The massive tax that the Obama administration was pretending is a jobs program is dead in the water. And that’s a good thing, because it actually was going to regulate—that’s right, put into law—the kind of bulbs you could put in your chandeliers.
But that’s not what killed it. It was the taxes that were going to increase the cost of coal, and electricity overall. Obama thinks that by doubling our electric bills, Americans will start conserving a lot more. Yeah, because that’s the problem—we’re not paying enough for our electricity.
I have changed my views on taxes so drastically that they are unrecognizable from the younger me. I used to believe that taxing something highly was a good way to force people to change their behaviors. Now I just want the government to keep its damned hands out of my pocketbook. I work hard for my money, and I get to be the one that dictates my behaviors—not the nanny state.
Particularly not on a bogus, trumped-up, unscientific hoax like global warming.
Take the money from Al Gore. He’s certainly made enough as the Prophet of Global Warming to not miss it.
By the way, try this thought experiment: Ask someone you know voted for Obama if they think the cap-and-trade bill is a good thing. When they say, “Of course,” point out to them that one of the things that will probably happen is a doubling of their electric bills, rising gas prices, and an explosion in regulations about simple things like lightbulbs. Then watch them change their minds. (I just did something similar last week over ObamaCare with the receptionists at my chiropractor’s office.)
Once the people know how much Obama and the Dems are trying to put over on them, they wise up pretty fast.
why do you think that global warming is an unscientific hoax? i see this theme in a lot of conservative blogs and frankly, i don’t get it.
Because, Yael, actual observations of atmospheric temperatures do not show the large rises postulated by the Global Warmmongers. Their assertions are based on the results of mathematical models of global atmospheric circulation, which are somewhat like the econometric models of economists. The models predict large increases of temperature, in the atmosphere and in ocean water, as CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere rise. Over the last ten years the concentration of CO2 has risen but the temperatures have not, remaining stable on average from year-to-year. Before that there was a small rise of about .07 Celsius per decade for about two decades. This was measured with satellites to get global coverage and not just coverage of where stations happen to be on land. In other words, the theoretical models do not conform to observation. The reaction of the Global Warmmongers is to ignore the observations. There is an old scientific joke about that: “When the theory and the experimental data disagree the obvious solution is to throw out the data.” Now we have scientists proposing to do just that.
Scientists who observe the actual atmosphere tend to be skeptical of the hysterical predictions of the Global Warmmongers. Those who make the hysterical predictions tend to be those who make the models or accept the models as more accurate than observation is.
http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/essd06oct97_1.htm
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/07/03/uah-global-temperature-anomaly-for-june-09-zero/
A famous graph was published in the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report for 2001, that showed a more or less flat temperature history for the Earth for the last 1000 years until recently, then a sharp upward trend in the last century or so. That was called the “hockey stick” because it was so sharp. But that did not show known, historical climate changes. For example, it did not show at all the Medieval Warm Period of the High Middle Ages (about 800-1300). During this period wine grapes grew in England 70 miles northeast of London, at Ely, where the monks made wine from them. Try that today. This period was followed by “The Little Ice Age” which lasted up to about the middle of the 19th Century, with ups and downs of the global temperature within it. This is again a well-known historical event, but was completely missing from the “hockey stick” graph.
Here is a url for a Wikipedia article on the hockey Stick controversy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hockey_stick_controversy
All too much it has become plain that collectivists have used putative global warming as an excuse for a power grab, in the spirit of Rahm Emmanuel’s motto “Never let a crisis go to waste.” Bad science is being used as an excuse for bad economics and worse political change. Many conservatives are skeptical of global warming because it looks fishy to us. The near-religious devotion to it of so many of the Global Warmmongers makes us even more suspicious that it comes from Cloud Cuckoo Land.
There is another aspect that I have noticed. In the 1970s the crise du jour was global cooling. We were supposed to be on the verge of a new Ice Age, that would come soon. Again climate models “proved” it. The same people who want us to overturn our economic and political situations today over global warming were saying much the same thing in the 1970s over cooling. Sometimes exactly the same people, like Stephen Schneider, a well-know climate modeler who pushed the Ice Age panic button in the 70s and the Warming panic button in the 90s and 00s. I accepted their assertions then, but they were not correct. I will not let them panic me a second time, on a dubious basis. We can do research to see if there really is global warming. If there is it probably comes from solar luminosity increase and there isn’t a whole lot we can do about changing the Sun, no matter how many Kyoto Treaties we sign and how much damage we do to our economies in pursuit of ordering the tide not to rise (actually the Sun has been quiescent this year, with no sunspots; the last time this happened we got a sharp drop in global temperature).
To sum up we find the science dubious and the proposed political and economic actions dangerous, impoverishing for no good reason, and reactionary.
Damn Global Warming. How often do you get frost warnings in July?
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/prince-edward-island/story/2009/07/08/pei-frost-july.html
Ah, but according to the San Fransicko Jewish Film Festival, “pursuing social justice [translation: having the nanny state’s damned hands loot your neighbor’s earnings for supposedly politically correct purposes] is in itself a deeply held Jewish value.”
Bonus: second item down is a Rachel Corrie whitewash.
Battered spouse of the Left, yadda yadda.
Add to what Michael said the fact that scientists who question the lack of evidence (and science) on global warming have been suppressed, called insane, and kept out of the plum jobs and research grants, and you begin to get why I call it a hoax.
Alan, pursuing social justice is a deeply held Jewish value. But that still means I get to determine what causes I want to contribute to. Not the government.
Then again, our president and vice president aren’t very much into contributing to social justice with their own money. They’re much better at using ours.
Ms Yourish, look out, the Dark Side is going to get you.
Regards “Global Warming”, ask a true believer if they know
what the North American Ice Sheet was. Was it’s disappearance
a good or bad thing? How mauny SUV’s caused the melting, etc.
Cheers
Aren’t we in a “Move farther away from the Sun for the next 15 years” cycle right now? I think it started 2-3 years ago.
Also the amount of sunspot and solar flare activity is starting to decrease?
Combine those 2 events and the ice caps-which have had a history of expanding and shrinking–kind of like a spandex dress- through history–well I think the polar bears will have plenty of area to roam in a few years.
Orange says a Heya toTig and Miss Gracie.
Meryl responds:
…which is what I should have said. Point well taken!
On second thought I am going to hedge on my hedge.
For my entire life, I have only EVER seen the term “social justice” used as a euphemism for State looting and bullying in the name of feel-good boondoggles and hard-left agitation. I believe that ANSWER, Barney Frank, tHugo Chavez, William Ayers, and the International Solidbodilywaste Movement all claim the mantle of “social justice.”
So what are some examples of the term “social justice” being applied to voluntary, non-coercive (i.e. the way it is supposed to happen in a free society) benevolence?
Alan,
“Social Justice” never means anything voluntary or non-coercive. It’s one of those euphemisms beloved of the left that means the opposite of what it says, like the People’s Democratic Republic of Korea, which tyrannizes the people, is by no stretch of the imagination democratic, and looks more and more like a monarchy rather than a republic. “Social Justice” is the planned society and economy tarted up with some faux jewelry and fake furs to make it look prettier and less like fascistic Communism. Its premise is injustice. It’s MO is “You earn bread and I and my political cronies will eat it. If you complain we have a nice concentration camp for you at Minot, North Dakota.”
Pamela: There are a lot of different cycles that contribute to global climate change (which is and always has been changing). The ones that most significantly impact our climate are the solar cycles at approximate 11, 22, 87, 210, 2300 and 6000-year intervals. (See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_variation#Solar_cycles).
There are other cycles from other sources as well, including perturbations in Earth’s orbit, changes in the orientation of the Earth’s axis, the motion of our solar system through galaxy, and countless others.
Taken together with observations we find short-term (a few decade) cycles that we all experience all the time (when we notice a few hot or cold years.) There are longer-term cycles that we generally don’t notice, including an approximate 1500-year cycle of global warming and cooling, which explains the medieval warming period, the little ice age, and many other similar periods throughout history. And then there are 40,000-100,000 year cycles that produce ice ages.
None of these are cause by human beings and none of them can be stopped slowed or in any way affected by human activity. Nevertheless, there are scores of politicians who claim otherwise and want to bankrupt all of Western civilization in efforts to take control of these cycles. Some, I’m sure, have just been duped by lobbyists. Others know the truth and are deliberately using global warming hysteria as an excuse to grab power and establish themselves as dictators.