Reader Poll: James Hansen calls for trials of energy executives, what next?
June 25, 2008 | Filed Under Dan Scott, Democrats/Leftists, Energy, Global Warming, Publius Contributor, Science, Society/Culture | No Comments
-By Dan Scott
This poll will gauge reader perception to the issue that Dr. Hansen of NASA has recently raised that I cover in my post here. One vote per computer, and please spread this permalink to the poll far and wide to get a good mix of input across the blogosphere.
CLICK HERE to proceed to the poll.
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Environmentalists Want us Cast Into Stone Ages
June 19, 2008 | Filed Under Democrats/Leftists, Energy, Global Warming, News, Publius Contributor, Science, Warner Todd Huston | No Comments
-By Warner Todd Huston
The talk of the country is the high cost of gasoline, we all know. At over $4 a gallon, the cost of gas is severely affecting the finances of every single American. From the costs of just getting around to the costs of food, the high cost of gas is reaching deep into all of our pockets.
The solution to many, of course, is to drill our own substantial oil reserves that we have not touched in decades. If we are so stuck on foreign oil, if we are so reliant on nations that despise us, why not drill our own oil? We have plenty of it, after all.
So, drilling our own has become the prevailing opinion in American’s minds. We drill our own and eventually it will ease our reliance on our enemies for energy and we just might be able to bring the costs of our gasoline down, to boot. Who could be against it? Who doesn’t want us to save money, become more self-sufficient, and continue to grow and improve our country?
Environmentalists, that’s who.
These envirowackos are trying to stop drilling in Pinedale, Wyoming at the same time as the national debate is beginning to turn, at long last, to increasing the drilling for oil in our own country. They claim that the drilling now going on has negatively affected the environment there.
In a day when Americans are struggling financially. When food is climbing to prices that will cause some Americans to find they cannot afford to eat. In a day when we are forced to kow tow to foreign enemies because we are reliant on their oil. In a day when the need for that oil causes us to involve ourselves in unsavory alliances… with all these thing happening to us, the environazis are trying make it worse by trying to make it harder at every turn for our own sources of energy to be developed.
These people wish us to be returned to the stone ages, there can be little doubt. They want to stop human advancement, destroy our economy, kill people by the millions through hunger, and destroy modernity.
First of all, humanity is not a “plague” on the earth. In case some may have forgotten, humanity is just as natural to the earth as the animals are. Secondly, it is a fact that every human on earth could be gathered in the state of Texas and still have 1,000 feet of living space. I point this out to show how little space we really do cover on this planet. The environment is not being threatened by humanity, especially considering the fact that man has realized his folly and made great strides in protecting that environment.
These environinnies are dangerous. And this newest anti-American effort by environmentalists in Wyoming is yet more proof that they stand against humanity.
Gore-ging on Energy, 1 Year Later Gore’s Home Energy Use Climbs 10%
June 17, 2008 | Filed Under Democrats/Leftists, Energy, Global Warming, Media Bias, News, Publius Contributor, Science, Warner Todd Huston | No Comments
-By Warner Todd Huston
In February of 2007 a small group named the Tennessee Center for Policy Research published an interesting little story that made Al Gore, the king of global warming alarmism, look a tad foolish. The report that TCPR sent out showed that Al Gore’s own home was an energy hog. The TCPR report revealed that Al Gore’s Tennessee mansion used more energy each month than the average American household uses in an entire year. In a response to this report, Gore claimed that he was diligently working to make his home more green, but now it looks like Gore is being gored again because a year down the line his energy use hasn’t gone down. It hasn’t even stayed level. It actually increased by 10%. How will the media handle this bloated increase despite Gore’s claims of trying to improve?
In 2007, to a sensational reception the TCPR noted that the Gore family burned through energy at an amazing rate saying, “Last August alone, Gore burned through 22,619 kWh — guzzling more than twice the electricity in one month than an average American family uses in an entire year. As a result of his energy consumption, Gore’s average monthly electric bill topped $1,359.”
Not long after, Gore answered his critics on the website of Think Progress, an extreme website run by the Center for American Progress and funded by left-winger George Soros.
Vice President Gore’s office told ThinkProgress:
1) Gore’s family has taken numerous steps to reduce the carbon footprint of their private residence, including signing up for 100 percent green power through Green Power Switch, installing solar panels, and using compact fluorescent bulbs and other energy saving technology.
2) Gore has had a consistent position of purchasing carbon offsets to offset the family’s carbon footprint — a concept the right-wing fails to understand. Gore’s office explains:
What Mr. Gore has asked is that every family calculate their carbon footprint and try to reduce it as much as possible. Once they have done so, he then advocates that they purchase offsets, as the Gore’s do, to bring their footprint down to zero.
The most telling aspect of the 2007 report about Gore’s energy use is that he never disputed the facts. He admitted that he used that much energy, but claimed that he was trying to bring that usage down.
Well, we have waited a year to see the evidence of the Gore family’s efforts to bring that carbon footprint down to zero. And, with a follow up report, the TCPR decided to look into Al Gore’s usage of energy to see how well he did in improving his high energy use.
Unfortunately for the king of global warming, he didn’t do so well.
Testing the hypothesis of dangerous human-caused global warming
June 13, 2008 | Filed Under Democrats/Leftists, Global Warming, News, Science, Society/Culture, Technology | No Comments
-By Professor R. M. Carter
James Cook University, Townsville
Throughout the world, media news outlets have uncritically adopted the IPCC’s climate alarmism in their reporting and editorial stances. For example, a typical, egregiously untrue newspaper statement is that “every credible piece of scientific advice we now have, including that of Australia’s peak scientific body, the CSIRO, tells us climate change is accelerating faster than previously feared” (Melbourne Sun Herald, Jan., 2008). One sense of the word “science” is that it is “the state or fact of knowing” (OED, definition 1), which state of grace is obviously assumed by both the CSIRO and the Sun Herald’s reporter. Another more widely accepted view of science is that it comprises a body of facts and general laws that are arrived at by “trustworthy methods for the discovery of new truth” (OED, definition 2); these methods include observation, experiment and logical analysis – all towards the end of testing hypotheses that are put forward to account for known facts.
The hypothesis of the day is that human-caused CO2 emissions will result in dangerous global warming.
Hostile Government Take-Over Bid
June 12, 2008 | Filed Under Budget, Congress, Democrats/Leftists, Economy/Finances, Global Warming, Government, Corruption, Media Bias, News, Publius Contributor, Science, Security/Safety, Warner Todd Huston | No Comments
-By Thomas E. Brewton
The just-stalled Senate bill to reduce greenhouse gas emissions reflects a basic doctrine of the socialist religion: government bureaucrats are smarter and more effective managers than businessmen and should be empowered to set the rules for running private business.
The attitudes and energies underlying the proposed Senate legislation to regulate emissions of greenhouse gases accord with the basic conception of the first organized synthesizer of socialist doctrine, Henri de Saint-Simon. Emile Durkheim, the founder of sociology in France, wrote that the basis of Saint-Simon’s entire theory of the socialist religion was that science should exercise hegemony over mankind.
Saint-Simon’s presumption was that private businessmen and individuals lacked competence to understand and to apply scientific principles to socialized (i.e., controlled by government for the public benefit) management of business. Only trained bureaucrats, either in government bureaus or placed in charge of business management, had the required knowledge to make business fully efficient and therefore productive of the greatest degree of benefit to the socialized political society.
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For Benefit of Glorious Court of Global Warming
June 3, 2008 | Filed Under Constitution, Democrats/Leftists, Global Warming, Media Bias, News, Publius Contributor, Science, Society/Culture, Warner Todd Huston | No Comments
For Benefit of Glorious Court of Global Warming
-By Warner Todd Huston
Welcome to glorious international court of global warming, court with most power in all the land. Global warming Czar welcomes you and says that you are not to worry about silly things like “sovereignty” and “democracy.” Glorious leader has taken this burden from you for betterment of world. You act upset at having modern life taken from you, but be happy. Your sacrifice is for all. Hail all powerful court of global warming and thank supreme leader, Mary Christina Wood. Bow to her and thank her that world is safe. Don’t look her in the eye, though. You are worm to her.
That about sums up a brand new theory of international law. It’s called the “atmospheric trust doctrine” and it is a quaint idea that the “atmosphere” is “held in trust” by the government. That’s right folks, government owns the air. Not just the space through which airplanes travel, the actual air itself. It makes one wonder how long will it be be after such an idiotic concept is cemented in law before we truly are taxed by the breath? After all, every single thing government claims it owns is regulated, taxed or assessed fees.
A penny per breath? A dollar? Let the global warming court decide.
Still, that aside, the concept that even the very air we breathe is owned by government is bad enough, but Mary Wood doesn’t envision just individual government’s owning the atmosphere above their various countries, but that an international tribunal will determine how that “air” will be governed. In other words, she sees no input in the governance of that “air” being the jurisdiction of the people who breathe it. No, this will be a law without borders, a law that has power over the entire Earth.
Like many who wish to oppress, this woman hides her rhetoric behind the concept of “patriotism.” Only it is not any traditional patriotism as applied to a country or a people. It is a new concept in patriotism that does away with the nation state, democracy, and self rule all at the same time. It is being called “The Dawn of Planetary Patriotism,” but it is nothing less than a global power grab that makes the United Nation’s efforts look childish by comparison. If you are looking for a conspiracy of a one-world government, look no farther because this is as pure an example as you’ll find.
It comes back to the “we are all just humans” nonsense that humanists always peddle. Of course, standing in front of a Chinese tank yelling “we are all just humans” will do just as much to stop that tank as will throwing a mustard seed at the lumbering behemoth… but I digress.
But who is our would be glorious leader scheming to usurp the rightful powers of the people? Who is this junior Stalin in the making? Who is the one who wants to be the global warming Czar of the world? Well, maybe Czarina is closer to it. Her name is Mary Wood and she sees herself as the savior of the planet.
Just what we need. Another self-professed savior “doing good” for us despite our wishes.
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their consciences.”
—C.S. Lewis
Mary Wood is a University of Oregon law professor who has an extensive background in natural resources and property law. Her legal history seems to heavily favor the side of government acquiring land, eliminating private property rights, so that the all powerful, all-knowing, all caring government might be our loving, but stern, “trustee” over the land.
What is the old saying? The scariest words in the English language are, “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”
Wood is peddling what some are calling a novel concept. In an interview with the Corvallis Gazette-Times, Wood displayed her misplaced compassion.
“The main problem with climate is that no government is taking responsibility for it and our government is sitting idle while this catastrophe is unfolding,” Wood said.
“There’s no other body of law that requires the government to act. But a trustee has to act to protect the body of the trust.”
In another interview, Wood went further:
I characterize the atmosphere as an asset that the people own in common. The government is a trustee of that asset. This approach has a basis in our environmental law. You can even think of it as an attribute of sovereignty … that is, the duty of government to protect our natural resources. The atmosphere is one of those natural resources. In fact, it’s the most crucial resource in our trust, because it holds everything else together.
And the fearmonger begins to open her bag of tricks to scare the people into casting away the Constitution, turning away from sovereignty, giving up property rights, and forgetting about freedom because of the “dire emergency” we face. After all, regardless of her claims, these rights will have to be cast aside so that her laws and rules will have the power of coercion. There is no room for anything less than the total supplication to Mary Wood and her legal stranglehold lest her efforts lack the teeth to “work.”
This harlot of the bar imagines the court to rule over all saying, “a judge can order an accounting against any level of government.” It doesn’t matter what the Constitution says, what the people vote on. The judges shall control it all. ALL power in the hands of an unelected elite, all guided by the Czarina of global warming herself.