Daily Archives: June 29, 2011

German Member of European Parliament: Climate policy is dead

Posted on June 29, 2011 | Leave a comment

Holger Krahmer: Climate Policy Is ‘Dead’
Wednesday, 29 June 2011 12:54 Holger Krahmer, Public Service Europe

There will be no successor to the Kyoto Protocol and the EU should stop pretending otherwise, claims Holger Krahmer MEP

The climate policy of the European Union is now stuck in a dead end. Europe wanted to be the leader – showing the world the way. It wanted to export the “market-economic” instrument of emissions trading as a new standard of regulation. The climate summits in Copenhagen and in Cancun were supposed to herald a successor treaty for the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.

But both summits yielded zero results. Today it is clear that there is going to be no successor agreement. Also, the option of simply extending the existing Kyoto Protocol was thrown overboard by the main countries at the last G8 summit. The situation in global climate politics can be summarised in short as – there is no policy. (GWPF)

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Posted in Cap and tax, Climate change

Insane Aussie Greens think they rule the country

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Greens to deny Tony Abbott mandate to repeal carbon tax if Coaliton wins next election
James Massola and Lanai Vasek

BOB Brown has given a “rolled gold guarantee” the Greens will block any attempt by Tony Abbott to scrap the carbon tax, even if the Coalition wins a mandate at the next election. (The Australian)

As we’ve pointed out before, the incoming government has no need to do anything but ignore the stupid tax to death. The half-dozen green loons can huff and hand wave all they like but the tax is toast along with the current Labor/green/undecided/independent rainbow conglomerate government.

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Posted in Cap and tax

Nullius in verba

Posted on June 29, 2011 | Leave a comment

You Don’t Need A PhD To Spot Outrageously Bad Science
Written by Joanne Nova

The Utah State Legislature produced HJR 12, calling for the EPA to substantiate its claims about carbon dioxide. It’s the most obvious of statements, so mundane it shouldn’t even be necessary. How, you wonder, could any scientist complain about that? (What is science if its claims are not substantiated?) Nonetheless, the Utah Legislature have been criticized (and twice) by a small cadre of PhDs at Brigham Young University (BYU). Disturbingly these scientists don’t appear to have examined the empirical evidence themselves, and merely repeat the conclusions of others. Worse, their criticisms are filled with logical errors, baseless assertions and mistaken assumptions. (SPPI)

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Posted in Climate change, EPA, Research

Americans still in favor of expanding the supply and use of hydrocarbon fuels

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75% Say U.S. Not Doing Enough To Develop Its Gas And Oil Resources

Source:  Rasmussen Report

Most voters continue to feel America needs to do more to develop domestic gas and oil resources. They also still give the edge to finding new sources of oil over reducing gas and oil consumption.

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Posted in Energy, Transport

Dopey UK energy moves

Posted on June 29, 2011 | Leave a comment

Force energy companies to insulate UK homes, climate advisers say

Committee on Climate Change says making energy companies to insulate empty lofts and walls would cut national emissions (Damian Carrington, The Guardian)

Energy companies don’t pay, consumers do.

UK must not support World Bank’s ‘dirty’ power subsidies, say MPs

Britain contributes more than £2bn a year to the bank, which heavily funds fossil fuel power projects in the developing world (John Vidal, Guardian)

That’s actually what a development bank is supposed to do. The stupid part is Britain’s dedevelopment. Perhaps we should have expected this when the UK chose “devolution”.

Millions of tonnes of wood being wasted every year

At least two million tonnes of unused woodfuel supplies a year could be used to heat rural schools, businesses and other buildings, the Forestry Commission has said. (TDT)

Good luck with that. Australia’s greenies managed to install “environment” policies that meant windfalls, dead/dying trees and overgrowth must be left to rot/burn for the good of critters, bugs, fungi and feral greenies.

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Posted in Energy

Kicking “renewable” snouts out of the trough

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Senate trio works on ethanol subsidy overhaul

Three senators are working on a legislative framework to replace the $6 billion a year ethanol tax credit with far less costly incentives such as helping retailers pay for so-called blender pumps.

The package could terminate the excise tax credit as early as July 1, an industry insider said on Tuesday. He said the challenge for biofuels is how to expand sales and a key way is is to introduce pumps that would allow drivers to choose blends from 10 to 85 percent ethanol. (Reuters)

Future of federal solar programs in doubt
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Posted in Energy, Ethanol, Solar, Wind

Luboš Motl on Al’s spectacular destruction of the movement he longs to lead

Posted on June 29, 2011 | Leave a comment

Why Al Gore is a failure

There have been a couple of articles in the media that tried to answer the question why Al Gore has led the warming movement to one of the most spectacular ccollapses in the history of ideologies and fads.

Mead: Why Al Gore is a failure, part one
Mead: Why Al Gore is a failure, part two (Business Insider)

Al Gore in denial (Front Page Magazine)

Why does Al Gore sound superficial on climate change rhetoric(International Business Times)

Global warming hysteria: Gore’s profound failure of leadership(First Things)

The Mendacity of Al Gore’s Rolling Stone article (Global Warming.ORG, 3 parts)

I won’t summarize all the texts but let me mention some points. Maed, the author of the first pair of articles which originally appeared in The American Interest and which was later promoted by Fox, is a professor of international politics, a registered Democrat and an Obama supporter. He points out that Gore hasn’t won any political battle using his brains and muscles since the 1990 reelection in Tennessee. Leaders may have character flaws, Maed admits and demonstrates using a few examples, but they can’t afford character flaws that are directly linked to what their leadership is supposed to be about.

A leader of the jihad against CO2 simply can’t afford to have the “carbon footprint” of a large African village. And in fact, because the population growth is a factor in the equation and Al Gore even wants to direct his next crusade into your bed (see also Al Gore’s ugly rhetoric is nothing new), he can’t have the record of overf*cking and of excessive children production, either. Al Gore’s reproductive footprint is the polite word. (The Reference Frame)

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Posted in Activists, Enviros, Green scams, Rubber room

Ah yes, those “selfless” greenies…

Posted on June 29, 2011 | Leave a comment

Working For Big Green Can Be A Very Enriching Experience
Wednesday, 29 June 2011 20:02 Mark Tapscott, Washington Examiner

Leaders of 15 top Big Green environmental groups are paid more than $300,000 in annual compensation, according to an Examiner analysis of the organizations’ most recent IRS Form 990 tax returns.

At $584,232, the Conservation Fund’s Richard L. Erdmann, the group’s executive vice president and general counsel, is the most highly paid official among the 15 organizations examined. Erdman received $438,954 in salary and $145,278 in “other compensation,” according to the fund’s return. All figures cited are taken from 2008 returns unless otherwise noted. (GWPF)

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Posted in Activists, Enviros

Looks like Brian Fagan has been sipping the Kool-Aid…

Posted on June 29, 2011 | Leave a comment

Just over seven-tenths of the planet is covered in an enormous renewable water resource, it’s just not in a currently useful format. No, the Himalayan glaciers will not shrink massively this century (we have no reason to suspect any significant change beyond a reversal of transient reduced snowfall as India in particular transitions to modern coal-fired power from its current mass reliance on biomass burning and the reduction in the Asian Brown Cloud over the Indian Ocean facilitates a general increase in Indian Summer Monsoon Rainfall [ISMR]). There is no shortage of water on Earth. With sufficient affordable energy we have an essentially unlimited supply for any purpose we so choose.

Fresh water supplies are going to run out, so what can do to make the taps keep running?
How we manage the rest of this precious resource will dictate the planet’s future.
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Posted in Development, Silly scares

Kenya demonstrates some (belated) good sense on biotech while India’s panicked export bans leave it with grain holdings it can not store…

Posted on June 29, 2011 | Leave a comment

Kenya to allow GM maize to alleviate shortage

Kenya’s state-run National Safety Authority is set to approve importation of genetically modified maize into the country for the first time to mitigate a looming shortage, its head said on Wednesday.

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Posted in Agriculture, Biotech

Mike Shaw following the Chinese drywall debacle

Posted on June 29, 2011 | Leave a comment

Plaintiff’s lawyers in the Banner case are backing off from their own settlement

You can’t make this stuff up. After essentially telling their clients that they should be dancing in the streets over the Banner Supply settlement, the plaintiff’s lawyers are now backsliding.

While the cover story is “more transparency,” that can’t be what they really want. After all, it was the transparency forced on this miserable joke of a settlement that got the shysters to react.

It seems that other people started to notice that the only thing actually specified in the settlement was the total amount of money available, and how much would be paid to the attorneys.  Details regarding the client recovery are sketchy at best.

Even for plaintiff’s lawyers, these guys are pretty stupid. (Shaw’s Eco-Logic)

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Posted in Pollution, Regulation

From the “No? Duh!” files

Posted on June 29, 2011 | Leave a comment

Fall in smoking linked to rise in obesity
From: AAP

A FALL in smoking rates among women in recent decades could have sparked a rise in obesity levels, researchers claim.

A long-term study of 3613 Scottish women who never smoked found they were more likely to have been obese when they died compared to their smoking sisters.

This was particularly true for the non-smoking women from working class backgrounds who took part in the study, which began in the early 1970s.

The researchers who carried out the study, published today by the British Medical Journal, said high smoking rates 35 years ago had probably concealed the true extent of obesity in non-smoking women.

“(The results) suggest the decline in smoking rates in recent decades may have contributed to the increase in overweight and obesity,” they wrote. (news.com.au)

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Posted in Health care, Unintended consequences

Daily Bayonet skewers plainly stupid Gaia-hating greenies, again

Posted on June 29, 2011 | Leave a comment

Hippies Heathrow Horror

Why do anti-aviation group Plane Stupid and perennial hippie hangout Greenpeace hate Gaia?

Both Greenpeace and Plane Stupid celebrated when Heathrow airport’s planned third runway was cancelled, in part because of protests led by their merry bands of gap-year student activists who climbed all over things that didn’t belong to them.

Greenpeace and Plane Stupid wants to save the planet from airlines, but it’s a cosmic rule that hippie action is always met by the equal and opposite force of unintended consequences. (Daily Bayonet)

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Posted in Activists, Development, Enviros, Rubber room

Art Horn on the environmental propaganda inflicted on our children

Posted on June 29, 2011 | Leave a comment

What Are Schools Teaching Kids About Our Energy Future?
By Art Horn

A very important component of our future energy development and production will come not necessarily from the truth but what is perceived to be the truth. Make no mistake, what today’s young people are taught in school about energy and its relationship to global warming will determine what direction we go in developing the critical energy resources we need. Plentiful and affordable energy is as important to the future of the world as the daily intake of food and water is to the survival of every man, woman and child alive today. Reliable and affordable energy is the nourishment of our way of life, without it we will starve and die.

I worked as an on air meteorologist for 25 years, mostly with NBC stations. Now I am self employed. Recently I was presenting my program about how weather works to a middle school. During a break between groups I had a chance to look around the library where I was presenting my program. I thought it would be interesting and revealing to see what kind of books about energy and climate the library was providing to the students. It didn’t take long to find the answer. (Energy Tribune)

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Posted in Energy, Enviros, Propaganda

Henry Payne on the lie that’s CAFE

Posted on June 29, 2011 | Leave a comment

Fuel-Economy Hocus Pocus
By Henry Payne

Detroit — I drove to Columbus, Ohio, and back this weekend in the best-selling small car in America, a Honda Civic. I averaged 30 mpg, which is about right given the little two-door’s 26 city/34 highway rating (29 mpg combined).

So how will automakers reach an average 35.5 miles per gallon for all cars AND trucks in just four years (that’s one product cycle)? And how will they reach the 56.2 miles per gallon by 2025 reported today by the Wall Street Journal?

They won’t, but let’s say they did.

The federal fuel-economy mandates are an elaborate lie, a con built to force American automakers to make “transformative” electric cars that President Obama wants even as automakers continue to churn out the gas-powered SUVs that consumers want (and that drive company profits). The resulting, growing gulf in government demand vs. market demand has resulted in the government investing billions in the automotive-battery production business and a government fleet of hybrid-electric vehicles at the same time that automakers are investing billions in Washington lobbying to make sure the so-called CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy Standards) fib about the real numbers.

CAFE makes the Machiavellian, back-room federal lightbulb ban look positively forthright by comparison. (Planet Gore)

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Posted in Energy, Transport