The Illusion of Marijuana As Medicine

Since speaking of the fantastical nature of medical marijuana, I have been bombarded with commentaries and concerns regarding the legal status of the plant in Florida. Sadly, most of the comments have been hateful, demeaning, and designed only to intimidate.

But hidden amongst the hate speech are some communications that honestly raise questions of a medical role for marijuana and report favorable experiences with its use.

So here’s the bottom line: As a physician, I completely acknowledge the pain and suffering of those afflicted with chronic and debilitating diseases and of the sometimes tragic shortcomings of our pharmacopeia, but the data supporting marijuana as a bona fide medicinal tool is simply lacking… and may always be.

Any honest discussion regarding medical marijuana must begin with the full acknowledgment of the secondary interests motivating it. Many pro-medical-marijuana advocates eagerly cite alleged conspiratorial efforts by pharmaceuticals to stifle its use, but they fail to acknowledge the millions of dollars pumped into the campaign for its legalization by the growing marijuana industry, and the even greater amounts of money some stand to gain from favorable policy decisions.

So, let’s be honest and admit that there are pecuniary interests on both sides of the issue striving to skew the conversation in their favor.

Asking the tough questions

With this admission in mind, I begin with one simple question: If marijuana is truly a medicine, then what about its pharmacology makes it so different as to allow it to bypass the scrutiny applied to all others medications? What is medically so different about marijuana that states can implement laws with insufficient study for the sole purpose of bypassing the FDA, and constitutional amendments are passed to allow for its use as a medicine?

The answer, of course, is nothing, which adds to the contention that something much bigger than the use of the plant as a medication — perhaps the quest to legalize its recreational use — is the true driver of the medical marijuana debate. If that be the case, then ransacking the nation’s health care system for the mere promotion of a recreational drug is dishonest, reckless, and dangerous.

Then there’s the pesky issue of the science.

First, marijuana is not one substance, but rather a complex of more than 400 biologically active compounds including, terpenoids, flavonoids, and over 70 cannabinoids. The interactions between these substances and their specific benefits are not understood. What’s more, their specific combinations vary between strains of the plant, growth conditions, the manner in which the plant is prepared for consumption, distribution methods, storage times, and storage conditions.

All this may be totally acceptable for a recreational product, but it is the death knell of a prospective medication.

What’s worse, there is very little data supporting the use of marijuana for many of the claimed indications.

What thorough marijuana study reveals

Perhaps the most thorough and objective review on this topic appeared in 2015 in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Researchers studied 23,754 “hits” on their search engines. They arrived at 79 studies reported in 151 papers from all over the world (encompassing 6,462 participants) that the authors found were of sufficiently low bias and high scientific control to be taken seriously as scientific analyses.The researchers then stratified the collective results of the studies into varying levels of data quality to support a recommendation for the use of marijuana and its derivatives in health care. Neither, the cannabinoids nor marijuana, received a rating of high confidence in the treatment of a single symptom or condition!

Conclusion: the science supporting the use of marijuana or cannabinoids as a medicine is simply not there. In fact, only in the treatment of chronic neuropathic, cancer pain, and spasticity was any data found that rose to a level of moderate scientific quality.

Additionally, when marijuana was used for pain control it did not diminish the demand for opioids, thus eviscerating the contention that by allowing for the use of medical marijuana there would be fewer complications related to opioid use and opioid addiction.

Nausea and vomiting, HIV/AIDs, depression, anxiety disorder, psychosis, sleep disorders, and Tourette syndrome received either low quality support or very low quality support. Studies regarding other conditions such as the actual treatment of cancer, glaucoma, seizure disorders, Crohn’s disease, sickle cell disease, psoriasis, and Parkinson’s disease were so poor that they did not even rise to the level of meriting inclusion in the JAMA study.

Risks lacking known rewards

On the flip side, the risks of treatment with marijuana are not inconsequential.

First, dosing of smoked marijuana remains unpredictable. And although much of the medical marijuana debate centers on the effects of single exposures, insufficient information exists regarding the effects of repeated exposures. Approximately 10% of people routinely using marijuana become addicted, with a higher incidence amongst adolescents. Tolerance and down-regulation of receptors have been documented with repeated marijuana use. A marijuana withdrawal syndrome has also been recognized, as has an association with psychosis.

Despite the lack of scientific evidence to support the use of medical marijuana, the states have run the gamut on the list of scientifically unsupported treatments they will allow. For example, last year, Florida approved a constitutional amendment listing cancer, epilepsy, glaucoma, HIV/AIDs, PTSD, ALS, Crohn’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, MS, any medical condition similar to those listed above, and terminal conditions as ones for which marijuana may be used. And in Connecticut, the use of marijuana for the treatment of sickle cell disease and psoriasis is also allowed.

The endocannabinoid ruse

There are those, particular amongst the more vitriolic advocates, who misguidedly cite the endocannabinoid system as evidence for the benignity of marijuana use, suggesting that we should allow for marijuana’s medicinal use because cannabinoids are already existing inside our bodies. In fact, the existence of such a system should result in further caution against the proliferation of marijuana use.

The human body does produce cannabis-like substances, but they naturally exist in very small quantities, are precisely released, and linger for very brief periods of time. These endocannabinoids affect nerve growth and maturation, and guide intercellular connections during pruning (the process by which nerve cells find and refine their connections).

Exocannabinoids, on the other hand, those that are ingested or inhaled like marijuana, are long lasting, exist in higher quantities, and are relatively indiscriminate in their distribution.

The consequences of taking these substances from an external source are not only unknown, but potentially very disruptive to human development — an even more disturbing consideration since brain development continues until the age of 25 years. Such indiscriminate and physiologically disruptive effects may explain the negative behavioral and emotional changes associated with adolescents who are repeatedly exposed to marijuana.

Study and FDA approval needed

Yes, as a legislator, I am aware that in Florida, 71% of the electorate voted for the medical marijuana constitutional amendment. But such an outcome, promoted by monied interests, does not negate the fact that marijuana is not a medicine.

Like any other physiologically acting collection of substances, marijuana is a potentially dangerous, incompletely understood, and improperly controlled combination of chemicals whose benefits have not been found to sufficiently outweigh its risk.

I continue to call for the FDA and the federal government to devote resources to the study of this plant and its effects. With adequate support for well-controlled, scientific research, there may come a day when sufficient, meritorious information will be available to allow the FDA to provide health care providers with reliable prescribing information and for manufactures to create products known to be beneficial to patients.

But until such time, physicians need to shy away from the indiscriminate, and still illegal, use of marijuana in their patients, and states need to be leery of policies enacted in contradiction to federal law.

As for the advocates, if their goal is to legalize marijuana for recreational use, then let’s have that discussion and not use our nation’s health care system as a ruse for the promotion of marijuana’s greater acceptance as a recreational drug.

In the meantime, and despite the accusations, bully tactics, and vitriol, I will continue to evaluate the medical literature regarding marijuana with a scrupulous eye and a mind open to the strengths of both sides of the argument.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in The Revolutionary Act.

VIDEO: Paris Accord is About Wealth Redistribution, Not Climate

Jason Devaney from NewsMax reports:

The Paris Climate accord’s premise is wealth distribution and it would not even have much of an impact on Earth’s climate, ClimateDepot.com founder Marc Morano said.

During an interview with Newsmax TV’s Steve Malzberg, Morano discussed the climate change agreement that President Donald Trump is reportedly leaning toward withdrawing the U.S. from.

“You wouldn’t even be able to measure the impact using the UN assumptions. This is according to a peer-reviewed paper by a statistician called Dr. Bjorn Lomborg,” Morano said.

“The UN has actually admitted the real reason for the treaty. They said this is not even environmental policy anymore, we will redistribute wealth by climate policy. That’s what they want, a $100 billion a year slush fund going to governments that are best able to keep your people locked in poverty.

Read more…

Trump is pulling U.S. out of UN Paris Climate Pact – A Victory for Science!

WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Donald Trump today officially announced that he intends to withdraw from the UN Paris climate pact. Trump has fulfilled a key campaign promise and is gutting one has been termed one of the “most expensive treaties in the history of the world.”

The Hill is reporting:

President Trump will pull the United States out of the Paris climate change agreement, Axios reported Wednesday. The report, citing two sources with “direct knowledge,” said Trump is working with a group led by Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) chief Scott Pruitt on the exact mechanism of pulling out before announcing his final decision. CBS News also reported that Trump is telling allies about his decision. The move marks a dramatic departure from the Obama administration, which was instrumental in crafting the deal. It also makes the U.S. an outlier among the world’s nations, nearly all of whom support the climate change accord. But Trump’s decision fulfills an original campaign promise he made just over a year ago to “cancel” the accord. 

The Associated Press is reporting:

A White House official says President Donald Trump is expected to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate accord. But the official says there may be “caveats in the language” that Trump uses to announce the withdrawal – leaving open the possibility that the decision isn’t final.

According to Axios, GOP Senators played a key role in influencing Trump to pull out of the UN climate pact.

Axios: How it happened: A letter from 22 Republican Senators (including Mitch McConnell) that called for a clean exit had reinforced Trump’s instincts to withdraw, and the president had been telling confidants over the past week that he was going to pull out.

Skeptics Rejoice:

Climate Depot’s Marc Morano statement: “A U.S. Clexit (Climate Exit from UN Paris Pact) is a victory for science.President Trump today, in one swoop, made perhaps the most consequential decision of his presidency both in domestic and international policy by announcing a Clexit of the U.S. from the UN Paris agreement. One of Trump’s core political principles has been an America first policy and knowing the art of a deal. Trump realized that the UN Paris climate pact would not serve the interests of U.S. foreign policy or domestic energy policy. The near total dismantling of former President Obama’s “climate legacy” is now almost complete. Bravo!  President Trump understands that the UN has no interest in climate. The UN’s real goal is “global governance” and “wealth redistribution.” Flashback: UN IPCC Official Edenhofer: ‘We Redistribute World’s Wealth By Climate Policy’

Climate Depot’s Morano predicted Trump’s actions today back in November 2016 while attending the UN climate summit in Morocco. Morano was ejected from the summit for shredding the UN Paris agreement. See: UN Armed Security Shuts Down Skeptics After SHREDDING UN Climate Treaty at Summit Next To Trump Cut-out – November 16, 2016

A UN climate agreement that is totally meaningless when it comes to the climate. University of Pennsylvania Geologist Dr. Robert Giegengack  has noted: “None of the strategies that have been offered by the U.S. government or by the EPA or by anybody else has the remotest chance of altering climate if in fact climate is controlled by carbon dioxide.”

Climate Depot Marc Morano adds: In layman’s terms: All of the so-called ‘solutions’ to global warming are purely symbolic when it comes to climate. So, even if we actually faced a climate catastrophe and we had to rely on a UN climate agreement, we would all be doomed!  Make no mistake, climate campaigners who tout UN agreements and EPA regulations as a way to control Earth’s temperature and storminess are guilty of belief in superstition. Today, America rejects superstition and the believe that governments regulations and UN agreements can control the climate. 

NASA’s former lead global warming scientist Dr. James Hansen is also not a big fan of the UN Paris accord. See: ‘Fraud, Fake…Worthless Words’: NASA’s James Hansen on UN Paris Pact – Trump should take note – “[The Paris agreement] is a fraud really, a fake. It’s just bullshit for them to say: ‘We’ll have a 2C warming target and then try to do a little better every five years.’ It’s just worthless words. There is no action, just promises. As long as fossil fuels appear to be the cheapest fuels out there, they will be continued to be burned.”Climate experts who have looked at the UN climate agreement think Trump is correct to dismantle it. Danish statistician Bjorn Lomborg wrote “Trump’s climate plan might not be so bad after all.” Lomborg added that Trump withdrawing from the UN treaty “will will stop the pursuit of an expensive dead end” because even if you accept the climate claims of the UN, the agreement “will matter very little to temperature rise.” (Also see: Bjorn Lomborg: ‘Germany Spends $110 Billion to Delay Global Warming by 37 Hours’)

Statistician: UN climate treaty will cost $100 trillion – To Have No Impact – Postpone warming by less than four years by 2100

Statistician: UN climate treaty will cost $100 trillion – To Have No Impact – Postpone warming by less than four years by 2100Lomborg: “If the U.S. delivers for the whole century on the President Obama’s very ambitious rhetoric, it would postpone global warming by about eight months at the end of the century.”Danish statistician Dr. Bjorn Lomborg, the President of the Copenhagen Consensus Center: “We will spend at least one hundred trillion dollars in order to reduce the temperature by the end of the century by a grand total of three tenths of one degree…the equivalent of postponing warming by less than four years…Again, that is using the UN’s own climate prediction model.” “But here is the biggest problem: These minuscule benefits do not come free — quite the contrary. The cost of the UN Paris climate pact is likely to run 1 to 2 trillion dollars every year.”
Lomborg Blasts UN Paris Treaty’s $100 Trillion Price Tag For No Temp Impact: ‘You won’t be able to measure it in 100 years’ – Bjorn Lomborg: The debate about the UN Paris Agreement is “about identity politics. It’s about feeling good… but the climate doesn’t care about how you feel.”
Bjorn Lomborg on UN climate deal: ‘This is likely to be among most expensive treaties in the history of the world’

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Report: Trump tells ‘confidants’ U.S. will leave Paris climate deal

Latest developments below.

https://www.axios.com/scoop-trump-is-pulling-u-s-out-of-paris-climate-deal-2427773025.html?stream=top-stories&utm_source=alert&utm_medium=email&utm_term=alerts_all

Trump is pulling U.S. out of Paris climate deal

Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP

President Trump has made his decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accord, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the decision. Details on how the withdrawal will be executed are being worked out by a small team including EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt. They’re deciding on whether to initiate a full, formal withdrawal — which could take 3 years — or exit the underlying United Nations climate change treaty, which would be faster but more extreme.

Why this matters: Pulling out of Paris is the biggest thing Trump could do to unravel Obama’s climate legacy. It sends a combative signal to the rest of the world that America doesn’t prioritize climate change and threatens to unravel the ambition of the entire deal.

The other outliers: The only other two countries that aren’t supporting the deal are Nicaragua and Syria.

How it happened: A letter from 22 Republican Senators (including Mitch McConnell) that called for a clean exit had reinforced Trump’s instincts to withdraw, and the president had been telling confidants over the past week that he was going to pull out.

Image result for trump climate paris

Climate Skeptics cheer Clexit from UN Paris Agreement
Cheers! Trump Refuses To Sign G7 Statement Endorsing UN Paris Climate Agreement

UN Armed Security Shuts Down Skeptics After SHREDDING UN Climate Treaty at Summit Next To Trump Cut-outFull Video of UN Climate Cops Shutting Down SkepticsSkeptics Sought to End Climate Activists Denial Over Trump Rejecting UN Paris Climate AgreementLife size stand up of Trump taken down — Would UN have objected if life size Obama image were displayed instead?

Associated Press: Climate skeptic shreds Paris Agreement at UN ‘global warming’ conference

Watch Associated Press Video of UN armed security escorting Marc Morano & Craig Rucker from UN climate summit

Climate Depot’s New ‘Talking Points’ Report – A-Z Debunking of Climate ClaimsClimate Depot’s New ‘Talking Points’ Report – A-Z Debunking of Climate Claims

Read Full report Here: http://www.cfact.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Climate-Talking-Points.pdf

The “Talking Points Memo,” by Marc Morano of CFACT’s Climate Depot, is a complete skeptics’ guide for elected officials, media and the public on how to discuss global warming backed up by dozens of citations to peer-reviewed research. “Make no mistake, climate campaigners who tout UN agreements and EPA regulations as a way to control Earth’s temperature and storminess are guilty of belief in superstition,” he added.

The G-7’s Outrageous Hypocrisy by John Tamny

An article in Saturday’s Wall Street Journal about the European leg of President Trump’s first foreign trip came with the headline: “Leaders Confront US on Russia, Climate.” In particular, non-US G-7 leaders are all strongly in favor of the 2015 Paris climate agreement that would require participating countries to limit carbon emissions, among other restraints on economic activity.

Trump disagrees, thus the confrontation, owing to his correct belief that the climate deal would prove a barrier to economic growth.That Trump was in opposition to the other G-7 members apparently led to some tense discussion about the US’s desire to exit commitments made during the presidency of Barack Obama. German Chancellor Angela Merkel confirmed that opinions expressed about the withering climate accord “were exchanged very intensively.”

You Obey, We Ignore

Merkel and other G-7 leaders disappointed in the 45th president have no leg to stand on, and certainly aren’t in the position to confront any US president. Trump should make this plain without an ounce of regret. The latter would be true even if the Paris accord were a credible answer to the theory that says economic progress is a major threat to our existence.

Indeed, the Europeans talk a big game about the importance of commitments, and of how the alleged fight to save the earth “has to be a collective effort,” but they’ve shown no remorse about their own persistent failure to honor their NATO spending pledges.

Translated, these nations expect the United States to weaken its economy based on an unproven, but rather expensive theory about the effects of climate change. But when it comes to living up to a longstanding agreement among NATO members to share the costs of a mutual defense shield, they’ll let the US foot the bill.

More interesting here is that in their desperation to keep the US in the Paris fold, Merkel and others are implicitly saying that any agreement made among leading western European countries without the US isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on. With good reason.

So Much for Commitment

Consider non-NATO treaties like Maastricht, in which EU nations agreed to limit their deficit spending so that their debt/GDP ratios would always stay below 60%. Woops. As of 2015, Germany (74.4%), France (89.6%), and Italy (122.3%) were all well above what the G-7 countries committed to when they signed the treaty that led to the euro. As for their commitment to requiring euro member states to individually handle their debts, it too went out the window given the fear among EU members about what debt default would do to certain large banks.

Back to NATO, the European leaders so eager to guilt Trump into a climate commitment not his own have once again shown no commensurate guilt about their own safety being a function of US taxpayers and legislators regularly living up to commitments that they haven’t lived up to.

Mutual Defense

This is particularly galling when we remember that NATO’s mutual defense shield arguably has very little to do with US safety. Lest we forget, the US already has the strongest military in the world, and it’s also quite far from the world’s trouble spots. In short, the US has long stuck to an agreement that weakens it economically, and that has little to nothing to do with its ongoing existence.

Would Americans feel any less secure absent this pricey post-WWII arrangement? At the same time, could NATO survive and would Europeans still feel secure sans American support that gives NATO global relevance?The answer to the previous question explains why the Paris agreement will lose all meaning and relevance if the US backs out. We know this given the historical truth that non-US G-7 nations speak with a forked tongue.

They talk grandly about honoring commitments, but their actions invariably belie their lofty rhetoric. Just as they’ve done with NATO, or with their own inter-European treaties, they want the US to abide the Paris agreement so that they don’t have to.

In that case, President Trump would be very unwise to lend US credibility to an agreement that history says G-7 members will eventually trample on. While the Paris accord surely can’t survive without Trump’s support, neither can his commitment to 3 percent growth survive more government meddling meant to placate shaky G-7 members, all based on a theory. Trump has an easy answer; his rejection of the Paris agreement one that checks the political, economic and rationality boxes.

Trump has an easy answer; his rejection of the Paris agreement one that checks the political, economic and rationality boxes.

John Tamny

John Tamny is a Forbes contributor, editor of RealClearMarkets, a senior fellow in economics at Reason, and a senior economic adviser to Toreador Research & Trading. He’s the author of the 2016 book Who Needs the Fed? (Encounter), along with Popular Economics (Regnery Publishing, 2015).

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Report: Trump tells ‘confidants’ U.S. will leave Paris climate deal

WASHINGTON – Multiple news agencies, including Reuters News, are now reporting that President Donald Trump has privately informed several officials in Washington DC that he intends to withdraw from the UN Paris climate pact.

Climate Depot’s Marc Morano statement: “A U.S. Clexit (Climate Exit from UN Paris Pact) would be a victory for science. Make no mistake, climate campaigners who tout UN agreements and EPA regulations as a way to control Earth’s temperature and storminess are guilty of belief in superstition.” 

Latest developments below.

Via: https://www.axios.com/scoop-trump-tells-confidants-he-plans-to-leave-paris-climate-deal-2424446776.html

Scoop: Trump tells confidants U.S. will quit Paris climate deal

By Jonathan Swan & Amy HarderPresident Trump has privately told multiple people, including EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, that he plans to leave the Paris agreement on climate change, according to three sources with direct knowledge.

Image result for trump climate paris un

Publicly, Trump’s position is that he has not made up his mind and when we asked the White House about these private comments, Director of Strategic Communications Hope Hicks said, “I think his tweet was clear. He will make a decision this week.”

Why this matters: Pulling out of Paris is the biggest thing Trump could to do unravel Obama’s climate policies. It also sends a stark and combative signal to the rest of the world that working with other nations on climate change isn’t a priority to the Trump administration. And pulling out threatens to unravel the ambition of the entire deal, given how integral former President Obama was in making it come together in the first place.

Caveat: Although Trump made it clear during the campaign and in multiple conversations before his overseas trip that he favored withdrawal, he has been known to abruptly change his mind — and often floats notions to gauge the reaction of friends and aides. On the trip, he spent many hours with Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, powerful advisers who back the deal.

Behind-the-scenes: The mood inside the EPA this week has been one of nervous optimism. In a senior staff meeting earlier this week, Pruitt told aides he wanted them to pump the brakes on publicly lobbying for withdrawal from Paris.

Via: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-climate-idUSKBN18O00J

Trump tells ‘confidants’ U.S. will leave Paris climate deal – Axio

U.S. President Donald Trump has told “confidants,” including the head of the Environmental Protection Agency Scott Pruitt, that he plans to leave a landmark international agreement on climate change, Axios news outlet reported on Saturday, citing three sources with direct knowledge.On Saturday, Trump said in a Twitter post he would make a decision on whether to support the Paris climate deal next week.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

END REUTERS EXCERPT

Climate Depot Note: A UN climate agreement that is totally meaningless when it comes to the climate. University of Pennsylvania Geologist Dr. Robert Giegengack  has also noted: “None of the strategies that have been offered by the U.S. government or by the EPA or by anybody else has the remotest chance of altering climate if in fact climate is controlled by carbon dioxide.”

Climate Depot Marc Morano adds: “In layman’s terms: All of the so-called ‘solutions’ to global warming are purely symbolic when it comes to climate. So, even if we actually faced a climate catastrophe and we had to rely on a UN climate agreement, we would all be doomed!  A U.S. Clexit (Climate Exit from UN Paris Pact) would be a victory for science. Make no mistake, climate campaigners who tout UN agreements and EPA regulations as a way to control Earth’s temperature and storminess are guilty of belief in superstition,” Morano added.

NASA’s former lead global warming scientist Dr. James Hansen is not a big fan of the UN Paris accord. See: ‘Fraud, Fake…Worthless Words’: NASA’s James Hansen on UN Paris Pact – Trump should take note – “[The Paris agreement] is a fraud really, a fake. It’s just bullshit for them to say: ‘We’ll have a 2C warming target and then try to do a little better every five years.’ It’s just worthless words. There is no action, just promises. As long as fossil fuels appear to be the cheapest fuels out there, they will be continued to be burned.”

Climate experts who have looked at the UN climate agreement think Trump is correct to dismantle it. Danish statistician Bjorn Lomborg wrote “Trump’s climate plan might not be so bad after all.”

Lomborg added that Trump withdrawing from the UN treaty “will will stop the pursuit of an expensive dead end” because even if you accept the climate claims of the UN, the agreement “will matter very little to temperature rise.” (Also see: Bjorn Lomborg: ‘Germany Spends $110 Billion to Delay Global Warming by 37 Hours’)

Statistician: UN climate treaty will cost $100 trillion – To Have No Impact – Postpone warming by less than four years by 2100

Statistician: UN climate treaty will cost $100 trillion – To Have No Impact – Postpone warming by less than four years by 2100

‘If the U.S. delivers for the whole century on the President Obama’s very ambitious rhetoric, it would postpone global warming by about eight months at the end of the century.’Danish statistician Dr. Bjorn Lomborg, the President of the Copenhagen Consensus Center: ‘We will spend at least one hundred trillion dollars in order to reduce the temperature by the end of the century by a grand total of three tenths of one degree…the equivalent of postponing warming by less than four years…Again, that is using the UN’s own climate prediction model.’‘But here is the biggest problem: These minuscule benefits do not come free — quite the contrary. The cost of the UN Paris climate pact is likely to run 1 to 2 trillion dollars every year.’

Lomborg Blasts UN Paris Treaty’s $100 Trillion Price Tag For No Temp Impact: ‘You won’t be able to measure it in 100 years’ – Bjorn Lomborg: The debate about the UN Paris Agreement is “about identity politics. It’s about feeling good… but the climate doesn’t care about how you feel.”

Bjorn Lomborg on UN climate deal: ‘This is likely to be among most expensive treaties in the history of the world’

Climate Skeptics set to cheer Clexit from UN Paris Agreement
Cheers! Trump Refuses To Sign G7 Statement Endorsing UN Paris Climate Agreement

UN Armed Security Shuts Down Skeptics After SHREDDING UN Climate Treaty at Summit Next To Trump Cut-outFull Video of UN Climate Cops Shutting Down SkepticsSkeptics Sought to End Climate Activists Denial Over Trump Rejecting UN Paris Climate Agreement

Life size stand up of Trump taken down — Would UN have objected if life size Obama image were displayed instead?

Associated Press: Climate skeptic shreds Paris Agreement at UN ‘global warming’ conference

Watch Associated Press Video of UN armed security escorting Marc Morano & Craig Rucker from UN climate summit

Climate Depot’s New ‘Talking Points’ Report – A-Z Debunking of Climate ClaimsClimate Depot’s New ‘Talking Points’ Report – A-Z Debunking of Climate Claims

Read Full report Here: http://www.cfact.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Climate-Talking-Points.pdf

The “Talking Points Memo,” by Marc Morano of CFACT’s Climate Depot, is a complete skeptics’ guide for elected officials, media and the public on how to discuss global warming backed up by dozens of citations to peer-reviewed research. “Make no mistake, climate campaigners who tout UN agreements and EPA regulations as a way to control Earth’s temperature and storminess are guilty of belief in superstition,” he added.

VIDEO: Bill Nye the Science Lie

Have you ever wondered how the area we now know as Kansas has, over time, gone from being under 2500 feet of water to being under 2 miles of ice and back to what it is, today? Well, chances are, it wasn’t fossil fuel burning power plants.

This video does tend to put things in perspective.

RELATED ARTICLE: Al Gore: Syrian civil war and Arab Spring both resulted from climate change/food riots

Why my opponents won’t debate me

Last week I was interviewed by Steven Crowder on his show “Louder Than Crowder.” It was a fun discussion that covered a lot of interesting topics, including why it is that fossil fuel opponents refuse to debate me–or back out after agreeing to debate me.

Watch/listen here.


hearts and minds alex epstein

Dilbert Exposes Climate “Science”

A recent Dilbert comic hilariously captured a point I regularly make when debating fossil fuel opponents: that claims of catastrophic climate change are not based on demonstrated science but speculative climate models–models that are overwhelmingly biased to show catastrophic warming.

I have a lot of respect for Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, who has shown both clear thinking and immense courage in taking on this issue. Earlier this year he wrote a must-read blog post on this issue, “How to Convince Skeptics that Climate Change Is a Problem.”

The post is filled with sharp observations. Here’s one that that I haven’t heard anyone make before:

“If skeptics make you retreat to Pascal’s Wager as your main argument for aggressively responding to climate change, please understand that you lost the debate. The world is full of risks that might happen. We don’t treat all of them as real. And we can’t rank any of these risks to know how to allocate our capital to the best path. Should we put a trillion dollars into climate remediation or use that money for a missile defense system to better protect us from North Korea?”

Be sure to read the entire post.

We constantly get messages from readers and viewers commenting on how our pro-human, full-context approach to thinking about issues has changed their way of thinking–and communicating.

Here’s a recent one, from a company that used our brand new Lunch-and-Learn program–a free training course that will help motivate and educate employees about the value of fossil fuels–and teach them to communicate that value to others.

“We [held our Lunch-and-Learn] just yesterday and the team thoroughly enjoyed the experience! Besides the opportunity to learn more about the topic and process; the concept of ‘lunch and learn’ was very well received. If you are considering using this format on a more regular basis, we believe it would add great value. For now we are a small 4 person team here in South Africa, and to have content and clarity such as this truly streamlines the learning process.

“Thank you for making great material available to the industry in this way.” – Gary

You can gain immediate access to this empowering tool here.

We’ve also received some great comments on Twitter, including a lot of people encouraging fossil fuel critics to debate me. Here are a few recent mentions.

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ALSO: Whenever you’re ready, here are 3 ways I can help your organization turn non-supporters into supporters and turn supporters into champions.

1. Fill out the free Constructive Conversation Scorecard to assess where you are and where you want to be in your one-on-one communications.

Email it back to me and I’ll send you my step-by-step Constructive Conversation System that will enable you to talk to anyone about energy.

2. Hold a free Lunch-and-Learn (inside or outside the industry).

This program contains one of my favorite debates along with some “cheat sheets” to help you make the moral case for fossil fuels in your professional and personal life more easily than you thought possible. You can have access to the entire program right now. By the end of the session you and your team will:

  • gain a deeper sense of meaning from their work
  • be able to turn fossil fuel skeptics into fossil fuel supporters
  • learn the secrets to having constructive conversations about energy instead of frustrating fights

Click here to sign up for the free program.

3. Hire me to speak at your next event.

If you have an upcoming board meeting, employee town hall, or association meeting, I have some new and updated speeches about the moral case for fossil fuels, winning hearts and minds, and communications strategy in the new political climate. If you’d like to consider me for your event, just reply to this message and put “Event” in the subject line.

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Minnesota needs $5 million to fight infectious diseases in migrant population

Hey, since many of the refugees and other immigrants now causing expensive infectious diseases to spread in the state are a result of Obama’s migration policy, maybe he could contribute his $3 million speaking fee to Minnesota as a partial payment to handle the crisis!

Remember this story! Gov. Mark Dayton: If you don’t like our Somali refugees, get out of Minnesota because they are here to stay! 

Here is the latest news generated by the recent Measles epidemic in Minnesota. As of Tuesday there were 50 diagnosed cases, most (45) are in the ‘Somali community.’

And, we are told that refugees don’t cost state and local taxpayers a dime!

FILE In this June 30, 2011 photo, Gov. Mark Dayton speaks during a news conference hours before the midnight deadline to pass a budget at the Minnesota State Capitol  in St. Paul, Minn.   The Democratic governor and legislative Republicans are deadlocked over a $5 billion budget deficit. Republicans have refused any tax hike.   (AP Photo/Genevieve Ross)

Gov. Mark Dayton  (AP Photo/Genevieve Ross)

From Michael Patrick Leahy at Breitbart:

Minnesota Health Commissioner Dr. Ed Ehlinger sounded an alert on more frequent and costly threats to the public health, referencing measles, tuberculosis, and even the Zika virus and syphilis, according to a statement released by the MDH on Wednesday as reported by Hometownsource.com.

“In recent months, state and local public health officials have had to respond to a series of infectious disease outbreaks including multi-drug resistant tuberculosis, hundreds of new cases of syphilis, and now, the largest measles outbreak the state has faced in nearly 30 years. These outbreaks come on the heels of extensive public health efforts in 2016 for the Zika virus response and in 2014-15 for Ebola preparedness,” he added….

[ … ]

Minnesota is currently in the middle of the largest outbreak of measles in over twenty years. As of Tuesday, 50 cases of measles have been diagnosed in the state since the first case was reported on April 11, 45 of which have been diagnosed in Somali Minnesotans.

As Breitbart News reported previously, 90 percent of the 168 cases of active tuberculosis diagnosed in Minnesota in 2016 were foreign-born, much higher than the 67 percent of foreign-born cases that accounted for the 9,287 cases of active TB diagnosed in the United States in 2016.

Fourteen of those cases were from newly arrived refugees, eleven of whom were diagnosed with active TB in medical screenings overseas but were nonetheless allowed to resettle in Minnesota by the Obama administration’s Department of Homeland Security.

Continue reading here. The article is chock full of important information and links to follow.

See my ‘Health issues’ category, here, where I have archived 329 previous posts about health issues (including mental health issues) involving the refugee flow to America.

I wondered here if this Measles outbreak started with a newly arrived refugee from Somalia (or from elsewhere in East Africa since a large number of our Somalis come from UN camps in Kenya).

BTW, Slate had a hysterical story the other day claiming this Measles outbreak is Trump’s fault—not because he is admitting infected Somalis, but because he hangs with “Anti-vaxxer pals.”  Huh?

Mr. Cool goes to Milan, announces that ‘climate refugees’ will flood the first world

Changing the subject?

Unbuttoned to mid-chest: We are told that Mr. Cool forgot his tie. If you are a former President of the U.S. staying in what must be the most expensive hotel in the city, isn’t it possible to send out for a wonderful selection of beautiful ties?

Just in case Islam-generated conflicts run out of steam in the Middle East and Africa, Barack Obama crossed the Atlantic to collect a speaking fee reportedly in the $3 million range to pronounce that, as a result of global warming there would be a refugee crisis “unprecedented in human history.”

He wants to make sure that world Open Borders activists (and global corporations looking for cheap labor) wouldn’t run out of reasons to tear down borders to the first world (if Islamic conflicts fail to do a good enough job).

Obama talked extensively in the speech about the impact of warming, while several reports lately say the earth is entering a cooling period.  So which is it?

Below is some of what Obama said in what some, here are calling a “contradictory speech.”

From the UK Independent:

Climate change could produce a refugee crisis that is “unprecedented in human history”, Barack Obama has warned as he stressed global warming was the most pressing issue of the age.

Speaking at an international food conference in Milan, the former US President said rising temperatures were already making it more difficult to grow crops and rising food prices were “leading to political instability”.

“Floods on sunny days”—bad, very bad….

He said the United States was currently experiencing “floods on sunny days”, increased wildfires and, in Alaska, increased coastal erosion as the ice melts and no country was “immune” to the problem.

Climate refugees on the march….

If world leaders put aside “parochial interests” and took action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by enough to restrict the rise to one or two degrees Celsius, then humanity would probably be able to cope. [So, might we shut up about this issue if sunspot activity and natural cycles restrict the rise to one or two degrees?—ed]

Failing to do this, Mr Obama warned, increased the risk of “catastrophic” effects in the future, “not only real threats to food security, but also increases in conflict as a consequence of scarcity and greater refugee and migration patterns”.

“If those rain patterns change, then you could see hundreds of millions of people who suddenly find themselves unable to feed themselves, because they’re already at subsistence levels.

“And the amount of migration, the number of refugees that could be resulting from something like that, would be unprecedented in human history.”

Dare I mention the scientific notion of carrying capacity and that a population die-off might be mother earth’s way of staying in balance (okay stone me!).

Continue reading here.

I have a ‘Climate Refugees’ category with 49 previous posts on the topic, here.  I don’t know if they have settled their differences, but early-on the climate refugee agitators were at odds with the ‘humanitarian’ refugee agitators over the use of the word “refugee.”  ‘Humanitarians’ were angered by environmentalists stealing the word that they had over decades built up as one that invokes warm and fuzzy feelings among people who know nothing.

RELATED ARTICLE: Largest US Solar Panel Maker Files for Bankruptcy After Receiving $206 Million in Subsidies

Recent Energy and Environmental News

It’s hard to believe, but we now are in MAY! The newest edition of the Energy and Environmental Newsletter is now online.

I recommend studying this excellent website about Lobbying and how to do it.

Some of the more interesting energy articles in this issue are:

US Tax Subsidies For Renewables Now Far Outpaces Fossil Fuels

Wind Industry Titan Soaks Up Billions in Tax Subsidies

Oklahoma ends wind power subsidy

Solar Power: An Environmental Disaster

The Real Threat is ‘Big Environment’

53 year old coal plant generates more electricity that all wind facilities combined

DOE study on electric grid to be done by “renewable skeptic”

We must protect Texas’ military installations from encroaching wind turbines

Failed Economics Of Renewable Energy: The Facts

Some of the more informative Global Warming articles in this issue are:

End of Global Warming Debate — It’s As Easy As 1-2-3

Every green initiative imposed on us by politicians has ended in disaster

Exiting the Paris Climate Agreement

Peer-Reviewed: Paris climate promises will reduce temps in 2100 by 0.05°C

Please: Sign Petition Against Paris Agreement

Real science must guide policy

Major U.S. university publishes ‘Communism for Kids’

PS: As always, please pass this on to open-minded citizens, and on your social media sites. If there are others who you think would benefit from being on our energy & environmental email list, please let me know. If at any time you’d like to be taken off the list, simply send me an email saying that.

PPS: I am not an attorney, so no material appearing in any of the Newsletters (or our WiseEnergy.org website) should be construed as giving legal advice. My recommendation has always been: consult a competent attorney when you are involved with legal issues.

COUNTDOWN: The Top 5 Lies of the Left

American political liberaldom relies heavily on empty canards, name-calling and scare tactics to stay alive and shut down opposition.

There are few if any deep and penetrating debates on major topics that drive the politics of the left. They simply will not allow it. So they create fictitious arguments (the nice way of saying lies.)

With that in mind, here are a few major shibboleths of at least the activist left which verge on the incredulous, but which are used regularly and magnified by the sympathetic media megaphone.

No. 5 Lie: Border security is racist

If you believe that America should act like most every other country in the world and protect its borders, you’re a racist.

If you believe that America should have the authority to let in who it wants to and keep out who it wants to like most every other country, you’re a racist.

If you believe America should know who is here and who is coming and going like most every other country, you’re a racist.

This stems from candidate Donald Trump running on a campaign to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border to stop the millions of illegal aliens (that is the actual, legal term) from crossing back and forth like it was a state border.

This quasi-open border is the result of an unholy alliance between businesses that want cheap labor and Democrat political interests that see future Democratic voters and a play to current Hispanic voters. And it is the issue that Trump claimed in order to peel away blue-collar Democratic voters.

The left rarely tries to argue the merits of open borders, because most Americans oppose that. So they devolve to the thought-free name-calling of racism because, you know, Mexicans are brown and therefore opposing them, or anyone else, breaking into our country illegally is racist.

No. 4 Lie: Asking questions is science denying

Speaking of science and politics, the inquisitive, independent thinkers among us are now considered anti-science — if they are asking questions about the degree and causes of climate change today.

Yes, while it is obviously the antithesis of actual science, which involves continually asking questions, forming hypotheses, testing, re-testing based on results and so on, this tactic now is employed to shut up any opposition to the climate change political agenda.

The data seems to suggest modest warming since the mid 1800s and there seems to be a connection between carbon in the atmosphere, trapped greenhouse gases, and global warming.

But if you question the data because of a series of scandals revealing how leading climatologists have conspired to alter older data creating cooler temperatures to suggest more rapid warming now, you are a denier.

If you question the degree to which human activity is impacting climate change by pointing out a nearly two-decade pause while carbon emissions continued to increase, you are a denier.

But these and many others are reasonable questions. That we are not allowed to ask them without being labeled flat-earthers suggests this is a lot more about politics than about science.

No. 3 Lie: Men can be women can be men, or whatever

One of the most mind-boggling absurdities foisted on us by the modern liberal is that a person’s sex is dependent on what they think it is. Any “assignment at birth” is an arbitrary constraint to who that person really is.

So, if a person has one Y chromosome and one X chromosome and they have the full package of penis and scrotum, it is not arbitrary to call them male. That person is a man. That is actual science.

But the left — in true full science denial — says those physical realities can be trumped by a person’s feeling. If that person feels like a woman, then they are a woman trapped in a man’s body and they should be allowed and encouraged to dress like a woman or have full-blown surgery to become a woman. And they should be allowed to use women’s bathrooms, locker rooms and showers — even though they are a man.

Until just the past few years this was considered a psychological condition that should be treated. But now, the left celebrates children as young as four years old being encouraged to be the sex they are not.

One could reasonably call that child abuse.

No. 2 Lie: Hate speech is not free speech

No less a luminary than former Vermont governor, DNC chairman and Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean tweeted out this past week that “Hate speech is not protected by the first amendment.”

dean tweet hate speech

The internet blew up over such a ridiculous statement. Even PolitiFact and media organs called him to task. But the thing is, his tweet got 700 retweets and 1,400 likes. Dean actually doesn’t have that big a Twitter following, meaning the tweet got strong traction among those following him.

Too many on the left, most particularly those on college campuses, view hate speech practically as any speech with which they disagree. Of course, many of these same campuses actually have speech codes and “free speech zones” with the overt meaning that outside the zone is not for free speech.

The unfortunate truth is that many college liberals, trained by professorial liberals, think that they should be able to shut down speech they do not appreciate or agree with. They have safe spaces and mainstream American views can be shouted down and pushed out with threats and actions.

These people leave the campuses today and in a generation will be leaders in the nation. It matters. The radicals running campuses know this.

No. 1 Lie: It’s not about innocent life, but reproductive freedom

And coming in at number one in our countdown is the oldie but definitely not goodie, the abortion non-debate.

Increasingly, science (which worldview seems to be anti-science here?) is showing that by every objective definition the baby in the womb is indeed a human, with the inherent rights of a human, within a few weeks of conception. From brainwaves to heartbeats to pain reaction, a person. Science continually pushes this obvious definition earlier and earlier.

But the left forces the debate to revolve around women’s rights. Not the 50 percent of female babies aborted — not those would-be women — but adult women who should have the right to kill their unborn baby at any point in a pregnancy for any reason they deem. Period. This is the classic Planned Parenthood position on choice.

Because abortion is conflated with birth control, it is called a reproductive “right” on the order of getting a contraceptive device or even pap smears and mammograms — anything except actually talking about whether we should condone the often wanton taking of an innocent human life. Any restrictions on abortion therefore are restrictions on a woman’s access to healthcare. See how much you can get away with when you refuse to call something what it is.

Oh and coat hangers. Don’t forget coat hangers.

But there is an encouraging side to this falderal. All of this avoidance on major issues means that conservatives actually have the stronger cases. Otherwise, liberals would not avoid the debate. We just need to be courageous enough to make those cases over and over and over.

RELATED ARTICLE: Conservatives Fight for Free Speech at a Far-Left College

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on The Revolutionary Act. Click here to subscribe to the Revolutionary Act’s YouTube channel!

Florida must become energy independent by 2020

What will promote human life? What will promote human flourishing — realizing the full potential of life? How do we maximize the years in our life and the life in our years? Answer: cheap and reliable power.

Organic Fossil Fuels are the Lifeblood of Civilization!

Florida’s Governor, Congressional delegation and state legislature must make it their number 1 priority to make the Sunshine State Energy Independent by 2020 or sooner!

Florida:

  1. Imports all of its natural gas and 99.9 % of its oil.
  2. Imports all of its refined petroleum based products (e.g. gasoline).
  3. Is the second largest user of natural gas, Texas being the largest.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration:

  1. Geologists believe there may be large oil and natural gas deposits in the federal Outer Continental Shelf off of Florida’s western coast.
  2. Florida was second only to Texas in 2014 in net electricity generation from natural gas, which accounted for 61% of Florida’s net generation; coal accounted for almost 23%, the state’s nuclear power plants accounted for 12%, and other resources, including renewable energy, supplied the remaining electricity generation.
  3. Renewable energy accounted for 2.3% of Florida’s total net electricity generation in 2014, and the state ranked 10th in the nation in net generation from utility-scale solar energy.
  4. In part because of high air conditioning use during the hot summer months and the widespread use of electricity for home heating during the winter months, Florida’s retail electricity sales to the residential sector were second in the nation after Texas in 2014.
  5. Electricity accounts for 90% of the site energy consumed by Florida households, and the annual electricity expenditures of $1,900 are 40% higher than the U.S. average, according to EIA’s Residential Energy Consumption Survey.

Even as human populations have grown dramatically and increased their use of fossil fuels, the world has become a much better place.

As CO2 emissions have risen so too have the GDP per person, life expectancy and the population.

Florida politicians are addicted to the precautionary principle (“better safe than sorry”). It is a maxim embraced by government planners and regulators in the Sunshine state at every level. They do not even want to determine what organic fossil fuels lay off of Florida’s coastlines. The precautionary principle worked to stop the building of nuclear power plants in the United States after the 3 Mile Island incident. Today the same tactic is being used to stop off shore drilling using the Deepwater Horizon incident.

Off shore drilling naysayers use the example of the Deepwater Horizon spill to strike fear into the hearts of Floridians. But as FDR said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”  An example of using the fear factor (precautionary principle) is what happened in Japan following the meltdown of a nuclear power plan in Fukushima. The facts are that no one has died from radiation, nor has cancer increased however, 1,600 did die of stress due to the unnecessary evacuation of people from the area.

Fear kills.

What off shore naysayers, fear mongers, don’t tell you is that mother nature is the greatest polluter in the Gulf of Mexico. According to NOAA over 2,500 barrels of oil naturally seeps daily from fissures in the Gulf. This seeping has been going on for tens of thousands of years, yet the Gulf is doing just fine. Would it not be better to capture this oil, and natural gas, than have it continue to seep into the Gulf?

Some argue that even if natural gas is discovered in Florida’s waters that building an on shore natural gas processing plant is not economically feasible or politically doable. There is an answer to this negative with a positive via new technology. Israel is faced with the same concerns about onshore natural gas processing plants. To solve the problem Nobel Energy and Shell Oil have come up with a solution. Process the natural gas using floating plants. According to Robert Sullivan of the New York Times:

It’s called Prelude, and it’s bigger than big. More than 530 yards long and 80 yards wide, it was constructed with 260,000 metric tons of steel, more than was used in the entire original World Trade Center complex, and it’s expected to displace 600,000 metric tons of water, or as much as six aircraft carriers. Even the paint job is huge: Most big vessels dry-dock every five years for a new coat, but Prelude’s paint is supposed to last 25 years. It will produce more natural gas than Hong Kong needs in a year. And it’s so big that you can’t really photograph it, at least not all at once.

[ … ]

What makes this giant liquefied-natural-gas enterprise feasible, paradoxically enough, is the miniaturization its construction represents. It’s much smaller than landlocked equivalents — imagine shrinking your local refinery until it fits on a barge. Shell Oil, which has the biggest stake in the project, describes Prelude as more environmentally friendly than an onshore site. There are no estuaries under threat, no shorelines to run pipe across and reduced risks to population centers, given the explosiveness of natural gas. And it is designed to ride out extreme weather, thanks to three giant 6,700-horsepower thrusters that can turn it into the wind and waves. “These are the things that the naval architects had to worry through,” says Robert Bea, co-founder of the Center for Catastrophic Risk Management, at the University of California, Berkeley. “It works like a big-ass weather vane.”

Read more.

Environmentalists use the fear factor when talking about drilling for natural gas and oil off of Florida’s shores. The same is true for some of Florida’s Congressional delegation, such as Rep. Vern Buchanan. Fear is not good public policy.

What is good public policy is insuring that Floridians have access to cheap and reliable power in the foreseeable future. Now it the time to take action. Waiting is not an option.

If Governor Rick Scott and Republicans are committed to creating jobs, then they must diversify the economy by promoting energy independence. Energy independence will lead to reduced costs for electricity, gasoline and diversify the economy. That is good public policy.

RELATED ARTICLE: President Trump Opens Doors on Oil Exploration, but Deeper Reforms Needed

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is courtesy of Shutterstock.

President Trump Does a 180 on Obama’s Offshore Energy Policy

Here’s what a real “All-of-the-above” energy strategy looks like, and all it took was a stroke of a pen.

Unlike his predecessor, President Donald Trump is embracing American energy abundance. His latest action is an executive order reviewing President Barack Obama’s lock-down on offshore energy:

“Today we’re unleashing American energy and clearing the way for thousands and thousands of high paying American energy jobs,” said Trump, flanked by Republican lawmakers from energy-producing states during a White House signing ceremony.

“Our country is blessed with incredible natural resources including abundant offshore oil and natural gas resources, but the federal government has kept 94% of these offshore areas closed for exploration and production,” he said. “This deprives our country of potentially thousands and thousands of jobs and billions in wealth.”

The directive, known as the America First Offshore Energy Strategy, directs Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to review the current five-year development plan on the Outer Continental Shelf for offshore oil and gas exploration as well as review the regulations and permitting process for development and seismic research.

The E.O. reviews every offshore area and could lead to future opportunities in the Mid-Atlantic, the Eastern Gulf of Mexico, and off Alaska’s coast. In other words, there will be a comprehensive, strategic look at how we can safely develop all our offshore energy resources–oil, natural, gas, and wind.

Map of U.S. offshore oil and natural gas resources

Source: American Petroleum Institute.

Specifically about the Arctic, the E.O. reverses President Obama’s attempt to permanently block future energy development in the Arctic Ocean. This could open the door to accessing the 34 billion barrels of oil and the 60 billion barrels (equivalent) of natural gas below the Arctic coast of the U.S.

National Petroleum Council chart on Arctic energy resources.

Source: National Petroleum Council.

What’s more, not only does the E.O. re-evaluate what areas would be open to offshore energy development, but it also reviews nearly a dozen Interior Department rules issued by the Obama administration.

All in all it’s a benefit for energy security. “President Trump has made it clear that developing and producing more American energy is a win for the economy and for American families,” said Karen Harbert, president and CEO of the U.S. Chamber’s Institute for 21st Century Energy. “We whole heartedly agree.”

MORE ARTICLES ON:ENERGY

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Fake Methodology: Health Department Claims 11% of Hawaii HS Students are LGBTQ

by Andrew Walden.

11.2% of Hawaii High School students are LGBTQ.  That’s the headline number from the April, 2017 Hawaii Department of Health report on “Sexual and Gender Minority Health.”

This number stands in sharp contrast to other studies of gay demographics.  For instance Gallup in 2013 reported that 5% of Hawaii residents are gay and in a 2012 Gallup report found 3.4% of US adults are LBGTQ.

The DoH report is far from dispassionate science.  It comes across more like a pamphlet by gay activists.  The dedication page reads:

This report is dedicated to all people identifying as a sexual or gender minority in the State of Hawai’i. It acknowledges the resiliency and strength of sexual minority, and transgender and gender non-conforming people in Hawai’i, who despite having borne a disproportionate burden of adverse events in their lives, continue to strive for a better tomorrow. It remembers and acknowledges those from our community who passed too soon

So how did DoH fake the data?

The trick is in the methodology:

Questions on sexual orientation have been included in the high school YRBS since 2005. In 2011, the survey’s sample size was increased to enable county-level reporting, consequently increasing the number of SM respondents and enabling analysis of YRBS data by sexual orientation. In 2017, a question on sexual orientation was included for the first time in the middle school module of the YRBS, and a question on gender identity was added to the high school module. For this report, aggregated high school data for the years 2011, 2013, and 2015 were analyzed. Respondents were asked to self-identify as heterosexual/straight, gay or lesbian, bisexual, or not sure; youth who reported being “not sure” were coded as “questioning” in this report. (pg 11)

What does this really obvious scam produce?  See the chart from page 44.  Notice that 40.1% of the “questioning” are 9th graders who have no idea what long words like “heterosexual/straight, gay or lesbian, bisexual” mean so they checked “not sure”.  Also notice that 61.5% of the LGB are female whereas other studies show that male homosexuals outnumber lesbians 2-1.

The report presents no statistics on the number of transsexuals in Hawaii high schools – probably because there are too few to perform statistical analysis.

Of course the numerical discrepancies could be taken at face value—the change from baseline studies would provide evidence that Charles Darwin was right and homosexuality is not an in-born characteristic.  The lack of transsexuals might be cause to question the need for government-mandated bathroom policies.  But those would be thought crimes and you would have to report for diversity training again so better just forget it.

And what will happen to HS students who really do go gay?  Other gays will rape them:

“LGB adults in Hawai’i are significantly more likely than heterosexual adults to experience both physical and sexual abuse by an intimate partner.  LGB adults are more than twice as likely to experience sexual abuse and nearly three times as likely to experience physical abuse in intimate relationships compared to heterosexual adults. When examined by sex, lesbian or bisexual women are significantly more likely to report physical abuse by a current or former intimate partner compared to heterosexual women. Gay or bisexual men are significantly more likely to report being sexually abused by their partners compared to heterosexual men. Additionally, LGB adults are significantly more likely to have been victims of rape or attempted rape compared to heterosexual adults.” (pg35)

Are you committing a thought crime right now?

read … Full DOH Report

SA: The hidden horror of sex assaults by K-12 students

Research Shows Murders are Heavily Concentrated in Small Fraction of Counties

This week, a new report from the Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC) revealed just how concentrated murders are in the U.S. Citing county level data from 2014, researchers determined that a small fraction of all counties are responsible for a majority of the murders in the U.S.

According to the report, just 2 percent of all of the counties in the country account for 51 percent of the nation’s murders. The top 5 percent of counties account for 68 percent of all murders. Further, 69 percent of all counties experienced one murder or less in 2014.

Map-US-Murder-Fixed

It is correct to expect that counties with large population centers are going to necessarily account for more murders. However, as the report details, the most dangerous counties account for an outsized proportion of murders given their population. The report noted,

“The worst 1% of counties have 19% of the population and 37% of the murders. The worst 5% of counties contain 47% of the population and account for 68% of murders.”

CPRC also pointed out that murders are often highly concentrated within a given county. Citing Los Angeles County, which experienced 526 murder in 2014, CPRC showed that there were wide swaths of the county with virtually no murders.

CPRC’s data dovetails with other research on the concentration of criminal violence. In recent years, researchers from Yale University have studied the concentration of violence in certain social networks. In a 2015 piece for the Hartford Courant that succinctly outlines some of this research, Yale Ph.D. candidate Michael Sierra-Arévalo explained that Yale University sociologists determined “70 percent of all shootings in Chicago can be located in a social network composed of less than 6 percent of the city’s population.”

Sierra-Arévalo also cited a study from researchers at Harvard and Yale, that examined violence perpetrated with guns in Boston. This research showed that violence is heavily concentrated even within a given city, determining that “between 1980 and 2009, 89 percent of Boston streets never experienced an episode of gun violence,” and that “more than half of all the gun violence during the almost 30-year period occurred in only 5 percent of the city’s streets.”

Given that criminal violence is highly concentrated, efforts to tackle this discrete problem with ham-handed restrictions on the conduct of the public at large are inappropriate. Rather than further burden the law-abiding, federal, state, and local officials should target known areas of violence with vigorous enforcement of existing state and federal law.