Respectfully submitted by Lawrence Rafferty (rafflaw)-Guest Blogger
It seems that you can’t go anywhere on the Internet and not read an attack on the EPA by a Republican member of Congress. The Hill; McClatchey Unfortunately, I was not surprised how many of the Republican Congressmen were attacking the EPA and its attempts to control and eliminate air pollution. However, I was surprised by how many of those Congressmen were physicians.
“What would you think if your physician told you, “Keep smoking because quitting would kill tobacco and health care jobs.” Or, “Don’t take your high blood pressure medicine, you can’t afford it.” And, “Don’t lose weight, no one has proven obesity is bad for you.” That’s exactly the quality of medical advice we are getting from the 18 Republican physicians currently serving in Congress. Some of the most well known are the father and son team of Rep. Ron Paul and Sen. Rand Paul, and Sen. Tom Coburn. Almost all of these physician/Congressmen have been key soldiers in the Republican war on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), calling it a “job killer,” pronouncing relevant health science “unproven,” claiming we “can’t afford” their regulations.” Truthout
The “unproven” science that claims that air pollution is deadly comes from over 2,000 medical studies is significant in its numbers and content. “In the last ten years, over 2,000 scientific studies published in the mainstream medical literature have revealed that air pollution has much of the same physiologic and disease consequence as first- and second-hand cigarette smoke.(1, 2) Those studies show that just as there is no safe number of cigarettes a person can smoke, there is no safe level of air pollution a person can breathe. Even pollution at “background” levels still causes health consequences, including increased mortality rates.(3, 4)” Dr. Brian Moench
Dr. Moench’s Truthout article provides a plethora of citations to studies that confirm the need for and importance of taking the steps that the EPA has outlined in its August, 2010 report titled, “The Benefits and Costs of the Clean Air Act, 1990-2020″. EPA I guess some people can deny the science behind the studies and the EPA report. We have seen the climate change deniers put ear plugs in their ears when legitimate and voluminous studies are presented. Maybe I am naive, but I cannot understand how medical doctors can claim that we can’t afford the regulations needed to save lives of adults and children.
Over 1,800 medical doctors, nurses and health care professionals signed a letter to Congress imploring the Congressional members to honor the original intent of the Clean Air Act and allow science to trump politics by implementing the needed regulations to save lives. “The result is saved lives and improved quality of life for millions of Americans. But the job is not finished. Communities across the nation still suffer from poor air quality. Low income families face the impacts of toxic air pollution every day. From smog causing asthma attacks to toxic mercury harming children’s neurological development, far too many people face a constant threat from the air they breathe and the impacts of climate change. Please fulfill the promise of clean, healthy air for all Americans to breathe. Support full implementation of the Clean Air Act and resist any efforts to weaken, delay or block progress toward a healthier future for all Americans.” Lung.org
As someone who has Asthma, this fight to allow for the full implementation of the Clean Air Act has special meaning. I can only hope that Congress, including the Doctors who are in Congress will hear the call to do whatever is necessary to save lives. Politics should never get in the way of common sense and achievable changes and improvements in the air that we breathe.
Do you believe in the science behind the Clean Air Act and if not, where is the science to refute the claims of over 2,000 studies from all over the globe? Is there any health issue that can trump the vitriolic politics of our time? As quoted above, the original Clean Air Act and its amendments enjoyed bipartisan support. Why can’t that same bipartisan support be found for the full implementation of the Clean Air Act knowing it will save lives and create jobs? How many more must die or suffer before political gain is put aside?
Yep….
You know…. Why wouldn’t we want more pollution….. Geeze… We can all go live in the love canal in new york…. Some battery manufacturer used to dump the waste directly in the water…. I even think I recall the water started on fire….. But hey…. California has the tar pits…. We need something in the middle…. So I guess you could classify dc as a waste dump…..lol
Ironically medical products are contributing to the pollution problem. It is like letting the weasel guard the hen house. To have clean air is a good thing for the longer we have clean air more life can be born to enjoy eternal Joy. Those giving it will receive joy. A joy we cannot know in the body we have right now. However because there is death the world will wax old like a garment. We will patch it sew up the holes, but eventually it will have to go into the rag pile. The soul therefore is what we need to save. Being like Jesus is who does not oppress or persecute anyone, and does not boast in their intellect will save an invaluable thing, the soul. Care we should get in the mean time is from U,C,S, practitioners http://www.upcspine.com.
Raff,
I think there was a point in the not too distant past, when smart people were attracted to medicine not because of a desire to heal, but because it was a sure path to a wealthy lifestyle. I also believe that Ron Paul was in the advanced guard of this shift away from wanting to heal.
We have seen the climate change deniers put ear plugs in their ears when legitimate and voluminous studies are presented. Maybe I am naive
Yes Raff you are. In re to climate change what was predicted is not matching up with the data. The so called experts have been making predictions that have not materialized. How can you have faith in someone who is a so called expert who makes wrong predictions.
Be honest, look at these two images of Arctic Ice. The left image is from March 4th 1995 and the one on the right is March 4th 2012
http://igloo.atmos.uiuc.edu/cgi-bin/test/print.sh?fm=03&fd=04&fy=1995&sm=03&sd=04&sy=2012
Then lets look at what an expert says
Expert Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center
Sep 20, 2010
“I stand by my previous statements that the Arctic summer sea ice cover is in a death spiral. It’s not going to recover,” Serreze said.
Expert Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center
Feb 27, 2012
“Is Arctic ice in a death spiral? Maybe not yet, but it’s in big trouble,” Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center, recently told ABC News,
Looking at the image does it look like the Arctic is in a death spiral? No it doesn’t but in order to save face the only thing he can say now is it’s in big trouble. Seriously ?
And they were saying the same thing in 1923
April 16 1923
THE NORTH POLE
CAUSES OF CHANGE OF CLIMATE.
Is the North Pole going to melt en- tirely? Are the Arctic regions warming up, with prospect of a great climatic change in that part of the world? Science (says “Popular Science”) is asking these questions. Reports from fish-
ermen, seal hunters, and explorers who sail the seas around Spitzbergen and the eastern Arctic all point to a radical change in climatic conditions, with hitherto un- heard-of high temperatures on that part of the earth’s surface.
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/77891667?searchTerm=arctic%20melt&searchLimits=
Think about this in 1960 the level of atmospheric CO2 was probably at 300 ppm or less. We know that in the 60′s when atmospheric CO2 first was being recorded by the instrumental record it measured at 315 ppm. So in 1923 when CO2 was lower they worried whether or not the Arctic would melt. Now CO2 is above 390ppm and there is more there now then before.
FACT: Baffin Bay has the second highest ice extent in the last thirty years but experts tell us that the Arctic should have melted by now.
Expert Al Gore
Speaking at the Copenhagen climate change summit, Mr Gore said new computer modelling suggests there is a 75 per cent chance of the entire polar ice cap melting during the summertime by 2014.
However, he faced embarrassment last night after Dr Wieslav Maslowski, the climatologist whose work the prediction was based on, refuted his claims.
Dr Maslowski, of the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, told The Times: “It’s unclear to me how this figure was arrived at.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/copenhagen-climate-change-confe/6815470/Copenhagen-climate-summit-Al-Gore-condemned-over-Arctic-ice-melting-prediction.html
So to all of you who call me a denier. I wont be much longer, but you will be. Atmospheric CO2 will soon be over 400ppm and there is nothing you can do to stop it. Nothing the world can do to stop it from reaching this threshold. It continues to rise yet we’ve had no warming in 15 years. And that’s a fact.
Corrected
Think about this in 1923 the level of atmospheric CO2 was probably at 300 ppm or less. We know that in the 60′s when atmospheric CO2 first was being recorded by the instrumental record it measured at 315 ppm. So in 1923 when CO2 was lower they worried whether or not the Arctic would melt. Now CO2 is above 390ppm and there is more there now then before.
Bdaman,
You don’t have any credible peer reviewed study that disputes climate change. Besides, the article is discussing air pollution and the Right’s attempts to derail the EPA’s efforts to reduce pollution for health reasons. Are you against cleaning the air to reduce asthma and a multitude of breathing disorders and the deaths related to it?
rafflaw,
Bdaman don’t need no stinkin’ credible peer-reviewed studies.
Elaine M. And raff,
Nal was worried about his thread being jacked….. It was just a matter of time….but raff…..you’re the lucky winner today…..
AY,
I guess the tale of pink slime in hamburger meat wasn’t a tempting enough post for an attempted hijacking.
With all due respect Elaine….. Maybe that is what the children he is surrounded with eat…. So it’s not and issue…..and Micky Ds is adventure dining….
Hopefully Mike and others will see and look at this man’s message.
He’s only a world reknown Swedish Professor of Public Health.
Google has bought his data display system, it’s available free of charge on the net.
Look at this, dammit. This man will amaze you with what he show you is hiding in world statistics—-largely due to US paying for the data collection of some types.
Only 20 minutes. Try it, you’ll be glad you did, all of you.
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/hans_rosling_at_state.html
Interested in the Goldstein Effect from 1984?
Ditto in the same effect in KONY 2012?
If we don’t get the effect we want in Syria, then let’s try sub-saharan Africa.
Click this.
http://willyloman.wordpress.com/2012/03/11/the-truth-about-kony-2012-the-goldstein-effect/
Elaine and AY,
I welcome Bdaman’s comments . I was merely trying to steer him to the issue at hand.
rafflaw,
Bdaman don’t need no stinkin’ credible peer-reviewed studies.
and neither does the IPCC. A peer review study is just that a peer reviewed study. There are lots of STUDIES that dont match the FACTUAL DATA. I’m sure there were lots of peer reviewed studies that said the Arctic was to have melted by now. Has it ?
Raff they are fighting the EPA because they are over regulating because of a failed theory. Energy prices are going through the roof while in the mean time China opens up two new coal fired plants every week while we have seven slated for closure. Remember under Obama’s plan electricity rates were going to sky rocket.
What good is any of it if we are all sitting in the dark.
Raff thanks, P.S. what was the conclusion to someone posting as another Rafflaw yesterday.
I was merely trying to steer him to the issue at hand.
Raff I took a quote from your post
” We have seen the climate change deniers put ear plugs in their ears when legitimate and voluminous studies are presented.”
and seized upon it. The EPA has there hand in climate change regulations. They couldn’t pass cap and trade but that doesn’t mean they can’t run an end around.
I understand Bdaman, but we are talking air pollution that cause health issues in this thread.
Here’s an opinion: EPA is a dog on a leash (sorry TD). And we know who’s at the other end of the leash. Chronic emitters of all kinds.
And it ain’t go nuttin to do wid climate problems—so go to sleep Bdaman.
Bdaman,
I forgot to answer your question about the unofficial Rafflaw. I don’t think anything has been decided. It is Prof. Turley’s call.
Raff,
Seeing the question repeated makes me worried about bdaman and traffic accidents…… You know they are out there but some just have to gwak……
Hello earth to 1do7o7 CO2 emissions from the burning of foossil fuels
da man
yo, it is simple, there concern ain’t climate, it’s human health and protection of you know
If you got a link giving another mission statement, do tell…..
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/
My congresscritter is an MD. I get these gawdawful emails from him asking me to help him fight for teh stuoopid.
Party comes before science, medical ethics, and common sense.
You are right OS. Scary, but it seems to be true. How do we change it?
How do we fight it? Get the slobs out of office. When loyalty to an out of touch political party is more important than the responsibility of the office, then it is time to fire them. The only problem is that much of the constituency has drunk the Kool Aid and will not be swayed by logic, science or moral ethics. The sleazy leading the willfully ignorant. Until we fix that, they will continue to prevail.
OS,
Sounds like an uphill battle!
raff, you know it! We have a couple of them here every day, so you know that Eric Hoffer was right. He observed that the reason it is so difficult to get information into an empty mind was because the empty mind is not really empty, but stuffed with rubbish.
Great description OS. I think the good Benedictine Nuns thought my mind was full of rubbish back in grade school. They probably were right!
OS,
I am with you in spirits on that one….. Time does make easier what we do next term understand while we’re here….
Raff,
Your going to law school only confirmed what was only thought…..I am funna ya….
AY,
Hah! You are right!
idealist707 1, March 11, 2012 at 5:04 pm
Hopefully Mike and others will see and look at this man’s message.
He’s only a world reknown Swedish Professor of Public Health.
Google has bought his data display system, it’s available free of charge on the net.
Look at this, dammit. This man will amaze you with what he show you is hiding in world statistics—-largely due to US paying for the data collection of some types.
Only 20 minutes. Try it, you’ll be glad you did, all of you.
===========================================
Good video.
Mindset = Mindswamp.
The compliments the professor gives us is what I want our country to be known for. Helping out in the neighborhood, the world.
I do not want us to be known for the destruction of nations on account of our addiction to oil, nor that we don’t care to shake the habit.
One does not excuse the other.
The congress is at a low ebb as planned.
The U.S. military is seen as the most competent institution in American society. For decades now.
Yet, the military produces nothing. No products, no goods, no civil services. They are massive consumers who receive taxpayer money as entitlements. It is not paid back.
They then use the taxpayer’s treasury to hire corporations to build instruments of destruction, WMD of every imaginable expense and type.
Then they must find a place to test it. Millions are dead over the past 50 years proving that those weapons do work. More, more, more, they chant, and the military budget has increased 80% since Bush II.
For some unknown, mystical, unfathomable reason there have also been more, longer wars as the war budget increases. Doesn’t war bring peace?
Yet we all have a mystical, magnetic feeling that draws us to be the universal Smedley.
Historically, our government structure expressed in our constitution is a good idea, a great idea. It includes congress. It includes courts. It includes a president.
When we made that constitution, we did not have a permanent military, spread around the entire world, at thousands of bases in 132 countries, nor hundreds of bases here. Good things happen without military excess disease. They are not a democratic institution, and they are not competent at the American Constitutional Form of Government.
They are composed of order givers and order takers.
The cries to nuke the Deepwater Horizon oil pollution catastrophe, in the Gulf of Mexico, expresses the mystical, mythical belief that the military is the most competent institution in the Amercan way of life.
rafflaw wrote:
The other side of that story is that the Democrats give in to the mindless mantra of the Republicans, from Obama on down to House members.
Myth reigns supreme. For real.
http://www.chron.com/business/article/Shift-to-natural-gas-coming-for-U-S-Kinder-2708269.php The shift from oil and coal to natural gas is well underway. It is cleaner but has other issues like fracking.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2011/02/15/exxon-replacing-oil-with-gas-for-now/ Big oil is even moving into natural gas.
http://blogs.berkeley.edu/2011/12/09/on-paul-the-most-anti-environmental-candidate-ever/ We don’t have to worry about Ron Paul anymore but Gingrich is talking about teaming up with Perry. lol
Swarthmore,
Thanks for the links! Gingrich and Perry? What a team. Yikes.
http://politics.blogs.foxnews.com/2012/03/11/exclusive-gingrich-perry-pre-convention-ticket-works
rafflaw wrote:
They are the portion of the bad medicine that kills hundreds of thousands of Americans each year.
They are also those who scorned a scientist who just passed away:
(Guardian). Deniers thought that since CFC’s, like CO2, were natural they could do no damage.
They had no concept of balance. Water is good but too much can drown you, CO2 keeps us warm, but too much will fry us.
The EPA enforced the CFC episode, which if not halted, would have killed millions.
Sound familiar?
I can’t speak for Dr. Paul but I’ll guarantee his view would be something like this: The EPA is a useless govt institution that is not only wasteful in our bankrupt country but over regulating the US economy. Why does this have to be a federal matter, are there not property rights any longer in the US? Meaning no person or entity could violate your land/air. The argument is always if the gov’t doesn’t force these laws everyone would just wildly pollute/destroy the environment. This is sheer stupidity, is it not reasonable that we could have responsible citizens do a consumer reports style job for pollutants and such? Why do we need beauracrats in Washington to tell everyone what’s permissible? There’s going to be millions of concerned citizens looking out for eachother in various manners without govt. How was everyone not sick/dead before the EPA? Because decent people are generally well informed and care about themselves and their environments, they don’t need bought and paid for environmental extremists dictating everything they can handle/breathe.
The historical facts of companies polluting wildly before the EPA is a tough fact for you to reconcile with Rep. Paul’s claim that the EPA is an extremist and wasteful agency. The market has proven itself unable to prevent and repair environmental damage.
Of course companies polluted wildly, but over time the market would punish these companies via lawsuit/reputation. It’s not like a lot of big companies aren’t cozy with the US govt to get exemptions/ allowed to break rules right? There isn’t a one size fits all answer for everything. The EPA while well intentioned is a govt agency that can be lobbied to and bought the same way other branches are. How many regulations the EPA writes are in favour of big companies to stifle competition? Do I know the answer, no but I still believe in a market answer before govt.
Then you believe in a fantasy regarding environmental issues. History shows that the market would make no such correction over any span of time. Polluters will pollute as long as it makes them profits sufficient to overcome any incidental costs. Markets do not provide just outcomes. Justice isn’t their purview. Profits are the business of business and profits are simply amoral. Part of the function of government as defined by the Constitution is the establishment of justice and it can pursue justice through regulation and litigation against businesses via the powers given to Congress, the courts and through the Commerce Clause and the Necessary and Proper Clause. If you want free markets to be your solution, legally speaking, this isn’t the right country for you. Property rights have never been absolute here as a matter of law and they cannot be in any country that has courts in equity as a matter of function. Libertarianism and laissez-faire economics are pipe dreams based upon incorrect assumptions about both human nature and the nature of markets. There has never been either a Libertarian state or a laissez-faire economy for the same reason there is has never been an anarchic state and why Communism failed: they may sound great on paper, but they don’t work in the real world.
What Gene said!
DS,
My grandchildren don’t deserve to get sick while your market allegedly solves it’s own messes that could be prevented.
Climate change a fact? To yell at people because they supposedly don’t believe in “climate” change is like yelling at people who already believe the earth revolves around the sun. Why yell at people for something that is natural to the planet and not in dispute so you can pretend they oppose science?
The climate has always changed. No one disputes that. And the reason they stopped calling it global warming was because there wasn’t any that could be proven linked to mankind or unnatural, so they couldn’t sell their deceptions with the old scare tactic moniker “global warming”.
And scientists were intentionally deceiving the public and discredited themselves. So they were forced to pick a new term and landed on one no one in their right mind could argue with. It was “the earth revolves the sun” term called “climate change”.
What caused the ice age to melt the glaciers that formed the Great Lakes?
The combustion engine? Al Gore’s big mouth?
It is a bit shabby to put out quotes and not give the sources. It smells of deceit. Ron Paul would no doubt tell you that clean air and sensible eating are the best practices. But that is not the business of the Federal government. They are matters to be handled buy the states and the people.
Some factory in Philly is polluting your city? Take them to court and prove it. Then sue the heck out of them and ruin them. Your eating and obesity is causing you expensive health problems? Let your insurance charge you more or suffer the consequences yourself. It’s between you and your doctor and insurance company, not you and Uncle Sam.
Ron Paul is the biggest friend of the health food industry. NOT THE FDA who would ruin it if it could and has treated health food stores with contempt and abuse for decades.
It is the FDA which is trying to outlaw natural supplements being sold through the health food industry (and now even Walmart). Guess who would benefit from that prohibtion? Big pharma! Of course!
Ron Paul is not opposed to clean air and good eating just because they are expensive. He is opposed to their being the business of the federal government AND, by the way, they are also expensive to the tax payer when the government gets involved as it now is.
And Ron Paul doesn’t claim the “market” should solve these problems. He claims that it is the lawyers who should. In court.
He wants people to be ruin companies who contaminate other peoples air and soil. And he wants it based on simple laws like assault and murder and not on clean air standards from the federal government. He was a legal solution to the matter, not a federal program.
If you really believe there is evidence that proves that cleaner air is more healthy you should be able to prove that in a court of law and take the culprits (polluters) to the cleaners. What are you afraid of? That a lawyer could not prove company X is contamining water or air in city/state Y and Z?
If you are so afraid they could not prove it, then maybe you and your scientists are a bunch of chicken little frauds?
Know what? I think you can prove it. And I think that is where the solution should be: in the courts.
If you believe that the facts prove that obesity is bad, insurance companies should be able to deny you coverage or make it exceedingly expensive. What are you afraid of? That a lawyer could not make the case either in a court of law?
If you believe the things you are saying are true there is no need for the EPA, just a need for good lawyers and demanding insurance companies.
Obesity is expensive to the federal government only because it has put itself into harms way by making obesity its business. But please don’t pretend Ron Paul supports obesity just because he opposes penalizing the tax payer for buttinski government over reach.
Well said Tootie, question when was the EPA brought into existence? 1970!! So 40 years of govt intervention must make the case that Dr. Paul is wrong and the EPA is right. I hardly think so, with the advances in technology and the Internet alone the EPA could be scrapped as people are far more informed than ever. However bleeding hearts still blame the evil companies for polluting? If you own almost any electronics you are subsidizing China, so basically your endorsing poor environmental controls but not in your own back yards. I find it quite absurd.
Tootie and DS,
It is unfortunate that you have absolutely no facts to back up your desire to follow Rep. Paul. Tootie, who is “yelling”?
DS,
Rep. Paul wants the market to solve all problems of pollution and history has already proven you and Tootie and Rep. Paul to be wrong. That is why the EPA is necessary.
I never said pollution isn’t a problem but people can solve problems without gov’t. Since your endorsing state solutions which I’ve noticed in a few of your posts, I’d like to refer you to China, which is a centrally planned economy, yet a huge polluter, so which is it you endorse? Buy products from China which rampantly pollutes, so you don’t have to have it here. Which completely stifles the real economy here so you can have a nice place to live. So central planning or free market? You can’t have both.
“So central planning or free market? You can’t have both.”
Another example of binary thinking. Actually, you can have both. It’s called regulated markets and a blended economy. It works well in the countries that have implemented it. It worked well here in the past. In fact, it brought us unsurpassed prosperity until the era of Reagan and deregulation began under the aegis of the clowns from the Austrian School exerting their corporatist cum fascist agenda. You don’t like China? What you advocate in the Austrian School, will lead precisely to a the same situation but with actual private ownership instead of state ownership. The primary difference between a Corporatist State and a State Capitalism (what China practices) is who owns the corporations. And the difference between them both and fascism is to what ends the autocratic authoritarianism inherent in corporatism is directed. Free markets put business above the law. Corporatism allows corporations to self-regulate and dictate policy. Laissez-faire capitalism is inherently anti-democratic. Libertarianism is ultimately a path to fascism, no matter how you try to color it and wrap in the misapplied words of liberty and freedom. Liberty and freedom mean nothing if you’re simply trading them for economic tyranny. Economic tyranny is what a free market guarantees – not just outcomes. Libertarianism is based on bad ideas and flawed precepts about human nature, many of which were developed and exemplified by a hypocritical mad woman: Ayn Rand. Von Mises was no real economist either. He eschewed the scientific method and analysis of data opting instead for what is a political polemic he calls economics but isn’t. While I’m sympathetic to the malaise created by malfunctioning government that attracts many to look at Libertarianism, it’s an inherently bad idea once placed under critical scrutiny. The problems of our government can be solved without throwing the Constitution out the window – which despite your inevitable contentions to the contrary is precisely what it would take to enact a Libertarian model of government and a totally free market. The problems of government can be solved by more democracy and removing corporate influence from the electoral and legislative processes so that government is forced to do it’s proscribed job per the Constitution and look out for the best interests of all Americans instead of the biggest “campaign contributors” (read “graft merchants”). The problems of government can be fixed by restoring accountability on the pols and upholding the Rule of Law when they break it. The problems of government will not be fixed by Libertarianism or Austrian School “economics”. Down that path – just like the current path to Corporatism – lies certain ruin.
DS,
You still haven’t shown us how you and Rep. Paul are going to clean the air when corporations won’t do it unless they are forced to by the EPA. Gene has it right that your suggestion that corporations will take care of everything is a large step on the path to fascism.
What do you call what we have now? Capitalism? Hardly? Bail outs, mandates, more regulations than one could read in a lifetime. Where’s the economy? In the tank, we dont have a market option in pollution, and u would argue if we must have them if should be local. As for Mises not being an economist and libertarianism
being some flawed idea, I’m sure you subscribe to Paul Krugman’s, Helicopter Ben and Keynesian economics which has led to the biggest financial bubble in world history. Libertarianism built the US, Keynesianism is destroying it. Perhaps you should read Hayeks road to serfdom as well, it is dedicated to socialists.
DS,
You need to reread your recent history.it wasn’t Krigman behind the Bush recession. Take a peek at the book, Griftopia and read about that Rand disciple Mr. Greenspan. It is his Randian principles that aided and abetted the economy tanking in December 2007.
Ok are you serious? You think Greenspan was a Randian after he became chairman? He spoke in the worst economic jargon possible, he was a political person bar none, he held interest rates at near zero for 2 years if I remember correctly. Your economic arguments are baseless against liberty, that’s why we fought a revolution, but socialists want there cake and to eat it to. Well life doesn’t work that way, you can’t pick and choose what parts of the economy you deem necessary for govt control, as history has show govt is only interested in power and grabbing it where possible. I think you’d fit much better in the EU which has been socialist a lot longer and despite the new currency is still bankrupt.
“What do you call what we have now?”
Formerly regulated capitalism being perverted into political corporatism and eventually fascism.
And what raff said. If you can’t even get recent history right, why should I take your reading suggestions seriously? Not that I take anything Hayek says anymore seriously than I take what von Mises said seriously – which is to say not at all. Also, I wouldn’t suggest that I read anything by Rothbard either. As to “who I subscribe to”, I’m not much of a follower. I do agree with Krugman on a fair bit, but not everything, although certainly more than I agree with Friedman who begat Bernake. Bernake who I think should probably be working at Pottery Barn instead of given any position of influence or in prison for his role in bailing out AIG which as an act of straight out fascism. Bernake may talk like a Friedman monetarist but he walks like a fascist. The principles of Keynes work fine as long as they are not distorted by corporatism interfering with the regulatory function of government. We had 40 plus years practicing Keynesian economics. The day Keynes failed is the day campaign contribution limits were stripped from FECA and the day he died was the day the SCOTUS handed down Citizens United. But that prosperity you so praise from our past is a direct result of Keynesian economics just as much as the current debacle that is our economy is a direct result of the Austrian School practices as implemented by people like Greenspan as aided and abetted by a sold out Congress bought by corporate graft disguised as “campaign contributions”. Keynes is even regaining popularity in the wake of the current disaster. But the Austrian School is coming under more and more critical scrutiny for their role in the global economic crisis. One proven waxes while one proven wanes. An intelligent person might ask themselves why that is and a smart person would look into it, but a true believer will simply double down when his beliefs are challenged by reality. Especially when those beliefs weren’t based in reality to start with. Unless that reality is simply to feed the greedy and the sociopaths. Because in reality, that’s all the Austrian School does – encourage unfettered greed and sociopathic behavior, neither of which are beneficial to society.
Had humans followed the advice of Jesus with humans giving whatever to each other that asked we would not have money, and we would not have an economy, and we would not therefore have a debt. God in us giving to others that have God in them. Then we would give the money to the dead corpses that have their images on them.
That Greenspan was a dishonest political huckster does not change the fact that he was an avowed Objectivist and proponent of laissez-faire capitalism.
DS,
You may not like the fact that Greenspan was a Randian devotee, but you can’t make up your own reality. Or maybe you can.
I think Al Gores presentation was flawed and counterproductive in many ways. That said Global Warming and pollution scares me more than a nuclear Iran. I read somewhere that a huge referendum was passed on global pollution control. Anyone remember what it was? It made me very happy.
oh and thank you Lawrence for a thought provoking post.
Farming communities facing crisis over nitrate pollution, study says
“The agricultural industry, however, has maintained that it is not solely responsible because nitrates come from many sources. While the report focused on California, nitrates in groundwater is a problem that plagues farming communities around the U.S.
But, according to the UC Davis report, 96 percent of nitrate contamination comes from agriculture, while only 4 percent can be traced to water treatment plants, septic systems, food processing, landscaping and other sources.”
Yeah. The market has jumped right on denying, er, fixing that problem.
The climate has always changed. No one disputes that. And the reason they stopped calling it global warming was because there wasn’t any that could be proven linked to mankind or unnatural, so they couldn’t sell their deceptions with the old scare tactic moniker “global warming”.
It has changed yet again, it’s call Climate Disruption
President Obama’s Science Czar John Holdren is worried about global warming. Having noticed that there hasn’t actually been any global warming since 1998, he feels it ought to be called “global climate disruption” instead. That way whether it gets warmer or colder, wetter or drier, less climatically eventful or more climatically eventful, the result will be the same: it can all be put down to “global climate disruption.”
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100054012/global-warming-is-dead-long-live-er-global-climate-disruption/
As reminder Obama’s Science Czar and expert John Holdren warned us about global cooling in the 70′s. He and Paul Ehrlich wrote a book. I know O.S. is familliar with his work because he asked me have I ever read his book. These loonie tunes suggested some really radical ideas. Even though they don’t believe in god they want to act as a god by controlling the population.
Overpopulation was an early concern and interest. In a 1969 article, Holdren and co-author Paul R. Ehrlich argued, “if the population control measures are not initiated immediately, and effectively, all the technology man can bring to bear will not fend off the misery to come.”[21] In 1973, Holdren encouraged a decline in fertility to well below replacement in the United States, because “210 million now is too many and 280 million in 2040 is likely to be much too many.”[22] In 1977, Paul R. Ehrlich, Anne H. Ehrlich, and Holdren co-authored the textbook Ecoscience: Population, Resources, Environment; they discussed the possible role of a wide variety of solutions to overpopulation, from voluntary family planning to enforced population controls, including forced sterilization for women after they gave birth to a designated number of children, and discussed “the use of milder methods of influencing family size preferences” such as access to birth control and abortion.[12][23] [24]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Holdren
Remember these people are experts.
In a book Holdren co-authored in 1977, the man now firmly in control of science policy in this country wrote that:
• Women could be forced to abort their pregnancies, whether they wanted to or not;
• The population at large could be sterilized by infertility drugs intentionally put into the nation’s drinking water or in food;
• Single mothers and teen mothers should have their babies seized from them against their will and given away to other couples to raise;
• People who “contribute to social deterioration” (i.e. undesirables) “can be required by law to exercise reproductive responsibility” — in other words, be compelled to have abortions or be sterilized.
• A transnational “Planetary Regime” should assume control of the global economy and also dictate the most intimate details of Americans’ lives — using an armed international police force.
http://zombietime.com/john_holdren/
D.S.
“I’d like to refer you to China, which is a centrally planned economy, yet a huge polluter, so which is it you endorse? Buy products from China which rampantly pollutes, so you don’t have to have it here. Which completely stifles the real economy here so you can have a nice place to live. So central planning or free market? You can’t have both.”
NICE !!!!!!
The United States has one of the Worlds cleanest air standards. This is all a ploy by the communist now in charge of the country to do all it can to help communist China. Think about it. They open new coal fired energy plants every week and we shut ours down. No need for coal in the U.S. so ship it to China. XL Pipeline, we don’t need no oil from Canada. We will just ask the Saudi’s and Brazil to increase production. Send that oil to China.
Or maybe . . . they changed the name of the same phenomena so chowderheads wouldn’t run around saying “Well it’s not warmer here now!” or “It’s not colder here now!” as if that was actual evidence of the effect of the increased heat load in the entire atmosphere. Unstable weather of increasing frequency and severity before a radical climate shift has always been the danger if you actually understood the problem of AGW in the first place. Since you haven’t, well, that’s kind of a moot point, but as a matter of precision the term “climate disruption” is considerably more precise than “global warming” in conveying the essence of the problem to the layman and those who are scientifically ignorant by choice.
Should we really be encouraging the export of American coal to China?
http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/04/14/207890/export-coal-china/?mobile=nc
On a visit to Wyoming on March 22, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced that his department will sell four large coal leases to Antelope Coal LLC; Caballo Coal Company, an affiliate of Peabody Energy; and Alpha Coal West. It is expected that those leases would over 15 years provide the companies with 758 million tons of coal from the Powder River Basin. Interior will also decide this year on whether to advance proposed leases on another 1.6 billion tons of coal.
Why increase mining and production at the same time domestic coal demand is expected to slow? For export, of course. “We’re opening the door to a new era of U.S. exports from the nation’s largest and most productive coal region to the world’s best market for coal,” noted Peabody Energy Chairman and Chief Executive Gregory Boyce in a February statement. How much of that coal may eventually be exported is anybody’s guess. But the simple reality is that coal is on the decline in the United States amid an accelerating transition to natural gas and the prospect of full carbon dioxide emissions regulation by the Environmental Protection Agency.
Raff I appreciate the love and care that only a grandpa can give. I hope that when they become parents they don’t have to show pictures of you in the dark. All that clean air you want from them will be heading their way via China.
China, on the other hand, has emerged as a leader in developing clean, renewable energy, but its demand for coal is still staggering, and growing, and China is predicted to build 2,200 new coal-fired electric plants by 2030.
Coal companies, already boosting exports through Vancouver, British Columbia, are increasingly viewing China and other overseas markets as an answer to cooling domestic demand. While coal exports are still relatively small””about 41 million tons in 2009″”they are climbing fast according to data compiled by the Energy Information Administration. Through the first nine months of 2010, the United States exported nearly 61 million tons. Exports to Asia during the first three quarters of 2010 were three and a half times total 2009 exports; China’s imports from the United States rose by more than 10 and a half times in the same period.
http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/04/14/207890/export-coal-china/?mobile=nc
Worth repeating
China is predicted to build 2,200 new coal-fired electric plants by 2030.
Atmospheric CO2 is just over 390ppm. Expert James Hansen says that 350ppm is the safe zone. Safe from what I don’t know. It’s not hurricanes, tornado’s, droughts, flood’s, earthquakes. tsunamis and what ever else they claim that bad CO2 causes because all of the above was worse when it was below 350ppm.
The point is atmospheric CO2 will continue to rise unabated and will soon be above 400ppm. Well above the so called safe zone that James, the expert climate scientist, who also says he’s trying to protect his grand kids Hansen says is the safe zone. What a crock and you people buy that shit.
Gene H. 1, March 13, 2012 at 4:35 am
Farming communities facing crisis over nitrate pollution, study says
Gene we are talking about the air not the ground.
From Raffs post
“I was not surprised how many of the Republican Congressmen were attacking the EPA and its attempts to control and eliminate air pollution.”
Please try and stay on topic and not derail the thread to something you would like to talk about. As a guest poster why don’t you make it one of your topics instead. Hold your head up instead of looking down.
Also Gene, let me remind you that you are free to say whatever you like and I’m free to respond however I like. That is unless there something or someone compelling your actions. Those are factors under your control. How I respond to your pablum isn’t under your control.
If you’ve got a problem with that, it is entirely your problem and please don’t you forget it.
Oh really.
I guess the water and the ground aren’t part of the environment that the Environmental Protection Agency is supposed to protect then, is it?
Don’t let the fact that the hydrological cycle is intimately related to the atmosphere stop you from denying it either.
Nothing stops you from denying facts once you’re on a roll.
Also, Bdaman, let me remind you that you were the one trying to silence me just now before you realized you’d just crapped and stepped in it and issued your hasty addendum.
rafflaw 1, March 11, 2012 at 5:50 pm
Elaine and AY,
I welcome Bdaman’s comments . I was merely trying to steer him to the issue at hand.
rafflaw 1, March 11, 2012 at 6:03 pm
I understand Bdaman, but we are talking air pollution that cause health issues in this thread.
Your reading comprehension is not so good for someone who is smarter than the 99 percent.
Trying to silence me again? So soon after your oh so eloquent back peddling too.
Gene, I have given up on trying to follow Bdaman’s mental and logical gymnastics. I prefer my music to have more than one note and the lyrics to have more than just the four-line chorus.
OS,
At least in bagpipe music, the drone is broken up by a melody.
Gene, true dat.
Hey Bdaman:
Are you a chowder head?
Gene made this statement: ““climate disruption”"
What is climate disruption? Isnt that weather? And doesnt weather change from year to year and decade to decade? What was once hot becomes cold and what was once cold becomes hot.
Wasnt the Sahara Desert a grass land at one point in time? Now it is a desert. I would call that climate disruption and all without benefit of fossil fuels.
Funny how the earth’s climate has been in disruption for all of its 6 billion years and man has only been burning fossil fuels in any significant amount for around 100 years. That is like looking at a just fertilized ovum and projecting his great grandchild’s station in life at 60.
Bdaman,
O you really want to bring China into this discussion? At first you claim that the US as one of the best air pollution standards, but you want to be like China and burn more coal. How did the US get the high standards for ar quality? The work of the EPA. The very agency that you argue is unnecessary. Why should you be surprised at coal exports when most of the oil that you want to drill ends up bing exported?
“What is climate disruption? Isnt that weather?”
It sure is weather. Increasingly unpredictable and severe weather. Also, you should read back Bron. I wasn’t the one who brought that term to the party.
Bdaman,
O you really want to bring China into this discussion? At first you claim that the US as one of the best air pollution standards, but you want to be like China and burn more coal. How did the US get the high standards for ar quality? The work of the EPA.
Raff having high standards does not always equate to clean air.
http://www.travelandleisure.com/articles/the-worlds-cleanest-air
Take a deep breath. Chances are, the air filling your lungs is far from pure. Even if you live in a clean, ecologically conscious area, you may be inhaling pollutants from faraway, less-pristine locales. Your hometown air may contain microscopic particles of mercury-coated coal dust from China, diesel from Europe, ozone from Los Angeles, or carbon monoxide from India—or possibly a cocktail of all of the above.
There were a few surprises along the way. It came as quite a shock, for instance, that all of Continental Europe had to be excluded from our list. (The reason: population density combined with reliance on diesel engines.) Another surprise?Forest air doesn’t necessarily mean clean air.
The lesson is don’t confuse standards with results. Europe uses the most of green technologies yet has the worst air.
“What is climate disruption? Isnt that weather?”
It sure is weather.
Where is Ms. Elaine, Could you please explain to Gene weather is not climate. You would think that someone who is smarter than 99 percent would know this.
Regulation Nation: New study finds Obama’s regs cost $46 billion a year
Some 10,215 new federal regulations from the Obama administration are costing consumers, businesses and the economy overall $46 billion annually, more than five times the regulatory price tag of former President Bush in his first three years in office. Worse: just implementing those regulations had a one-time additional cost of $11 billion.
The most expensive regulation of 2011 was from the Environmental Protection Agency, which added five major rules costing $4 billion. Among them, stricter limits on industrial and commercial boilers and incinerators, for a cost of $2.6 billion annually for compliance.
“Without decisive steps, the costs of red tape will continue to grow, and the economy, and average Americans, will be the victims.”
http://washingtonexaminer.com/politics/washington-secrets/2012/03/regulation-nation-new-study-finds-obama%E2%80%99s-regs-cost-46-billion
” What ever the plants worth, no matter what the industry is they would have to uh, uh retro fit their operations. That will cost money and they will pass that on to consumers.”
Well you can now add obesity to the list.
Danish researchers have announced a rather wild hypothesis: Perhaps we are getting fatter and fatter because of the increasing CO2 levels in the atmosphere.
http://sciencenordic.com/new-theory-co2-makes-you-fat
Bdaman,
The washington examiner is a rag and should not be relied upon for anything, except maybe the weather.
On the air standards issue. You are correct that setting high standards does not guarantee the best air quality. Of course, your solution would be to have no standards and let the market take care of it. We know and history shows us, how that turned out.
Of course, your solution would be to have no standards and let the market take care of it.
Raff that is not my solution. There is no question man is polluting the planet. Lets go after the worst offenders. By suffocating the U.S. in more increased regulations will not guarantee more cleaner air but instead will cripple the U.S. economy. Are you aware that because of the choices Germany has made that over a half a million people now sit in the dark. This is where the U.S. is headed if we don’t reverse course.
weather \ˈwe-thər\, n.,
1: the state of the atmosphere with respect to heat or cold, wetness or dryness, calm or storm, clearness or cloudiness
2: state or vicissitude of life or fortune
3: disagreeable atmospheric conditions
climate \ˈklī-mət\, n.,
1: a region of the earth having specified climatic conditions
2a : the average course or condition of the weather at a place usually over a period of years as exhibited by temperature, wind velocity, and precipitation
[emphasis added]
Really, Bdaman, you should try to get over your own insecurities about your intelligence. It causes you to make mistakes like thinking weather isn’t climate. Besides, where I place on a statistical distribution (which is 97th percentile if you want to be accurate – not that accuracy is your hallmark) is irrelevant to the conversation even though it is the truth of the matter. So either you continually bring it up out of your own insecurity or you think it’s what? some sort of attack? That’s just funny. Would you like me to dumb it down for you, Bdaman? I don’t see how I could get much more basic than pointing out that your apparently made up definitions of words are crap, but I’ll try if it makes you feel better. Nah! I really don’t care if you’re intimidated by people smarter than you. It’s your problem. I think jealousy and insecurity are funny and a complete waste of time. Kind of like your perpetual denier posts. Mildly entertaining but ultimately lacking much if any substance . . . like a Chuck Lorre sitcom.
Now what was that you were saying about climate not being weather and weather not being climate? I’m also interested in hearing about how the hydrological cycle isn’t related to the atmosphere. Oh, and how free markets bereft of regulation is going to solve the pollution problem as long as there is profit to be made polluting.
Ooo. Or how a global problem is going to be solved by taking no action or retrograde action locally. Yeah. That’s pretty funny too.
Bdaman,
That dog won’t hunt. The bad choices are the head in the sand approach and your go after the worst offenders approach. The worst offenders is exactly who the EPA is designed to go after, but we can’t have a federal agency telling those nice corporations that they have to retrofit or obtain new, less polluting equiptment. If we keep denying and keep preventing the EPA from doing their job, we won’t have to worry about anyone else going dark. We won’t be able to breathe and sickness and death will increase unnecessarily.
Bdaman was the first person [or close to] on this blog to state that weather over time is climate.
Then that’s all the much sadder that he apparently doesn’t understand that relationship then.
Gene,
The relationship between pollution and sickness is what I am concerned with and it seems the Right wants no part of keeping children healthy because it may upset their corporate bosses. When so many of the obstructionists in the Congress are physicians it is a sad situation. .
raff,
Agreed.
The most important thing is to save the soul being like Jesus is. Teach the kids to do likewise. .
Bron isnt it funny how they including Gene argued weather is not climate but now it is.
Thats like saying global warming creates global cooling. Oh wait thats what they say now that it is.
Really. Prove that I’ve argued weather isn’t climate. I know for a fact climate is aggregate weather. That is what climate is by definition. I’m the one who just pointed it out to you. You can’t prove I’ve ever argued otherwise, so I guess that makes you a liar just now in addition to being stupid when you said “Ms. Elaine, Could you please explain to Gene weather is not climate.”
I’m guessing you’re still just pissed that the term “climate disruption” – which is and always has been the threat of AGW (combined with a possible climate shift at some point) – better describes the phenomena so that you can’t play your lil’ word games with the word “warming” in your denier nonsense.
The only sensible explanation for the fiercely political opposition of the right toward the entire science of climate change is rooted in human nature: those whose sense of self-worth is largely a function of material acquisition are terrified at the prospect of having to moderate certain creature comforts in order to preserve the planet for future generations. I do not believe that it is any more complicated than that.
Bdaman:
are you a climate change denier? I thought you were just an AGW denier.
Which is it? Climate changes all the time, that is what is so great about AGW proponents, climate cools AGW, climate warms AGW, too many hurricanes AGW, to few hurricanes AGW. Too much rain AGW, too little rain AGW.
How can human activity cause changes to all weather patterns and all climate?
Im on my phone ill find it Gene. I called for Ms. Elaine because she was the one who I had to explain it to while you acted as her cheerleader. Bron rembers thats why he said what he said.
Bdaman,
You did not have to explain anything to me about the difference between weather and climate. As I recall, I called you on the subject–quite some time ago.
How quickly we forget.
Bdaman,
Yes, it’s too bad that you have a selective memory.
Thats funny I just was saying the same thing about you.
Im driving at the moment trying to stay imbttween the lines but if memory serves me correctly which it usually does you askef me to explain to you how one day is indicative of climate and im 99 percent sure I know which thread. Sb how one days weather is indicative of climate.
What’s even funnier is my memory comports with Elaine’s.
Gene, they have made goalpost moving an art form.
Worse than watching a game of Pong.
I’m looking but we know that as far back as 2011 I made the claim that weather is climate. Still looking Buddha and Ms.Elaine
Gingerbaker 1, June 18, 2011 at 12:18 pm
bdaman:
“Daily weather leads to weekly weather which leads to monthly weather which leads to yearly weather. Yearly weather over time equals climate. So studying weather for fifty years gives you what the climate is like.”
I take back what I said about you. You’re not a moron.
You’re reply is an order of magnitude more stupid than that of a moron. The English language does not a word which can adequately convey the imbecilic vacuous boneheadedness of your reply.
Bdaman,
Pretty harsh language, don’t you think?
OS,
Yep.
*****************
To be clear, Bdaman, I’m not looking for proof of what somebody else said although I think Gingerbaker was on to something regarding you.
I’m looking for proof that I ever said weather isn’t climate.
I’ve cut you some slack because some of the other guest bloggers seem to like you, but since I’ve found out more about you and your past actions, I’m about all out of slack.
“Bron isnt it funny how they including Gene argued weather is not climate but now it is.”
Prove I said that.
I’m looking for proof that I ever said weather isn’t climate.
Oh I’m looking if you haven’t deleted it. I’ll find it. Just saw a post about the Russian heat wave you linked to as proof of global warming when NOAA has debunked it. I’ll find it. Might take me a while, you know there are alot of threads. Does it count if Buddha is Laughing said it
Yeah Raff boy back in those days I used to get called all kinds of names.
Now it’s pretty light. Conspiracy boy and chowder head just to name a few 
Ni Night fellas. Asta spumonte
I get it! Now it’s a conspiracy again and I’m somebody else.
Prove I said that. Not anyone else you might think I am or any other person. Demonstrate exactly how credible you are in your claims.
I’m working on it Gene.
Elaine M. 1, October 15, 2011 at 1:27 pm
Bron,
Weather and climate are not exactly the same thing.
I’d say the Kochs, Exxon, and other fossil fuel producers and corporate polluters are the ones with the agenda. They are funding many of the climate change deniers.
Bdaman 1, October 15, 2011 at 1:55 pm
Weather and climate are not exactly the same thing.
daily weather turns in to weekly weather which in turn turns to monthly.
Monthly turns into yearly and yearly turns into climate. 30 years of that daily, weekly, monthly figures defines the period in which climate is determined.
When we talk about climate change, we talk about changes in long-term averages of daily weather.
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/noaa-n/climate/climate_weather.html
And I’m done wit dis witness
This is now, then was then; some other myth, some other time.
The G. Lakes’ ice bites the dust:
(Great Lakes Ice: Going, going, gone).
Ms. Elaine still looking for the exact comments but I did find this.
Elaine M. 1, February 17, 2012 at 9:48 am
BTW, we’ve had the warmest winter I can remember here in Massachusetts–and I wasn’t born yesterday!
Bdaman 1, February 17, 2012 at 11:03 am
Oh and who was it that tells me that one day of weather does not equal climate. We’ll one winter doesn’t either. Just a couple of years ago it was snowmegeddon and snowpocalypse. Oh forgot that was caused by Global Warming. Too hot, Global Warming, Too cold, Global Warming. Drought, Global Warming, Flood, Global Warming.
Dredd how bout the Artcic is it going going gone. By the way I’ve got a bridge you may be interested in.
http://igloo.atmos.uiuc.edu/cgi-bin/test/print.sh?fm=03&fd=10&fy=1995&sm=03&sd=10&sy=2012
Bdaman:
Your honor, Bdaman’s expertise is in climate science, if you voir dire the witness on general climate knowledge, I think you will be satisfied.
Bdaman,
You had often posted reports about winter storms and cold weather to try to prove that there’s no global warming. As I said–I had called you on that. You proved my point when you wrote the following to me:
“Oh and who was it that tells me that one day of weather does not equal climate.”
Thanks!
Bron,
Bdaman IS an expert in Climate Change Science Denial. Is he also an expert in Creation Science? Better check with cousin Vinny!
With all due respect Ms. Elaine, maybe you need thicker glasses
Elaine:
Bdaman knows a good deal about climate and weather.
Why do you call it denial? As I have said before, Bdaman isnt denying climate change only that man has any significant impact on the change.
I would think the emails a few years ago would have been enough to convince people that something wasnt quite right. I read through a bunch and they seemed like standard chatter but there were a couple which were real eye openers. And I think more have come to light as well. These people fabricated data or at best misunderstood what they were seeing.
I think being skeptical of the AGW crowd is reasonable based on what they have been doing.
A long time ago when it was warm and dragon flies were really big, scientists are speculating there was a good deal more oxygen in the air to support those large insects. Is global warming caused by oxygen or carbon dioxide?
It seems to me the science is not settled and there is a good deal yet to learn. We dont even know if limiting CO2 might have some deleterious effect on our climate. Can you say with any degree of certainty the minimum level of CO2 required for life on earth?
Elaine:
what happens if there is some type of unknown feedback loop which will spin out of control if CO2 levels drop below 300 ppm? Which then causes CO2 to drop like a rock, life on earth could be wiped out all because we were worried about limiting CO2.
You say we dont need to worry and that all the computer models are good predictors? Oh, OK, I feel secure now.
Bdaman 1, October 30, 2011 at 1:34 pm
Elaine weather is climate
Climate is made up of daily weather observations over the years. A 30 year span is accepted as climatic period. BEST study is based on a 30 year period.
How do you think they come up with the daily, weekly, monthly and yearly averages of temperature. By noting the observation on a daily basis.
Slartibartfast 1, October 30, 2011 at 1:38 pm
Bdaman said: “weather is climate”
Hey Bdaman, your ignorance is showing.
Elaine,
Thanks for showing us examples of how naive Bron’s understanding is.
Tell me how good my memory is. Pretty good for at least 4-5 months. Like I said Ms. Elaine maybe you need thicker glasses.
Gene your next if you haven’t scrubbed it. Based on the ability of my now proven memory and recall your probably like a cockroach scrabbling in the kitchen when the light switch got turned on.
Last night
Bdaman 1, March 13, 2012 at 9:57 pm
Im driving at the moment trying to stay imbttween the lines but if memory serves me correctly which it usually does you askef me to explain to you how one day is indicative of climate and im 99 percent sure I know which thread. Sb how one days weather is indicative of climate.
Elaine M. 1, October 30, 2011 at 1:43 pm
Bdaman,
One snowstorm is not indicative of the climate where I live. We have four seasons here. We have hot weather, cold weather, and temperate weather. We have dry days and days with precipitation. Explain to me how one day’s weather is indicative of the prevailing climate where I live.
Bdaman,
“Climate is made up of daily weather observations over the years.”
Really? Who knew? My, you are an expert on climate science. Maybe you should give a presentation before the National Academy of Sciences!
*****
Bron: “You say we dont need to worry and that all the computer models are good predictors?”
As is his habit, Bron has once again put words in my mouth.
Bdaman,
You quoted me in a comment above:
“One snowstorm is not indicative of the climate where I live. We have four seasons here. We have hot weather, cold weather, and temperate weather. We have dry days and days with precipitation. Explain to me how one day’s weather is indicative of the prevailing climate where I live.”
BTW, did you ever provide an explanation?
“Gene your next if you haven’t scrubbed it. Based on the ability of my now proven memory and recall your probably like a cockroach scrabbling in the kitchen when the light switch got turned on.”
Actually I’m having a coffee and laughing at your above “evidence” against Elaine. Two statements, out of context, from different threads and nothing at all with a link to the source of the statements. Yeah. I’m just terrified. Just so you know, I’ve got a busy day today, so it might be this evening before I get a chance to laugh at you again.
Elaine:
I merely offered it as a possible/plausible reply.
Why dont you tell me your actual response?
Gene,
I happen to think that Bdaman is helping to prove my point about weather and climate.
In addition to not providing links to the threads or specific comments–he also doesn’t include the comments he made that I was responding to with my comments.
We have a long history of discussions on climate science on this blog with Bdaman. I don’t intend to spend my day searching through posts to locate comments that both he and I have made in the past on the subject.
Cousin Vinny is your “go to” guy?
Elaine M.
Explain to me how one day’s weather is indicative of the prevailing climate where I live.”
and I said
Im driving at the moment, if memory serves me correctly you asked me to explain how one days weather was indicative of climate and now you want me to explain it to you again?
You didn’t remember before what makes you think you will remember now
go get the glasses first 
In addition to not providing links to the threads or specific comments–he also doesn’t include the comments he made that I was responding to with my comments.
Sometimes I get the BEST results.
http://jonathanturley.org/2011/10/29/b-e-s-t-results/
Actually I’m having a coffee and laughing.
I’ve got a busy day today, so it might be this evening before I get a chance to laugh at you again.
Yeah we know you can never stray to far away from the laughing eh BIL
Bdaman,
You continue to imply that I don’t understand/didn’t understand the difference between weather and climate. You know that to be untrue. How about a little more honesty in the conversation?
I would suggest that you need glasses–but you couldn’t handle the truth even if you saw it printed clearly in front of you..
Bdaman 1, March 14, 2012 at 6:58 am
Dredd how bout the Artcic is it going going gone. By the way I’ve got a bridge you may be interested in.
==========================
Here is the one you and the other deniers are on, all
rogue and maverickyamygdala induced ecocidal about it.Bdaman,
Another “threadjack”. Well played. The story was about air pollution, not climate change, but again it becomes all about Bdaman. One would think that “air pollution” might be something of interest to all. Given that certain American cities, such as LA have had smog issues to the point of becoming cliched. As I remember one of the concerns of the Beijing Olympics was the poor air quality due to over industrialization of that great city. “Global Warming” and/or “Climate Change” may be seen by some as wrong thinking, but surely local pollution is of interest to all of us.
Apparently not to you and Bron, who both have their heads so far up their asses of the industrial elite that you would sacrifice the health of your and/or others children to ensure that their bottom line is not affected. For men who one would think consider themselves independent thinkers the motivation for this would seem tenuous. However, we come to realize that both of you are really not interested in specific issues and their resolutions per se, but are intellectually the equals of those crazy Northern NFL fans, who go bare-chested in 10 degree weather, painted with their team colors, screaming drunkenly that the Refs got it wrong.
It is sad really that we can’t have a dialogue involving the full spectrum of political opinion. As someone who has been here for a long time and therefore knows all the players and their thinking, the stalwarts on this blog, come from all over the political spectrum. The constant has been Jonathan, whose interest is not in the politics of issues, but in their adherence to Constitutional principles. This is not a liberal blog, or a conservative blog, but merely a place where different viewpoints can be expressed with some depth of reasoning.
The dialogue has been made harder by both of you since like those crazy football fanatics, you endlessly root for your home team in the inane chanting of the true believer. Over the years though the difference has been that Bron (a man of many identities) has frequently viewed particular issues with a much more nuanced tone. You Bdaman, have not done nuance particularly well and at times, one of which we two know well, have gone beyond the bounds of decency. Your usual maneuver, since I’ve come to know your style so well, is to lamely reply “just “funning” with Ya”, whenever you become frustrated by the demolition of your premises.
It’s really getting old and boring Bdaman, as I wrote last night on another thread. Nothing will be done about your trolling since we don’t censor here, but like myself what will happen is that everyone will just cease to pay any attention to your scripted remarks and then you will just be howling in the wind.
A few final points to be made though. You certainly have a need to keep bringing up Buddha, seemingly offended by what you deem to be sneaky legerdemain. Perhaps you might contemplate your own excesses when you call people liars. Perhaps for those who don’t know a little blog history needs retelling, since one of the problems people seem to have these days is a blank memory of even the recent past and because acts of contrition and the resultant forgiveness, quickly become forgotten by the contrite.
Around three years ago you used a anti-Jewish slur towards me, due to your frustration over an argument between us. Faced with a tremendous response of condemnation, led by Buddha, you apologized for it. I accepted your apology. Two other things began happening at a somewhat later point, one was the severe illness of your mother and the second was the increased failure of my heart. During those times of anguish and pain for both of us, we each reached out to the other in sympathy/empathy. The entire community here also reached out to you in your time of travail with Mom and in a sense that was when in revealing your human side you ceased to be identified as a troll and were accepted into the community.
It was the humanity of your pain that gave rise to the different feeling we all had towards you. You stopped being the repetitive troll and became a human being sharing the frailty all of us humans share. Despite your anonymous identity, you became real to us. This blog in its content has always bee about the human condition and its foibles. One doesn’t have to expose their real identities to be able to be identified with, merely show some authenticity in their behavior. I must say that lately you’ve again fallen into a production of in-authenticity and not only is the real person behind the Bdaman identity lost, but you do your causes little good because in their endless repetition of talking points people cease to take your seriously.
Henry David Thoreau, said by some to be the first environmentalist, kept careful climate records which scientists take interest in:
(Scientists Use Thoreau’s Journal). Some think he was a wacko because he did not think the Earth is young and flat.
IMO, he would have approved of the EPA.
Mike Spindell 1, March 14, 2012 at 10:52 am
Bdaman,
Another “threadjack”. Well played. The story was about air pollution, not climate change, but again it becomes all about Bdaman.
===============================================
“The story was about air pollution, not climate change …”
They are, most likely, inextricably intertwined, one producing the other.
“… but again it becomes all about Bdaman.”
No argument there.
Dredd no one I know denies the earth has warmed. It is now cooling slightly and has been for 15 years.
Bdaman 1, March 14, 2012 at 12:28 pm
Dredd no one I know denies the earth has warmed. It is now cooling slightly and has been for 15 years.
===========================
You obviously confuse “the Earth” with “the hearts of deniers”, who are now cooling, and have been doing so since The Marshall Institute started the chill, circa 1984.
That ice cream cone head meme complex now has more flavas than Ben & Jerry’s.
What that meme complex along, with the flat earthers, do not fathom, because of their fear of death, will become flat liners along with the rest of us.
Preserving the Earth will keep us alive longer than denial will.
Dredd it is fact that theres been no statistical warming for the last 15 years. Ti deny that is absurd. Phil Jones the head of the Climatic Reearch Unit is on record stating no statistical warming for the last 15 years.
Mike:
first of all, for the record, I love clean air and water. I love to fish and there is nothing better than fresh fish cooked in an old iron skillet on the side of a lake or river. Hopefully one that doesnt have harmful chemicals or elements in their flesh.
Secondly, I have many solutions to problems except you refuse to see them because of your mindset. You accuse me of being up the asses of industrialists, OK. You are up the asses of workers and you sound like Vladimir Lenin in his letter to the American Working Man. We all know how well the old Soviet Union worked out and what a workers paradise it was. Pardon me if I think working men and women deserve more out of life.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/aug/20.htm
As I pointed out on another thread where there is prosperity there are high wages. And if government would quit printing money there would be better spending power. Real wages doubled in the 19th century. I dont like human misery and suffering which is why I am a capitalist.
I think you can have it all, a low tax rate, high wages, good jobs and a social safety net for those who cannot work. But the powers that be (on both sides) refuse to relinquish their power. I think you [progressives] do far more to keep the elite you bitch about in power than people who think like me. You make it easy for them to retain their power because you give them “moral” power and control of the purse and they dispense “their” goodies [which are actually the people's goodies (tax dollars) wrapped in a different package but most people are too ignorant of economics or too greedy to figure that out or admit it].
Nothing wrong with selling some of the millions of acres of government owned land, government has no business owning hundreds of millions of acres. They ought to have a lottery of all the citizens or just give people who want some land a few acres. Then the people could decide if they wanted to keep it or sell it. I would say keep the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Yellowstone and other similar spectacular parks public. But I have been to the north slope and it isnt all that great.
Progressives always want it their way and for the most part you have had it your way for the last century. This is a new century and the tired old ideas of the past just dont cut it anymore. Time to get back to true liberalism instead of just high jacking the word and distorting the concept.
You should read the early works of John Stuart Mill on economics, really interesting stuff.
I tried to explain that to Ms. Elaine with a link to the Dailmail then she attacked by saying the Dailymail is owned by some right winger so the information could not be trusted. When I provided the same info but linked to the BBC there was scilence. So let me repeat it for you. FACT, THERE HAS BEEN NO STATISTICAL WARMING FOR THE LAST 15 years. The sattelite record shows this. If you dont believe that then you and others are now the deniers.
Bdaman 1, March 14, 2012 at 12:49 pm
Dredd it is fact that theres been no statistical warming for the last 15 years. Ti deny that is absurd. Phil Jones the head of the Climatic Reearch Unit is on record stating no statistical warming for the last 15 years.
=====================================================
… “statistical warming” … now there is a new Ben & Jerry flava for chillin’ ice cream cone head statistical deniers.
That means obviously that the Earth is warming because everyone knows it, b b b but it is not “statistical” in its warming.
Gotta have statistical if ya wanna dance wid Bdaman, who can boogie down baby.
Don’t wanna dance with you Bdaman, because the ideology you puke out so frivolously kills millions of children, now, as well as in the non-global-flat earth, non-global-flat liner future.
Your mom’s death, nor my mom’s death, merits that kind of fear in us.
What Mike S said.
“This is a new century and the tired old ideas of the past just dont cut it anymore”
Bron couldn’t agree more, but your solutions are the “tired old ideas” that started with Reagan and have run this country into the ground in the last 32 years. Also as I pointed out you are far more original in your arguments than is Bdaman, who mostly just cuts and pastes.
Bron 1, March 14, 2012 at 12:54 pm
Mike:
first of all, for the record, I love clean air and water. I love to fish and there is nothing better than fresh fish cooked in an old iron skillet on the side of a lake or river. Hopefully one that doesnt have harmful chemicals or elements in their flesh.
Secondly, I have many solutions to problems except you refuse to see them because of your mindset. You accuse me of being up the asses of industrialists … [diversion to canard Marxism] …
=============================================
You can’t have those things you want if you don’t stop what is destroying those things. Unless you imbibe heavily of the intoxicants in denialism.
The people you listen to, the source of your “knowledge“, will remove that from you, because God told them “the Earth is your bitch to do with as you please.”
Problem with that is the Earth is a “feminazi” who will tear you, your state, and your nation, including everyone you love, limb from limb, if you keep that shit up.
Bdaman,
Vince Treacy isn’t the only person who is bored with you and your climate change denial and birther arguments. I am also tired of your tripe–and the way you cherry-pick comments made by others in your calculated attempt to question our veracity and/or knowledge. You post a small portion of a previous discussion and present it as the whole story. Sometimes we respond with silence because arguing with you is futile. We can lead you to water–but we can’t make you drink. You prefer the right-wing corporate Kool-aid to H2O.
Say what you want im laughing about it because not one person can prive with the actual factual data that hurricaned,typhoons,tornadoes,droughts,floods,earthquakes etc,etc are increasing along with the fact that there has been no warming for the last 15 years. I challenge anyone and everyone to show me any of the abive is increasing including sea level and the melting of the Arctic in spite of CO2 near 400 ppm.
Bdaman=boring
Global Warming Denier Forecast feat. Sam Seder
Elaine, the deniers want to use simple models for complex structures. As a scientist, I shudder at the simplistic explanations and cherry picking of data. That kind of thing would get you fired if you did it in a real academic setting. No respectable professional journal would touch that kind of toxic reasoning.
Elaine, the deniers want to use simple models for complex structures.
Here’s the simple and it comes from the experts. Bdaman didn’t make it up, the experts did. So if you want to complain that it’s simple talk to the experts.
Adding CO2 to the atmosphere will increase global temperatures. 350ppm is the upper limit of the so called safe zone. It was originally 450ppm until James Hansen said that he overstated that number and decreased it to 350ppm. See the website 350.org.
We are now approaching 400ppm and there has been no warming for the last 15 years. Not only has there not been any increase in temperature, there has been no increase in the number of hurricanes. In fact, we are in the longest stretch in recorded hurricane history without a major hurricane strike on the United States well over 2000 days.This breaks the previous record set in the 1900′s. World wide tropical cyclone activity remains at 30 years lows,four years in a row. On top of that, Sea level rise has stopped and has been decreasing for the last three years. Additionally Arctic Sea Ice is increasing. There has been no increase in the amount of tornado’s, droughts, floods etc.etc.
Those are the facts. I can’t help that you people are in denial of the facts. I find it quite amusing that on a attorney’s blog people don’t want to argue facts. Instead you would rather attack the witness. Whats the old saying if you can argue the facts argue the facts and if you cant then argue he law. If you can’t do either discredit the witness.
There are more damn molecules besides CO2 that cause problems in the atmosphere and free water. Not all of them cause climate change, some are just plain poison; however, there are many that affect temperatures.
Go cuddle up with Eliza.
Here is the graph showing temperatures on a decline since 1998.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1998/plot/rss/from:1998/trend
What Mike S. said.
Hurricane Strikes
http://www.real-science.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/ScreenHunter_19-Feb.-03-11.11.gif
Hard data
http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/hurdat/ushurrlist18512009.txt
NOAA and Tornado’s
With increased national Doppler radar coverage, increasing population, and greater attention to tornado reporting, there has been an increase in the number of tornado reports over the past several decades. This can create a misleading appearance of an increasing trend in tornado frequency. To better understand the true variability and trend in tornado frequency in the U.S., the total number of strong to violent tornadoes (EF3 to EF5 category on the Enhanced Fujita scale) can be analyzed. These are the tornadoes that would have likely been reported even during the decades before Doppler radar use became widespread and practices resulted in increasing tornado reports. The bar chart below indicates there has been little trend in the frequency of the strongest tornadoes over the past 55 years.
Overall, most tornadoes (around 77 percent) in the U.S. are considered weak (EF0 or EF1) and about 95 percent of all U.S. tornadoes are below EF3 intensity. The remaining small percentage of tornadoes are categorized as violent (EF3 and above). Of these violent twisters, only a few (0.1 percent of all tornadoes) achieve EF5 status, with estimated winds over 200 mph and nearly complete destruction. However, given that on average over 1000 tornadoes hit the U.S. each year, that means that 20 can be expected to be violent and possibly one might be incredible (EF5).
Improved tornado observation practices have led to an increase in the number of reported weaker tornadoes, and in recent years the number of EF-0 and EF-1 tornadoes have become more prevelant in the total number of reported tornadoes. In addition, even today many smaller tornadoes still may go undocumented in places with low populations or inconsistent communication facilities.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/severeweather/tornadoes.html
Jet Propolsion Lab on Sea level
Like mercury in a thermometer, ocean waters expand as they warm. This, along with melting glaciers and ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, drives sea levels higher over the long term. For the past 18 years, the U.S./French Jason-1, Jason-2 and Topex/Poseidon spacecraft have been monitoring the gradual rise of the world’s ocean in response to global warming.
While the rise of the global ocean has been remarkably steady for most of this time, every once in a while, sea level rise hits a speed bump. This past year, it’s been more like a pothole: between last summer and this one, global sea level actually fell by about a quarter of an inch, or half a centimeter.
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-262
Keep in mind that Jason 1 and 2 have only been monitoring for the last 18 years prior to that it was manual recordings prone to error and or adjustments.
Mike S what Dredd said
Mike Spindell 1, March 14, 2012 at 10:52 am
Bdaman,
Another “threadjack”. Well played. The story was about air pollution, not climate change, but again it becomes all about Bdaman.
===============================================
“The story was about air pollution, not climate change …”
They are, most likely, inextricably intertwined, one producing the other.
Dredd gets it.
Another reason to keep the EPA, especially after the Supreme Court ruled they are responsible for CO2 regulation:
(Journal Nature – Climate Change). “Irreversible” is a word to take note of.
“The story was about air pollution, not climate change …”
They are, most likely, inextricably intertwined, one producing the other.
Dredd gets it.”
Bdaman,
The story is about the continuance of the EPA and its’ effectiveness. Do you think the EPA should be abolished, climate change notwithstanding? Give us your script for that.
“No Duty to Protect” makes clear that there is no functional purpose for most government agencies that currently do exist under the theory that protection of the public is relevant; that makes all agencies redundant along with faith based initiatives, the police, the FBI, and the CIA. It may well make defunct the military if not actively in a war, and makes service during peace time redundant.
This has never been a position consistent with the right to life, liberty, and property, and equal protection that has been taught are the fundamentals of the Constitution. Further, it may make the Department of Immigration irrevelant, and the Department of Health functionally extraneous to the American public.
If there is no duty to protect, doesn’t that deny the function of the courts installed to protect justice interests of the public? And preemptive removal of children from families would be illegal from a judicial perspective – if there is no duty to protect.
How this ruling crept into public law is a mystery because the public has always believed that government is there to serve the people, not themselves. And usually, that means public protection that justifies the construction of all government agencies. Without the need, why have them? Lay them off just like corporations do as redundant.
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No matter what you do pollution is going to carry on, we are doing much better then we did 15 years ago, but we still have a log way to go. I hope that we can figure out how to live and control out pollution!
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