Cook Organic Not The Planet

I took a few minutes to watch the People's Global Warming March today. Held in New York, it attracted thousands of folks who were demanding... Well, I'm not really sure what they wanted since it varied so much in the time I paid attention. Here are a few highlights.

Koch Brothers Are Evil

I would bet the majority of Americans don't know anything about the Koch brothers. They have the audacity to support organizations that have a stated goal of "advancing liberty and freedom." The Left, seeing the success the Right had at pointing out billionaire George Soros' activities, who has funded many groups that work towards undermining American freedom, decided they needed a nemesis. Since the majority of American billionaires are generally left-leaning, the Koch brothers were chosen as the face of capitalism. Now, at every event their name is cursed in speeches, and seen on nonsensical signs accusing them of all sorts of dastardly deeds. Saul Alinsky would be proud.

We Are The World

You see global warming is not just a local, regional, or even national problem. It is a global problem that requires a global solution. That is why groups from all over the world - The Philippines, South Africa, Australia, Dominican Republic all converged on New York. Presumably, they all took carbon neutral flights.

Who Needs Borders

Not sure how this helps cool the planet, but one of the many recommendations from the marchers was that we should live in a world without borders. The activists should go visit the Texas/Mexico border. Seriously, pitch a tent on either side of the Rio Grande for a few weeks and see how well it goes.

Fracking Is Evil, Solar And Wind Are Better 

Besides causing thousands of bird deaths every year, being a visual blight on the landscape, and being the least efficient ways to generate electricity, the "in" crowd still pushes these ridiculous energy fantasies that only survive with massive taxpayer-funded subsidies. Where fracking is allowed, economies are growing and jobs are being created. Oil & gas are still the most efficient ways to move people and products. And don't forget, oil as a raw material is in virtually every consumer product. The activist who was pushing this was from California. Try taking a solar car from California to a global warming march in New York. You might not make it out of California.

SIGN SPOTTED: Miami Is Drowning

Evacuate South Florida! My gosh you would think if the entire city of Miami was under water that the news media would be doing 24/7 coverage of such a major disaster. Miami is only 6 feet above sea level, so even a moderate hurricane could cause flooding. That is true for most coastal cities near tropical regions. Just because major hurricanes are on an historic "pause", is no reason to ignore the potential harm a major hurricane could do in the case of a direct hit. Its a serious issue that has nothing to do with global warming. Simple fact of life, if you choose to live near the ocean in hurricane country, there is a good chance you will experience rain, winds, flooding, and possibly loss of property and life. If you want 100% protection from hurricanes, move.

The myth that melting polar ice (they are expanding not melting) raises sea level can easily be debunked at home. Get a clear glass, place ice in glass, fill with water to a measurable point, and note level. When the ice melts, note the level again. Its so easy a failed presidential candidate should be able to figure it out.

SIGN SPOTTED: Climate Change Our Greatest Threat

Tell that to the Christians and Yazidis of Northern Iraq. Or to the folks in the twin towers on 9/11, or on the ground in Benghazi. I think the folks in Ukraine and Eastern Europe might be more concerned with Russian aggression than another cool Summer. What about the folks in Africa fighting the outbreak of Ebola. Do you think they are worried about an imperceptible, and totally natural, sea level rise of a millimeter annually? And closer to home, how about coal miners who are facing loss of their jobs and financial ruin because of Washington's war on coal?

SIGN SPOTTED: Cook Organic Not The Planet

Cute rhyme, but a complete falsehood. The planet has not warmed in almost 20 years. Its inconvenient, but the truth. And there is little, if anything, that man can do to make it warmer or cooler if he tried. Cooking organic certainly wouldn't make a difference. And with the government shutting down family farms, organic co-ops, and clamping down on private gardening, it may be difficult to even find organic food.

$15 Minimum Wage And Public Ownership Of Corporations

 Is The Answer To Global Warming

To her credit, the activist who recommended this course of action admitted being a socialist. And even though we have oodles of evidence to the destructive nature of socialism on the human condition, there are still those that push this nonsense. One only has to look at anything the government owns or runs, to see what will happen - public housing, public transportation, public education, VA, you name it. Without incentive to prosper, nobody works hard. If we actually taught history in schools, we would not continually have to explain this to yet another generation.

Would you pay $10 for a Happy Meal? What about $15 for a sub sandwich? The idea that government can force employers to pay unreasonable wages for unskilled jobs without serious financial consequences for everyone, is a failure of our education system to teach basic economics. Sure, the young burger flipper gets another $8 an hour, but now he has to pay $7 a gallon for gas, his rent goes up 25% and his grocery bill goes up 30%. His smokes now cost him $25 - if the government hasn't banned them outright. In short order, he is back to where he started, if not out of work completely, since his burger joint is forced to close for lack of business. But hey, now the socialists are in charge.  They will fix it.

Its almost as ridiculous as someone believing higher wages, or government ownership of businesses, would change the climate.

Other Signs

Delay=Death, Act Now ...  Turn Towards Utopia ... Planet Over Profit ... USA Get Your Head Out Of The Tar Sand ... Without Hate

Other Highlights

"Consumerism must end."... Bernie Sanders may run for POTUS. ... Volunteers were paid as much as $50 to be there. ... Some students received extra credit for participating in march. ... "Elections must be publicly funded." ... "Stop Capitalism and push community solutions." ... "Global warming is a health crisis." ... "Preserve our Mother Earth." ... "If we don't have peace with nature, we won't have peace with the nations. Nuclear weapons have no place in our future." ... There was a moment of silence followed by screams that were a, "Burglar Alarm for those who have stolen the planet."

And of course the obligatory call to action - "We need collective action channeled into militant nonviolent action." (Because most militant movements are nonviolent.)

Social justice, sustainability, and climate justice, are all code words for redistribution of wealth, population control, and socialism. The antidote for poverty is not to make everyone equally destitute. The solution is freedom. Capitalism, the idea that people are free to buy, sell, save, and invest as they see fit, produced the most prosperous nation in the history of the planet in less than 200 years. America has the richest "poor" folks in the world. The spread of economic prosperity is only hindered by government interference, regulating or taxing businesses to the point of extinction. When government bureaucrats pick winners and losers, everyone loses.

The ideas behind those three code words have launched some of the most demonic pogroms in world history - eugenics, population control, and in the future, the grotesquely named Complete Lives System, which allows the state to ration health care, picking life's winners and losers.

The only way to achieve what these marchers ultimately want - their idea of a Utopia, is a massive and oppressive global state that micromanages every detail of your existence, and even life itself. Their mythical sustainable world would require a final solution to weed out the "undesirables" and thin the herd. Only then will Mother Nature be happy again.

Frankly, I prefer the way they did it on Logan's Run. Oddly, many of the protestors wore similar clothes to those seen in the film.

This Is The Biggest Storm Since...

I pray for all those who have experienced loss during Hurricane Sandy and hope every family can recover quickly. Its never pleasant when a natural disaster occurs. I'm sure the people in New York and New Jersey see about as many hurricanes as I see major ice storms in Dallas, Texas. And its certainly not easy to prepare for something that occurs so infrequently.

Even before landfall, the warmanistas were already staking their claims to Hurricane Sandy as proof that global warming exists - and we must take immediate action to stop it. Sadly, their plans often include laundering taxpayer money through bankrupt "green" companies, which hardly seems like a prudent strategy to combat global warming, or to help a struggling economy.

In times like these, we need a little perspective. Accurate records for Atlantic hurricanes only go back so far for the United States. But there are reports of storms hitting the East Coast all the way back to the 12th Century. There were 3 storms in 1888 that hit New England, and 2 in 1869, 1893, 1954, 1972, and 1985. The further back in time, the less accurate the records. There is no way of knowing how many storms made landfall that went unnoticed, or were not recorded for posterity.

It wasn't that long ago that a certain well known climate charlatan was making movies, receiving a Nobel Prize, and telling the UN that hurricanes were getting more frequent and more dangerous. He was back on camera this week, using his best scary voice to tell us that Hurricane Sandy was, “a disturbing sign of things to come.”

In a very disturbing speech to the UN in 2005, and a noteworthy performance that should have won an Academy Award, Al Gore breathlessly blamed George Bush for everything from 9/11 to Hurricane Katrina, in the latter case, apparently the local government in Democrat-controlled New Orleans gets a pass for their ineptness. The global warming pope himself made the following outrageous predictions.

Now, the scientific community is warning us that the average hurricane will continue to get stronger because of global warming. A scientist at MIT has published a study well before this tragedy showing that since the 1970s, hurricanes in both the Atlantic and the Pacific have increased in duration, and in intensity, by about 50%. The newscasters told us after Hurricane Katrina went over the southern tip of Florida that there was a particular danger for the Gulf Coast of the hurricanes becoming much stronger because it was passing over unusually warm waters in the gulf.

Poppycock. Its almost as if nature likes mocking Al Gore. Every wacky prediction he makes falls short. Since his proclamation of doom, the US has gone 7 years without a major hurricane (Cat 3+) making landfall - blowing past the previous record set between 1900 and 1906. That does not mean that hurricanes cannot, or will not be dangerous. But the assertion that global warming is making them more frequent and/or more dangerous is obviously flawed.

Technology, such as satellites, computers, and aircraft, has made it much easier to spot and track hurricanes and tropical storms in the modern era. Media proliferation has made it much more accessible for everyone to be aware of hurricanes globally. That would help explain any perceived increase in storms in the last 40 years. 2005 was a deadly year for major hurricanes with 7 in the Atlantic. But even without the advantages of modern technology, that number was matched in 1961, and surpassed in 1950 (8). In the preceding centuries, that number may have been eclipsed several times, but we simply have no accurate records to prove this.

Hurricane Sandy, as destructive as it may have been, was just barely a Category 1 storm when it hit the coast. I'm sure architects and engineers never considered the once a decade possibility of a direct hit from a hurricane as they were building New Jersey and New York. Just like New Orleans would probably not be placed below sea level in prime hurricane country if it were being founded today. Hopefully, in both cases, rebuilding will take into consideration future storms.

Hurricanes come, natural disasters occur, and as Solomon says, there is nothing new under the Sun. Speaking of Scripture, in that same speech to the UN, Al Gore invoked God's Word. He quotes Proverbs 29:18 - where there is no vision, the people perish. He cuts the verse short and uses the King James Version. When you look at this same complete verse in other translations, the meaning becomes much more dynamic.

When people do not accept divine guidance, they run wild. But whoever obeys the law is joyful. Proverbs 29:18 NLT

Stay with me while I tie this together. God's Law is simply summed up as - Love your Heavenly Father with all your heart, and love others as yourself. If you love God and others, you do not lie. Nor do you sow fear and deception. Its one thing to promote a belief that mankind is destroying the planet, however wrong and misguided that may be. It takes on a much more sinister nature when you knowingly deceive folks, and then try to profit from it. 

There are many reasons why Americans have rejected the global warming hysteria. Chief among these is that many Americans are Christians who know to reject fear, and those that use it for political purposes. I will never be motivated by fear or deception - both weapons of the enemy.

Quite a few Americans, like myself, have also been on this planet long enough to recognize that not every single weather event is the biggest, worst, coldest, warmest, or longest that has ever been. When we hear claims like these, we recognize them as laughable exaggerations. And when these weather events are politicized to push a "green" agenda, we rightly recognize them as propaganda.

Climate change has happened in the past, and will continue to occur in the future, with or without man. And there are far too many factors beyond man's control that influence the global climate, chief among these is the Sun. It is irresponsible to utilize a weather event, such as Hurricane Sandy, and the suffering of those that endure it, to score cheap political points for a highly controversial belief system. But then again idolatry, placing creation and even man above its Creator, has been around since the beginning of time. Solomon had it right, there is nothing new under the Sun.


Related:
Roger Pielke: Hurricanes and Human Choice 

Hurricane Sandy’s ‘Unprecedented’ Storm Surge

Policy By Panic - Global Warming

Did you catch this random act of journalism in Slate discussing global warming's outlandish predictions?

I'm shocked to see the author, Bjørn Lomborg, stray slightly from global warming orthodoxy. Look for Bjørn to be shunned at the next earth worship service.

And while its nice to have some fun with this piece, the author makes a good point about policy by panic. Fear mongering is not an acceptable path to change hearts or minds. Because of all the wild claims made by the left over the years (hole in ozone, DDT, Alar, new ice age, mortgage crisis etc), many like myself are automatically suspicious of any prediction that comes from the Progressive-Democrat-Media complex. When you have folks eager to "never let a crisis go to waste," it is highly probable that they would create one, real or imagined, to implement their agenda.

The man-made global warming crisis gave me great pause when I first heard about it. I remember the outlandish claims in the 70s - that we would have to move to Mexico to avoid freezing to death in the coming ice age. Thankfully, that idiocy died rather quickly. But the myth of man-caused global warming will not end so gracefully. There is just too much money at stake, too many UN agendas to implement, too many 3rd world countries to plunder, and too many reputations at risk for this nonsense to finally die.

Commonsense should tell you that the sheer size of the Earth, a planet that is over 70% water, and with only a small percentage of land inhabited by humans in any appreciable density, would limit mankind from having much, if any influence on the GLOBAL climate. Even a limited scientific knowledge should cause you to consider the Sun, which is beyond man's control, as the most significant driver of any climate change. And even if you focused exclusively on greenhouse gasses, why would you not focus on water vapor, which is by far the largest greenhouse gas, instead of CO2? And of course there is the Earth's historical record, which includes long periods that were both much colder and much warmer than now, and sometimes much higher concentrations of CO2, should make any wild claims of man's influence on global temperatures suspect.

But this blog is not to dispute the why or why not of global warming. Climate change has happened in the past, and will happen again, with or without man's help. This is about the propaganda war waged by the left.

When Al Gore and other warmanistas claimed after Hurricane Katrina that global warming would cause ever increasing numbers of storms like Katrina, with ever increasing destructive power, it was laughable. We are now almost 2500 days (2488) removed from the last Cat 3 or above storm making US landfall. This far surpasses the last record (1900-1906 - 2231 days). But do you hear any "believer" apologizing for their obvious fear mongering? No. They are still pushing this nonsense with ever increasing fervor and even more ridiculous claims.

This is where Bjørn hits the nail on the head. Every incident, climate related or not, seems to get blamed on global warming. BTW - I know the warmanistas have been running away from the global warming term, but as far as I am concerned, they invented and own it, and I will use it as long as free speech is still allowed. The warmanistas use every drought, rain shower, snowstorm, tornado, heat wave, cold snap as absolute proof of global warming, in spite of sometimes overwhelming evidence against such claims. They make ridiculous predictions about more frequent hurricanes or the Arctic sans ice, and are never called out when these predictions are epic failures. If they want anyone to take this issue seriously, the propaganda needs to end.

IF the climate is changing, let REAL scientists do their job figuring it out apart from the politics and agitprop. Let them examine all factors before automatically blaming man. You may just find that the climate is getting warmer no matter what man does. If that is the case, it hardly seems prudent to tax the world into the stone age, leaving the common folks, those not enjoying the Carbon Tax/Cap & Trade windfall, incapable of adapting to their changing environment.