Murphy: paganism in the age of bluetooth and Twitter

Rex Murphy: Excuse me sir, that cockroach has rights

The Ministry of Mother Earth

This is what happens when enviro-Marxists have power:

UNITED NATIONS — Bolivia will this month table a draft United Nations treaty giving “Mother Earth” the same rights as humans — having just passed a domestic law that does the same for bugs, trees and all other natural things in the South American country.

The bid aims to have the UN recognize the Earth as a living entity that humans have sought to “dominate and exploit” — to the point that the “wellbeing and existence of many beings” is now threatened.

Implementation of a policy like this could set human progress back centuries. All in the name of socialism.

Bolivia is a country with a large indigenous population, whose traditional belief systems took on greater resonance following the election of Mr. Morales, Latin America’s first indigenous president.

In a 2008 pamphlet his entourage distributed at the UN as he attended a summit there, ten “commandments” are set out as Bolivia’s plan to “save the planet” — beginning with the need “to end with capitalism.”

And there is the bottom line. It's not about the environment at all.

Earth Hour: Let there be Light!

I almost missed it but tonight is Earth Hour. The usual media hype doesn't seem to be there like it has been in previous years. Is Earth Hour losing it's trendiness? Anyway across the land tonight, many well meaning but misinformed individuals will be taking symbolic action in order to fight what they refer to as "climate change":

"When I get up in the morning, I'll turn off the furnace unless there's danger the pipes will freeze," Rezansoff says. "I'll turn off all appliances except the fridge, and we'll eat fruit, vegetables and sandwiches. In the evening, we'll play board games by candlelight."

While these folks will be briefly experiencing what life would be like without all the modern conveniences that that science, technology and free enterprise have brought us I will be celebrating the Earth and the many wonderful resources she provides us with by TURNING ON every (incandescent) light in my house. I will be watching FOX News Channel on my big screen TV and cranking up the furnace to make sure I'm nice and comfy while I eat my roast beef.

Earth Hour: Let there be light!

Forward, Into the Past

Where the left is tasking us, via Ed Driscoll

58 days

is way too long to respond the greatest environmental disaster in decades.

When failure was not an option

From Watts Up With That? Apollo 17 astronaut and geologist Dr. H. Harrison Schmitt comments on the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico:

President Obama’s Administration and its supportive media repeatedly say our 1970 Apollo 13 experience is analogous to the effort to contain and cap the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Not hardly!

(...)

“Failure was not an option” for Gene Kranz and his Apollo 13 flight controllers and engineers. In contrast, failure clearly has been an option for President Obama and those claiming to have been on top of this situation “from day one” in his White House and in the Departments of Interior, Energy and Homeland Security.

With no single, competent, courageous and knowledgeable leader in charge of a comparably competent, courageous and knowledgeable team as we had with Apollo 13, the Administration has been doomed to failure from the start. The President, without any experience in real-world management of anything, much less a crisis, has no idea how to deal with a situation as technically complex as the Gulf oil spill.

Be sure to read the whole thing.

The cost of green energy

Despite continued decline in Ontario's electricity demand, prices are soaring as we move away from coal towards "green" energy.

Price of electricity jumps 12 per cent
The price for the energy portion of an electricity bill is going up on May 1

Ontario is rapidly pricing itself out of the market when it comes to electricity.

Ontario is getting less and less electricity at higher and higher prices. It's only going to get worse

And cheap electricity has long been one of the big attractions for industry to locate here. Industry that provides jobs.

Economic Strangulation

President Obama continues to implement the most radical socialist agenda in American history. He has already nationalized large segments of the banking, insurance and automobile industries, while managing to quadruple the national deficit with his record government spending spree. All this under the guise of "economic stimulus" intended to kick start the struggling economy.

The left's "green" agenda will soon be bringing a "cap & trade" carbon tax to a neighbourhood near you. Just what the economy needs - more taxes and higher energy costs.

But the One has also managed to put a stranglehold on America's ability to free itself of it's energy dependence on foreign oil, says Dr. Mark W. Hendrickson:

The Green Left must be thrilled with the new Obama/Pelosi/Reid (OPR) troika in charge of the federal government. Three times already, the troika has blocked the development of domestic oil resources.

During his first week in office, President Obama rescinded his predecessor’s executive order permitting drilling on the continental shelf and in the Green River Formation. Both areas contain abundant oil—especially Green River (under Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah), which has recoverable shale-oil reserves three times the oil reserves of Saudi Arabia.

Several weeks later, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar unilaterally canceled 77 oil and gas leases in Utah, on the grounds that (I kid you not) someone might catch a glimpse of temporary drilling equipment from the national park that sits more than a mile away.

[...]

In addition to increasing American dependence on foreign oil by thwarting such domestic development, the OPR/green alliance desires the imposition of expensive cap-and-trade rules to discourage utilities from using coal, which currently provides nearly half of America’s electricity.

Read the rest at FrontPage Magazine.

DeWeese on radical environmental policy

Tom Deweese the publisher/editor of The DeWeese Report and is the President of the American Policy Center, a grassroots, activist think tank headquartered in Warrenton, Virginia. These are excerpts from a speech he delivered in Kalispell, Montana and Spokane, Washington to County Republican Lincoln Day dinners in late March. It's called The Wrenching Transformation of America and was reported by Canada Free Press.

I believe the American people, and their every action, are being ruled, regulated, restricted, licensed, registered, directed, checked, inspected, measured, numbered, counted, rated, stamped, censured, authorized, admonished, refused, prevented, drilled, indoctrinated, monopolized, extorted, robbed, hoaxed, fined, harassed, disarmed, dishonored, fleeced, exploited, assessed, and taxed to the point of suffocation and desperation.

America is drowning in a sea of rules and regulations, particularly under the guise of “saving the environment.”

(...)

Tonight, I’m going to try to give you at least a peek at the all-encompassing, gut wrenching national transformation that we face—and, hopefully, help to lift the veil of confusion.

To put things in perspective, here are some questions every American should ask their elected officials – especially those supporting “climate change” legislation.

If it is proven that climate change is not man-made, but natural, will you be relieved and excited to know that man is off the hook?

We’ve been terrorized into accepting that human society was on the brink of extinction because of man-made global warming. We’ve been warned that, unless we take drastic action to reverse it – then islands will disappear, whole cities will be destroyed and polar bears will drown.

So, if it’s not true, will you now help to remove all of the draconian regulations passed during the global warming hysteria? Will you help to restore our Republic with common sense and sound economics?

Their answers to these questions should be very illuminating as to the true agenda they seek to impose.

I will let you read the rest at Canada Free Press.

Green energy destroys 2 jobs for every 1 created, study finds

via Bloomberg:

Job Losses From Obama Green Stimulus Foreseen in Spanish Study

By Gianluca Baratti

March 27 (Bloomberg) -- Subsidizing renewable energy in the U.S. may destroy two jobs for every one created if Spain’s experience with windmills and solar farms is any guide.

For every new position that depends on energy price supports, at least 2.2 jobs in other industries will disappear, according to a study from King Juan Carlos University in Madrid.

U.S. President Barack Obama’s 2010 budget proposal contains about $20 billion in tax incentives for clean-energy programs. In Spain, where wind turbines provided 11 percent of power demand last year, generators earn rates as much as 11 times more for renewable energy compared with burning fossil fuels.

The premiums paid for solar, biomass, wave and wind power - - which are charged to consumers in their bills -- translated into a $774,000 cost for each Spanish “green job” created since 2000, said Gabriel Calzada, an economics professor at the university and author of the report.

“The loss of jobs could be greater if you account for the amount of lost industry that moves out of the country due to higher energy prices,” he said in an interview.

h/t: FoxNation

Blowing in the wind

Via the Telegraph:

The UK is at "real risk" of imminent power shortages as a result of attempts to shift to more environmentally friendly methods of electrictity production, a report has warned.

(...)

The shortage has been caused by the increase in the level of demand for energy combined with a growing tendency to build wind turbines, at the expense of other, more reliable, electricity sources, it says.

The report estimates that around one quarter of the UK's energy plant capacity will close by 2015 as the country struggles to balance its carbon emissions targets with production of new energy sources.

The collapse of environmentalism

The next commodity to collapse will be mass-marketed environmentalism, says Lawrence Solomon in Friday's Financial Post:

Stock market indexes have plummeted from their inflated peaks. Oil and other commodities have likewise plummeted. The next commodity to tumble from unsustainable peak levels: environmentalism.

In part, I am making this prediction because, in my 30 years as an environmentalist, I have never seen so many governments and so many corporations so profusely espousing so many environmental causes. Where promoting environmentalism was once seen as daring and counter-cultural, today it has become banal, no longer the exclusive preserve of a Body Shop chain, but of every retailer down to Wal-Mart. For the same reason that clothes go out of fashion after the masses embrace them, mass-marketed environmentalism will come to be disdained. That won’t sell for long.

I am predicting a collapse of today’s Wal-Mart environmentalism for another reason, too: Much of it is misguided, based on misunderstanding and vacuity.

The economy will always trump environmentalism. When it comes down to it, people will be all for environmentalism - until it affects their pocket books.

Gov. Palin on Polar Bears, etc.

John McCain's VP nominee discusses energy independence, drilling in ANWR and polar bears with CNN's Glenn Beck during this interview originally aired in June of this year.



via Newsbusters

Update: I just watched a fascinating interview with Gov. Palin by Maria Bartiromo on CNBC. Partial video here.

One thing for sure, Sarah Palin is going to shake up this election campaign. She has real answers for America's energy questions. And she has a track record of dealing with the oil industry in a practical, ethical and environmentally conscious manner - all the while protecting the interests of her shareholders, the people of Alaska.

She's not solely focused on developing non-renewables like oil and natural gas. As Governor she has recognized the need for, and funded other sources of energy, particularly renewables like wind and tide.

The more I see of Gov. Palin, the more I am convinced that John McCain made the right choice for his VP running mate. She makes a lot of sense and could really shake up Washington. If her ideas and principles can applied on a national scale she could actually get the US moving towards energy independence.

Perhaps the ticket should be Palin-McCain.

Gunter: Environmentalism is causing global warming

Lorne Gunter in today's National Post, All the news that's fit to scare

And what of the study, released in July by Switzerland's Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, that shows European temperatures, at least, have risen in large part because of efforts over the past 30 years to clean the continent's skies?

Christian Ruckstuhl and 12 coauthors found that of the 1C rise in temperature in Europe over the last three decades, "at least half of the warming" is attributable to a reduction of aerosols, such as sulphur dioxide and black soot particles. As Europeans have cleaned up their smokestacks and tailpipes, and as dirty old Soviet-era East European plants have been modernized to Western standards, more sunlight has penetrated the continent's atmosphere and warmed things up a bit.

In other words, environmentalism is causing global warming. As ecoadvocates have won tighter clean-air regulations, their efforts have been rewarded with brighter days (a good thing), but also warmer temperatures.

Gunter also comments on the recent news stories about warming in the Canadian Arctic:

Fear that melt water from the park's glaciers might lead to flash flooding and landslides has been reported by everyone from AFP to the BBC as proof of the adverse side-effects of man-made climate change.

Meanwhile, it is barely reported outside Alaska that America's northernmost state is having a record cool summer.

If it reaches 19C in Anchorage today, it will be just the eighth time that's happened this summer. Indeed, this could be the first summer ever that Anchorage never hits 24C.

Auyuittuq is at 66 degrees north; Anchorage is at 61.

The Baffin story may be more significant than the Alaska one. But why are we hearing all about one and nothing about the other? You can bet that if Anchorage were suffering a record hot summer, it would be all over the news and presented--as the Baffin temperatures are -- as yet further proof of the dangerous impacts of global warming in the north.

Once more, the mainstream media ignores news stories that do not fit with its bias towards global warming alarmism.

Big screen TVs dwarf coal plant CO2 emissions

I'm going to have to get out my DVD copy of the Great Global Warming Swindle and watch it non-stop on my new big screen TV - which I should be able to get really cheap from some environmentally conscious tree-hugger.

News item: Plasma, LCDs blamed for accelerating global warming

The gas, widely used in the manufacture of flat screen TVs, is estimated to be 17,000 times as powerful as carbon dioxide.

Ironically, NF3 is not covered by the Kyoto protocol as it was only produced in tiny amounts when the treaty was signed in 1997.

Professor Michael Prather from the University of California has highlighted the issue in an article for the magazine New Scientist.

"Not only is it not in the Kyoto Treaty but you don't even have to report it. That's the part that worries me."

He estimates 4,000 tons of NF3 will be produced in 2008 and that number is likely to double next year.

"We don't know what's emitted, but what they're producing every year dwarfs these giant coal-fired power plants that are like the biggest in the world," he said.

Like wow, man - does this guy really talk this way?

So let me get this straight: we don't know exactly how much NF3 is emitted, but we're going to scare the bejesus out of everybody by saying that it dwarfs the output of all those nasty coal plants. Alarmism at its finest.

Is there any invention of modern society that doesn't offend the environmental alarmists?

Dennis Miller

"Global warming is officially becoming creepy".

Environmental Arrogance

"There is nothing wrong with the planet. Nothing wrong with the planet. The planet is fine. The people are (bleep) -- difference, difference. The planet is fine. Compared to the people, the planet is doing great. It's been here four and a half billion years. Did you ever think about the arithmetic? The planet has been here four and a half billion years. We've only been engaged in heavy industry for a little more than 200 years.

"Two hundred years versus four and a half billion, and we have the conceit to think that somehow we're a threat, that somehow we're going to put in jeopardy this beautiful little blue-green ball that's just a-floatin' around the sun? The planet has been through a lot worse than us, been through all kinds of things worse than us, been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics, continental drift, solar flares, sunspots, magnetic storms, the magnetic reversal of the poles, hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets and asteroids and meteors, worldwide floods, tidal waves, worldwide fires, erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages, and we think some plastic bags and some aluminum cans are going to make a difference? The planet isn't going anywhere. We are! We're going away."

George Carlin via Rush

Carbon zombies and other madness

Carbon Zombies are attacking our economy, writes Lorrie Goldstein.

Somewhere on the road to Kyoto, Canada turned into the land of the carbon zombies.

Like the walking undead, blood-sucking politicians of all stripes are howling at each other over discredited ways to reduce carbon emissions that other countries, having tried to implement, are running away from in terror.

Meanwhile, at the Drax power station in the UK, carbon zombies are attacking coal trains.

In the US, with record energy prices being reached seemingly every day, Steven Milloy says Greens Thwart Gasoline Production

But even if the greens lose the political battle over drilling offshore and in places like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, they nevertheless are way ahead of the game as they implement a back-up plan to make sure that not a drop of that oil ever eases our gasoline crunch.

The Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council, or NRDC, successfully pressured the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to block ConocoPhillips’ expansion of its Roxana, Ill., gasoline refinery, which processes heavy crude oil from Canada, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.

Obama: I was for high gas prices before I was against them.

Marc Sheppard explains The Climate Alarmist Manifesto

Just as class struggle forms the nucleus of Marxism, so does it sit at the very core of the Left's climate alarmism. At a glance, the regressive nature of fiscal Carbon control schemes, be they taxation or cap-and-trade, would appear to be antithetical to liberal thinking. But beneath the veneer of both the domestic and international green agenda lies a devious wealth-redistribution plan compared to which all predecessors pale.

Valdis Dombrovskis on the EU’s Kyoto shell game:

The failure of the EU-15 to meet its Kyoto target does not come as a big surprise. However, what is surprising is that the EU-15 have managed to market their failure as a success.

And as the Europeans move closer and closer to Kyotocide, Ireland moves once again to save western civilization.

Global Warming and the Price of a Gallon of Gas

by John Coleman, founder of the Weather Channel:

You may want to give credit where credit is due to Al Gore and his global warming campaign the next time you fill your car with gasoline, because there is a direct connection between Global Warming and four dollar a gallon gas. It is shocking, but true, to learn that the entire Global Warming frenzy is based on the environmentalist’s attack on fossil fuels, particularly gasoline. All this big time science, international meetings, thick research papers, dire threats for the future; all of it, comes down to their claim that the carbon dioxide in the exhaust from your car and in the smoke stacks from our power plants is destroying the climate of planet Earth. What an amazing fraud; what a scam.

The future of our civilization lies in the balance.

Be sure to read the whole thing.

Foster: An arm and a leg

Peter Foster, Financial Post Published: Friday, June 06, 2008

Let's say that a bunch of tribal chiefs, having realized that they are in danger of being exposed as useless parasites, consult with their witch doctors and announce that the Gods are angry. These vengeful Gods are demanding that every tribesman (except chiefs and witch doctors)must have either an arm or a leg amputated.

Being eager to be seen as good chiefs, they agree to consult with the tribesmen. Not about the anger of the Gods, of course. That's settled. Instead, debate is to be allowed on the relative merits and defects of being one-armed vs. one-legged. Should individuals be allowed to choose which limb to lose? How much of a limb should be sufficient for divine appeasement? Below the knee? Above the elbow? Some bright spin/witch doctor might even suggest that this mass amputation would represent a marvellous opportunity to stimulate economic growth via the development of a prosthetic limb industry. Once the benefits of this new industry were taken into account, the Gods' anger might prove a net benefit, a golden opportunity.

But then suppose some emperor's-new-clothes kind of individual comes along and says, "Hang on, what proof do we have the Gods are angry? And where are these Gods anyway?" You might be sure that if they couldn't rip his heart out straight away, the powers that be would engage in much agitated jumping and hooting. "Infidel," they would scream. There would be dark whispers that this person must be in league with, or in the pay of, the Devil, X'on. How dare he doubt the shamans, among whom there is consensus.

Just substitute "catastrophic climate change" for "angry gods," carbon taxes vs. cap-and-trade for amputating arms vs. amputating legs, and "Denier" for "Infidel," and you pretty much have the substance of the present climate change policy debate.

Be sure to read the whole thing.