Shaking, Quaking, and Freezing

Have you noticed how much earthquake and volcanic activity has been occurring lately?

There was a major earthquake in Napa, California on Sunday, August 24th as well as considerable volcanic activity from Iceland to Papua, New Guinea. August was also a month that set records for colder U.S. temperatures.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), there were some 1,097 “low max” temperature records broken in the U.S. between August 1 and August 23, meaning that the maximum temperature during that time period was the lowest it has ever been. NOAA reported that summer across much of the U.S. has been colder than normal.

Most of us, after decades of global warming predictions that became more and more absurd, rising sea levels drowning Manhattan and Miami, an upsurge in hurricanes, forest fires, and every other calamity, have concluded that none of these things have happened in the volume or intensity predicted. In the 70s we were told the Earth would get colder. In the 80’s and 90’s we were told it would get warmer.

A new book is advising us to prepare for a serious cold spell that is not only going to arrive in twenty to thirty years, but will likely stay around to become the next ice age. This time, though, the prediction is based on well-established climate cycles and the behavior of the Sun that was known as far back as Galileo’s day.

The new “normal” is colder weather and this is because the Sun’s sunspot activity has been in a cyclical decline since about 1998, producing the latest cooling cycle for the Earth.

John Casey

John Casey, author, lecturer and rocket scientist.

In combination with the earthquakes and volcanic activity, says John L. Casey’s new book, “Dark Winter: How the Sun is Causing a 30-Year Cold Spell” ($24.95, Humanix Books, Boca Raton, FL) what we’re really looking at is a repeat of the Dalton Minimum, a solar sunspot minimum that occurred between 1793 and 1830. His earlier book, “Cold Sun” addressed this cyclical phenomenon.

Casey asks “Will we also experience volcanic activity that will add to the solar cooling?” and the answer, given the fifty active volcanoes around the world, is that “We should expect to deal with multiple geological disasters, including volcanoes and earthquakes, during the next solar hibernation.” We have in fact already entered that “hibernation.”

Casey is the president of the Space and Science Research Corporation. It specializes in independent research regarding the coming decades of cold weather. For thirty-five years Casey has been active in science and high tech industries. He has been a national space policy advisor to the White House and Congress, and a former space shuttle engineer, consultant to NASA headquarters.

Casey has formulated a “Bicentennial Cycle of 206 years correlated with near 100 percent accuracy to every major cold-temperature period of the past 1,200 years.” His Theory of “Relational Cycles of Solar Activity” accounts for its effects and those of other solar cycles.

He is not the first scientist to recognize the relationship of diminished sunspot activity and cooling cycles, but he is the first to have synthesized the earlier work of others who made comparable observations. His Relational Cycles theory, however, is more specific than preceding ones, pegging the arrival of significant global cold climate to begin as early as 2024 or as late as 2036. “My math says 2031” says Casey.

Earth Ice AgeCasey’s book is a prediction of a coming ice age that will have devastating effects for all life on Earth, but my readers know I have been writing about this for several years based on Robert W. Felix’s book, “Not By Fire, But By Ice” ($15.95, Sugarhouse Publishing, Bellevue, WA). I have frequently referenced his website http://iceagenow.info, for its daily updates on cold weather events, records established and broken, and reports on volcanic and earthquake activity around the world.

Before I proceed, the reader should contemplate the fact that not one single child entering or returning to school this year has ever lived in a period of “global warming.” The cooling cycle began around 1997.

You do not need to be a meteorologist to know nothing humans do affects or alters the weather. The claim that “greenhouse gases” such as carbon dioxide are making the Earth warmer is false.

We have been experiencing this as the Earth has cooled, along with increased volcanic activity and earthquakes, and yet on September 23rd the United Nations will hold a “Climate Change Summit” that will be attended by more than a hundred of the world’s presidents and prime ministers. They will continue the greatest international scientific fraud ever perpetrated.

Despite the cooling cycle that is occurring and which will grow in intensity, the U.S. government has devoted billions to global warming research and, as Casey notes, “not one research dollar has been dedicated to the science and planning needed for the United Sates to be prepared for the only climate change that we can expect—a long and potentially dangerous cold climate!”

The U.S. is not taking the steps necessary for the cold that is coming. It has not only failed to encourage the use of our multi-generational reserves of coal, the Obama administration has declared “war” on it, putting several hundred plants out of business, reducing the amount of electricity the nation needs now and will require. Power plants and refineries cannot be built overnight and the lack of them will severely impact our lives and the economy.

AA - Obama Says Planet is Warming

Despite thousands of miles of pipelines that safely distribute oil and natural gas, Obama has refused to permit a new one, Keystone XL, for oil to be shipped to gulf state refineries from Canada. Railroad cars needed to transport food crops in a timely manner are being diverted to transport oil. No new nuclear plants are being built on a scale that will be needed. The “grid” that distributes electricity nationwide is in vital need of repair and expansion.

Cold weather will reduce the amount of crops needed to feed the nation’s human population and the stocks of cattle, pigs, sheep, and chickens upon which we depend. This will happen here and worldwide. Famine will be rampant. In countless ways ours and worldwide societies that depend on all manner of technology will be impacted.

Nations and people will fail to prepare for what is coming because (1) they have been deceived by the global warming hoax and (2) we will be leaving behind one of the longest climate cycles other than an ice age, the interglacial warm period. Casey notes that “For the past 11,000 years, we have been living in one of these rare interglacial periods, called the Holocene warm period.”

What we call civilization is the result of the Holocene warm period and, without it, civilization and a global population nearing or surpassing eight billion will be largely decimated as the next, entirely predictable, ice age occurs.

© Alan Caruba, 2014

‘The Chinafication of America’

New York Times: ‘U.S. seeking climate deal that would skirt Senate’: ‘Under the Constitution, a president may enter into a legally binding treaty only if it is approved by a two-thirds majority of the Senate. To sidestep that requirement, President Obama’s climate negotiators are devising what they call a “politically binding” deal that would “name and shame” countries into cutting their emissions…American negotiators are instead homing in on a hybrid agreement — a proposal to blend legally binding conditions from an existing 1992 treaty with new voluntary pledges. The mix would create a deal that would update the treaty, and thus, negotiators say, not require a new vote of ratification.’

Morano: ‘Obama is taking a page from China’s government and is seeking to bypass democracy’s ‘very detrimental’ hurdles and just impose a new UN treaty on Americans’ By:  – Climate Depot

August 27, 2014 12:19 PM

Marc Morano statement on Obama bypassing Senate ratification of UN climate ‘deal’. Morano is publisher of Climate Depot, former staff of U.S. Senate Environment  & Public Works Committee and producing and writing the new global warming documentary ‘Climate Hustle.’

Morano: “This is the Chinafication of America. Many global warming activists and the UN have previously praised China’s ability to impose climate and energy regulations without the messiness of democracy.

See: < href=”http://climatedepot.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u=87b74a936c723115dfa298cf3&id=d8f230ce9e&e=d3a947e3d3″ target=”_blank”>NYT’s Friedman lauds China’s eco-policies: ‘One party can just impose politically difficult but critically important policies needed to move a society forward’

UN Climate Chief Christiana Figueres laments U.S. democracy is ‘very detrimental’ in war on global warming — Lauds one-party ruled China for ‘doing it right’ on climate change

President Obama is taking a page from China’s government and is seeking to bypass democracy’s ‘very detrimental’ hurdles and just impose a new UN treaty on Americans. The Administration with both its EPA climate regulations (no climate impact)and the UN treaty has essentially declared ‘We don’t need no stinkin legislature.’

Sec. of State John Kerry is pushing the hardest for a UN agreement. See: Flashback NYT: John Kerry ‘hopes to use his position as secretary of state to achieve a legacy on global warming that has long eluded him’

We have known for years that the Obama administration was seeking no Senate ratification. See: Flashback 2009: Chris Horner: Kyoto II as Congressional-Executive Agreement: The Emerging Strategy?

The American people will now face an increasingly EPA centrally planned domestic energy economy and one now dictated from the United Nations without the Senate’s consent. The U.S. is currently heading to an energy deprived future. See: Winter blackouts could hit Midwest, Mid-Atlantic, regional grid operator warns

And we may end up like our European counterparts: See: Flashback 2011: We’re All North Koreans Now: ‘Era of Constant Electricity at Home is Ending, says UK power chief’ — ‘Families would have to get used to only using power when it was available’

Of course, eliminating plentiful energy is what the Obama administration officials have stated is their goal. See: Flashback 1975: John Holdren Says Real Threat to USA Is Cheap Energy: ‘The U.S.is threatened far more by the hazards of too much energy, too soon, than by the hazards of too little energy, too late.’

All of this comes at a time when the evidence continues to show that man-made global warming claims are failing. Global temperatures have flat-lined for nearly 18 years (with at least 38 excuses offered).

Sea level rise has decelerated. Arctic summer sea ice may hit a decade high in 2014. (Sorry John Holdren, looks like your Arctic warnings about missing winter sea ice is still far off): Antarctica sea ice is at record expansionExtreme weather is at or near historic lows, declining trends or no trends in tornadoeswild fires, droughts and floods.

But despite all of this, the UN IPCC’s new report will claim its worse than we thought – by continuing to make scarier and scarier predictions of 50 to 100 years from now. See: Geologist Rebuts Media-Hyped Draft Of New UN IPCC Report As ‘Nonsense Totally Contrary To Real Evidence’

When current reality fails to alarm, just make scarier and scarier predictions and claim its worse than we thought because our predictions are now more alarming.”

End Morano statement.

Climatologist Dr. Pat Michaels of Cato Institute: The President simply doesn’t care about the legislative branch when it comes to climate regulations.  He feels that the Supreme Court empowered him in Mass. v. EPA.  He lost the House over cap and trade in 2010 so what does it matter if the voters take it out on the Senate in 2014?  Besides, the electoral demographics in the Senate look as bad for the Repos in 2016 as they do for the Demos this year.  So they will just be out for two years anyway.

If that’s all cold and calculating, it is.  Welcome to Washington, where, with regard to climate change, we have a King, unless (fat chance) someone with standing can convince the courts to reign him in.” Flashback 2009: Chris Horner: Kyoto II as Congressional-Executive Agreement: The Emerging Strategy?Flashback: CEI’s Myron Ebell: ‘In the past, rulers who act as if the law does not apply to them were called tyrants’ – Obama’s UN climate agreement doesn’t need congressional approvalFlashback Feb. 2014: Obama’s UN climate agreement doesn’t need congressional approval

Related Links:

Flashback: ‘John Kerry is steering the Obama administration’s international focus to embarrassingly bad man-made climate fears’

Flashback NYT: John Kerry ‘hopes to use his position as secretary of state to achieve a legacy on global warming that has long eluded him’

Study: Global climate deal won’t stop dangerous warming: ‘Climate negotiators may need to reframe their work the 2 degree goal just doesn’t appear to be achievable, no matter how strong the progress made in Paris next year,’ said fellow Point Carbon analyst Ashley Lawson.

Kyoto II climate treaty coming in 2015 — And taxpayers are paying environmental groups to design it!

Coral Davenport and Christiana Figueres assure us ‘there’s no such thing as the U.N. imposing any regulation’ ; UN officials are just ‘working toward forging a historic, legally binding global-warming treaty’

U.S. Commits to New UN Climate Treaty! U.S. signs onto Brussels G-7 Summit Declaration: ‘We affirm our strong determination to adopt in 2015 a global agreement – a new protocol’

Developing Nations Demand $$$ to support new UN climate treaty: ‘We will want more than the $100bn to agree to a new Paris protocol’

Sec. Kerry challenges climate skeptics at House hearing: If skeptics are wrong and nothing is done, ‘life on the Earth can literally end’

Climate Treaties Like Kyoto Aren’t Coming Back: Ex-UN Climate Chief – ‘Pacts like the Kyoto Protocol, which the U.S. Senate blocked by a 95-0 vote in 1997, are probably a thing of the past’

Follow  on Twitter at @ClimateDepot

Science, Fiction and Extinction #6

6thextinctionI enjoy science, and fiction (science fiction and just fiction), but I like to know how much fiction is in the science fiction I’m reading, and I certainly don’t want any fiction in the science I’m reading. With that caveat in mind, I’d like to comment on, and recommend to you, a book I’m currently reading. I think I understand how much of it is fiction, and there’s a lot of interesting science in it. It’s The 6th Extinction by James Rollins, Harper Collins, 426 pp. I’m recommending it with a little bit of caution, to help you separate the science (lots of it) from the fiction (an important bit).

I’m not going to spoil the mystery of the story by telling you how it comes out. It’s full of an amazing amount of real science, set in some exotic places I never heard of before, buffeting some interesting action figures (“Sigma Force”, Rollins’ scientifically-erudite military elite types) to stop some mad scientists from taking over the world to prevent the extinction of 25% of the world’s animal species by AD 2100 due to destruction of habitat and….climate change. Oh, you weren’t aware a major part of the world’s species are doomed…..DOOMED? Well, it’s a major sub-theme of the catastrophic anthropogenic global warming (CAGW) nonsense, intended to appeal to people who think with their emotions.

I put the picture of my little foxy friend in here to make the case that I like animals too, and try to protect them, with money and my vote. Foxes are doing quite well here in Colorado, sponsored by Californians who come here and let their cats run loose. The coyotes are doing well too.

bddigjjfEverybody has heard of the Fifth Extinction; that was 66 million years ago, when something got the dinosaurs, and three out of four other species as well. That’s small potatoes, compared to The Great Dying, the largest extinction event and the one that affected the Earth’s ecology most profoundly. 252 million years ago, as much as 97% of species that leave a fossil record disappeared forever.

The dinosaur extinction is reasonably blamed on a meteor strike into the Yucatan Peninsula, followed by major volcanism. Some paleontologists blame the other extinctions on meteor strikes as well. However, Rollins’ tale of  The 6th Extinction is based on some recent “science” that grows out of CAGW. Like the rest of CAGW, it echoes the liberal theme that humanity is a blight on the Earth, causing overpopulation, habitat destruction, and catastrophic climate change/warming. This theme appeared with Paul Ehrlich’s The Population Bomb in 1968, prophesying worldwide multi-million death by famine in the 1970’s and 1980’s. It hasn’t happened, but Ehrlich is still employed – in academia, of course. Incidentally, one of Ehrlich’s colleagues was John Holdren – now Mr. Obama’s science advisor.

A commendable feature in the book is an Author’s Note explaining some of the science described in the book – real science. Rollins quotes other books on the supposed coming extinction, such as The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert (Henry Holt, 2014), but he doesn’t try to defend the thesis as real science. In his Notes from the Scientific Record, at the beginning, Rollins quotes a recent Duke University study by Stuart Pimm et. al.: The biodiversity of species and their rates of extinction, distribution, and protection. As the Washington Post explained:

“Calculating extinction rates can be difficult, in part because no one knows exactly how many species there are,” explained Christine Dell’Amore of National Geographic. Experts have managed to identify at least 1.9 million animal species, and the study reported that there are at least 450,000 types of plants in existence, she added.

Pimm told Dell’Amore that conservationists are able to calculate the extinction rate of those species by tracking how many of them die out each year, similar to the technique used to determine a country’s mortality rate. Based on that approach, the study authors determined that between 100 and 1,000 species were lost per million per year, primarily due to climate change and habitat destruction resulting from human causes.

We don’t know how many species there are… wait, what?

There are, roughly 2 million animal species, and by those numbers, and their extinction rate (~500/million/year), we’re losing 1000 species per year? Really? I’ve heard of the extinction of the Passenger Pigeon, in the early 1900’s, by idiots that simply slaughtered them. And the American Bison was reduced to a few hundred individuals, before their slaughter was stopped. Neither of those was caused by habitat destruction or climate change; just by simple, stupid individual human greed. More recently, with flourishes of “science”, we’re been warned of the possible extinction of the polar bear and the Adelie penguin. Both species are thriving. And, as a general principle, there are more species and greater variety of species in warm climates – think Central Africa and the Amazon Basin – than in cold ones, like the polar regions. Global warming will kill them?

Do species become extinct? Of course; you can GOOGLE “species extinction 2013” and find some. One such website is called Living Along Side Wildlife. Another is a 10-year extinction countdown on the Scientific American blog.

The saddest example is the Western Black Rhinoceros, which has been reduced to about 20 individuals in the wild, due to individuals who kill the animal for its horn, ground up and sold as an aphrodisiac. But that’s not the fault of humanity, nor caused by climate change; that’s the crime of poachers who are killing protected animals in poor countries that don’t have the resources to protect a valuable resource. The list of 2013 extinctions is rather misleading; the ten species listed disappeared as long ago as the 1880’s. It’s certainly not 1000 species in a year…or even 100…or 10. It’s more like a small fraction of one species per year, at most, many due to natural changes – such as predation by other species. NONE have been caused by climate change.

So where does this seemingly serious “science” about extinction come from? Can’t you guess? More garbage from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC); specifically, from Working Group 2 of Assessment Report 4 (AR4), issued in 2007. They said:

§4.4.11 Global synthesis including impacts on biodiversity was quite specific. If arming reached 3°C above pre-industrial levels (projected absent serious mitigation) 21-52% of all species were committed to extinction (not necessarily yet extinct) by 2100. This official finding was based on 78 conclusions from 57 peer-reviewed papers on climate change impacts on biodiversity, all listed in WG2 table 4.1. It appears to be overwhelming scientific evidence.

Well, there you go; 3 C (or 5 F) will wipe out a quarter to a half of all species on Earth. 57 peer-reviewed papers on the impact of CAGW on biodiversity tell us so.

This, of course, is the fiction part of Mr. Rollins’ book. Well, if you want to be a New York Times Best Selling author – as it says on the cover – I guess you have to pretend to believe in Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Change. And quoting Elizabeth Kolbert – a former NYT columnist – doesn’t hurt. Sigh!

If you’d like to read a serious book on climate and ecology, I recommend Landscapes and Cycles by Jim Steele, ISBN 1490 390189. It’s available from Amazon. Be sure to read Chapter 6, Saving the Large Blue Butterfly – which went “extinct” because its microclimate cooled. The cooling was real; the “extinction” was bogus.

California faces ‘most destructive earthquakes in over 200 years’

According to analysis completed between June 10 and August 5, 2014, by the International Earthquake and Volcano Prediction Center (IEVPC), California has entered its greatest risk period for the most destructive earthquakes in over 200 years.

The IEVPC began in February 2012 and includes some of the international seismic community’s most successful and experienced earthquake prediction experts.

From IEVPC CEO Mr. John L. Casey, “Because of the success achieved in climate prediction and seismic research by the IEVPC’s sister company, the Space and Science Research Corporation (SSRC), these leading researchers approached me in late 2011 and asked that I pull their collective talents together to create the world’s best earthquake prediction company.”

Mr. Casey adds further, “Because we had early success in predicting large earthquakes and associated volcanic activity, we recently initiated two new programs. The first was aimed at alerting insurance firms that serve California of an increased risk they face in that state. This was started three months ago. Second we began another test program in July to refine our long range prediction capabilities over the next year.

The Test Program has already posted on line its first test items, what the IEVPC calls “Observations.” Today a California specific “Observation” has been added for the Southern California area including the Baja Peninsula. These observations, instead of predictions, will permit objective, public, independent review of the IEVPC approaches to geophysical event analysis during the coming year of the Test Program.

The special warning regarding California included in this press release is the result of two indications of record quakes coming to the US west Coast.

First, is the strong correlation that has been established between a 206 year climate change cycle discovered by Mr. Casey in 2007 and the largest earthquakes on the planet. These cycles as his research shows, not only accounts for the end of global warming that occurred many years ago, but also shows a very strong correlation with the world wide cold temperature phase of the 206 year cycle and the largest most destructive earthquakes. This cold phase called a “solar hibernation” by the SSRC, has been well documented and analyzed at the SSRC.

The last time a solar hibernation struck was between 1793 and 1830, the so-called Dalton Minimum. It was a time which saw the largest ever series of earthquakes recorded in the United States as well as the largest ever recorded volcanic eruption on Earth.

Mr. Casey reiterates this general geophysical threat to the planet.

“If this 206 year solar cycle behaves as it did before, then there is no doubt that we are in for our worst ever earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. The SSRC prediction for the bottom of the cold phase will see the worst from the 2020’s through the 2030’s. However, it may be this cycle is getting off to an early powerful start as a result of the end of global warming years ago and the rapid drop in global temperatures we have been experiencing beginning in 2003. We have already seen some of the largest earthquakes ever on the planet, for example, the 2004 Indonesian M9.1+ quake and tsunami and the March 11, 2011 Japanese M9.0 quake. We have also had several large volcanic eruptions that have shut down aircraft traffic for large areas of the globe in the past five years. This global threat which pertains to California as well as the rest of the planet is covered in some detail in the June 10 edition of the Global Climate Status Report published by the SSRC.”

Second, the IEVPC’s recent analysis of seismic trends in California is in part an outcome of interest in the IEVPC earthquake prediction capabilities expressed by California insurers. The IEVPC’s analysis of Southern California indicates that that this area of the US west coast has now entered its highest risk period since the modern satellite era began in the 1970’s.

Dr. Dong Choi, Director of Research for the IEVPC, in Canberra, Australia says, “We were only asked to look at Southern California and with our own limited funding. Yet, we were still able to detect general trends of seismic activity that suggests a new period of major quakes is likely between 23 and 33 degrees North Latitude along the San Andreas fault. That includes the Gulf of California up to the Santa Barbara area. Concurrent with this general higher risk we see for that length of the San Andreas, we have also observed other precursor signals that warrant posting of another “Observation” in our new Test Program for the area near Angel de la Guarda in the Gulf.”

Postings for any Observations will be made to the IEVPC web site as they occur. See www.ievpc.org.

ABOUT THE INTERNATIONAL EARTHQUAKE AND VOLCANO PREDICTION CENTER (IEVPC)

The International Earthquake and Volcano Prediction Center (IEVPC) was founded in February 2012 by a team of scientists and other experts with established track records for excellence in science research, especially tectonics, volcanism, seismic research, management, and other skills necessary for achieving the Mission and Objectives of the IEVPC.This team originated after its founders realized that there were strong correlations between the occurrences of earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic activity, solar activity, and precursor geophysical events.

These precursors have been studied for many years by the IEVPC founders, staff scientists and researchers who represent the primary body of expertise in understanding these early signals that catastrophic geophysical events (CGE) are about to strike.

Guess who has made ‘Eleven Major Climate Change Predictions’ that have Come True?

Mr. John L. Casey, President Space and Science Research Corporation, has an amazing track record of major climate predictions dating back to 2007. No one has matched his accuracy in predicting major climate changes. No one.

Mr. Casey is a former White House national space policy adviser under two U.S. Presidents and the author of “Dark Winter“. Watch this interview to learn more about his book and unprecedented string of accurate climate change predictions.

DARK WINTER BOOK COVERThe predictions 1 through 7 below were made primarily in Mr. Casey’s original press release on April 30, 2007 and by his web-site-posted peer reviewed ‘RC Theory’ research paper, January 22, 2008. These predictions were in some part also covered and in his climate books, “Cold Sun” (June 2011) and “Dark Winter” (August 2014). The April 2007 press release is on page 70 of “Dark Winter.” The RC Theory paper is available at the RC Theory page at the Space and Science Research Corporation (SSRC).

Numerous other press releases and communications to U.S. government officials and the media since 2007 reiterated these original predictions from 2007 and 2008. These predictions have been confirmed through multiple U.S. and international science data bases and organizations that track solar activity and global temperatures. Further, the Global Climate Status Report, (GCSR) produced by the SSRC displays global temperature data in chart form that validates global temperature predictions made in 2007, 2008, as well as the start of the solar hibernation, using NASA, NOAA, and other international climate data.

Prediction 1. That global warming (caused by the Sun) would end within three to fourteen years of 2007.

This has since been validated by the SSRC and numerous others. Even the UK Met Office last year acknowledged that 17 years had gone by without global warming. September marks year 18. There is no longer any global warming. Mr. Casey’s calculations showed the average temperature curve associated with the 206 year solar cycle determined that 2007 or between 3 and 14 years (RC Theory paper) of that date would be the peak of the modern warm period. In a July 1, 2008 TV news conference held by Mr. Casey, he announced that there was sufficient data to declare that global warming had in fact already ended.

Prediction 2. That the Sun would begin to enter a state of “solar hibernation” beginning in solar cycle 24 and would be marked by a dramatic reduction in the Suns’ energy output.

This historic, reduction of solar activity during solar cycle 24 as measured by sunspots, magnetic field strength, solar wind velocity etc. and has since been verified by NASA, the SSRC, and many others.

Prediction 3. That the Earth’s oceans would begin to cool soon after 2007.

Though it was undetectable at the time, the actual start of ocean temperature decline apparently began in 2003. See the actual chart of ocean temps that verifies the predicted decline as Figure 3 on page 40 of the GCSR.

Prediction 4. That the Earth’s atmospheres would begin to cool soon after 2007.

This has also been validated by the SSRC, and all major global temperature measurement data sets. See Figure 1 and Figure 2 on page 38 and page 39 of the GCSR.

Prediction 5. That a new cold climate would envelope the Earth and during solar cycles 25 and 26, (the 2020’s thru the 2040’s).

Sunspot counts for cycles 25 and 26 would approach 50. That this cold climate would bring record cold to the planet causing substantial crop damage – expected to lead to “world wide, agricultural, social, and economic disruption.” (RC Theory paper). Use of the phrase “significant loss of life” was added to the list of ill-effects of the new cold climate by Mr. Casey in other press releases and public statements and books.
This is the most important prediction made by John Casey and can only be verified as the new cold climate period deepens. Given the accuracy of his other predictions this also appears likely as the global temperatures continue their predicted decline and solar activity enters a new low level after passing the peak of activity for solar cycle 24.

Prediction 6. That the solar cycle #24 would have around 74 sunspots at peak (about half the official NASA prediction of 145 sunspots).

This important prediction for the Sun’s behavior during solar cycle 24 was well documented in the RC Theory research paper posted January 2008 and discussed between Mr. Casey and NASA (phone and emails) during May-June 2007. The specific 74 sunspot prediction was passed via phone to NASA’s solar physics group leader in May-June 2007 and via other publications. Mr. Casey’s prediction and the large error in NASA’s prediction are also evident by comparing NASA’s solar activity forecast for solar cycle 24 between their web posting of 2006 and 2013. This latter 2013 NASA forecast showing solar cycle 24 performance validates Mr. Casey’s “spot-on” prediction for solar cycle 24, where NASA was off by almost 100%.

Prediction 7. That 2012 would be colder than 2008 in terms of global atmospheric temperatures.

This prediction was made via SSRC Press Release 2-2010 on May 10, 2010. It was validated after a review of global temperature data sets in early 2014 and documented on page 100 of “Dark Winter.” Though many were told by NASA and NOAA that 2012 was the warmest year ever, a more thorough examination of the data shows the average temperature for most major global temperature data sets showed that only the first eight months were warmer and that the year overall, was as cold or colder than 2008 as Mr. Casey predicted.

Prediction 8. That the new cold era would coincide with record earthquake and volcanic activity.

This prediction was made both in Mr. Casey’s research paper on the subject and a press release at the same time. The SSRC Research Report 1-2010 (Preliminary) from March 1, 2010 titled “Correlation of Solar Activity Minimums and Large Magnitude Geophysical Events,” is at the RC Theory page of the SSRC web site. The associated press release SSRC 1-2010 titled “Sun’s Activity Linked to Largest Earthquakes and Volcanoes,” is at the ‘Press Release Archives’ page of the SSRC web site.

This prediction for increased earthquake and volcanic activity has been verified by other researchers, including in a recent paper by Choi, Casey, Maslov and Tsunoda (see at page 7 of the June 2014 edition of the GCSR). This joint paper is titled “Global increase in seismic and magmatic activities since 1990 and their relation to solar cycles.”

Ongoing verification of the increased geophysical activity predicted in 2010 by Casey is exemplified by the record M9.0 earthquake one year later on March 11, 2011 with the Japanese Tohoku Earthquake that destroyed the Fukushima nuclear power plant and killed over 13,000 people. This prediction is further validated by the M7.8 and M8.0 earthquakes of northern Chile in 2014. It should also be noted that the great Indonesian M9.1+ earthquake and tsunami of December 26, 2004 that killed over 230,000 occurred after global oceans began to cool after 2003.

Recent increased volcanic activity has been demonstrated by the Mt. Sangeang Api volcano, Indonesia, the Puyehue volcano , Chile, the Eyjafjallajokull volcano, Iceland, et.al.. As of August 22, 2014 volcano Bardargunga in Iceland is threatening to erupt. The first three volcanic eruptions shut down air traffic for large areas of the globe in each case.

Combined, these geophysical events demonstrate the existence of an increased level of major earthquake and volcanic activity as predicted by Mr. Casey.

Prediction 9. That the decline in Arctic sea ice had ended and was now a new long term growth trend.

This prediction was made June 10, 2013, paradoxically, the year after NOAA announced that Arctic Sea ice had reached its lowest extent ever recorded and restated its forecast for continued declines. The prediction by Mr. Casey was widely distributed via SSRC Press Release 4-2013 and was titled,” Arctic Sea Ice to Grow as Global Cooling Era Takes Hold.”

This prediction has since been validated by NOAA data that shows Arctic sea ice declines have stopped their historic decline and now show a dramatic reversal that actually began after 2007 and has been repeated during 2014. See chart of NOAA data for Arctic sea ice extent on page 44 of the June 10, 2014 edition of the GCSR.

Note: Al Gore, NOAA and UK climate officials have over the years made predictions that the entire Arctic sea ice would be gone by 2008 or other past years. They have since adjusted their predictions out to safer dates like 2030 or 2050.

Prediction 10. That the North Atlantic Ocean temperatures had reached a peak or maximum warming, and these waters would soon begin a long term temperature decline lasting decades.

This prediction was made via SSRC Press Release 1-2013, on February 4, 2013 titled, “Climate Change to Next Cold Era Accelerates with Colder North Atlantic. The time frame for evaluation of this relatively recent prediction is still open. However, the largest ocean heat content decline ever recorded for the North Atlantic has been recorded and reinforces that this prediction will also transpire as described.

Prediction 11. That the world’s sea levels would soon begin to decline (between 2014 and 2020) and reach the level they were in the early 1800’s predicted by the late 2020’s and 2030’s.

This recent August 21, 2013 prediction will be evaluated when the time frame indicated has been entered for a few years. The prediction was documented at a news conference held near Miami Florida and was recorded in the SSRC Press Release 7-2013 (August 21, 2014) which is posted at the SSRC web site.

Validation of this prediction, though in abeyance, is receiving support from the fact that sea levels on the US west coast have already begun to drop as a consequence of the Pacific Ocean cooling The Atlantic Ocean starts its predicted drop in sea levels soon.

Added validation comes from the setting of all time records for the combined amount of sea ice for the Northern and Southern Hemispheres.

Most importantly, the ongoing decline in global ocean temperatures since 2003 underscores this prediction by Mr. Casey that a long term global ocean cooling is to be followed by historic drops in sea levels. The colder oceans will of course result in lower sea levels just as past ocean warming contributed to rising sea levels.

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image with John Casey’s book cover is titled dark winter is by Elvens Day.

Renewables: Florida’s Green Energy Killing Fields

BirdsFlorida Power and Light (FP&L) on its website states, “At our three solar energy centers throughout Florida, we’re making the most of our state’s sunshine, turning it into clean energy and using it to power your home or business.” FP&L has solar energy centers (solar panel farms) located in Cape Canaveral (Space Coast Next Generation Solar Energy Center), Desoto County (Desoto Next Generation Solar Energy Center) and Indiantown (Martin Next Generation Solar Energy Center).

In August 2007 then Governor Crist joined FPL Group Inc. chairman and chief executive officer Lew Hay in announcing FPL Group’s $2.4 billion investment program aimed at increasing the use of solar thermal energy and reducing carbon dioxide emissions. One of the country’s largest electric utilities, FPL is planning to build 300 megawatts of solar generating capacity in Florida. The new facility will avoid nearly 11 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions over a 20-year period. FPL Groups serves customers in 26 states, and its principal subsidiary, Florida Power & Light Company, serves more than 4.3 million customer accounts in Florida.

“It only makes sense that the sunshine state would have a solar power plant,” former Governor Crist said. “This plant will serve as an example to other Florida and American companies that alternative energy can work.”

According to the Tampa Bay Times, “As of June 2013, California leads the nation with 3,761 megawatts of installed solar capacity. Arizona comes in second with 1,250 megawatts. New Jersey, which isn’t exactly known for its sunny skies but where roof-mounted units have proven popular, ranks third with 1,119 megawatts. Florida, by contrast, has 202 megawatts, making it No. 10 in the nation.”

What the media does not tell you is how many birds have been killed at FP&L’s three solar energy centers.

The author of Energy Freedom and Executive Director for Energy Makes America Great Inc. and the Citizens’ Alliance for Responsible Energy (CARE) Marita Noon writes, “Even green projects have an impact on their surrounding environment. Green energy, specifically so-called renewables [wind, solar], has been sold to the American public as the answer to a host of crimes against the planet.”

Noon reports:

Wind turbines chop up bald and golden eagles, and other endangered species, like a Cuisinart—the taller turbines with longer blades (which produce more energy, and, therefore, is where the trend is heading) have a predicted annual ten-fold mortality increase.

[ … ]

Hundreds of acres of photovoltaic solar panels confuse migratory water birds, such as the “once-critically endangered brown pelican whose lifestyle involves fishing by diving into open water,” to veer miles out of their way to dive toward what they perceive are lakes or wetlands—only to die from “blunt force trauma.” At the largest solar thermal plant in the world, Ivanpah, owned by BrightSource Energy, the 170,000 reflecting mirrors—designed to “superheat liquid in boilers”—literally fries feathers. The USA Today reports that the intense radiation—called solar flux—has singed some birds, melted feathers, and denatured the protein in their wings as they fly through the intense heat. Unable to fly, the injured birds drop out of the sky and die.

Ellen Knickmeyer and John Locher from the Associated Press report, “Workers at a state-of-the-art solar plant in the Mojave Desert have a name for birds that fly through the plant’s concentrated sun rays — ‘streamers,’ for the smoke plume that comes from birds that ignite in midair.  Federal wildlife investigators who visited the BrightSource Energy plant last year and watched as birds burned and fell, reporting an average of one ‘streamer’ every two minutes, are urging California officials to halt the operator’s application to build a still-bigger version.”

ABC NEWS VIDEO: Governor Jerry Brown (D-CA) mandated that 33% of the states energy be from solar power, stating, “The sun in California is like the oil in Texas.”

The BrightSource Energy website states, “Since its founding in 2006, BrightSource has significantly evolved – from a small start-up with a great idea that became the foundation for the world’s largest solar thermal power project – to a company focused on global deployment of its solar field technology and support services.”

On September 21, 2012, the LA Times ran a story about the BrightSource Energy large-scale solar projects titled, “Taxpayers, ratepayers will fund California solar plants,” with the subhead: A new breed of prospectors — banks, insurers, utility companies — are receiving billions in subsidies while taxpayer and ratepayers are paying most of the costs. Critics say it’s a rip-off.

Florida FP&L ratepayers subsidize these three renewable solar energy wildlife killing fields. Will we be constructing more of these “solar deserts” in the sunshine state?

RELATED ARTICLES:

Charlie Crist says Florida is the Sunshine State, but “we’re hardly doing any solar energy production”
Climate change issue highlights depth of Crist-Scott divide
State Gave $69 Million Loan to Green Energy Company on Verge of Bankruptcy

Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO) Supports Using Food For Fuel While Children are Starving

Ethanol is a farmer welfare program with the government decreeing corn based Ethanol be converted into fuel which has resulted in dramatically rising prices and conversion of huge amounts of acreage to corn production from other crops. Simply another example of government favoring one group (farmers) at the expense of consumers who now pay a lot more for corn based foods at the store and gasoline at the station.

 

Earth’s Energy in an article titled Reducing Carbon: Unintended Consequences reports:

Over the past couple of years there has been much written about how the attempt by the US to substitute ethanol for gasoline was leading to higher food prices.  The ethanol is made from corn and as the demand for ethanol shot up (largely mandated by government requirements that gasoline had to have a minimum ethanol content and corresponding subsidies to the ethanol industry), this meant less corn was available for other uses in the food chain, including the feeding of livestock. Initially the ethanol content was to be 10% but in the past year the US government has raised this target to 15%. (See, for example, Ethanol Blamed for Record Food Prices in MIT Technology Review and The Case Against Biofuels: Probing Ethanol’s Hidden Costs at Environment 360)

Senator Claire McCaskill: Are you not aware our country was developed on cheap, not expensive energy?

Are you not aware of the development of tremendous amounts of oil and natural gas taking place in the United States today by fracking? Are you not aware the reason we don’t have dramatically more production is due to the government blocking development by placing lands off limits. The government is our biggest enemy in trying to reach energy independence along with communists posing as environmentalists!

Are you not aware we have almost 200,000 miles of petroleum pipelines in the U.S.A. but the Keystone Pipeline has been blocked by your party for over 5 years for strictly political reasons? They say it isn’t safe to transport by pipeline which is ridiculous as it is the safest form of transportation. Currently the oil is coming by rail and you see how safe it is by the accidents occurring?

Are you not aware ethanol is subsidized and raises the price of gasoline to consumers and businesses alike but benefiting farmers?

Being a member of Congress I can understand how every time you decide to mandate something for the free market you muck it up. Corn should be used for food not as a fuel additive that decreases performance and harms small engines.

Turn on the TV and soon an ad appears asking for $19 a month to help feed hungry children around the world followed by another ad saying one in four children in the United States goes to bed hungry at night. If true, how can you in good conscience support Ethanol unless you are more concerned about buying votes through corn subsidies to farmers than the health of children around the world?

Greens are the Enemies of Energy

Here in America and elsewhere around the world, Greens continue to war against any energy other than the “renewable” kind, wind and solar, that is more costly and next to useless. Only coal, oil, natural gas, and nuclear keeps the modern and developing world functioning and growing.

The most publicized aspect is Obama’s “War on Coal” and, thanks to the Environmental Protection Agency, it has been successful; responsible for shutting down several hundred coal-fired plants by issuing costly regulations based on the utterly false claim that carbon dioxide emissions must be reduced to save the Earth from “global warming.”

Light Bulb

Rest in peace.

The EPA is the government’s ultimate enemy of energy, though the Department of the Interior and other elements of the government participate in limiting access to our vast energy reserves and energy use nationwide. By government edict, the incandescent light bulb has been banned. How insane is that?

The Earth has been cooling for seventeen years at this point, but the Greens call this a “pause.” That pause is going to last for many more years and could even become a new ice age.

A study commissioned by the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) on the impact of the proposed new EPA regulation of emissions found that, as CNSNews reported, it “could be the costliest federal rule by reducing the Gross National Product by $270 billion a per year and $3.4 trillion from 2017 to 2040” adding $2.2 trillion in compliance costs for the same period. Jay Timmons, CEO and president of NAM, said, “This regulation has the capacity to stop the manufacturing comeback in its tracks.”

EPA FactsAs Thomas Pyle, the president of the Institute for Energy Research (IER), said in June, “President Obama is delivering on his promise to send electricity prices skyrocketing.” Noting a proposed EPA regulation that would shut more plants, he said “With this new rule, Americans can expect to pay $200 more each year for their electricity.” Having failed to turn around the nation’s economy halfway into his second term, Obama is adding to the economic burdens of all Americans.

America could literally become energy independent given its vast reserves of energy sources. In the case of coal, the federal government owns 957 billion short tons of coal in the lower 48 States, of which about 550 billion short tons—about 57 percent—are available in the Powder River Basin. It is estimated to be worth $22.5 trillion to the U.S. economy, but as the IER notes, it “remains unrealized due to government barriers on coal production.” It would last 250 years, greater than Russia and China. When you add in Alaska, the U.S. has enough coal to last 9,000 years at today’s consumption rates!

In 2013 the IER estimated the worth of the government’s oil and coal technically recoverable resources to the economy to be $128 trillion, about eight times our national debt at the time.

There isn’t a day that goes by that environmental groups such as Friends of the Earth and the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, the National Resources Defense Council, and the Union of Concerned Scientists, along with dozens of others, do not speak out against the extracting and use of all forms of energy, calling coal “dirty” and claiming Big Oil is the enemy.

In the 1970s and 1980s, the Greens held off attacking the nuclear industry because it does not produce “greenhouse gas” emissions. Mind you, these gases, primarily carbon dioxide, represent no threat of warming and, indeed, as the main “food” of all vegetation on Earth, more carbon dioxide would be a good thing, increasing crop yields and healthy forests.

Events such as the 1979 partial meltdown at Three Mile Island and the 1986 Chernobyl disaster raised understandable fears. The Greens began opposing nuclear energy claiming that radiation would kill millions in the event of a meltdown. This simply is not true. Unlike France that reprocesses spent nuclear fuel, President Carter’s decision to not allow reprocessing proved to be very detrimental, requiring repositories for large quantities.

To this day, one of the largest, Yucca Mountain Repository, authorized in 1987, is opposed by Greens. Even so, it was approved in 2002 by Congress, but the funding for its development was terminated by the Obama administration in 2011. Today there are only four new nuclear power plants under construction and, in time, all one hundred existing plants will likely be retired starting in the mid-2030s.

The Greens’ attack on coal is based on claims that air quality must be protected, but today’s air quality has been steadily improving for years and new technologies have reduced emissions without the need to impose impossible regulatory standards. As the American Petroleum Institute recently noted, “These standards are not justified from a health perspective because the science is simply not showing a need to reduce ozone levels.”

The new EPA standards are expected to be announced in December. We better hope that the November midterm elections put enough new candidates into Congress to reject those standards or the cost of living in America, the capacity to produce electricity, the construction and expansion of our manufacturing sector will all worsen, putting America on a path to decline.

© Alan Caruba, 2014

DARK WINTER BOOK COVERRELATED VIDEO: The Space and Science Research Corporation founder and president and former White House national space policy adviser John L. Casey joins Newsmax TV – Mid Point to discuss facts about ominous changes taking place in the Sun and the climate.

Casey highlights some revelations from his new book, “Dark Winter: How The Sun Is Causing A 30-Year Cold Spell.”

Florida Comprehensive Planning: A Critical Analysis of the Sarasota County 2050 Plan

If you Google the words “comprehensive plan Florida” you will get 11.6 million hits. Florida cities and counties by law have produced comprehensive plans. The Florida Department of Economic Opportunity has an entire submission and process to review local comprehensive plans.

Section 163.3191 of  Florida Statutes requires “At least once every 7 years, each local government shall evaluate its comprehensive plan to determine if plan amendments are necessary to reflect changes in state requirements in this part since the last update of the comprehensive plan, and notify the state land planning agency as to its determination.”

What we have is state bureaucrats overseeing local bureaucrats comprehensive plans to meet their criteria for comprehensive planning. The planners are planning for the planners who are planning for every property owner in Florida. All of this is amounts to one thing – the control of dirt.

He who controls Florida’s dirt, controls all Floridians

The sole victim of comprehensive planning is you. Whether you live here year around, are a snow bird, business owner, visitor or just passing through the sunshine state you are impacted.

Supporters of comprehensive planning are not just bureaucrats. Bureaucrats do not live in a vacuum.  They need supporters, like minded people who are willing to support their ever expanding efforts to control dirt. They need elected officials who are willing to, on their recommendations, pass ever more stringent rules, policies and local ordinances to control the dirt.

One man who knows all about dirt and comprehensive planning is John C. Minder.  John is the founder of Minder & Associates Engineering Corporation. Minder & Associates are certified land surveyors and engineers. John’s company has offices in Sarasota and Manatee Counties. His clients have been the victims of comprehensive planning.

John has decided to enter the political arena by running for the Sarasota County Commission in District 4. His campaign is focused on eliminating the Sarasota County 2050 Plan. Doing away with it entirely. A needed move according to Minder to stop the government control of property and to insure individual property rights.

I had the opportunity to sit down with John for nearly three hours. He educated me on how the Sarasota County 2050 Plan was created and how it is not working to benefit landowners, citizens and Sarasota’s economy.

Why is the Sarasota County 2050 plan bad for Sarasota County?

As John would likely put it “let me count the ways.” From the concept of “fiscal neutrality” to “five acre lots” East of Interstate 75 to the building of “villages”, the 2050 Plan stops economic growth by controlling the dirt. The Sarasota County 2050 Policy states:

Adopted on July 10, 2002, Sarasota 2050 creates a set of policies overlaid on top of the Comprehensive Plan’s Future Land Use Map of Sarasota County. It establishes an optional policy framework to enhance the livability of the County by preserving its natural, cultural, physical, and other resources with an incentive-based system for managing growth.

The 2050 Plan is about “future land use” (controlling dirt) and “managing growth” (by controlling dirt). The justification is to create a Utopia in Sarasota County by controlling all “natural, cultural, physical and other resources.” Comprehensive planning is all about control, not economic development. It “enhances livability” by controlling people’s lives and ability to live free from government.

In an email exchange between Minder, Dan Lobeck, an anti-growth advocate, and Lourdes Ramirez, District 4 Republican primary candidate for County Commission, we get a stark view of how like minded people, Lobeck and Ramirez, support the control of dirt. Minder questions land use East of I-75 and fiscal neutrality. Minder believes that banks will not finance five acre lot developments as currently restricted by the Sarasota 2050 plan. The email thread begins with Minder taking exception to the Lourdes Ramirez threat  “CONA is petitioning Sarasota County to leave the fiscal neutrality policy as is to ensure, as you stated, that the developments under Sarasota 2050 does pay its own way.” Minder calls fiscal neutrality “a bunch of nonsense.”

Minder notes that “The 2050 Plan with its ‘Fiscal Neutrality Nonsense’ in its present state only allows 5 Acre Lots outside of ‘the Villages’ and 5 Acre Lots are selling at the present time for $500,000 and up and that is not affordable housing.”

Lobeck responds with:

“The financing excuse is not tenable for at least two reasons.  First, the large developers most likely to build under Sarasota 2050 have the resources to pay fiscal neutrality exactions without financing, such as Pat Neal or Schroeder-Manatee.  Second, and perhaps most significantly, fiscal neutrality is now typically reevaluated in phases, and it would seem likely that a Village or other Sarasota 2050 development would or easily could be financed in phases.  It is this requirement for a “true up” report at each phase that the developers want to eliminate.”

What Lobeck fails to understand is that any costs for land development are passed along to the home buyer and businesses.

Ramirez states:

It’s pretty simple but I could see why you’re confused. Here is a simple explanation.

Let’s take a development that has 1000 acres that currently is a open use estate district: 1 unit per 5 acres. That is what the developer owns and according to our local laws is entitled to build. That 1000 acres will yield a total number of 200 homes. Get it?

This 1000 aces development with the right for 200 homes will not need a lot of government services. There will be limited amount of roads but no schools, firehouses or parks since there are only 200 homes in the development

Say our local government decides to offer as a generous gift – an opportunity to get a huge increase in density. They offer 5 units per acre so now that same 1000 acres can get 5000 units.

What a great gift! The developer can keep what they have (200 units) or get a mini-city (5000) units. But with 5000 households the county must now offer a fire station, more sheriff patrols, additional water, sewer services, lots of roads etc.

So the county states the development must pay for these extra government services if the the developer chooses to accept the gift of increase density. That is fiscal neutrality.

Sounds like a fair deal.

No, it is not a fair deal for the new home buyer.

Ramirez wants to make the homes more expensive by limiting the number that can be built per acre. This means that affordable housing, which is a goal of Sarasota County government, cannot be built. The more homes per acre, the lower the cost per home, the lower the price per home and the more affordable the housing. And, the more people paying taxes for the services provided. Lobeck and Ramirez are driving up the price of homes, stopping affordable housing and raising the costs on all Sarasotans. It is a lose, lose, lose for economic development.

The Sarasota 2050 plans benefits only bureaucrats whose jobs depend on finding new ways to control dirt. Lobeck and Ramirez are supporters of controlling dirt and thereby controlling the lives and life choices of current and future residents of Sarasota County. Want to know more? Have a chat with John Minder, he will explain it to you.

Florida Amendment 1: Danger — Wolves in Government Clothing

videothumbnail-trailer1This past week I attended the film “The Florida Corridor Expedition: Everglades to Okefenokee” promoting the need for Floridians to spend an additional $19.5 Billion on land acquisition to expand wildlife corridors. The problem with the film is only one side was presented: The need to connect Florida’s wildlife corridors. What about the other side: Protecting private property rights of Floridians?

Wildlife corridors are non-taxable conservation lands where animals roam freely.

Although well done the film showed a trip from the Everglades to Georgia by a team of environmentalists (paid by tax dollars?). My question was how much land will be taken from Floridians to complete this dream and who’s dream is it anyhow? I fully understand and support reasonable conservation. I know that Florida has some of the most beautiful trails and Eco-systems in the world bringing millions of visitors each year but… There reaches a point when we realize humans and freedoms will be sacrificed to make this happen. Does that make sense?

Currently 40% of Florida is in some conservation scheme. In simple terms that means 40% of Florida is off the tax roles! Land in conservation pays no taxes to the community creating deficits made up by the community. Currently almost 65% of Broward and Miami-Dade counties fall in this category. Due to this lost revenue, these counties have the highest tax rates in the state.

The statement was made, “[T]he Amendment will not cost Floridians anything.” Audience question:

“If Doc Stamps are used to pay for this Amendment, what happens to the money Doc Stamps were supposed to fund programs for the poor and elderly?”

Their answer:

“50% of Doc Stamps were to be used for conservation but the money went into the general fund. We are asking for 33% so we are asking for less.” That answer makes no sense.

What difference does it make what pocket you are taking money from? if you are taking money designated for another program, like poor and elderly that program will have to find money some place else. The tax payer will be asked to now fund the poor and elderly or else.. If you say no, you will be demonized because you don’t like the poor and elderly. I asked:

If land will be taken from the tax roles and put into non taxable conservation programs, who will make up the lost revenue to the counties?”

Their answer:

“If people move into the counties the county will have to provide more services like schools and police.”

New Mexico kid cages

Kid cages in New Mexico.

That made no sense. If people move into the counties, PEOPLE PAY TAXES and the tax base will improve. I asked Mr Bear, Panther and Alligator to pay their fair share of taxes but got NO answer. Let’s see how this program works in New Mexico at a wolf sanctuary.

Steve Foley from the California Report writes, “In parts of New Mexico children have no choice but to wait for their school bus inside of cages. These ‘kid cages’ are the result of government agencies abuse of the Endangered Species Act. The United States Fish & Wildlife Service has placed wolves in populated areas where they have become an economic burden for small business owners, infringed upon private property rights, burdened taxpayers with management costs, and placed fear in the hearts of those who have to deal with them on a daily basis.”

VIDEO: Wolves in Government Clothing

Ummm, people in cages while animals run free! Sounds like fun.

We are lucky in Florida. We get to see the results of some of these government policies and decide if we like the results before we amend the Florida constitution with yet another program that sounds great on paper but does not work in reality.

Does Florida need another slush fund scheme without oversight giving more money to groups dedicated to stealing your land? Florida is in the top 10 for political corruption. All groups supporting this amendment have ties to the United Nations. The UN believes that land should be held by the government not in the hands of ordinary people.

There is only one goal of the groups supporting this Amendment: ELIMINATE PRIVATE PROPERTY.

To learn more about Amendment 1 click on this link. 

Why is Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-FL 16) worried about the West African black rhino?

U.S. Congressman Vern Buchanan (R-FL District 16) sends out email alerts to his constituents to keep them informed on what is happening in Washington, D.C. and key issues facing Floridians. Buchanan co-chairs the Florida Congressional delegation and sits on the House Committee on Ways and Means.

One recent email caught my eye. The email had the powerful titled “Mass Extinction”. When I first opened it I thought it was about Hamas wanting to destroy Israel. Buchanan is a stalwart supporter of Israel and its security. However, this email was about recent changes to the Endangered Species Act of 1973.

According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service website:

The purpose of the ESA is to protect and recover imperiled species and the ecosystems upon which they depend…

Under the ESA, species may be listed as either endangered or threatened. “Endangered” means a species is in danger of extinction throughout all or a significant portion of its range. “Threatened” means a species is likely to become endangered within the foreseeable future. All species of plants and animals, except pest insects, are eligible for listing as endangered or threatened. For the purposes of the ESA, Congress defined species to include subspecies, varieties, and, for vertebrates, distinct population segments.

I thought it important to analyse Buchanan’s comments and give them some perspective. My analysis of Buchanan’s statements are indented in italics.

“Mass Extinction” by Rep. Vern Buchanan

Once a species is extinct, it’s gone forever.

Stating the obvious is interesting but not necessarily germane (relevant) to the issue. There have been many species, like the dinosaurs and most recently the West African black rhino, who have become extinct.

The majestic West African black rhino was declared extinct in 2011. The black rhino was killed off by poachers who sold its horns as an aphrodisiac. Here in the United States, the Endangered Species Act has saved an estimated 227 species from extinction, including the bald eagle, the humpback whale and the grey wolf.

The market demand for the aphrodisiac associated with rhino horns, including those of the black rhino Buchanan refers to, was created in the 1950s by Mao Zedong, the new leader of Communist China. John R. Platt from Scientific American reported, “Mao promoted so-called traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) as a tool for unifying the country he had recently come to lead. That’s when poachers descended on Africa. Between 1960 and 1995 an astonishing 98 percent of black rhinos were killed by poachers, either to feed the new and voracious demand for TCM or, to a lesser extent, for horns to be used as ceremonial knife handles in the Middle East.”

Platt reported, “In 1999 the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) published a report called “African Rhino: Status Survey and Conservation Action Plan.” The authors wrote of the almost insurmountable challenge in preserving these final 10 western black rhinos. “Demographically and genetically the western black rhino seems doomed unless the discrete populations are captured and concentrated in one area of its range. Under current conditions, however, this would probably make the remaining animals more vulnerable to poaching.” The act of locating, catching and collecting these rhinos in one place would also be expensive and logistically next to impossible, as Cameroon at the time was plagued by corruption, civil unrest, currency devaluation and mistrust of the West. Even if that feat had been accomplished, the land in northern Cameroon was poorly suited for rhinos and provided very little food. Providing safe habitat for just 20 rhinos would require a fenced-in sanctuary 400 square kilometers in size.”

As the WWF noted government action would not have saved the West African black rhino as the costs of doing so were “insurmountable.” 

The Endangered Species Act is one of the most significant and successful environmental programs enacted in the past half century.

The National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) states, “The Endangered Species Act (ESA), passed in 1973, was designed to recover species to a level at which they are no longer considered endangered and therefore do not require the Act’s protection.  Unfortunately, the law has had the opposite effect on many species.  The ESA can severely penalize landowners for harboring species on their property, and as a result many landowners have rid their property of the species and habitat rather than suffer the consequences.” [Emphasis mine]

I wanted to let you know of an important – and unfortunate – vote that took place in the U.S. House of Representatives this week. Over my strong objections, the U.S. House voted to weaken the Endangered Species Act.

I was one of eight Republicans to oppose this misguided bill, which was soundly criticized by the Sierra Club, the U.S. Humane Society, the League of Conservation Voters and many other environmental groups.

On the Board of Directors of the League of Conservation, an environmental lobbying group, is Carol Browner, Chair Center for American Progress. Ms. Browner most recently served as Assistant to President Obama and director of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy, where she oversaw the coordination of environmental, energy, climate, transport, and related policy across the federal government.

 The National Review’s Wesley J. Smith in his column “The Sierra Club’s War on Humans” writes, “Take a new book being promoted by the once sane Sierra Club that advocates cutting the work week in half so that we can all live less prosperous lives. From the promotion of the book Time on Our Side in Sierra magazine:

“There’s no such thing as sustainable growth, not in a country like the U.S.,” Worldwatch senior fellow Erik Assadourian says. “We have to de-grow our economy, which is obviously not a popular stance to take in a culture that celebrates growth in all forms.

But as the saying goes, if everyone consumed like Americans, we’d need four planets.” Whether you move to a smaller house or an apartment, downsize to one or no car, or simply have fewer lattes to-go, a smaller paycheck could reduce consumption overall…

Shorter workweeks could mean more time for psychologically gratifying pursuits such as gardening, reading, or biking.In other words, we should intentionally become poorer in order to save the planet. [Emphasis mine]

This bill will divert money away from saving wildlife for the purpose of creating a reporting database of highly questionable value. In fact, this new “transparency” actually could put endangered species at greater risk of poaching by publicizing the nesting sites and specific location of threatened wildlife. The bill also waters down the definition of “best available science” by requiring federal agencies to utilize all information submitted by cities, counties and tribes even if the data is unscientific, flawed and inaccurate.

The NCPA notes, “Over 1,900 species of plants and animals — 1,351 domestic and 570 foreign — are currently considered by the federal government to be in danger of extinction.  Once a species is listed, they are subject to a variety of conservation efforts, including federal recovery plans that can include a wide variety of measures including habitat protection.  However, these conservation efforts rarely, if ever, consider the total costs of species recovery to federal, state or local governments, and especially to private landowners. The greatest problem with the Act is its land-use control provisions.”

The Executive Director of the Endangered Species Coalition said the bill “makes a mockery of science” and “prevents species from getting critically needed safeguards.” It passed the House 233-190 and now heads to the U.S. Senate. Fortunately, it is not expected to gain any traction in the Senate.

The Endangered Species Coalition (ESC) is a political action group much in line with the Sierra Club and League of Conservation. Brock Evans joined ESC in 1997 as the Executive Director and President of the Endangered Species Coalition. Prior to assuming leadership of the ESC, Evans served as Vice President for National Issues for the National Audubon Society for 15 years. Earlier, he had served for eight years as Director (head lobbyist) of the Sierra Club’s Washington DC Office.

Member groups include the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, Earth Action Network and  1000 Friends of Florida

Promoting the preservation of animal and plant species should be a bipartisan issue important to all of us. Since its enactment in 1973, the Endangered Species Act been so successful that 99 percent of the species placed under its protection have been saved from extinction.

The National Center for Policy Analysis disputes what Buchanan states. NCPA reports:

The ESA’s punitive nature also helps explain the Act’s sorry record conserving species.  Proponents of the ESA cite species that have recovered due to the Act.  Yet, almost invariably these claims are untrue or exaggerated.  For example, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officially claims 46 delisted species — 19 due to recovery, 17 due to data error, 9 due to extinction and one due to partial recovery/data error.  In reality, the delistings were due to the following:

  • Twenty-seven species have been removed due to data error — including the American alligator, which was delisted soon after its initial listing because it was found to be abundant, clearly indicating it was never endangered and was improperly surveyed.
  • Nine species were determined to be extinct.
  • Five species were delisted due primarily to factors unrelated to the ESA, including the ban on the pesticide DDT.
  • Five species were delisted for a variety of other reasons including: private conservation; state, not federal, conservation efforts; and recovery despite harm done by the ESA.

Congress and others have offered cosmetic reforms to improve the ESA’s effectiveness — tacitly admitting that the Act’s punitive approach has failed and that new approaches are needed.  However, these reforms will do little to remove the penalties that undermine the ESA.

The key to future success for endangered species protection is to set a new course based on the recognition that landowners will be cooperative and even helpful when they benefit from, or are at least are not harmed by, conservation initiatives.  This means stripping the ESA of its land-use controls. [Emphasis mine]

Earlier this year, I was honored to receive the U.S. Humane Society’s Legislative Leader award for my record in Congress. I will continue to be a strong advocate for the Endangered Species Act and fight to preserve our wildlife and ecosystems now and in the future.

Steve Foley from the California Report writes, “In parts of New Mexico children have no choice but to wait for their school bus inside of cages. These ‘kid cages’ are the result of government agencies abuse of the Endangered Species Act. The United States Fish & Wildlife Service has placed wolves in populated areas where they have become an economic burden for small business owners, infringed upon private property rights, burdened taxpayers with management costs, and placed fear in the hearts of those who have to deal with them on a daily basis.”

Please let me know what you think,

Vern

If you would like to email Representative Buchanan on this issue please use his online contact form. You may also call or visit one of his offices located in Washington, D.C., Bradenton, FL and Sarasota, FL.

RELATED ARTICLE: Op-Ed: ‘Climate-Smart’ Policies for Africa are Stupid and Immoral

RELATED VIDEO:

Wolves in Government Clothing

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image of two West African black rhinos is courtesy of StreamAfrica.com.

A Forest Fire of Lies from President Obama

The below was posted on the White House website a few days ago; it has since been replaced by a video, narrated by Dr. John Holdren, Mr. Obama’s Science Advisor. It purports to explain why wildfires are increasing – it’s because of climate change/global warming/carbon pollution, of course.

WHfires

For a larger view click on the image.

I live on five acres in Colorado, with lots of Ponderosa pines, many more than 100 years old and more than 100 feet high. I also live about 40 miles from the Black Forest, north of Colorado Springs, where a fire in 2013 burned 511 homes, killed 2 people, and charred 14,000 acres of trees. I’m about 60 miles from the Waldo Canyon fire of 2012, which burned 346 homes and scorched 15,364 acres – much of that in suburban Colorado Springs. Those are only two of several fires Colorado had in the last two years. A fire is horrible and terrifying, a nightmare of trying to get your family, your animals, and your most precious keepsakes out of the path of hell on Earth. The aftermath of rebuilding and living for years in a moonscape of blackened earth is worse.

I spend a lot of my Summer time trimming trees, thinning trees, and taking slash to the dump. I take wildfires and wildfire prevention pretty seriously; so does my insurance company.

Nothing – not a damned thing – in the White House claim is true. There hasn’t been any global warming for nearly 18 years, though atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) has continued to increase. The climate models, for which the taxpayer has paid billions of dollars, have been consistently wrong in predicting warming. Both Arctic and Antarctic ice cover are at or far above normal levels. And the USA has been both cooler and wetter this year.

Accordingly, I really can’t express, as a scientist and citizen, how much I despise Barack Obama, John Holdren, John Podesta and their White House accomplices for these lies about something so frightening and heart-wrenching to so many people. Wildfires thus far (August 1, 2014) have dramatically declined over the last decade.

realfire

Data courtesy of the National Interagency Fire Center. For a larger view click on the graph.

The data is from a Federal agency, the National Interagency Fire Center; hat tip to Steven Goddard for the plot. They also tabulate the number of wildfires; that number is down dramatically also. Obama and his fellow global warming travelers just lie continuously about climate change, just as they did about Obamacare. Their supporters in the major media continue to support and perpetuate the lie despite the science.

MORON OF THE WEEK:

Fresh from his diplomatic triumphs in the Middle East, Secretary of State John Kerry is back in Washington, D.C. to harangue the leaders of Africa (“the nation of Africa”, as Biden said) about climate change. Nearly 30 percent of the world’s 842 million hungry live on the continent, and John Kerry wants to………feed them? Nope!

Acknowledging the reality of child hunger in Africa, Mr. Kerry urged leaders not to undertake an enormous campaign to feed those whose every day is a struggle to stay alive, but to introduce inefficient farming that responds to the “impact of climate change.”

Yes, Kerry really told these Africans to let their children continue to starve.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Global Warming Pause Puts ‘Crisis’ In Perspective – Forbes
NASA Climate Scientist Explains 15-Year ‘Global Warming Hiatus’ « CBS DC
Can ants save Earth from global warming? – The Times of India

It’s about the Money, Not the Climate

Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), the Irish poet and dramatist, wrote “Pray don’t talk to me about the weather. Whenever people talk to me about the weather, I always feel quite certain that they mean something else.”

These days, when some world leader or politician speaks of the climate—the weather is what is happening right now wherever you are—they are not talking about sunshine or rain. They are talking about a devilishly obscene way of raising money by claiming that it is humans that are threatening the climate with everything they do, from turning on the lights to driving anywhere.

That’s why “global warming” was invented in the late 1980s as an immense threat to the Earth and to mankind. Never mind that Earth has routinely passed through warmer and cooler cycles for billions of years; much of which occurred before mankind emerged. And never mind that the Earth has been a distinct cooling cycle for the past seventeen years and likely to stay in it for a while. If the history of ice ages is any guide, we could literally be on the cusp of a new one.

If, however, a government can tax the use of energy, it stands to make a lot of money. That is why carbon taxes have been introduced in some nations and why the nearly useless “clean energy” options of wind and solar have been introduced even though they both require the backup of traditional coal, natural gas and nuclear energy plants because they cannot produce electricity if the wind isn’t blowing and the sun is obscured by clouds.

Taxing energy use means taxing “greenhouse gas” emissions; primarily carbon dioxide (C02) so that every ton of it added to the atmosphere by a power plant and any other commercial activity becomes a source of income for the nation. The Australians went through this and rapidly discovered it drove up their cost of electricity and negatively affected their economy so much that they rid themselves of a prime minister and the tax within the past year.

Fortunately, every effort to introduce a carbon tax has been defeated by the U.S. Congress, but that it has shelled out billions for “climate research” over the years. That doesn’t mean, however, that 41 demented Democrats in the House of Representatives haven’t gotten together in a “Safe Climate Caucus” led by Rep. Henry A. Waxman. The Washington Post reported that when it was launched in February 2013, the members promised to talk every day on the House floor about “the urgent need to address climate change.”

Check out the caucus and, if your Representative is a member, vote to replace him or her with someone less idiotic.

When you hear the President or a member of Congress talk about the climate, they are really talking about the scheme to generate revenue from it through taxation or to raise money from those who will personally benefit from any scheme related to the climate such as “clean energy.”

The need of governments to frighten their citizens about the climate in order to raise money is international in scope. A United States that has a $17 trillion debt is a prime example, much of it due to a government grown so large it wastes taxpayer’s money in the millions with every passing day whether it is sunny or rainy, warm or cold.

In late July, Reuters reported that Christine Lagarde, the chair of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) opined in her new book that “energy taxes in much of the world are far below what they should be to reflect the harmful environmental and health impact of fossil fuels use.”

Please pay no attention to the billions of dollars that coal, oil and natural gas already generate for the nations in which they are found. Nations such as India and China are building coal-fired plants as fast as possible to provide the electricity every modern nation needs to expand its economy, provide more employment, and improve their citizen’s lives in every way imaginable.

IMF logo“For the first time,” Reuters reported, “the IMF laid out exactly what it views as appropriate taxes on coal, natural gas, gasoline, and diesel in 156 countries to factor in the fuel’s overall costs, which include carbon dioxide emissions, air pollution, congestion and traffic accidents.” The problem with this is that the costs cited are bogus.

“Nations,” said Lagarde, “are now working on a United Nations deal for late 2015 to rein in greenhouse gas emissions that have hit repeated highs this century, but progress has been slow as nations fret about the impact any measures may have on economic growth.” As in bad impacts!

Ignore the claims that carbon dioxide affects the climate. Its role is so small it can barely be measured because CO2 represents 380 parts per million. When our primate ancestors began to climb down out of the trees, CO2 levels were about 1,000 parts per million. More CO2 means more crops, healthy growing forests, and all the other benefits that every form of vegetation provides. The breath we humans exhale contains about 4% of CO2.

The fact is that the United States and other nations are being run by politicians who are incapable of reducing spending or borrowing more in order to spend more. Venezuela just defaulted again on the payment of bonds it issued to raise money. They did this in 2001 and one must wonder why any financial institution purchases them.

There are eleven other nations whose credit ratings are flirting with big trouble. They include Greece, Ukraine, Pakistan, Cypress, and in the Americas Argentina, Venezuela, Cuba, Ecuador and Belize. Borrowing by such nations is very expensive. A U.S. Treasury Note pays an annual coupon of just 2.5%, but the yields on 10-year bonds issue by Greece reached 29% in early 2012, just before it defaulted.

Adding to problems in the U.S. is the Obama agenda being acted upon by the Environmental Protection Agency whose “war on coal” has shuttered several hundred plants that produce the electricity needed to maintain the economy. In coal producing states this is playing havoc and it is driving up the cost of electricity in others.

The growth of oil and natural gas production in the U.S. is almost entirely on privately owned land as opposed to that controlled by the government. Supporting the attack on energy are the multi-million dollar environmental organizations like Friends of the Earth and the Sierra Club.

There is no “global warming” and the climate is determined by the Sun, the oceans, clouds, and volcanic activity. Nothing any government does, here and worldwide, has any impact on it, but if nations can demonize the use of energy and tax the CO2 it produces, they can generate more money to spend and waste.

The lies that governments, the United Nations, and the International Monetary Fund tell about the climate are about the money they can extract from citizens who must be kept frightened enough to pay taxes on their use of energy.

© Alan Caruba, 2014

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is courtesy of Sonari.net.

Florida Solar Power: Free electricity? Not so much!

We  have all heard the line “if it sounds too good to be true…” Well solar power is one of those ideas that is too good to be true. Another favorite if it sounds too good to be true are the often repeated statements of President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry claiming renewable energy will lower our electric bills and create millions of jobs that can’t be sent overseas.

For an example of “too good to be true” close to home in the sunshine state, consider Hillsborough County, where the courthouse in 2010 was outfitted with rooftop solar panels, designed to produce 40% of the facility’s electricity, save $60,000 annually in electricity costs, and pay for themselves. The initial cost was $1.2 million, so by saving $60,000 per year, they would pay for themselves in 20 years – a nice, round number. Oh, and by the way, they were going to produce jobs. As part of the Obama Stimulus.

You believe this, right? Sounds good, right?

Well, not exactly. According to the WFTS News article “Solar Panels on Tampa Courthouse Fail to Meet Promises“, the panels are reducing electricity need by 15 – 18%, a savings of less than $2000 per month. At that rate, it will take 45 years for the panels to pay for their cost – if they last that long. As far as I know, there is no hard data yet on solar cell lifetime duration. Estimates range between 15 and 20 years. Solar panels deteriorate over their lifetime, so the $2000/month savings will be going down.

The cruelest blow in all this? Jobs: 12 of them, for four months.

Who brought this too good to be true miracle to pass? Well, you remember who brought us the Obama Stimulus Bill, as well as ObamaCare, the Democratic Party, which controlled Congress and the White House in 2010. They thought it was wonderful:

It is so wonderful to see the Recovery Act at work in our community, creating jobs and saving money” said U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Tampa).

This is a nice initiative that will allow the county to put a little money back into the pockets of taxpayers at a time that they need it most, and to create jobs,” said Castor.

These, by the way, were advanced solar cells, touted as being able to produce electricity even by moonlight. If this pie-in-the-sky Obama engineering doesn’t work in Florida, it bodes ill for other, more Northerly locations.

Obama came to Denver to sign the Stimulus Bill, at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science – which, like Hillsborough County Courthouse, was fitted with solar cells. Denver’s system (200 kilowatts, DC) cost $720,000, and was estimated to cover 1 to 2 % of DMNS use. The chief technology officer, Dave Noel, tried to sell the idea to the board, but admitted, without the Stimulus incentive, 110 years would be required to amortize the cost. Colorado is a pretty sunny state, with over 300 sunny days per year, but it also gets a little cold and Winter days are short. DMNS has an online graph of their solar power generation; over the last 74 months, they’ve generated 16,448 kWh per month. At $0.10/kWh, that’s worth $1645/month. Compared to the initial cost of $720,000, we’re paying off the investment over a period of only 37 years. Less than 110 years, but still twice the expected life of the solar cells.

This defiance of science, engineering and good sense has been going on all over the world, furthered by faddish green enthusiasts. Thankfully, it’s htting the wall of reality. Germany is retreating, both in the face of economic reality and their dependence on Russian natural gas. Germany has 28 electrical generating plants under construction, powered by….coal. In some cases, it’s lignite (brown) coal, the most CO2-intensive variety.

Reality means nothing to the Obama administration, however. Monday’s Wall Street Journal carries an article on the Obama plan to help Africa, specifically Kenya….wait, is this ironic? Doesn’t Obama have some connection with Kenya? The article, headlined “Kenyan Wind Project Reveals Challenges to Obama Aid Plans” reveals that Kenyan farmers are reluctant to give up their land and homes for a wind farm. Perhaps they’ve heard that no electricity flows when the wind doesn’t blow – as the Germans have learned, the hard way.

al gore statement on icecapsLaugh of the Week:

The EPA was in Denver last week, taking comments from citizens on the new regulations to diminish CO2 emissions from coal and save us all from asthma, heart attacks, and other health hazards. Apparently, Al Gore has a fleet of ice cream trucks that he sends to occasions like this to hand out free ice cream to people suffering from the heat – omnipresent because of global warming. Hey, who doesn’t like ice cream, even from The Goreacle, on a hot Summer day?

The temperature in Denver was 58F, in a steady (cold) rain. Even free ice cream wasn’t a big hit. The Gore Effect strikes again. God really does have a sense of humor.

The News Media Now Reports All Weather as “Extreme”

In a desperate effort to keep the global warming hoax alive even though it is now called “climate change”, the meteorologically challenged print and broadcast media is now declaring all weather “extreme” these days.

The Media Research Institute recently analyzed broadcast network transcripts between July 1, 2004 and July 1, 2005, along with those between July 1, 2013 and July 1, 2014. What it discovered was the network coverage of “extreme weather” had increased nearly one thousand percent!

Cartoon - Media and GW

As Sean Long reported, “during that time, extreme weather was frequently used by the networks to describe heat waves, droughts, tornadoes, hurricanes, and winter storms, and they often included the phrase in onscreen graphics or chyrons during weather stories.”

Thanks to Al Gore who continues to lie about global warming despite the fact that the Earth has been in a cooling cycle for seventeen years, the news media, print and broadcast, now substitutes its latest reincarnation, “climate change”, when reporting the weather. It’s worth noting that the weather is what is outside right now wherever you are and climate is something that is measured in decades and centuries.

The one thing you need to keep in mind is that every form of weather has been around for much of the Earth’s 4.5 billion years. Long before humans were blamed for causing it, they developed ways to adapt and survive, but tornadoes, hurricanes and floods, among other events, still kill humans with the same indifference to them that Mother Nature has always demonstrated.

Gore became a multi-millionaire based on the global warming scam and, along the way; the U.S. wasted an estimated $50 billion on alleged “research” whose sole purpose was to give credence to it. Too many scientists lined their pockets with taxpayer dollars and many government agencies increased their budgets while falsifying their findings.

The entertainment media got into the act by producing films such as Showtime’s “documentary series” called “Years of Living Dangerously.” It has received two nominations for “Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series and Outstanding Writing for Nonfiction Programming.” Its executive producer, Joel Bach, said “Every day, more Americans are experiencing the devastating impacts of a warming world and we had to tell their story.” Except that the world is NOT warming.

The Showtime series featured those noted climatologists and meteorologists, Harrison Ford, Jessica Alba, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Matt Damon among others. The final episode featured President Obama whose climate lies rival Al Gore’s. “Science is science”, said the President. “And there is no doubt that if we burned all the fossil fuel that’s in the ground right now, that the planet’s going to get too hot and the consequences could be dire.”

The real dire consequences people around the world are encountering include frostbite and freezing to death.

In a June article in Forbes magazine, James Taylor, editor of The Heartland Institute’s Environmental & Climate News, noted that “The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s most accurate, up-to-date temperature data confirm the United States has been cooling for at least a decade. The NOAA temperature data are driving a stake through the heart of alarmists claiming accelerating global warming.” The latest data support the longer cooling cycle that began around 1997.

The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) recently announced that “The growing consequences of climate change are putting many of the country’s most iconic and historic sites at risk”, citing Ellis Island, the Everglades, Cape Canaveral and California’s Cesar Chavez National Monument. The UCS said that “we must work to minimize these risks in the future by reducing the carbon emissions that are causing climate change…” This is utter rubbish.

Called a “pollutant” by the Environmental Protection Agency, carbon dioxide is, along with oxygen, a natural gas that is vital to all life on Earth as the “food” on which all vegetation depends.

William Happer, the Cyrus Fogg Bracket Professor of Physics at Princeton University, told the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee that “Our exhaled breath contains about 4% CO2. That is 40,000 parts per million or about 100 times the current atmospheric concentration. Our own primate ancestors evolved when the levels of atmospheric CO2 were about 1000 parts per million, a level that we will probably not reach by burning fossil fuels, and far above our current level of about 380 parts per million.”

The Earth would benefit from more, not less, CO2.

How concerned is the public? Not very. In May, a Gallup poll noted that Americans consider unemployment/jobs, government corruption, and the economy as the three “most important” problems facing the nation. “Just 3% of those surveyed listed the environment/pollution as America’s most important problem. From a list of thirteen problems, it was number twelve.

The news media will continue to misrepresent the weather and/or climate and those determined to keep us from accessing and using the USA’s vast reserves of coal, oil and natural gas will continue to lie about it. The good news is that a growing portion of the public no longer believes the three decades of lies.

© Alan Caruba, 2014