Poetic Justice?

Did anyone besides me find it ironic that the Romney campaign was derailed by Sandy? The folly of our country's dependence on fossil fuels has created a monster that requires ignoring the realities of climate change. This year we saw historic heat waves, droughts, wildfires, and an unprecedented ice melt in the Arctic. Warmer oceans and warmer air create more destructive storms, and its going to get a lot worse before it gets any better.

Being on the wrong side of the auto bailout probably doomed his campaign, but Sandy shut down all the momentum Romney had gained after the first debate right at the most crucial point. All Mitt could do was was stand by and watch as (Republican) Governor Christie toured the destruction with President Obama.

It's not just an environmental issue. It's also an economic issue and a security issue. It's time to wake up and quit burying our heads in the sand.

Poetic justice? Nope. It just proves that if you tell a lie often enough, pretty soon people will believe it. It's amazing that you were able to stuff so many falsities into such a short post. Alinsky would be proud of you.

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Originally Posted by Catfan73

Did anyone besides me find it ironic that the Romney campaign was derailed by Sandy? The folly of our country's dependence on fossil fuels has created a monster that requires ignoring the realities of climate change. This year we saw historic heat waves, droughts, wildfires, and an unprecedented ice melt in the Arctic. Warmer oceans and warmer air create more destructive storms, and its going to get a lot worse before it gets any better.

Being on the wrong side of the auto bailout probably doomed his campaign, but Sandy shut down all the momentum Romney had gained after the first debate right at the most crucial point. All Mitt could do was was stand by and watch as (Republican) Governor Christie toured the destruction with President Obama.

It's not just an environmental issue. It's also an economic issue and a security issue. It's time to wake up and quit burying our heads in the sand.

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Catfan73, do you really think the USA can change this? We are one small dote on the globe. I have a friend that flys UPS all over the world, do you think China is green? Or for that matter any other country. We are pissing on a forest fire, it won't work!! Not calling you out by any means, just pointing out that this is a lose, lose proposition if all this is true. We are a very small part of the problem if there really is such a problem.

We've got to start somewhere, and the U.S. has to lead the way. Obama's camp ignored the issue also during the election, but they pretty much ignored everything except how to attack Romney in a handful of key counties. We have and are making progress however. His new fuel efficiency rules for cars and trucks are estimated to reduce carbon emissions in the U.S. by 6 billion metric tons by 2025, equal to an entire year's worth of emissions. U.S. emissions are now falling even with the economy growing.

The oceans are expected to rise at least another foot by 2100 and will rise much more if we--and yes, I mean the world--can't transition from fossil fuels. We still need to end the subsidies for fossil fuels and get back to trains moving goods across the country instead of long-haul trucks. When nations like China see that it can be done and can actually be a catalyst for the economy instead of a drag, they'll follow suit. Some of the best investments right now are in clean energy.

It just proves that if you tell a lie often enough, pretty soon people will believe it.

That pretty much says it all.

I typed out a really long post on this last night and then deleted it, trying to avoid this debate, but the blank check acceptance of "climate change", and more to the point that it is a) tied to industrialization and b) will continue based on projection of short term data, is what hiding one's head in the sand is all about.

I really didn't want to get into it but after studying the Doomsayers for 30 years the cycle is clear. I've lived through deforestation, desertification, ozone depletion, species extinction and now climate change, all as reasons for us to stop our economic course and do so radically or face dire consequences in the immediate term. None of it has been true or is currently true, but it continues to be pumped out like Larry Brown and the Ehrlich's were behind it with a fire hose.

Is there "climate change"? Well DUH, there's been climate change on this planet since it was a planet. We know we've had cycles of hot and cold, and more to the point we know there isn't a "single" cycle. There are in fact numerous cycles, some short term and some long, that all overlap and interact. Sometimes they amplify, sometimes they cancel out. There are 10 year patterns, 1 year patterns, 100 year pattern, 1,000 year patterns and probably 10,000 or 100,000 year patterns. The system has inputs from the oceans, flora growth, the sun (the 8 billion pound gorilla in the room of climate change no one wants to acknowledge), the atmosphere, the magnetic field, lots of things. Most of it we barely understand.

The idea that this bout of storms is in any way tied to long term climate activity is just poor science, taking a smattering of anecdotal data and building long term conclusions on it. It's also easily disproven as having any correlation with long term "climate change" as defined now by warming due to Man. The 1930s saw a far warmer cycle than we are having today, with worse droughts and peaks in hurricane activity throughout the 1930-1950 period versus today of both major and minor storms, yet that happened with industrialization at a fraction of what it is now worldwide. Even the anecdotal data doesn't stand up to the other anecdotal data, much less to proper statistical scrutiny.

The British government released that they found no aggregate increase in world temperatures for the last 16 years, contradicting the predictions of most every computer model out there that has been projecting warming and its ties to Man's activities. It completely destroys the original hockey stick projections that set this whole thing off. A study btw that has now been documented as having been manipulated from internal emails that have been released.

As with all such things, the best principle is to follow the money. I've watched as these American economic apologists and environmental wackos have searched for the "big threat" that would finally be their leverage to enact massive economic change in the US. Species extinction, deforestation, none has the impact of climate change b/c it covers pretty much all industrial output and energy use. The only way to address it is radical and painful economic shifts.

It's no coincidence this one is being pushed by environmental groups that have lobbied for decades to get rid of fossil fuels, nor is it shocking the world community desperately wants the US to voluntarily make itself less competitive in global markets and reduce it's demand for natural resources. I'm shocked, shocked I say that the Third World and industrializing nations want the US to stop sucking up the world's oil supply and stop making stuff so we have to buy it from other countries.

Seriously, people can't see through this? The same UN that is pushing Kyoto has Iran on the Small Arms Treaty committee and Cuba on the Human Rights committee? You can't see the pathetic attempt by other nations to use any excuse possible to limit US economic strength?

Climate change is the worst kind of science. Like all the other Doomsayer stuff it's politico-science, where scientists don't just analyze the data but go on to draw conclusions about what it means for public policy. Hint: when a biologist has a "public policy" section in his results, that's NOT going to be science you're reading.

There are statements by more than one scientist saying they are only able to get grant money if they are going to come up with the right results on climate change, documentation the original work predicting such dire outcomes was manipulated statistically, all kinds of obvious politics being played with the issue in the UN and Kyoto, and now we have a 16 year period with no warming despite it overlapping a massive increase in CO2 and every other kind of output in China and elsewhere.

The models don't hold. Yes there is climate change, no we don't know where it's going, no we don't know how much human activity is contributing to it in either direction, no we don't know what other cycles may be cancelling or adding to our input and we for sure have no basis for castrating our economy while the rest of the world marches merrily by us.

This nation would best be served by:

1) Doing anything necessary to create 100% energy independence while remaining globally competitive economically. Coal is far cleaner than ever, we have oil and gas reserves accessible, and yes it should include efforts at conservation and efficiency and alternatives as well. It will take them all.

2) In so doing we can, other than supporting Israel, leave the Middle East to their own self destructive path. Pull out and significantly reduce the war against radical Islam, focus on a military that can respond with massive, surgical strikes to defend ourselves and our immediate allies and otherwise let them kill each other.

3) Grow the economy by returning to a free market that will make us competitive again. Slash regulations and overhead, eliminate entire federal agencies (start with HUD), and allow us to grow the economy enough to pay off this debt and restore the nation to health.


Trying to strangle our economy with radical shifts away from the cheapest energy inputs while simultaneously spending like lunatics and massively increasing the cost of doing business through government regulation and expansion over the GDP is national suicide. Now is the absolute worst time to pursue an extremist economic agenda based on questionable science with unclear impacts or timeframe while our competitors and enemies take over the economic world.

Now is the time to drill the wells, open the mines, start making actual things again in this country so we can pay down the debt and become the world's economic center again. In 10-15 years I don't know if we'll be able to make it back.

Forgot to mention, I remember when we were told the ozone layer couldn't heal itself. yes I'm that old. Guess what? It did. Wasn't on the front page of any of the papers though. Sure was when there was a hole that could never be fixed so we had to take radical action to keep it from expanding.

Also, we'll long be dead before climate change kills us off. If you want a real environmental cause we need to talk about the bottom trawling of our oceans and otherwise poisoning them. We're being told to not eat too much Tuna and other things b/c of heavy metal poisoning. That's today, that's real, and it's expanding.

it also can be addressed without massive economic upheaval, which I guess explains why Gore hasn't written a book, Moore hasn't made a movie and the media haven't talked about it. Damage to the ocean shelf and deep oceans will do more not only to kill us off but to impact the climate than all the coal and oil, but since no one benefits politically or economically from it I guess it'll just sit there with no champion.

Citizen, what if the vast majority of the scientific community is right? Wouldn't you rather err on the side of caution and begin the unavoidable-anyway phase out of fossil fuels now rather than risk the alternative? There is a very real risk to our country's security that no one talks about that comes with these storms and their tidal surges and power outages.

Common sense says mankind's polluting ways since the dawn of the industrial revolution can't be good for Mother Nature. If it isn't good, it's probably bad.

http://www.kysportsreport.com/forums...d-16-years-ago

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Originally Posted by Catfan73

Citizen, what if the vast majority of the scientific community is right? Wouldn't you rather err on the side of caution and begin the unavoidable-anyway phase out of fossil fuels now rather than risk the alternative? There is a very real risk to our country's security that no one talks about that comes with these storms and their tidal surges and power outages.

Common sense says mankind's polluting ways since the dawn of the industrial revolution can't be good for Mother Nature. If it isn't good, it's probably bad.

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I don't think anyone is against moving away from fossil fuels or is for pollution, but we're talking about the pace of change. If we were just talking about moving away you'd have no one disagree, but far off consequences don't equal political action or power so the data needs to show it'll all collapse in 10 or 20 years, that it can't recover once it reaches a "tipping point". That's a constant in these movements. Is it just coincidence they all set up the exact same way?

First off I see no sound evidence that these storms are induced by climate change, and FAR more important, there is no evidence that us changing our ways will change the climate trend (if any) or will abate any weather that results.

If anything I'm advocating caution. I dont' want the economy wrecked, people suffering on the basis of projections that were just now proven to be wrong for the last 16 years.

The cautious approach is not to stop drilling, stop pipelines, regulate coal out of existence, spend half a trillion dollars on "green energy" that all fails before it starts production, and governmentally guarantee we spend the years of this transition totally dependent on oil from abroad that embroils us in a global battle with radical Islam and probably nuclear powers.

I'm being cautious. It's the hair on fire Gore/Obama strategy that is throwing all caution to the winds instead of trying to methodically balance a series of severe threats to our nation, only one of which is climate change, against more immediate threats of a crumbling economy and the spectre of a decades long war against radical Islam.

These things are all connected, and by cutting our ability to have energy self sufficiency, even if we believe in climate change, which is the worst for our nation a small percentage increase in "greenhouse gas" production over a 10 or 20 year period when we are an increasingly small part of production or a crippling 30 trillion dollar debt that destroys our currency and a constant state of war without the economic means to fund it?

I'm being cautious. I wish the Left would do the same.


PS - there's a lot more here, like discussing the bias of the IPCC and how this isn't really a "vast majority" of the scientific community at all, a lot of dissenting peer reviews and research being suppressed by both the IPCC and the media, discussing how the projections themselves are separate from the causality but are taken at face if one accepts the causality, discussing how it's not clear at all that man = greenhouse gases = climate change is impacted by us reducing our output in the US.

That last part seems counterintuitive I admit, but it's true scientifically. For example there was research showing salt intake correlated with higher blood pressure, so the government went on a big anti-salt campaign. The problem is the lack of evidence that a low salt diet reduced blood pressure. Correlation in science isn't universally reversible.

Last thought. Think hurricanes are linked to warming? Then how is it the "vast majority" say we're continually warming when hurricanes hitting the US followed right along the average since the 1940s but in the 30s and 40s was a huge peak?

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/pastdec.shtml

Something else must be going on, right? Other cycles, other patterns. If 100 years of data can't show that connection, why should I accept 4-5 years does?

". . . last year's record drought in Texas was made "roughly 20 times more likely" because of man made climate change, specifically meaning warming that comes from greenhouse gasses like carbon dioxide. The study, requested by NOAA, looked at 50 years of weather data in Texas and concluded that man-made warming had to be a factor in the drought."

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_16...limate-change/