Friday, April 29, 2011

Thoughts on climate alarmism

Thoughts on climate alarmism

The movement called AGW, or Anthropogenic Global Warming, is basically an anti-modern or Malthusian belief in the finite availability of resources and a religion that believes that humans have soiled the planet due to our hubris and unquenchable greed. Believers in this religion can be called Warmists. Their redemption or solution to this "problem" is to back off of modernity by decreasing living standards and consumption to assuage the anger of the God Gaia. But they have their facts wrong. Since they base their religion on their claim that their religion is based on science and their belief in certain scientific "facts," the truth of those facts are a central to the understanding of that movement, and their view of where humanity stands here at the beginning of the 21st century. Those facts are not nearly on their side.

Life expectancy and health are on the increase world wide, as are personal income and living standards. Air and water pollution is similarly getting better every year. We have more resources of every type, as can be easily seen by commodity prices, whether steel or lumber, copper or wheat, or the availability of potable water to the poor. How can one reconcile Warmist beliefs in the face of these incontrovertible and easily proven facts? The only major threat our environment may be about to have to deal with is either global war or the appearance of the next ice age or a meteor strike, none of which is central to Warmist theology. Everything else they believe is faltering keeps getting better. We are so wealthy as a species, and getting more wealthy every day, that we can have this debate even as we make good money and live at a standard that our parents could not even dream of.

Our "addiction" is not to oil and coal, it is to wealth and modernity, and that requires immense amounts of energy. The discovery of hydrocarbon energy was the thing that brought us out of the middle ages, into the industrial age, and will bear us into the future. Until and unless we discover and build out a reliable source of energy to replace it, we will be "addicted" to oil and coal for decades. Windmills and sunshine ain't gonna cut it, because the wind and sunshine are not reliable energy sources. Malthusian fears of an impending die-off are no reason to impoverish our wealthiest societies or end our energy intensive ways unless or until the worst fears of the warmists become clearly true. Right now they are at the end of at least two years of being wrong about just about everything.

The planet continues to cool, as seen in measurements of heat in the oceans and weather on the ground. Even sea level has begun a small decline. The "Ozone Hole" has been shown to be a natural phenomenon, and banning chloro-fluorocarbons has had no effect on it. In any event the lack of ozone has initiated no increase skin cancers in affected areas, a central tenet of "Ozone Holism." In the face of unprecedented expansions of windmills and solar electric generation, no way to slow the growth of the thermal generation of electricity has proven effective, as these "green" technologies have no effect on the need for base load capacity. The same Warmists who decry carbon dioxide generation from hydrocarbon stand against expansion of nuclear electric generation capacity. Computer models that have been predicting melting ice caps and hotter climate have been universally unable to predict these non-events.

There is nothing new about religions that predict the end of the world. The difference here is that this religion is based on observable conditions. Their predictions have not been observed. That is how we know that this is a religion. No fact can withstand that portion of the human brain that insists on blind belief in a supernatural prediction. In this case the Jedi mind trick is correct. There is really nothing to see here, and we should really move along.

Arguing with Democrats

Arguing with Democrats

I spend way too much time on Facebook arguing with ideologues of the left - I don't know why. Yesterday I made a few points that looked good enough to post here. You can fill in the blanks, since I have no intention to memorialize the statist argument of the other side, but rest assured that it is the typical hackneyed dross about the importance of government power.

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Remember that Bush was an idiot but Kerry was brilliant, then when their records came to light it was shown that Bush had slightly better grades and it had no effect on their opinion. To the left, it is not enough to have the better argument, they must dehumanize their opponents. That is the only semi-coherent they can demand statist solution to our challenges. We the People are idiots, thus only the "experts" in Washington and academia are qualified to exercise and limit the freedoms that the fools will abuse.

It is an evil movement, whether you call it statism, progressivism, socialism, communism, or the democrat party platform, it is all about control, and usurpation of constitutional freedoms. To a leftist, those who oppose them are stupid and evil, which we prove to them with every policy position we take. Our challenge is to convince a supermajority of voters to see it. Right now we seem to have a bare majority, which will not ensure victory, given all the dead leftists who will vote against America, again.

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Without respect for the four walls of the agreement [the constitution] there will be chaos. You people are in the midst of a grand experiment of replacing the family with the government. The failure of that experiment is obvious for anyone with eyes. None so blind as those who refuse to see.

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You are deluded. Social security and Medicare, while founded on high principles, have had the direct effect of the destruction of the extended family. When our parents get old and infirm we abandon them to the state. When my mother could no longer live alone we took her in, and the amount of pressure we received to abandon her was atrocious. Mothers on welfare are forced by the state to put their menfolk out or lose their benefits. You guys can either recognize this, or you are dishonest. Bad enough to lie to me, you are lying to yourself. Making allusions to Calicutta is fraudulent argument. We have never had anything like that type of poverty here, but screaming about that bogeyman is the only way you can hide your shame at what you have wrought.

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Prosperity is what happened in the South Bronx, and you guys want to take credit for it. I know the South Bronx. Urban renewal destroyed it, now gentrification is reviving it. You need to get out more before you pick a place that makes my point perfectly. Wealth is the engine of American success, and government programs and needless regulation are a drag on it.

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Very Obamunistic, your argument. Take a false choice, in this case an unjustified defense of the indefensible system we have today, and whine that the only alternative is doing nothing, or worse. That is not the position of the right, and you know it. Shame on you. There will be no solution to our intractable deficits and debt unless and until intelligent people on your side become willing to view things as they are, not through a prism where your opponent's argument is both evil and stupid. Allen West said it best - we either end Social Security and Medicare as we know it or we end America. Democrat leaders refuse to change a jot or a tittle, according to democrat senate majority leader Reid. Which side is being stupid and evil? All for power, and we the People can all go to hell. You people make me sick.

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This is not about tone. This nation is currently borrowing in excess of three million dollars per minute, 188 million per hour, over four billion dollars per day to support your "Great Society." That is not great, that is pathetic. Supporting the continuation of this charade is profoundly unserious at best, so excuse me for suspecting your motives. You are not stupid enough to believe your position. If you are, I apologise. Meanwhile you keep pointing to examples that make my point, which at least shows you to be confused.

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Has the green movement been a miserable flop?

Has the green movement been a miserable flop?

That's not my question, it is the headline of an article in The New Republic. No global warming skeptic in sight there. They wonder why their demand for the hobbling of capitalism and individual freedom has failed, and, as usual, they blame all the wrong things. Being statists, they are mired in process, since using the tools of government to change human behavior is the highest calling of a statist. They never ask if their message is wrong down to its fundament. They never question why, if "the science is settled" we are living in undeniably colder world every year for the last five. They never blame the fact that none of the models they made public have correctly predicted, well, anything, correctly. Especially the last two years of record cold in both Northern and Southern hemispheres of the planet. No, they decry the way some people argue against their received truths.

No matter what drivers humanity may have introduced into the environment, the real questions (that are never asked) are, 1) What would be the effect on climate if we followed all the greenie prescriptions? The simple answer to that one is at best a 10% increase in the rate of increase of CO2, with unknown effect on climate or temperature, because of 2) Why is the "scientific method" not applied to the climate policy debate? Since there is NO theory of global warming, and no theory of "greenhouse" effect on an open system, there is no way to quantify what is happening. There is only a feeling that we have soiled our nest, so we must suffer for it. But, like happens with flaggelist movements everywhere, recruitment numbers are down.

But what they never seem to notice is that their singular concentration on massive changes in the way humans interact puts people off to their message. Their prescription is all pain, no gain. Not gonna happen as long as humans have a say in what their government does, which is why statists are against democratic institutions in general, and the U.S. constitution in particular. And then we get to see just what they are about, like this bit on the electric vehicle front, and you have perfect conditions for the gestation of AGW skeptics, and even republicans.

Monday, April 18, 2011

Obamas pay 26% federal income tax

Obamas pay 26% federal income tax

President Obama has released his 2010 tax returns today. On an adjusted gross income of $1,728,096 the Obamas paid $453,770. They donated $245,075 to charities, and deducted $49,945 in mortgage interest.

That amounts to paying about 26% in tax. Add in the charitable deductions, and they gave away about 40%. Is there a single sentient being who believes that, if they remove the charitable deduction, and raise the rates to, say, 40% on "The Rich" the Obamas would still give away a quarter of a million dollars.

Didn't think so.

Saturday, April 16, 2011

Alexander Cockburn makes quite a bit of sense

Alexander Cockburn makes quite a bit of sense


Cockburn may be a dedicated socialist and a bit phobic about the hazards of nuclear power, but he sure sees through the hypocrisy of establishment Warmist academics and the massive fraud promulgated to scare people into a disastrous transfer of power from We the People to nameless faceless bureaucrats.



HT: John Ray at Greenie Watch

Barack the Magic Suit

Barack the Magic Suit - A Political Fairy Tale

Obama's "Let 'em eat cake" moment.

Obama's "Let 'em eat cake" moment.

Aside from his revealing the contempt he has for regular Americans, he displays the fact that he is completely out of touch. First he believes the guy's fuel economy is worse than that of any car made in several decades. Then he recommends the purchase of vehicles that are not available at any price. But the most shocking part of this snapshot of The Won is that his advice to a constituent who can not afford the gasoline is to buy a new car!

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Altruism

Altruism

Altruism is one thing. Forced altruism at the point of a gun is not altruism at all. It is an immoral theft of property. Considering that Medicare is 1960s ideas and technology that worked fine when most people did not live much past 65 and there were 6 taxpayers for each beneficiary, it worked. Now, with the prospect of two taxpayers to each person over 65 (that does not include the disabled) we need a new paradigm. People in power have lied and said that we on the right want these people to be sick and hungry and dead, but nothing could be further from the truth. We need a new paradigm. But so long as the leader of the congressional democrats approaches this issue by telling lies about seniors being forced to eat cat food, there can be no seriousness shown to the rhetoric from the left.

Saturday, April 09, 2011

It'll take political courage to save America

Political Labels

Political Labels

I think our politics are suffused with mostly meaningless labels. Not only are they not very descriptive, they are in flux. Labels like Progressive, Liberal, and Conservative not only drift their definitions, in these three labels (at least) they have come to mean quite the opposite over the last few decades. Ask me my politics and I might say, with all honesty, that I am a liberal, while liberals today would have been called collectivists (or socialists) only forty years ago. So, labels are a problem, which is where most of this "centrist" argument comes from. People think it is a nice way to describe themselves, while they fit quite nicely into one category or another, or they do not understand the underpinnings of their own political philosophy. One can easily start an argument with a person of the left merely by pointing out that Hitler and the Nazis were left wing. They do not want his company, even as they espouse much the same policy.

Then there is the matter of ideology, which is different from politics. Ideology in humans occupies the same brain structures as religion and the belief in God. The collectivist movement of the last half century has increased this tendency, in my view, as they have made the state more responsible for personal welfare. That results in irrational thought processes. For example, a person who believes that it is the duty of the state to provide minimum standards of living for everybody might tell everyone, even himself, that he is a centrist, or, my favorite bit of fraud, "socially liberal, fiscally conservative." My own wife self-describes that way. It is a lie, but we tend to forgive lies we tell to ourselves. You can not be fiscally conservative and espouse welfare or state sponsored health care. You are on very thin ice with social security, although there is a fiscally conservative way to change the social safety net. It is just that people do not want to seem mean or unsympathetic to the downtrodden. Not that one must be mean, but then he is not a fiscal conservative.