Global Warming Comes to Atlanta

A picture is worth a thousand words. Global warming came to my neighborhood today...

Global Warming: Back to the Drawing Board

If you are a devoted believer in man-made catastrophic global warming, this will be a hard post for you to read. They say sunshine is the best disinfectant, so know that this is written in an effort to help you. The latest news is that some global warming supporters are asking for the movement to start over.

There was a meeting yesterday of 150 climate scientists. At the meeting, Brittan's official Meteorological Office (also known as the Met Office) encouraged climate scientists to produce,"… a new common trove of global temperature data that is open to public scrutiny and 'rigorous' peer review." According to Fox News, this new effort would:

1. "verifiable datasets starting from a common databank of unrestricted data"

2. "methods that are fully documented in the peer reviewed literature and open to scrutiny;"

3. "a set of independent assessments of surface temperature produced by independent groups using independent methods,"

4. "comprehensive audit trails to deliver confidence in the results;"

5. "robust assessment of uncertainties associated with observational error, temporal and geographical in homogeneities."

This sounds like a very good attempt to make global warming a legitimate science. The only problem is the Met Office is assuming the results of the data before it collects it. Fox News quoted the Met Office as saying, "…we do not anticipate any substantial changes in the resulting global and continental-scale trends." If that's true, then why go through the effort? Shouldn't the science go where the data leads it and not draw conclusions ahead of time?

The real problem, and the reason for the exercise, is that serious questions have been raised about global warming in the last few weeks and months. There are no good answers for these questions. The Met and other global warming supporters need something to make their favorite cause look real. There have been a number of black eyes given to the supporters of man-made global warming in recent months. Here is a partial list:

1. Leaked emails from the University of East Anglia showed where prominent global warming scientists in the U.K. and the U.S. failed to comply with Freedom of Information requests.

2. These same emails showed an effort on the part of these scientist to prevent any dissenting views from being published in peer reviewed journals. To be clear: this was a political tactic, and not one used to debate scientific findings.

3. The Chief of East Anglia, Phil Jones, admitted that much of the data used to create the now infamous "hockey stick" graph shown in Al Gore's movie, and relied on in the IPCC report put out by the United Nations, has been lost.

4. Phil Jones also is on the record admitting there is no "statistically significant" global warming in the last 15 years. This isn't my claim, this is the director of one of the largest bastions protecting the theory of man-made global warming. Mr. Jones admitted in the same interview that two previous periods (1910 to 1940 and 1975 to 1998) both showed similar warming trends.

5. The 2007 IPCC report released by the United Nations has been exposed to have included un-reviewed claims and used the reports from activist organizations without reviewing their accuracy. The IPCC had to recently retract a statement from the report claiming that the Himalayan Glaciers would disappear by 2035 knowing the statement was false when it was placed in the report. The UN has claimed the statement was inserted,"…purely to put political pressure on world leaders."

6. Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) has asked the Department of Justice to launch an investigation into the activities of Dr. Michael Mann of Penn State and Dr. James Hansen of NASA. Senator Inhofe argues that recent revelations concerning global warming show that both of these individuals may be guilty of research misconduct and may have broken the law. I don't know if the Obama administration will pursue this, but it is one more strike against two of the leading supporters of global warming in the United States.

I can appreciate the predicament supporters of global warming are in. If any other theory had faced similar problems, it would have been rejected by now. I would support the effort the Met Office has suggested, provided it was done correctly. How? With the Scientific Method firmly in place. Don't use the data to prove your point, collect the data, and see what it tells you. Until they can do that, I will continue to believe man-made global warming is simply a political cause, and not science.

My Global Warming Primer

There seems to be lots of questions on this global warming issue. Anonymous Guy and Andy just go back and forth quoting things that make there point of view true. It is like one of you saying the way to heaven is to follow the Koran and the others says to follow the Bible. Your only proof of who is correct comes from those books you are promoting. Is it possible that the Jews know the way to heaven too? To finish the analogy are human actions the absolutely only reason the Earth is currently warming? If not how much effect do human actions have on it?

--Pack04 commenting here.

I thought Pack04 brought up an excellent point. When I discuss Global Warming face to face with people, I don't have the ability to insert a hyperlink to make my case. Instead, I rely on logic, and hope to give the person some direction to go do their own research. I am going to do my best to do that here. Hopefully this will help shed some light on my thoughts on global warming, and might give you some food for thought.


A little about my background. I have been writing about global warming on here since 2007. I have been reading about the topic longer than that. I studied geophysics in college as a minor. Does that make me an expert in the field? Absolutely not. It does give me a few tools to understand some of the science behind the arguments. Truthfully, I think most of this debate can be understood by anyone, if they can keep a few points in mind. As you read the rest of this article, try to put aside what you currently know about the debate on global warming. Then, after reading this, go back to what you previously thought with, hopefully, a slightly different perspective.


First, it's important to remember that the Earth's climate and temperatures are constantly changing. If you could magically transport all humans, and every piece of our technology and pollution off the planet, the Earth would probably still be warming. At the very least, the temperature would continue to change. Before man arrived, the Earth went through natural warming and cooling cycles. This will continue long after we leave. The question both sides debate is: How much warming is due to man?


Secondly, remember that all future predictions (dire and otherwise) are based on computer models. Computer models are a very complicated set of predictions and assumptions an individual makes. In every other scientific or engineering field, once a computer model is created, it is tested with a known set of data with known results. For example: if you were creating a climate model, you might plug in data from 1900 to 1960 to see if your model could accurately predict the weather of the 1970's and 1980's. If it does, you have a good model. If it doesn't, your model still needs work. Here is the second important point: No model currently out there will predict previous years climate. None of them.


One of the assumptions built into climate models is how clouds act. Climatologists on both sides agree that clouds are an important component (some have argued they are a primary component) of what our climate does. However, climatologists don't understand how or why clouds form, or how and why the disappear, or even why they appear in some locations and not in others. As a third important fact, this means all computer models incorporate a guess on how clouds do what they do. This starts the model with an error before the first piece of data is entered.


Now let's pretend we could accurately predict the climate, and we knew it was in fact warming. That still doesn't end the debate. There is no proof that global warming is a bad thing. If the planet was to increase its temperature by 1 degree over the next 100 years, that might be beneficial. It could cause an increase in plant life and human life. Hot weather kills less than cold weather. If we knew a 1 degree increase might cause an additional 1000 deaths in the summer, but save 10,000 lives in the winter, would that be bad? This debate hasn't happened yet, and until it does, we shouldn't spend fortunes trying to correct something we don't really understand.


We aren't sure how accurate our predictions are, and we aren't sure if global warming would truly be a bad thing. Now, let's look at some solutions. If you have read about this topic, you are familiar with the Kyoto treaty. In a nutshell, the Kyoto Protocol is a international treaty that sets targets for reductions of greenhouse gases. The United States is has not ratified this treaty. However, if every nation in the world signed on to Kyoto and met its requirements, it wouldn't stop global warming. The best it would do is to reduce global temperature increases by approximately 0.01 degree Celsius. And this relatively insignificant reduction would come at a fortune of money, technology, and even quality of life.


However, just because I don't believe in man-made global warming doesn't mean there aren't solutions I would support. I do believe conservation is important. I recycle in my own home. I also believe that if the United States did a major push to increase our nuclear energy facilities, there would be a number of benefits. More US nuclear energy would mean more energy here, less money going over seas, more jobs in the United States, and if you believe in Global Warming, a clean energy source. I am always suspicious of people who claim to believe in man-made catastrophic global warming, but aren't willing to discuss more nuclear facilities in the United States. This is a compromise that should generate support form Democrats and Republicans alike.


The next time you read a global warming article (regardless of the point of view of the article) keep these points in mind. I think you might be surprised with what conclusions you reach on your own if you ignore the propaganda, and just look at the facts. Regardless, like any other issue, if you are going to make an informed decision, you will need to do some homework. I hope this helps to give you a framework to start digging around with.

The Global Warming Hoax

You wouldn't know if from any coverage in the main stream media, the UN, or Al Gore, but man-made global warming has been exposed as a hoax. At the very least it no longer qualifies as "settled science" and there is question there was ever consensus outside of activists and four or five politically motivated scientist. If you haven't followed the news, I will give you a quick summary, the bad news and the good news (the last two intended for global warming believers).

For background, I have written about my position on man-made global warming here. I have read alot about global warming since I wrote that post, but my position hasn't changed dramatically since that writing.

What Happened?

A few weeks ago a series of emails from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) of the East Anglia University became public. It is uncertain if they emails were leaked from inside, or hacked from outside the university. Either way, the CRU did not intend the emails to become public, and they contain some very damning information. The emails suggest that climate scientist at the CRU and in the United States have colluded together to hide evidence that contradicts the theory of man made global warming, to prevent papers that dispute global warming from being published, and to redefine the very word "peer-review" to protect their agenda and to prevent any dissenting papers from coming forward. A number of investigations have been called for in the UK, and the scientist who headed CRU has stepped down. On top of this, there is a possibility the scientists at CRU broke the law by destroying data that should have been made available under Freedom of Information laws in England and the United States. At the very least, all scientific research that has come out of the CRU is now suspect. Much of this research is used in the UN's own global warming reports.

There is far more than this. If you want more details, do a google search for "climategate". These are just the highlights. One important note. So far, this is only receiving media coverage in the United States through the "new media" of radio and the internet. That isn't the case in Canada and the UK. In both of these areas, it is front and center in many major papers as well.


The Bad News

If you are a global warming believer, these revelations are a true doomsday scenario. It means all of the science that has been used to predict catastrophic global warming is inaccurate. The scientists at the CRU were particularly worried about how to hide the cooling trends of the last ten years. They were also worried about keeping their data away from the public, and away from scientist who disagreed with them.

This isn't science, it's activism. In the scientific process, once you have performed an experiment, you release the data to anyone to see if they can collaborate or recreate your experiment. These scientists were doing everything in their power to avoid that. This disqualifies this as science even if the rest of the emails never surfaced.

The Good News

As devastating as this is to the global warming believers, there is a silver lining. There is no evidence we are heading towards a climate doomsday. If you previously thought man was destroying the planet by driving SUV's and using standard light bulbs, you don't have to worry about that any longer. Global warming believers can still work towards conservation, but not with the threat of Armageddon if we don't stop driving SUV's. This is an important point. I, and many others who have doubted the science behind this hoax, believe in conservation. However, Al Gore and others don't want conservation, they want laws that would destroy our entire economy. I think it is wrong to destroy our economy based on a vague theory that has failed to meet any projections, and that has no real science to back it up.

Top 5 problems with “Climate Change”

Today is "blog action day". The goal of blog action day is to get many bloggers writing on the same issue in order to further the discussion. This year's topic is "Climate Change". My contribution to this discussion is likely to be a little different from most of the other posts you will read today. Today, I am writing about my top 5 concerns with the theory of "man-made catastrophic global warming". For brevities sake, I will simply refer to this as "global warming". These five points represent my biggest issues with the theory of global warming. To be upfront, I have seen no real evidence to convince me that there is any significant global warming caused by man. For those of you who think I am wrong, here are my challenges to you:

The Name. Just a short time ago, every politician and activist was referring to this theory as "global warming". Now they are calling it "climate change". Why? If they call it global warming, it is easy to to point out holes in the theory. As "climate change" any varying weather pattern (floods, droughts, record heat, record cold, record hurricanes, or lack of hurricanes) can be blamed on "climate change". As "global warming" it's to blame opposite occurrences (such as record highs and record lows) on the same phenomenon.

The Temperature record. If you have read anything about global warming you may have read that 1998 is the hottest year on record. For a while it was. Then it was discovered that NASA had an error in their temperature data. When this was discovered, 1998 was no longer the hottest year on record. Now, we believe 1934 was the hottest year on record. Additionally, six of the ten hottest years were prior to 1990. To add further insult to injury, it has also been discovered that world wide temperatures have been declining since 1998, not increasing. If CO2 is directly related to temperature, and we are releasing record amounts of CO2, the temperatures should be getting hotter and hotter. They're not.

The "hockey stick" graph. If you saw An Inconvenient Truth, you might remember a scene where Al Gore reveals a graph showing temperature increasing at a steady pace, then suddenly flying vertically off the top of the chart. While this graph is very impressive, it has also been debunked. Turns out if you put ANY data set into the equations used to predict that graph, it will give you the same graph. That isn't very good science. While we are talking about good science…

Computer models. In writing a computer model to predict something in the future, you check it to see if it can predict something that has already occurred. For example, if you write a computer program to predict future climate patterns, you might stick data from the 1970's or 1980's in to see if the program can accurately predict the climate in the 1990's. If it can "predict" this known event, then you have a little more confidence in your model. If it doesn't predict the known occurrence, then you should be very suspicious of the model. In the case of global warming, no computer program that is being used to argue the theory of global warming accurately predicts any known data. In any other field, these models would be considered failures, and no importance would be attached to them.

Clouds. This is perhaps the least known argument against global warming, and perhaps the most critical. Climatologists don't understand how or why clouds form, exactly what they do, or what causes them to disappear. However, climatologists agree that clouds play a very significant role in our weather and our climate. Think about that for a minute. A major component of our climate we don't understand at all. That means any model that includes clouds includes a guess, and any climate model that doesn't include clouds is worthless.

Many Global Warming and Climate Change believers have called for radical new requirements in both the United States and across the world to limit our CO2 emissions. Most of these proposals would cause radical changes in our culture that would immediately kill any economic growth. Conserving and recycling to protect our natural resources is a very admirable project. However, passing legislation to prevent something that is only a theory, and something that has holes like those mentioned above can be economic suicide.

This list is by no means an exhaustive list of the challenges to Global Warming. There are other very good arguments against this theory.This list represents what I consider to be the most damning arguments against the theory of Global Warming or man made climate change. As you read other articles today supporting climate change and calling people to action to prevent climate change, I would encourage you to keep these arguments in mind.

Political Friends featured on Blog Action Day

There is a website called "Blog Action Day". Blog Action Day is "... an annual event that unites the world's bloggers in posting about the same issue on the same day. Our aim is to raise awareness and trigger a global discussion." Back in 2007, I participated by writing about a hurricane forecaster who thought man-made global warming was a hoax. I signed up to participate this year. The topic is "Climate Change". Look for my post on October 15th.


The writers at Blog Action Day have picked 21 Political Blogs their readers should check out on Blog Action Day. They selected Political Friends as #15! I am amazed and delighted by this honor. Go check out some of their picks, and don't forget to check this site out on the 15th to see what I have to say about climate change.

The 5 Stories You Missed While Watching Jackson

On June 25^th, Michael Jackson died. We may never know the exact causes. Michael Jackson was at one point in his career a very impressive entertainer. He also had a number of very odd things going on in his private life. Over the last two weeks, the media has covered Michael Jackson's life, death, and funeral as he had been the head of a very powerful country. There were a few important news stories that I thought should be covered. Here they are, in no particular order:

1. Minnesota makes 60. Al Franken finally won his challenge in court and is now a U.S. Senator. As I covered in my last post, the Democrats now have control of the Presidency, a filibuster proof Senate, and the House. They now have the ability to pass any legislation without a single Republican vote. It will be interesting to see what legislation they will try to pass.

2. Thomas v. Gibbs. A few reporters got upset with the White House for only allowing prescreened questions and prescreened individuals at the last town hall meeting. Press member Helen Thomas complained that this isn't what "openness and transparency" is all about. The Press appears to be a little testy that President Obama's town hall meetings are all staged.

3. Stimulus Part Two. By any standard of measure the stimulus plan didn't work. As President Obama begins to argue for a new stimulus bill, we should keep in mind his words from the first one. We were warned that if we didn't pass the stimulus bill, and didn't pass it immediately, unemployment could go as high as 9%. With unemployment now at 9.5% and climbing, President Obama wants a new stimulus bill, maybe even one focused solely on bridges and roads. But I thought that was what we heard with the first one…

4. Judge Sonia Sotomayor. Confirmation hearings for Judge Sotomayor are starting this week. While the world mourned MJ, the Supreme Court overturned Sotomayor's decision against the Connecticut firefighters. The U. S. Supreme Court found that discriminating on the base of race (even if the victims are white) is illegal. Judge Sotomayor may have to answer questions about this and her comments that a "…Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male…" this week. I have seen articles saying Sotomayor's supporters are going to try to attack the character of the firefighters. This might be a good story to keep an eye on over the next few weeks.

5. As Global Warming falls apart, the House acts. The evidence is really starting to look grim for global warming supporters. The tale-tale fingerprint of unusual upper atmosphere warming that the U.N. said would prove global warming hasn't materialized. The global temperature has been declining for the last 9 to 10 years. Things are getting bad enough that global warming supporters are now trying to get everyone to call it "catastrophic climate change". That way, it can explain highs AND lows. Into all this, the House of Representatives voted to enact cap and trade legislation just as New Zealand ditched their version of cap and trade. Cap and Trade will do two things. First, it will raise your energy prices. Everyone agrees on this, it's only the dollar figure that people dispute. Democrats claim your energy bill will only go up be a few measly hundred dollars each year. The Heritage Foundation and others have crunched the numbers and they believe it could be closer to $3,000 a year. Either way, you have a new energy tax coming your way. The second thing this did was violate a campaign promise of President Obama. This tax will be on everyone, not just those earning $250,000 a year or more.

Why Do We Have CAFE Standards?

Last week President Obama had a major press conference to announce a proposed new national fuel economy standard for vehicles. This new standard will average out to around 35 miles per gallon. This new standard implements some policies from the Bush administration years ahead of their original target date and creates a national corporate average fuel economy, or CAFE, standard.

CAFE standards started in the late 70’s and were specifically targeted at passenger cars. At the time they were created to lessen our use of foreign oil. They have failed miserably with this goal. According to the Heritage Foundation, the US has increased its foreign oil consumption from 32 percent to 52 percent of oil used since the standards were adopted. The new time lines announced last week will affect the 2016 model year cars. These standards will require that all of a particular class of vehicles sold by any manufacture average out to meet the target miles per gallon. The footprint of the vehicle is the best way to think of the different classes. If Ford sales 1,000 cars in a certain footprint, those 1000 vehicles must average out to have the target fuel efficiency. If Ford sales a lot of cars with lower efficiency, then the other cars must have a much higher efficiency in order for the 1000 vehicles to average out to the required mandate.

There are trade offs to higher fuel economy. According to the Obama administration, the new national standards may add around $1300 to the purchase price of your vehicle. This is only an estimate, and some groups claim the real price is higher. There is also only so much fuel economy you can get from an engine. The rest has to made up by making the car lighter. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has expressed concerns that the lighter, more fuel efficient vehicles result in more fatalities every year. CAFE standards have resulted in an estimated 1,300 to 3,900 deaths per year, depending on the year and the source. Some environmentalists would argue that these deaths are acceptable if we lower the amount of pollutants discharged each year to help solve global warming. The truth is that CAFE standards won’t solve global warming. The next time you drive to work and see a convoy of tractor trailer trucks, or pass a construction site, remember those vehicles are exempted from CAFE standards due to their size. The CAFE mandate also argues against itself. The theory is that more fuel efficient vehicles reduce our need for oil and gas. In reality, fuel efficient vehicles make driving cheaper. Cheaper driving means more vacations, more car trips, and more gas used.

Personally I don’t think the government should be telling auto makers what fuel efficiency their vehicles must achieve. The government doesn't mandate XM radio (yet), why fuel efficiency? President Obama has never run a business, and I don’t believe there are any automotive engineers in Congress. The government should try to address other problems. Perhaps after the economy is fixed, the nuclear problems of Iran and North Korea are resolved, and terrorist stop trying to kill us I will change my mind. Until then, I think the government needs to keep its eyes on the ball, and stop worrying about whether my car gets 20, 30, or 40 miles per gallon.

Book Review: Ted, White, and Blue

My wife and I were watching Glenn Beck one night when Ted Nugent was on as a guest. The Motor City Madman was on the whole night talking about America, Politics, and our Society. During the course of the night, they talked about his book, Ted, White, and Blue: The Nugent Manifesto, and I knew I had to read it. The book did not disappoint me.

This is not Ted Nugent's first book. It is his sixth. The book covers a wide range of topics, and is his personal manifesto. As such, he makes no apologies for anything he says in the book. Some of it is fun, some of it is insightful, and some people will be insulted by some of the stuff they read. The truth sometimes hurts. Through the course of the book, Mr. Nugent gives his recommendations and ideas on a number of issues including: Politics, Religion, War, Taxes, Immigration, Unemployment, and Global Warming. This is by no means and all inclusive lists. There are seventeen chapters in the book covering seventeen topics. Ted, White, and Blue also has a decent index, and thirteen pages of notes and references.

Ted Nugent surprised me by his depth of knowledge on a number of the topics. I am a supporter of nuclear energy, and believe we should be building more reactors. Environmentalists concerned with reactors always ask, "What will you do with the waste?" Ted Nugent has a great response:

"Another unfounded fear is based on the waste that nuclear power produces. The overwhelming majority of the waste from nuclear power plants could be stored in your backyard with no risk to you. It is totally harmless. You could pick it up with your bare hands and not suffer any ill effects. Of the remaining nuclear waste, most of it could be recycled and used again but peanuts-for-brains Jimmy Carter banned the recycling and use of nuclear waste in 1977. Fortunately, the American voters banned Jimmy in 1980. Carter's baseless decision means that all nuclear waste we have ever produced must be stored in a nuclear waste repository such as Yucca Mountain…"

According to the material cited in Ted, White, and Blue, there is enough nuclear waste material in the United States, that if recycled, could power every household in our country for twelve years. That sounds like a good idea to me. Another unique idea from his book revolves around two hot button issues: Health Care and Illegal Immigration. There are a number of different studies that try to calculate the health care costs to American Taxpayers for treating illegal immigrants in emergency rooms. If someone goes to a hospital and needs emergency care, they have to be treated, even if it is something minor like a hang nail or a cough. Someone has to foot the bill for this "free" health care. Mr. Nugent suggests deducting the cost of the health care from the foreign aid we would normally send to the illegal immigrants home country.

Ted, White, and Blue is a fun read. While it does talk a little about Ted Nugent's biography, it is really a discussion of solutions for current problems. I would highly recommend it as an entertaining read that may provide some unique view points and solutions you hadn't considered before.

A New Gas Tax

I am usually against any increase in the Federal Gas Tax. My default position on any tax increase is to oppose it until I know more about it. However, I have been stopped cold by a new purposed gas tax increase. Charles Krauthammer writing in the January 12^th issue of the Weekly Standard argues for a "Net-Zero Gas Tax". I have read this article a few times now, and I believe Mr. Krauthammer may be onto something. I wanted to discuss it here because I would like my readers opinions on the plan.

There are a number of reasons to support a gas tax. Typically, any substantial increase in a gas tax is usually government's way of trying to get the people to use less gas. Depending on your political stripe, you may support this in the name of a cleaner environment, or as a way of lessening our dependence on foreign oil. Europeans already have a much higher gas tax than ours. According to Mr. Krauthammer, our federal gas tax is about 18.4 cents on the gallon. In Europe, the fuel tax is closer to $4 per gallon.

The Net Zero gas tax is different from most tax porposals. Mr. Krauthammer argues for an increase in the federal gas tax of one dollar. This is a pretty big percentage increase and would make gas prices jump up to around $2.83 or so for a national average. This is typically not the type of behavior one expects in an economy where new stimulus packages are dreamt up and voted on every other week. However, Mr. Krauthammer couples his tax with a corresponding reduction of $14 per week in the FICA tax. This reduction is to hit the books the week before the extra one dollar gas tax rolls out. Why a $14 reduction? The average American buys 14 gallons of gas per week. By letting that average American keep the extra $14 in his pay check, he has the money for the additional federal gas tax. The net zero tax is designed to be revenue neutral. The federal government gets the same money it has been getting. However, Americans can now chose to continue to buy the same amount of gas each week, or cut back some and have a little extra money.

Are there challenges to this? Sure, and Mr. Krauthammer has a solution for many of them. What about people on welfare or social security? They would get an extra $14 on their weekly checks. What about truckers who buy much more than the average 14 gallons of gas each week? Institute some sort of exception or credit for them to keep the new tax from hitting them so hard.

What I see as the brilliance of this proposal is that it doesn't hurt most Americans and it could potentially cause many Americans to change their driving habits. Many of us are still driving like gas is $4 a gallon. If this tax were enacted soon, we could keep those driving habits and potential get a little money for it. Both parties can claim this as a victory. Democrats love new taxes, and can say this one is to fight global warming. Republicans can say this is a way to cut our oil use, thereby hurting heavy oil countries like Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and Russia. Both parties get a feather in their cap, we might do some good, and the tax becomes one we can decide not to pay by driving less.

The only way out of our economic problems are with creative new approaches. The Net Zero Gas tax is a creative approach worth looking at.

My Day as Al

As most of my readers know by now, I like to participate in the Mystery Topic Challenge put on by Blog Ninjas. If you are a regular blogger, or just enjoy reading blogs, I can't recommend these two sites enough. The latest challenge is a pretty interesting one:

Blogs, for the most part, tend to be personal and egocentric. For this challenge, choose someone, real or imagined, in the news, a world leader, or a bum on the street. Write a post as if you were in their shoes for one day. You can write on any subject you'd like, but it MUST be from someone else's point of view.

I was working pretty hard on this topic. I thought it was a very interesting one. I decided to burn the midnight oil so to speak, and I stocked up on fast food so I wouldn't have to leave the computer. I had been furiously writing an interesting article on the Supreme Court from the perspective of Justice Thomas when I must have dozed off…

I awoke in a private jet somewhere over the Pacific (or was it the Atlantic? I never can remember where I am in these silly private jets). I had been working on my Power Point presentation again when I must have fallen asleep. Luckily, my trusty Mac notebook was sitting on the desk next to me waiting for me to add the next image. I hate it when I mess up my presentation. It bothers me so much, I had a new computer (complete with three monitors) installed at my home in Tennessee with a backup of my work. If I spill a Diet Coke or Taco on this notebook, I can always get the backup.

My plane was landing. I looked out to see the familiar scenery of the United States. The Country isn't perfect, but one day it will be. I was starting to remember. I had just given a presentation overseas, and was due for another one in California in a few hours. I was pretty tired, but this was important stuff!

As the plane touched down, I climbed into my waiting SUV. The driver had the air conditioning running so I wouldn't have to suffer in the heat while the car warmed up. It was a little bit irresponsible, but I had made sacrifices. The last time I came into this airport, I had three SUV's waiting for me and my staff. This time, it was the one SUV, and two smaller cars. Off course my staff sacrificed by not starting the other cars until they were in them. This was all the more reason for my A/C to be running, I had to wait on them!

Tonight's dinner was an expensive one. This would help me raise more global awareness, and provide me with more money to buy carbon credits. I had encouraged attendees to drive to the function in car pools, use public transportation, or better yet ride a bike. Too bad I would need these three cars to get there.

Sooner or later the U.S. would realize it had to lead the world to stop Global Warming. Sure it would require sacrifices, but the things that are most important (like the glaciers and the polar bears) usually require a little sacrifice. It would mean slowing the U.S. economy down a little, and maybe curbing the birth rate, but we have a few too many people and a little too much money in the U.S. anyways. Who do we think we are? Shouldn't China or India have a chance at being the worlds' lone Super Power?

On the way to the dinner, I was able to insert a new picture from my Hollywood friends. It was a great image from the movie Day After Tomorrow, and it showed the damage we were doing to the Earth. Of course it was computer generated, but I hadn't been able to find any real pictures that looked as good. It's OK to tell a little white lie to help the environment. My staffers had left a news paper article for me. It seems the United States had just put the polar bears on the "Threatened Species List". I was proud. Sure there were more polar bears around today than at any point in recent history, but with global warming right around the corner, who knows what could happen 50 or 100 years from now. And besides, this opens the way to sue those Oil companies because of the damage they are doing through Global Warming to the "threatened" Polar Bears. It was looking like a good day (as good as it can look with Global Warming breathing down on our necks).

My assistant called from the front seat. "Mr. Gore, Senator Obama is on the line and would really like to speak with you," she had just said…

I awoke in a cold sweat. Wow, a few eco friendly miles in Al Gore's shows (or SUV). That really wasn't what I was expecting. Now, go enjoy the other entries to this challenge while I take a steel wool shower…


Now go enjoy these other entires. Remember to vote for your favorite!

Hiro Gets Game by Mr. President

In Someone Else's Shoes by Stella

My Day As Al by Andy D

Coming of Age in the Shoes of Another by MooPig

I Am A Woman Damned by Jayne d'Arcy - feel free to appreciate, but she's not eligible for the favorite vote.

To vote: Go to the MTC Blog

Quick Notes - Political Friends Turns 200

This post is the 200^th post on this site. I feel the website, my readers, and I have come a long way over the last 199 posts. I created this blog with the intent to provide a spot that people could discuss politics and solutions without the conversation breaking down into name calling. For the most part, I feel that I have done that. Some of the comments on my posts have taken the discussion in directions I never thought of. With all of this in mind, I present to you a "lessons learned from 199 posts" done in the Quick Notes format.

Global Warming. I never stop being amazed at how heated some of the comments are when I talk about global warming. I saw Charles Krauthammer on Fox News this week call himself an "agnostic on global warming". I think I am probably closer to a "global warming atheist", but I like his term for it. Anytime I write about global warming, I am guaranteed to get some very heated and passionate comments.

Obama. More recently, I have gotten some very passionate responses when I write about Obama. Obama appears to be the Democratic nominee, so I will probably be writing about him a lot between now and November.

Book Reviews. Some of the controls I have plugged into this site give me a lot of feedback. For example, I can see how many people are on my site in a given day, how long the average reader is here, and what sites they are coming from. What has surprised me is that my most heavily read posts are Book Reviews. I am glad, because I really enjoy writing about them, but I need to figure out a way to get more people to comment on them. My most heavily read post on this site is my book review of the Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming.

Your Comments. I have also learned to be very thankful for my readers comments. You never really know when you write something what people are going to think about it. Some of the posts I have made in here I expected lots of comments on and got none. Others, I didn't expect any comments from, and got more than I could handle. So I am always excited to see what my readers think of each of my posts.

Thanks for the continued support. Now, let's go do another 200.

Quick Notes: Sharks, Global Warming, and Islam

I have another issue of Quick Notes for you from my tropical retreat. There has been a pretty lively debate on a few of my previous posts, so feel free to catch up on some of the comments there.

Sharks: While on vacation with my family, I made a new friend. She is a six foot White Tip Reef Shark. She was kind enough to let me get within arms reach of her, so I thought I would make her famous and include her on my site . Enjoy!

Global Warming: I came across this article while reviewing Rush Limbaugh's site. The article, Scientists Clueless over Sun's Effect on Earth, discusses recent research on how the Earth handles sun light. The overall point: we don't know exactly how the Earth handles sunlight. I would encourage everyone to spend a few minutes reading this article. I have said time and time again that we don't know enough about our Earth's climate. I usually site our lack of knowledge on clouds. This is just another area we don't know enough about.

School teaching Islam in Minnesota: I wrote about this a few weeks back. There is an article on a local ABC news site about the same school. Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy in Minnesota is a charter school that also teaches Islam. The school has some questionable ties to foreign terrorist organizations. The ABC article says that the State of Minnesota is now looking into the school after a substitute teacher felt the school was going to far in teaching religion. Take a look at this article. I suspect we haven't heard the last of this school.

Quick Notes -- Global Warming

It has been some time since I wrote a new installment of "Quick Notes". I am on vacation with my family, but thought I would share a few quick notes with my readers. The vacation is one of the reasons you see the odd times for my responses. Thanks to everyone for your comments. On my recent posts, and on to the new quick notes:

Ted Turner: I normally wouldn't take Ted Turner very seriously. However, in a recent interview, he voiced an opinion that many believers of Global Warming have, but don't share except in private circles. The opinion is what the real solution to Global Warming is: Population control. If we could limit the world's population, then we could solve global warming. This is interesting because most of the discussion around Global Warming is reminiscent of the eugenics discussion during the early part of the 1900's. This theory in a nutshell (the emphasis being on "nut") was to control who could and couldn't have children. This was a serious discussion with an assortment of laws passed to try to combat the "problem" (see the parallels?). For more information see here.

Enter Turner's quotes. According to Atlanta Journal and Constitution writer, "One way to combat global warming, Turner said, is to stabilize the population." Turner goes on to say later in the article that families should be restricted to one or two children. What about Turner's own lifestyle? I have heard he has three homes and five children. But I am sure the cure to Global Warming doesn't apply to him.

Data doesn't fit the theory? Data must be wrong: One of the more recent actual scientific developments on the Global Warming front revolves around scientific buoys reporting sea temperatures throughout the world. According to Global Warming, the sea should be rising in temperature and it should be rising in temperature more dramatically than the land. However, there are around 3,000 buoys that measure deeper ocean temperatures and periodically report this data back. What do these buoys show? Sea temperatures have remain relatively constant over the last four to five years. Scientist are perplexed because this isn't what they were expecting. Under the Scientific Method (a little known, and rarely used technique for doing scientific research), scientist should now re-evaluate their theories. If the data doesn't match, the theory could be wrong, or at least have aspects that are incorrect. However, scientist are instead trying to figure out why the buoys aren't reporting back the data they expect.

One other note. One of the articles I found for this piece mentioned clouds. I have often ranted that climatologists don't understand how clouds work, but they know that clouds are important in the Earth's climate. If they don't understand clouds, shouldn't every model they build be suspect? From the article:

Kevin Trenberth at the National Center for Atmospheric Research says [heat from the ocean is] probably going back out into space. The Earth has a number of natural thermostats, including clouds, which can either trap heat and turn up the temperature, or reflect sunlight and help cool the planet.

That can't be directly measured at the moment, however.

"Unfortunately, we don't have adequate tracking of clouds to determine exactly what role they've been playing during this period," Trenberth says.

Very Interesting...

Worried about Global Warming? See an Eco-therapist

I have become more and more reluctant to write about global warming on this site. It isn't because I think I am wrong. Every day more evidence comes to light that seems to indicate that I am write. What worries me is the attitude of some of my readers who believe in "man-made global warming". These readers seem to be getting more and more upset at anything that contradicts Mr. Gore's movie. I have always assumed these people simply can stand being wrong. However, I have found there is another reason: Eco-anxiety.

I wish I could take credit for discovering this. In the interest of full disclosure, I heard about it on today's Michael Medved show. He was interviewing an Eco-therapist named Melissa Pickett. Could this be the answer to the stress some of my readers have been feeling? I did a search on Google for both Eco-therapist and Eco-anxiety. Unfortunately, this field seems to be so new that it is hard to find anything on it. However, I did find one article from Columbia University written by Justin Nobel. With a name like Nobel… [insert Nobel Prize joke of choice here].

According to Mr. Nobel, "…a growing number of people have literally worried themselves sick over various environmental doomsday scenarios." This worry is apparently called "eco-anxiety." The "therapist" Medved interviewed today is also quoted in the article as seeing anywhere from, "…40 to 80 eco-anxious patients a month." Some of the symptoms of her eco-anxious patients include panic attacks, irritability, sleeplessness, and an "…eerie feeling that their cells are twitching."

If this sounds like you (and I know this does describe a few of you), there is hope. First, neither I, nor Political Friends, are licensed to practice Eco-therapy in this state, the state you are in, or the country you are reading this from (unless you are currently in Florin). Having said that, and if you think you might have eco-anxiety, I would recommend trying some of the remedies the eco-therapist recommend in this article. Some of them include: carry natural objects with you (they recommend certain minerals, I recommend grass or kudzu), or make environmentally friendly lifestyle changes. Personally, I would also recommend drinking. Again, I am not actually an eco-therapist.

I hope this has proven helpful to those of you who think we might destroy the planet in the next ten years due to those evil fossil fuels. If the environment should suddenly turn cooler, instead of warmer, then obviously any eco-therapy you have been going through should be continued.

Quick Notes, Issue One

Here are a few items I have wanted to post on, but haven’t had time to write my normal length post on each. I hope to make more of these types of posts. So as a reader advised (thanks Jayne), I am going to, “…go where my instinct takes me.” Here are some thoughts to discuss with your friends.

1) Iran. Much has been made about the new intelligence that Iran may have stopped its nuclear program a few years ago. I certainly hope this is true. Few things scare me as much as a fanatic who believes he can bring about a divine apocalypse and who might have a nuclear weapon. That is a very bad combination. While I hope the National Intelligence Estimate is correct, I have a few concerns. Many people on both sides of the aisle have questioned our intelligence capability in the Middle East. This is a valid question. The NIE says Iran may not have a nuclear warhead for a few years. Ahmadinejad has said he is willing to use a nuclear weapon against Israel. I say, “When in doubt, take the mad man at his word.” We should continue to act as if Ahmadinejad is pursuing a nuclear weapon. Until the people of Iran force a regime change or Ahmadinejad truly stops pursuing nuclear weapons that is the only safe course for our country.

2) Mike Huckabee. If you are following the 2008 election news at all, by now you know that Huckabee has had a surge in the polling. Many people are trying to figure out why. Some have suggested it is because he is running as a conservative. Some have suggested it is a media conspiracy to get the easiest Republican candidate to beat. Others have suggested that these supporters were always there, just waiting until the right moment to strike. I have a different take. While I disagree with Huckabee on a few key points (such as illegal immigration), he is running on a pro Fair Tax platform. I am a huge supporter of the Fair Tax. There are a lot of Republicans and Libertarians who are as well. I think his surge in numbers is coming from that. Time will tell, but the next time you hear Huckabee or see him at a campaign stop, look for a Fair Tax reference.

3) “Global Warming Kooks”. Last week, Drudge had a link to a British paper that ran an article about women in the UK who were getting sterilized to stop global warming. These women thought having children was the worst thing anyone could do to the environment. If I remember correctly, one was 29 years old and the other was 32. If you follow the global warming argument to its conclusion, this is where you end up. Time will tell how many people are willing to subscribe to this idea. There are a lot of groups who have been preaching this openly for some time. There are other groups who believe it, but are concealing that fact. Just a point to keep in mind the next time someone screams about global warming and starts talking about “solutions”.

I hope you enjoyed this column. Look for more of this type of post in the weeks to come. As always, I welcome civil comments and discussion on these topics, or any others.

Another Global Warming Study

This is just a quick post to point out an article on Newsbusters. I am keeping this post short in hopes that my regular man-made global warming readers will go check this article out. NASA and a team of university scientist have just completed a study on the Arctic climate. However, the results may not be what you would expect. As reported from Newsbusters' Noel Sheppard:

"A team of NASA and university scientists has detected an ongoing reversal in Arctic Ocean circulation triggered by atmospheric circulation changes that vary on decade-long time scales. The results suggest not all the large changes seen in Arctic climate in recent years are a result of long-term trends associated with global warming."


The article goes on to say that many of the changes in the Arctic climate that have been attributed to man-made global warming may in fact be natural cycles. It would appear that the Arctic climate has around a 10 year natural cycle that causes it to undergo its own fluctuations regardless of how much CO2 we are putting in the atmosphere.

The Greatest Scam in History!

Here is a hypothetical question: If a founder of the Weather Channel released a public statement calling the theory of Man-Made Global Warming the “greatest scam in history,” would the media cover it? Well, we can move this to the realm of actual questions because that is exactly what happened on November 7th. John Coleman, meteorologist and founder of the Weather Channel released a statement on his personal blog saying just that.


On Global Warming, Mr. Coleman also says he is,”…amazed, appalled and highly offended…,” by it. Mr. Coleman says he does not oppose environmentalism. This is a position I share. He goes on to say that:


“However, Global Warming, i.e. Climate Change, is not about environmentalism or politics. It is not a religion. It is not something you “believe in.” It is science; the science of meteorology. This is my field of life-long expertise. And I am telling you Global Warming is a non-event, a manufactured crisis and a total scam.”


This should be a pretty big strike against those who would have us hand over our energy policies to the United Nations. If Global Warming is a non-event as Mr. Coleman believes, then while we can continue to study global climate change, the focus should shift away from the realm of politics and back into the realm of science. Of course, this assumes that Mr. Coleman’s statements get out to the public.


I have been trying to watch for stories on the major networks talking about Mr. Coleman. Rush Limbaugh has covered it, as have Newsbusters and a website on climate change called ICECAP, and one NBC station in Augusta, GA. However, I haven’t been able to find coverage of Mr. Coleman on any of the other major news networks.


Here is an expert in the field of climatology who doesn’t believe in global warming. Without Mr. Coleman, one could argue that the Weather Channel may not have come into existence. Without the Weather Channel, where would the climatologist and weathermen employed by the Weather Channel be? Often when an expert disagrees with global warming, the “true-believers” attack the expert’s credentials, and not his or her statement. Surely we can skip that step this time and simply look at what Mr. Coleman said. If we question Mr. Coleman’s credentials, then I would argue there are no climatologist who should be believed or listened to on this topic.


We have an expert, a founder of the Weather Channel, who believes Global Warming is a scam and a hoax. Follow my link above and read his statement for yourself. Can we finally dispense with the “consensus” label and put man-made global warming back into the “scientific theory” category?

Hurricane Forecaster Disputes Man Made Global Warming

Today is “blog action day”. The website sponsoring this event is trying to encourage as many bloggers to post about the environment today as possible. I hadn’t planned on posting today, but the combination of this historic event and one particular news story that has been bouncing around my head lately simply won’t let me pass it up.

By now, everyone has heard that Al Gore and the IPCC are co-winners of the Nobel Peace Prize. While they join such humanitarians as Yasser Arafat and Anwar Sadat, I am guessing many of my colleagues will be posting about Al Gore and the Nobel Prize, so I can skip it. Besides, every major news agency in the world covered this, so you probably have heard all the details anyway.

What you may not have heard is the lecture that one Dr. William Gray gave at the University of North Carolina. Dr. Gray freely admits (as do I) that humans, “…might have caused a very slight amount of [global warming].” However, Dr. Gray also says, “…this warming trend is not going to keep on going. My belief is that three, four years from now, the globe will start to cool again, as it did from the middle ‘40s to the middle ‘70’s.” At the lecture in North Carolina, Dr. Gray said, “We’ll look back on all of this in 10 or 15 years and realize how foolish it was…”

This isn’t good news if you are a believer in man-made global warming. I am often challenged on this site to find someone in a local college that agrees with my viewpoint. Here is an academic who does. It turns out Dr. Gray is called “one of the worlds foremost meteorologists” (The Sydney Morning Herald) or “a pioneer in the science of forecasting hurricanes” (Wikipedia). Dr. Gray’s hurricane forecast are used by insurance companies when figuring how likely hurricanes are to hit a particular area. If that isn’t a good enough resume to make you take note of his comments, how about his diplomas. Dr. Gray received a BS in Geography from George Washington University. He received a MS in Meteorology and a PhD in Geophysical Sciences at the University of Chicago. If that resume doesn’t qualify him to comment on global warming, I don’t believe there is anyone alive capable of talking about global warming.

If this sounds vastly different from what you believe academics should be saying, Dr. Gray has an answer for that too. Dr. Gray has charged that many of his colleagues are intentionally lying about global warming because they need the grant money. If man-made global warming isn’t really an issue, then how does a scientist get funding to study it? Dr. Gray believes that humans simply have too small of an impact on the earth to cause a significant change in the global temperature of the planet.

There are those in the community who disagree with Dr. Gray. As I have said before, I don’t believe science fully understands how our planet works, so debate is necessary. However, the next time you hear about “consensus” in global warming, remember hurricane forecaster Dr. William Gray.

An Inconvient Day in Court for Gore

If An Inconvenient Truth is scientific consensus at its best, then it should stand up to debate. If the science is settled beyond any reasonable shadow of a doubt, then Mr. Gore's documentary should have no trouble standing up in court. Unfortunately for those who worship at the alter of An Inconvenient Truth, that hasn't happened.


Recently the British government decided to all secondary schools in England. The Government was impressed by the message of Mr. Gore's movie. Unfortunately, its against the law in England to show a film in school that contains partisan politics without informing students that it is a political film. A school governor and a parent a student went to court to get the film banned from schools in England.


The court didn't ban the film. However, a judge ruled that there were nine errors or omissions that must be explained to students before it can be shown. First, students must be warned that An Inconvenient Truth is a political film and doesn't explain all sides of the arguments. Second, if the film is presented without addressing the nine omissions, teachers will be breaking the law. Third, the omissions pointed to by the judge must be specifically drawn out to the students.


Here is the list of errors and the judges finding:

1. An Inconvenient Truth claims that a sea-level rise of up to 20 feet would be caused by melting ice sheets. The Judge said, "This is distinctly alarmist," and would only occur after 1,000 years.
2. An Inconvenient Truth claims that Pacific Islands have, "...already been evacuated." There is no evidence that this has happened.
3. Mr. Gore claims that coral reefs are dying and bleaching because of Global Warming. The Judge in England stated that there are many factors that can destroy coral and separating out individual factors is very difficult.
4. Mr. Gore claims that polar bears were found that had drown swimming from melting ice bergs. Unfortunately for Mr. Gore's film, only four polar bears were found drown, and those drown due to a storm.
5. An Inconvenient Truth claims that the disappearance of snow on Mount Kilimanjaro (as shown by two photos in the movie) is due to Man-Made Global Warming. The judge ruled that it can't be shown that the recession of snows is related to Global Warming.
   
6. Similarly, An Inconvenient Truth claims Hurricane Katrina was caused by global warming. The judge stated that there wasn't enough evidence to prove Katrina was caused by Global Warming.
7. Like Kilimanjaro and Hurricane Katrina, An Inconvenient Truth claims that Lake Chad is drying up due to Global Warming. Again, there isn't enough evidence to establish Lake Chad is drying up because of Global Warming.
   
8. In a spectacular portion of the movie, Mr. Gore warns that the Gulf Stream will shut down. The judge stated this was "very unlikely".
9. Mr. Gore shows in his movie that a graph of CO2 rise and temperature rise over the same period are an exact fit. The judge ruled that while there was a connection between the two, the film is misleading. The judge noted that in some cases, the CO2 rises lagged by 800 to 2000 years.

By itself, this doesn't mean man-made global warming isn't happening. It does mean that man-made global warming is still a theory. Man still hasn't been able to prove it. Two individuals in England fought to keep this film out of British schools. They failed at that. However, the film will only be shown with disclaimers explaining what it truly is: A political propaganda movie.