Last September we went down to Virginia Beach for four spectacular days. The weather was perfect, the surf was building day by day and I swam with the Dolphins! They came within 30 feet of me, a school of more than a dozen. Above the Blue Angels trained, first two, then four, then all six in perfect formation. The approaching hurricane Igor slowed down to 7 mph instead of the predicted 14 which gave the people of Bermuda one more day to prepare, and by then it will have gone down in energy one more level. As we (my wife and I) do every year we take a look at the status of the Chesapeake Bay on the way down and up. To the most casual observer it seems that the deterioration has stopped and a slow recovery is in place. To be an environmentalist means you take a regional approach to a problem and attack it as a regional matter. The solution for Chesapeake Bay is quite different from the Everglades, the Bayous or the water needs of the West. Then on the news comes this insane call to arms: Global Climate Disruption.
(CNSNews.com, Sep 14 2010) – John Holdren, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, says that the term “global warming” is “a dangerous misnomer” that should be replaced with “global climate disruption.”
This calls for a Limerick:
First Warming, then Climate Change, now Global Climate Disruption:
When Sarah took reins of the State she had courage.
Without a delay
she put on e-bay
that state-supplied jet on Ted Stevens, Anchorage.
(Ted Stevens International Airport, that is)
I have researched matters further, here is version 2 of the Limerick.
There once stood a corporate jet in Juneau,
and Governor Sarah – “you Betcha ” you know
without a delay
she put on e-bay
that fuel-guzzling state-supplied plane in Juneau.
Those were two of the only three airports in Alaska with runways long enough for the W III jet.
Update: While it was put on e-bay, the sale of a corporate jet is a little more complicated than processing it thru PayPal, so the deal was finalized using a broker.
LEFT: Nancy Pelosi tries her best to explain her strange behavior.
RIGHT:Question: Why does an American Woman Infidel do the sign of the cross in the great Umayyad Mosque in Damascus Syria? Answer: Nancy Pelosi does the sign of the cross to pay her utmost respect to the skull of John the Baptist. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi looks at the tomb containing the head of St. John the Baptist inside the historic Umayyad Mosque, during her tour at a popular market in downtown Damascus, Syria, Tuesday April 3, 2007.
(President George W. Bush criticized the trip, saying it sends mixed signals to Syrian President Bashar Assad. )
Nancy Pelosi became speaker of the house in Jan 2007. What power does she have anyhow?
Let us take a look at the U.S. Constitution:
Section 7 – Revenue Bills, Legislative Process, Presidential Veto All bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills. Section 8 – Powers of Congress The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
How has our economy been performing since she took the reins of the purse strings? There is an interesting article by Mark Trumbull, Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor / February 21, 2007 : Despite the ongoing costs of US military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, the outlook for the federal budget has grown substantially brighter. Tax revenues are rising much faster than spending, according to Treasury Department numbers released last week. The recent trend is strong enough that, were it to continue, the budget could move into surplus in barely a year, one economist calculates. Already, the federal deficit is shrinking toward about half the size that it has averaged since 1970, when analyzed as a percentage of gross domestic product. The shift reflects a strong economy, with higher incomes and corporate profits generating a bigger flow of tax revenue. In turn, the Treasury’s progress could help the economy by buoying investor confidence in the nation’s fiscal position. Some experts say the budget could achieve balance in the short run of the next few years. In unveiling its proposed budget this month, the Bush administration forecast black ink on the federal ledger in 2012. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), in its recent annual outlook, also shows a surplus for that year. So, after three and a half year of Nancy Pelosi, how are we doing? I can only say it has gone from good to bad to verse:
Ode to Nancy Pelosi, Limerick style.
Since Nancy Pelosi took over the gavel
Was our economy quick to unravel.
She is more than bad,
The worst that we had.
We finally stopped contemplating our navel.
.
Since Nancy Pelosi took over as speaker
Our job situation has gotten much weaker
All jobs that are lost
Since she got the post
And as for advise, shame to all who still seek her.
.
For Nancy Pelosi, Majority Leader
The Chinese exploiters a life-line did feed her
Our debt load increased
Four trillions at least
We all must this fall go and vote to unseat her
.
For Nancy Pelosi, known Tea Party hater
Gets scared when the grandmothers start to berate her
As shown above (see the datapoint in the square box), the Jan 25 2012 UAH AMSU daily temperatures are the coldest for the globe at 600mb of all the years tracked since 2002 (warmest 2010, previously coldest 2008)
Above is worldwide average temperatures at the 2 meter level. The new Dr. Ryan Maue reanalysis based global temperature anomalies has declined dramatically this month – almost a full degree Celsius!
(Forecasts for temperature 8 days in advance are appended to the reanalysis values.)
Will the average temperature go up or down in the future?
(1) On eight occasions, the current occupant of the White House (Obama) has referred to the Spanish model as an example to follow.
(2) After a leaked Spanish government report, a newspaper in Spain (La Gaceta) confirms that the country’s “green economy” policies — the model for the Obama administration’s “green jobs” efforts — have been a disaster: expensive, ineffective, and unworkable
(3) The official jobless rate in Spain went from 7.9% in May 2007 to 19% in Nov 2009. It now stands at 22.8% (Oct 2011)
(4) The Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (Spanish: Partido Socialista Obrero Español [parˈtiðo soθjaˈlista oˈβrero espaˈɲol], PSOE [peˈsoe]) is a social-democratic political party in Spain. Since the General election on 14 March 2004, the PSOE has been the governing party of Spain. The PSOE is a full member of the Party of European Socialists and the Socialist International.
(5) MADRID — Spaniards struggling with high unemployment and a credit squeeze delivered a punishing verdict on almost eight years of Socialist government at the ballot box on Nov 20 2011, turning to the conservative Popular Party in the hopes of alleviating the pain of Europe’s debt crisis. The Popular Party, led by Mariano Rajoy won 186 seats and a governing majority in the 350-seat lower house of Parliament, while the governing Socialists plummeted to 110 seats from 169. It was the Popular Party’s best showing, and the Socialists’ worst, since Spain’s return to democracy in the 1970s.
(6) Spain took advantage of strong demand to sell nearly twice as many bonds as initially planned at its final bond auction last year on Dec 15 2011, although market participants expect the country’s borrowing conditions to remain tough next year. The strong response to the auction, which brought much-needed respite to the battered Spanish bond market, helped power the country’s bonds higher, with the yield on bonds due in two years falling to their lowest levels since late October.
(7) Jan 27 2012 Fitch Ratings has resolved the Negative Rating Watch on six Eurozone sovereigns, downgrading the IDRs for Belgium, Cyprus, Italy, Slovenia and Spain while affirming ratings for Ireland. The Negative Outlook on all six countries indicates a slightly greater than 50% chance of a downgrade over a two-year time horizon.
The Obama administration announced Nov. 10 it would delay a politically explosive decision on the proposed Keystone XL oil sands pipeline until after the 2012 elections. Congress corrected this dithering by forcing Obama to make a decision one way or another. He chose not to build it.
This decision was bad on so many levels it is hard to count them all.Let’s try to look at the ways:
Canada has oil sands and is exploiting the resources. U.S. is dependent on importing a large share of its crude oil.
The cheapest and most efficient way to transport crude oil is through a pipe line. It is also the safest and most reliable way of getting crude oil from point A to point B. To not O.K. the pipeline increases the cost and makes us more dependent of crude oil from the Middle East and Nigeria, as well as Venezuela.
Canada really, really wanted this deal. It would help improve our relations. Now they are strained.
The unions really wanted the jobs. It would supply them with more than 20000 direct, well-paid jobs. In addition there is secondary business generated whenever a project of this magnitude is undertaken. Why not generate jobs?
The newly discovered oil fields in North Dakota and Montana could use the pipeline as well. Now they will have to go it alone or transport their oil on railroad or barge traffic instead, a more expensive and less safe option. So why did Obama delay the decision?
It was because of the environmentalists. Let us examine why this decision was equally horrible from an environmentalist’s perspective. Canada is a sovereign nation. They have the oil and will sell or use it one way or another. The most energy conserving way is to transport it through a pipeline. Transport via train, truck or barge uses more energy (read more CO2) and costs about $15 per barrel vs. $5 for a pipeline.
Canada will sell it’s oil to China if we don’t want it. China has a well deserved reputation for producing a lot of pollution. The best environmental solution is for us to import this oil.
Nebraska protested there was a danger to damage their aquifer. The Keystone XL management offered to reroute the pipeline away from this sensitive aquifer, thereby solving that objection. By not importing oil from Canada the total carbon footprint will increase. We lose, and Canada loses. (I am not concerned that the CO2 is increasing, but that a valuable natural resource is excessively depleted.) Now it turns out that Canada has left the Kyoto Protocol, thereby being free to burn as much of its carbon as they want. Was that really what the environmentalists wanted?
So why did Obama first delay the decision until after the 2012 election, and then when forced deny the permit? Here are five possibilities:
1. Obama is a true believer that ”this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal”. As a true environmentalist his role can not be overestimated .
2. Obama is deliberately wrecking our economy, refuses to have an energy policy that will create jobs, but will support protest movements and foment unrest.
3. Obama is acting on orders from Global Governance people that do want U.S. to be totally dependent on international law and U.N. mandates.
4. Obama promised to be Brazil’s best customer from their deep sea oil drilling success, paid for by U.S. loan guarantees. He must be true to his promises.
5. Obama is half insane and surrounded by bad advisors.
This is the best I can do to explain the reasons for this decision.
THE term “climate change” could be replaced by “climate challenges” if a federal commissioned marketing study is taken onboard. The study of attitudes to climate change among farmers, commissioned by the Agriculture Department, found only 27 per cent of those surveyed believed human activity was causing climate change, compared with 58 per cent of urban dwellers. As well, primary producers are “very resistant to carbon trading”. “It fills them with dread, and there were strong negative reactions towards it,” the report says. Handed to the department late last year, the report warns that terminology that fails to take into account the attitude of primary producers towards human-induced climate change risks failure. The term “climate change” sets up negative reactions among primary producers for a number of reasons, from skepticism through to perceptions that they are being held solely responsible for causing climate change, it says. “Preferred terms such as ‘climate challenges’, ‘prolonged drought’ and ‘risk management’ are accepted, better understood and more likely to motivate change.” The report, prepared by Sydney-based marketer Instinct and Reason, was aimed at developing a communication strategy as the government seeks to sell its climate change message. It says many primary producers feel climate change and mitigation efforts are no more important compared with other significant challenges such as low prices, increasing costs, labour shortages and declining profitability. “Many primary producers expressed the view that human-induced climate change is yet to be proven and dismiss the idea that it is behind the climatic situations they currently face. Instead, they prefer to see it as yet another period of drought or change in conditions that will eventually pass.”
Is the climate a challenge? That is what they say.
Hot from the presses, the term for today.
The reason is muddy.
A marketing study
coined it. The weather will probably wash it away.
Of course the EPA must regulate CO2. Just look at the dangers of Hypercapnia.
At 1% concentration of carbon dioxide CO2 (10,000 parts per million or ppm) and under continuous exposure at that level, such as in an auditorium filled with occupants and poor fresh air ventilation, some occupants are likely to feel drowsy. Carbon dioxide concentration must be over t 2% (20,000 ppm) before most people are aware of its presence unless the odor of an associated material (auto exhaust or fermenting yeast, for instance) is present at lower concentrations. Above 2%, carbon dioxide may cause a feeling of heaviness in the chest and/or more frequent and deeper respirations. If exposure continues at that level for several hours, minimal “acidosis” (an acid condition of the blood) may occur but more often is absent. Breathing rate doubles at 3% CO2 and is four times the normal rate at 5% CO2. Toxic levels of carbon dioxide: at levels above 5%, concentration CO2 is directly toxic. [At lower levels we may see the effects of a reduction in the relative amount of oxygen and not direct toxicity of CO2.]
So I guess the EPA should monitor the CO2 levels, and when they reach 10000 ppm they will have to regulate it. (I am only half-way kidding, indoor concentrations can reach these levels).
The safe, clean water essential to all life is rapidly running out in much of the world. Yet the politicians are concentrating on air pollution in the form of CO2 and methane as if a catastrophe is about to hit us. The world has gotten colder the last 11 years, and the future trend is down, unless the sun does something quite unexpected. In the meantime much of the world’s safe water supply is disappearing. The western US, much of the 10-40 corridor, Australia and western South America are using up its safe water much faster than it is replenished. In addition, what is left is getting polluted.Let me give you an anecdotal example.
A few years ago I was part of a team that made wet processing equipment for making computer chip wafers. It involved cleaning and etching using isopropyl alcohol, hydrocloric, sulphuric, and hydrofluoric acid as well as Ozone, all potent stuff. To collect the used chemicals we had designed a 5-way output port, so the chemicals could be collected separately. The equipment was made and shipped off to South Korea. It was assembled in a brand new, state of the art positive air pressure clean room facility. The processing equipment was installed, and under the 5-way port was a large funnel, going to the drain and directly out in the sewer.
A couple of years before, in the US we had a leaking valve, so a small amount of hydrofluoric acid got discharged into the sewage. This poisoned the sewage processing plant, and a large fine was levied. No such worry in Asia. The sewage goes directly out in the ocean to be diluted.
In China many of these facilities are inland, so large water aquifers get poisoned for centuries to come. These are the people we entrust with our future production of just about everything, since we will have to cut down on our energy use thanks to an administration hostile to energy development, while China is exempt, building dirty coal-fired plants as fast as they can.They install scrubbers, but scrubbers cost money to run, so they are frequently out of service ( being “serviced”). This results in a large brown upper atmosphere smog extending from China to Pakistan acting as a giant heat sink.
Last September we went down to Virginia Beach for four spectacular days. The weather was perfect, the surf was building day by day and I swam with the Dolphins! They came within 30 feet of me, a school of more than a dozen. Above the Blue Angels trained, first two, then four, then all six in perfect formation. The approaching hurricane Igor slowed down to 7 mph instead of the predicted 14 which gave the people of Bermuda one more day to prepare, and by then it will have gone down in energy one more level. As we (my wife and I) do every year we take a look at the status of the Chesapeake Bay on the way down and up. To the most casual observer it seems that the deterioration has stopped and a slow recovery is in place. To be an environmentalist means you take a regional approach to a problem and attack it as a regional matter. The solution for Chesapeake Bay is quite different from the Everglades, the Bayous or the water needs of the West. Then on the news comes this insane call to arms: Global Climate Disruption.
Len Bilén's blog, a blog about faith, politics and the environment. 