Angry Weather?

“The most powerful voice is that of Mother Nature, the increasing storms, floods, droughts and other extreme events. We’re paying the cost of carbon every day and we should put a price on carbon in markets and put a price on denial in the political system.” - Al Gore - Bloomberg October 18, 2013

One of the silliest claims put forward by warmanistas is the notion that more human activity - you know, like people exhaling, causes more destructive and frequent storms. Its hard to fathom how any sane person could believe this nonsense. And its even harder to imagine that people who supposedly care about the environment would confuse climate and weather. But I digress.

In my previous post, I linked to a report showing how hurricanes have not increased in frequency or intensity, much to Al Gore's dismay. Now I want to share another inconvenient truth - tornadoes are at an all time low. At the current pace, there may be less than 1000 tornadoes for 2013 - currently 797 through November 2, 2013. Compare that to the 2194 (2008) and 2122 (through November 2, 2008). That SHOULD be good news. Who wants destructive weather, right? I can only imagine how this will be spun as proof that global warming continues.

And the bad news for the warmanistas keeps coming. There has been A 17 year pause in warming that some suggest might continue for another 30 years - as if anyone really knows anything for sure. Either way, the idea that a one or two degree fluctuation in either direction was somehow catastrophic, has always amused me.

Human activity has very little impact on global climate. And he has absolutely nothing to do with making the weather "angry" - whatever the heck that means to the left. But let's play along with the idea that man is somehow responsible for making the weather mad. If that is the case, it would seem we've made it so mad, its locked itself in its room.

The Truth Will Set You Free

The warmanistas cling to their hockey stick charts and climate models as if their very salvation depends on them. With every failed prediction - an ice free Arctic, more dangerous and frequent hurricanes, skyrocketing temperatures, they flail away with excuses as to why the climate does not behave as the climate charlatans predicted. Its almost comical, if it weren't so deadly serious.

The last few weeks there have been numerous setbacks for global warming "believers" both here and abroad. All these stories give me hope that the world is waking up.

Australians voted in large numbers for new leadership primarily as a rejection of the climate tax hysteria. This should lead to a meaningful reduction in the spiraling costs of just about everything down under.

In Europe, the climate scam has been devastating to the region. Germans pay almost 3x per kilowatt hour compared to Americans. Naturally, these asinine policies have led many businesses to move or expand elsewhere. Since Americans have largely resisted the climate taxes, we have attracted businesses because of lower energy costs. This is in spite of the sputtering economy, and the looming threat of Obamacare. This shows how much more of a threat carbon taxes are to an economy as compared to socialized medicine. Neither scheme solves anything. And they both are an egregious attack on individual freedom. However, taxing energy consumption, or CO2 production, gives government permission to literally regulate, forbid, or tax every aspect of human existence. The Global Warming Scam is one of the biggest threats to freedom ever imagined.

In the Fall 2013 edition of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, MIT Professor Richard S. Lindzen, Ph.D. said,

Global climate alarmism has been costly to society, and it has the potential to be vastly more costly. It has also been damaging to science, as scientists adjust both data and even theory to accommodate politically correct positions.

Climategate opened a lot of eyes to the corruption in the scientific community all over the world. The warmanistas are fond of labeling anyone that dares to speak against their belief system as being owned by Big Oil. The irony is that if your sugar daddy is Big Government, you are far more likely to have your science compromised. Its very doubtful that any big progressive government will spend a dime in support of any scientific effort that undermines the state's position. Those carbon taxes guarantee that the last bit of wealth in private hands gets transferred to the governing elites. They are not about to let go of that revenue stream no matter what damage it does to the economy.

In Lindzen's article he presents an image (Figure 1) that shows the problem with Global Warming in a nutshell. Scientists make ambiguous or meaningless statements on climate change. Activists spin these into alarming statements. I would add that the media takes these, along with any weather anomaly, and scares the public unnecessarily. And then politicians do their damage by passing unconstitutional laws and raising taxes in the name of saving the earth. They then provide even more funding to scientists to continue the corrupt cycle.

Lindzen ends the article with a statement I heartily agree with,

Global Warming has become a religion. A surprisingly large number of people seem to have concluded that all that gives meaning to their lives is the belief that they are saving the planet by paying attention to their carbon footprint.

Its sad but true. A whole generation has been raised on environmental propaganda based on some very bad science. The adults of today, were the kids yesterday, who were told daily that Mommy was killing Polar Bears because she drove an SUV. They are suffering under the delusion that somehow, modern life is contributing to the destruction of the planet. The indoctrination is so strong that some see humans as a parasite, sucking the very life out of the planet. Lies like that can only come from the pit of Hell. And the only way they can find some sort of peace is a sacrifice to mother earth. We're just one great leap forward away from progressives launching Carrousel, where those that turn 30 (or others deemed undesirable) are vaporized. Save the planet, right?

As the scam unravels, governments scurry to keep the nightmare alive. The upcoming UN report from the IPCC is already being criticized by governments because it undermines the cause. Truth does not matter to them. All that matters is that government continues confiscating all the wealth possible, while causing unnecessary hardship for the people of the world, especially in developing nations that need energy.

This has gone long, so I will wrap it up with this great video. Few people have really looked at the cost and benefit of fighting global warming. As we have seen in so many political/social wars - on poverty, drugs etc., we rarely win. Instead, we waste trillions in the process, and in the case of poverty, simply turn the proverbial safety net into a hammock. So what is the cost/benefit of a global warming war?

Topher Field shows that it is 50 times more expensive to try and stop global warming than it would be to make changes and adapt to the higher or lower temperatures if it happens. Quite frankly, it is just as likely, based on reduced sunspot activity, that we may be heading into a prolonged cooling phase. But they already tried to sell that in the 70s, and it didn't sound scary enough.

Enjoy!

Help Me UN, You're My Only Hope

The greatest hope for mankind to live and enjoy an abundant life, is the advance of faith, freedom, and family. Briefly, faith is the recognition of a benevolent Creator, who has provided a moral framework founded on Love. Freedom recognizes that rights such as expression, life, worship, and defense, come from the Creator, not government. And family, as designed by the Creator, is the building block of a stable and prosperous society. With those three firmly established, a society can prosper.

Things go catawampus when some government, or committee of Nimrods*, seems to think they can organize society better than their Creator. Such is the case far too often with the United Nations, hereafter referred to as the un, and pronounced the same as the prefix in their favorite word - unsustainable. Various un committees claim the power to change the global climate, attempt to manage and/or end private property rights, infringe the right of self defense, and keep millions poor and hungry by their meddling in developing nations, and their insistence that they finance poverty, instead of working towards eradicating it.

They have a $5 Billion dollar annual budget (25% comes from the US), and a workforce of over 40,000 people. Clearly, nothing good can come from such a massive bureaucracy. And let's not forget their "generosity" with your money. Honestly, it might be far more effective to simply fire the blue beret bureaucrats and distribute that money to the world's poor. But I digress.

Am I against the un? Not exactly. There should be a forum for discussing international issues, and a process to attempt to settle conflicts peacefully. That was the original intent. But now the un has devolved into an army of ne'er do wells, academics, and socialists (although I repeat myself) that have no business having any power, or influence.

Here is a yet another example of what is wrong with the un, the curiously named Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. The title sounds noble enough. Who is for racism, right? And then you read what tops the agenda of their taxpayer paid meeting/vacation in Geneva - stopping hate speech spread via Internet. Heck, I even have a quote from El Jefe herself.

“Where does the right of expression, which we all want to respect, stop and the need to sanction and prevent hate speech begin? What is the point in time when one right has to recognize that it cannot be exercised if it implies the violation of another one,” -- UN Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights Flavia Pansieri

If these little tyrants REALLY respected the freedom of expression, meetings like this would never happen. While the right to speak freely exists, the right to be offended does not. Offense is a choice. If you don't like what someone writes, or says on the Internet, don't read their blog, or watch their video. Its not complicated to anyone with half a brain. A free and polite society has a way of dealing with any speech that goes over the line. You ignore it. There's no need for Commissar Pansieri to come and save us. And of course there are legal remedies for slander and libel. Again, no need for the un to get involved. The animals that feel it necessary to riot for the cameras at the slightest perceived offense are the problem, not freedom of expression.

What motivated me to write this post is the whole notion of stopping "hate" speech. How anyone could look into the heart of another person and know their motivation is a mystery to me. Do the un folks have superpowers? Who is going to determine what is, and what is not "hate" speech? If a preacher says that homosexuality is sinful, is that "hate" speech? It already is in some countries. If I say Jesus is Lord, is that "hate" speech? It is in some countries. If I write that the un racism committee needs to be dissolved, along with all the rest of the bureaucracy, is that hate speech? It might be if Flavia and her storm troopers get their way.

You can't have freedom-lite. PC language rules on college campuses are killing higher education. Note how freely the terms "racism" or "homophobe" are tossed out to end any productive debate, or shutdown disagreement of any kind. How do you even prove you don't "hate" someone?  You can't. But in this brave new utopia the socialists have framed for us, the nature of the evidence is irrelevant. The seriousness of the charge is all that matters now, right?

If Flavia gets her way, would you have to run and hide immediately after publishing, for fear that the blue beret wearing secret police storm in and end your Internet privileges? And then would you be summoned before the un Tribunal Against Hate and Other Bad Stuff We Don't Like, or just sent directly to the death camps?

Either we are a free people, or we are in bondage. You end, or curtail the freedom of expression, and the entire world suffers. Communication, the free exchange of knowledge and ideas, is compromised to the detriment of humanity.  No subject should be off limits. No debate should be verboten.

One commentator once compared the un General Assembly to the Mos Eisley Cantina scene from Star Wars. I don't think you could come up with a better comparison. As Obi-Wan warned,

"You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. We must be cautious."

*Nimrod was a tyrant who enslaved people and attempted to create a single world government without God. His rebellion led to a scattering of the people. His name is synonymous with the futility of defying your Creator.