standards for all Americans, by working in partnership with business, universities,

communities, and workers to:

1.  Build for the future and promote U.S. competitiveness in the global

marketplace, by strengthening and safeguarding the nation’s economic

infrastructure;

2. Keep America competitive with cutting-edge science and technology and an

unrivaled information base; and,

3. Provide effective management and stewardship of our nation’s resources

and assets to ensure sustainable economic opportunities.

Since the Commerce Department has been doing an excellent job at creating jobs, promoting economic growth building American competitiveness, we should be delighted that Gary Locke has been in China trying to figure out a way to encourage China curb its carbon emissions.  Guess who he thinks should pay for China’s emissions?

Chinese industry?  Nope.

Chinese taxpayers? Nope.

American Consumers?  Ding, Ding, Ding!  You guessed it.  While this was an inherently stupid statement to make from someone who appears to be inherently stupid, then it is nice to see that Republican members of the Energy and Commerce Committee sent a 14 question letter to Locke to explain his position.  It will be interesting to see Locke’s response, because any answer to these questions will only make Locke look more stupid than he already does.  Of course, he is backing off the statement now.

Surprisingly, the Chinese were in favor of this idea.  I wonder what they think would happen to the demand for all the cheap crap they produce if the prices were artificially inflated to cover the cost of carbon emissions.

Meanwhile, the chorus of third-world countries stating that they are not interested at all in destroying their economies with global warming quackery is growing louder and louder.

Sell outs

I was surprised when the Waxman Markey climate change ponzi scheme passed the House, that all three Utahn congressman opposed it.  Jim Matheson, Utah’s shining democrat, voted against it despite his reputation as something of an environmental crusader.  His statements against the bill can be read here.  

Matheson’s comments on the bill make me wonder what these 8 sell-out Republicans were thinking when they voted for the bill.  I need to point out, that Matheson believes we must fight climate change and reduce energy dependence, and his arguments against the bill can’t easily be dismissed as the rantings of an unbeliever who won’t accept the “facts” of scientific bullies.

He claims the bill will destroy the derivatives market.  The bill will create unfair regional transfers of wealth when not-so-windy states with a lot of coal (like Utah) have to pay windy states with no coal (like ???) to burn coal.  In short, his criticisms seem to worth considering, but Pelosi’s Congress seems pretty committed to hurry.  After all, they need to get as much crap sticking to the wall before Americans figure out what is going on.

For example, The Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Alan Carlin, produced a report that was critical of current accepted truths of global warming science, and his report was entirely censored by the EPA.  You can read the emails discussing this blatant act of censorship.  You can also read the actual report that was censored.  Everyone at least ought to read the executive summary to get an idea of the kind of scientific evidence that is being censored and suppressed.  The rushed way in which this censorship occurred is characteristic of the way democrats and Obama in particular seem to be running things.  The cool college professor seems less concerned about hearing all sides of an argument and proceeding with the best available information.  

I can accept the fact that most Americans are ignorant or lazy, and so they are an easy group to swindle.  However, what I can’t understand is why some of my smarter friends pass off what is going to be another trillion dollar train wreck on the Obama/Pelosi one-way-track to bankruptcy.  If the science of global warming is so convincing and so sound, then why do dissenters need to be silenced and censored?  If someone is wrong, isn’t the best form of censorship to let them speak out?

The idea of anthropogenic global warming is more like a liberal’s wet dream than it is a liberal conspiracy.  To understand this claim, you have to understand the paradigm through which I view environmentalism.  Most Americans seem to view environmentalism this way:  Liberals are environmental crusaders that want to save the planet from the ravages of markets and industry vs. Conservatives who want to completely ignore the environmental impact of markets and industry as they greedily pursue profit.  This misrepresentation of the debate over environmentalism has atrophied the conservative side of the debate.

However, the modern environmentalist movement was started by a conservative, and despite the fact that conservative environmentalism seems to be an oxymoron to most, conservative environmentalism most likely has the best answers to today’s environmental problems than most liberal envirowackos.

Peter Huber’s book, Hard Green is probably the best book for laying out the conservative’s environmental sensibilities. For an example of how Huber thinks about environmental issues, you can read Bound to Burn. Here are some good quotes:
“Green jobs” means Americans paying other Americans to chase carbon while the rest of the world builds new power plants and factories.

Computer models demonstrated that [nuclear] meltdowns were highly unlikely and that the costs of a meltdown, should one occur, would be manageable—but greens scoffed: huge computer models couldn’t be trusted. So we ended up burning much more coal. The software shoe is on the other foot now; the machines that said nukes wouldn’t melt now say that the ice caps will.

We don’t control the global supply of carbon.

You can read the rest of the article to see the basic conclusion that I will also make.  Even if humans are contributing to an increase in carbon emissions, there is little that those who adhere to liberal ideologies can do to stop this.  Whether you call it a conspiracy or a wet dream, the reason why liberals cling to global warmingism and their regulatory guns is because liberalism wants to micromanage everything it possibly can.  From car companies, to banks, to molecules, modern liberalism is waxing quite confident that it can effectively manage just anything where markets have “failed.”  However, to the modern liberal, real results matter less than perceived ones, which makes global warming a perfect tool for psychological exploitation.  It is easy to see how labeling something that intends to control things as ephemeral as molecules and emotions as a conspiracy isn’t too far-fetched.  However, I’ll stick with my stance, that controlling the climate of the planet is just too juicy of an opportunity for the average liberal to pass up.

Meanwhile, the liberal’s solutions to prevent global warming does more to discredit the theory than any discussion of scientific evidence.

America loves its models

 reality: i respect it too much to believe in it.

-Jean Baudrillard

In my most recent post, I discussed the problematic nature of scientific consensus in response to a comment on a previous blog from my friend, Jake.  The dubious nature of the scientific consensus that confirms the dangerous potential of anthropogenic global warming is only partially responsible for my skepticism on this topic.  Today I will discuss the equally dubious behavior of scientifically modeling immature sciences.

In Jake’s original comment he says, “So do you believe that the wealth of researchers who do believe (or at least purport to believe) that human action has had a significant impact is literally nothing more than a conspiracy and the studies and models are contrived?”  My answer to this question is to say, “how does America like it’s models?”  Why fake of course.  What good is a model, if it hasn’t been photoshopped, doctored up, and air-brushed to appeal to the baser emotions of humankind…fear, lust, greed.  In fact, it is no surprise that the oh-so-fashionable art of creating scientific models has mirrored the modeling industry’s advance of oh-so-fashionable art.

As one who has spent much time studying artifice and sophistry, it is an affront to those of us who love words to see engineers use their numbers and equations to endeavor to tell stories.  By any aesthetic standards, the stories that come out of the models designed by clever engineers are not good stories.  If you apply scientific standards to the same stories, they just get worse.

For example, one might create a model that harvests historical temperature data, and spin a fabulous yarn about how the planet is getting hotter.  Oh yeah, and did I mention that in this story that we are all doomed!  Ha, Ha, Ha! (evil laugh).  Then some hero comes along, named Anthony Watts, with a report that he produced about how the data was collected.

How to not measure temperature

In his report, Is the U.S. Surface Temperature Record Reliable?, Watts disrupts the narrative being presented by our wily, anonymous narrator.

According to Watts:

The reliability of data used to document temperature trends is of great importance in this debate. We can’t know for sure if global warming is a problem if we can’t trust the data. 

and

In fact, we found that 89 percent of the stations – nearly 9 of every 10 – fail to meet the National Weather Service’s own siting requirements that stations must be 30 meters (about 100 feet) or more away from an artificial heating or radiating/reflecting heat source. 

The conclusion is inescapable: The U.S. temperature record is unreliable.

Like your average supermodel, the mathematic supermodels of global warming are enhanced with perfectly manufactured pieces of silicon.  These microchip implants have given the average scientist a new-found self-confidence.  Unlike supermodels, I like my scientists to have enough self-confidence to doubt themselves.

Here is an article for further reading on the subject of problematic modeling.

Therefore thou hast forsaken thy people the house of Jacob, because they be replenished from the east, and are soothsayers like the Philistines

-Isaiah 2:6

-Nicolaus Copernicus

In the comments area of Lamentation for Jake, Jake triple-dog-dared me to respond to his wieldy comment.  I have no problem accepting this challenge, but it will take several posts.  Although Jake brought up several issues, I decided to start with his comments on global warming.  He said:

It is apparent that you think that human action has done little to effectively change global warming trends. So, I guess this is another clarification, since I can’t engage in a debate unless I know where you stand. Do you believe that warming trends are temporary, or completely natural, and human action has little or no to do with them? It seems that you regard the widespread concern over global warming that may be attributable to human action to little more than a widespread liberal conspiracy. So do you believe that the wealth of researchers who do believe (or at least purport to believe) that human action has had a significant impact is literally nothing more than a conspiracy and the studies and models are contrived? I can certainly respect taking such an unpopular stance, and arguing it aggressively, but I am trying to figure out just what stance you are taking, so as to discuss it further. As for me, I believe that there is a natural warming trend that would occur regardless of human presence, but I also believe that the effects of masses of greenhouse gasses is multiplying the natural trend in ways that are noticeably affecting our climate. For example, I don’t think that miles of disappearing glaciers in places like Alaska have nothing to do with human presence and the emission of greenhouse gasses, and I do think it is sensible to invest in ways to minimize such emissions. So, all jokes aside, tell me what you actually believe and we can debate the evidence.

To me, consensus seems to be the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies. So it is something in which no one believes and to which no one objects.

-Margaret Thatcher

I approach the discourse of global warming alarmism from the perspective of one who is a casual reader of both chaos theory and complexity theory.  I believe that warming trends are at best irrelevant.  To reductively approach something as broad and dynamic as the climate of an entire planet by analyzing the impact that a single element has on this complex system is an affront to scientific inquiry.  To politicize this reductive knowledge is an insult to democracy.

A consensus means that everyone agrees to say collectively what no one believes individually.

-Abba Eban

I am not sure who the wealth of researchers are to whom you refer that support your position.  I do know that Al Gore likes to claim that there is a consensus in the scientific community that his farcical view of global warming is a transcendental objective truth.  However, I have also read the primary source from which Al Gore makes this claim.  He quotes a brief essay from the scholarly publication, Science, called Beyond the Ivory Tower: The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change.  I also know from my own research that like Al Gore, the author of this article, Naomi Oreskes, has no legitimate credentials in climatology.  Here is Oreskes’ description of her methodology for this report:

That hypothesis was tested by analyzing 928 abstracts, published in refereed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003, and listed in the ISI database with the keywords “climate change” (9).

The 928 papers were divided into six categories: explicit endorsement of the consensus position, evaluation of impacts, mitigation proposals, methods, paleoclimate analysis, and rejection of theconsensus position. Of all the papers, 75% fell into the first three categories, either explicitly or implicitly accepting the consensus view; 25% dealt with methods or paleoclimate, taking no position oncurrent anthropogenic climate change. Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensusposition.

So basically she is just doing an analysis of what other climatologists have said based on ill-conceived and arbitrary criteria of judgment.  If you want to read about how a credentialed climatologist, Benny Peiser, rips her dumb little, non-peer-reviewed essay apart, you can read what Oreskes got Wrong.  

Here are some highlights:

Oreskes’ essay had covered not the entire corpus of scientific papers on climate change over the stated decade but fewer than one-thirteenth of them.

Oreskes’ essay does not state how many of the 928 papers explicitly endorsed her very limited definition of “consensus”. Dr. Peiser found that only 13 of the 1,117 documents – a mere 1% – explicitly endorse the consensus, even in her limited definition.

In any event, it is reprehensible that a learned journal should publish defective material and should then, in effect, expect its readers to surf the Internet to find the truth.

The editors of Science also refused to publish any of the numerous other letters that they had received pointing out the deficiencies in Oreskes’ analysis.

The article where I am pulling this from is five pages long and should be read in its entirety.  It was written by Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, who is one of the leading anthropogenic global warming skeptics.

Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled.

-Michael Crichton

I appreciate that you can respect my desire to take an “unpopular” stance and argue it aggressively, but I don’t see any evidence that the global warming alarmismists are interested in open-minded and aggressive debate.  

Recently, Viscount Monckton was invited by Republicans to testify before Congress for a hearing on Climate Change where Al Gore would also be presenting his thoroughly discredited ideas.  However, the Democrats refused to let Monckton testify.  Monckton has challenged Gore to a debate, and Gore has refused in a most cowardly fashion.

If I were a Democrat I would be extremely embarrassed by this fiasco.  If your theory of anthropogenic global warming is so solidly supported by scientific evidence, then wouldn’t it be delightful to watch Gore put Monckton in his place?  Why are Democrats and liberals stifling this debate, that clearly isn’t over to anyone who even tries to read the scientific literature?  Since when did skepticism lose its status among those who purport to be scientists?  I always thought that skepticism was the fuel of science?  Above all, if you are going to work the public to a frenzy using shoddy science, and Soviet style suppression of dissent, why couldn’t we pick something sexier than the global climate? (Although I do understand that by picking such a boring topic, most of the general public will be too lazy to look into it).  Reading scientific literature on climate change is tedious and boring.  I can’t blame climatologists for trying to create a little controversy- given the drollness of their profession.  I would much prefer a fabricated crisis  having to do with astronomy, genetics, carnivorous animals – anything but climate.  It would be a lot more fun to follow policy debates about the sun moving into red giant phase, thus causing genetic mutations in polar bears that enables them to endure hot climates, so they migrate south and start ravaging major metropolitan areas.  Now that’s good science…fiction.

Stay tuned for my next post:

America’s Next Top Model

www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvooqbW9dz4

It might be time for the global warming alarmists to find a new spokes-animal for their cause.  Through semantic manipulation, global warming alarmists have done an effective enough job at convincing us that these bears are poor helpless creatures that can’t defend themselves against our carbon emissions.  This kind of semantic manipulation is probably what causes events like what happened in a German zoo yesterday.  Apparently a woman decided to jump into the polar bear enclosure, and not surprisingly she was attacked by these poor defenseless animals.  The published story doesn’t say what her motive was, but it is not very hard to fill in the gaps.  This story has liberal, envirowacko written all over it, and I think Al Gore should be held personally responsible for this attack.  Of course this isn’t the first attack of its kind.  It is kind of unfortunate that polar bear populations naturally exist so far away from liberal population centers.  At least nathab.com is offering trips to go see polar bears in their natural habitats.  This would be a great way to find a polar bear to hug.  I think all liberals should go, before these poor animals are extinct.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-xn46ZxBow

I think that global warming alarmists are catching onto the dangers of having the polar bear be their lead cute and furry pathosmonger.  After all, they are showing themselves to be remarkably resilient to a fluctuations in climate.

Global warming alarmists have found other animals that they can exploit.  The latest choice is perhaps a far better choice than the polar bear: The American Pika.

Cute Little Guy

The reasons why the North American Pika would make a better spokescritter are many:

• They mostly inhabit states in the West who produce and burn a lot of coal.  Finding a victim that is closer to home in these states might help shift public attention away from economic self interest.
• They mostly live between 8,000 and 13,000 feet.  That is pretty high up in the mountains.  Since their habitat is out of sight/out of mind, we will have to believe whatever the “scientists” tell us about their populations.
• Scientists report that pikas can die within an hour if the outside temperature reaches above 23°C (75°F). According to wikipedia.
• They have a high tolerance for liberal hugging them.  If you jumped into their cage in the zoo, they probably wouldn’t try to kill you.

That third point is the kicker.  How any species ever evolved in the Intermountain West that could die within an hour if the temperature gets hotter than 75 degrees is beyond me.  An animal who seems to be so easy to drive to extinction is a far better choice for a spokesvarmint than polar bears.

The word tax is problematic when it comes to discussing the ways our current Democratically controlled government plans to confiscate our wealth.  It would make more sense if we would see more discussion of how the policies of Barack Obama would enable government confiscation of wealth from regular citizens – even if such act of confiscation isn’t necessarily called a “tax.”  

I have included two press releases from the office of my congressman, Jason Chaffetz, about the “Cap and Trade” proposal in Obama’s “budget” (another problematic word since it connotes some degree of fiscal control and responsibility).  

It would be nice to see the Obama and the Democrats use their uncanny ability to create new taxes to find a way to tax the sun, volcanoes, the idiots in charge of setting up weather stations that measure temperature, and any of the other culprits that may be causing fluctuations in the earth’s climate.

Obama Administration’s “Cap and Tax” Proposal: Bishop and Chaffetz Opposed to $3.01 Billion Tax Increase on Utahns

www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXvpDoGrRGU

If this video doesn’t convince you to stop burning fossil fuels, I don’t know what will.  I found this video from the blog that I have linked to my blog called Watts up With That.  If you are a follower of this blog and you haven’t checked out Watts up With That, then you are missing out.  This guy is ripping the global warming thesis apart, and he is doing it with scientific data and evidence instead of propaganda.  Since the so-called scientific consensus on global warming is fraudulent, the orthodox followers of the inconvenient religion have resorted to pathos-heavy narratives of suicidal animals.   Shouldn’t PETA be protesting this blatant exploitation of animals?

More importantly, shouldn’t Darwinists be more adamant about protecting their religion?  A theory of evolution is completely screwed up if certain species start selecting themselves for extinction through suicide.  This video is an affront to the theory of evolution, which suggests that species will adapt to their environments and that the survival instinct will supersede man-made phenomena such as global warming (notice how I said man-made instead of man-caused).

Darwin in Corner 1

Al Gore in Corner 2

I see this youtube video as evidence of a Great Schism occuring in the world of scientific religions.  This video is a brazen attempt by the global warmingists to enlist animalia to their cause and extricate the animal kingdom from the clutches of the Darwinists.

May the images of these CGI animated animals committing suicide haunt you every time you turn on the ignition of your car.