Environment - Dr. Rich Swier

LA City Council Ignores Science; Claims Hydraulic Fracturing Caused Earthquake

March 20, 2014/in Energy, Environment, News, Policy, Video/by Sean Hackbarth

In their efforts to block hydraulic fracturing, some Los Angeles City Council members don’t want to let the St. Patrick’s Day earthquake go to waste:

Three Los Angeles City Council members want city, state and federal groups to look into whether hydraulic fracturing and other forms of oil and gas “well stimulation” played any role in the earthquake that rattled the city early Monday morning.

The motion, presented Tuesday by Councilmen Paul Koretz and Mike Bonin and seconded by Councilman Bernard Parks, asks for city departments to team up with the California Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources, the U.S. Geological Survey and the South Coast Air Quality Management District to report back on the likelihood that such activities contributed to the 4.4-magnitude quake.

[youtube]http://youtu.be/KiB7ny52-xw[/youtube]

National Review Online talked to City Council Member Bernand Parks:

Parks, who seconded the motion, tells National Review Online that while fracking is “reportedly” happening near the epicenter, those who signed the motion weren’t completely sure. However, he adds that “earthquakes are happening in areas that are not historically earthquake prone, but they are in places where fracking is going on.”

No one should be surprised that the ground often rumbles in Los Angeles, a city lying on top of an area prone to earthquakes, but that doesn’t mean city leaders can ignore geophysics.

A scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey stated nicely that Council Members’ theory that hydraulic fracturing caused Monday’s earthquake is hogwash:

Seismologist Lucy Jones, a USGS science advisor for risk reduction, said she would need to know much more about nearby pumping in the area, such as whether someone was changing the water pressure deep in the ground, to say whether it could have been a factor in the Monday temblor.

However, “my first impression is that sounds implausible,” Jones said, “just because the earthquake was so deep. Induced earthquakes are almost always shallower than this.”

According to seismographic data, the quake was six miles beneath the surface.

What’s more, Mark Zoback, professor of geophysics in the Stanford School of Earth Sciences, hydraulic fracturing expert, and a former advisor for the Obama administration’s Department of Energy has said that hydraulic fracturing doesn’t have the oomph to cause earthquakes and poses “no danger to the public”:

The energy released by one of these tiny microseismic events is equivalent to the energy of a gallon of milk hitting the floor after falling off a kitchen counter.

The Daily Caller’s Michael Bastasch reports on other research finding tenuous links between hydraulic fracturing and earthquakes:

A peer-reviewed 2012 study on fracking in the Inglewood Oil Field in Los Angeles County found that “the high-volume hydraulic fracturing and high-rate gravel packs had no detectable effects on vibration, and did not induce seismicity (earthquakes).”

The National Research Council, which is part of the National Academy of Sciences, also found last year that fracking poses a low risk for “inducing felt seismic events.”

…

“We also find that there is no evidence to suggest that hydraulic fracturing itself is the cause of the increased rate of earthquakes,” wrote David Hayes, deputy secretary of the Interior Department, in a 2012 report.

This effort is the latest in the Los Angeles City Council’s anti-hydraulic fracturing crusade. In February, the Council agreed to draw up rules to prohibit hydraulic fracturing, and in March, it followed through by authorizing changes in land-use laws to ban the technology in the city.

It’s apparent that science won’t stop these politicians from exploiting a natural event in order to slam hydraulic fracturing, an extremely beneficial tool for creating jobs and improving America’s energy security.

Solar and Wind Power Losing Worldwide Support

March 20, 2014/in Environment, News, Policy, Regulation/by Alan Caruba

In his state of the union speech in January President Obama claimed that the U.S. was closer to “energy independence” than ever. He was referring to solar energy while ignoring that his administration has been the most anti-fossil fuel energy than any previous one.

The U.S. has the greatest energy reserves, coal, oil and natural gas, of any nation in the world, but Obama has been waging a “war on coal”, delaying the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada, and slow to issue permits to explore for new sources of energy reserves on federal lands. The impact on the economy is incalculable, but it is driving up the cost of energy for everyone and every industry.

Meanwhile, Obama keeps talking about “green jobs” and doubling the nation’s supply of renewable energy in the next three years.” This another fantasy to which he clings.

As Taylor Smith, a senior policy analyst for The Heartland Institute, points out “Despite years of favorable public policy, including renewable power mandates and billions in subsidies, solar power still produces only about 0.2 percent of the nation’s electricity. The National Conference of State Legislatures says power from most large, utility-scaled solar installations still costs about 35 percent more than electricity from natural gas plants; many other experts estimate the levelized cost is even higher.”

U.S. Energy Information Administration reports that the United States is producing less electricity now than it did when Obama took office even with the inclusion of wind energy.

From 2008 to 2012, U.S. electricity production declined by 1.7 percent. That’s what happens when Environmental Protection Agency regulations force coal mines to close along with coal-fired plants that previously produced 50 percent of the nation’s electricity.

Suffice to say, Obama is the enemy of fossil fuel production and the energy it provides for electricity production and our transportation needs. That makes him the enemy of the American people.

In February, the National Review had an article, “Europe’s Green Collapse”, by Stephen Moore in which he noted that “Not long ago nearly all the nations of Europe bought into this same dream of a green energy free lunch as they legislated tens of billions of dollars in subsidies for solar and wind power while directly and indirectly taxing and capping carbon-based energy.”

That policy was set in motion by the United Nations Kyoto treaty in 1997. It was based on the global warming hoax that called for a reduction in so-called “greenhouse gas” emissions. The U.S. did not sign onto the treaty and Canada withdrew from it in 2012.

The Earth, however, has been in a natural cooling cycle for going on seventeen years, the result not of any manmade gases, but because of the Sun has been producing lower levels of solar radiation. The hoax is based largely on the utterly false claim that carbon dioxide warms the Earth when, in fact, it plays virtually no role whatever in the Earth’s climate. The Earth is likely to remain cooler for decades.

That fact has been brutally clear in Europe where the cold has been comparable to the temperatures the U.S. has been encountering. Moore reported that “In January Brussels announced with little media fanfare that the European Union is ditching their renewable-energy standards.” It is a matter of economic survival for Europe.

What is astonishing is the way both the U.S. and Europe adopted renewable energy production because it is unpredictable and mindlessly expensive. A major factor why the global warming hoax is collapsing, it has cost everyone here and in Europe billions in loans and subsidies. Both solar and wind require a backup from traditional power sources that utilize coal, oil and natural gas.

“Thanks to about $33 billion a year in government subsidies, Germany currently gets 25 percent of its electricity from wind and solar power, and that is scheduled to rise 40 to 45 percent by 2025.” Watch Germany abandon its plans. “The EU admits that the cost of electric power in member nations is often 50 to 100 percent higher than in the U.S,” noted Moore. “Manufacturers are starting to move plants out of the EU and even to, of all places, the U.S.”

“Here is a textbook case of how centralized industrial planning—or ‘government investment’ as we now say—usually leads to catastrophically wrong bets.” In the U.S. it began in the 1970s when President Carter spent billions on renewable energy and projects like the Synthetic Fuels Corporation, a predecessor of Solyndra and other companies that went bankrupt shortly after receiving loans during the Obama administration’s first term in office.

Under Obama’s “stimulus” program, 83 percent of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Acts Section 1705 loans went to solar energy projects with wind receiving 11 percent of the funds.

“What saved the U.S. economy from replicating the Euro-industrial malaise was the entirely spontaneous oil-and-gas boom driven by technology and billions in investment by wildcat entrepreneurs…” That’s called capitalism. The sooner we get the U.S. government out of “investing” in such nonsense, the better.

As with everything else Obama has to say, his advocacy of renewable energy, like Carter’s, has proven to be a massive, costly failure.

EDITORS NOTE: The featured photo is of a wind farm in the Tehachapi Mountains of California, taken July 2001 by Stan Shebs. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

Warning for Floridians: National Hurricane Center to Issue New Storm Surge Map

March 19, 2014/in Environment, Featured, News, Policy, Regulation/by Dr. Rich Swier

If you think your property insurance costs are going through the ceiling, then gird yourself for more rate increases. Florida resident Pat Wayman in an email states, “Hold onto your wallets… the govt is making a map of more vulnerable areas! The insurance companies must love this administration. If you loved the last insurance rate hike, this one should hit you like a tsunami.” Or perhaps a hurricane?

Wayman notes, “Remember that new flood insurance bill that was signed into law? Taxpayers in non flood zones will further subsidize those in flood zones. Both our Senators voted for the bill and Rick Scott went to D.C. to lobby for it. Here is the link to an Insurance Journal article outlining the bill. The journal states, ‘The bill would scale back big flood insurance premium increases faced by hundreds of thousands of homeowners. The measure also would allow below-market insurance rates to be passed on to people buying homes in flood zones with taxpayer-subsidized policies.'”

Beginning with the 2014 Atlantic hurricane season, NOAA’s National Hurricane Center (NHC) will issue the Potential Storm Surge Flooding Map for those areas along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts of the United States at risk of storm surge from a tropical cyclone.

Developed over the course of several years in consultation with emergency managers, broadcast meteorologists, and others, this new map will show:

Geographical areas where inundation from storm surge could occur; and
How high above ground the water could reach in those areas.

The Potential Storm Surge Flooding Map is an experimental National Weather Service product that provides valuable new information on the storm surge hazard associated with tropical cyclones.

Storm surge is often the greatest threat to life and property from a hurricane. However, many people do not understand this term or the threat it represents.

Here are some things to know about this map:

The first map will usually be issued at the same time as the initial hurricane watch or, in some cases, with a tropical storm watch. The map is based on the latest forecast track and intensity for the tropical cyclone, and takes into account likely forecast errors.
The map shows inundation levels that have a 10-percent chance of being exceeded, and can therefore be thought of as representing a reasonable worst-case scenario for any given location.
The map is subject to change every six hours in association with every new NHC full advisory package. Due to the processing time required to produce the map, it will not be available until about 45 to 60 minutes following the advisory release.

The map will be part of an interactive display made available on the NHC website (http://www.hurricanes.gov) in situations where hurricane watches and warning are in effect for portions of the continental U.S.

The map will be experimental for at least two years, during which time comments from users will be solicited and gathered. Dissemination of the underlying raw data, including the provision of shapefiles, will not be available during the experimental period. At the conclusion of the experimental phase, based on the input, NHC will determine if the map would become an operational product.

For additional information, please visit the NHC Storm Surge website: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/surge.

Climate Truth versus US Government Climate Policy

March 14, 2014/in Environment, Featured, Government Transparency, News, Policy, Regulation, Science/by Dr. Rich Swier

There are two absolutes that need to be considered when talking about the Earth’s climate.

The first absolute is that science, by definition, can never be settled. If you ever hear anyone, including scientists, say that a scientific theory, such as manmade global warming, is settled, then you know he or she is not telling you the truth.

Scientific theories are just that, theories, which must over time be tested using scientific methods, repeatedly tested again and proven using facts – not emotion.

The simple fact is that the Earth’s climate is impacted primarily by our star – the Sun. Solar activity has been theorized and proven over time to be the best predictor of changes in our climate.

Leaders, in academia, the public and private sectors, must therefore look at proven climate science models when making short and long term policy decisions. Currently, policy makers are using the wrong (CO2 Theory) model rather than a proven (e.g. Relational Cycle Theory) model to predict future climates.

A failure to use the proven model (best science) could lead to bad policy and social disruption, wasted resources, and worst case, possibly international discord, if not conflict.

The second absolute is man cannot control the weather. This is common sense. If anyone tells you that man can control the weather (climate) by changing his behaviors you should at the very least be skeptical, or better, just walk away.

Fact: The Earth’s atmosphere is made up of 0.039% parts of carbon dioxide (CO2). The proponents of bad science (CO2 Theory) say that by reducing CO2 emissions, man can control (change) the Earth’s climate.

The fact is that there were times when there was significantly more CO2 in our atmosphere than today and yet the temperature was colder. CO2 emissions come primarily from water evaporation due to the Sun shining brightly on our vast oceans and seas.

Natural global processes cannot be changed and will produce exponentially more CO2 than mankind can ever emit from any of his activities or the use of Earth’s abundant resources, such as oil and natural gas.

It is prophetic that on Monday, March 10th, 2014, about 28 US Senators stayed up all night discussing climate change on the floor of the US Senate. The question is: Did they discuss and promote good climate science or bad climate science, and therefore good climate policy or bad climate policy? The answer is sadly no.

Dr. Lawrence W. Reed, President of the Foundation for Economic Education, wrote, “Sound policy requires that we consider long-run effects and all people, not simply short-run effects and a few people.”

Time will tell whether we have taken the ‘sound climate policy’ approach and headed down the road to redemption for all of mankind, or else decided to take the road to perdition.

RELATED VIDEO: Joe Miller reports, “Several hundred global warming activists converged on Washington, D.C. earlier this month, protesting the Keystone Pipeline and urging radical solutions to limit carbon emissions. Of course, those radical solutions did not include limiting their own personal carbon emissions. At least one honest interviewee, who flew from Colorado to the nation’s capital, admitted that he would not give up air travel, no matter how polluting. But some attendees were more committed to the cause, even signing petitions to lower the sun’s temperature.” Watch it all here:

[youtube]http://youtu.be/5w4VdgE9aEk[/youtube]

New Study: President Obama a “member of the Flat Earth Society” on Climate Change

March 13, 2014/in Environment, Featured, Government Transparency, News, Policy, Politics, Science/by Dr. Rich Swier

Who are the real deniers of global climate change? A new report sheds light on the science and facts about global climate change. After reading the report I have come to the unfortunate conclusion that it is President Obama and his administration who truly are members of the “Flat Earth Society.”

The March 10, 2014 Edition (1-2014) of the Global Climate Status Report (GCSR) is now available and is a must read. Go to Space and Science Research Corporation (SSRC) website to obtain a copy. In this the fifth edition, the US government climate policy is discussed in detail. John Casey in the forward to the GCSR states:

This edition of the GCSR comes at a unique time in view of yet another record setting cold winter in the Northern Hemisphere and additional confirmation from measured climate parameters of the ongoing transition from the past naturally caused globally warm period to the new cold climate epoch.

Regardless of the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, we continue to see US governmental policy based on the now thoroughly discredited greenhouse gas theory and the insignificant role mankind’s industrial CO2 plays in the atmosphere. In what can only be classified as a nationwide fit of cognitive dissonance, many of our leaders, including the President and Secretary of State and members of the media have resorted to reinforcing the now disproved myth of man made global warming with outlandish claims and outright lies about the state of the Earth’s climate and where it is going. In an obvious, well known move to discredit those who rely on facts not the politics of climate change, these same leaders have taken to personal attacks and name calling like labeling those who reject the PC version of climate science as “members of the Flat Earth Society,” and “deniers,” attempting to classify these climate truth seekers like those who dispute the reality of the Holocaust.

Casey notes, “This GCSR research summary of potentially historic impact is included. This research, includes fellow researchers, Dr. Dong Choi, Dr. Fumio Tsunoda, and Dr. Leo Maslov. This summary outlines the existence of remarkably strong links between solar activity and earthquakes which are further tied to the coming cold climate epoch. A final paper will be posted at the SSRC website at a later date.”

This GCSR reviews each of the twenty four climate parameters monitored at the SSRC to determine global climate status. These climate indicators are then used to create a long range climate prediction through the 2040’s. The GCSR is the only authoritative, quarterly, non-governmental global climate report published in the United States. Using solar activity forcing models for climate prediction, the SSRC has amassed one of the best records for climate prediction accuracy in the United States.

If you wish to know what is really happening with the climate and not the politically correct version, please go to the SSRC website and download a copy of the Global Climate Status Report.

RELATED VIDEO: Barack Obama’s Weekly Address – “Confronting the Growing Threat of Climate Change” from June 29, 2013.

ABOUT THE EDITORS OF THE GCSR:

Editor of GCSR – Mr. John L. Casey, SSRC Founder and President. Mr. Casey is a former White House space program advisor, NASA Headquarters consultant, who served as an engineer on the space shuttle program with a major aerospace contractor. While doing climate research in early 2007, he independently discovered cycles of the Sun that drive climate change. He then became the first climate researcher to notify the White House, Congress and the mainstream media of the onset of the next climate change to a long cold era caused by a “solar hibernation.” Mr. Casey has since been conducting a nationwide campaign to inform the American people and its leaders of the need to prepare for this next climate era. He is one of America’s most successful climate prediction experts and is the author of the internationally acclaimed climate science book, “Cold Sun.” See at www.coldsun.net. In 2012, at the request of leading seismologists from around the world, he took on the added role of Chairman/CEO of the International Earthquake and Volcano Prediction Center (IEVPC). See at www.ievpc.org. In March 2013, he was named “America’s best climate prediction expert” by Watchdogwire.com.

Co-Editor – Dr. Ole Humlum, Supporting Researcher to the SSRC. He is also a Professor of Physical Geography at the University of Oslo in Norway. A practicing glaciologist and geomorphologist, he is an expert in glacial and climate behavior for northern Europe, and the seas and oceans of the northeast Atlantic Ocean. He has spent many years in the field study of the glacial history of Greenland, Iceland, Faroe Islands, Denmark, the island of Svalbard and of Norway/Sweden. He is the founder of the widely respected global climate web site Climate4you.com.

The Space and Science Research Corporation, (SSRC), headquartered in Orlando, Florida conducts important research into the causes and effects of climate change, based on the Sun being the primary driver of climate change. The SSRC is the leading climate research organization in the US advocating national and global preparedness for the coming cold climate era. The SSRC is a small, privately funded, climate research organization relying on the advice of many climate experts and its staff of Supporting Researchers for their contributed research, analysis, and peer review of SSRC products. The SSRC has one of the most successful climate prediction track records in the US for any climate research organization. See more about the SSRC at www.spaceandscience.net.

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image taken on December 18th, 2009 is of President Barack Obama briefing European leaders, including British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, European Union Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, and Danish Prime Minister Lars L. Rasmussen, following a multilateral meeting at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark. In the background, behind French and US presidents, Frenchs ministers, Jean-Louis Borloo and Chantal Jouanno.

Senators4Sale: Cheap, Very Cheap

March 13, 2014/in Environment, Featured, News, Policy, Politics, Science/by Richard C. Savage, Ph.D.

The US Senate used to pride itself as “…the world’s greatest deliberative body.” Those days are gone. The US Senate is now controlled by a Senator from Nevada named Harry Reid, who puts on an allnight talkathon for money. Reid recently attacked millions of Americans, deprived of health care plans they had been assured of keeping (PERIOD!), as liars. Now Reid has turned the Senate floor over to a majority of its Democrats for an overnight exercise in global warming fantasy, March 10-11.

Let’s be clear. This was not a debate on the Nation’s business. These Senate Democrats can’t be bothered to fulfill their Constitutional duty of passing a budget. The Senate hasn’t passed a budget for several years, and there will be none this year. There is no legislation planned to address climate change, though several senators insisted it is the most important issue facing the country.

This was not a reasoned debate by informed advocates of differing opinions on a matter of national importance. In a Gallup poll released 11 March, global warming or climate change ranked 14th of 15 issues considered. Small wonder, after the Winter of 2013-2014, which will undoubtedly make Florida one the most desirable states in the Union. Although we are the Saudi Arabia of natural gas, we are 60% below normal reserve levels [Fox News, Cavuto]. We may start next Winter behind the power curve.

This was not a debate on legislation to address a national problem of extreme weather, caused by “climate change”. 2013 was an all-time record low for tornadoes. There were two Atlantic hurricanes in 2013, neither of which threatened landfall. Tropical storms are at record lows around the world (according to Professor Ryan Maue of Florida State.) We are at a record number of years between landfall of major hurricanes (cat 3-4-5). Wildfires and drought were at a very low level.

The IPCC issued a report in 2012 on extreme weather, denying any link between these phenomena and climate change. But Senate Majority Leader Reid says:

“Every day that goes by, every week that goes, every month that goes by, every year that goes by … there’s more evidence of the dangers of climate change,”

Reid said Tuesday afternoon, in response to a question from the Weekly Standard, “The more climate changes, the more extreme the weather gets, and we’ve seen that in spades.”

Why is the US Senate conducting an overnight talkathon on a non-problem, when Democrats control the agenda? Answer: money for Democrat senators who cursed the American people with ObamaCare. They need campaign money offered by a climate change fanatic named Tom Steyer. The hedge fund billionaire has promised $100 million in campaign funding for any Democrat who opposes the Keystone XL pipeline. Even Dana Milbank, a liberal commentator of the Washington Post, is disgusted.

“Look back at the planet from the window of a spacecraft.”—Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL)

Does Florida have an entry in the Senators4Sale? Yes indeed, the last Senator to speak was Bill Nelson:

The senators saved the best for last. Florida has the most to lose, the fastest, of all the United States. Bill Nelson showed a map with a frightening area of the Atlantic and Gulf coastlines in red, submerged.

Nelson spoke of seeing the silt-laden river mouths of Madagascar and a storm in the Indian Ocean from 203 miles up. He presented shocking predictions with reason and calm, though he freaked out his audience. Nelson said 28 million people could be underwater by the end of the century. Recreation, baseball spring training, and the sunsets seen from the country’s southernmost eastern beach would be things of the past, pauperizing a $67 billion tourism industry. Miami, currently linking up with the Netherlands for technical help.

Senator Nelson, a Mission Specialist in 1986, serves on the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. One would think he’s well-informed on science and the most controversial topic in science today, climate change. One would expect that he knows sea level is rising at a rate of eight inches per century, as it has for the last 80 centuries. Instead he predicts 28 million Floridians to be underwater by 2100. Nelson is almost as big a liar as Harry Reid, a high bar.

Ironically, just last week, a group of retired NASA scientists and engineers called “The Right Climate Stuff” put out their independent report on the “threat” of climate change. These are the men who put Neil Armstrong on the moon, and Bill Nelson into space.

So, what did they say? “The planet is not in danger of catastrophic man made global warming. Even if we burn all the world’s recoverable fossil fuels it will still only result in a temperature rise of less than 1.2 per cent.”

And why did they say it? “It’s an embarrassment to those of us who put NASA’s name on the map to have people like ~~James Hansen~~ Bill Nelson popping off about global warming,” says the project’s leader Hal Doiron [text edit by RCS].

Bill Nelson is not just a disgrace to the Senate – like thirty of his fellow Senators – he’s a disgrace to the science that made him “the right stuff.”

Democrat Climate Caucus Reveals Its Stupidity

March 10, 2014/in Environment, Must Read, News, Policy, Politics/by Alan Caruba

The nation seems to be passing through a period in which too many U.S. Senators have been elected without so much as a high school level understanding of what drives the Earth’s climate and it isn’t the 0.038% of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere.

On Monday, March 10, some twenty of them will stay up overnight on the Senate floor, according to The Hill, “to bring attention to the impacts of climate change.” You don’t get more idiotic than that. Climate, measured in decades and centuries, is always in a state of change. Meanwhile, the weather anywhere in the nation, determined by the changing seasons and responsive only to short-range forecasts, has turned colder thanks to a cooling cycle that is now into its 17th year.

Giving speeches all night in the Senate will not change that, but Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) has partnered with Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) to announce a new “climate change caucus” when you can ask any of the million unemployed Americans what the Senate’s real priority should be.

Sen. Whitehouse seems to think that a winter storm that causes “little summer cottages (be) washed into the sea” makes the non-existent issue of climate change “a bit personal.” Does this moron take rain or snow storms personally? When the sun rises in the morning, does he think it does so just for him?

Democrats are so afraid of the political fallout from the devastation of Obamacare and the lies told to support it that they are desperate to divert voter’s attention to anything else and climate change rates higher than having to discuss why we are still in a major recession after one full term by President Obama and the first year of his second. So, between now and the midterm elections in November, they will engage in all manner of theatrics to stay in office.

Thank goodness we have men like Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) in office. For a long time now he has been on record calling climate change—formerly called global warming—“a hoax.” When he takes a head count, he finds “fewer and fewer members of the United States Senate that are sympathetic to this whole cause.”

Behind the climate change “cause” falsehoods is the intention to impose fees on all aspects of American business and industry that emit carbon dioxide. Sen. Whitehouse wants to force up the cost of energy by making the larger emitters pay for doing what volcanoes do—emit CO2. In addition, all of the Earth’s living creatures do that as well. Congress has defeated 692 similar bills.

Sen. Whitehouse and his climate caucus are depending heavily on the 30% or so voters who still think that global warming is real. To some extent you can’t blame them. They were taught that in school and college. They read and hear that it is real in the news media every day. As of today, however, not one high school graduate has lived in a period of global warming.

And what is the rest of the world supposed to think when both British Royal Society and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences have just released a report, “Climate Change: Evidence & Causes” that is a rejection and abandonment of the most fundamental values of science. The report asserts that “Continued emissions of these gases (CO2) and other greenhouse gases will cause further climate change, including substantial increases in global average surface temperatures and important changes in regional climate.”

Tom Harris, the executive director of the International Climate Science Coalition, responded saying the report “does a serious disservice to science and society.” And that is an understatement. “This is not the language of science…it is appalling that two of the world’s foremost science bodies should engage in such unconditional rhetoric.” Not to mention that it is an outright lie.

So, while the twenty or so desperate Democrats gather all night, keep in mind that (1) there has been no global warming since 1997, (2) more than 31,000 scientists have signed a petition saying humans are not causing global warming, (3) Arctic ice is up 50% since 2012, and (4) every one of the climate computer models predicting warmth has been wrong over and over again.

Find out if one of those Senators is from your State and is up for reelection in November. Then vote him or her out of office and replace them with a candidate who wants smaller government, less spending, and demonstrates a devotion to both the truth and the U.S. Constitution.

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image by MichałRadecki is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported, 2.5 Generic, 2.0 Generic and 1.0 Generic license.

FP&L – No “Choice” of Meters for 36,000 Floridians

March 8, 2014/in Budget and Finance, Energy, Environment, Featured, Government Transparency, News, Policy, Taxes/by Marilynne Martin

By now many of you that refused the installation of FP&L’s smart meters have received a “Dear Customer” letter telling you that you have a choice of meters. The letter goes on to say that if you don’t take their smart meter that you will be charged $95 upfront and $13/month to retain your old meter. If you haven’t received such letter, you will shortly.

On January 7, 2014 the Florida Public Service Commission (FPSC) approved this deal. Although, it is being contested by two separate citizen petitions (one of which I am leading), the rules state that FP&L can continue as planned with the stipulation that fees collected are “subject to refund”. That is, if the FPSC Order is overturned, they must return the fees charged to the customers.

Why the fees? Well you resistors are “cost causers”. It is a long-standing principle that is invoked at will when they want to get you to comply with the game plan. In 1987/1988 they invoked the same principle when they transferred the ownership of meter enclosures and associated cost burdens (maintenance/replacement) to you the customer. The order (PSC Order # 18893) stated that:

“Since self-contained meter enclosures are not a part of the utility function, but simply house the meter itself, their costs should be borne by the customer when the structure is initially wired for electric service or when it must be replaced due to obsolescence or wear. The burden of maintaining and repairing the enclosures’ must likewise rest with the customer.”

As we all know by now, a smart meter is not “simply a meter” but contains lots of additional components that are part of the utility function. It establishes a wireless Neighborhood Network and sends messages back and forth amongst neighbor meters, remotely disconnects services and monitors your usage. In the future they will turn on the second transmitter to establish your Home Area Network to connect with your Home Energy Controller or Smart Thermostat and will give your smart refrigerator the ability to text you. It collects more data than is needed to bill you for your current plan. But why fuss over details!

If you don’t enroll in their plan, they will slap a smart meter on your home. If you think you got that covered (i.e. you already caged/locked your meter or have restricted access to your meter) think again. You will be automatically enrolled and charged the fee.

The process to fight this will be long and painful. If you don’t want a smart meter you need to:

Retain your analog meter. Once they take it, you will never see it again. (Remember you will get an undefined “non-communicating” meter in the future.) You may want to send a certified letter to FP&L stating that you do not consent and that you are enrolling under duress.

File a formal compliant with the FPSC. Here is the complaint page http://www.floridapsc.com/consumers/complaints/index2.aspx

Write/call your Florida State Senators/Representatives. They are in session right now. Make your voices heard. Senate – http://www.flsenate.gov/Senators/Find, House: http://www.myfloridahouse.gov/Sections/Representatives/representatives.aspx

Contact the Energy committees that oversee the FPSC. House Energy & Utilities Subcommittee – http://www.myfloridahouse.gov/Sections/Committees/committeesdetail.aspx?TermId=85&CommitteeId=2724 and Senate Communications, Energy, and Public Utilities http://www.flsenate.gov/Committees/Show/CU/

Contact Gov. Scott – http://www.flgov.com/contact-gov-scott/

For those who still believe smart meters save money, ask FP&L how much net operation and maintenance savings are in the current rates you pay.

What they said in the 2009 rate case:

What they reported in the 2012 rate case:

The lack of cost savings was confirmed by the Office of Public Counsel who said on October 12, 2012 “However, to OPC’s knowledge, no studies, analyses, or quantification of the benefits or cost savings from the implementation of smart meters exist at this time. OPC is still waiting on the promised cost savings benefits of smart meters to be realized and shared with the customers.” http://www.floridapsc.com/utilities/electricgas/smartmeter/09_20_2012/WorkshopComments/OPC.pdf

Think smart meters prevent outages? Check out Northeast Utilities initial comments in a recent Massachusetts Department of Utilities investigation – “Meters do not reduce the number of outages” (page 4) http://haltmasmartmeters.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/NSTAR_R12-76-Comments-7986-POSTED01172014_HIGHLIGHTED.pdf

And finally, how many of you run home from work or golf and check your FP&L energy dashboard each night? Apparently not many. The last annual report from FP&L showed that as of the end of 2012 with over 4 million meter installed, only about 15% accessed the dashboard about 2 times.

EPA Attacks World’s Largest Copper Mine

March 7, 2014/in Environment, Must Read, News, Policy, Regulation/by Alan Caruba

I could write every day about some new obscene Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) effort to thwart energy the nation needs, forcing the shutdown more coal-fired plants and the mines that supply them. Goodbye thousands of jobs, goodbye electrical energy. The White House has delayed the construction of the Keystone Xl pipeline to transmit oil from Canada to the U.S. Gulf Coast.

Do you wonder, still, why there are millions of Americans out of work or who have stopped looking because every effort to build the nation’s economy is attacked by some element of the Obama Administration.

We can now add another attack on natural resources because the EPA has announced its intention to restrict, if not prohibit, the development of Pebble Mine in Alaska. The mine could be one of the world’s largest sources of copper.

Beyond the economic benefits the mine would create, it would not only produce copper, but strategic metals like molybdenum and rhenium. Daniel McGroarty, the president of the American Resources Policy Network, noted in a July Wall Street Journal opinion that these two metals “are essential to countless American manufacturing, high-tech, and national security applications.”

Copper is one of the most important minerals used today because it is a good conductor of heat and electricity—second only to silver in electrical conductivity. It was discovered thousands of years ago in prehistoric times. Methods for refining copper from its ores were developed around 5,000 CE and, though too soft for many tools, when mixed with other metals, the resulting alloys were harder. The entire Bronze Age owes its name to the mixture of copper and tin. Brass is a mixture of copper and zinc.

McGroarty pointed out that “The irony here is that renewable-energy industries that environmentalists champion, like solar and wind, rely heavily on copper. More than three tons of it are needed for a single industrial wind turbine.” Solar panels depend on copper as well. And electric cables, usually made of copper, transmit the energy these two favored “renewable energy” sources. Together, though, they represent less than 3% of the electricity generated.

Expecting environmental groups to make any sense or even to tell the truth is a waste of time. The Pebble Mine is opposed by the Natural Resources Defense Council, Earthworks, and Trout Unlimited. The EPA claims to have researched the environmental impact of the Alaskan mine and concluded that it poses a serious risk to the salmon fisheries and native tribes in the Bristol Bay area.

EPA research is so wretchedly flawed that the Agency is still insisting that carbon dioxide (CO2) is responsible for “global warming” even though the Earth entered a new cooling cycle around 1996. None of the children born since then have ever spent a day experiencing a warming cycle.

The EPA has been engaged in its own interpretation of the Clean Air and Clear Water Acts. The Supreme Court, which erroneously ruled that CO2 was a “pollutant” in April 2007—it is vital to all life on Earth, providing for the growth of all vegetation—has just heard oral arguments for a case that could further ruin the nation’s economy. Environmental groups and the Obama administration argued that the EPA has the authority to require that power plants and other industrial facilities must get permits to emit carbon dioxide and other so-called greenhouse gases even though they have no effect at all on the Earth’s climate.

I often wonder why most Americans are so clueless about global warming. AKA climate change, and the rape of the nation’s economy by the EPA.

So we can anticipate that, when the partnership of those seeking to open the Pebble Mine does apply for a permit, we already know that the EPA will reject it. Gina McCarthy, the current EPA administrator, has made that clear. You can be sure that the EPA’s “research” has predetermined that outcome.

That’s not science. That’s just more environmental lies.

Those lies are a large component of why the nation is enduring an economic stalemate that is beginning to look like the next Great Depression. Those lies will try to stop the Pebble Mine and shut down more coal-fired plants. Those lies are the reason why so many potential new industrial and business enterprises are not being created.

EDITORS NOTE: The featured photo is courtesy of Rob Lavinsky / iRocks.com. This image is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported.

Even a child could understand climate change

March 6, 2014/in Commentary, Energy, Environment, Policy, Politics/by Richard C. Savage, Ph.D.

The National Science Foundation did a survey a few weeks ago, and found that about 25% of Americans believe the Sun goes around the Earth.

They didn’t reveal that all 25% are journalism majors. (Just joking!) It is not possible to underestimate the ignorance conveyed to the American population by our commedia. At least, I thought so until a few days ago. Then I learned something about the scientific knowledge of one of our highest government officials, John Kerry, Secretary of State, the official tasked with making a decision about the Keystone XL pipeline. There’s a whole new level of stupid out there.

All environmental impact studies, over five years, have concluded that the pipeline – and, more importantly, the extraction of oil from the Alberta “tar sands” – will have no serious impact on climate change or “global warming.” Even the Denver Post, a bastion of warming alarmism, endorses construction of the pipeline.

So I was mildly surprised when Secretary Kerry, speaking in Jakarta on February 16th, declared that “…climate change is the most fearsome weapon of mass destruction.” Just mildly; it has hardly escaped detection that Kerry is an idiot on this subject. More important, Kerry is a politician, and a Democratic billionaire, Tom Steyer, is offering $100 million to fund politicians who oppose Keystone XL.

Even John Kerry, former richest man in the US Senate (thanks to some wise marriages), has to notice $100,000,000. And, Kerry cares about warming, right?

Now, what does the commedia tell us about catastrophic anthropogenic global warming (CAGW)? It’s due to the carbon dioxide (CO2) that we evil humans are pouring into our atmosphere like an open sewer, right? Do the words “carbon dioxide” or “carbon pollution” sound like “ozone” to you? Me neither.

However, here is part of the text of Secretary Kerry’s remarks, from the State Department website:

“This is simple. Kids at the earliest age can understand this. Try and picture a very thin layer of gases – a quarter-inch, half an inch, somewhere in that vicinity – that’s how thick it is. It’s in our atmosphere. It’s way up there at the edge of the atmosphere. And for millions of years – literally millions of years – we know that layer has acted like a thermal blanket for the planet – trapping the sun’s heat and warming the surface of the Earth to the ideal, life-sustaining temperature. Average temperature of the Earth has been about 57 degrees Fahrenheit, which keeps life going. Life itself on Earth exists because of the so-called greenhouse effect.

But in modern times, as human beings have emitted gases into the air that come from all the things we do, that blanket has grown thicker and it traps more and more heat beneath it, raising the temperature of the planet. It’s called the greenhouse effect because it works exactly like a greenhouse in which you grow a lot of the fruit that you eat here.”

No, I haven’t edited it, and there’s lots more of the same. Analysis? surely, the obvious is sufficient: Kerry doesn’t know the difference between CO2, that he has told us a thousand times is the great evil, and ozone, the beneficent stratospheric gas that shields us from harmful ultraviolet, which causes sunburn and cataracts,
even in attenuated intensity.

In five years, in spite of Obama, we have become energy independent. Europe, in pursuit of renewable energy, is so dependent on Russian oil and natural gas they dare not resist the partition of Ukraine. The lights and heat would go off tomorrow. I wonder what Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov is thinking? The Chinese would love to buy Alberta oil. I wonder what they’re thinking?

I wonder what Canadian Prime Minister Harper is thinking?

Calling the Global Warming Charlatans “Nazis”

March 5, 2014/in Commentary, Environment, News, Policy, Politics, Regulation/by Alan Caruba

On February 20th, the noted meteorologist, Dr. Roy W. Spencer, fed up with being called a “denier” of global warming, posted a commentary on his blog titled “Time to push back against the global warming Nazis.”

“When politicians and scientists started calling people like me ‘deniers’, they crossed the line. They are still doing it,” said Dr. Spencer. “They indirectly equate (1) the skeptics’ view that global warming is not necessarily all man made nor a serious problem with (2) the denial that the Nazi’s extermination of millions of Jews ever happened.” The Holocaust happened, but global warming’s latest natural cycle ended about 17 years ago and, as a lot of people have noticed, it has been getting cold since then.

“Like the Nazis,” said Dr. Spencer, “they advocate the supreme authority of the state (fascism), which in turn supports their scientific research to support their cause…” In the case of global warming, this huge hoax was put forth by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The UN would like to be the world’s global government, but that’s not going to happen. In the meantime, the IPCC provided scientists that cooperated with lots of money for their alleged research, all of which “proved” that carbon dioxide was dramatically heating the Earth. Others like Al Gore made millions selling “carbon credits”. Along the way, both Gore and the IPCC received a Nobel Peace Prize.

Dr. Spencer received a Ph.D. in meteorology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1981. He was a Senior Scientists for Climate Studies at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center where he and a colleague, Dr. John Christie, received NASA’s Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal for their global temperature monitoring work with satellites. He became a Principal Research Scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville in 2001 and continues to advise NASA as a U.S. Science Team Leader. As he points out on his blog, his research has been supported by U.S. government agencies, so the usual claim by Greens that he is a paid stooge of Big Oil just doesn’t work in his case.

Dr. Spencer’s decision to call a Nazi a Nazi ignited a lot of discussion among the global warming hustlers and those whom they have been calling “deniers” for many years. I always found it particularly offensive, but I suspect those I called charlatans and hustlers felt the same way. The difference, however, is the connotation applied to the term, “denier.” Even today anti-Semites of various descriptions deny that six million Jews died in the death camps of Nazi Germany during World War Two along with millions Christians and Eastern Slavic Europeans

What makes this particularly offensive and horrid is the fact that those in the Nazi leadership under Adolf Hitler were all environmentalists, deeply committed to conservation and similar expressions that put the Earth above the value of human life.

This is all revealed in a book by R. Mark Musser, “Nazi Oaks”, now in its third printing. Musser was introduced to environmentalism at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, from which he graduated in 1989. In 1994 he received Master of Divinity and spent seven years as a missionary to Belarus and in the Ukraine.

Musser’s book is absolutely astonishing as he documents how “Green” the Nazis were from their earliest years until their defeat. It was Heinrich Himmler, the Reich Leader from 1929 to 1945, who was responsible for the “Final Solution”, the mass killing of Europe’s Jews. He led the Nazi party’s SS.

As Musser notes, “The Nazis were trying to eliminate both global capitalism and international communism in order to recover a reverence for nature lost in the modern cosmopolitan world.” The Nazis also held Judeo-Christian values in contempt.

“That this evolutionary Nazi nature religion was clothed in secular biology and colored by environmental policies and practices, is a historical truth that has been ignored and underreported for too long a time in all the discussions about the Holocaust,” writes Musser.

I am inclined to believe that it is no accident that the global warming charlatans began to use the term “deniers” to describe skeptics.

By 2011, a Gallup poll that surveyed people in 111 countries revealed that most of the human race did not see global warming as a serious threat. Still, worldwide 42% told Gallup that they thought global warming was either ‘somewhat serious’ or ‘very serious.’ That was down from 63% in polls taken in 2007 and 2008 in the U.S.

More than just a spat between scientists, in April 2012, the Congressional Research Service estimated that, since 2008, the federal government had spent nearly $70 billion on ‘climate change activities.’ That kind of money could build or repair a lot of bridges and roads. It could fund elements of our military. It could be spent on something other than a climate over which neither the government nor anyone in the world has any influence.

Bursting onto the national stage, Dr. Spencer’s decision to call the global warming scientists Nazis for their efforts to intimidate or smear the reputations of those whose research disputes their claims, Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. a Wall Street Journal columnist, wrote on March 1 that “Surely some kind of ending is upon us. Last week climate protesters demanded the silencing of Charles Krauthammer for a Washington Post column that notices uncertainties in the global warming hypothesis.”

“In coming weeks,” wrote Jenkins, “a libel trial gets under way brought by Penn State’s Michael Mann, author of the famed “hockey stick” graph (Editor’s note: an IPCC graph Mann created that asserted a sudden, major increase in heat has been widely debunked) against the National Review, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, writer Rand Simberg and roving commentator Mark Steyn for making wisecracks about his climate work.”

Revelations of several thousand emails between IPCC scientists, one of whom was Mann, were christened “climategate” and demonstrated the efforts in which they engaged to suppress the publication of any papers that questioned global warming in scientific journals. As the climate turned cooler, they became increasingly alarmed.

What we are likely witnessing are the long death throes of the global warming hoax. Calling those scientists and others like myself “deniers” and other names simply reveals the desperation of those who are seeing a great source of money slip away under the spotlight of scientific truth, nor will they be able to impose their lies on the rest of us.

EDITORS NOTE: The featured photo is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Germany license. Attribution: Bundesarchiv, B 145 Bild-P049456 / CC-BY-SA

Common Core’s Little Green Soldiers Fighting Climate Change

March 4, 2014/in Education, Environment, Featured, News, Policy, Science/by Dr. Mary Grabar

Remember the children singing praise songs to Obama back in 2008? Remember young teenage boys marching in formation and shouting out thanks to Obama for their promising futures?

The appointment of Arne Duncan as Secretary of Education initially was seen as a savvy bipartisan move. But under his watch the Department of Education has become a propaganda arm used to influence the next generation to accept the idea of catastrophic man-made climate change as per the UN, the Environmental Protection Agency, and such groups as the National Wildlife Federation.

In a multi-pronged approach, the Department is teaming up with various non-profit and government organizations and curriculum companies to promote “fun” contests and activities for students, while promoting the next phase of Common Core “State Standards”—in science.

For example, the Department’s latest Green Strides newsletter (February 28) announced three contests for K-12 students who display their agreement with the government’s position on climate change.

In that newsletter, the Department of Education announced that another federal agency, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and its National Environmental Education Foundation, have “launched an exciting video challenge for middle school students called Climate Change in Focus.” In this contest, middle school students are asked to make a video that “expresses why they care about climate change and what they are doing to reduce emissions or to prepare for its impacts.” To win loyalty to the EPA, it is announced that winning videos will be highlighted on the EPA website. The effort sounds like the kids’ cereal box promotions of yore: the top three entries will receive “cool prizes like a solar charging backpack,” winning class projects will receive special recognition for their school, and the first 100 entrants will receive a year’s subscription to National Geographic Kids Magazine.

Another contest, National Wildlife Federation’s Young Reporters for the Environment, invites students “between the ages of 13-21 to report on an environmental issue in their community in an article, photo or photo essay, or short video.” Entries should “reflect firsthand investigation of topics related to the environment and sustainability in the students’ own communities, draw connections between local and global perspectives, and propose solutions.”

Students are also encouraged to make nominations for “Champions of the Earth,” a “UN-sponsored award for environment, Green Economy, and sustainability.” Among the 2013 laureates are Martha Isabel Ruiz Corzo, who orchestrated a public-private biosphere reserve status for a region in Mexico, and Brian McLendon, of Google Earth.

Students already get exposed to climate change and sustainability in textbooks which are bought with taxpayer funds, as well as in videos and online materials produced by taxpayer-supported Public Broadcasting. Many students, of course, have had to sit through Al Gore’s documentary, An Inconvenient Truth.

Quite obviously, a middle school student does not have the necessary scientific knowledge to make videos about climate change—a particularly challenging scientific problem.

The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)—the next phase of Common Core—will make the situation worse, however. Students will be even less capable of distinguishing science from propaganda. These standards, like those for math and English Language Arts, were produced by Achieve, a nonprofit education group started by corporate leaders and some governors.

As in the standards for English Language Arts and math, the NGSS are intended to be transformative, or as Appendix A states, “to reflect a new vision for American science education.” They call for new “performance expectations” that “focus on understanding and applications as opposed to memorization of facts devoid of context.”

It is precisely such short shrift to knowledge (dismissively referred to as “memorization”) to which science professors Lawrence S. Lerner and Paul Gross object. The standards bypass essential math skills in favor of “process,” they asserted last fall at the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation blog.

Common Core standards, in all disciplines, are written with a lot of fluff to conceal their emptiness.

Lerner and Gross discovered “inconsistency between strong NGSS (and Appendix C) assertions and what was actually found by the mathematicians, among others, of our reviewing group.”

(The Common Core math standards themselves have garnered much criticism among teachers, parents, and students; focusing so much on “process,” they make simple problems bizarrely confusing, as a collection of examples illustrates.)

Lerner and Gross condemn the “Slighting of mathematics,” which does “increasing mischief as grade level rises, especially in the physical sciences.” Physics is “effectively absent” at the high school level.

“Several devout declarations” appear, however, the authors sardonically point out, as they note this one from Appendix C:

In particular, the best science education seems to be one based on integrating rigorous content with the practices that scientists and engineers routinely use in their work—including application of mathematics.

Lerner and Gross attack the “practices” strategy, as an extension of the “inquiry learning” of the early 1990s, which had “no notable effect on the (mediocre) performance of American students in national and international science assessments.”

With some sarcasm, they write, “It is charming to say ‘. . . students learn science effectively when they actively engage in the practices of science.’” However,

Students will not learn best if they practice science exactly as do real scientists. A firm conclusion in cognitive science contradicts that claim. Beginners don’t and can’t ‘practice’ as do experts. The practices of experts exploit prior experience and extensive build-up in long-term memory of scaffolding: facts, procedures, technical know-how, solutions to standard problems in the field, vocabularies—of knowledge in short.

Not only do the Next Generation Science Standards shirk the necessary foundations in math and science knowledge, but they explicitly call for including ideological lessons, such as “Human impacts on Earth systems.” For grades K-2, students are to understand, “Things people do can affect the environment but they can make choices to reduce their impact.” In grades 3 through 5, students will learn “Societal activities have had major effects on the land, ocean, atmosphere, and even outer space. Societal activities can also help protect Earth’s resources and environments.” This is from part ESS3.C of the NGSS standards.

“Human impacts on Earth systems” are huge topics, when approached legitimately. They present quandaries to scientists at the top levels. Yet NGSS imposes them on kindergartners. The objective, of course, is not teaching legitimate science, but indoctrination.

Amazingly, ten states have already voluntarily adopted the Standards.

Such efforts, coordinated by the Department of Education, threaten the future of science itself.

The President’s Science and where he gets it

March 3, 2014/in Environment, Must Read, News, Policy/by Richard C. Savage, Ph.D.

There are a lot of people who comment on climate change and global warming, both in blogs and in the com-media (as Dr. Krauthammer refers to the Media, most of whom are, indeed, comedic – if you find arrogant stupidity funny).

I’m sorry to say that the Obama Administration’s highest ranking authority on matters of Science, Dr. John Holdren, is a disgrace to his position as Chair of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). I say so in defense – not that he needs my defense – of Prof Roger Pielke Jr, a professor at the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Prof Pielke maintains an online blog: http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/

which I commend to you as a reliable source of information. Prof Pielke testified in Summer 2013, with other scientists, before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. In February, 2014, Dr. Holdren contradicted Prof Pielke’s testimony to the committee, dismissing Prof Pielke as being “…outside the scientific mainstream” as regards a link between climate change and extreme weather. Pielke denied such a link, a link often claimed by Holdren and President Obama himself. During his February golf trip to California, President Obama directly blamed the drought there on climate change. As Pielke says:

The bottom line here is that this is an extremely poor showing by the president’s science adviser. It is fine for experts to openly disagree. But when a political appointee uses his position not just to disagree on science or policy but to seek to delegitimize a colleague, he has gone too far.

It’s amusing that Holdren was previously close to Teresa and John Kerry. I guess we know where Secretary Kerry gets his knowledge of environmental policy. It’s also amusing to read John Holdren’s opinion from February, 2009, that because of climate change, we were going to lose the ice cover on the Arctic Ocean – all year:

…if you lose the summer sea ice, there are phenomena that could lead you not so very long thereafter to lose the winter sea ice as well. And if you lose that sea ice year round, it’s going to mean drastic climatic change all over the hemisphere.

Such is the environmental expertise informing the Obama Administration – stupid and dishonest.

Frontiers of Evil: Amendment 1 & Florida’s “Emerald Necklace” of Greenways

March 2, 2014/in Environment, Featured, News, Policy/by Karen Schoen

1000 Friends of Florida has played a key role in supporting state funding for the acquisition of environmental land and establishing Florida State’s Nationally recognized “emerald necklace” of Greenways.

1000 Friends of Florida’s vision for Florida’s future: “Imagine livable neighborhoods and communities where kids can rid their bikes to school or the park and parents can walk to the store or take a bus to work if they wish. This is the future towards which 1000 Friends are working.” Translation: This plan eliminates the automobile and controls your movement by taking away your liberty and choice of travel. People will be living in confined areas in order to bike and walk for everyday needs. Now think about tropical storms and 100 degree weather without air conditioning which has been deemed unsustainable. Ask all of your elected officials for their car keys.

According to a recent Sun Sentinel article on Greenways: “put away your car keys and take out your running shoes or your horse (if you have one, and while you can still own one). Florida State planning and proposals for Greenways and Trails, which are paved bike paths and walkways eliminating the AUTOMOBILE, while taking away your liberty and your choice of travel.”

Florida was the first state in America to establish a comprehensive statewide plan for Ecological Greenways which serves as a critical component of the Florida Greenways Trails System (FGTS) plan. Florida has been a leader in Greenways and Trails. The State was recognized in 2008 as the first-ever Best Trails State in America for its work in facilitating outstanding statewide systems. Florida Ecological Greenways Network comprises 25,620,000 acres of land out of 34,721,280 total acres under conservation.

Greenways and Trails are being sold as a beautiful recreation for hiking, bicycling and walking, family orientated time together.

Why does enjoying the outdoors require millions of acres of land, with millions of tax dollars? Will this land eventually be turned into conservation land
where humans are not allowed?

GREENWAY MAP

A visionary graphic indicating possible ecological greenway connections from one end of the state to the other. What are Greenways, and what is their purpose?

Greenways are a misleading concept given to people that love the outdoors and animals, which I am one. It is so fulfilling to be out in nature, in a gorgeous setting of blue skies, green trees and plants, and citing God’s creatures. Walking, biking, and other recreational activities fill your heart and clear your mind of all everyday distractions. BUT THIS IS NOT THE INTENT!

First Greenways are the corridors which connect conservation land, preserves reserves, parks and wildlife corridors. Greenways are developed by confiscating land through land acquisitions purchased with your tax dollars. All of this will develop an enormous ownership and control of water and land that will be off limits to all humans. Greenways are another scheme of land grabbing which will eventually combine all conservation lands with environmentalist programs designed to get the people off open land. This goes back to the United Nations Sustainable Development (Agenda 21)

BIODIVERSITY MAP

Greenways and Smart Growth:

Their important need for Greenways and Trails is that they can be used as part of a Growth Management strategy. (a/k/a Agenda 21) Not only do Greenways provide alternative means of transportation, but Greenways help shape the Urban form (UN Human Settlements) by interconnecting natural areas functioning as greenbelts, agricultural reserves and/or to separate land use buffers. In addition, Greenways are used as development buffers, water quality (storm water) purifiers, air quality purifiers, scenic roadway buffers, and/or conservation easements. When abused as UN Agenda 21 demands, individuals are forced off their land.

Thanks to past and present Governors, their Cabinets, and the Acquisition and Restoration Council (ARC), our Tallahassee Legislators, working with special interest groups, Public-Private-Partnerships (PPP’s), Florida Association of Counties, Florida Dept. of Environmental Protection (FDEP), Florida Dept. of Transportation, Florida Forever, 1000 Friends of Florida, The Nature Conservancy (UN related), Audubon Society, Sierra Club, Water Management Districts, Florida Wildlife, Florida Fish and Wildlife, Parks and Recreation, and the list goes on, over 50% plus, of Florida land is involved in some environmental program. Many of these programs were not about conservation. These programs are about taking of private land putting in public hands off the tax roles at the behest of some conservation program. This is all about money, power and control. Are Florida Legislators incompetent, corrupt and unethical? Or just ignorant?

Governor Rick Scott is CEO of Acquisitions and Restorations Council (ARC), along with members of his Cabinet: Jeff Atwater, Pam Bondi, and Adam Putnam.

They approve land acquisitions like Greenways corridors and the Florida Wildlife Corridor comprising 720,000 acres of land that will expand in the future into thousands of more acres. Florida Wildlife Corridor will run up the eastern coast of the United States to Maine when finished. This land will be off limits to humans (just like in the Hunger Games). The Wildlife Corridor was the critical link in Florida because this will connect to all Greenways, Blueways, Conservation Land, National and State Parks, Preserves and Reserved Land. This will be a massive land take over by Un-Elected Bureaucrats. Instead of doing their jobs and protecting Floridians private property they are pursuing bath salts, charities and a liberty minded sheriffs. Who protects you?

Governor Rick Scott is also CEO of Enterprise Florida (This is a Public-Private-Partnership, PPP). The website states they endorse and support Sustainable Development (which comes from the United Nations Agenda 21) while promoting statewide regionalism which eliminates counties and local government.

Regionalism is Communism.

To obtain a clear picture of the total loss of land, we have to take into considerations all land taken off the books including Federal and State. Florida National Parks and Preserves consist of roughly of 2,521,163.19 acres of land. Reserved lands which relate to military and Indian are not clear, but the map below will give you an idea.

Considering 161 Florida State Parks spanning over 700,000 acres of land and over 100 miles of sandy beaches the amount of Florida land in the public domain is staggering. How much is enough?

Eglin-Blackwater River and Blackwater River State Park (West Portion). For a larger view click on the map.

Eglin Air Force Base covers 464,000 acres of land. An Eglin permit is required to access the 250,000 acres of the Eglin reservation, conditionally open to public recreation. Governor Rick Scott and his Cabinet approved a land acquisition in 2013, adding an additional 21,000 acre purchase to Buffer Eglin AFB. This was done without the approval of the people in the area who will now see a decrease in property value.

This is considered a critical linkage, connecting Eglin AFB to the Blackwater River State Forest. The linkage is approximately 53,000 acres with 24 percent in existing conservation lands and 23 percent in proposed conservation lands (future land acquisitions) and with a total of approximately 40,000 acres of private land.

Eglin-Blackwater River and Blackwater River State Park (East Portion). For a larger view click on the map.

This gives you a clearer understanding of Greenways and how they are being used to connect conservations lands, and land corridors. This is land that you will not be allowed on. This pattern follows the United Nations Biodiversity Map. This is land grabbing putting the cost burden on the people in Florida, for their communist agenda which requires no private property.

Regional Planning Councils, NGO’s and Sustainable Developers, show these maps individually to your local boards so no one connects the dots to show the true picture of loss of private property. These comprehensives or vision planners incorporate these Greenways and Trails into their plans locking up large parcels of land while they never expose the true goal to connect all Greenways eliminating private property. They work with massive land acquisition and permanent easement schemes. For a true picture connect these maps.

Conservationists and other approaches to safeguard the Ecological Processes, a Greenway, like their natural counterparts, environmental corridors can operate in six basic ways (This comes from the American Greenways and Trails):

As habitat for plant and animal communities As a conduit for plants, animals, water, sediments, and chemicals; As a barrier preventing movement; ( I take it that means human movement ) As a filter allowing some things to pass while inhibiting others; (I take it this means humans passing through also) As a source for animals or seeds which move to other parts; ( I take it humans can’t move to other parts ) As a sink for trapping sediments, toxins, or nutrients.

They have stated their intentions very clearly here, and it doesn’t include humans.

Regional Councils and Sustainable Development Planners incorporate Greenways and Trails strategies in their zoning and land planning because they are for open spaces, land acquisition, permanent easements, and herding people into small areas, small units of high density. They are following United Nations Agenda 21. Get control of the land, get the people off of it, and get them into cities (high density, sustainable developments often referred to as pack’em, stack’em winding up like Detroit, their first model.)

Land acquisitions are the key to accomplishing the Greenways and Land Corridors. That is why:

1000 Friends of Florida, Florida Forever are largest land acquisition organization in the country, The Nature Conservancy (the richest), with budgets filled by Governor Rick Scott and his Cabinet with their Acquisitions and Restoration Council (ARC), The rest that are mentioned above are also important to achieve this huge land grabbing that is going on in Florida, exclusive of the Greenways. None of this accounts for the millions of acres of land under conservation and land owned by Environmental Groups, all five of the Water Managements Districts, Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP), Florida Wildlife, and more.

Conservation is a good thing, it makes some things sustainable. But conservation crosses the line, when land is accumulated with our tax dollars just for the purposes of accumulation, making species and plants more important than human life and the American Dream as guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. No man or organization (including the U.N.) has the right to dictate where and how Americans live. Only God gives us our rights, man takes them away.

Today unfortunately our Public Schools k-12, Universities, and Colleges across the nation are allowing our children to be brain washed on how to live under the United Nations Sustainable Development Agenda 21. Books like: “Rescue Mission Planet Earth” a Child’s Edition of UN Agenda 21 has been in schools since 1994. Today these children are in government and bureaucratic positions and use your tax dollars to create these land grabbing schemes.

In the 2013, Tallahassee session your representatives would NOT pass a Bill Protecting Private Property. However these people have no problem taking your tax dollars to steal your property rights and freedom. This makes the big picture even more distressing. They do not have your best interest at heart, they do not use true science. They are greedy and short sighted and care more about their wallet and careers and THEY WANT YOUR VOTE.

“As a young girl, Pa (my grandfather) took me to all the Parades celebrating our Country’s Holidays. Pa would put his hand over his heart whenever “Old Glory” went by, and standing next to him I would feel this enormous warmth of pride. Now when I see our Flag with the same pride I had then, I have tears in my eyes. This isn’t the American I grew up in and what America stands for. I find myself fighting for America on American Soil against Americans that are giving America to a communist United Nations, using their Environmental Programs and fraudulent technology.” Neil Rice Our children are a gift from “God,” Not Man. We owe the children of this Great Nation to be taught the truth, and how to conserve in the correct manner and with common sense.

Teach them to take care of things so they will last.

Florida citizens have a huge task to overcome to stop all of this. More and more people are paying attention. I think the state of the economy is opening people’s eyes, as they are becoming more affected by the entire environment around them.

EDITORS NOTE: This column is co-authored by Neil Rice, Roy Callahan, Karen Schoen and AgEnders.

The featured image is courtesy of cs:ŠJů. The use of this image does not imply in any way the endorsement of the author or this column. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported.

Cognitive Dissonance and the Pause in “Global Warming”

March 1, 2014/in Environment, Must Read, Science/by Richard C. Savage, Ph.D.

In case you’re not familiar with the term, “cognitive dissonance” was coined by Leon Festinger and his colleagues in the 1956 book, When Prophecy Fails. It is a groundbreaking work in social psychology, an attempt to explain how people deal with the failure of a deeply held belief. A classic example, cited by Festinger, was the failure of prophecies of the End Times and beginning of The Millenium, as preached by William Miller, a retired ship’s captain and lay preacher. Miller published his calculations of biblical chronology in 1818, calling for the End of Days on 22 October, 1844. The belief was widely held in upstate New York and New England; thousands of families sold their homes and belongings in preparation for being taken up into heaven. Festinger sought to understand and explain how these “Millerites” dealt with the discomfort of conflicting ideas and opposing sentiments (“dissonance”) after the prophecy failed.

Of course, all of us have experience with cognitive dissonance – a lost love, a failed business, a contract that went to a competitor, a promotion we didn’t receive. We pick ourselves up and go on, with a healthier psychology – one that understands and accepts what went wrong. Most of the “Millerites” accepted that they were too willing to believe, that they wanted to believe they were among the few who had been favored with the truth. The most interesting response, however, is the variety Festinger termed “deflection”; deflectors admit the prophecy was not fulfilled, but not because of falsehood or hoax. They weren’t fooled, or taken advantage of; rather, there was a countervailing force that nullified what should have been. And, yes, scientists – especially those whose sense of self is bound up in publications and graduate students and post-doctoral followers and graduate programs – are liable to such an unhealthy psychological response.

Incidentally, in case you’re interested in the application of “cognitive dissonance” in a larger, political context, see the article in last week’s issue of The Weekly Standard, which deals with the Obama as Messiah expectations. The supposed racism of the American public is a classic deflection mechanism to explain the Obama failures.

I’m not a psychologist, I’m a meteorologist, but I’ve wondered for years how the believers in catastrophic anthropogenic global warming (CAGW) would deal with the necessary failure of their belief. It was only a matter of time before the “prophecy” of climate disaster became an obvious failure. Contrary to scores of computer climate models, there has been no global warming for 17 years. These models are totally wrong, along with the physical mechanisms they assume. As the Nobel-prize winning physicist Richard Feynman said:

“…then we compare the result of the computation to nature, with experiment or experience, compare it directly with observation, to see if it works. If it disagrees with experiment, it is wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science. It does not make any difference how beautiful your guess is, it does not make any difference how smart you are, who made the guess, or what his name is—if it disagrees with experiment, it is wrong.”

There are now at least ten different “explanations” from serious “climate scientists,” explaining how unforeseen external events – i.e., “deflections” – prevented CO2 from increasing the Earth’s temperature. Here are five not unreasonable explanations. If you want to see all ten, they’re available at What’s Up With That.

1) Low solar activity We are currently just past the peak of solar cycle #24, which, indeed, has been about half as intense as cycles 22 and 23. Unfortunately, the solar scientists are predicting cycles 25 and 26 – out to 2040 or so – will be even weaker. Who knows? And why should we cut back on fossil fuels if the Sun controls the climate? We will certainly need artificial heat and light if the Sun is getting weaker, and we might want that greenhouse effect warming too. Incidentally, the solar scientists are definitely NOT part of the “97%”.

2) The heat went into the oceans We have thousands of ocean buoys (the Argo network) out there, which measure temperature and heat content down to 2000 feet below the surface. Somehow, they missed measuring any of that heat as it went by. Darn. And, if there was no heating of the air, what heated the ocean anyway?

3) Volcanic aerosols cooled the Earth Wait! What? Volcanoes also put out tremendous CO2 , don’t they? And we measure the CO2 in the atmosphere, and it’s been going up at a steady, predictable rate – no big change. People tend to notice big volcanic eruptions, which put aerosols up into the stratosphere, where they remain for months (unlike the lower atmosphere, where they get rained out in a week or so). The last big eruption was Pinatubo, in 1993. But, if volcanoes control the climate, what part of our government predicts volcanic eruptions? We can predict the climate if we can predict volcanoes? Or stop their eruptions?

4) We just didn’t measure the right stations There’s a lot of territory in the Arctic and Antarctic where there aren’t any weather stations and observers. The
warming was there, alright; we just didn’t measure it. Volunteers needed. Seriously, too many of our weather stations are in airports (lots of tarmac, lots of
jet exhaust) where measurements are of doubtful validity. A recent Chinese paper claims most of the “heat waves” are due to the growth of cities around previously isolated weather stations.

5) Pacific Decadal Oscillation went into its cold phase Oh dear – this explanation actually makes sense. There is a sixty-year cycle of changing temperature in the Pacific Ocean; El Nino and La Nina are part of this cycle. The PDO was in its cold phase from 1940 through 1976; remember those 1974 articles (front page) by TIME and Newsweek about the coming Ice Age? But the PDO has been going on for millennia; it’s not part of some new “climate change.” It’s merely the shortest cyclic change we’re aware of. And, of course, there’s nothing we can do about it. Like the other “deflections” being offered.

So what? Well, according to Festinger, deflectors don’t accept the failure of “the cause;” they just come up with excuses. (E.g., Harry Reid claiming that failures of ObamaCare are “just lies” – from 5+ million Americans.) That is what the “climate change” community seems to be doing. In fact, even the change of nomenclature from “global warming” to “climate change” was a step on the path to deflection rather than acceptance of failure. I’m aware of few “climate scientists” who have made a retraction of the religion; Judith Curry, at Georgia Tech, is one of very few.

So, your children and grandchildren will continue to hear about “climate change” and “carbon pollution” for years to come, until a generation of believers dies off or retires from their academic chairs. It took 40+ years for “continental drift” to become accepted, rather than heresy.

Be strong.

If you’d like to understand more about climate change – yes, the climate does change, mostly by natural causes – may I recommend a bargain book? Amazon.com sells a very comprehensive book (407 pages), with lots of references, called The Resilient Earth by Simmons and Hoffman. In the Kindle edition, it’s available for $5.99. In case you don’t have a Kindle, Amazon offers a free app – yes, free – that you can download to your desktop or laptop computer that will allow you to read a Kindle document there.

EDITORS NOTE: The features image is the Theo van Doesburg (1883-1931) composition titled Composition in Dissonances.