Thank God for Inhofe!

[Mr. Orange-Power]

The most frightening situation is when we have no political opposition to an issue. When Republicans, Democrats and Big Media all come together on an issue, the American people end up getting screwed.

Thank God for Inhofe!



Wed May 21, 2008


Inhofe, the Only Political Opposition to Global Warming

Inhofe, R-Tulsa, has long been the most vocal skeptic in Washington that human activity contributes to global warming. Last week, he joined with evangelical leaders to condemn proposed curbs on emissions that would raise energy prices for the poor.

The Senate (http://newsok.com/keysearch/?er=1&CANONICAL=U.S.+Senate&CATEGORY=ORGANIZATION) is expected to take up a global warming bill early next month (they waited until June, wonder why?). There have been wide-ranging estimates of the financial impact of the bill, which would force reductions in emissions, though there is agreement that energy costs would rise.

Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif. (http://newsok.com/keysearch/?er=1&CANONICAL=Barbara+Boxer&CATEGORY=PERSON), the chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, is proposing that up to $800 billion be distributed to consumers and businesses to offset the increased energy costs ($800 BILLION with a “B”!!! Where’s that money coming from? Congress raises the cost of doing business then takes $800 Billion of our money and gives it back so we can pay for it. Does that make sense? It’s call – Redistribution of Wealth, otherwise known as Socalism. That’s what Global Warming is all about. It’s not about saving the planet. Remember who’s running the environmental revolution – misplaced communists!)

But Inhofe (http://newsok.com/keysearch/?er=1&CANONICAL=Jim+Inhofe&CATEGORY=PERSON), the top Republican on the committee, called that "window dressing” on Tuesday.

"American families and workers will only receive back $800 billion in consumer tax relief — $7 paid for every $1 returned,” Inhofe said.

[PokeNBeans]

Recomended reading about the myth of global warming is "Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years" by Singer and Avery. I thought plants like CO2?

[coolchick13]

Thank God for Inhofe!

Amen!!

[Erick]

Thank God for Inhofe!

Amen!!

Preach on, sista! We need a lot more of people like him in the Senate.

[Verb]

Is Inhofe still supporting his theory that the Weather Channel invented global warming to attract more viewership?

[BigBadBen]

Actualy, Global Warming is a direct effect of Al Gore creating the internet.

[MisterE-NYC]

I am poor and can barely afford rent. But I would rather cost go up and have a clean environment then things be cheap and screw up the world. Sometimes we have to fore-go the present simplicities to plan for the future catastrophes. Yes, cost will go up, but I would rather have a safe environment in the future. The problem is that too many people would rather find any reason to keep driving their 15mpg suv, then to do something to help cause a change. Inhoffe isn't saying that global warming inst happening, he is just afraid of the cost burden on the people. That is fine by me. Increased cost are a bad thing. But the reason that cost will increase is because we have turned a blind eye to the problem for so long. Instead of fixing emissions as we saw the problem coming, instead we wait until the problem exist, and try to change everything at once. If we dont do something now, it will just cost even more in the future.

Some things are worth the cost. I would rather have a little bit of a better land for my children. I would rather their air be a little cleaner and the grass a little greener. I would rather them be less likely to get asthma, and breathe in countless carcinogens ad polluiton But then again, I care about people and the environment. I think of myself, but i also try to think of others. I recycle. I do not use things in excess. I understand the theory of leaving something better then you found it.

Somethings are worth the cost. You could go to walmart and buy a 1 dollar piece of crap that will break in a month, or go to sears and buy something quality. You could buy cheap batteries that will die quickly, or pay more for long lasting or rechargeable batteries. You could go to the free clinic, or could go to a doctor and pay more but for quality service. You could eat roadkill, or you could go hunt your own (or buy your own) meat. You could take a mattress out of a dumpster or you could go buy a new one. The sad truth is that some things cost money. Thats capitalism. Think, if you child was really sick, would you not buy them medicine? Would you not take them to the doctor? You probably would. That cost money. Well, think of the environment being your child. It fact, it is all of ours.

I don't believe it is the American people getting screwed at all. I think the real screwing is happening now. Not monetary, but environmentally. I think if anything people should be happy and willing to pay. I like clean air, i dont know about you.

And yes, plants do like CO2 during the day, but the also breathe Oxygen at night. And saying that more than 200,000 acres of rainforest are burned every day. That is definitely not a good thing.

Some people will not believe anything, no matter what. Some people will believe uo is a good thing. People would rather ignore the problem and ignore the truth then do something about it. If you are standing in the middle of the road at night and see two lights speeding toward you, do you stand there hoping they are motorcycles, or do you get out of the way thinking its a car? Sometimes it is better to be safe then sorry.

And about the song... read this.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/11/avery-and-singer-unstoppable-hot-air/

[bleedorange]

....saying that more than 200,000 acres of rainforest are burned every day.

You know I've heard numbers like this thrown around by the tree-huggers for what seems like 20 years. So....

200,000 acres x 365 days/ yr. = 73,000,000 acres / year. (114,000 sq. miles)

114,000 sq. miles x 20 years = 2,280,000 sq. miles in 20 years.

Quite frankly I find those numbers a little hard to believe. Always have.

[MisterE-NYC]

You are darn right that it is hard to believe, and quite frankly its pretty scary. Below i have listed info about the Amazon Rainforest. There are more then just the Amazon of course, but the Amazon is a great one to use to look at. And of course you do not have to believe proof, numbers, research, or any of that valuable information. You do not have to believe the pictures you see of deforestation (there is always photoshop). You do not have to believe the first hand accounts of it. It doesn't matter if you can believe it or not, cause whether you do or you don't, its happening, and its going to keep on happening.

Measured rates of deforestation in the Amazon

In 1996, the Amazon was reported to have shown a 34% increase in deforestation since 1992.[23] The mean annual deforestation rate from 2000 to 2005 (22,392 km² per year) was 18% higher than in the previous five years (19,018 km² per year).[24] In Brazil, the Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais (INPE, or National Institute of Space Research) produces deforestation figures annually. Their deforestation estimates are derived from 100 to 220 images taken during the dry season in the Amazon by the Landsat satellite, also may only consider the loss of the Amazon rainforest biome – not the loss of natural fields or savannah within the rainforest. According to INPE, the original Amazon rainforest biome in Brazil of 4,100,000 km² was reduced to 3,403,000 km² by 2005 – representing a loss of 17.1%.[25]
Period Estimated Remaining Forest Cover in the Brazilian Amazon (km²) (COL 1)
Annual forest loss (km²) (COL 2)
Percent of 1970 cover remaining (COL3)
Total forest loss since 1970 (km²) (COL 4)
pre-1970 4,100,000 0 100%
1977 3,955,870 21,130 96.50% 144,130
1978-1987 3,744,570 21,130 91.30% 355,430
1988 3,723,520 21,050 90.80% 376,480
1989 3,705,750 17,770 90.40% 394,250
1990 3,692,020 13,730 90.00% 407,980
1991 3,680,990 11,030 89.80% 419,010
1992 3,667,204 13,786 89.40% 432,796
1993 3,652,308 14,896 89.10% 447,692
1994 3,637,412 14,896 88.70% 462,588
1995 3,608,353 29,059 88.00% 491,647
1996 3,590,192 18,161 87.60% 509,808
1997 3,576,965 13,227 87.20% 523,035
1998 3,559,582 17,383 86.80% 540,418
1999 3,542,323 17,259 86.40% 557,677
2000 3,524,097 18,226 86.00% 575,903
2001 3,505,932 18,165 85.50% 594,068
2002 3,484,727 21,205 85.00% 615,273
2003 3,459,576 25,151 84.40% 640,424
2004 3,432,147 27,429 83.70% 667,853
2005 3,413,354 18,793 83.30% 686,646
2006 3,400,254 13,100 82.90% 699,746

[Mr. Orange-Power]

We actually have more trees in the United States than we did 200 years ago!

What is the biggest destroyer of trees? Answer: Forest Fires.

Who put out the forest fires 200 years ago?

[BobBarker]

We actually have more trees in the United States than we did 200 years ago!

What is the biggest destroyer of trees? Answer: Forest Fires.

Who put out the forest fires 200 years ago?

Eastern Red Cedars aren't really the same as the Amazon Rain Forest. You are aware of this, correct?

[Verb]

You're all just trying to deflect blame from the dastardly weather channel!

[JimBob]

You're all just trying to deflect blame from the dastardly weather channel!

The weather channel "blows" and Al Gore "sucks" for spewing unsubstantiated (read:biased) crap to support their position, and then refusing/shouting down anyone that "dares" question them. Just once, I'd like to hear some "civil" discourse on the topic, w/o all the hysteria, bogus science, and outright lies.

[PokeNBeans]

Some people would rather listen to a former vp than scientific fact. Check the science. People don't mind spending money, they do mind wasting money. I spent money on a lifetime hunting and fishing licence. I have also eaten roadkill. I also drive an SUV. Great thing about this country is that I have that freedom of choice.

[MisterE-NYC]

What science are you talking about. I have yet to see any scientific fact to disprove global warming. I cannot debunk it, and for the most part, reputable scientist cannot either. Some offer other theories why its happening, but not that it is.

I have nothing wrong with hunting. That is probably the best way to actually get you meat. Free range animals that do not destroy the natural habitat. Also roadkill is more environmentally friendly, i would just worry about the health concerned of it (and even i used the argument to hunt or buy meat, i was doing so for quality reasons, not for environmental)

I also do not have a problem with you driving an SUV. I just wont feel bad for you when gas its 10 bucks or more a gallon. I just hope they offer tax breaks and incentives for people that drive efficient vehicles. I think it would be amazing if vehicles that get more then 30 mpg get 80% off (unless of course the gas guzzler is only used for legitimate business where it can be proven that it is necessary- then it is eligible for the reduced price)

I am glad we as Americans have the freedom to choose. I mean it is natural to only make decisions based on themselves and not the rest of the world. Some people dont care about air quality and destroying the environment. Thats fine with me. I believe that the majority of people will eventually start to think on the global scale, and not just the personal level. I think that some people will care more about making sure their children and their children's children will grow up in an environment that is not doomed, then their current personal utility. I also think that while people can choose anything, that some choices should be rewarded.

[Mr. Orange-Power]

February 9, 2008

Global Cooling Alert


When Scott and I wrote "The Global Warming Hoax" in 1992, a group of Danish scientists had just published a paper that compared solar energy output (as measured by sunspot activity) to global temperatures, and found a striking correlation. No surprise there: just about all energy on earth comes from the Sun. Investors' Business Daily (http://ibdeditorial.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=287279412587175) recalls that research and notes that the Sun has been quiet lately:
Solar activity fluctuates in an 11-year cycle. But so far in this cycle, the sun has been disturbingly quiet. The lack of increased activity could signal the beginning of what is known as a Maunder Minimum, an event which occurs every couple of centuries and can last as long as a century.

Such an event occurred in the 17th century. The observation of sunspots showed extraordinarily low levels of magnetism on the sun, with little or no 11-year cycle.

This solar hibernation corresponded with a period of bitter cold that began around 1650 and lasted, with intermittent spikes of warming, until 1715. Frigid winters and cold summers during that period led to massive crop failures, famine and death in Northern Europe.

[Kenneth Tapping, a solar researcher and project director for Canada's National Research Council] reports no change in the sun's magnetic field so far this cycle and warns that if the sun remains quiet for another year or two, it may indicate a repeat of that period of drastic cooling of the Earth, bringing massive snowfall and severe weather to the Northern Hemisphere. ***

R. Timothy Patterson, professor of geology and director of the Ottawa-Carleton Geoscience Center of Canada's Carleton University, says that "CO2 variations show little correlation with our planet's climate on long, medium and even short time scales."

Patterson, sharing Tapping's concern, says: "Solar scientists predict that, by 2020, the sun will be starting into its weakest Schwabe cycle of the past two centuries, likely leading to unusually cool conditions on Earth."

I suspect that many global warming alarmists are well aware that time is running out for them. If nothing is done and global temperatures decline in coming years--as they inevitably will, the only question is when--the alarmists will have been refuted. On the other hand, if they succeed in pushing through industry-destroying caps on carbon emissions around the world, and especially here in the U.S., they will take credit for the cooling when it comes, claiming it as vindication of their theories.

In that context, the 2008 election shapes up as very important. I don't worry too much about John McCain's acknowledged lack of economic expertise, as his instincts on the economy are generally conservative. But McCain badly needs to educate himself on the debate currently raging over the climate. "Global warming" represents the Left's most ambitious power grab since the fall of Communism, and if a Republican President doesn't stand it its way, who will?

[FWPoke]

Didn't NASA just release their own report that global temperatures actually fell by 1 degree over the last century? Of course, the media buried the story as quickly as possible because it completely blows huge holes in their Global Warming scare-the-bejeezus-out-of-everyone agenda.

[Chief-Poke]

I still can't believe Al Gore won the Noble Peace Prize and an Oscar for his beliefs, writings, documentaries on global warming.

[Mr. Orange-Power]

Letters to the editor: Sunday, May 25, 2008


Skeptics who know

In March, Al Gore compared global warming skeptics to people who believe the Earth is flat. Yet sea ice in the Southern Hemisphere is currently at the highest level since satellite monitoring began in 1979. Last summer there was record low snowmelt in Antarctica, and snow fell in Buenos Aires for the first time since 1918. In April, 1,185 all-time record low temperatures were recorded at U.S. weather stations. There is nothing unusual going on with the climate! Present-day temperatures are not anomalously warm, and future projections of warming are based on speculative computer models that can't be tested.

Sorry, Mr. Gore. Global warming skeptics aren't ignorant. We know the facts and science better than you do.


David Deming, Norman

Deming is a geophysicist and professor at the University of Oklahoma.

[JimBob]

I'm too lazy to find it, but George Will's article in the TW a couple of days ago about the polar bear being placed on the endangered species list is priceless. He talks about the media hysteria in the 70's about the coming "ice age". Once again, there's no tolerance of dissent from the "non-believers".:rollseyes:

[frankeaton]

Of course, the media buried the story

just like 60 minutes interviewed the FBI agent who sat with Saddum for 6 months and even though there no WMD's he said he was going to build them again when the heat was off and he was suprised GW came all the way to Bagdad, there was alot of other stuff that vinidecated (sp?) GW BUT we never heard anything about it from other press sources. The liberal press hates GW and will do anything to bring him down:furious3:

[topdaug]

Letters to the editor: Sunday, May 25, 2008


Skeptics who know

In March, Al Gore compared global warming skeptics to people who believe the Earth is flat. Yet sea ice in the Southern Hemisphere is currently at the highest level since satellite monitoring began in 1979. Last summer there was record low snowmelt in Antarctica, and snow fell in Buenos Aires for the first time since 1918. In April, 1,185 all-time record low temperatures were recorded at U.S. weather stations. There is nothing unusual going on with the climate! Present-day temperatures are not anomalously warm, and future projections of warming are based on speculative computer models that can't be tested.

Sorry, Mr. Gore. Global warming skeptics aren't ignorant. We know the facts and science better than you do.


David Deming, Norman

Deming is a geophysicist and professor at the University of Oklahoma.

Yeah, but Deming is crazy...plus, he's a Gooner so he can't be trusted...

[PokeNBeans]

Here's some science for you. Too long to post here.

http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckton/cost_and_futility_of_trading_hot_air.html

[andyokstate]

I caught the George Will article, too. He's good.

----------


March of the Polar Bears

By George F. Will
Thursday, May 22, 2008; A25

A preventive war worked out so well in Iraq that Washington last week launched another. The new preventive war -- the government responding forcefully against a postulated future threat -- has been declared on behalf of polar bears, the first species whose supposed jeopardy has been ascribed to global warming.

The Interior Department, bound by the Endangered Species Act, has declared polar bears a "threatened" species because they might be endangered "in the foreseeable future," meaning 45 years. (Note: 45 years ago, the now-long-forgotten global cooling menace of 35 years ago was not yet foreseen.) The bears will be threatened if the current episode of warming, if there really is one, is, unlike all the previous episodes, irreversible, and if it intensifies, and if it continues to melt sea ice vital to the bears, and if the bears, unlike in many previous warming episodes, cannot adapt.

Because of restrictions on hunting, polar bears might be more numerous today than ever and might be twice as numerous as they were three decades ago -- when the media were fanning frenzy about global cooling. (Science magazine, March 1975, reported "the approach of a full-blown 10,000-year ice age.") As Nigel Lawson, a former British cabinet member, writes in his new book, "An Appeal to Reason: A Cool Look at Global Warming":

"Over the past two-and-a-half-million years, a period during which the planet's climate fluctuated substantially, remarkably few of the earth's millions of plant and animal species became extinct. This applies not least, incidentally, to polar bears, which have been around for millennia, during which there is ample evidence that polar temperatures have varied considerably."

But Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne says the "threatened" label is mandatory because sea ice has been melting and computer models postulate future melting caused by human activity. So, now that human activity is assumed to be the primary cause, or even a measurable cause, of warming, the decision to classify the bears as threatened has become a mighty lever.

Now that polar bears are wards of the government, and now that it is a legal doctrine that humans are responsible for global warming, the Endangered Species Act has acquired unlimited application. Anything that can be said to increase global warming can -- must -- be said to threaten bears already designated as threatened.

Want to build a power plant in Arizona? A building in Florida? Do you want to drive an SUV? Or leave your cellphone charger plugged in overnight? Some judge might construe federal policy as proscribing these activities. Kempthorne says such uses of the act, unintended by those who wrote it in 1973, would be "wholly inappropriate." But in 1973, climate Cassandras were saying that "the world's climatologists are agreed" that we must "prepare for the next ice age" (Science Digest, February 1973). And no authors of the Constitution or the 14th Amendment intended to create a "fundamental" right to abortion, but there it is.

No one can anticipate or control the implications that judges might discover in the polar bear designation. Give litigious environmentalists a compliant judge, and the Endangered Species Act might become what New Dealers wanted the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 to be -- authority to regulate almost everything.

What Friedrich Hayek called the "fatal conceit" -- the idea that government can know the future's possibilities and can and should control the future's unfolding -- is the left's agenda. The left exists to enlarge the state's supervision of life, narrowing individual choices in the name of collective goods. Hence the left's hostility to markets. And to automobiles -- people going wherever they want whenever they want.

Today's "green left" is the old "red left" revised. Marx, a short-term pessimist but a long-term optimist, prophesied deepening class conflict but thought that history's violent dialectic would culminate in a revolution that would usher in material abundance and such spontaneous cooperation that the state would wither away.

The green left preaches pessimism: Ineluctable scarcities (of energy, food, animal habitat, humans' living space) will require a perpetual regime of comprehensive rationing. The green left understands that the direct route to government control of almost everything is to stigmatize, as a planetary menace, something involved in almost everything -- carbon.

Environmentalism is, as Lawson writes, an unlimited "license to intrude." "Eco-fundamentalism," which is "the quasi-religion of green alarmism," promises "global salvationism." Onward, green soldiers, into preventive war on behalf of some bears who are simultaneously flourishing and "threatened."

georgewill@washpost.com

[Mr. Orange-Power]

Mon June 2, 2008


Cap-and-trade nonsense

By George Will
Washington Post Writers Group


WASHINGTON An unprecedented radical government grab for control of the American economy will be debated this week when the Senate considers saving the planet by means of a cap-and-trade system to ration carbon emissions. The plan is co-authored (with John Warner (http://newsok.com/keysearch/?er=1&CANONICAL=John+Warner&CATEGORY=PERSON)) by Joe Lieberman (http://newsok.com/keysearch/?er=1&CANONICAL=Joseph+Lieberman&CATEGORY=PERSON), an ardent supporter of John McCain (http://newsok.com/keysearch/?er=1&CANONICAL=John+McCain&CATEGORY=PERSON), who supports Lieberman (http://newsok.com/keysearch/?er=1&CANONICAL=Joseph+Lieberman&CATEGORY=PERSON)'s legislation and recently spoke about "the central facts of rising temperatures, rising waters and all the endless troubles that global warming will bring."

Speaking of endless troubles, "cap-and-trade” comes cloaked in reassuring rhetoric about the government merely creating a market, but government actually would create a scarcity so government could sell what it has made scarce. The Wall Street Journal (http://newsok.com/keysearch/?er=1&CANONICAL=The+Wall+Street+Journal&CATEGORY=COMPANY) underestimates cap-and-trade's perniciousness when it says the scheme would create a new right ("allowances”) to produce carbon dioxide and would put a price on the right.

Actually, because freedom is the silence of the law, that right has always existed in the absence of prohibitions. With cap-and-trade, government would create a right for itself — an extraordinarily lucrative right to ration Americans' exercise of their traditional rights.

Businesses with unused emission allowances could sell their surpluses to businesses that exceed their allowances. The more expensive and constraining the allowances, the more money government would gain.

If carbon emissions are the planetary menace that the political class suddenly says they are, why not a straightforward tax on fossil fuels based on each fuel's carbon content? This would have none of the enormous administrative costs of the baroque cap-and-trade regime. And a carbon tax would avoid the uncertainties inseparable from cap-and-trade's government allocation of emission permits sector by sector, industry by industry. So a carbon tax would be a clear and candid incentive to adopt energy-saving and carbon-minimizing technologies.

That is the problem.

A carbon tax would be too clear and candid for political comfort. It would clearly be what cap-and-trade deviously is, a tax, but one with a known cost. Therefore, taxpayers would demand a commensurate reduction of other taxes. Cap-and-trade — government auctioning permits for businesses to continue to do business — is a huge tax hidden in a bureaucratic labyrinth of opaque permit transactions.

The proper price of permits for carbon emissions should reflect the future warming costs of current emissions. That is bound to be a guess based on computer models built on guesses. Lieberman (http://newsok.com/keysearch/?er=1&CANONICAL=Joseph+Lieberman&CATEGORY=PERSON) guesses that the market value of all permits would be "about $7 trillion by 2050.” Will that staggering sum pay for a $7 trillion reduction of other taxes? Not exactly.

It would go to a Climate Change Credit Corp. (http://newsok.com/keysearch/?er=1&CANONICAL=Climate+Change+Credit+Corp.&CATEGORY=COMPANY), which Lieberman (http://newsok.com/keysearch/?er=1&CANONICAL=Joseph+Lieberman&CATEGORY=PERSON) calls "a private-public entity” that, operating outside the budget process, would invest "in many things.” This would be industrial policy, aka socialism, on a grand scale — government picking winners and losers, all of whom will have powerful incentives to invest in lobbyists to influence government's thousands of new wealth-allocating decisions.

Lieberman (http://newsok.com/keysearch/?er=1&CANONICAL=Joseph+Lieberman&CATEGORY=PERSON)'s legislation also would create a Carbon Market Efficiency Board (http://newsok.com/keysearch/?er=1&CANONICAL=Carbon+Market+Efficiency+Board&CATEGORY=ORGANIZATION) empowered to "provide allowances and alter demands” in response to "an impact that is much more onerous” than expected. And Lieberman (http://newsok.com/keysearch/?er=1&CANONICAL=Joseph+Lieberman&CATEGORY=PERSON) says that if a foreign company selling a product in America (http://newsok.com/keysearch/?er=1&CANONICAL=United+States&CATEGORY=COUNTRY) "enjoys a price advantage over an American competitor” because the American firm has had to comply with the cap-and-trade regime, "we will impose a fee” on the foreign company "to equalize the price.”

Protectionism-masquerading-as-environmentalism will thicken the unsavory entanglement of commercial life and political life.
McCain (http://newsok.com/keysearch/?er=1&CANONICAL=John+McCain&CATEGORY=PERSON), who supports Lieberman (http://newsok.com/keysearch/?er=1&CANONICAL=Joseph+Lieberman&CATEGORY=PERSON)'s unprecedented expansion of government's regulatory reach, is the scourge of all lobbyists (other than those employed by his campaign). But cap-and-trade would be a bonanza for K Street, the lobbyists' habitat, because it would vastly deepen and broaden the upside benefits and downside risks that the government's choices mean for businesses.

McCain (http://newsok.com/keysearch/?er=1&CANONICAL=John+McCain&CATEGORY=PERSON), the political hygienist, is eager to reduce the amount of money in politics. But cap-and-trade, by hugely increasing the amount of politics in the allocation of money, would guarantee a surge of money into politics.

Regarding McCain (http://newsok.com/keysearch/?er=1&CANONICAL=John+McCain&CATEGORY=PERSON)'s "central facts,” the U.N. (http://newsok.com/keysearch/?er=1&CANONICAL=United+Nations&CATEGORY=ORGANIZATION)'s World Meteorological Organization (http://newsok.com/keysearch/?er=1&CANONICAL=World+Meteorological+Organization&CATEGORY=ORGANIZATION), which helped establish the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (http://newsok.com/keysearch/?er=1&CANONICAL=Intergovernmental+Panel+on+Climate+Chang e&CATEGORY=ORGANIZATION) — co-winner, with Al Gore (http://newsok.com/keysearch/?er=1&CANONICAL=Al+Gore&CATEGORY=PERSON), of the Nobel Prize — says global temperatures have not risen in a decade.

So Congress might be arriving late at the save-the-planet party. Better late than never? No. When government, ever eager to expand its grip on the governed and their wealth, manufactures hysteria as an excuse for doing so, then: better never.

[FloridaPoke]

Never in the history of mankind has one side steamrolled the other on a global scale.

NOT ONE prediction of global warming is based on anything but computer models that "cherry-pick" CO2 emmissions as the culprit (out of hundreds of variables). The models have never passed muster of scientific rigor and testing.

There are hundredss of credible scientists globally who have been silenced through incredibly mean spirited means, so virtually all of them have said "being objective scientifically isn't worth it...and reducing CO2 can't hurt anything....so I'll just shut up".

The theory that CO2 reductions can't hurt is an ok one until global taxes are placed on Earth's inhabitants based on that theory.

As in all things political, the changes that are about to be placed on us will cause enormous problems......and enormous opportunities. I, for one, will figure out a way to arbitrage the craziness so that at least my daughters will have the wherewithall to withstand the global economic crisis that will be caused in the name of "mother earth".

Meanwhile, Ms. Earth will keep on keeping on with her own immune system, which might even include selectively eliminating environmental wacko's :)

[PokesFanatic]

NOT ONE prediction of global warming is based on anything but computer models that "cherry-pick" CO2 emmissions as the culprit (out of hundreds of variables). The models have never passed muster of scientific rigor and testing.

Honestly, how many climate models have you looked into to any detail?

I have explored a small number of them and the ones I saw most definitely to not 'cherry-pick' CO2 out of hundreds of other factors. EVERYTHING that can have either a positive or negative effect on climate is weighed, as a climate "forcing". All manner of emissions gasses are included, as are air particulates, ice sheet albedo (light reflectivity), solar activity, and even airline jet contrails for the shading effect they have--to name just a few.

I can understand that you don't place any confidence in climate modeling (probably because it suits your politics to just blindly believe that they couldn't be accurate), but to make the statement you do and it basically indicate, to anyone who has ever peeked at a climate model, that you don't understand the first thing about it doesn't do much for your credibility.

Do you make a habit of pulling fiction out of nowhere calling it fact? What makes you better than the characters you accuse in this regard?

[legelegel]

Mon June 2, 2008


Cap-and-trade nonsense

By George Will
Washington Post Writers Group


WASHINGTON An unprecedented radical government grab for control of the American economy will be debated this week when the Senate considers saving the planet by means of a cap-and-trade system to ration carbon emissions. The plan is co-authored (with John Warner (http://newsok.com/keysearch/?er=1&CANONICAL=John+Warner&CATEGORY=PERSON)) by Joe Lieberman (http://newsok.com/keysearch/?er=1&CANONICAL=Joseph+Lieberman&CATEGORY=PERSON), an ardent supporter of John McCain (http://newsok.com/keysearch/?er=1&CANONICAL=John+McCain&CATEGORY=PERSON), who supports Lieberman (http://newsok.com/keysearch/?er=1&CANONICAL=Joseph+Lieberman&CATEGORY=PERSON)'s legislation and recently spoke about "the central facts of rising temperatures, rising waters and all the endless troubles that global warming will bring."

Speaking of endless troubles, "cap-and-trade” comes cloaked in reassuring rhetoric about the government merely creating a market, but government actually would create a scarcity so government could sell what it has made scarce. The Wall Street Journal (http://newsok.com/keysearch/?er=1&CANONICAL=The+Wall+Street+Journal&CATEGORY=COMPANY) underestimates cap-and-trade's perniciousness when it says the scheme would create a new right ("allowances”) to produce carbon dioxide and would put a price on the right.

Actually, because freedom is the silence of the law, that right has always existed in the absence of prohibitions. With cap-and-trade, government would create a right for itself — an extraordinarily lucrative right to ration Americans' exercise of their traditional rights.

Businesses with unused emission allowances could sell their surpluses to businesses that exceed their allowances. The more expensive and constraining the allowances, the more money government would gain.

If carbon emissions are the planetary menace that the political class suddenly says they are, why not a straightforward tax on fossil fuels based on each fuel's carbon content? This would have none of the enormous administrative costs of the baroque cap-and-trade regime. And a carbon tax would avoid the uncertainties inseparable from cap-and-trade's government allocation of emission permits sector by sector, industry by industry. So a carbon tax would be a clear and candid incentive to adopt energy-saving and carbon-minimizing technologies.

That is the problem.

A carbon tax would be too clear and candid for political comfort. It would clearly be what cap-and-trade deviously is, a tax, but one with a known cost. Therefore, taxpayers would demand a commensurate reduction of other taxes. Cap-and-trade — government auctioning permits for businesses to continue to do business — is a huge tax hidden in a bureaucratic labyrinth of opaque permit transactions.

The proper price of permits for carbon emissions should reflect the future warming costs of current emissions. That is bound to be a guess based on computer models built on guesses. Lieberman (http://newsok.com/keysearch/?er=1&CANONICAL=Joseph+Lieberman&CATEGORY=PERSON) guesses that the market value of all permits would be "about $7 trillion by 2050.” Will that staggering sum pay for a $7 trillion reduction of other taxes? Not exactly.

It would go to a Climate Change Credit Corp. (http://newsok.com/keysearch/?er=1&CANONICAL=Climate+Change+Credit+Corp.&CATEGORY=COMPANY), which Lieberman (http://newsok.com/keysearch/?er=1&CANONICAL=Joseph+Lieberman&CATEGORY=PERSON) calls "a private-public entity” that, operating outside the budget process, would invest "in many things.” This would be industrial policy, aka socialism, on a grand scale — government picking winners and losers, all of whom will have powerful incentives to invest in lobbyists to influence government's thousands of new wealth-allocating decisions.

Lieberman (http://newsok.com/keysearch/?er=1&CANONICAL=Joseph+Lieberman&CATEGORY=PERSON)'s legislation also would create a Carbon Market Efficiency Board (http://newsok.com/keysearch/?er=1&CANONICAL=Carbon+Market+Efficiency+Board&CATEGORY=ORGANIZATION) empowered to "provide allowances and alter demands” in response to "an impact that is much more onerous” than expected. And Lieberman (http://newsok.com/keysearch/?er=1&CANONICAL=Joseph+Lieberman&CATEGORY=PERSON) says that if a foreign company selling a product in America (http://newsok.com/keysearch/?er=1&CANONICAL=United+States&CATEGORY=COUNTRY) "enjoys a price advantage over an American competitor” because the American firm has had to comply with the cap-and-trade regime, "we will impose a fee” on the foreign company "to equalize the price.”

Protectionism-masquerading-as-environmentalism will thicken the unsavory entanglement of commercial life and political life.
McCain (http://newsok.com/keysearch/?er=1&CANONICAL=John+McCain&CATEGORY=PERSON), who supports Lieberman (http://newsok.com/keysearch/?er=1&CANONICAL=Joseph+Lieberman&CATEGORY=PERSON)'s unprecedented expansion of government's regulatory reach, is the scourge of all lobbyists (other than those employed by his campaign). But cap-and-trade would be a bonanza for K Street, the lobbyists' habitat, because it would vastly deepen and broaden the upside benefits and downside risks that the government's choices mean for businesses.

McCain (http://newsok.com/keysearch/?er=1&CANONICAL=John+McCain&CATEGORY=PERSON), the political hygienist, is eager to reduce the amount of money in politics. But cap-and-trade, by hugely increasing the amount of politics in the allocation of money, would guarantee a surge of money into politics.

Regarding McCain (http://newsok.com/keysearch/?er=1&CANONICAL=John+McCain&CATEGORY=PERSON)'s "central facts,” the U.N. (http://newsok.com/keysearch/?er=1&CANONICAL=United+Nations&CATEGORY=ORGANIZATION)'s World Meteorological Organization (http://newsok.com/keysearch/?er=1&CANONICAL=World+Meteorological+Organization&CATEGORY=ORGANIZATION), which helped establish the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (http://newsok.com/keysearch/?er=1&CANONICAL=Intergovernmental+Panel+on+Climate+Chang e&CATEGORY=ORGANIZATION) — co-winner, with Al Gore (http://newsok.com/keysearch/?er=1&CANONICAL=Al+Gore&CATEGORY=PERSON), of the Nobel Prize — says global temperatures have not risen in a decade.

So Congress might be arriving late at the save-the-planet party. Better late than never? No. When government, ever eager to expand its grip on the governed and their wealth, manufactures hysteria as an excuse for doing so, then: better never.


I prefer the OSS Blackboard, but the above reply is a good example of when one's words can really disappear.

[FloridaPoke]

Honestly, how many climate models have you looked into to any detail?

I have explored a small number of them and the ones I saw most definitely to not 'cherry-pick' CO2 out of hundreds of other factors. EVERYTHING that can have either a positive or negative effect on climate is weighed, as a climate "forcing". All manner of emissions gasses are included, as are air particulates, ice sheet albedo (light reflectivity), solar activity, and even airline jet contrails for the shading effect they have--to name just a few.

I can understand that you don't place any confidence in climate modeling (probably because it suits your politics to just blindly believe that they couldn't be accurate), but to make the statement you do and it basically indicate, to anyone who has ever peeked at a climate model, that you don't understand the first thing about it doesn't do much for your credibility.

Do you make a habit of pulling fiction out of nowhere calling it fact? What makes you better than the characters you accuse in this regard?

I have read many scientific reviews from the opposing side (and yes they are credible scientists from credible institutions)...each breaking down the variables and the "weighting" of the variables..... Virtually all eliminate cosmic rays and ocean currents in the modeling....and they all mysteriously "weight" human generated CO2.

However, I don't think the anti crowd has credible science on their side either. The fact is....nobody has done credible, peer reviewed, science.

And my main point is this. Most will end the argument by saying "What can Co2 reductions hurt?" And I agree with that logic until a person on fixed income has an electric bill that will double or triple after cap and trade because some idiot politicians can't leave well enough alone.

I am a conservative politically......BUT......the thing that pisses me off the most is when something as complex and idiotic as cap and trade is legitimately discussed when the MOST (not just a majority) credible economists say it will be ruinous, particularly in light of the fact that the two biggest culprits over the next 10 years (India and China) are not about to screw up their economic engines.

Lower income people can choose not to drive as much to save money. They can't choose to turn off their heat and air. Cap and Trade will be a first cousin to a very regressive flat tax of thousands of dollars a year per family. Won't effect me much.....but it will effect immensely the people the liberals swear they are protecting....which is the unbelievable irony of the whole thing.

[FloridaPoke]

Honestly, how many climate models have you looked into to any detail?

I have explored a small number of them and the ones I saw most definitely to not 'cherry-pick' CO2 out of hundreds of other factors. EVERYTHING that can have either a positive or negative effect on climate is weighed, as a climate "forcing". All manner of emissions gasses are included, as are air particulates, ice sheet albedo (light reflectivity), solar activity, and even airline jet contrails for the shading effect they have--to name just a few.

I can understand that you don't place any confidence in climate modeling (probably because it suits your politics to just blindly believe that they couldn't be accurate), but to make the statement you do and it basically indicate, to anyone who has ever peeked at a climate model, that you don't understand the first thing about it doesn't do much for your credibility.

Do you make a habit of pulling fiction out of nowhere calling it fact? What makes you better than the characters you accuse in this regard?

The more I think about your post the more I think YOU are the one who has bought into the propaganda without doing your homework.

Here is your homework assignment:

1. Go to the petition site started by Frederick Seitz, Past President of the National Academy of Science and President Emeritus of Rockefeller University.

http://www.petitionproject.org/

2. Read and STUDY the 12 page peer reviewed article by the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. It is written for scientists, but if you aren't one, you will get it anyway

3. Read the petition's wording very carefully.

4. Look at the sheer number of scientists who have signed the petition.....now because of congress it is growing at an average of 30+ new PhD's per day....currrently at 31,072 scientists, 9,021 who are PhD's

5. Contrast that to the 600 scientists who had input on the UN report that is now considered the pro-global warming gold standard.........many of which are now crying fowl because their review comments were taken out of context and they were not allowed to edit beyond their initial reviews. In fact, there is a web site (if you really care as much as you imply you do) which shows the 600 scientists original edits compared to the "final wording" and in a HUGE number of cases, the final wording was exactly opposite of what the initial scientist's intent clearly was. I'll provide that to you if you want me to.

6. Come back here after this work and tell me you still believe we should hijack our economy without further careful consideration and I'll have a simpler solution:::::::::::

The simpler method is to:
a) implode economically, reducing greenhouse gases without complicated legislative schemes,
b) play with numbers to massage the results, or
c) do what Eastern Europe has done and do both a) and b) simultaneously

[PokesFanatic]

The more I think about your post the more I think YOU are the one who has bought into the propaganda without doing your homework.

Here is your homework assignment:

blah, blah, blah...

I have very likely read MUCH, MUCH more on this topic than you ever will. Besides, that petition is horsecrap. Almost none of those scientist have degrees in the pertinent field. Anybody with a degree in any science can sign that petition, making it meaningless. A B.S. in marketing is qualification enough for that group. I'll stick to counting published works as evidence of who believes what.

Again, you have done nothing to acquaint yourself with the actual science involved here--only more politicking. You addressed absolutely zero of my post so there's really nothing to discuss.

You still won't know the first damn thing about the people you're accusing or what they do, yet it is me that has somehow bought into something. How convenient.

[FloridaPoke]

I have very likely read MUCH, MUCH more on this topic than you ever will. Besides, that petition is horsecrap. Almost none of those scientist have degrees in the pertinent field. Anybody with a degree in any science can sign that petition, making it meaningless. A B.S. in marketing is qualification enough for that group. I'll stick to counting published works as evidence of who believes what.

Again, you have done nothing to acquaint yourself with the actual science involved here--only more politicking. You addressed absolutely zero of my post so there's really nothing to discuss.

You still won't know the first damn thing about the people you're accusing or what they do, yet it is me that has somehow bought into something. How convenient.

Maybe you should know a wee bit more about my background before you make such claims.....and I don't know how old you are, but I probably commercialized more successful science (123 high-tech startups in engineering, EE and biotech....47 of which became successful public companies from startup...and whodathunkit 3 of which are climatology technology companies) before you were probably out of high school...than you claim to have done here. If you want to get into a pissing match of who is more credible here, I will be happy to do so and let our friends at OSS be the judge. Let me know.

Very convenient that you didn't care to look at the list of petition PhD signatories sorted by field of study.

I love a good debate. There are now very large rewards (2 separate ones that I know of each for $500k) for any scientist or group of scientists that can produce credible science to prove your side.....but it has to pass decades old "peer review" protocols. Funny nobody is taking up the challenge.

[Mr. Orange-Power]

Which SUV melted the Ice Age?

[PokesFanatic]

Maybe you should know a wee bit more about my background before you make such claims.....and I don't know how old you are, but I probably commercialized more successful science (123 high-tech startups in engineering, EE and biotech....47 of which became successful public companies from startup...and whodathunkit 3 of which are climatology technology companies) before you were probably out of high school...than you claim to have done here. If you want to get into a pissing match of who is more credible here, I will be happy to do so and let our friends at OSS be the judge. Let me know.

Very convenient that you didn't care to look at the list of petition PhD signatories sorted by field of study.

I love a good debate. There are now very large rewards (2 separate ones that I know of each for $500k) for any scientist or group of scientists that can produce credible science to prove your side.....but it has to pass decades old "peer review" protocols. Funny nobody is taking up the challenge.

If you're so qualified, why the complete nonsense about climatologists 'cherry picking' CO2 data while ignoring scores of others? Do you just assume that everyone around you is a complete fool and are incapable of digging about an inch into the issue to find you're full of crap on that matter?

CO2 is a mere indicator of many other climate forcings (numerous greenhouse gases contribute, but are all relatively stable in their correlation to CO2, hence the use of CO2 stats as a measuring stick for emissions). Other climate forcings are factored such as surface alterations (albedo, deforestation) particulates (soot, sulfur particles in the air) and aerosols, planetary orbit wobble, solar activity, and so on.

If you know so much, why the disinformation? And since when is being an engineer equate with being a climate scientist? Are you aware of the multivariate statistical model by which every year's climate data is weighed? Of the fact that no tweaks to the equations are factored until the year's records are in?

Designing a doo-hickey for a climate sensor and being a climatologist are two different things. Now, I am no climatologist, but I'm also not the one claiming climatologists full of b.s. from a basis of incomplete knowledge. Being an engineer doesn't make you a climate expert. Neither does having a PhD in an unrelated science field.

[FloridaPoke]

If you're so qualified, why the complete nonsense about climatologists 'cherry picking' CO2 data while ignoring scores of others? Do you just assume that everyone around you is a complete fool and are incapable of digging about an inch into the issue to find you're full of crap on that matter?

CO2 is a mere indicator of many other climate forcings (numerous greenhouse gases contribute, but are all relatively stable in their correlation to CO2, hence the use of CO2 stats as a measuring stick for emissions). Other climate forcings are factored such as surface alterations (albedo, deforestation) particulates (soot, sulfur particles in the air) and aerosols, planetary orbit wobble, solar activity, and so on.

If you know so much, why the disinformation? And since when is being an engineer equate with being a climate scientist? Are you aware of the multivariate statistical model by which every year's climate data is weighed? Of the fact that no tweaks to the equations are factored until the year's records are in?

Designing a doo-hickey for a climate sensor and being a climatologist are two different things. Now, I am no climatologist, but I'm also not the one claiming climatologists full of b.s. from a basis of incomplete knowledge. Being an engineer doesn't make you a climate expert. Neither does having a PhD in an unrelated science field.

Never said I was an engineer. I said I successfully commercialized technology from startup (meaning if you didn't get it.....rational scientific R&D where if you make shit up and don't prove everything empircally.....you lose more than a debate)

You haven't read the 12 pager have you. Read it and tell me what you think. I really want to know.

You also haven't seen the signatories on the petition who ARE climatoligists from some of the worlds most prestigious institutions. There are more prestigious climatologist scientists on that petition than there ever were on the UN project that is the gold standard. Does that not even give you even slight pause to say "huh?"

And.......science is science. Unless AND until it goes through the same peer reviewed protocols and rigor that ALL OTHER science goes through, we all must assume it is suspect. And I, for one, believe the thousands of non-climatology PhD's that have risen up in angst........not because of their specific discipline or lack thereof.......but because they are ALARMED that the discipline of science (generically) has NOT BEEN FOLLOWED HERE. That is all I am saying. Due diligence my friend.

The entire dogma on both sides of this isle are full of crap.....and nobody has a clue what is really going on with greater odds than a flip of the coin plus or minus 2%.

And based on that.........we are about to embark on the largest socialization of our economy since the founding of our republic?

That is my beef. Not whether you are right or the anti's are right.......but that politicians are monkeying with our entire way of life based on science that is by no means solid or proven, inspite of the liberal media proclaiming so.

[Pokes4Life]

I have nothing riding on this either way as I'm for both sides really. However, I want to state that the peer-reviewed article in question was published in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons which is not recognized by MEDLINE/PubMed or the Web of Science.

So besides the fact that this article was published in a journal not even in the same academic field as the article. the journal itself has published articles such as saying HIV does not cause AIDS (http://www.jpands.org/vol12no4/bauer.pdf) and stating there is a link between abortion and breast-cancer (http://www.jpands.org/vol8no2/malec.pdf). The latter of which is not supported by the American Cancer Society among others.

[PokesFanatic]

I've seen the report before. It's a 12 page literature review that is conspicuously lacking any legitimate journal entry credentials (simply being proofread by 'scientists' does not in itself establish peer-review). That is, it is a piece containing none of it's own observation and is a reinterpretation of an assortment of localized climate reports that is somehow supposed to convince the good people on this petition that global climate change is no problem at all.

Besides not being a legitimate work, it fails in its base premise because it claims that there is no correlation between CO2 levels and temperature fluctuations--this is patently false and even several noted GCC deniers acknowledge this. CO2 and the atmosphere are nearly perfectly correlated, it's the nature of the relationship between temperature and CO2 that is in question.

Beyond that, the piece is chock-full of non-scientific observations--interesting additions to 'science' like editorial passages on the politics of emissions-reducing policy which are, again, the very last thing one would expect to find in a legitimate scientific piece.

I'm afraid the piece fails miserably at passing the sniff test. It's some PAC's propaganda thinly veiled in the actual work of someone else. It accomplishes basically nothing in the grand scheme of things.

On a wholly unrelated note, it might surprise you to know that I actually do not favor cap and trade. While I do favor creating incentive to reduce emissions, I do not favor creating an artificial, government market to do so. I have long favored a trade-pact approach that would create incentive for nations to trade goods with 'clean' nations and create disincentive for trading down to 'dirty' ones by levying a punitive tariff--the revenues for which should fund research and implementation of cleaner technologies (as opposed to going into the general ledger for the government to write checks to fund their populist social programs).

This type of system wouldn't hurt a nation simply trying to provide electricity to their people, but it would make their goods less attractive to foreign buyers--which, IMO, they should be. A widget produced in nation A (with clean electrification) ought to have a value over the same widget produced in nation B that doesn't give a crap about emissions and is putting mercury in everyone's drinking water. Furthermore, multinational firms deal with rather complicated trade arrangements daily, making the potential of implementation of this sort of thing a bit more practical aside of simply growing the federal bureaucracy.

I believe the free market can meet our needs, but there are some federal market manipulations that need to end first. I would love to see far less tampering of commodity values (wheat, sugar, coal, you name it) and let private enterprise enjoy the increased operating margin afforded by trading a good that isn't price fixed. This sort of move would naturally allow more alternatives to enter the market (short of having the fed tell us we need it) and that's a good thing.

We need to mine more uranium to put more nuclear energy online, explore using algae to scrub coal and natural gas plant stacks and reuse the carbon (a ways off, but very promising) and develop better electrical storage technologies to further bring wind and solar energy into the fold on a scale that will legitimately bolster our energy infrastructure--not just power a water pump in a field.

[RedDirtCowboy]

I am probably closer to Inhofe's position on this subject than I am the people that are at the other extreme. BUT, Inhofe makes Oklahomans and Republicans look like brainless dorks. You can't get much more extreme (left or right) than James Inhofe.

[OSUFan]

Yes, thank God for Inhofe. He is the first politician to start his re-election campaign. June 3rd is a little ridiculous to start putting you commercials out there.

[Mr. Orange-Power]

Fri June 6, 2008


Cost ineffective: Warming bill would hit Oklahoma hard

The Oklahoman Editorial

WE'RE pretty skeptical about the global warming bill the U.S. Senate is debating this week, especially when the benefits-to-cost equation is analyzed. State-specific research on the legislation's potential effect on Oklahoma offers even more reason for concern.

The Lieberman-Warner bill would impose limits on greenhouse gas emissions with the goal of reducing them to 2005 levels by 2012 and then cutting them 30 percent more by 2050.

This would be done through a cap-and-trade system under which businesses and industries meeting federal emissions caps could trade or sell excess capacity to those exceeding them.

That means new bureaucracies, new programs — more than 40 by some estimates — and the complications that routinely go with most new government initiatives. That concerns Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Tulsa. "The climate solution should not require an overhaul of our economy and those decisions should not be made by nameless bureaucrats,” Inhofe says.

As it is, the conservative Heritage Foundation's Center for Data Analysis warns of cumulative losses to the national economy of more than $4.5 trillion by 2030 — even as leading global polluter China lets its economy run unencumbered.

For Oklahoma, the economic impact would be significant. Heritage says gross state product losses may range from about $723 million by 2020 to $1.1 billion by 2030. Non-farm employment losses in the state could top 3,900 by 2030, and more than 21,000 state manufacturing jobs could be lost over the next two decades. Total personal income loss may range from $218 million by 2012 to $1.3 billion by 2030.

On a household basis, Oklahomans could expect increases in the annual cost of electricity ($388 more by 2025), natural gas ($123) and gasoline ($449) because of Lieberman-Warner, Heritage says.

The story is similar across all the states. As the Senate debate proceeds, members must consider these outsized costs for the token benefit Lieberman-Warner promises.

[Mr. Orange-Power]

Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less: http://www.americansolutions.com/actioncenter/petitions/?Guid=54ec6e43-75a8-445b-aa7b-346a1e096659

[legelegel]

If our government does want Newt suggests, what happens to OSU's investment with Boone?

[MajorMike]

Didn't NASA just release their own report that global temperatures actually fell by 1 degree over the last century? Of course, the media buried the story as quickly as possible because it completely blows huge holes in their Global Warming scare-the-bejeezus-out-of-everyone agenda.

NASA Survey Confirms Climate Warming Impact On Polar Ice Sheets
(http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/03/060308211836.htm)

Scientists: Arctic sea ice tells of warming (http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_4991225,00.html)

NASA has an entire web site dedicated to Global Warming.
LINKY DINK (http://climate.jpl.nasa.gov/)

You been watching the Ruskies as they go play at the North Pole and claim it as their own? Wanna know why? Because the NW Passage is now completely navigable and ships can now go north above Canada to get from the Pacific/Atlantic & vice versa. Massive off-shore drilling rigs are about to go in up there. Yeah, its still frickin cold, but you can boat along up there now.

Global Warming is a fact; the reasons behind it can be debated, however.

[OSUFan]

So Inhofe's opponent has an ad that says Inhofe votes 90% along Republican lines. Exactly what percentage is his opponent going to vote Democrat? Probably the same percentage. Dumb.

[Vulgar Display of Orange]

I keep opening this thread bc I never thought that under any scenario I would see someone write 'Thanks God for Inhofe!' I'm just happy that hes a nobody on the hill.

[bleedorange]

I keep opening this thread bc I never thought that under any scenario I would see someone write 'Thanks God for Inhofe!'

That means a lot, coming from a donkey. :rollseyes:

[Verb]

I keep opening this thread bc I never thought that under any scenario I would see someone write 'Thanks God for Inhofe!' I'm just happy that hes a nobody on the hill.

He's kind of a laughingstock to people from other states. I have an old friend who's a big Republican party leader in Florida. She teases me relentlessly about being from the same state as him.

[Vulgar Display of Orange]

He's kind of a laughingstock to people from other states. I have an old friend who's a big Republican party leader in Florida. She teases me relentlessly about being from the same state as him.

I know. I generally apologize for him when someone finds out that I'm from Oklahoma. Him and Toby Keith.

[PokesFanatic]

I am good friends with his former senior legislative assistant and believe me, he is not thought well of even in his own office. The man is basically a fool.