A Greenie moron



Like during the Little Ice Age when famine, pestilence and disease spread across Europe?





James Inhofe: EPA Brainwashes Children With Propaganda

Sen. James Inhofe piled on the EPA as it faces a 31 percent cut in President Donald Trump's first budget, charging on Thursday that the agency was "brainwashing" children with "propaganda."

The Republican Oklahoma senator, and supporter of current Environmental Protection Agency head Scott Pruitt, made the comments to anchor Poppy Harlow during an appearance on CNN's "New Day."

"We are going to take all this stuff that comes out of the EPA that is brainwashing our kids, that is propaganda, things that aren't true, allegations," Inhofe said, though at the time he did not point to any specific examples.

Inhofe, a frequent climate change skeptic, made similar comments to conservative talk show host Eric Metaxas after the senator said that one of his grandchildren asked why he was a climate change denier, according to Newsweek.

"You know, our kids are being brainwashed? I never forget because I was the first one back in 2002 to tell the truth about the global warming stuff and all of that," Inhofe said.

"And my own granddaughter came home one day and said, … 'Popi, why is it you don't understand global warming?' I did some checking, and Eric, the stuff that they teach our kids nowadays, you have to un-brainwash them when they get out."

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Climate Models Fail So Often Because Climate Science Is So Incomplete

Jeff Jacoby

“Do you believe,” CNBC’s Joe Kernen asked Scott Pruitt, the Environmental Protection Agency’s new director, in an interview last Thursday, “that it’s been proven that CO2 is the primary control knob for climate?”

Replied Pruitt: “No. I think that measuring with precision human activity on the climate is something very challenging to do, and there’s tremendous disagreement about the degree of impact. So no — I would not agree that it’s a primary contributor to the global warming that we see. But we don’t know that yet. We need to continue the debate and continue the review and the analysis.”

It was an accurate and judicious answer, so naturally it sent climate alarmists into paroxysms of condemnation. The Washington Post slammed Pruitt as a “denier” driven by “unreason.” Senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii called Pruitt’s views “extreme” and “irresponsible” — proof of his unfitness to head the EPA. Gina McCarthy, who ran the agency under President Obama, bewailed the danger global warming poses to “all of us who call Earth home,” and said she couldn’t “imagine what additional information [Pruitt] might want from scientists” in order to understand that.

Yet for all the hyperventilating, Pruitt’s answer to the question he was asked — whether carbon dioxide is the climate’s “primary control knob” — was entirely sound. “We don’t know that yet,” he said. We don’t. CO2 is certainly a heat-trapping greenhouse gas, but hardly the primary one: Water vapor accounts for about 95 percent of greenhouse gases. By contrast, carbon dioxide is only a trace component in the atmosphere: about 400 ppm (parts per million), or 0.04 percent. Moreover, its warming impact decreases sharply after the first 20 or 30 ppm. Adding more CO2 molecules to the atmosphere is like painting over a red wall with white paint — the first coat does most of the work of concealing the red. A second coat of paint has much less of an effect, while adding a third or fourth coat has almost no impact at all.

There is a popular theory that atmospheric CO2 amplifies the creation of water vapor, thereby increasing warming through a “positive feedback loop.” But that theory so far is mostly speculative; climate projections using models based on it have consistently failed, nearly always predicting far more warming than has occurred. It should go without saying that if scientists cannot yet make accurate predictions about future climate change, then their understanding of climate science remains highly incomplete.

Earth’s climate system is unfathomably complex. It is affected by innumerable interacting variables, atmospheric CO2 levels being just one. The more variables there are in any system or train of events, the lower the probability of all of them coming to pass. Your odds of correctly guessing the outcome of a flipped coin are 1 in 2, but your odds of guessing correctly twice in a row are only 1 in 4 — i.e., ½ x ½. Extending your winning streak to a third guess is even less probable: just 1 in 8.

Apply that approach to climate change, and it becomes clear why the best response to the alarmists' frantic predictions is a healthy skepticism.

The list of variables that shape climate is very long. It includes cloud formation, topography, altitude, proximity to the equator, plate tectonics, sunspot cycles, volcanic activity, expansion or contraction of sea ice, conversion of land to agriculture, deforestation, reforestation, direction of winds, soil quality, El Niño and La Niña ocean cycles, prevalence of aerosols (airborne soot, dust, and salt) — and, of course, atmospheric greenhouse gases, both natural and man-made. A comprehensive list would run to hundreds, if not thousands, of elements, none of which scientists would claim to understand with absolute precision.

But for the sake of argument, say there are merely 15 variables involved in predicting global climate change, and assume that climatologists have mastered each one to a near-perfect accuracy of 95 percent. What are the odds that a climate model built on a system that simple would be reliable? Less than 50/50. (Multiplying .95 by itself 15 times yields 46.3 percent.) Is it any surprise that climate-change predictions in the real world — where the complexities are exponentially greater and the exactitude of knowledge much less — have such a poor track record?

Pruitt got it right: Measuring human impacts on climate is indeed “very challenging.” The science is far from settled. That is why calls to radically reduce carbon emissions are so irresponsible — and why dire warnings of what will happen if we don’t are little better than reckless fearmongering.

SOURCE




Puerto Rico Is Full Of ‘Open Dumps’ Ripe For Spreading Zika, And EPA is Ignoring Them

One is inexorably led to wonder if the Obama Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ignored for years an environmental nightmare mess in Puerto Rico – so as to make the case for even more government control

“The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has ignored numerous reports that most of Puerto Rico’s landfills are out of compliance with federal law, and some could even become breeding grounds for mosquitoes carrying the Zika virus, according to a new report….(Puerto Rican attorney Hiram Torres) Montalvo’s hard-pressed to find a reason why the EPA, which is generally so eager to regulate every other aspect of life, has done nothing to enforce existing laws for Puerto Rico’s landfills.”

Is there evidence the Obama EPA’s incompetence was in fact willful?  But of course: “My organization, Puerto Rico Limpio, has uncovered a treasure trove of documents and official correspondence that confirm Obama’s EPA purposefully ignored the law even when their own experts called the crisis an ‘imminent threat to human health and the environment.’”

Now, thankfully, mercifully, the Obama era is over.  Enter the Donald Trump Administration and its EPA head – Scott Pruitt.  Whom the Left loathes: “‘Every American should be appalled that President-elect Trump just picked someone who has made a career of being a vocal defender for polluters to head our Environmental Protection Agency,’ Earthjustice President Trip Van Noppen said in an emailed statement….’Scott Pruitt running the EPA is like the fox guarding the henhouse,’ League of Conservation Voters President Gene Karpinski said in a statement. ‘The League of Conservation Voters strongly opposes this nomination and urges senators to vote against Scott Pruitt’s confirmation.’”

Obama EPA officials – loathe Pruitt: “‘It is clear that [Pruitt] will launch an unprecedented attack on basic environmental protections that will result in more pollution and illnesses for the American people,’ said…Judith Enck…EPA Regional Administrator for New York and New Jersey from 2010 until last month….’He will do permanent damage to the work of the EPA.’”

Let’s hope “he will do permanent damage to the work of the EPA” – given the Obama EPA’s willful, wanton neglect of Puerto Rico (and its turning whole rivers day-glow orange, and its serial assaults on farmers and ranchers, and…).

Won’t it be ironic and highly amusing when Pruitt – the Left’s Arch-Nemesis – uses the Trump EPA to clean up the Obama EPA’s intentional Puerto Rico mess?  About which the Left for years said nothing – before exploding into unified chorus screeching in protest of Pruitt.

At his confirmation hearing, Pruitt pledged: “If confirmed, I expect to make cleanup of contaminated (Puerto Rican) land one of my priorities.”

Given the Trump Administration’s relentless adherence to keeping its word – we have much evidence to warrant confidence in Pruitt keeping his.

Pruitt absolutely should.  Because it’s the right thing to do.  Because it would countermand the Obama Administration’s attempt to use the EPA to undermine the private sector and expand government power – Obamacare-and-Fast-and-Furious-style.

And because it would be yet another slap to the face of Leftists everywhere. Win-win-win.

SOURCE




Trump must Dump Paris agreement

The International Clexit Coalition today joined the growing chorus urging President Trump to keep his election promises and dump every climate treaty “agreed” in Kyoto, Paris and the UN/IPCC.

The Secretary of Clexit (Climate Exit Coalition), Mr Viv Forbes of Australia, said that Clexit could call on over 190 well-qualified climate realists from 26 countries to provide scientific, business, legal and political support and advice.

Mr Forbes said it was obvious from the Brexit vote in Britain, the election of President Trump in USA, the rise of Marine la Pen in France and Geert Wilders in Holland and the election of Senator Malcolm Roberts in Australia that the general population no longer trusts the globalists controlling the UN, the EU, and the UN/IPCC.

“The whole war on carbon is merely a grab for power using a world tax on energy to fund global government. Voters of the world are waking up and unless their politicians trim their sails to the new sceptical gale they will be swept from office.”

Senator Malcolm Roberts from Queensland, a member of Clexit, said just last week: “We call for an AusExit – getting out of the Paris Agreement and the UN.”

Dr Tim Ball of Clexit Canada said: “Even if fully implemented, the Paris Climate Agreement won’t change atmospheric CO2 levels or stop global warming. However, it will devastate economies and hurt poor people the most.”

Mr Mark Duchamp of Clexit Spain is also opposed to the Paris Agreement: “The recurrent climate event "El Niño" has caused warmth in 2015 and 2016. However temperatures are now back to their usual natural fluctuations, no matter how much tampering with data is done by NOAA, NASA-GISS and politically correct "scientists."

Viv Forbes concludes “The Paris Agreement will destroy industries and jobs and make electricity more expensive and unreliable. One bad winter blackout will be enough to cure the EU heartland of climate alarmism and green energy. Soon the only Paris supporters will be third world and Pacific Island mendicants hoping for climate handouts (but getting energy handcuffs).”

“This stupidity will surely end, but energy costs will rise for every day’s delay.”

SOURCE




Australia: State Premier lies to cover up Greenie folly

His manic anti-coal hatred caused several major blackouts in South Australia

Business leaders have been left stunned after Jay Weatherill, during a debate a year out from the next state election, claimed that Alinta Energy had made no offer to keep the state’s last coal-fired power station open.

This is despite The Australian in August revealing correspondence between Alinta Energy and state Treasurer Tom Koutsan­tonis, obtained under Freedom of Information laws, in which the government rejected a transition plan to keep the Northern power station in Port Augusta open until 2018. The plant permanently shut in May, with immediate price ­surges of ­almost 75 per cent and a wind-reliant grid that has led to a spate of blackouts.

The government is continuing to deny access to 12 documents sought under FOI by the opposition, which are being reviewed by the ombudsman, and will not reveal how much financial assistance was sought by Alinta.

Yesterday, during a pre-election leaders’ debate hosted by Business SA and the Property Council, Mr Weatherill was asked by Opposition Leader Steven Marshall to “tell the 650 people here today” how much Alinta wanted to keep its baseload power station open to help with the transition to renewable power.

“It was put to you, it was put to cabinet, and it was rejected — tell us now whether it was much higher than the $550 million energy plan you’re now putting on the people of South Australia.”

As the audience applauded, the Premier shook his head. “They (Alinta) were never offering to do that, simple as that,” he said. Pressed by the debate moderator, the Premier insisted there was “absolutely” no offer on the table, but later said he would not reveal what Alinta had asked for.

FOI documents show Alinta took a firm transition plan seeking financial support to the government on May 6, 2015. A fortnight later, Mr Koutsantonis rejected the approach, advising chief executive Jeff Dimery that “the support requested would not be forthcoming”.

In a follow-up letter to Mr Dimery, the Treasurer said: “The government considered Alinta Energy’s revised proposal and is unable to accommodate the ­significantly increased funding request.”

Mr Dimery said in June 2015 that despite talks with the government to stay open, its policies to promote high levels of renewable energy generation had forced the power station’s closure.

Mr Weatherill this week recommitted SA to its 50 per cent renewable energy target, saying it had almost been achieved.

Opposition energy spokesman Dan van Holst Pellekaan last night said voters had the right to know what it would have cost to keep the Northern power station operating. He said it was understood the support requested by Alinta was less than 10 per cent of the $550m cost of the Weatherill government’s energy strategy.

“If there was no offer then why is a confidentiality gag in place and why is the government fighting 12 Freedom of Information applications?” he said.

The debate came a day after Mr Weatherill traded insults with federal Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg at an AGL announcement in Adelaide. Mr Frydenberg labelled the state’s new energy policy as the Premier’s “$550m admission of failure”.

Mr Weatherill on Tuesday said the state would “go it alone” and released a six-point energy plan.

SOURCE

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