A church with a Greenie religion

At this church, salvation comes not from the risen Lord but from solar panels. Note the following summary of the religion concerned from Wikipedia.  No mention of that pesky old JC guy:

"Unitarian Universalism is a liberal religion characterized by a "free and responsible search for truth and meaning". The Unitarian Universalist (UU) Church does not have a creed. Instead UUs are unified by their shared search for spiritual growth. As such, UU congregations include many agnostics, theists, and atheists among their membership. The roots of UU are in liberal Christianity, specifically Unitarianism and Universalism. Unitarian Universalists state that from these traditions comes a deep regard for intellectual freedom and inclusive love, so that congregations and members seek inspiration and derive insight from all major world religions"

You can read here one of their sermons, which calls the Tea Party, "The American Taliban".  It's news to me that the Taliban believe in small government.  So Leftist hate-speech is alive and well at the Unitarian Universalist "church" in Bedford, Massachusetts. What would Leftists do without people to hate?


Anchoring the common, the Unitarian Universalist church hosts community events, welcomes all comers to its Sunday services, and frequently serves as a venue for weddings and memorial services — not only for its own parishioners but also for community members who lack established religious connections.

But global warming may bring a chill to that relationship.

Last month, the town’s Historic District Commission denied a request from First Parish to install solar panels on the roof of its meetinghouse. The congregation, in turn, filed an appeal June 27 in Middlesex Superior Court, arguing that the decision violated members’ constitutional right to freely exercise their religious beliefs.

“We consider this to be a religious act,” said Dan Bostwick, spokesman for the church’s solar energy committee. “Stewardship of our natural environment is central to our faith. Unitarian Universalists, along with people of many faiths all over the world, are compelled by religious beliefs to take action to mitigate the effects of climate change. By installing solar panels to reduce carbon footprint, we are acting on our core spiritual beliefs.”

Members of the Historic District Commission did not respond to emails requesting comment.

In denying the application on June 1, however, the commission said that installation of solar panels on the roof would be “highly visible and incongruous to the historic aspect of the church and its architectural characteristics.”

Bostwick, a longtime Bedford resident whose study on reducing the church’s carbon footprint led to the request, said he did not anticipate the outcome.

“Our proposal goes to great lengths to balance respect for the historic importance of our building with the wish to reduce climate impact in light of the current environmental crisis,” he said.

Given the church meetinghouse’s prominence in the town center, First Parish members knew there would be questions about the visual impact to the 199-year-old building, constructed in 1817 after the parish’s original structure was destroyed by a windstorm.

But Bostwick, along with other members of his committee, believes they did all they could to meet any potential objections related to the visual impact of solar panels.

“The panels would be visible from only one side of the building, not the iconic front view. In addition, they are not the silver and blue shiny panels you usually see but a new product, all black, with a matte finish,” he said. “We planned to reshingle the roof in black to minimize the contrast. We presented the HDC with photographs, artists mockups and videos showing how little impact it would have.”

The wish to install solar panels isn’t just about saving money on heating the building, the Rev. John Gibbons pointed out.

“Although First Parish is Bedford’s oldest house of worship, we are a living institution that must remain relevant to the present and be accountable to the unprecedented environmental demands of the future,” he said in a statement. “Solar panels are an essential expression of our faith, to honor the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.”

First Parish has already restored the meetinghouse’s windows and installed new storm windows, insulation, and updates to the heating and air conditioning system, according to the complaint. The goal is for the solar panels to generate 75 percent of the parish’s energy needs from the sun — thereby allowing the congregation to remove four gas-fired HVAC units from the roof of the church buildings.

Several significant churches located in historic districts in other Massachusetts communities have received permission from their local commissions to install solar panels, according to the complaint, including South Church in Andover.

Other groups in Bedford supported First Parish’s plan. Letters of support in favor of the solar panel installation were filed with the Town Clerk by the Bedford Interfaith Clergy Association, the Bedford Chapter of Mothers Out Front, the Bedford Chamber of Commerce, and the Bedford Historic Preservation Commission.

The complaint asks the court to annul the Historic District Commission’s decision. First Parish also filed an Open Meeting Law complaint with the commission.

“First Parish regrets that it was necessary to file both complaints, and values its relationship with the town of Bedford,” the congregation said in a statement. But the congregation is “committed to pursuing all of its legal rights” to achieve its environmental goals

Source





The ‘Entire’ Atlantic Ocean is Cooling, contrary to media reports

Scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and many universities are at a loss to explain recent conflicting temperature trends from Earth’s oceans and atmosphere. It can be boiled down to this: temperatures of the Earth’s three big fluid systems are each trending in different directions. The temperature of the Pacific Ocean is rising, the temperature of the atmosphere has remained constant, and the temperature of the Atlantic Ocean is cooling.

That’s a problem.

These variances in temperature trends are not fitting previous climate model predictions and talking points released to the media. To counter this problem and almost, as predictably as rain in springtime, climate scientists favoring the theory of man-made global warming are flooding the media with new, and this time supposedly very reliable, explanations that are generated from their latest super-computer climate models. Their explanations, or better yet, their rationalizations for two of the three fluid temperature trends, Pacific Ocean warming and the atmospheric warming “pause”, have been discussed in previous CCD posts.

This article will discuss the validity of the latest explanation put forward by the consensus climate science community concerning recent cooling of the North Atlantic Ocean.  These scientists contend that recent cooling of the northern portion of the Atlantic Ocean is the result of increased worldwide human induced atmospheric warming which is acting to melt the Greenland ice cap at alarming rates. This Greenland ice cap melt water is flooding into the northern portion of the Atlantic Ocean, thereby lowering the seawater temperature in this region.

As further supporting evidence they cite previous research publications which supposedly prove that ancient atmospheric warming also melted the Greenland Ice Cap and cooled the northern portion of the Atlantic Ocean.

There are many problems with this explanation as summarized below.

The atmosphere has not warmed in 18.7 years according to the most accurate data derived from satellites. Even utilizing NASA’s recently “adjusted” atmospheric temperature data, there has only been very minor and uniform increases in the temperature during the last 18.7 years. Neither of these trends properly explains / fits the recent cooling of the entire Atlantic Ocean.
Recent research from NASA’s Operation Ice Bridge clearly shows that Greenland’s ice mass loss is only occurring in areas immediately adjacent to the ocean. This perimeter-based ice loss is greatest in areas where the ice cap overlays known deep geological fault zones that are emitting geothermal heat onto the base of the ice cap. The interior portions of the Greenland Ice Cap are in ice mass balance. NASA admits they are not completely sure why the Operation Ice Bridge results do not fit into a nice neat global warming theory context.

The extent of Arctic Ocean sea ice has increased the last three years, and not decreased as predicted.

The Antarctic Ice Cap extent has increased steadily for thirty five years, and not decreased as predicted.

The ancient melting of the Greenland Ice cap is most likely related to ancient volcanic eruptions (see previous CCD post) and associated local geothermal heat flow, not paleo-atmospheric warming.

The true nature of what drives ocean heating and cooling is not well understood. It is likely a mixture of many forces including: variations in deep ocean geological heat and fluid flow, long-term variations in astronomical phenomenon, and long-term variations in major deep ocean currents.

Lastly, and most telling, by carefully examining the shallow SST (sea surface temperature) anomaly maps atop this article (Figure 1.), it becomes very apparent that the entire Atlantic Ocean is cooling, and not just in the northern portion of the Atlantic that is adjacent to Greenland.

This strongly suggests that outflow of summertime Greenland Ice Cap melt water into the northern portion of the Atlantic Ocean is not the primary driving force behind cooling the entire Atlantic Ocean.

Many noted and well-intentioned climate scientists and universities are now starting to publicly admit that overwhelming amounts of new research indicates that the theory of man-made global warming does not properly explain many observed climate trends. It certainly does not explain why the temperatures of Earth’s three most dominant fluid systems—the Pacific Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean and the atmosphere—are trending in different directions.

Reason dictates that a more balanced approach to studying climate trends is needed. Any approach needs to take into account the effects of natural variability and whether man is having a real influence. Let’s stop trying to force fit every observed climate occurrence, including cooling of the entire Atlantic Ocean, into a global warming context.

It’s time to jump off the consensus bandwagon!

SOURCE



Effects of Sea Level Rise on Economy of the United States

Nil

By Richard S.J. Tol et al.

Abstract

We report the first ex post study of the economic impact of sea level rise. We apply two econometric approaches to estimate the past effects of sea level rise on the economy of the USA, viz. Barro type growth regressions adjusted for spatial patterns and a matching estimator. Unit of analysis is 3063 counties of the USA. We fit growth regressions for 13 time periods and we estimated numerous varieties and robustness tests for both growth regressions and matching estimator. Although there is some evidence that sea level rise has a positive effect on economic growth, in most specifications the estimated effects are insignificant. We therefore conclude that there is no stable, significant effect of sea level rise on economic growth. This finding contradicts previous ex ante studies.

SOURCE





Former Attorney General Attacks Dem Global Warming Inquisition

The former attorney general of New York doesn’t think the case against ExxonMobil’s global warming stance has anything in common with the cases states and the federal government brought against the tobacco industry in the 1990s.

“I can tell you from experience that our fight against the tobacco industry has almost nothing in common with today’s campaign by several state attorneys general against ExxonMobil — despite what supporters of the effort would like you to believe,” Dennis Vacco, a Republican who was New York’s AG from 1995 to 1999, wrote in the Washington Post Thursday.

Vacco is attacking arguments made by Democratic lawmakers — one in particular — that the Department of Justice should open a Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO, investigation into oil companies, trade associations and nonprofits spreading “doubt” about global warming.

The former attorney general also called out an investigation by his successor, Democratic AG Eric Schneiderman, into how Exxon represented the risks of global warming to its shareholders. Schneiderman has also convinced other AGs to investigate Exxon and conservative think tanks as well, though those efforts have largely stalled.

“It is important to note that the fight against the tobacco industry was bipartisan and that never, during our battle to require the tobacco companies to meet their obligations, did we align ourselves with the industry’s business competitors,” Vacco wrote.

“In the current campaign, the attorneys general have linked up with investors in renewable energy in an unseemly alliance that presents serious conflicts of interest,” he wrote.

Vacco cited a June letter signed by 13 Republican AGs and noted an event Schneiderman hosted in March to announce more investigations into Exxon and support for green energy “featured a senior partner of a venture capital firm that invests in renewable energy companies.”

“Causing confusion — if that’s what happened — is hardly a crime, but to hold one party to a national debate to a higher standard tilts the debate unfairly in the other direction,” Vacco noted.

For years, environmental activists have been thinking of ways to punish oil companies for contributing to global warming. Activists have increasingly backed securities and anti-racketeering investigations by state and federal prosecutors, often drawing parallels between fossil fuel companies and the tobacco industry.

“In the case of tobacco, we found that the companies knew about the life-threatening, addictive nature of smoking but covered up that knowledge,” Vacco wrote, refuting such comparisons.

“In the case of global warming, ExxonMobil began research as early as the 1970s and was open about what it found in more than 50 papers published in scientific journals between 1983 and 2014, according to company documents,” he wrote. “ExxonMobil’s scientists have participated in the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change since its inception and were involved in the National Academy of Sciences review of the third U.S. National Climate Assessment Report.”

“The tobacco companies were deceivers. ExxonMobil has been open,” he wrote. “But that doesn’t seem to matter to the politicized attorneys general pursuing the company. A chilling impact on public debate is not in our collective interest.”

SOURCE





Mike Pence, Trump’s running mate, on  global warming

A summary by Warmist Chris Mooney below. I have deleted Mooney's comments as he provided no links in support of them

Trump has said that he is “not a big believer in man-made climate change.” Now watch Mike Pence discuss both climate change and evolution on a 2009 episode of MSNBC’s “Hardball with Chris Matthews”.

The full transcript of this interview is actually available online, right here. Some key quotes from Pence from the interview:

On climate change: “I think the science is very mixed on the subject of global warming, Chris.”  “In the mainstream media, Chris, there is a denial of the growing skepticism in the scientific community about global warming.”

A scan of stories from local media in Indiana, Pence’s home state, similarly confirms that, like Trump, he is a climate change “skeptic” at minimum.

In 2006, he told the Muncie, Ind., Star Press that, “Any fair reading of the science today, while global warming has taken place, it is not yet clear that it is being driven by human activity. But I’m trying to read as much as I can. And my mom used to say ‘better safe than sorry,’ so I am glad the energy bill authorized construction of a number of nuclear power plants in this country, which represent electric-generating facilities that don’t produce so-called greenhouse gases.”

Two years later, when a number of Indiana politicians were asked by the Star Press whether they agreed with a variety of statements about climate change, Pence responded, “I would not agree that there is broad consensus on man-made or human activity being the proximate cause of global warming. I think there is more diversity of opinion among many scientists in this area of discipline than most people realize. I don’t think global warming as caused by human activity is a settled question in the scientific community.”

SOURCE




CO2 levels in office buildings are becoming dangerously high (!)

This is just ignorance talking. CO2 levels in  U.S. Navy submarines go as high as 8,000 parts per million, about 20 times current atmospheric levels.  And there are no ill effects.   The levels agonized over below are trivial in comparison

You know that inexplicable way that working among cubicles or sitting on a packed plane makes you feel like you’ve taken an Ambien? Well, you now have another life altering issue to thank global warming for. The rising levels of Co2 in our atmosphere combined with the Co2 exhaled from breathing are having detrimental effects in small areas congested with people.

A recent article in Smithsonian Magazine by Joshua Rapp Learn, outlines how high levels of Co2 in tightly stuffed places like office buildings, schools, and planes can cause low productivity, fatigue, and even shortcomings in decision making.

“As temperatures rise- even allowing for air conditioning- the average temperature in offices is rising,” said Harvard Business School historian Nancy Koehn on Boston Public Radio Tuesday. “Crowded office buildings are full of people… and you end up  with relatively high and in some cases unhealthy high amounts of carbon dioxide released into the air. It lowers our productivity, it makes us more tired, and it makes us less able to make good decisions,” she Koehn said.

In May, Co2 levels reached 400 parts per million in our atmosphere. “Medical experts believe that somewhere less than a 1000 parts per millions of carbon dioxide is an acceptable range. In a crowded airplane waiting to take off, we are talking about 4000 part per million,” says Koehn.

According to Smithsonian Magazine, office buildings currently range from 600 parts per million to 1,200 parts per million. "Economies in climates that our quite warm over 75 degrees on average, have lower rates of productivity," said Koehn. [Why most of the tropics are backward is another story, with a long history of debate. I have had academic journal articles on it published]

SOURCE

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