The debate about global warming has reached ridiculous proportions and is full of micro-thin half-truths and misunderstandings. I am a scientist who was on the carbon gravy train, understands the evidence, was once an alarmist, but am now a skeptic. Watching this issue unfold has been amusing but, lately, worrying. This issue is tearing society apart, making fools out of our politicians.
Lets set a few things straight.
The whole idea that carbon dioxide is the main cause of the recent global warming is based on a guess that was proved false by empirical evidence during the 1990s. But the gravy train was too big, with too many jobs, industries, trading profits, political careers, and the possibility of world government and total control riding on the outcome. So rather than admit they were wrong, the governments, and their tame climate scientists, now outrageously maintain the fiction that carbon dioxide is a dangerous pollutant.
#2
Global warming has been going on for 20,000 years - this time. Sea level has been rising an average of around 1/4" per year that whole time. Furthermore, there are times of faster and slower warming imprinted on the long-term trend. All of that is essentially independent of any possible human contribution. I don't doubt there is now a MMGW component - but neither the theory nor the data should be considered 'settled' science.
Furthermore, none of the proposed 'solutions' to the presumed problem will have any climatological effect at all; they are just mechanisms to transfer wealth from richer to poorer nations, and to siphon off cash to certain privelaged ones in the process.
#3
none of the proposed 'solutions' to the presumed problem will have any climatological effect at all I don't know about that. One solution to MMGW proposed by a small minority is the extermination of humankind. Extinction of human beings on the globe is, ipso facto, the end of MMGW.
#4
none of the proposed 'solutions' to the presumed problem will have any climatological effect at all
There is usually a huge lag time between changes in global physics & chemistry and changes in climate. Exceptions are things like volcanic eruptions and large meteorite strikes. Otherwise climate changes have lag times, e.g. the hottest days of summer tend to occur after the peak of solar radiation occurs.
There is ZERO evidence that any reasonable proposed methods of decreasing carbon output will have an effect on world climate in a time frame of less than 200 years or so.
There is also ZERO evidence that China will go along with decreasing its energy use to satisfy warmist fanatics. Unless China cuts way back, it won't matter what the rest of the world does.
Barbara, not only are they capable, they have repeatedly done so. I doubt that there are more than a handful of politicians that have not made fools of themselves and are continuing to do so on a daily basis.
#12
10,000 years ago, the spot where I'm sitting and typing this post, was underneath a mile of ice. It's gotten somewhat warmer since then. Somehow, I don't think that Republican SUV driving Mastodons were the cause of that warming.
Spengler discusses the impact of population statistics. A useful way of understanding the pattern of events, with interesting graphs for clarity (I do love graphs!). Here are the key bits:
Sometimes, the best thing to do is nothing at all.
A generation from now, the Palestinians will make peace with Israel, for a simple reason: they will grow up - literally. Palestinian Arabs comprise one of the fastest-aging populations in the word.
United States President Barack Obama was misinformed when he told the America-Israel Political Action Committee May 22 that "the number of Palestinians living west of the Jordan River is growing rapidly and fundamentally reshaping the demographic realities of both Israel and the Palestinian territories".
In fact, Palestinian fertility on the West Bank has already converged on the Israeli fertility rate of three children per woman, if we believe the Palestine Ministry of Health rather than the Palestine Authority's Statistics Bureau.
By 2040, the stone-throwing kids of the First Intifada will be close to retirement age, and the gun-toting young men who dominate today's Palestinian employment picture (or those who still are alive) will have families. If they missed out on high-tech jobs, the spillover from the West Bank's economic growth - driven in turn by Israel's economic miracle - will keep them employed in service industries. Absent additional violence, the West Bank will flourish while Egypt and Syria descend into penury and chaos.
There is no urgency to make peace, except in the minds of the Palestinians' present leaders. The world has allowed them to rule a little fiefdom as warlords of private armies, with little accounting for billions in foreign aid, and the opportunity to indulge in a grand ideological tantrum on the tab of Western donors.
The window is closing for radical Islam. That makes the present an exceptionally dangerous period, because the radicals know that it is closing. Contrary to what Obama said on May 22, the radicals understand better than anyone else that time and demographics are against them. The Palestinians of the West Bank are better off than any other Arabs in the region by any tangible measure - health, literacy, higher education, per capital income.
During August 2007, the New York City Police Department (NYPD) released "Radicalization in the West - The Homegrown Threat." This insightful 90-page report evaluated the threat that had become apparent since 9/11/2001, analyzing the roots of recent terror plots in the United States, from Lackawanna in upstate New York to Portland, Ore., to Fort Dix, NJ. Based upon these case-study analyses of individuals arrested for jihadist activity, the authors concluded that the "journey" of radicalization that produces homegrown jihadists began in so-called "Salafist" ("fundamentalist" to non-Muslims) mosques characterized by high levels of Sharia-Islamic Law-adherence. The landmark study just published, "Sharia and Violence in American Mosques" (Kedar M, Yerushalmi D. The Middle East Quarterly, Summer 2011, Vol. 18, No. 3, pp. 59-72) sought to expand considerably upon the NYPD's post-hoc, case study approach-systematically gathering objective survey data, with much greater methodological rigor-and address these two a priori questions: I) Is there a robust association between observable measures of religious devotion, coupled to Sharia-adherence in US mosques, and the presence of violence-sanctioning materials at these mosques?; and II) Is there a robust association between the presence of violence-sanctioning materials at a mosque, and the advocacy of jihadism by the mosque's leadership via recommending the study of these materials, or other manifest behaviors?
The results if the survey as outlined in this piece are...illuminating: 81% of mosques have jihad-promoting materials, and less than 5% of mosque-attending Muslims in the U.S go to the mosques that don't. A useful write-up of an important study.
During August 2007, the New York City Police Department (NYPD) released "Radicalization in the West - The Homegrown Threat." This insightful 90-page report evaluated the threat that had become apparent since 9/11/2001, analyzing the roots of recent terror plots in the United States, from Lackawanna in upstate New York to Portland, Ore., to Fort Dix, NJ. Based upon these case-study analyses of individuals arrested for jihadist activity, the authors concluded that the "journey" of radicalization that produces homegrown jihadists began in so-called "Salafist" ("fundamentalist" to non-Muslims) mosques characterized by high levels of Sharia-Islamic Law-adherence. The landmark study just published, "Sharia and Violence in American Mosques" (Kedar M, Yerushalmi D. The Middle East Quarterly, Summer 2011, Vol. 18, No. 3, pp. 59-72) sought to expand considerably upon the NYPD's post-hoc, case study approach-systematically gathering objective survey data, with much greater methodological rigor-and address these two a priori questions: I) Is there a robust association between observable measures of religious devotion, coupled to Sharia-adherence in US mosques, and the presence of violence-sanctioning materials at these mosques?; and II) Is there a robust association between the presence of violence-sanctioning materials at a mosque, and the advocacy of jihadism by the mosque's leadership via recommending the study of these materials, or other manifest behaviors?
The results if the survey as outlined in this piece are...illuminating: 81% of mosques have jihad-promoting materials, and less than 5% of mosque-attending Muslims in the U.S go to the mosques that don't. A useful write-up of an important study.
* DER SPIEGEL > TOP AFGHAN SECURITY ADVISOR [Spanta]: THE STREAM OF NEW INSURGENTS IS "ALMOST ENDLESS".
ARTIC = Pakistan has approxi 40,000 Madrassas capable of fomenting seemingly endless waves of new Insurgents-Jihadists to fight either the US-NATO, e.g attacks agz German troops, andor the PAK Govt. per se. COMPLEX NETWORK OF AL-QAEDA, TALIBAN, + PAKISTANI GOVT.- BACKED SUPPORTERS. PAKISTAN'S STRATEGY IS TO UNILATER TAKE OVER OR DOMINATE AFGHANISTAN WIDIN 1-2 YEARS AFTER US WITHDRAWAL.
and
* BHARAT RAKSHAK > [Deccan Herald] PAKISTAN HAS BECOME A BATTLEGROUND: HAQQANI [PAK Envoy to US], espec as per CORRUPTION/PERVERSION OF DOMESTIC HUMAN RIGHTS???
Nemesis is always hot on the trail of hubris, across time and space, and the goddess has been particularly busy in destroying the carefully crafted images of Bono, John Edwards, Timothy Geithner, Al Gore, Eliot Spitzer, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Anthony Weiner, and a host of others. What do their tax hypocrisies, sexual indulgences, and aristocratic socialist lifestyles all have in common?
Collectively, they represent a self-appointed or elected global elite that oversees, lectures about in sanctimonious fashion the ethical responsibilities of the redistributive state.
#2
Our entire government, from the "President" down to about the GS-9 level is rotten and needs to be excised and cast aside. Our current government is about three times the size it should be. We, the PEOPLE, need to ensure it's downsized. We also need to make it harder for government to grow after we've severely pruned it. The soapbox is still available, and we need to use it more often, and more effectively. The ballot box seems to be working in the direction we want it to. If all else fails, there's always the cartridge box, and there are ten or twelve million of us that are capable and experienced in using it. Every congresscritter, every appointed official, and every "bureaucrat" above a GS-9 should remember that every day of their lives.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
06/07/2011 13:13 Comments ||
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#3
Every congresscritter, every appointed official, and every "bureaucrat" above a GS-9 should remember that every day of their lives. The problem IMHO seems to be more with that huge percentage that supported Obama in 2008, and in a smaller sphere, the percentage that keeps re-electing Barney Frank. As best I can tell from reading, most of them are still out to lunch. Any country stupid enough to elect Obama once is stupid enough to re-elect him.
The redistributive state will continue until there is nothing left to redistribute. That's when the civil unrest will start. The US still has a chance, but it diminishes month by month.
#5
not so sure. A lot of his voter support was a novelty and a repudiation of racism accusations: "if you don't vote for him, you're a racist". Now we know he's an incompetent socialist f*ck with bad advisors and out of touch czars. "Are you better off than you were 4 yrs ago" will be a strong argument, as will "he may not have meant to harm the economy, national security, foreign policy...but if he did, what would he have done different?"
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/07/2011 18:44 Comments ||
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#6
Frank, FDR was re-elected after it was (should have been) obvious his policies were not working. Scared sheeple will elect those who tell them it will be even worse if the other guy wins. And the one thing Zero has succeeded in doing is generating a majority of scared sheeple.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
