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Home » The race is on: Obama and cap and trade vs. the global warming skeptics

The race is on: Obama and cap and trade vs. the global warming skeptics

The New Neo Posted on by

Obama is in a hurry to pass his sweeping agenda without giving Congress—or the American people—time to learn properly about it and react. “Trust me” he says in that soothing baritone, “and all will be well.” House Democrats have advanced cap and trade today by a narrow win of 217-205, the first of several hurdles, including an expected fight in the Senate. How many people know or care much about it at all?

I started sounding the warning on cap and trade even before Obama’s election, here and here. I’m hardly the only one; I was merely part of a loud chorus. Go back and read my posts and see what Obama was saying about the economic effects of cap and trade back then, and then listen to the different tune he’s singing now.

And global warming? The same day that all of this is happening, the Wall Street Journal chronicles the growing skepticism among bona fide and respected scientists on the matter of global warming, which is the impetus and excuse for cap and trade. Obama and the Democrats are banking that the American public won’t get the message in time.

[ADDENDUM: Democrats say we don’t need no steenking debate.]

Comments

The race is on: Obama and cap and trade vs. the global warming skeptics — 104 Comments

  1. 15 Reasons to Oppose Climate Bill Courtesy – Club for Growth via Instapundit

    Need a reason to oppose the Waxman-Markey “cap and tax” bill, which will be voted on in the House later this afternoon? Here are 15 reasons, provided by the good folks at the RSC. Democrats should find several of these reasons hard to ignore.

    1. National Energy Tax: This is a tax that will affect constituents in every aspect of their lives. From transportation, to food, to electricity, to income – this is the ultimate regressive consumption tax to the tune of nearly $3,000 per year according to the Heritage Foundation. The costs per family for the whole energy tax aggregated from 2012 to 2035 are estimated to be $71,493.

    2. Exacerbates the Economic Crisis: Studies from numerous independent research groups, including MIT, the Heritage Foundation, and CRA International, all agree that implementing a massive cap and tax scheme will cost millions of jobs, reduce earnings for the average U.S. worker, and devastate GDP.

    3. Massive Job Losses: According to the Heritage Foundation, employment will be lower by 1,105,000 jobs per year. In some years, the national energy tax will reduce employment by nearly 2.5 million jobs.

    4. Winners & Losers: The bill transfers wealth from rural areas to cities. States like California, Washington, and New Jersey would receive more emission credits than they need, enabling them to sell surplus credits to smaller facilities in states like Ohio that receive maybe half of the credits they need – making the rich, richer, and the poor, poorer.

    5. Little Environmental Impact: The bill will cost consumers trillions of dollars, while reducing, by a very small amount the carbon dioxide that is contained in our atmosphere. World-wide emission reductions would be negligible without the full participation of all nations. Additionally, just because the government requires a certain decrease in emissions within a certain timeframe, does not mean such decreases can occur in that time period.

    6. Green Jobs Are a Proven Failure: According to a recent study (PDF) that reviewed the impact of “green jobs” in Spain, the U.S. can expect 2.2 jobs to be destroyed for every 1 renewable job financed by the government. Only 1 in 10 of the jobs actually created through green investment is permanent, and since 2000, Spain has spent 753,778 U.S dollars to create each “green job,” including subsidies of more than $1,319,783 per wind industry job.

    7. Free Money to Select Corporate Titans: Government-run “cap and trade” is, by definition, a central economic planning scheme in which the government decides which industries and companies deserve more or fewer credits and what business factors and economic outputs are “necessary.” Small business and rural interests never had a seat at the table when discussions occurred on how to craft H.R. 2454.

    8. Creates a Derivatives Market for Companies like AIG: Companies like AIG and ENRON will be participating in a new derivatives market that is much more volatile than housing or natural gas. This new unregulated derivates market will be more perilous for companies like these than the traditional ones that got them into trouble in the first place. In addition, since the created artificial market contains no transparency, it is more likely to attract traders intent on imposing Ponzi schemes in the same spirit of Bernie Madoff and swindle thousands of Americans.

    9. Devastates Rural America: According to the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, the monthly residential electricity bills in 25 states will increase 15 to 28 percent for every $20/ton of carbon dioxide allowances. Rural households spend 58% more on fuel than urban residents as a percentage of their income. The Heritage foundation estimates farm income will drop by $50 billion by 2035.

    10. Concedes to the Competition: Currently, China accounts for 85% of global growth in coal each year and is the world’s largest annual emitter of greenhouse gases. China’s energy usage rose by 7.2% last year and they are building approximately two coal fired power plants per week to keep up with demand. Recently, at a U.N. conference, the Chinese government’s advisory panel on climate change asserted that the cap and tax targets were too low by stating Given that, it is natural for China to have some increase in its emissions, so it is not possible for China in that context to accept a binding or compulsory target. In addition, India will not agree to any cap on their total energy production, and many believe India will double their coal-fired-capacity by 2030.

    11. Discriminates Against Developing Nations: The bill creates a new program under USAID to provide U.S. foreign aid to developing countries for their efforts to adapt to climate change. Essentially, the bill is sending taxpayer funds to encourage third world nations to not develop carbon emitting energy sources – keeping them at a competitive disadvantage from developed nations for even more decades to come.

    12. Establishes an Unrealistic Renewable Energy Standard (RES): “Cap and tax” does not take into account the fact that additional hydropower, nuclear and advanced fossil coal power plants cannot be deployed quickly enough to meet expected growth in electricity demand while also dramatically reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Since renewable technology accounts for a small percentage of energy demand, consumers can expect not only higher rates, but more transmission problems during peak hours of demand. Additionally, the bill preempts at least 23 state renewable electricity standards.

    13. Davis-Bacon: “Cap and tax” expands Davis-Bacon prevailing wage requirements to many provisions of the bill. This policy ahs been shown to increase public construction costs by anywhere from 5 to 38 percent above projected costs for the same project in the private sector.

    14. Bloated Bureaucracy: The bill establishes a myriad of new federal agencies intertwined between at least 21established agencies with the mission of reallocating trillions of taxpayer dollars in a supposedly fair and efficient manor. According the U.S Chamber of Commerce (PDF), the bill will impose 397 new federal regulations that require traditional agency rulemakings.

    15. Countless Federal Mandates: The bill imposes over a thousand mandates and even mandates efficiency requirements on electric appliances like Jacuzzis.

    Additionally, 300 pages were added to the bill last night, leaving no time to read the bill. Greenpeace opposes it for cryin out loud.
    All I can say is where’s the public outrage? Where’s the MSM? Oh, that’s right, Michael Jackson died….

  2. As the hard left democrats rush through a massive so called climate change bill, Austrailia is voting to scrap theirs. But hell, the democrats won’t let mere facts stand in the way of an agenda.

  3. Do the following Gedanken experiment: suppose some “scientific” study reported results that were anathema to leftists, say, that homosexuality was strictly a learned behavior that juveniles learned from proximity to adult homosexuals.

    Would there be the same hysteria and urgency to enact legislation to deal with that problem? No, of course not (even though this really would be for “the children”), because that would be counter to leftist interests, whereas this one is congruent with them.

    Tells you all you need to know. This is about politics, not science, which is microscopically thin on the ground on this “issue.”

  4. The tax this will impose is a highly regressive one. The more-expensive energy will cost the same for everyone. If the cost of gas goes back up to $4/gallon, it’ll cost $4 for everybody, rich or poor — but it’ll take a much smaller chunk, percentage-wise, out of what the rich have to spend than the poor. Same for fuel oil. Same for all of it. The poorer folks in my rural community tend to drive big, older beater cars and pickup trucks that are gas hogs. We have to drive long distances here to get to work. Drive up the cost of commuting to work by too much and you’ll be driving some of the people around here right out of their jobs because they won’t be able to afford the commute.

    Meanwhile, the well-off population will be cashing in on incentives for hybrids so they won’t have to buy as much gas as the poorer folks, and won’t feel the pain at the pump nearly so much for the gas they do have to buy because they’ll still have something left over. Maybe they’ll have to give up a Starbucks latte here and there to make up the difference — and they’ll feel so pleased with themselves about it because they’re sacrificing and propitiating their guilt.

    And that’s before we get to fuel oil, and coal (therefore electricity) and all the rest of it. Oh it makes me see red.

  5. Mrs Whatsit, I think that that’s where the “income redistribution” comes in.

  6. I hate to advocate making another law, but there’s got to be a way to ensure that our legislators actually read the bills they’re signing on to. I am seething about the irresponsibility and immorality of these Washington thugs. It would be nice if they would “fix” the economy before they ruin it.

  7. No way to enforce it, since you couldn’t distinguish failure to read the bill with garden-variety stupidity, which is all too abundant in Congress.

    Boxer is one of “my” Senators. Could you tell?

  8. What i find interesting is that no matter how many of these happen, no one is addressing the key core issue.

    does the state have a right to regulate human behavior outside of criminal and civil law?

    what we are not realizing is that we are on this spectrum, and usually once you get on one, you quickly go from purity to some arbitrary point.

    it started very very simply as we adopted soviet planning features which are not constitutional but no one was purist about it.

    take zoning. does the state really have the right to zone? if so, then it has the right to make us slaves the difference is only method and degree.

    if one says that the state is not allowed to control human behavior, then you are saying it cant tax to compelle, it cant zone, it cant do a heck of a lot of things that it does.

    but once you say, its ok for the state to compell behavior outside the realm of criminal or civil, then what methods are allowed, and to what degree did the system first agree was the limit?

    you see. they never answered that questioun but instead did the acts and find it easier to beg forgiveness (if they are caught).

    so if the state can compel, then can it use trickery? can it use lies? arguments? are arguments limited to valid debate, or is it all out with character assasination, etc? can it just do it outright?

    the point no one sees is that all of these things are backed up with the penalty of death if one resists to the end.

    so the way they see it we have already given our permission to this and more control, the only argument is what the features of that control will be, not whether it will be.

  10. I read somewhere–don’t know if it’s true or not–that this bill requires people to make their houses energy efficient before they can see them.

    If true, that’s unbelievable. If not true, well then everything will be OK since we’ll have less carbon dioxide to worry about.

    I hope that erupting volcano in the Kuriles doesn’t add any more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.

  12. the reason they are pushing it through is two fold… the majority reason is that the tide is turning. they over manufactured their consensus, and now enough time has passed that a real consensus is replacing their false one (the normal kind of scientific consensus, and that means no real consensus, just a lot of agreement all around that builds up weight. its actually a rare event).

    the other one i am just being tongue in cheek on. that is god has not been very very good to them in removing sun spots a few years back. i have watched it for years since they put up soho images. once the sun stopped showing them, every few days i have taken a look at the vids.

    it also looks like genetics is going to outrun them too… but i fear maybe not since the guys in the field havent picked up on the arguments in “new genetics” as opposed to genetics.

  13. The number of skeptics, far from shrinking, is swelling. Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe now counts more than 700 scientists who disagree with the U.N. — 13 times the number who authored the U.N.’s 2007 climate summary for policymakers. Joanne Simpson, the world’s first woman to receive a Ph.D. in meteorology, expressed relief upon her retirement last year that she was finally free to speak “frankly” of her nonbelief. Dr. Kiminori Itoh, a Japanese environmental physical chemist who contributed to a U.N. climate report, dubs man-made warming “the worst scientific scandal in history.” Norway’s Ivar Giaever, Nobel Prize winner for physics, decries it as the “new religion.” A group of 54 noted physicists, led by Princeton’s Will Happer, is demanding the American Physical Society revise its position that the science is settled. (Both Nature and Science magazines have refused to run the physicists’ open letter.)

    The collapse of the “consensus” has been driven by reality. The inconvenient truth is that the earth’s temperatures have flat-lined since 2001, despite growing concentrations of C02. Peer-reviewed research has debunked doomsday scenarios about the polar ice caps, hurricanes, malaria, extinctions, rising oceans. A global financial crisis has politicians taking a harder look at the science that would require them to hamstring their economies to rein in carbon.(…)

    excerpt from notoriously conservative

  14. I just heard that the cap and trade bill has passed the house. I think the Americans have no idea what this bill means in terms of huge rise of taxes (for everyone), enormous government intrusion in almost all aspects of their lives, and horrific joblosses. It really is a black day for America, and it is to bad so few Americans realise it.

  15. Wandriaan Says:
    June 26th, 2009 at 7:27 pm

    But…but…Obama promised that 95% of us would have tax cuts. He wouldn’t go back on his word, would he?

    /massive sarc

  16. I don’t think we know fully just how bad this is going to be. This will be massive unemployment, the end of manufacturing in this country and a way of life not seen for 100 years. The elite and the government functionaries will be exempt from limits, the rest of us will have our energy rationed.

    I fear even more draconian consequences from Obamacare. I have to admit…I’m terrified of the future.

  17. It seems to me that even an honest supporter of Global Warming (Mitsu?) would have to concede that passing a 1200+ page bill that almost no one has read as quickly as possible is reckless and dishonest.

  20. The Messiah has to hurry, since global warming is well past its sell-by date, and culturally is heading into Ricky Martin/Spice Girls territory.

  21. I know that neo is a great fan of former blogger Steven Den Beste, as am I. Den Beste’s site USS Clueless was the single most important blog for me when I was reorienting myself center-right after 9-11. By all means check out Den Beste’s “Best of” archives.

    Anyway, Den Beste’s health declined and it became too much for him to continue serious blogging. However, he does continue to write a blog devoted to Japanese anime. What’s less well-known is that Den Beste ventures the occasional comment about current events there. Here’s some of what he said after Obama was elected:

    Not the end of the world

    It’s easy to let yourself go in despair and start thinking things like “We are well-and-truly fucked” or “This is the worst of all possible outcomes”. But it isn’t true.

    I think this election is going to be a “coming of age” moment for a lot of people. They say, “Be careful what you wish for” and a lot of people got their wish yesterday.

    And now they’re bound to be disappointed. Not even Jesus could satisfy all the expectations of Obama’s most vocal supporters, or fulfill all the promises Obama has made.

    I think Obama is going to turn out to be the worst president since Carter, and for the same reason: good intentions do not guarantee good results. Idealists often stub their toes on the wayward rocks of reality, and fall on their faces. And the world doesn’t respond to benign behavior benignly.

    But there’s another reason why: Obama has been hiding his light under a basket. A lot of people bought a pig in a poke today, and now they’re going to find out what they bought. Obama isn’t what most of them think he is. The intoxication of the cult will wear off, leaving a monumental hangover.

    And four years from now they’ll be older and much wiser.

    A lot of bad things are going to happen during this term. But I don’t think that this is an irreversible catastrophe for the union. I’ve lived long enough to absorb this basic truth: the US is too large and too strong to destroy in just 4 years. Or even in 8.

  22. Cap & trade passed today by a 219 to 212 vote.
    The House rejected a substitute GOP cap & trade bill by a vote of 256 to 172. Of the 435 members of the House, 256 are democrats, 178 are republican, and there is one vacancy. 431 voted with 3 abstentions. A difference of 7 votes.

    I have read that it will have an even tougher time passing the Senate. So e-mail, write, and call your senators. It may make a difference.

    The House unveiled an original 1,201 page bill, then last night added an additional 300 pages. I seriously doubt that any of the morons who voted for it actually read it. But then I doubt that any who voted against it read it either, but at least they had a clue.

    I suspect that many of the companies that will benefit have substantial stock owned by various house members and former vice-presidents. Somehow I won’t be shocked.

    So if the Senate passes this monstrosity, we will have stupid legislation based on junk science ruining what’s left of our economy. And other than briefly announcing the outcome, the MSM goes on with wall to wall Michael Jackson or Mark Sanford coverage. Wonderful. Another proud milestone for the Obama administration and their media cheer-leaders. I only hope it dies in the Senate, along with the Orwellian Employee Free Choice Act.

    And I hope that all the fools who voted for Obama and any democrats are the first to feel the effects of their stupidity, but somehow I doubt that too.

  24. More sanity from down under… See comment #2)

    One of the most remarkable changes occurred on April 13, when leading global warming hysteric Paul Sheehan–who writes for the main Sydney newspaper, the Sydney Morning Herald, which has done as much to hype the threat of global warming as any Australian newspaper–reviewed Plimer’s book and admitted he was taken aback. He describes Plimer, correctly, as “one of Australia’s foremost Earth scientists,” and praised the book as “brilliantly argued” and “the product of 40 years’ research and breadth of scholarship.”

    What does Plimer’s book say? Here is Sheehan’s summary:

    Much of what we have read about climate change, [Plimer] argues, is rubbish, especially the computer modeling on which much current scientific opinion is based, which he describes as “primitive.”…

    The Earth’s climate is driven by the receipt and redistribution of solar energy. Despite this crucial relationship, the sun tends to be brushed aside as the most important driver of climate. Calculations on supercomputers are primitive compared with the complex dynamism of the Earth’s climate and ignore the crucial relationship between climate and solar energy.

    To reduce modern climate change to one variable, CO2, or a small proportion of one variable–human-induced CO2–is not science. To try to predict the future based on just one variable (CO2) in extraordinarily complex natural systems is folly.

    In response, this is Sheehan’s conclusion: “Heaven and Earth is an evidence-based attack on conformity and orthodoxy, including my own, and a reminder to respect informed dissent and beware of ideology subverting evidence.” This cannot be interpreted as anything but a capitulation. It cedes to the global warming rejectionists the high ground of being “evidence-based,” and it accepts the characterization of the global warming promoters as dogmatic conformists.

    The political impact has been manifested in a series of climb-downs as Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s government has been forced to delay its plans for cap-and-trade controls. On May 4, the government announced it would postpone the onset of the scheme until mid-2011, a year later than originally planned.

  26. I would have thought that Democrats would have more trouble pushing through cap’n’trade than Obamacare. But right now it seems that there is more resistance to the latter.

    Most likely citizens understand health care better than climate change and are willing to leave it to their “betters” to decide.

    Nonetheless, if cap’n’trade goes through and people see the results, I predict it will be one of the first big items of the Obama era to be reversed.

  27. If there’s a 1% chance that human-caused global climate change is occurring, we have to treat it as a certainty in terms of our response. It’s not about our analysis…It’s about our response.

  28. The voters will never understand the results. The whole cap n trade scheme needs explanation, and the people aren’t getting it. The economy will just slowly decline, and people won’t understand why. The whole concept of “clean energy” is so seductive. I know only one single person who believes that this scheme is a giant rip-off. Everyone else I know believes that they are being good citizens and caring for the environment.

    Suckers ! ! !

  29. Either Rush or Glenn Beck (I do not remember which one I heard) today was saying there is something in the bill that WILL MAKE DIRECT DEPOSITS into the poor’s bank accounts to compensate for the higher price of goods. If this is true, and if it made/ makes it into the final bill, this is how they will keep it from being overturned- they just bought millions of votes!

  30. We Americans are actually going to have to go to Washington D C and physically remove these people. I see no reason not to or how it might be avoided.

  35. If there’s a 1% chance that human-caused global climate change is occurring, we have to treat it as a certainty in terms of our response.

    Same thing with homosexuals and children, right?

  36. I read somewhere—don’t know if it’s true or not—that this bill requires people to make their houses energy efficient before they can sell them.

    Yes, that is a ‘feature’ in this abomination. I couldn’t build an addition on to my home because the local wazirs degreed that I would have to have to upgrade the rest of my home to the Model Energy Code to get a permit. It is the ‘greenest’ home imaginable–a handbuilt adobe house made of local mud and materials.

    Now everyone will be in this boat with me. Hahahahaha! I don’t feel so alone in my struggle….

  38. If there’s a 1% chance that human-caused global climate change is occurring, we have to treat it as a certainty in terms of our response.
    — “Dick Cheney”

    Occam — I couldn’t tell if DC was serious or sarcastic. Such is the nature of the left these days, it is difficult, if not impossible, to reliably detect parody.

  39. When looking at the Cap & Trade debacle in the House today, you have to ask, “qui bono?”

    Well we know the AlGore stands to make a bundle. So does the horrid Pelosi.

    So here are some other links that look at some of these questions, including some interesting comments from the Carbon Tax Center.
    In one paragraph we have this…

    As Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. stated in his Jan. 24, 2007 Wall Street Journal “Business World” column (subscription only):

    General Electric, DuPont, Alcoa, Caterpillar and other industrial pigpens this week endorsed cap-and-trade limits on carbon dioxide, which would turn their established habit of using the atmosphere as a free waste disposal into a property right, worth billions. Talk about a low-hanging fruit. They are accustomed to treating carbon dumping as a gimme. Now they’d at least be in a position to get paid for dumping less….

    also,

    The “emissions certainty” touted by cap-and-trade supporters was put in perspective by the Financial Times: “[Carbon cap-and-trade systems] fix the amount of carbon abated, not its price. Getting the amount of emissions a little bit wrong in any year would hardly upset the global climate. But excessive volatility or unduly high prices of quotas on carbon emissions might disrupt the economy severely. [Carbon] taxes create needed certainty about prices, while markets in emission quotas [i.e., cap-and-trade systems] create unnecessary certainty about the short-term quantity of emissions.” Financial Times, Carbon Markets Create a Muddle, April 26, 2007.

    The LA Times (yes, yes, I know, but just read what they have to say.

    That same month, during the 2007 Memorial Day weekend, the Los Angeles Times ran a superb and comprehensive (1,600 words) editorial Time for a Carbon Tax. Under the banner, “A carbon tax is the best, cheapest and most efficient way to combat cataclysmic climate change,” the editorial delivers a point-by-point refutation of arguments for settling for a carbon cap-and trade system. Here are key excerpts:

    [F]or all its benefits, cap-and-trade still isn’t the most effective or efficient approach [for reducing carbon emissions]. That distinction goes to … a carbon tax. While cap-and-trade creates opportunities for cheating, leads to unpredictable fluctuations in energy prices and does nothing to offset high power costs for consumers, carbon taxes can be structured to sidestep all those problems while providing a more reliable market incentive to produce clean-energy technology.

    To understand the drawbacks of cap-and-trade, one has to look not only at the successful U.S. acid rain program but the failed European Emissions Trading Scheme, the first phase of which started in January 2005. European Union members each developed emissions goals, then passed out credits to polluters. Yet for a variety of reasons, the initial cap was set so high that the polluters fell under it without making any reductions at all. The Europeans are working to improve the scheme in the next phase, but their chances of success aren’t good.

    One reason is the power of lobbyists. In Europe. as in the U.S., special interests have a way of warping the political process so that, for example, a corporation generous with its campaign contributions might win an excessive number of credits. It’s also very easy in many European countries to cheat; because there aren’t strong agencies to monitor and verify emissions, companies or utilities can pretend they’re cleaner than they are.

    The latter problem might be avoided in the U.S. by beefing up the Environmental Protection Agency. But there’s reason to suspect that many of the corporate interests pushing for a federal cap-and-trade program are hoping for a seat at the table when credits are passed out, and they will doubtless fudge numbers to maximize their credits; some companies stand to make a great deal of money under a trading system. Also hoping to profit, honestly or not, would be carbon traders. Large financial institutions would jump into the exchange to collect commissions on carbon trades, just as they do with crude oil and wheat. This presents opportunities for Enron-style market manipulation.

    Cap-and-trade would also have a nasty effect on consumers’ power bills. Say there’s a very hot summer week in California. Utilities would have to shovel more coal to produce more juice, causing their emissions to rise sharply. To offset the carbon, they would have to buy more credits, and the heavy demand would cause credit prices to skyrocket. The utilities would then pass those costs on to their customers, meaning that power bills might vary sharply from one month to the next.

    That kind of price volatility, which has been endemic to both the American and European cap-and-trade systems, doesn’t just hurt consumers. It actually discourages innovation, because in times when power demand is low, power costs are low, and there is little incentive to come up with cleaner technologies. Entrepreneurs and venture capitalists prefer stable prices so they can calculate whether they can make enough money by building a solar-powered mousetrap to make up for the cost of producing it.

    Carbon taxes avoid all that. A carbon tax simply imposes a tax for polluting based on the amount emitted, thus encouraging polluters to clean up and entrepreneurs to come up with alternatives. The tax is constant and predictable. It doesn’t require the creation of a new energy trading market, and it can be collected by existing state and federal agencies. It’s straightforward and much harder to manipulate by special interests than the politicized process of allocating carbon credits.

    And it could be structured to be far less harmful to power consumers. While all the added costs under cap-and-trade go to companies, utilities and traders, the added costs under a carbon tax would go to the government, which could use the revenues to offset other taxes. So while consumers would pay more for energy, they might pay less income tax, or some other tax. That could greatly cushion the overall economic effect.

    More from the Financial Times…

    The climate-change industry – the scientists, lawyers, consultants, lobbyists and, most importantly, the multinationals that work behind the scenes to cash in on the riches at stake – has emerged as the world’s largest industry. Virtually every resident in the developed world feels the bite of this industry, often unknowingly, through the hidden surcharges on their food bills, their gas and electricity rates, their gasoline purchases, their automobiles, their garbage collection, their insurance, their computers purchases, their hotels, their purchases of just about every good and service, in fact, and finally, their taxes to governments at all levels.

    These extractions do not happen by accident. Every penny that leaves the hands of consumers does so by design, the final step in elaborate and often brilliant orchestrations of public policy, all the more brilliant because the public, for the most part, does not know who is profiteering on climate change, or who is aiding and abetting the profiteers.

    Who benefits? As one can see, big government and some of it’s leading proponents in Congress. Former vice-presidents and all sorts of folks whose only ‘green’ care is that they have plenty of it in the bank.
    The biggest swindle since the economic stimulus package. Hah!

    Who’s responsible (if it passes the senate that is)? Every fat rat in congress (both houses) and the Obama administration. But ultimately it’s us, because we have repeatedly elected these scumbags who play us for chumps, over and over again.

    Time to contact our senators.

  40. The voters will never understand the results. The whole cap n trade scheme needs explanation, and the people aren’t getting it. The economy will just slowly decline, and people won’t understand why.

    Possibly. But I rather think that when this legislation hits enough Americans in the pocketbook, they will ask questions and things will change.

    Likewise with energy. When Americans discover how much trouble we are in because we won’t drill or build new coal power stations or nuclear power stations, things will change.

  42. “We Americans are actually going to have to go to Washington D C and physically remove these people. ”

    This is awesome. This is, I think, the closest any of you lunatics has come to calling openly for violence against the President of the United States.

    Neo-neocon, you have cultivated this clique of commenters; what do you think it says about you that you have an audience that says things like this?

  43. “Same thing with homosexuals and children, right?”

    Considering the amount of ink they spill on the subject, and their ability to weasel and worm the subject into any conversation (even one on cap-and-trade!), I suspect that conservatives think about gay sex more than even the gays.

    That, I believe, is an accomplishment of which to be proud.

  44. Note that the margin was close. If those eight Republicans had voted the other way, the bill would have failed.

    Note too what Powerline says: “Carbon tax-and-trade can rather easily be repealed once people realize what a dumb idea it is.”

  45. Watcher,
    You pick one comment and draw generalizations about all those who comment here. Ever go to Dkos or the DU?

    It’s as if I deduced that liberal high-school trolls were all stupid ass-holes from your moronic comment.

    Actually, I’d be closer to the truth, wouldn’t I?

  46. Once again, with tags:

    Note that the margin was close. If those eight Republicans had voted the other way, the bill would have failed.

    Note too what Powerline says: “Carbon tax-and-trade can rather easily be repealed once people realize what a dumb idea it is.”

  47. “You pick one comment and draw generalizations about all those who comment here.”

    I haven’t seen a single person here condemn any of the thinly veiled calls for violence against the President of the United States.

    Would you like to prove to me that not all conservatives are lunatics? Would you like to condemn SteveH and the others who have all but called for treason and sedition?

    Unless I hear an unqualified condemnation of this, I’m going to assume that conservatives are lunatics who hate America.

  48. I wonder if “Watcher” realizes that Obama is not in the House of Representatives?

  50. So instead of attempting to contribute any responsible debate or valid points to either side of the discussion, you decide to highlight one comment out of 40 and use it to paintbrush this site and its readers?

    Thanks for nothing, Watcher – literally. Nothing.

  51. When Democrats continue to oppose Voter Id laws and continue to support ACORN who has been caught numerous times stuffing the voter rolls with fraud names, one has to wonder if the Dems really are getting elected or if they are just stealing close elections on the margin.

  52. ‘I wonder if “Watcher” realizes that Obama is not in the House of Representatives?’

    So calling for violence against duly elected Representatives is ok? Nice.

    ‘Oh, and to oppose the Dems is to “hate America”. lol’

    So oppose=call for their murder? Good to know how conservatives understand politics.

    ‘So instead of attempting to contribute any responsible debate or valid points to either side of the discussion, you decide to highlight one comment out of 40 and use it to paintbrush this site and its readers?’

    Why is it so hard for you to condemn this? Three responses and all you have done is complain about me. Why not say something about SteveH and his disgusting comment? Why is it so difficult for you to condemn him and similar calls for violence against elected politicians?

  53. Woops, make that four of you who can’t bring yourselves to condemn a conservative making thinly veiled threats against our elected representatives.

    Why is it so difficult for you to say something about this?

    Is it because you agree with him?

    Is it because you don’t think violence against elected officials is a big deal? I assure you, the Secret Service takes them seriously.

    Is it conservative tribalism and closing ranks?

  54. Naughty,

    “I haven’t seen a single person here condemn any of the thinly veiled calls for violence against the President of the United States.”

    And I didn’t see to many so-called progressives complain about far worse towards, Bush, Cheyney, Rice, Palin, Palin’s kids, or Bush’s daughters during the last 8 years. I didn’t hear to many complaining when Alec Balwin called for republicans and their families to be drug out onto the street and shot. So spare me the phony outrage.

    “Would you like to prove to me that not all conservatives are lunatics? Would you like to condemn SteveH and the others who have all but called for treason and sedition?”

    Nobody owes you shit douch-bag. Say you disagree, call him on it directly & move on, but don’t attack the rest of us for something that he said that hurt your precious little feelings.

    As for proving anything, ever try reading the rest of the comments? Who the hell do you think you are?

    Let’s just ignore the trolls.

  55. Hey “Watcher”, do you think Judges should base their rulings on “emerging international opinion”?

  56. It’s all our fault, fellow neo regulars. We’re obviously making better points on the issue than they”re capable of debating. If we would just quit using valid arguments, those poor little trolls wouldn’t feel so threatened and attempt to derail the thread.

  57. Nice, two more. Good job guys.

    I suspect that people like SteveH are sick in the head, like Glenn Beck and Hal Turner. That much I understand. I mean, they can’t entirely be held accountable for their lunacy.

    But you guys? I assume you can be. Why can’t a SINGLE ONE of you say that SteveH is wrong and that violence against elected officials is illegal and immoral?

  58. I see they’ve now inflicted two new apparatchiks on us, each of whom is, in defiance of all probability, even more feeble than their predecessor.

    Maybe you guys could submit a joint invoice, you know, 15 pieces of Ag apiece. Save paper and all that.

  59. Occam,

    I wonder if they even know what Ag is? Or why there would be 30 total? You can’t be bringing that religious reference up in a political discussion. You know the first Amendment specifically prohibits any religious references on political blogs. (Sarc)

  60. Occam’s Beard,

    I can only imagine what sorry sacks of shit these two specimens of trolldom must be. My last words to them are ‘get a life.’

    Meanwhile, back on topic.

  61. “I wonder if they even know what Ag is? Or why there would be 30 total?”

    He went up the mountain; and after He sat down, His disciples came to him. Then He began to speak, and taught them, saying:

    “You people are the biggest assholes I’ve ever seen.”

  62. “I wonder if they even know what Ag is? ”

    You know what this reminds me of? Ten-year-olds who think the height of wit is to trick their chums by referring to water as H20. Good job, guys.

  63. But seriously: you know what the difference is between you and that cesspool of subhumanity, Stormfront?

    They’re open about their calls for the murder of elected politicians.

    You guys aren’t.

    At least those vile racist assholes have the courage of their convictions.

  64. Well, I too wonder where Watcher, Naughty, Crazed Wingnut came from, but I will say that I can’t tell what some of the earlier posts here and in the other thread were about — impeachment, civil war, assassination, coup — and I am uneasy about it.

    Which is why I quoted Steven Den Beste earlier:

    A lot of bad things are going to happen during [Obama’s] term. But I don’t think that this is an irreversible catastrophe for the union. I’ve lived long enough to absorb this basic truth: the US is too large and too strong to destroy in just 4 years. Or even in 8.

  65. Oh, and the fact that not a SINGLE ONE OF YOU can be bothered to take five seconds to type out “I condemn SteveH and all other calls for violence against our elected politicians.” It would cost you virtually nothing to do it. Just say it and prove that you don’t agree with him, that you think his comment and the sentiment behind it are vile, and prove that you give two shits about America.

    Can’t do it? Why not?

  66. “I will say that I can’t tell what some of the earlier posts here and in the other thread were about – impeachment, civil war, assassination, coup – and I am uneasy about it.”

    You, sir, are a stand up guy.

  68. I noticed that there is no ceiling on stupid with people who actually believe that ridiculous gestures such as cap and trade are worthwhile. Stupid enough to believe the doomsday scenarios promoted by Gore, I guess. Not stupid, exactly but definitely willfully ignorant. But what really perplexes me about many on the left, including some of my friends, is how superficial and reactive they have become, guided by buzzwords and slogans that serve in place of argument. And how unwilling they are to examine their assumptions or discuss logical inconsistencies in ideology. They get mad! They call names! They question your morals and sanity! Further cementing my conclusion that liberalism is a mental disorder is the toxic and curious combination of personalities that seem to populate the politically active left: the arrogant, condescending elitist, and the whiny, perpetual victim of an injust society.

  69. Hey, Watcher and Naughty, are you counting for your masters? To turn in the names of the dissidents for re-education? That is what you sound like. Kapos.

    I consider 0bama an usurper. Not legally the pResident. TOTUS Pantywaist, as it were. I count that as sedition and traitorous actions against the Republic.

    This Cap’N Trade 0bamantion is the greatest theft since the non-stimulus. It is a tax and an assault on freedom.

    Don’t like what I have to say? Then get back to dKos or Huffingluetoast and report to your masters. Or are you paid trolls?

    Idiots.

    You have no idea what the world of adults is about. You think it is your PC soft world. Welcome to the real.

  70. As evidenced by the entrance of “watcher”, I say again, your blog has arrived, neo.

    Let’s see if a Hollywood movie house makes a movie about the assassination of Obama, as was done about Bush. Everything that watcher has bitched about above was said about Bush for 8 years.
    Hell, they’re still riding that horse. I noticed that watcher only brought out the dog eared race card once.

    The mean temperature on Mars is about -60 C. The atmosphere on Mars is CO2.

    At any rate, the way things are going, buy GE stock if you have any money left and while it’s still legal to own stock. Who cares what the truth is? There is money to be confiscated. And if one hops on the right cart, money to be made. Ask Al.

  71. I stand by my comment. This outrageous rape of the private citizen and his hard earned money demands all options be on the table in its defense.

    Someone demanding the extremeist are those who bite or pull hair while being mugged is just living in an alternate universe worthy of a good chuckle.

  72. Hey, “Watcher”:

    The right of a nation to kill a tyrant in case of necessity can no more be doubted than to hang a robber, or kill a flea.
    John Adams

    Any questions?

  73. And what country can preserve its liberties, if it’s rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
    It is its natural manure.”
    –Thomas Jefferson, 1787

  74. “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.”

    – Barry Goldwater
    “The Conscience of a Conservative”

    I believe in pacifism and all that kumbaya stuff, like fairy godmothers, but I agree with SteveH. So sue me.

  75. Neo-neocon, you have cultivated this clique of commenters; what do you think it says about you that you have an audience that says things like this?

    Watcher, it says nothing about her and everything as to our current political situation. not to mention that our founding fathers put a clause in our definiition of state that makes such statements patriotic if they are in favor of preserving the constitution, which they are in this case.

    how does if feel siding with the side that has resulted in the murder of 50 million americans before birth? the side responsible for 100 million people being worked and tortured to death last century? (and the early deaths of nearly a quarter billion) how does if feel being on the side that exterminates the population of italy every year, but does so mostly to people of darker race (while calling everyone else racist)? the side that invented perpetual war on all fronts? the side that invented totalitarian government?

  76. watcher

    do these words sound familiar to you?

    WE hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness — That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security….

  77. not a SINGLE ONE OF YOU can be bothered to take five seconds to type out “I condemn SteveH and all other calls for violence against our elected politicians.” It would cost you virtually nothing to do it. Just say it and prove that you don’t agree with him, that you think his comment and the sentiment behind it are vile, and prove that you give two shits about America.

    Can’t do it? Why not?

    because we are not a collective, and dont do collective denounciations because some half wit orders us to. we are individuals, with the rights of individuals, and steve has his right to his own words. he also has the right to actually persue you in court if you actually succeed in preventing him his right of commentary.

    Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

    there are a few base documents you should read. if your not in the US, then you should read them to learn what your missing.

  78. So America has just subjected itself to the Morganthau Plan. We’ll all be shepherds and wood elves. Pelosi will wear a Heidi dirndl and Gore a pinocchio hat. Ooops…rewind. Limo liberal will take on a new and literal meaning.

  79. Just like Mohammedans ‘neolibs’ seem to trot out HYPOCRISY without even realising that they are doing it. The disgusting treatment given to Bush his family and his administration for eight years is somehow swept under the carpet and as for the infantile disgusting pathetic treatment dished out to Sarah Palin and her CHILDREN why that might never have happened. But suggest that citizens take up arms to prevent the destruction of the USA by a foreign born LIAR and BOGUS POTUS and the ‘libtards’ start crying crocodile tears. Left wing. PC, multi culti. Moonbats disgust me.

  80. What I mostly see in this thread is a bunch of scientific ignoramuses declaring that “skeptics” have declared the end of human induced climate change and so it must be. Wake me up when the major scientific organizations and -more importantly- the majority of scientists in related fields (such as climatology, what makes you think you geniuses are experts in that field) are saying it’s bunk. Till then, right wing think tank gatherings of small goups of mostly unrelated scholars do not a “scientific consensus” make. It’s just the same crap the anti-nuke folks pulled in the seventies what with trundling biologists and ecologists and a very few civil engineers out as experts in Nuclear power generation and the safety thereof. Just another pattern in selective scientific indignation depending on whether you are for the left or for the right.

    Science that gets the lefties panties in a bunch:
    A. Anything that suggests we are not a pure blank slate, created solely or nearly totally by culture.This includes any group -level average sexual or racial differences.

    Science that tends to make righties and neo cons flinch:

    A. Because of their predilictions for mystical thinking any suggestion that homosexuality may not be somehow “learned” behavior. This contradicts the Good Book and so must not be.
    B. Evolution. Just another Big Science Conspiracy. Lucky as all creationists know the biologists can’t do basic statistical math and thus its easy to see that evolution is about as likely as a plane assembling itself out of spare parts in a junkyard.
    C. Climate change! Why, it’s obvious that humans can’t possibly influence the climate, it’s obvious (because you are an engineer or know someone who is) that the climate models must be wrong because it has to be a well-known “fact” that climatologists make the exact same kind of computer models as engineers do – and of course there’s no way to test them, right? Right? And of course (the dozens of peer reviewed papers on the subject notwithstanding) these same silly, stupid AND corrupt climatologists never bothered to take the SUN into account when they did their silly climate models! Oh, those goofs!

    Anyway, watching you guys and a few girls think you are being scientifically literate and “contrarian” by presenting the most simplistic strawman arguments against global warming and other things that make you Uncomfortable is rather amusing and sad at the same time. It’s why I hated Bush nearly as much as I hate Obama -both are merely power hungry lying idiots who serve the loose knit (No Illuminati here) globalist plutocracy that enrichens their bank accounts. People don’t like being told things they are uncomfy with. I supported the invasion of Iraq and *holding my nose* the first Patriot Act. Little did I know that WMD was a lie and that Bush not only never wanted the Patriot act to expire, but wanted more power to be included in Patriot Act Part Deux. Tsk.
    Power corrupts, but since you neocons are just as hypocritical about it when “your” side has it as the disgusting “progressives” are, I am going to enjoy watching you suffer this administration and the likely (due to demographics) One party dominance of the Democrats the next 40 years. Don’t worry though – I’m sure whoever is in power will want to maintain a strong military even if they have to use it against those on the home front who are less than enthusiastic. But then again, people who judge scientific realities solely by whether it will impact their pocketbook get no sympathy from me.

  81. Have we included the approximately 30 million Africans that have died from malaria as a result of our liberal betters war against DDT? As an adult who has voted since 1968 I have never been more depressed about the prospects for our freedom and our country. Even the most trying times of the cold war were easier to deal with. My only consolation is that like with Carter, the American people will eventually see the light and throw out the statists.

  82. Throw out the “statists”?

    Are you a neo-con, stu? They are some of the biggest statists around and they just love making fun of libertarians and constitutionalists. Sorry, but it’s rather ridiculous to think that Pax America can exist overseas and not affect domestic politics on the home front.

    In a sense Al Quaida has won our war on terror. Because of the fear and changes it engendered in American society.

    The people in this country are still worth defending. The government is not. And I hardly think following the neo cons wet dream “endless war” intervention program will restore lost freedoms at home.

  83. Global Warming(I refuse to let them move the goalposts with the Climate Change phrase) is pseudo-scientific bunk. It’s right up there with pyramid power and faith healing in its wrongness except that it has managed to tap into the grant and research pipeline. Real science will eventually shoot it down but in the meantime it will suck a bunch of money down its black hole.

  84. Wow, grackle.

    What Nobel Prizes have you won lately?

    More to the point, what are you on? I want me some of that.

  85. The ever-helpful Clarence marshals amazingly convincing arguments that rely on a combination of invective, strawmen (ah yes, this blog is chock full of “the neo cons wet dream of ‘endless war'”), and misrepresentation after misrepresentation of the points of view of 99.9999% of those on the Right. Plus, either a failure to read any of the links offered, and/or to refute any of the points raised therein.

    Lot of trolls coming here lately. Strange bunch of sore losers; wonder if they see their time in power as numbered.

  86. Clarence, grackle has won as many Nobels as you have. I have worked closely with one Nobel winner in my career, and I feel safe in asserting that you will never be a candidate to win one.

    Not that wining a Nobel prize is a guarantee that you won’t fall prey to some crackpot ideas.

    For my part, I consider that when former Global Warming advocates, now Climate Change advocates react to skepticism within the scientific community and in the public at large with hysteria, argumentum as hominem, appeals to authority, and polemic, they are indicating the weakness of their case.

    Reason, facts, and most importantly disprovable hypotheses are what characterize true science.

  87. When the anti-Global Warmers jump on the pro-nuclear power wagon, they will earn some credibility from me. But in their fruitful efforts to squelch all of us, these Rousseauvians with their return-to-nature, leave only footprints are really first cousins to Pol Pot.

    And good ol’ Clarence: Arafat got a Nobel. So did the neurosurgeon who came up with frontal lobotomy as therapy for mental disease. That lobotomy disconnects your thinker from the rest of your brain. Did you perhaps have it done? If so, doesn’t seem to have helped.

  88. Neo, I am interested in the number of trolls who play the agent provocateur, trying to get commenters to make statements that will draw scrutiny from the Secret Service or FBI. Transparent and a little creepy.

    Having said that, I am with huxley in saying that we are very far from a violent situation, and that we need to emphasize the exercise the Constitutional rights of free speech to dissent from the Administration’s policy, to criticize government leaders, and to get involved politically to take our case to the electorate. Things may get worse in the future, and we might get to a different situation, but we aren’t there, and it’s important to remember that.

    This Administration is losing support fast. I have a hard time seeing enough support among flyover country Democratic Senators to defeat a filibuster of the the House bill. That would be political suicide, and if there is anything we know, it is this: those guys look out for Number 1.

  89. I agree with Oblio. When reading back over Watcher and Naughty’s comments, I see they have deliberately used phrases about violence that will cause red flags to go up. No one here has made the calls for violence they accuse posters of making – it’s the trolls who are saying it.

    Please, do not feed the trolls.

  90. Tom said,“When the anti-Global Warmers jump on the pro-nuclear power wagon, they will earn some credibility from me.”

    Not that I am concerned about any credibility or non-credibility with you, but as a so-called anti-global warmer, I have been an advocate of nuclear power, in the short term (fusion power being still 50 to 100 years away). However, the need to realistically address the waste issue is most important. Here is an article on nuclear power you might find interesting.

  91. I am actually rather well-versed in radiation physics, thank you. How do you propose we “realistically address” the waste issue, Tim?

  93. Tim: I read your link. That the “reactor balls” are said to be “simply stored” in “lead-lined steel bins in the basement” is a dead giveaway the author is appallingly ignorant of basic radiation physics, likely just another gee-whiz know-it-all journalist.

  94. I do so wish they would send us some higher quality trolls. These larval stage communists are tiresome.

  95. Tom,

    I do not pretend to be “well versed in radiation physics”. Nor did I make any suggestions as to how to deal with nuclear waste, or that I knew how to manage nuclear waste. You really need to work on your reading comprehension.

    What I did say was, “the need to realistically address the waste issue is most important. I think any reasonable person would agree without having to be “well versed in radiation physics”. Don’t you?

    In reaction to this…

    “And with the fuel sealed inside layers of graphite and impermeable silicon carbide – designed to last 1 million years – there’s no steaming pool for spent fuel rods. Depleted balls can go straight into lead-lined steel bins in the basement.”

    You said, “is a dead giveaway the author is appallingly ignorant of basic radiation physics, likely just another gee-whiz know-it-all journalist.”

    Ok, I’ll bite, why not explain why? Snark is easy, really knowing what your talking about is harder. So, if you are as you say, “well versed in radiation physics”, please do explain what’s so appallingly wrong with that statement. I for one would like to know. And while you’re at it, please do tell how you think the nuclear waste issue should be handled, after all, you are “well versed in radiation physics”.

    Since you too seem to be pro-nuclear, or at least are claiming to be, (a point in which we are in agreement in case you didn’t notice, that reading comprehension thing again) why not dispense some of your knowledge or post some links, I for one would be interested in reading them.

  97. No snark intended. I just don’t like ignorant and impressible journalists. See no reason why you’d personalize it.
    You don’t want to bombard lead with fast neutrons. Lead does not shield neutrons, though it does photons (Xrays, gamma rays). So putting the little balls of neutron emitters in lead-lined containers in the basement is not feasible as safe storage. The lead will absorb some of the neutrons to form another element or a lead isotope, with radioactivity in the “shields” resulting. The Chinese graduate student showing the journalist around probably used this as a test of his savvy.

  98. Tom I’d rather have a full bottle in front of me than a pre frontal lobotomy.

  99. Clarence how about this for a start come back when you need some more you ‘libtard’ Green NAZI

    Anyone with at least 1/4 of a brain who lived thru the brief “global freezing” scare of the early ’70s which quietly flubbed as all its predictions were far more than just wrong, knows that the current global warming scare — originally justified by models created BY THE SAME GLOBAL FREEZING CHARLATANS — is just as much hooey as the first attempt of these 4th rate scientists to achieve name recognition and income from engagements to speak to crowds of ignoramuses and retards. All the data shows — repeat ALL the available historic data, bar none — that although CO2 and atmospheric temperature are correlated, it is WITHOUT EXCEPTION the case that atmospheric temperature changes first, THEN much later the co2 level rises. It rises because of evaporation of co2 dissolved in the sea, more of which enters the atmosphere when surface sea temperatures are warmed. This is true for the data Gore shows in his famous “documendacity,” which he intentionally squeezes into a long time scale over a small chart so that the detail is obscured, since it shows the precise opposite cause & effect that he knows is the correct one in reality. The atmosphere has been far warmer in the past than now, and it has had at times at least 20 times the co2 concentration as at present. And… those times were wonderful times when plant and animal “biodiversity” flourished, as any botanist would tell you is the natural consequence of a little warming. That’s why life is easier in the warmer latitudes and terribly harsh in the northerly ones. We should PRAY (if religious) for global warming because it would go a long way toward ending world hunger, expanding the rain forests, increasing biodiversity and making this planet more of a heaven on earth than it already has the capacity to be. But the advocates of the global warming hoax are just SO incredibly uninformed (or such liars) that they are either unaware of (or hiding) their hypocrisy in advocating a war on non-existent man-caused warming that would, even if correct, accomplish all the other goals they claim to worship. It would be a colossal joke if these neanderthal numbskulls weren’t so populous and endowed with the voting power to destroy the lives of their betters along with their own suicides.

    Solar activity, as mentioned in other posts, is also highly correlated with atmospheric temperature, something that ought to appear very common-sensical to anyone with 1/10th of a brain, and something which has been demonstrated to be EXTREMELY reliably correlated for much of earth’s history. So we have 3 correlated variables of concern(there are of course many others too, but they are not of concern here because we are addressing only the claims of a mass of mindless idiots parroting the propaganda of a few shrewd charlatan, so we can limit ourselves to examining only their stupid, worthless, and totally groundless claims). These are solar activity, atmospheric warming and co2 concentration in the atmosphere. And indeed the order I’ve mentioned them is the order of their causality. Solar activity increases, THEN the atmosphere warms as a result, and FINALLY, the co2 content of the atmosphere rises. Anyone who understands the basic laws of equilibrium states from physical chemistry knows that man’s contributions of co2 into the atmosphere CANNOT have an effect on its concentration, any more than you can increase the salt content of a glass of water after it’s become fully saturated at the prevailing conditions of temperature and pressure. You just precipitate out all the salt you add and the water remains at its equilibrium salt concentration no matter how much more salt you add.

    Two final points of the 500 I might make if space permitted:
    1. Al Gore’s net worth was public knowledge during the political campaign of 2000 — it was approximately $2 million. He is no longer a public servant so his financial affairs are his own private business. However, from investments in public concerns, it is known that he has to have at a minimum a figure upwards of $100 million now. At least a 50-fold increase in 9 years. What has he been doing full time for the past 9 years? Pushing the scam of global warming that’s making him rich. If cap & trade is passed in the US, Gore stands to become a multi-billionaire. He is the indirectly paid propagandist for the eco groups and the corporations who will benefit from that particular means of thieving on the grand scale from the average citizen. Which, I might add, will undoubtedly cause the deaths of at least thousands of elderly from freezing for lack of heat in winter, and of the poor whose diets will be pushed over the line into malnutrition that lowers their immune systems and causes them to succumb to diseases they otherwise would have recovered from (as food prices soar and as disposable incomes of the poor are especially hard hit).

    2. For all the untold $billions of taxpayer monies wasted on global warming research, and all the zillions of published papers on the topic, ask the next advocate of this pure junk science that you meet to refer you to a bona fide, peer-reviewed scientific paper in any reputable journal anywhere on earth which has provided evidence of a link between any of man’s activities and atmospheric temperature changes or climate change. That’s not asking for proof, just one tiny but definite piece of evidence. And that’s regarding ANY of man’s myriad activities being damned by the pea-brained warming advocates. And…the evidence can be linked to either climate change of any type or atmospheric temperature change in either direction. He will not be able to offer you even one such paper, because despite the many, many billions wasted on this hoax, NOT ONE paper in any peer-reviewed scientific journal in any nation on earth, NOT ONE, exists or ever has existed which shows even EVIDENCE of a link between ANY of man’s supposedly nefarious activities and climate change. NOT ONE. NOT ANYWHERE. If you don’t believe me, try and find one. You warmers out there reading this, ask the gurus whose received wisdom you place your mindless faith in to provide you with the name and title and publication of such a paper ANYWHERE ON EARTH, and then post it here. And the rest of you, watch this space, because hell will freeze over before you see it. There is no such paper in existence for one reason only: there exists no line (that means NONE) whatsoever between man’s activities and global warming.

    The Algorites are the 21st century’s version of the old gloom and doom religious zealots who walked around with signs urging everyone to repent because the world was coming to an end tomorrow. IE, they are lunatics one and all, with mental deficiencies or, in the case of their leaders, character deficiencies (or more accurately, lack of character). This is not a controversial statement. It may be debated by the lunatics themselves, but they won’t do a very good job of it, since they are after all very unintelligent sub-normal humans by definition, being lunatic fringe fanatic religious believers in the global warming religion. Their parents were probably zealots for global freezing in the 1970s, and they have inherited the genes. It is an absolute, inescapable requirement that to believe in a human contribution to global warming in the absence of any shred of evidence for any aspect of it whatsoever other than the arbitrary claim of charlatans that “We have a HYPOTHESIS, and it is confirmed by the computerized models WE put the garbage into, models which you must believe are TRUTH AND WISDOM even though they disagree with each other and continue to produce forecasts that prove wrong, one after the other” — yes you have to be, if you actually choose to believe this, you MUST ABSOLUTELY AND LOGICALLY be either (a) unfortunately quite ignorant of the topic OR (b) an unusually stupid person OR (c) suffering from a severe mental/emotional/psychological problem. These 3 together make up the all-encompassing, exhaustive list of possibilities. There is no 4th option.

    I have read many of the posts supporting global warming and if there were time I could demolish every argument in each one. With ease. And with irrefutable fact and/or logic. I have already abused the generosity of this site by writing more than most, however, and it would take 10 times what I’ve written to dispense with all the lame-brained rationalizations the Algorites keep coming up with as each previous one is refuted. I have heard them all and there is not one with an iota of validity. They are arguments designed to sound reasonable to the unintelligent, and conclusive to those ignorant of the topic.
    Not one is correct, or even partially correct.

    Man-caused global warming a hoax and a fraud and complete garbage. There is no scientific dispute about this, only a political one which has enlisted a few scientists and many pseudo-scientists to join with the politicians and share the same agenda. This is a fraud on a global scale, and those who swallow it will deserve the truly horrible consequences for humanity, dwarfing the largest wars in history, DWARFING THEM, in the horrors of its consequences. Should the lemmings succeed in implementing the politics of the global warmers, unfortunately many of their betters — ie, those with actual HUMAN brains — will also perish, and the culmination of thousands of years of advancing human civilization will be destroyed for absolutely no reason.

    You who advocate global warming, do you have any idea what awful harm you will be doing to humanity and life on this planet? How dare you, ignorant as you are, spout off like a scientist when you can’t possibly have any idea of the topic, given the side you take. Look into yourselves. I think if you are capable of being honest with yourself you will find someone who needs something to crusade for so badly in order to shore up his self-esteem, or something to draw away the focus of the hate he has for himself, and for that reason has an EMOTIONAL NEED to believe in this hoax and to have someone to condemn as evil. If you are man enough to admit it, welcome to the club of human beings. If not, you consign yourself to membership amongst the worst enemies of humankind, human life, human civilization: you are a crusading ignoramus, about to add your own 2 cents to the savagery and barbarism recorded history’s litany of human disasters.

    Morry Markovitz
    on June 16, 2009
    at 06:41 AM
    Daily Telegraph

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/5525933/Crops-under-stress-as-temperatures-fall.html

  100. Thank you Tom.

    That’s all I asked for and now I can go read up on this and perhaps learn something.

    I’m not trying to be snarky here, but you referred to, “So putting the little balls of neutron emitters in lead-lined containers in the basement is not feasible as safe storage.”

    However, the ‘pebbles” being stored in the lead containers are constructed from Pyrolytic graphite, (see citation below)

    Here’s something from the wiki citation in one of my comments above,

    Pyrolytic graphite is the main structural material in these pebbles. It sublimes at 4000 °C, more than twice the design temperature of most reactors. It slows neutrons very effectively[emphisis is mine], is strong, inexpensive, and has a long history of use in reactors. Its strength and hardness come from anisotropic crystals of carbon. Pyrolytic graphite is also used, unreinforced, to construct missile reentry nose-cones and large solid rocket nozzles.[citation needed] It is nothing like the powdered mixture of flakes and waxes in pencil leads or lubricants.

    Pyrolytic carbon can burn in air when the reaction is catalyzed by a hydroxyl radical (e.g. from water).[citation needed] Infamous examples include the accidents at Windscale and Chernobyl–both graphite-moderated reactors. Some engineers insist that pyrolytic carbon cannot burn in air, and cite engineering studies of high-density pyrolytic carbon in which water is excluded from the test. However, all pebble-bed reactors are cooled by inert gases to prevent fire. All pebble designs also have at least one layer of silicon carbide that serves as a fire break, as well as a seal.

    The fissionables are also stable oxides or carbides of uranium, plutonium or thorium which have higher melting points than the metals. The oxides cannot burn in oxygen, but have some potential to react via diffusion with graphite at sufficiently high temperatures; the carbides might burn in oxygen but cannot react with graphite. The fission materials are about the size of a sand grain, so they are too heavy to be dispersed in the smoke of a fire.

    The layer of porous pyrolytic graphite right next to the fissionable ceramic absorbs the radioactive gases (mostly xenon) emitted when the heavy elements split. Most reaction products remain metals, and reoxidize.[citation needed] A secondary benefit is that the gaseous fission products remain in the reactor to contribute their energy. The low density layer of graphite is surrounded by a higher-density nonporous layer of pyrolytic graphite. This is another mechanical containment. The outer layer of each seed is surrounded by silicon carbide. The silicon carbide is nonporous, mechanically strong, very hard, and also cannot burn.

    Many authorities consider that pebbled radioactive waste is stable enough that it can be safely disposed of in geological storage thus used fuel pebbles could just be transported to disposal.[citation needed]

    Again, I’m no expert and there is criticism of this design in the same wiki article cited above.

    So back to the point in my original response to you. I think you would agree with me that regardless of one’s position on nuclear power (I’m for it, so are you), the waste containment issue is of major importance.

    My desire is to learn more about it so as to make informed decisions. Unlike many of the global warming alarmists.

    As for snark, if non is given, none will be returned. That’s how I roll, anyway.

  101. Cool.
    But to come back, note the Wiki article’s “geologic storage”. I doubt a basement would qualify! The Chinese may have their own storage issues, too.

  102. I’ve already written both of my Senators.

    If Waxman et al really believed the Earth was doomed because of global warming they’d stand up a hundred nuclear power plants immediately. Instead they’re going forward with the nonsense that coal can be replaced on the energy grid w/ wind, solar and rubber bands.

  103. Those of us who have been vigorous DENIERS from the first and have experienced disdain and opprobrium as a result – should there be, should the whole Gore / Moore / Waxman bugle charge turn out to be just another way to fleece the rubes, some sort of, ah, reparations?

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