Medieval environmentalism

Medieval envoronmentalism is the "let's get back to the way things were in Medieval times before these dreadful cars and machines" movement.

Pajamas Media has The Great Global Warming Swindle, where I found the above definition:

As a commenter in the PJM thread points out,

How many people realize the ridiculously small levels of carbon dioxide that are actually in the atmosphere? 390 parts per MILLION.

Richard North sheds some light on Light bulbs and Eco-Fascism,

In fact the virtues of these "low energy" bulbs are nothing like so wonderful as naïve (self-serving) enthusiasts like Ms Lucas imagine them to be. Indeed in many ways, the experts warn, by banning incandescent bulbs altogether the EU may have committed itself to an appallingly costly blunder.

Jules is Getting Warmer

First Channel Four's "Great Global Warming Swindle," now the New York Times, "hype" and "exaggeration." The flood waters rising around Gore, warmglob enthusiasts. Oh, the treachery!

Dan's examining Al Gore's Global Swarming, and asks,

Should we really tell Africa and other nations they must not develop, thereby costing them years off their lives and actual lives because they will not have adequate services? Should we saddle everyone with hidden and seen taxes to combat a thing we don't really know is there? Reading between the lines of the Times piece, the answer has to be no.

Scott casts a jaundiced eye on The Guardian of Hypocrisy, and ends in the perfect note:

Help me pay my outrageous gas bills. Thank you.

If you grew up in the 1960s and 70s you heard a lot about global cooling - best-selling books and all. Back then I was living in Puerto Rico, where cooling would have been a welcome respite from the hot humidity.

Now we have Global Warming. Now I'm living in NJ, where we had a really cold February, cold enough that Lake Carnegie totally froze over for the first time in years, and warming is most definitely welcome.

Last year I became convinced that belief in Medieval envoronmentalism and Global Warming is a religion. I was attending a conference and during lunch break the subject of global warming came up. I politely stated, "I'm not totally sold on global warming".

Mind you, I didn't say "I don't believe in global warming", or "antropologically-induced global warming is a scam", or "this is such hooey", or anything like it. I just said (in a near-whisper at that) that I wasn't totally sold on global warming.

The reaction around the table was that of intense shock and disgust. One man put down his sandwich and turned red.

Had I verbalized the most appallingly obscene blasphemy I would not have received such disgust. I even speculate that some of those present might have even admired my "courage" and "honesty" in the name of "diversity".

After much animated conversation, and intense placating from a very conciliatory lady sitting next to me who got everybody to calm down by agreeing not to kill me on the spot (I belive the sandwich guy was contemplating where to hide my corpse) and my saying that "climate changes", I knew I was, definitely and beyond a doubt, in the presence of True Faith: they had Seen the Light, and the Light was set on Warm.

But you gotta give Al credit - he's the only man in history to have won an Oscar for a souped-up powerpoint presentation.

Here's a part of Friends of Science's documentary, Climate Catastrophe Cancelled:
go watch the whole thing at YouTube, especially if you're recovering from the frostbite:Trek Mounted To Prove Global Warming Ends Early When Explorers Suffer Frostbite

Again, there is no "consensus" on global warming. However, no matter what the evidence is,

"They were experiencing temperatures that weren't expected with global warming,"

Al and his True Believers will carry on. After all, the hardest thing for Al to do is to admit he's wrong - he used to be "America's next president", or something like that.

To paraphrase Bette Davis, Tighten your belts - it's going to be a bumpy ride.

Special thanks to Larwyn.

Back on daylight savings time, the Carnival, and a few items

Did you reset your clocks today?
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My neighbor TigerHawk ponders College town stickerology (h/t Larwyn, too), but he got 19 diggs from this post.

Let that be a lesson to the rest of us bloggers.

I guess I'll continue having low traffic.
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Environmentalism is a religion that is based more on political ambitions than science, the president of the Czech Republic warned Friday. I like that guy.
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Gerard takes a look at the Filthy Cultures of the Past Some Still Drool Over Today
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Louisiana Conservative wants Governor Blanco to run.
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Dr Sanity has the Carnival:

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Hillary was in New Hampshire, and Patrick Hynes blogged about it.
Speaking of Hillary, via Mara, Barak remembers Apple:

Ethanol and wealth creation

In The Economist, an article about ethanol, Fuel for friendship

Firms around the world are trying to make biofuel out of everything from trees to cooking oil. To make ethanol from corn or wheat, as Americans and Europeans tend to do, distillers must first convert the starch in those crops into sugars. But Brazilian distillers dispense with this expensive step, as they use sugarcane as a feedstock. So Brazil can produce ethanol for 22 cents a litre, compared with 30 cents a litre for corn-based ethanol, according to Icone, a Brazilian think-tank. That makes it cheaper than petrol, and therefore lucrative for farmers without subsidies.

U.S. sugar is too expensive to convert to fuel, thanks to a complicated system of tariffs and quotas that keeps the U.S. price of sugar artificially high, and the US can't produce enough sugar to meet an increasing demand in ethanol. Those are two reasons why import it.

However, as I mentioned in yesterday's Blog Talk Radio with WC of The Gathering Storm, the ethanol produced in Brazil is subject to a 54-cents-a-gallon US tarriff.

Since Brazil's ethanol has too much water (and is quite similar to rum), the way to get around this tarriff is for Brazil to ship its ethanol to dehidration factories in one of two dozen Caribbean countries that are exempt from the tarriff, and then take it to the US by tanker where a gasline refiner makes it undrinkable and blends it with gasoline. The blended ethanol is then shipped to gas stations.

The lobbyists and the politicians are to blame for this tarrif:

The ethanol industry not only receives billions of dollars in subsidies each year, but governmental protection from international competitors as well.

But back to The Economist,

Brazil is not the only country in Latin America that sees great promise in ethanol. Colombia now has five distilleries amid the sugarcane fields of the Cauca Valley, which produce 360m litres a year. Two more are under construction elsewhere. These producers are guaranteed a market, since regulations oblige fuel merchants to mix ethanol into petrol. By 2009 the required blend will be 10% ethanol and will gradually rise to 25% thereafter. Costa Rica has a similar policy, and Panama is contemplating one.

Indeed, since sugarcane is grown throughout the region, most Latin American countries could benefit. A recent study from the Inter-American Development Bank argued that replacing 10% of Mexico's petrol consumption with locally refined ethanol would save $2 billion a year and create 400,000 jobs. Several Caribbean governments hope that the ethanol boom could help revive their ailing sugarcane farms.

The greatest lure would be access to the American market. Various Central American, Caribbean and Andean countries can already send ethanol to America tariff-free, thanks to concessionary trade agreements. Maple, an American energy investment group, plans to spend $120m on an ethanol plant in Peru to take advantage of such a waiver. A pipeline running out into the nearby Pacific Ocean will deliver the plant's output directly to tankers bound for America. Proponents of the project say it will create 3,200 jobs. If all goes well, exports could reach 120m litres a year by 2010, and perhaps as much as 400m in the more distant future.

The United States, for its part, has several reasons to encourage ethanol production in Latin America. For one thing, it will need seven times more of the stuff than it currently produces to meet Mr Bush's 35 billion-gallon target. There simply is not enough spare land in America to grow adequate feedstock for such an amount, unless scientists find a way to make ethanol cheaply from abundant materials such as wood or grass. Although Mr Bush's ultimate goal is energy independence, he would presumably prefer to be dependent on ethanol from friendly countries such as Brazil and Colombia than on oil from hostile places like Iran and Venezuela.

An ethanol boom in Latin America would also attract investment to rural areas and create lots of jobs. That might help to reduce the steady northward stream of illegal immigrants. It would certainly burnish America's image, and stem support for anti-American tub-thumpers such as Venezuela's Hugo Chávez. He has won friends throughout the region by selling oil cheaply. By sharing technology and promoting investment in ethanol, America would also be reducing Latin America's fuel bill. If it bought lots of ethanol from its neighbours, it would be providing them with a lucrative export of their own.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her Brazilian counterpart signed an energy agreement making ethanol an internationally traded commodity.

This can be a first step that the US takes to unleash a new area of prosperity in Latin America. Let's create free markets, and create wealth by abolishing all farm subsidies and trade barriers with Latin American countries that are willing to provide property rights, democracy and the rule of law for their citizens.

President Bush went to Brazil and will also visit Uruguay, Colombia, Guatemala, and Mexico. Robert Mayer has more thoughts on the subject.

Update: Bush promotes trade with Uruguay

Uruguay is keen to sign free trade deals with the US, even if it means leaving the Mercosur trade bloc.

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In yesterday's Blog Talk Radio show with WC of The Gathering Storm, I mentioned several books:
Journalists Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza, Carlos Alberto Montaner, and Alvaro V. Llosa's

Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto has written several books that I highly recommend on the subject of property rights, rule of law, capital creation and free markets:


Later in the conversation we talked about Dinesh D'Souza and Robert Spencer, who I met at CPAC last week. Their books are:
Dinesh D'Souza

and
Robert Spencer

A round-up to warm you up this cold morning

I was reading this, and wondering, is carbon offsets the new Florida real estate scams? Because, as The Political Economy of Alternative Energy points out, good Energy Deserves No Subsidy.

Sunday The Anchoress had a great post and round-up on global warming, 17,000 scientists dissent; no consensus on global warming. I had two posts last year on the subject, which got me a fair amount of unfriendly emails from those who want to achieve consensus through coercion.

Al Gore: "Warm up the escape pod, Tipper!" (h/t Larwyn) - just don't head to Mars, which is getting warmer.

The globalarmist propaganda's reaching the schools, like these: Gore global warming 'Truth' reaching DODDS classrooms

Maria sent me An Inconvenient Truth About Al Gore. Rap Star In Gore Climate Concert Lineup Flies Dinner Across The Atlantic. Yet another reason I don't join the global hysteria is that I won't buy into wearing a hair shirt when the preacher's wearing an ermine coat. And then, there's a chance that Global Warming will make you healthy and sexy, something we all can use.

More likely, hyping global warming can possibly make you rich and powerful - Dan says that Gore Funding Plan For "A New World Order". Some don't see anything wrong with the idea of "global governance" - I see a lot wrong with the idea of "global governance", and globalarmism is just one of the means to sell us on the idea.

Meanwhile in the EU, Richard asks Who is to lead?

Unfortunately, Merkel has bought into the anthropomorphic global warming scam and says she believes that "Europe" will not be taken seriously unless it agrees a binding target of 20 percent renewables by 2020 – enforceable in the European court.

She is determined to get agreement to act at the informal European Council - to be held on Thursday and Friday - saying that she wants the Council to demonstrate that "Europe" is willing to provide a global lead in tackling climate change.

But, given the leading role Germany is taking on this issue, one has to wonder whether it really is "Europe" that Merkel wants to be in the lead, or whether this is another way of giving Germany that position.

While the UN chief warns on climate change and claims that "climate change poses as much of a danger to the world as war", An analysis of the United Nations widely-touted 2007 IPCC Global Warming Summary for Policymakers by UK Lord Viscount Monckton has found 31 errors and exaggerations. Here's the Lord's report (pdf file).

Allegre's second thoughts

Fifteen years ago, Dr. Allegre was among the 1500 prominent scientists who signed "World Scientists' Warning to Humanity," a highly publicized letter stressing that global warming's "potential risks are very great" and demanding a new caring ethic that recognizes the globe's fragility in order to stave off "spirals of environmental decline, poverty, and unrest, leading to social, economic and environmental collapse."
...
With a wealth of data now in, Dr. Allegre has recanted his views. To his surprise, the many climate models and studies failed dismally in establishing a man-made cause of catastrophic global warming. Meanwhile, increasing evidence indicates that most of the warming comes of natural phenomena. Dr. Allegre now sees global warming as over-hyped and an environmental concern of second rank.

The French scientist is not alone: here's an article in Spanish from a Chilean newspaper, sent by Maria Blanco who lives in Spain, about the Economista de Harvard que desmiente a Al Gore, Harvard economist Xavier Sala-i-Martin, who takes the opportunity to call Gore an actor and a hypocrite.

If you think you're beyond the globalarmists' reach after you die, think again: Towards a carbon neutral death

Even death offers no escape from the global warming debate. But as with most things these days, there are eco-friendly alternatives. Woodland burials and wicker coffins are the among the greenest ways to a carbon neutral end.

At least marriage lasts only "til death do us part" - but globalarmism lasts forever. My first question is, what will the effect of burials in wicker coffins be on the water supply? Will we all turn greener from it? Or just die in a carbon-neutral way?

Why do a global warming post this morning?

Because it's 15F outside and Carnegie Lake is still frozen, even after the very warm weekend we just had. February was the coldest in record since 1979. I'm glad the Beeb's not reporting from here - we've had practically no snow while having this record-cold temperatures, but the Beeb's tied its knickers in a knot because Tokyo didn't get snow this year. I say, go to Buffalo if you want snow.

One of the more amusing presentations at CPAC was the one by the author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming:


I hope someone plays this documentary here so I can watch. Here's their press release and broadcast information.
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In case any of you want to know, I'm done discussing Ann Coulter. I've discussed the subject ad nauseam with other bloggers while in DC, through emails, at other blogs, during yesterday's podcast, on the phone with friends, and at home. Enough. You'll have to go elsewhere for that.

Send me some global warming, please

For the first time in ten days the outdoor temperature is nearing 30F.

It's been so cold (how cold is it?) that for the first time in the many years we've lived in this house, ice stalagmites are rising up from the ground, formed from the water condensation from the furnaces.

It's a shocking sight.

Take a look:

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and sometimes nature plays up the imagery.

More weather news from Scott.


technorati tags Global Warming, climate change, environment

Hugo celebrates an anniversary, and turns green at the same time

Venezuela celebrates 15th anniversary of Chavez coup

AP reporter and Chavez apologist Ian James says that Chavez takes up energy conservation

"Venezuela is one of the countries that least contaminates the environment, but nevertheless we want to give an example and be at the vanguard," Chavez said at a news conference Thursday.

He called U.S. oil consumption -- which handsomely funds his government -- a leading cause of the world's environmental troubles.

"They're destroying the world," Chavez said, citing melting glaciers in the Andes and predictions of rising sea levels. "The human race will be finished if we don't change the world capitalist system."

Leftist ideology colors Chavez's views, and he has spent time discussing the dilemma of climate change with Cuban leader Fidel Castro, his friend and mentor.

That he has, at least if one is to believe the propaganda video released by Cuban TV on January 30, where Castro purportedly reads from a printout of a Clarin.com article of January 27, titled Advierten que el cambio climatico es riesgo a la salud/Warning that climate change is a health risk. Last weekend I was doing some translating for Pajamas Media and I transcribed this video where Castro and Hugo purportedly take up climate change and were saying that "the future of mankind depends on it".

AP's James continues

Castro's obsession with energy saving has been caused in part by Cuba's dependence on oil imports. Before he underwent intestinal surgery last summer, Castro was in the midst of an energy-saving crusade in which he distributed pressure cookers and offered household tips on TV.

Hold on to your wallets, folks. The French have plans for the environment and your money. And Hillary's wants to take the earnings of American private companies, raised fists and all.

Hugo goes shopping, again
Hugo's buying himself another country. Just this morning I was reading that he's going to visit Dominica to open an oil storage facility,

Part of Venezuela's regional Petrocaribe program, under which 14 Caribbean countries receive preferential terms to buy oil, the new facility will contain six tanks to store gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and liquefied natural gas.
...
Chavez also said Venezuela intends to build a refinery in Dominica but did not elaborate.

I was in Dominica two years ago and it's a very small island (290 sq miles) that is still being formed by geothermal-volcanic activity.

This is a poor island we're talking about. Venezuelan oil money can buy it.

Dominica is effectively a very large rock covered with greenery, and has remained mostly untouched by development. Look at the satellite picture and see for yourselves. While it has room for six storage tanks, there is not enough flat land on which to build a refinery of any meaningful size. One of the reasons the island has remained undeveloped is that it wasn't until a few years ago that the only port could handle the larger cruise ships. The current port facilities are definitely not large enough for oil tankers.

Unless Hugo's planning on doing some significant damage to the ecosystem, that is.

Update In Spanish: La Habilitante: Un asalto hitleriano al poder


Technorati tags Venezuela Latin America Hugo Chavez Dominica Caribbean