0 comment Sunday, November 16, 2014 | admin
Have you read about the lights going off around the world?
''SYDNEY/LONDON (Reuters) - People switched off lights across the world on Saturday, dimming buildings, hotels, restaurants and bars to show concern at global warming.
Up to 30 million people were expected to switch off their lights for 60 minutes by the time "Earth Hour" -- which started at 8 p.m. in Suva in Fiji and Christchurch in New Zealand -- completed its cycle westwards.''
Are any of you observing 'Earth Hour' and turning off your lights at the designated time? Apparently we're supposed to turn off our lights at 8 o'clock local time, according to what I have heard.
This is typical liberal 'activism': a symbolic show with little of substance behind it. As if turning off our lights for 60 minutes would forestall this global warming doomsday that they keep prophesying.
It's not that I am one of those 'conservatives' who scorns concern for the environment just because of the liberal hysteria aboout it. It's true that the left and the liberals go overboard in their obsessing about Mother Earth, and it's true that much of their purported concern for the environment is limited to a kind of neo-Luddite hatred of our first-world lifestyle, mingled with a loathing for Big Business and all its works. However, having said that, I don't completely disregard environmental concerns; I think much of the damage to the environment is a result of overpopulation in most of the world, and of course 'most of the world' is taken up by the hallowed 'developing countries', who are for some reason held blameless when it comes to environmental damage. The best thing that could be done for the environment would be to stop all this reckless overpopulating, which is, after all, the main reason for this flood of immigration which threatens to overwhelm the entire Western world. Third World peoples keep breeding recklessly and irresponsibly, and of course they and their countries cannot support the children they are bringing into the world, so the overflow is being dropped on our doorstep, and we are being forced to deal with it.
For years, for decades, actually, the left has preached that our First World lifestyle is evil. Now, with the belief that we are on the 'Global Warming Eve of Destruction,' they preach more insistently than ever that we have to stop burning fossil fuels and living our generally wasteful and ecologically irresponsible way of life. Books like 'Small is Beautiful' and leftist films like 'Koyaanisqatsi' idealized the primitive lifestyle of Third World peoples and shamed us for living as we do. We should emulate the primitives, so the message implied, and "live simply that others may simply live." While there is a grain of good advice there, and no doubt simpler living would be healthier for all of us, it is just one more piece of hypocrisy from the left. Why do I say this? Because if they really, honestly believed what they say and preach, they would do all in their power to see that these 'noble savages' remained in their Third World Edens, living their 'small and beautiful' lifestyle. The last thing leftist and liberals should want, if man-made global warming is really occurring, is to bring as many as possible from the Third World to join in our First World lifestyle. Mass immigration to the West is, if anything, only accelerating global warming, as we add tens of millions of new consumers and more cars on the roads, meaning more emissions and more waste dumped in our environment. Does this make even an iota of sense? Of course it doesn't.
I might conclude that the global-warming, 'sky-is-falling' crowd don't really believe their own prophecies of looming disaster. I might wonder if they are cynically manufacturing panic about 'global warming' just to push their agenda.
However it may well be that they believe what they are saying; liberals and leftists have no problem holding many contradictory positions and professing illogical beliefs.
Why is it that they can't, or won't, see the deleterious role mass immigration is playing in their supposed global warming scenario?
I tend to be something of an agnostic on whether or not global warming is a long-term trend, whether it is irreversible, or whether it is merely part of the cycles in our climate that come and go. I tend to think the latter. However I suppose one could argue, as a conservative, that it would be better to prepare for the worst and to try to fend off any global warming which would tend to be disruptive of human society or destructive of human life. But then again, if global warming is happening, and if it is happening as rapidly as the doomsayers insist, is it even possible to stop it, much less to reverse it? Are we human beings really powerful enough to effect permanent changes in the earth's cycles by our relatively puny human efforts? And what could we realistically do, short of destroying all our modern technology and returning to a primitive lifestyle? How realistic would that be?
It might be a good thing in many ways, including from the perspective of improving the quality of our lives, to simplify the way we live, and return to living more as our ancestors did two or three generations ago. But can we, and would even returning to the horse-and-buggy days remove the environmental Sword of Damocles hanging over us?
I don't know that many leftists would sign on to such a program. I think their constant cries of 'repent! The time is at hand!' are mostly just secular versions of the warnings of the old prophets of the Bible. For many leftists and liberals, their politics are their religion, and although many of them scoff at Christian beliefs in heaven and hell, they very much believe that heaven and hell are here on earth.
In his 'Screwtape Letters', C.S. Lewis has his character, the devil's minion Screwtape, instructing the apprentice "Wormwood" on the devil's plans for humanity:
"...we want a man hagridden by the Future -- haunted by visions of an imminent heaven or hell upon earth...''
The idea was to make people believe that they had it in their power to attain heaven on earth or avert hell on earth.
This is the hubris of the liberal.
Unfortunately, it isn't just the left; we have the globalists, including transnational business interests, pushing for a one-world order, and the global warming scare is another tool they are employing to convince us that we must accept a powerful global government, along with a drop in our living standards, and the loss of our national sovereignty and personal freedoms. And people will accept these things, if they become convinced that it is necessary to avert the global warming hell.
''SYDNEY/LONDON (Reuters) - People switched off lights across the world on Saturday, dimming buildings, hotels, restaurants and bars to show concern at global warming.
Up to 30 million people were expected to switch off their lights for 60 minutes by the time "Earth Hour" -- which started at 8 p.m. in Suva in Fiji and Christchurch in New Zealand -- completed its cycle westwards.''
Are any of you observing 'Earth Hour' and turning off your lights at the designated time? Apparently we're supposed to turn off our lights at 8 o'clock local time, according to what I have heard.
This is typical liberal 'activism': a symbolic show with little of substance behind it. As if turning off our lights for 60 minutes would forestall this global warming doomsday that they keep prophesying.
It's not that I am one of those 'conservatives' who scorns concern for the environment just because of the liberal hysteria aboout it. It's true that the left and the liberals go overboard in their obsessing about Mother Earth, and it's true that much of their purported concern for the environment is limited to a kind of neo-Luddite hatred of our first-world lifestyle, mingled with a loathing for Big Business and all its works. However, having said that, I don't completely disregard environmental concerns; I think much of the damage to the environment is a result of overpopulation in most of the world, and of course 'most of the world' is taken up by the hallowed 'developing countries', who are for some reason held blameless when it comes to environmental damage. The best thing that could be done for the environment would be to stop all this reckless overpopulating, which is, after all, the main reason for this flood of immigration which threatens to overwhelm the entire Western world. Third World peoples keep breeding recklessly and irresponsibly, and of course they and their countries cannot support the children they are bringing into the world, so the overflow is being dropped on our doorstep, and we are being forced to deal with it.
For years, for decades, actually, the left has preached that our First World lifestyle is evil. Now, with the belief that we are on the 'Global Warming Eve of Destruction,' they preach more insistently than ever that we have to stop burning fossil fuels and living our generally wasteful and ecologically irresponsible way of life. Books like 'Small is Beautiful' and leftist films like 'Koyaanisqatsi' idealized the primitive lifestyle of Third World peoples and shamed us for living as we do. We should emulate the primitives, so the message implied, and "live simply that others may simply live." While there is a grain of good advice there, and no doubt simpler living would be healthier for all of us, it is just one more piece of hypocrisy from the left. Why do I say this? Because if they really, honestly believed what they say and preach, they would do all in their power to see that these 'noble savages' remained in their Third World Edens, living their 'small and beautiful' lifestyle. The last thing leftist and liberals should want, if man-made global warming is really occurring, is to bring as many as possible from the Third World to join in our First World lifestyle. Mass immigration to the West is, if anything, only accelerating global warming, as we add tens of millions of new consumers and more cars on the roads, meaning more emissions and more waste dumped in our environment. Does this make even an iota of sense? Of course it doesn't.
I might conclude that the global-warming, 'sky-is-falling' crowd don't really believe their own prophecies of looming disaster. I might wonder if they are cynically manufacturing panic about 'global warming' just to push their agenda.
However it may well be that they believe what they are saying; liberals and leftists have no problem holding many contradictory positions and professing illogical beliefs.
Why is it that they can't, or won't, see the deleterious role mass immigration is playing in their supposed global warming scenario?
I tend to be something of an agnostic on whether or not global warming is a long-term trend, whether it is irreversible, or whether it is merely part of the cycles in our climate that come and go. I tend to think the latter. However I suppose one could argue, as a conservative, that it would be better to prepare for the worst and to try to fend off any global warming which would tend to be disruptive of human society or destructive of human life. But then again, if global warming is happening, and if it is happening as rapidly as the doomsayers insist, is it even possible to stop it, much less to reverse it? Are we human beings really powerful enough to effect permanent changes in the earth's cycles by our relatively puny human efforts? And what could we realistically do, short of destroying all our modern technology and returning to a primitive lifestyle? How realistic would that be?
It might be a good thing in many ways, including from the perspective of improving the quality of our lives, to simplify the way we live, and return to living more as our ancestors did two or three generations ago. But can we, and would even returning to the horse-and-buggy days remove the environmental Sword of Damocles hanging over us?
I don't know that many leftists would sign on to such a program. I think their constant cries of 'repent! The time is at hand!' are mostly just secular versions of the warnings of the old prophets of the Bible. For many leftists and liberals, their politics are their religion, and although many of them scoff at Christian beliefs in heaven and hell, they very much believe that heaven and hell are here on earth.
In his 'Screwtape Letters', C.S. Lewis has his character, the devil's minion Screwtape, instructing the apprentice "Wormwood" on the devil's plans for humanity:
"...we want a man hagridden by the Future -- haunted by visions of an imminent heaven or hell upon earth...''
The idea was to make people believe that they had it in their power to attain heaven on earth or avert hell on earth.
This is the hubris of the liberal.
Unfortunately, it isn't just the left; we have the globalists, including transnational business interests, pushing for a one-world order, and the global warming scare is another tool they are employing to convince us that we must accept a powerful global government, along with a drop in our living standards, and the loss of our national sovereignty and personal freedoms. And people will accept these things, if they become convinced that it is necessary to avert the global warming hell.
Labels: Environmentalism, Global Warming, Globalism, Liberalism, Overpopulation
0 comment Tuesday, November 11, 2014 | admin
I saw part of a discussion on Cavuto's show about this story:
Obama plan: paint roofs white to save the world
Steven Chu, who directed the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and was professor of physics and molecular and cell biology at the University of California before being appointed by President Obama to be the U.S. Energy Secretary, says white paint is what's needed to fix global warming.
Chu, who according to the federal agency's website, successfully applied the techniques he developed in atomic physics to molecular biology and recently led the lab in pursuit of new alternative and renewable energies, has told the London Times that by making paved surfaces and roofs lighter in color, the world would reduce carbon emissions by as much as parking all the cars in the world for 11 years.
The DOE says Chu's areas of expertise are in atomic physics, quantum electronics, polymer and biophysics. According to the Times, he was speaking at the St. James' Palace Nobel Laureate Symposium, in which the Times partners for media events, when he described his simple and "completely benign" � "geo-engineering" plan.
He said building codes should require that flat roofed-buildings have their tops painted white. Visible sloped roofs could be painted "cool" colors. And roads could be made a lighter color. ''
My first reaction to this story was incredulity, followed by uneasy laughter. Are they serious? It seems like something out of The Onion, but they are serious.
The FReepers discuss the WND story here, and Rush Limbaugh's comments are quoted:
They don't want to stop at roofs. Making roads and roofs a paler color could have this effect. "It was a geo-engineering scheme that was 'completely benign' and would keep buildings cooler and reduce energy use from air conditioning." How much paint is this going to take, by the way? How much of a footprint does paint manufacturing leave? Here's the real question about this. I need a scientist to answer this for me. I understand how clouds at altitude can help reflect the heat. But I want to know how something white on the surface of the planet, where does that reflected heat go? If the road is white, and the heat reflects, aren't you going to boil if you happen to be walking on it in the summertime? Where does this reflected heat go? Are we being told here that reflected heat is not damaging at all but direct heat is? It seems to me if we had global warming wouldn't we want dark roofs to absorb the heat? Yeah, it may be cooling your house a little bit, but� This is all such gobbledygook.''
I'm no scientist, but it all sounds rather silly to me, and a few practical questions come to mind for me, as well as for some of the FReepers.
Commenter T Minus Four says
Oh for the love of Mike! Think of the epic paint fumes and the billions of dirty brushe, plastic drop sheets, cans and buckets clogging up the land fills. And who�s going to pay for all the paint? That stuff ain�t cheap. I am also unaware of any paint that will stick to asphalt shingles.
Wonder if white roofs will raise the cost of heating homes?
Don�t these people ever think past the ends of their noses?
Wow, think of the run on Lowes. Side note: do you ever wonder what all the people in a hurricane zone did with all the millions of sheets of plywood that were bought last hurricane scare?''
Another says
Anyone who has studied the GW hoax knows that part of the claim of those who support the GW propaganda is that it is manmade structures REFLECTING heat that gets trapped by the atmosphere and adds to the GW.
Painting roofs white would only (theoretically) increase this effect.''
That occurred to me, too.
And this:
Houses in the south had mostly white shingles on the roof, pre air conditioning, and they still do in Florida. So, this thinking is nothing new.
Trouble is, if reflective surfaces cooled the environment as a whole, and not just the surfaces, the Sahara wouldn�t be quite so hot, now would it?''
I am not a total unbeliever in ''climate change'', which I now understand to be the preferred term for what we are observing in our environment, but call me a global warming agnostic. I just think that the jury is out; there is some evidence that we are not in a ''warming'' phase but entering a cooling phase.
I do know that there is much that we don't know about long-term climate trends; we do know that the earth has always gone through cycles where climate is concerned. The people who lived at the time of the Ice Ages may have believed that the earth was going to freeze forever, and never warm up again. Why should we believe that the ''global warming'' trend will be long-term or irreversible?
While it's prudent to anticipate the worst and prepare accordingly, and to try to do all that is humanly possible to forestall any destructive trends in the environment, there is a limit to what is in fact humanly possible. If there is a dangerous warming trend underway, how do we know that any efforts we make will be enough to reverse it? And the length of time required to see any real change as a result of our human efforts is more time than we have -- if in fact the global warming believers are correct. Even if we returned to a much more primitive 'environmentally friendly'' lifestyle, which in fact would cause great economic and cultural disruption, if not chaos, we might not be able to reverse any warming trend.
The news media periodically run these alarmist stories about rising sea levels, melting glaciers and icebergs. They warn that we will have ''many millions of climate refugees'' who will have to be evacuated to Western countries to escape the flooding. What a handy coincidence that the only places for safety, apparently, will be in our countries, and the only 'climate refugees' will be the usual economic migrants and mendicants who are now looking for a chance to emigrate here.
Well, since it seems that the globalist plan is to resettle these people among us anyway, why not add the urgent 'global warming' refrain to the same old song?
If human beings are causing 'global warming', presuming there is a warming cycle going on, it would seem that we lack the time and the luxury of being able to effect the kinds of sweeping, disruptive changes that would be needed to even hope to reverse things.
Human beings have lived through climate changes in the past. European men in particular survived Ice Ages and have lived in every kind of climate, surely it does not befit us to react hysterically to the prospect of yet another climate cycle. Long ago my lefty anthropology teachers taught us that what differentiated human beings from other species was the ability to make cultural and technological adaptations to varying environments. If that's true, I have faith that at least some of us will survive any scary ''global warming'' scenario.
I am concerned not about a man-made global warming process, which may or may not be happening, but about a man-made transformation of the earth that involves moving populations en masse from the Third World to our world. I am worried about man-made global shrinking; the world was a much more hospitable and happy place when it was bigger. It's getting too small these days.
Obama plan: paint roofs white to save the world
Steven Chu, who directed the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and was professor of physics and molecular and cell biology at the University of California before being appointed by President Obama to be the U.S. Energy Secretary, says white paint is what's needed to fix global warming.
Chu, who according to the federal agency's website, successfully applied the techniques he developed in atomic physics to molecular biology and recently led the lab in pursuit of new alternative and renewable energies, has told the London Times that by making paved surfaces and roofs lighter in color, the world would reduce carbon emissions by as much as parking all the cars in the world for 11 years.
The DOE says Chu's areas of expertise are in atomic physics, quantum electronics, polymer and biophysics. According to the Times, he was speaking at the St. James' Palace Nobel Laureate Symposium, in which the Times partners for media events, when he described his simple and "completely benign" � "geo-engineering" plan.
He said building codes should require that flat roofed-buildings have their tops painted white. Visible sloped roofs could be painted "cool" colors. And roads could be made a lighter color. ''
My first reaction to this story was incredulity, followed by uneasy laughter. Are they serious? It seems like something out of The Onion, but they are serious.
The FReepers discuss the WND story here, and Rush Limbaugh's comments are quoted:
They don't want to stop at roofs. Making roads and roofs a paler color could have this effect. "It was a geo-engineering scheme that was 'completely benign' and would keep buildings cooler and reduce energy use from air conditioning." How much paint is this going to take, by the way? How much of a footprint does paint manufacturing leave? Here's the real question about this. I need a scientist to answer this for me. I understand how clouds at altitude can help reflect the heat. But I want to know how something white on the surface of the planet, where does that reflected heat go? If the road is white, and the heat reflects, aren't you going to boil if you happen to be walking on it in the summertime? Where does this reflected heat go? Are we being told here that reflected heat is not damaging at all but direct heat is? It seems to me if we had global warming wouldn't we want dark roofs to absorb the heat? Yeah, it may be cooling your house a little bit, but� This is all such gobbledygook.''
I'm no scientist, but it all sounds rather silly to me, and a few practical questions come to mind for me, as well as for some of the FReepers.
Commenter T Minus Four says
Oh for the love of Mike! Think of the epic paint fumes and the billions of dirty brushe, plastic drop sheets, cans and buckets clogging up the land fills. And who�s going to pay for all the paint? That stuff ain�t cheap. I am also unaware of any paint that will stick to asphalt shingles.
Wonder if white roofs will raise the cost of heating homes?
Don�t these people ever think past the ends of their noses?
Wow, think of the run on Lowes. Side note: do you ever wonder what all the people in a hurricane zone did with all the millions of sheets of plywood that were bought last hurricane scare?''
Another says
Anyone who has studied the GW hoax knows that part of the claim of those who support the GW propaganda is that it is manmade structures REFLECTING heat that gets trapped by the atmosphere and adds to the GW.
Painting roofs white would only (theoretically) increase this effect.''
That occurred to me, too.
And this:
Houses in the south had mostly white shingles on the roof, pre air conditioning, and they still do in Florida. So, this thinking is nothing new.
Trouble is, if reflective surfaces cooled the environment as a whole, and not just the surfaces, the Sahara wouldn�t be quite so hot, now would it?''
I am not a total unbeliever in ''climate change'', which I now understand to be the preferred term for what we are observing in our environment, but call me a global warming agnostic. I just think that the jury is out; there is some evidence that we are not in a ''warming'' phase but entering a cooling phase.
I do know that there is much that we don't know about long-term climate trends; we do know that the earth has always gone through cycles where climate is concerned. The people who lived at the time of the Ice Ages may have believed that the earth was going to freeze forever, and never warm up again. Why should we believe that the ''global warming'' trend will be long-term or irreversible?
While it's prudent to anticipate the worst and prepare accordingly, and to try to do all that is humanly possible to forestall any destructive trends in the environment, there is a limit to what is in fact humanly possible. If there is a dangerous warming trend underway, how do we know that any efforts we make will be enough to reverse it? And the length of time required to see any real change as a result of our human efforts is more time than we have -- if in fact the global warming believers are correct. Even if we returned to a much more primitive 'environmentally friendly'' lifestyle, which in fact would cause great economic and cultural disruption, if not chaos, we might not be able to reverse any warming trend.
The news media periodically run these alarmist stories about rising sea levels, melting glaciers and icebergs. They warn that we will have ''many millions of climate refugees'' who will have to be evacuated to Western countries to escape the flooding. What a handy coincidence that the only places for safety, apparently, will be in our countries, and the only 'climate refugees' will be the usual economic migrants and mendicants who are now looking for a chance to emigrate here.
Well, since it seems that the globalist plan is to resettle these people among us anyway, why not add the urgent 'global warming' refrain to the same old song?
If human beings are causing 'global warming', presuming there is a warming cycle going on, it would seem that we lack the time and the luxury of being able to effect the kinds of sweeping, disruptive changes that would be needed to even hope to reverse things.
Human beings have lived through climate changes in the past. European men in particular survived Ice Ages and have lived in every kind of climate, surely it does not befit us to react hysterically to the prospect of yet another climate cycle. Long ago my lefty anthropology teachers taught us that what differentiated human beings from other species was the ability to make cultural and technological adaptations to varying environments. If that's true, I have faith that at least some of us will survive any scary ''global warming'' scenario.
I am concerned not about a man-made global warming process, which may or may not be happening, but about a man-made transformation of the earth that involves moving populations en masse from the Third World to our world. I am worried about man-made global shrinking; the world was a much more hospitable and happy place when it was bigger. It's getting too small these days.
Labels: Climate Change, Global Warming, Globalism, Mass Migration, One World
0 comment Thursday, June 12, 2014 | admin
The picture is from the blog Paleo-Future. It's from a 1982 book by Neil Ardley, 'Fact or Fantasy, (World of Tomorrow)', and it depicts the 'domed city of the future,' which will be necessitated by the coming 'savage cold,' so the author told us.
The Paleo-Future blog has an interesting theme; it's about the future as seen by people in the past. It's amusing and sometimes fascinating to see how past eras foresaw the future, and it's enlightening and comforting sometimes to see just how wrong the prognosticators were.
I blogged about this phenomenon in an oblique way a while back, in a post about the apparent loss of American optimism. Many of the posts at the Paleo-Future blog hark back to the 1950s, an era which I recall as having been especially focused on the future. There was an optimism which now seems naive, in retrospect, but at the time it seemed a healthy attitude, which somehow believed that the future would be better than the present, and that technology would lead to endless improvement in the physical world and in the human condition. Of course from our present perspective, we see that our optimism may have been wishful thinking in many cases, and our faith in technology to remake the world and human nature was often misplaced. But it is interesting to see pictures from old books and newspapers, with glowing forecasts about the far-off future, the 21st century. All of us who were alive in the 50s and 60s remember the popular science fiction of that era, which always pictured a 21st century world in which everybody had a personal helicopter or other such aircraft, a la the Jetsons, and of course there would be domed cities which were climate-controlled, and we would take our meals in pill form.
Paleo-Future is full of pictures of such imagined future utopias, so it's a fun read.
The post from which the picture above is taken is called The Coming Ice Age, which reminds us that back in 1982, there was still a common belief among prognosticators that we were heading into a 'new Ice Age.' As I recall, this popular idea started in the late 60s and persisted throughout the 70s, and judging by the book which Matt quotes from, it persisted into the 80s. I wonder at what point the experts decided we were not cooling down, but headed for a world inferno based on global warming, or 'the Greenhouse Effect', as it used to be called?
If Matt at Paleo-Future is still blogging a decade or two from now, I suppose by then it will be evident whether the 'global warming' hysteria has been proven correct, or whether the future generations will look at the global warming fears with amusement, much as we chuckle over the 'new Ice Age' predictions from today's vantage point.
Reading Paleo-Future is a corrective for the belief that the 'experts' can see into a crystal ball and foretell the future. Much of what passes for solid forecasting is educated guesswork, and is not infallible. It would be wise to remember that fact. The fears of a coming 'ice age' were apparently based on a cooling trend during the late 60s and early 70s, which some scientists took as indicative of long-term trends. It's a temptation that is easy to succumb to, not only in climatological matters, but in other areas of life too. We can't see or know all the influences at work in any given situation, and what we see as a near-certainty at one point may prove nowhere near the truth in the long term.
If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars, as the poet Clough said.
Labels: Future, Global Warming, History, Science