Category: environment

Job Czar Jeffrey Immelt: Crony Capitalism 101: A Limerick.

Corruption shows a familiar ring:

Immelt has friends in the White House wing

Re: Power consumption.

He got his exemption.

It  helps to be friend of the King.

Obama issues global warming rules in January, gives GE an exemption in February

By: Timothey P.Carney, Washington Examiner 02/02/11 4:50 PM

Jan 2011, the Obama EPA began enforcing new rules regulating the greenhouse gas emissions from any new or expanded power plants.

A week later the EPA issued its first exemption, Environment & Energy News reports:

The Obama administration will spare a stalled power plant project in California from the newest federal limits on greenhouse gases and conventional air pollution, U.S. EPA says in a new court filing that marks a policy shift in the face of industry groups and Republicans accusing the agency of holding up construction of large industrial facilities. According to a declaration by air chief Gina McCarthy, officials reviewed EPA policies and decided it was appropriate to “grandfather” projects such as the Avenal Power Center, a proposed 600-megawatt power plant in the San Joaquin Valley, so they are exempted from rules such as new air quality standards for smog-forming nitrogen dioxide (NO2).

There’s something interesting about the Avenal Power Center The proposed Avenal Energy project will be a combined-cycle generating plant consisting of two natural gas-fired General Electric 7FA Gas Turbines with Heat Recovery Steam Generators (HRSG) and one General Electric Steam Turbine.

Maybe GE CEO Jeff Immelt’s closeness to President Obama, and his broad support for Obama’s agenda, had nothing to do with this exemption. But we have no way of knowing that, and given the administration’s record of regularly misleading Americans regarding lobbyists, frankly, I wouldn’t trust the White House if they told me there was no connection. On the upside, at least Job Czar Immelt is creating jobs!

Lies, damned lies, Statistics and Climate Forecasting. A song.

It is hard to make predictions – especially about the future (Yogi Berra, Niels Bohr, et al.)

The Met Office has caused a storm of controversy after it was revealed their £30million supercomputer designed to predict climate change is one of Britain’s worst polluters. The massive machine – the UK’s most powerful computer with a whopping 15 million megabytes of memory – was installed in the Met Office’s headquarters in Exeter, Devon. With a total peak performance approaching 1 PetaFlop — equivalent to over 100,000 PCs and over 30 times more powerful than what was in place before. It is capable of 1,000 billion calculations every second to feed data to 400 scientists and uses 1.2 megawatts of energy to run – enough to power more than 1,000 homes.

So what glorious new and accurate information are they producing now?

Met Office Initial Assessment of Risk for Winter 2010/11 This covers the months of November, December and January 2010/11, this will be updated monthly through the winter and so probabilities will change. Temperature 3 in 10 chance of a mild start 3 in 10 chance of an average start 4 in 10 chance of a cold start Precipitation 3 in 10 chance of a wet start 3 in 10 chance of an average start 4 in 10 chance of a dry start Summary: There is an increased risk for a cold and wintry start to the winter season. Looking further ahead beyond this assessment there are some indications of an increased risk of a mild end to the winter season.

I am really impressed by their newfound forecasting ability. So impressed I have written a new lyrics to Merle Travis song: Sixteen tons (Popularized by Tennessee Ernie Ford)

Some people say people are made outta mud

Global warmists they are, they are chewing their cud,

Chewing their cud and follow Al Gore

A mind that’s a-weak can you ask for much more?

More than one megawatt, and what do you get?

Another prognosis and deeper in debt

Saint Peter don’t you call ’em ’cause you must let ‘em be

They sold their souls to the IPCC.

.

They came in one mornin’ when the sun didn’t shine

They picked up their papers and continued the grind

They had  sixteen conditions, mostly falsified bull

And the straw boss said “Well, a-bless my soul”.

More than one megawatt, and what do you get?

Another prognosis and deeper in debt

Saint Peter don’t you call ’em ’cause you must let ‘em be

They sold their souls to the IPCC.

.

They came in one mornin’, it was drizzlin’ rain

the prognosis had failed them again and again

The boss harshly told them, You will do many more

Do as I tell you, and agree with Al Gore.

More than one megawatt, and what do you get?

Another prognosis and deeper in debt

Saint Peter don’t you call ’em ’cause you must let ‘em be

They sold their souls to the IPCC.

.

The cold snap we’re having now, it just cannot last

and hidin’ the warming that occurred in the past

Their ol’  man Mann and his hockey stick.

With conditions like this nothing ever will click.

More than one megawatt, and what do you get?

Another prognosis and deeper in debt

 Saint Peter don’t you call ’em ’cause you must let ‘em be

They sold their souls to the IPCC.

Japanese cloning. A mammoth mistake.

Japanese researchers will launch a project this year to resurrect the long-extinct mammoth by using cloning technology to bring the ancient pachyderm back to life in about five years time, a report Monday said.

The researchers will try to revive the species by obtaining tissue this summer from the carcass of a mammoth preserved in a Russian research laboratory, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported. “Preparations to realize this goal have been made,” Akira Iritani, leader of the team and a professor emeritus of Kyoto University, told the mass-circulation daily.

Under the plan, the nuclei of mammoth cells will be inserted into an elephant’s egg cells from which the nuclei have been removed to create an embryo containing mammoth genes, it said. The embryo will then be inserted into an elephant’s womb in the hope that the animal will eventually give birth to a baby mammoth.

Researches hope to achieve their aim within five to six years, the Yomiuri said. The team, which has invited a Russian mammoth researcher and two US elephant experts into the project, has already established a technique to extract DNA from frozen cells.

The researchers had once given up similar plans after nuclei in the cells of mammoth skin and muscle tissue were damaged by ice crystals and proved unusable. However, another Japanese researcher, Teruhiko Wakayama of the Riken Centre for Developmental Biology, succeeded in cloning a mouse from the cells of another that had been kept in deep-freeze for 16 years.

Based on Wakayama’s techniques, Iritani’s team devised a method to extract the nuclei of mammoth eggs without damaging them. “If a cloned embryo can be created, we need to discuss, before transplanting it into the womb, how to breed [the mammoth] and whether to display it to the public,” Iritani said. “After the mammoth is born, we will examine its ecology and genes to study why the species became extinct and other factors.”

More than 80 percent of all mammoth finds have been dug up in the permafrost of the vast Sakha Republic in eastern Siberia. The most perfectly preserved remains of the Ice Age mammals still have hair and internal organs.

Is this really a wise use of research money?. Seems to me it serves only to feed some egos, give publicity but end in abject failure, after which they will all say – but look at all we have learnt in the meantime. There is a host of essential research languishing due to lack of funding, not as exciting, but much more worthwhile. Come to think of it, here comes the limerick:

A mammoth mistake is about to be made

in cloning research, The research must be paid.

Preserved since the ice age.

To that I say: Gee,

in wasting this cash common sense is mislaid.

Obama was right! The sea levels are beginning to drop. A call to action.

In a campaign speech Jun 2 2008, in all humility candidate Obama said this:

The journey will be difficult. The road will be long. I face this challenge with profound humility, and knowledge of my own limitations. But I also face it with limitless faith in the capacity of the American people. Because if we are willing to work for it, and fight for it, and believe in it, then I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on earth. This was the moment—this was the time—when we came together to remake this great nation so that it may always reflect our very best selves and our highest ideals. Thank you, God bless you, and may God bless the United States of America.

Well, what do you know? The sea levels are beginning to drop in 2010.

(1) Thank you Obama that  the global temperatures are beginning to drop.

(2) Thank you Obama that the excessive heat caused by human activity are beginning to rain out in Australia and Brazil, central Europe and many other places. Thank you Obama for delaying and diminishing Solar Cycle 24, allowing record amounts of Cosmic radiation to reach the earth, giving us more clouds, rain and snow, thereby cooling the planet.

(3) Thank you Obama for protecting our land from all further development, so that our standard of living can be more in line with third world countries.

(4) Thank you Obama for your tireless efforts to usher in Global Governance through Article 21, Cap and trade legislation, giving us mercury lightbulbs that splat mercury all over the nursery when they break, working to sign the Children’s protection act, The Law of the Sea Treaty and everything else coming from the wise leadership of the United Nations.

Thank you Obama for your tireless efforts to protect a woman’s right to choose by denying Federal Funding to doctors and hospitals that have moral qualms about aborting the lives of yet to be born babies, and providing federal funding for abortions.

Again, where would we be, and what could we do without you? Could a return to abiding by constitutional principles change anything? Could reining in a multitude of czars, putting them under congressional oversight rather than giving them carte blance to implement regulation of laws that have not been read before passed prevent some of this? By doing nothing, will all this go away?

But yet, there is hope. As God says through the Prophet Jeremiah in Lamentations 3:21-23 (King James Version) 21This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope. 22It is of the LORD’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. 23They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness. And again, a call to action: 2 Chronicles 7:14 (King James Version) 14If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

 

Snow in Australia at Christmas! A Limerick.

A 2010 Christmas message from Australia!

It snowed in Australia the night before last,

which makes global warming a thing of the past.

White Christmas down under,

a “hide the decline” blunder.

For snowflakes don’t lie. A white flag up the mast?

Climate Change: A Homeland security matter. A Limerick.

Napolitano Says DHS to Begin Battling Climate Change as Homeland Security Issue.

Friday, December 17, 2010 By J. Brady Howell Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano (CNSNews.com/Penny Starr) (CNSNews.com)

– At an all-day White House conference on “environmental justice,” Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced that her department is creating a new task force to battle the effects of climate change on domestic security operations.

Speaking at the first White House Forum on Environmental Justice on Thursday, Napolitano discussed the initial findings of the department’s recently created “Climate Change and Adaptation Task Force.”

Napolitano explained that the task force was charged with “identifying and assessing the impact that climate change could have on the missions and operations of the Department of Homeland Security.” According to the former Arizona governor, the task force would address specific questions, including: “How will FEMA work with state and local partners to plan for increased flooding or wildfire or hurricane activity that is more serious than we’ve seen before? What assistance can the Coast Guard bring to bear to assist remote villages in, for example, Alaska which already have been negatively affected by changes up in the Arctic?”

The findings from the Homeland Security Department (DHS) also asked: “(H)ow can we focus on how climate change is going to affect our rural citizenry including those who live along our borders both northern and southern?” …

The conference did not define “environmental justice,” and the only reference to the task force that can be found is on the DHS Web site. The June 2010 Department of Homeland Security Strategic Sustainability Performance Plan states “climate change has the potential to accelerate and intensify extreme weather events which threaten the nation’s sustainability and security.”

The Limerick:

Homeland Security guards our peace,

But lumberjacks terrorize forests with ease.

 Why in such a hurry?

I tell you, don’t worry.

With Carbon Dioxide we’ll grow some more trees.

Dihydrogen Monoxide, the main source of greenhouse gases. A Limerick.

UN climate kooks want to cripple US economy and ban H2O.

Some people will sign anything that includes phrases like, ”global effort,” “international community,” and “planetary.”

Such was the case at COP 16, this year’s United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Cancun, Mexico.

This year, CFACT students created two mock-petitions to test U.N. Delegates. The first asked participants to help destabilize the United States economy, the second to ban water. The first project, entitled “Petition to Set a Global Standard” sought to isolate and punish the United States of America for defying the international community, by refusing to bite, hook, line and sinker on the bait that is the Kyoto Protocol.

The petition went so far as to encourage the United Nations to impose tariffs and trade restrictions on the U.S. in a scheme to destabilize the nation’s economy. Specifically, the scheme seeks to lower the U.S. GDP by 6% over a ten-year period, unless the U.S. signs a U.N. treaty on global warming. This would be an extremely radical move by the United Nations. Even so, radical left-wing environmentalists from around the world scrambled eagerly to sign.

The second project was as successful as the first. It was euphemistically entitled “Petition to Ban the Use of Dihydrogen Monoxide (DHMO)” (translation water). It was designed to show that if official U.N. delegates could be duped by college students into banning water, that they could essentially fall for anything, including pseudo-scientific studies which claim to show that global warming is man-caused. Despite the apparently not-so-obvious reference to H2O, almost every delegate that collegian students approached signed their petition to ban that all too dangerous substance, which contributes to the greenhouse effect, is the major substance in acid rain, and is fatal if inhaled.

Perhaps together, the footage associated with these two projects will illustrate to mainstream America the radical lengths many current U.N. delegates are willing to go to carry out an agenda no more ethical, plausible or practical than the banning water.

And now for the Limerick.

Dihydrogen monoxide must now be banned

The thought of its use must forever be canned

So the delegates spoke

in Cancun, what a joke.

It wasn’t exactly what Watt once had planned.

The Lanthanides Lamentation Limerick:

China’s Ban on Selling Rare Earth Minerals to Japan Continues, Officials Say

By KEITH BRADSHER and EDWARD WONG New York Times Published: October 10, 2010

HONG KONG — Chinese customs officials continued to bar all exports of rare earth minerals to Japan over the weekend, industry officials said, but the Chinese government showed signs of taking a more conciliatory stance toward Japan. …

Prime Minister Wen Jiabao of China told European political and business leaders Wednesday that China had not imposed any bans on exports of industrial minerals for political purposes and that it did not intend to stop exports in the future. Rare earths are used in the manufacture of hybrid gasoline-electric cars, computer screens, large wind turbines and many other applications.

Mr. Wen made his remarks in a speech at a China-European Union business meeting in Brussels. Chinese officials have consistently taken the position that they have not imposed any regulations preventing rare earth exports; any such regulations could be easily challenged at the World Trade Organization. …

Throughout the halt on exports of rare earth minerals, China has allowed continued exports of manufactured products that use rare earths, like powerful magnets, and highly purified rare earth metals. Japan is the largest importer of rare earth minerals and ores. Companies there use the material to make a wide range of high- technology products and have been reluctant to import manufactured goods from China instead.

Even before questions arose over the exports to Japan in late September, China had been putting tighter caps on rare earth exports for the last five years. When the export halt was imposed, the quota for 2010 was within a month and a half of being exhausted. But shipments could continue into November if customs officials allow a resumption soon. Edward Wong reported from Beijing and Keith Bradsher from Hong Kong.

Note: China mines 97% of the world’s rare earth metals.

The Lanthanides Lamentation Limerick:

What is “Rare Earth Metals”, and who gives a hoot?

They’re all mined in China with prices to boot.

We closed our own mines

with lawsuits and fines.

We need them for green jobs:  No freedom to toot.

Frankly I’m exhausted.Is this my new reality? A limerick.

Investing in America: A CNBC Town Hall Event with President Obama Sep 2010.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: ”Thank you very much. And quite frankly, good afternoon, President Obama. I’m deeply honored to be in this forum and so grateful for CNBC for making the forum available so you can speak to American citizens just like myself. I’m a chief financial officer for a veterans service organization and that’s here in Washington. I’m also a mother, I’m a wife, I’m an American veteran, and I’m one of your middle-class Americans.

Quite frankly, I’m exhausted. Exhausted of defending you, defending your administration, defending the man for change I voted for, and deeply disappointed with where we are right now. I’ve been told that I voted for a man who said he was going to change things in a meaningful way for the middle class. I’m one of those people and I’m waiting, sir, I’m waiting. I don’t feel it yet. While I thought it wouldn’t be a great measure, I would feel it in some small measure. I have two children in private school, and the financial recession has taken an enormous toll on my family. My husband and I joked that we thought we were well beyond the hot dogs and beans era of our lives. And quite frankly, it’s starting to knock on our door and ring through that that might be where we’re headed.

And quite frankly, Mr. President, I need you to answer honestly, is this my new reality?”

The President answered something of no consequence, but to better reflect the new reality he might as well have answered like this:

Now, don’t get me started, you are what you eat:

Do not eat the hot dogs, they are processed meat.

The new EPA

Will have the last say. *

With beans you fart methane, and that’s greenhouse heat.

*On July 29th 2010 the Agency rejected challenges to its claim that, “climate change caused by emissions of greenhouse gas is a danger to public health.”