Academia, Free Speech, International

New York City Gives 1.1 Million Students Free Pass From School To Join Climate Change Protests

There is an interesting story in the New York Times that the city has decided that any of its 1.1 million public school students will be allowed to skip classes without penalties to join the global youth climate strikes to be held this Friday. As someone who has long advocated for action on climate change and opposes the Trump environmental policies, I am entirely in support of demonstrations. However, the decision raises some concerns over how the New York Public School system chooses which protests to sanction. Would students be permitted next month to attend anti-climate change protests? If not, this authority is being used in a viewpoint discriminatory manner.

The protests are planned to coincide with political leaders who are in NYC for the United Nations Climate Action Summit and a later General Assembly meeting. Some 2400 events are planned from Sept. 20 through Sept. 27.

This is a big deal for environmentalists and I am happy to see students participating. However, from a free speech standpoint, it would seem that the school system has to have an open policy for participation in any protests if it is to be fair to conservative or other students. Otherwise, this policy is just a reflection of the bias of the school officials. I happen to share their view but I am concerned over how students will be treated with an opposing viewpoint.

What do you think?

483 thoughts on “New York City Gives 1.1 Million Students Free Pass From School To Join Climate Change Protests”

  1. South Dakota’s “Riot-Boosting” Law Aims to Curb the Next Standing Rock Before it Even Starts

    Encouraging a riot without participating was already a state felony, punishable by up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000.

    “If you pay for a bus ticket for someone to go to a rally to South Dakota,” as an example, “and at the rally, four people do something violent, now you have, under the terms of this law, paid for someone to go to this event, you are civilly liable.” A judge speculated that the law could be used to prosecute a person who, for example, threatens an oil pipeline construction crew that illegally trespasses on their land.

    Wonder when Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is going back to Indian Country & stir up trouble in the Dakotas. In the meantime, AOC is targeting Democrat bosses & lawmakers.

  2. In March kids marched for the climate in New Zealand. The following is an open letter to them.

    Mar 14, 2019

    Open letter to anyone marching for ‘the climate’ today

    By Brian Dingwall

    Hi kids,

    Many of you will be marching today, demonstrating for an issue you believe to be very
    important.

    Many years ago, I was young, well informed, and absolutely convinced I knew enough to make good decisions for the future of the world, and couldn’t understand just how obtuse all the oldies were, how they just didn’t know the stuff I had just learned.

    Malthusian economics drove most of us, the Club of Rome had reported, and to my subsequent shame, I confess that in 1975 I voted for the Values Party….I wanted a better world, I knew
    resources were on the verge of running out, the population was out of control, and we were polluting our one and only planet. It was, I thought, time for the change that was so desperately required.

    The Values party did not get in, to our surprise the resources did not run out, Simon won his bet with catastrophist Erhlich, as countries became more wealthy they cleaned up their environments, particularly water, farmlands, and air.

    China is now wealthy enough to be doing exactly that right now, following in the footsteps of Japan, Taiwan, and Korea. We certainly never see the famous foaming rivers of industrial Japan anymore. Economists now understand that the ultimate resource, the human
    imagination, never runs out.

    So is it likely to be with climate change. I urge you to never abandon your skepticism, for a critical mind is your most important asset.

    Be able to articulate exactly what evidence has persuaded you to your opinion. Opinions though, are not evidence. Consensus is not evidence.

    The world has many historic consensuses that have turned out to not be so. So far, I don’t mind sharing with you, I have yet to be persuaded.

    My background is in science, with a smattering of economics, and statistics and I well understand the case for catastrophic climate change. I find it unconvincing. As do a raft of well qualified experts in many fields, even Nobel prize winners, and I urge you to find out who they are, and why they have reservations.

    There are two sides to this debate, but only one is well resourced, so you have to work a bit harder to find the arguments of the skeptical scientists.

    One of the very great tragedies of the whole issue is that since 1990, it has been very difficult for scientists to garner resources from governments to research natural climate change, but we can be certain that the forces that wreaked great climate changes in the past are still active, and may be a much greater magnitude than those wreaked by CO2.

    For today please reflect on these things:

    All the CO2 being released today is simply being returned to the atmosphere whence it came, and is now available to the biosphere, which we can see is already flourishing as a result. Global temperatures have increased (about 0.7C degrees in last 100 years) ever since the little ice age, and continue to but at nothing like the rate predicted by climate models.

    We live from the equator to (nearly) the poles, and hence are particularly adaptable, and will adapt to minor temperature changes and have in the past through climate optima, and little ice ages.

    Much of the land surface of the earth is too cold for habitation or agriculture, some warming of the northern latitudes of Canada and Russia for example will be welcomed.

    Here in New Zealand, we produce food for the world, with one of, if not the lowest “carbon footprints” of any country. Should you actually succeed in killing this industry, that production will be conducted elsewhere, at a higher carbon cost…so the improvement as you see it, in New Zealand’s emissions will be more than offset by extra emissions elsewhere…we will be adding to the problem, not mitigating it.

    It is also very important that each of you understands that for any complex problem, there are a range of decisions, trade-offs, to be considered. Do we understand all the benefits that follow from the use of fossil fuels? How many of these are we prepared to sacrifice?

    What would a fossil fuel-less world look like for you (hint: I don’t think you would like it very much).

    Have you read or even heard of the “moral case for fossil fuels”, and do you understand the extent to which they feed and clothe the world, provide us with our tools, and our leisure, empower our devices, and enable our travel at present? House us and clean us?

    You are not informed if you only read one side of the case. I happen to believe in free markets, the economics of von Mises, Hayek, Friedman, Simon, McCloskey, and many of the moderns but I have also read Marx, and various of the collectivist economists, you must know what all the opinion leaders are saying and why.

    So do seek out “lukewarmers” like Curry, Lewis, Christy, Soon, Balunias, they will lead you to a raft of others “the counter-consensus” that you, like me, may find rather more convincing than
    the orthodox climate church.

    Personally I have learned that what I knew at your age (vastly more than my parents knew, of course) was not always right…now captured in the expression “it’s not what we don’t know, it’s what we know for sure that just ain’t so”.

    We once believed in leeches, blood-letting, that washing our hands was not important, that continents didn’t drift, that stress causes ulcers, a daily aspirin is good, and that there is always an imminent catastrophe on the horizon that never materializes.

    The question is whether what we know for sure that the specific climate change you worry about is human caused, will have a measurable and substantial impact, and is real. What climate change would have been quite natural? Will we look back in years to come
    and think “we believed what?”

    Have we included accurately in our models the impacts of short and long term natural oceanic cycles, cosmic rays impact on cloud nucleation, clouds, the sun and sunspots, what, if anything, is there still that we don’t know that we don’t know? Can we get initial conditions right?

    Always examine closely the logic of the case…we have only one world so all we can do is create computer models of the climate, and wait to see if nature tells us the models are a good approximation of the real world suitable for projecting future climates…and if climate is a 30 year average of all our global “weather” then we probably have to wait at least two preferably more periods of 30 years simply to validate the models so 100 years or so.

    So far the projections and predictions have been wildly wrong, the polar ice is healthy, the Manhattan freeway is not underwater, sea-level rise is not accelerating, and snow is far from “a thing of the past”. As climate scientist and keeper of one of the satellite records ironically observes “the models all agree the observations are wrong”.

    And the economics don’t work, as Nobel prize winner Nordhaus teaches the cost of mitigation is an order of magnitude greater than the cost of the problem, so the cure is worse than the disease.

    Don’t take my word for it, or anyone’s. Read for yourselves, go to source. Do not trust any scientist who calls a peer scientist a “denier”.

    Understand peer review, and that a peer reviewed paper is more often than not just the opening salvo in a chain of events that may or may not ultimately expose a scientific truth.

    Be very careful of any theory where the accepted facts (historic temperatures, and the location and number of the thermometers)) change regularly to suit the narrative.

    And finally, enjoy your day, be yourselves, trust your own judgment, read widely, and look behind the data to the motives of the players.

    There is a (slim) chance you are right, but even if you are, trust in human ingenuity, that fabulous engine of change, to ensure survival not of the world as we know it, but of an even better world than previous generations enjoyed…we will not revert to sleeping with our
    food animals on dirt floors with unpainted walls! As humans have done for most of our time on earth.

    http://icecap.us/index.php/go/political-climate/open_letter_to_anyone_marching_for_the_climate_today1/

    2. “Economists now understand that the ultimate resource, the human imagination, never runs out.”: Wow!! Arrogant., foolish hubris. A dying person runs out of time and air and food and health. then they die. their imagination does not save them. This can happen to communities of people too.

      I went to the link and saw this at the bottom. ”
      © 2007-08 ICECAP, all rights reserved.”

      guess what: since 2007, the polar ice cap has definitely taken a hit. and greenland and antarctica too. this article with its hopium and englightenment style notions of progress is outdated.

  3. JT, climate change is not a political question but an accepted fact by the scientific community, with only a very few informed objectors. Therefore an anti-climate change protest would not carry the same weight. and by definition would be a crack pot political rally, not one of fact especially concerning to our youth.

    Every major, respected, and relevant scientific organization in the world, including all National Academies of Science and the American Association for the Advancement of Science concur with the IPCC on the reality and threat of global warming caused by human activity. The link below lists these organizations and their positions. As noted, the last scientifc organization to drop it’s opposition was the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, which in 2007 updated its statement to its current non-committal position.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_consensus_on_climate_change

    1. JT, climate change is not a political question but an accepted fact by the scientific community,

      It’s actually disputed within the world of meteorology and climatology. One of the dissenters is Richard Lindzen, who may be the country’s most eminent climatologist.

      1. Richard Lindzen and Judith Curry are the two most prominent challengers, but neither believes AGW is not happening. They question the speed. 97% of other climate scientists disagree with them.

        Are you feeling lucky punk?

            1. Anon1 – he was one man who stood for himself and was later found right. The consensus of scientists said he was wrong. The consensus said the guy who came up with pangaea was wrong, He was right. I could go on. Consensus is useless in science. Read Weart.

              1. So that is what you are counting on.

                Sure Paul all the experts are wrong, and you have it figured out.

                1. Anon1 – Climate science is a religion. Michael Mann and his crew refuse to give up their data so their results can be duplicated. Billions of dollars of research and grant money is available for the taking. You would have to be a heretic not to climb on board.

                  1. Sure Paul. Obama, Gore, and Mann are the ring leaders and all the other peer reviewed (look it up) research and scientists are just pawns in their game and part of the plot.

                    You’re a genius to have figured it all out.

                    1. Anon1 – Gore is a useful idiot. Obama, who knows what he is up to. Michael Mann IS a ring leader.

                    2. Paul, you mean this idiot”

                      “Al Gore and the Internet

                      By Robert Kahn and Vinton Cerf

                      Al Gore was the first political leader to recognize the importance of the
                      Internet and to promote and support its development.

                      No one person or even small group of persons exclusively “invented” the
                      Internet. It is the result of many years of ongoing collaboration among
                      people in government and the university community. But as the two people
                      who designed the basic architecture and the core protocols that make the
                      Internet work, we would like to acknowledge VP Gore’s contributions as a
                      Congressman, Senator and as Vice President. No other elected official, to
                      our knowledge, has made a greater contribution over a longer period of
                      time….”

                      http://amsterdam.nettime.org/Lists-Archives/nettime-l-0009/msg00311.html

                      Robert Kahn is the co-inventor of the TCP/IP protocols and was responsible for originating DARPA’s Internet program. Known as one of the “Fathers of the Internet,” Kahn demonstrated the ARPNET by connecting 20 different computers at the International Computer Communication Conference. It was then that people realized the importance of packet switching technology.

                      Vinton Cerf, in full Vinton Gray Cerf, (born June 23, 1943, New Haven, Connecticut, U.S.), American computer scientist who is considered one of the founders, along with Robert Kahn, of the Internet. In 2004 both Cerf and Kahn won the A.M. Turing Award, the highest honour in computer science, for their “pioneering work on internetworking, including the design and implementation of the Internet’s basic communications protocols, TCP/IP, and for inspired leadership in networking.”

                    3. anon that was an interesting piece about gore and the internet

                      key thing:

                      “As Vice President Gore promoted building the Internet both up and out, as
                      well as releasing the Internet from the control of the government agencies
                      that spawned it.”

                      well his stock went up I guess. A true element of dark genius in how the government unleashed the internet and allowed it to exponentially grow and thus allowed it to become the monster it is today, a mass surveillance tool of previously unimaginable power. Its growth was facilitated exactly by unleashing it! By getting people to use it in a multitude of ways, by unleashing the power of mass human creativity, in a wild and chaotic electronic frontier. It was wide open for a long time, and only now is it being tightened up like a noose.

                      The internet. It’s become more powerful than having big surveillance screens like Orwell put in 1984, the internet measures our minutest thoughts which we feed into a network that can be tapped by government and others and is routinely scoured and mass harvested by the NSA

                      And everybody just clicks “yes” to a thousand different terms of use that empowers thousands of faceless spies one after another.

                      Felix Derzhinsky, the soviets did not even dream of having surveillance power over its citizens like they now have over us.

                      Yeah, thanks Al. If that was your evil genius, then you definitely deserve your place in history.

                      Arthur C Clarke wrote a book back in 2000 called the Light of Other Days, that explored some of these themes of privacy and its collapse under technological development.

                2. Anon1:
                  Climate Change is a political football promulgated by a boondoggling gang of scientists determined to use false crises to feed at the public trough. No one really believes the farce except those who benefit from it. That Obama bought a waterfront palace in MV says all we need to know about the efficacy of climate change. And all we need to know about Obama. Either a fool or a grifter. You decide.

                  1. Mespo, so you’re saying Obama is behind the thousands of scientists worldwide posting their phony “peer reviewed” “research”/ Paul said it was that guy Mann. Well I guess that explains all the failures of science we’ve had to put up with for the last 150 years! You could tell those kind of guys in college were just interested in making easy money while they hid behind those “slide rules”. I’ll bet it’s what they counted their ill gotten gains with.

                    Thanks for letting us know about this.

                    By the way, you must have courtroom standard proof for all this right?

                    1. Anon 1:

                      “Mespo, so you’re saying Obama is behind the thousands of scientists worldwide posting their phony “peer reviewed” “research”/ Paul said it was that guy Mann.”
                      *****************

                      No, I’m saying Obama has made an admission by conduct in taking an action contrary to his stated belief. The admission is he doesn’t believe the global warming nonsense either.

                    3. mespo, you also think that Obama’s new property maybe going under water in 2100 if we don;t take corrective action is an actual threat to him and his interest in the property?

                      Really?

          1. “The conclusive findings of this research are that the three GAST data sets are not a valid representation of reality. In fact, the magnitude of their historical data adjustments,that removed their cyclical temperature patterns,are totally inconsistent with published and credible U.S. and other temperature data. Thus,it is impossible to conclude from the threepublished GAST datasets that recent years have been the warmest ever –despite current claims of record setting warming.”

              1. Anon1:

                “And it’s on the internet!!

                It must be true mespo!”

                **********************

                So’s the writings of Nietzsche. Being on the net makes them neither true nor false.

    2. Anon1 – there is a difference between consensus and fact. The majority in the science consensus are not climate scientists.

        1. Anon1 – we know from the Michael Mann emails that any article that was not part of the consensus was rejected from peer reviewed journals. This, of course, means the fix is in.

      2. Paul, the majority of climate scientists believe the planet is warming. If you know different, please post from a recognizable mainstream source. Try “National Geographic”

        1. Peter – I am not going to repeat my citation, however NOAA has been caught raising the temperatures above the actual temperature.

          1. Paul, we understand your hesitancy on that citation, but coming from MR. GIVE ME CITE, a little….. how shall I say ….. chicken s…

            Your problem Paul is that there are literally thousands of scientists doing research in climate science and that’s a hell of a conspiracy you imagine. In any case NOAA is not paying them all, or even most of them.

            You see the problem with your theory?

            1. It is not necessarily a ‘conspiracy’. For 50 years, researchers were certain fat and cholesterol caused heart disease; now, that has been shown to be not causal–other issues are mixed in. In the 60s and 70s, contradictory research was ignored and those researchers effectively ostracized, but none of it was due to any conspiracy. Confirmation bias, inadequate means to conduct research, poor data analysis, etc were major factors.

              Perhaps history repeats itself.

              1. Yeah, Prairie, you can hope. Odds are, given our scientific achievements of the last centuries, you and your 3% are wrong.

                Are you feeling lucky punk?

              2. Anon1 is offensive jerk

                Prarie. Warming has been observed. The fact that it may have been overestimated and had to be corrected because some unethical people were exagerrating the data, does not mean the overall trend is false.

                Polar ice melt has been measured and observed. That is factual.

                It is possible that some other cascading effects could be triggered such as tundra melt releasing huge amounts of methane, accelerating the process

                it’s also possible that human CO2 is a paltry cause– but solar sunspot cycles will warm the planet no matter what. that too may trigger cascading effects and a major disaster cycle

                this is not like public health confusion of the past., and a lot of public health has been correctly directed, such as smoking causing cancer and smoking cessation mitigating that. just because there are a lot of lying, cheating, exaggerating, sociopaths leftists in the ranks, of those talking about it, does not mean this issue is per se false.

                1. Kurtz, it is true that I am an offensive jerk but 2 things:

                  1. My question is a famous Clint Eastwood quote, not intended personally.
                  2. I often confuse Prairie, who is a nice person, with Princess who like me and you, is not.

                2. Anon1 and Mr Kurtz,
                  I recognize I was a bit unclear with the previous post. I do think there is something amiss with the climate; however, I suspect the main causes currently blamed are not quite on target, though do play a role.

                  You react as though I’m saying heart disease does not exist. The reasons for heart disease were (and still somewhat are) insufficiently understood.

                  Telling countries to cut emissions is somewhat akin to telling an obese smoker to stop smoking.

                  1. without knowing with any degree of certainly to what extent emissions contribute to the problem– at best we have from the catechism anon1 shared earlier the vague statement that it is a “dominant cause” which is meaningless without more precise identification– but without knowing to what extent cutting emissions could actually do something– the plan of just “cutting emissions” in some vague way is either phony talk or worse yet, dangerous distraction

                    let me make it a little more clear for those of you who are not familiar with the spectrum of “climate activism.” putting aside the moderates there are those scientists who say the situation is already past remediation. not just wackos but serious climate scientists from one discipline or another.

                    who knows. I doubt that we are already past the tipping point. Maybe they are wrong., But maybe not. Consider however that some estimate that considering that cutting emissions to the extent necessary would mean cutting emissions a lot more than what has been discussed.

                    Emissions come from human activity. eating, working, living, and so forth. That means more people more emissions. But guess what! it goes in the backwards way too. Force less emissions and you will cause less life, human life, to be sustainable.

                    So cutting a lot, could probably mean, a massive cull of the human population which is mostly dependent on petroleum fueled agriculture, and petroleum fueled delivery of food– perhaps you see what I’m winding up to– maybe “mitigation” of the cause by “cutting emissions” would in itself lead to a global dieoff

                    hence nobody is going to do it voluntarily. its like going around saying, well, a famine is coming, so two out of four people now have to kill themselves.

                    who’s going to do that? nobody.

                    hence ADAPTATION may be the ONLY thing worth doing at this point given the extent of carbon emissions cut necessary to do the trick is probably so deep it would kill off a billion people anyhow.

                    adaptation will probably also mean strong border enforcement, watching millions die from famine, heat, plague, disasters etc. the hard choice to machine gun masses of innocent and hapless refugees at the border. it will happen just as surely a lifeboat situation can lead to the weak and sick being tossed overboard, if it lasts long enough. You may live to see it and if you are lucky you will not be on the wrong end of the tube! Or maybe you will count yourself unlucky and wish you had not lived to see it all unfold. We shall see.

                    the good news is that if the climate apocalypse does not come, it will have been worth it to update dams, dikes, drainage, bridges, and walls. that will be good even for “natural” disasters and not just “anthropogenic” caused ones.

                    unfortunately i might as well be talking to myself. one sees very little strong political support for reasonable adaptation plans, and Congress stymied Trump’s modest infrastructure plans. let alone more dramatic ones.

                    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/30/us/politics/trump-infrastructure-plan.html

                    more months tick by and still hasnt happened, am i right?

                    1. Kurtz, the hard fact is that we likely don’t have the time to reach the level of certainty that you – not the scientific community, but you – require to act decisively. Whatever your doubts beyond those of the authorities I have quoted you, you cannot deny that possibility exists and is probably likely. In a personal situation with that binary course, one assumes you would act conservatively, or safely , assuming the worst it is in your power to resist and hoping for the best. I know you are looking forward to shooting people on the border – not the first time you have longingly expressed this certainty – but more proactive measures, starting with rejoining the world community, may yet save us from that.

                      PS Republicans killed the “infrastructure plan”.Trump pretended to care about (again).

                      “A $2 trillion infrastructure deal outlined this week by President Trump and top Democrats is already losing momentum, as the president’s own chief of staff is telling people inside and outside the administration that the effort is too expensive and unlikely to succeed.

                      The tentative accord to repair the nation’s roads, revitalize mass transit and expand broadband systems was reached at a private White House meeting Tuesday between Trump and Democratic leaders in Congress, who said they were pleasantly surprised by the president’s willingness to back a large-scale spending effort.

                      But the initiative has run into immediate opposition from Republicans who balk at the hefty price tag and from conservative allies who are pushing lawmakers to block it. Those opposed to the deal include Trump’s top aide, Mick Mulvaney, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who is not in favor of the spending, according to people who have spoken to him. …”

                      https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trumps-bipartisan-infrastructure-plan-already-imperiled-as-mulvaney-gop-lawmakers-object-to-cost/2019/05/03/bc1d1e74-6dae-11e9-be3a-33217240a539_story.html

                  2. Prairie, no one is “telling countries to cut emissions”. though I don;t get the rest of your analogy.

                    1. Anon1,
                      If no one is ‘telling countries to cut emissions’, then what is the Paris Climate Accord thing about? It could be dictatorially told or ‘highly recommended’ told. A doctor tells his patient to stop smoking, but that is not done dictatorially.

                      “Telling countries to cut emissions is somewhat akin to telling an obese smoker to stop smoking.”

                      An obese smoker could certainly help improve his health a little by stopping smoking, but, that still doesn’t get to all the other underlying issues (lousy diet, inadequate exercise, toxin overload, stress, poor sleep, SNPs, etc).

                      I do not hear any serious discussion of the problem(s), what all causes the problems, and what all, from a systems approach, would actually have to be done to mitigate or stop said problem(s). And, what are the potential negative ramifications of following these recommendations? And, are all the measures appropriate across all locales?

                      The ‘what would actually have to be done’ is the part that concerns me. There are those who would rather coerce than convince.

                      “we likely don’t have the time to reach the level of certainty that you – not the scientific community, but you – require to act decisively”

                      Without more information, how can people act with wisdom?

                      Also, depending on what beneficial change is being advocated, should ‘stopping climate change’ be the foremost answer?

                      Using reusable grocery bags from renewable or recycled materials may well indeed help mitigate climate change, but the proximal reason is the stop litter, the filling up of landfills, and the clogging of waterways with plastic bags.

                      What other changes and proximal reasons are out there besides ‘stop climate change’?

                    2. Prairie, the Paris Climate Accord is a fully voluntary plan to reach goals agreed to by every nation in the world. The proper criticism is that it was too weak, not too strict. Getting every nation on earth to agree to the nature of the problem and the voluntary goals they commit to was not easy and a beginning only.

                      As to taking time to figure it out, you have sufficient information now. but even if you don’t, expert opinion is we are running out of time. In a crisis you sometimes are forced to act on the best information you have, not what you wish you had if you could study it longer.

                      I don’t think plastic garbage bags have anything to do with climate change, but I could be wrong. One scientific friend says they sequester CO2 though they could be considered a waste of limited fossil fuels.

                    3. Anon1,
                      “Getting every nation on earth to agree to the nature of the problem”

                      Probably because the nature of the problem is not clearly outlined.

                      “the voluntary goals they commit to was not easy and a beginning only”

                      I am reading the document now in between kid activities and preparing supper, so bear with me. 🙂

                      “As to taking time to figure it out, you have sufficient information now.”

                      I disagree on several fronts. I have sufficient information for making what decision, exactly? I am not sure what the aim is with whatever information is at hand? That the temperature is rising? Ice is melting and sea levels are rising? Ok. Why? I do not think that question is effectively answered.

                      What I have read focuses almost exclusively on industry. How do agricultural practices play into this? Petrochemicals play a huge role in agriculture–shipping food, dealing with weeds/pests, fertilizers, plowing, tilling, harvesting. How do such things affect the soil and water microbiome which play a role in carbon sequestration?

                      “expert opinion is we are running out of time.”

                      Then level-headed conversation is warranted, little of which I hear from politicians or the media. Based on their commentary, they sound like a bunch of Chicken Littles.

                      “In a crisis you sometimes are forced to act on the best information you have, not what you wish you had if you could study it longer.”

                      What do you want people to ‘act on’?

                      Also, in a crisis, too often someone seizes control. That is the last thing I want to happen to our democratic republic.

                      “I don’t think plastic garbage bags have anything to do with climate change, but I could be wrong. One scientific friend says they sequester CO2 though they could be considered a waste of limited fossil fuels.”

                      The production of plastic bags constitutes about 8-10% of how our oil supply is used. They also clog waterways and sewage systems, which then require energy to clean up, not to mention the problems they pose to wildlife and people.

                      If your friend means they sequester CO2 because they do not break down in landfills, then that does not seem to be a very useful way to sequester CO2. Reducing the use, and therefore production of, of plastic bags seems a better route.

                      Plastic bags do release toxins such as dioxin (an endocrine-disruptor) into waterways, even when they are ‘sequestering’ their CO2 in a landfill.

            2. Anon1 – I have cited it 3 times. At this point, I am going to take Benson’s position and say look it up yourself. It really isn’t hard.

    3. JT, climate change is not a political question but an accepted fact by the scientific community, with only a very few informed objectors.

      There is 100% agreement with the fact that the climate changes, within and outside the scientific community. That does not mean there is 100% consensus on what, if anything should be done about it. If you asked the scientific community if that group of cells (you know which group) inside a woman is a human life developing, you’d likely get 100% agreement. But guess what, you will not get 100% agreement on what rights that human life or the mother or father have over it.

      So it becomes a political question when an effort is made through the force of government to impose laws and regulations that infringe the rights of our citizens.

      1. Olly, you are correct that what we do about AGW is a political question. Given the scientific consensus, it is a fact that we need to do something or the young and our progeny will most likely face dire consequences.

            1. Anon – Miami is going to be underwater in 5 years. You think Martha’s Vineyard is safer? AOC says it is all underwater in 11 years.

          2. Paul, here you go with a stupid ‘What About?’. The idea seems to be that Climate Change is fake because Obama bought beachfront property. Only the stupidest of Trumpers buy that kind of logic. It’s not even logic! But in the Trump era any ‘What About?’ will do.

            1. Hill,
              I think the point is, if climate change was so imminent and is supposed to happen just as predicted, then why did the Obamas buy a house in imminent danger of being washed away? Why are they seemingly not takng this issue seriously?

              1. The elite do not take this seriously as they fly their private planes to climate conferences and live in homes with carbon footprints that are huge. They are virtue signalling. Billionaires can afford to spend money on carbon taxes (that do very little) because the tax is meaningless to them but the families of 4 that suddenly have to pay tremendously higher prices and adapt to a lower standard of living are the ones paying a devastating price for nothing.

                When Al Gore moves to a home of less than 1.500 square feet and stops travelling by private jet and private cars, then I will be impressed.

              2. Rose, what is the elevation of Obama’s beach house??? Do you know it’s prone to flooding? Or are you just assuming?

                Like Paul, you’re just tossing out a ‘What About?’ and expecting it to suffice as a real argument.

                1. i looked it up. It’s about 3 feet. pretty low ground actually. yeah it’s a good point but I doubt Barry thought of that when Michelle told him that’s where they were headed. I’ll bet she can pack a punch! Poor Barry everybody always on his case.

                  1. Kurtz, let’s see your source on that. It sounds like a stupid lie. No one would pay big money for a beach house that’s only 3 feet off the ground. Even a routine thunder storm could cause flooding at that elevation.

                    1. you look it up. I did. i don’t need to do your homework for you. its easily done. start with google and some key words

                      when i do give you a source like the definition of “dormant commerce clause” you can’t be bothered to read it and detect the relevance. sad!

                    2. i didnt say it was the elevation of that specific parcel on the county auditor’s map.
                      I just read for that general location. i don’t have the specific coordinates. you can get them from barry and look them up yourself., maybe he has a patch of high ground to lord it over his neighbors but yeah the general location is about that high.

                    3. Kurtz, that 3 feet could be along the shore. But Obama may have bought a house set high on pilings. Or it could be perched on solid rock.

                      My cousin owns a beach house outside New York City. It stands on land flattened by Hurricane Sandy. Her house was built since then with rising tides in mind. The main floor is 3 stories up. It has an elevator to ground level. Or one can use the stairs.

                    4. Peter, I wonder what the carbon footprint was just to build that house. On the one hand you are scared silly by reducing some EPA regulations that may help the economy and not significantly injure the environment but on the other hand you seem to show how by increasing the carbon footprint one can live anywhere.

                      Your hypocricy is never ending.

                2. Peter – if AOC and Al Gore is Finally right, the Obamas will be needing waders for their living room.

                  1. Paul, show me what you’re basing that on. Or is there no real truth?

                    In any event you’re comment above betrays an effort on the part of conservatives to reduce environmental issues to lame jokes. Climate Change, Clean Air & Water are treated as topics to be ridiculed at every chance.

                    1. Peter – if the ocean is rising and the Obama’s have beachfront property with a rise of roughly 3 ft (according to Squeeky, who does good research), at the rate that AOC or Al Gore is predicting, they have from 5 to 11 years before the water is inside the house. It isn’t that hard to work out. It is just Progressive Math.

                    2. Paul, your climate deniers sites are saying they have to 2100, so even if they decide they have to move out when they’re 137, that’s 80 years of fun and sun.

                      BTW, kurtz is full of s… on the 3′. He made that up or is more gullible than you.

                    3. Anon1 – look, I just got back from Area 51, and yes there are aliens. Even my reading comprehension is not as far off as yours. I told you where I was getting the numbers.

              3. Prairie, how do you know the house is in imminent danger of being washed away? Dummy climate deniers are claiming it will be under water by 2100. Geez, they’ll only be 138 then.

                1. Anon1,
                  I doubt it is in imminent danger. However, the manner in which people like Ocasio-Cortez and Al Gore present the issue is that the world will end in 12 years or the sea levels will rise by 20 feet in the near future. By not disagreeing the either one of these ‘leaders’ of Climate Change advocacy, are the Obamas in some ways complicit in the hysterical rhetoric?

                  I doubt the Obamas are so careless or foolish (and they apparently disagree with the aforementioned forecasts). Then why do they ignore the careless rhetoric of their fellow Democrats; it is detrimental to their goals.

                  The lack of seriousness applied to this topic is frustrating. What’s the truth of the matter? I assume it is the more conservative forecasts of up to 30″ in 100-200 years. If that is so, then why aren’t fellow Climate Change advocates rebutting Ocasio-Cortez? Perhaps people have and the media has ignored them???

                  While I do see canaries in the coal mine, I heartily dislike the overt urgency (makes me feel like there is a manipulation somewhere) and snide insults lobbed at anyone who disagrees with any element of Climate Change advocates’ assertions. That is no way to solve a problem.

                  I do not think sufficient discussion of pros/cons and the ramifications of changing any policies has occurred. For instance, could any of the proposed changes be detrimental to the poor? Will costly emissions reductions be detrimental to the middle class, whose incomes have stagnated (because companies pass on the expense to the consumer)?

                  1. GD it Prairie. Forget AOC and Gore. You’re using your animus against them to deny a serious issue that scientists overwhelmingly and universally agree on. Whether you like Gore and AOC is f..king irrelevant. WHen your grandkids are living in chaos in 50 years they won’t feel better knowing you snubbed Al Gore.

                    Christ!

                    1. Anon1,
                      Did you carefully read my entire post?

                      I am pointing out that the likes of Ocasio-Cortez and Gore are getting in the way of people taking environmental and Climate Change concerns seriously.

                      You must disagree. Perhaps I am missing something. How are they helping Climate Change advocates achieve their goals? In what way are they helping regular people ‘get on board’ with Climate Change being a growing threat?

                      “to deny a serious issue that scientists overwhelmingly and universally agree on”

                      Huh? When I have denied that there are any problems? I said, “I do see canaries in the coal mine,” Mr. Kurtz and I are trying to discuss ways to approach the problems, as well as issues of degree and the focus of said problems.

                      I am not sure how you came to the conclusion that I “deny a serious issue”. Good grief, I’m the one who brought up Mother Earth News.

        2. Then President Trump attempting to bring manufacturing back to our shores, with our better regulations on pollution, is aligned with that goal, since China is a major polluter.

            1. Anon1,
              Why? Wouldn’t that be a step in the right direction?

              Do you want fewer products made or have them made with less pollution or both?

              Can we or the UN require China to have better environmental policies? Can we as a nation become coordinated enough to effectively boycott everything Made in China?

              1. Maybe it would Prairie and maybe it wouldn’t. In either case it’s not going to happen, so wish for something else.

                The reason it could cut both ways is because our per capita CO2 emissions were the highest in the world in 2015 and at 15.53 metric tons each per year. China was at 6.59 and India 1.58. We are not efficient. We just have many fewer people They produce twice our total CO2 emissions, but with 4.33 times the people.

                https://www.ucsusa.org/global-warming/science-and-impacts/science/each-countrys-share-of-co2.html

          2. Weakening global demand that reduces massive pollution coming from China is probably coming and nobody can stop the business cycle not trump nor the Federal Reserve.

            Manufacturing done in the US is less polluting to local environment and it probably is more efficiently productive of goods based on our more efficient sources of energy. That might not always be the case especially if the PRC brings a lot of nuclear online as it is postured to do, and we are not.

            Neither party seems to have much stomach for developing nuclear energy, which is too bad, because though it is dangerous, when handled properly it is the source of immense energy at low carbon emission cost

            Moreover, it also would address the eventual decline in petroleum resources, which is another geological fact that seems to have been forgotten, for the moment.

            Who’s in favor of nuclear now? Yeah, just the Chinese communists. They aren’t as stupid as we think they are, not by a longshot. Bad, cruel, maybe, but not stupid.

    4. i agree the scientific consensus is for climate change and that human activity is a causal factor

      what they do not agree on is how much a causal factor– they can’t really determine that precisely– good luck coming up with a testable hypothesis when the measurements are difficult in the first place and the baselines uncertain.

      secondly, at what pace will change come?

      the key thing is that we know, that is a lie. we do not know. we do have models that predict what is possible.
      some models have been better than others, but all the models could fail to predict what actually occurs. that is what makes them models and not “Crystal Balls”

      So: f the pace is slight it may not matter much. this is possible.
      But if it is rapid then it will matter a lot, and really, truly, within the realm of possibility, spell DOOM. Major change and global human die-offs. I am not being silly; really, there are potentially occurring tipping points that could trigger rapid dangerous change. most of all, loss of reflectivity due to polar cap melt, rapid emission of formerly trapped methane from deep ice and tundra. and maybe some other previously unidentified factors too like variable effects of dimming from atmosphere particles. DOOM is definitely in the range of what is possible.

      Anon1: you are not very convincing. The bad habit from the Democrats of consistently exaggerating the value of every hand, is such that when you have a good one people are prone to think you are lying again

      1. kurtz, I’m not a climate scientist, though I am a democrat. Your argument is not with me, but with the overwhelming majority of climate scientists who not only think we caused this latest warming, but that it is a serious problem we will deal with one way or the other. I get you accept the 1st part, but you are kidding yourself on the 2nd and what the consensus is.

        1. anthropocentric cause can’t be measured.

          if you think there is a specific consensus on what percent causal factor it is in the observed warming trends, identify your authority and sources

          1. if the causal factors are not fully known, then mitigation as opposed to adaptation, can be a costly mistake and diversion of resources. the issue is dealing with uncertainty., you have a problem with deniers who don’t appreciate the potential downside cost of failing to respond in a situation of uncertainty,. i get that

            but you don’t get what i am saying about uncertainty. that’s where the green new deal is a waste of effort, a bureaucratic fantasy, which would siphon off critical resources which must be aimed at adaptation, which will benefit even if warming does not proceed in the worst scenario. this is wise management in conditions of uncertainty: doing what will benefit us in any case.

            it also runs the danger of feeding people “hopium” that the disasters will not ensue because of a measly carbon tax that mostly serves to enrich bureaucrat employees and speculators in the newly fabricated carbon trading markets. that is dangerous at a time of short response time window of opportunity.

            Example of good thinking:

            gay mayor Pete has a laudable recent initiative aimed at disaster management.

            he is saying what i am saying. focus on adaptation.

            https://twitter.com/PeteButtigieg/status/1173931248282198016

            1. Kurtz, I am open to whatever works and have no preconceptions on that, including the Green New Deal, which is a political statement thrown up overnight. I don’t subscribe to it.

              Consider in the mix the problem could involve displacements of large numbers of people due to flooding, but more importantly agricultural land use. Given existing political boundaries which these possible displacements may impact and the possibility of war, famine, and general chaos are scary. I’ll be dead an you probably as well,, but I have a grandson and I’m kind of fond of humans and in favor of us continuing our advancement. I don’t know what stopgap vs serious adjustments are.

              It’s good we agree that we need to take this seriously, but how you stick with Trump and the GOP with an issue this important, and with a ticking clock, is hard to understand.

              1. ha, you just explained why i stick with trump. 4 things.

                flooding of coastal regions will have a primary impact on the underdeveloped world. we will feel it here as the push up from Honduras becomes a tidal wave. build that wall! and more. keep out the teeming hordes of climate refugees, dont wait for a mess like the syrian drought then civil war then invasion of europe.

                trump is for deconflicting with Russia. that is wise and helps avoid risk of nuclear war. sadly, the military industrial complex wants new weapons programs, and the bloodthirsty Russophobic Dems have attacked him for detente with Russia.
                he’s been weak on sticking to that agenda, harried as he was by the Special counsel and fake news.

                trade barriers are good if you ask me, can help pointless transoceanic shipment of things which could be just as well built in the Americas. save oil on all those tankers. right now there is a preposterous situation. i give you an example. the Chinese make Nikes, ship them here. Chinese people in America buy Nikes, then ship them back across the ocean to their relatives, who otherwise could only buy Fake Nikes or real ones that cost $500 instead of $50. I am not making this up. I have seen it done. That is the kind of insanity that ‘Free trade” has brought. let Trump and XI try and make a deal, but stronger for american industries like steel. We can’t make steel here? bah!

                4. i have no plan of dying before my time. i am not an advocate nor even a fan of survivalism but i have been practicing it since I was a Boy Scout. I and people like me can lay out our “disaster plans” with better organization and effect than we can under a Democrat regime that would confiscate guns, demonize white patriots etc, and encourage people to depend on “FEMA” for their clean water. No thanks! Si vis pacem….

                1. Kurtz, you have no idea how climate change will affect global populations, nor do I and Trump’s complete failure at protecting our border does not speak well for your dependence on that.

                  Trump just ended a nuclear agreement with Russia and is actually supporting and encouraging Putin’s efforts to destabilize and weaken our European allies.

                  You need to educate yourself on trade and steel. The planning and cooperation needed for free trade forges the kind of alliances we will need to face a global crisis. It can’t be solved unilaterally.

                  On steel production has been steady since 2000, with the biggest decline occurring in the 1980s. We do it differently now, with decentralized plants and recycling

                  Yeah. yeah, you keep telling us how tough you conservatives are and eager to fight. Most of you weigh 300 pounds and are over 50. Keep dreaming.

              2. in short, if you are a climate doomer, then it’s easy to see how Trump aligns better with one’s interests.

                i got news for you, a lot of conservative people are fully tuned into ecological catastrophe and have been since the time of Madison Grant.

                about the only thing i can agree with on the plans and schemes of the globalist left is that we should absolutely flood the third world with contraceptives, sterilization, you name it. oh, and let them have a taste of “woman’s rights” too. The best thing we can hope for some days is that the size of the average african family would soon shrink from like 10 or whatever to 4. right there you would have a lot less cows needed for food, and that many less cow farts stinking up the planet with global warming methane gas.

                I’m not a very good Catholic on this point, but we can add that to my long pre-existing list of sins I guess.

          2. Kurtz, I already told you I am not a climate scientist, and neither are you. Here are some quotes, and maybe you can submit your arguments to these organizations.

            American Association for the Advancement of Science as the world’s largest general scientific society, adopted an official statement on climate change in 2006:

            “The scientific evidence is clear: global climate change caused by human activities is occurring now, and it is a growing threat to society….The pace of change and the evidence of harm have increased markedly over the last five years. The time to control greenhouse gas emissions is now.[54]”

            The American Meteorological Society (AMS) statement adopted by their council in 2012 concluded:

            “There is unequivocal evidence that Earth’s lower atmosphere, ocean, and land surface are warming; sea level is rising; and snow cover, mountain glaciers, and Arctic sea ice are shrinking. The dominant cause of the warming since the 1950s is human activities. This scientific finding is based on a large and persuasive body of research. The observed warming will be irreversible for many years into the future, and even larger temperature increases will occur as greenhouse gases continue to accumulate in the atmosphere. Avoiding this future warming will require a large and rapid reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions. The ongoing warming will increase risks and stresses to human societies, economies, ecosystems, and wildlife through the 21st century and beyond, making it imperative that society respond to a changing climate. To inform decisions on adaptation and mitigation, it is critical that we improve our understanding of the global climate system and our ability to project future climate through continued and improved monitoring and research. This is especially true for smaller (seasonal and regional) scales and weather and climate extremes, and for important hydroclimatic variables such as precipitation and water availability.

            Technological, economic, and policy choices in the near future will determine the extent of future impacts of climate change. Science-based decisions are seldom made in a context of absolute certainty. National and international policy discussions should include consideration of the best ways to both adapt to and mitigate climate change. Mitigation will reduce the amount of future climate change and the risk of impacts that are potentially large and dangerous. At the same time, some continued climate change is inevitable, and policy responses should include adaptation to climate change. Prudence dictates extreme care in accounting for our relationship with the only planet known to be capable of sustaining human life.[89]”

            Thirteen federal agencies, led by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), worked together under the auspices of the United States Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) to prepare the country’s Fourth National Climate Assessment, published in two volumes as described below.

            “This assessment concludes, based on extensive evidence, that it is extremely likely that human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse gases, are the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century. For the warming over the last century, there is no convincing alternative explanation supported by the extent of the observational evidence.”

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_consensus_on_climate_change

            1. That’s a catechism for you maybe not me.

              I see that it says “the dominant cause.” what does that mean? 75%? 25% but more than stuff like cow farts? I was looking for something a little more precise than “dominant”

              It actually would make a big difference you see, when proceeding with adaptation or mitigation. If the causal factor is 75% then maybe a carbon tax would be worth the effort put into the regime. If it is only 25% then let’s say probably not. I suspect not.

              What is MORE CERTAIN is the warming trend, not the causation. That’s apparent from your quoted excerpt. And as they say, certainty is not always to be found. that’s them admitting they don’t know a lot.

              When you don’t know a lot, dont bet the whole bankroll on one thing.
              But if you KNOW that something IS a more sure bet, bet more on that.

              Figure out how much it takes to place the bet, too. A costly fight over an improbably beneficial scheme may not be worth the effort when a more probably beneficial thing people could agree on, is more easily at hand.

              That’s politics “the art of the possible”

              Last point.

              The quote is a meta-summary of statistical meta-analyses which are themselves based on measurements of complicated systems. The word “dominant cause” used in such a context is pretty ambiguous and not very helpful. You ignored my point that laboratory experimentation in the usual sense in which the scientific method proceeds, is not available in the speculation about the causes of global weather phenomena.

              If you keep on ignoring that legitimate point, then you weaken the delivery of your message because you sound like you are quoting faith and dogma rather than reason.

              Trust me, “right wingers” know faith when they see it, and the way a lot of “climate advocates” approach the conversation, smacks very much of faith and not reason. Wrong way to proceed with a bunch of people that have been harangued about religion their entire lives. It sounds very fake when presented as dogma.

              1. Kurtz, you said

                “The quote is a meta-summary of statistical meta-analyses which are themselves based on measurements of complicated systems. ”

                Exactly, and not because thousands of scientists are not addressing the details on this all the time. So, you are left with claiming that you are more concerned with those details in the weeds than are the people charged with official summaries of the most prestigious scientific organizations in the world.

                Yeah, right. Clearly, you are not qualified to assess “dogma” in a highly technical field, nor am I. I’ll take the word of the experts here, something I am guessing you normally do as well, except on a subject which has been foolishly politicized by … wait for it ….politicians.

                1. if carbon tax or green new deal is “too little too late” then it takes major resources away from useful adaptation projects like dams, dikes, drainage, etc. which will be useful no matter what.

                  moreover,. green new deal is patently stupid. rebuilding homes that work ok now, by the millions would create massive new CO2 emissions for no good reasons. just think: gas for mining more gravel for concrete, or copper for wire; gas for moving concrete to location, gas for trucks for other building materials, gas to move labor to new sites. gas for new offices for new bureaucrats dispensing subsidies.

                  i have never heard a more preposterous obviously self serving patronage scheme coming from the Democrats . The New Deal is not comparable: it was a useful set of projects, however inefficiently performed, that benefited the nation. Environmental impact was an unknown quantity at the time. there is no parallel. All the building and projects envisioned by green new deal proposal would simply generate more CO2 than it could be expected to conserve within decades. idiotic!

                  adaptation is the one thing both sides could agree about and should proceed fast starting with infrastructure projects and a massive push for zoning and land use reform not just in coastal regions but there most immediately; but even everywhere to make more livable cities where people don’t need to drive cars all over.

                  talk about a useful and positive idea that would have real social benefits? why can’t this be done instead of wasted breath on politically impossible schemes. very sad situation!

                  1. Kurtz, political hot air from either side is not what we need. Solving problems first takes acknowledging they exist.

                    1. the Left consistently fails to deliver meaningful information that it has developed to the public, such as the fact that oil companies have long known about global warming and peak oil concerns, and suppressed the information.,

                      https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/exxon-knew-about-climate-change-almost-40-years-ago/

                      why and how does the Left consistently fail in being useful?

                      Mostly just one thing that’s near and dear to their hearts.

                      DEMONIZING HETEROSEXUAL WHITE MEN

                      i tell you, whatever useful information the Left can produce, it habitually fails to convey, because it’s like a tiny diamond stuck under a heap of verbal dung

                      the core audience for information that matters, is actually white men, if you accept the fundamental premise that “white men control too much” then actually you should not be antagonizing them but trying to convince them.

                1. Anon1 – if you had actually read what I sent, the second link was an organization that does the measurement of the glaciers and they think they are growing.

        2. Anon1 – we are coming out of a Little Ice Age and Michael Mann has skewed the data but won’t allow anyone to look at the original numbers to replicate the work. It is based on bad science.

          1. PK, thanks Paul, I’m sure the Am Association for the Advancement of Science will be very interested in your research. Please send it on as I’m sure no one has considered this before.

  4. Who can pass up a free day off from school. For instance, I found out that ASU was required to release Catholics for Good Friday and not count them as absent. Even though I am agnostic, I always told my professors I was taking Good Friday off. I never told them I was Catholic and they couldn’t ask.

    1. Let’s see, now. You went to a party hearty school with a bad reputation (especially when you went there), but brag about manipulating the system to get out of class by announcing you were celebrating a religious holiday despite being an agnostic. I guess you think that makes you cool, but you are wrong. It makes you a Trump supporter. He also brags about inappropriate things, like assaulting women he finds attractive. People like you don’t get it and never will.

      1. Mr. Schulte,
        How are you holding up under Natacha’s withering criticism?
        Do you know back then that doing what you did made you “a Trump supporter”?
        Are you appropriately guilt- ridden now that Natacha pointed out just how evil and Trump-like your offense was?

        1. Anonymous – Natacha’s attacks have near done me in. I will have to retreat for a couple of months for R&R.

          1. Anonymous – I put my time in with the Catholics. They are lucky I didn’t take Ash Wednesday

        2. Manipulating the system to create the false impression that you will be celebrating a religious holiday signals someone who is intellectually dishonest and not committed to their education. Trump believes because he is “famous” he can grab women’s private parts. It’s the same sort of thing–what can you get away with? You are not me, and I am not you, but I relished going to class. I enjoyed the challenges and being with my friends, some of whom I am still in contact with. Also, I had a very high GPA, and didn’t want to jeopardize it by ditching. Because my undergraduate and graduate degrees are in a medical science, when you miss class, you might miss key information that is linked to another substantive topic. For instance, miss the classes about certain aspects of kidney physiology, and you might never completely understand the pharmacology of certain drugs and how they affect the kidney. You lose the opportunity to ask questions. Miss clinical and you might never meet that View Nam vet who is a paraplegic, who gave up his mobility to fight an undeclared war. I don’t think cheating to get out of class is cool at all. If you don’t want the education you or someone is paying for–drop out. College isn’t for everyone.

          Take Kavanaugh, for example. The latest accusation comes from a man who knew him in college. The latest book, written by 2 investigative reporters, who interviewed hundreds of people, reviewed thousands of documents, viewed hours of tapes, etc., concluded that the evidence is overwhelming that Kavanaugh must have been the sort of drunken a-hole frat boy jerk people described, but as he got older, he grew up and changed his ways. He has hired only female clerks. He is nice to them. That’s fine. In fact, that’s what we humans like to see–someone who changes his ways after doing bad things and hurting people. Here’s the rub–Kavanaugh lied about his past, which only victimizes those women he hurt when he was back in school even more. That’s not OK, especially for someone who’d be willing to lie for a berth on the court of last resort. He hurt people at the time because he was immature and insensitive, but now, he lies about it, so they are branded as liars with an agenda. It wasn’t cool at all when he exposed himself to young women at parties, or when he tried to force them to touch his privates. It’s not cool that Republicans rushed through his confirmation and tied the FBI’s hands as to the extent and scope of their investigation to prevent the full truth from being uncovered.

          The point of my comment is that this is just another example of the dystropian Trump philosophy that says “do whatever you can get away with, and lie about it”. Turn the tables on anyone seeking to get to the truth. Not good. Kavanaugh will never earn the respect he desperately craves, and neither will Trump.

          1. Natacha – I received an A in all my classes that semester. You jump to too many conclusions without any fact in evidence.

            1. You went to a school with a bad reputation, which you cannot deny. You should read some of the writings of students describing ASU–women and even men getting raped at frat parties, drunkenness, assaults, etc.. You ditched class, so maybe class wasn’t even worth attending. This sort of thing was not possible when I went to nursing school, because we knew we might have someone’s life in our hands and took our education seriously. Of course, our teachers were all either nuns or former Army nurses, who are as idealistic as they come. Nevertheless, the analogy applies.

      3. Trump obsessed Natcha interrupts a serious conversation about a matter of profound impact on us all, with a few insults for Trump and Paul. Thanks Natch, NOT

  5. Conscription, deployment, propagandizing and indoctrination of students for political purposes and job action strikes by teachers, complicit with corrupt elected officials, are egregious abuses of power, usurpation and treason.

    The teachers unions and complicit elected officials must be prosecuted for corruption and colluding to eliminate competition in violation of anti-trust laws.

    When the autoworkers go on strike, Americans may buy superior foreign cars.

    When the lazy, greedy, thug teachers unions go on strike, Americans cannot send their children to foreign schools.

    The teachers unions and complicit, corrupt elected officials have conspired to eliminate competition in the education markets and gouge taxpayers for absurd, unjustified and inflated teacher compensation packages that would not exist in open and free markets.

    Conscription and deployment of students for political purposes and job action strikes by teachers, complicit with corrupt elected officials, are egregious abuses of power, usurpation and treason.

    America is in a state of hysteria, incoherence, chaos, anarchy and nascent insurrection.

    Abraham Lincoln seized power, neutralized the legislative and judicial branches and ruled by executive order and proclamation to “Save the Union.”

    President Trump must seize power, neutralize the legislative and judicial branches and rule by executive order and proclamation to “Save the Republic.”

  6. The City: the city has decided that any of its 1.1 million public school students will be allowed to skip classes without penalties to join the global youth climate strikes to be held this Friday.

    The Students: You had me at penalties.

    And with permission from their parents? LOL!

    Epstein’s Mother: My son Epstein has my permission to go anywhere, at any time and for as long as he wants.

  7. it seems like the filter swallowed a post. but let me make it shorter:

    -climate changes yes for sure. we know from geology, why is complicated, how fast?
    – yes humans are contributing to change, but how much? not clear. sunspots and solar radiation big factor too.
    -predictive models vary in track records, so far best one is also the most modest. will that continue? who knows
    -could be a tipping point coming, methane release from deep ice and siberia, loss of reflective ice, could accelerate the process., if so maybe too late already to stop
    – ADAPTATION is a better use of social energy and resources than another tax scheme that will fail to reverse the process and only siphon off money to more bureaucrats. adaptation means, better land use and development. and stronger infrastructure. get busy already!

    – New York is a cruddy place to live if you think climate change is coming. these guys are fake!

    https://gothamist.com/news/new-climate-report-suggests-nyc-could-be-under-water-sooner-than-predicted

  8. here’s another thing. among “climate activists” who are under the belief that the tipping point has already been reached, stuff like this is called “hopium.”

    https://un-denial.com/2019/03/06/by-tim-watkins-the-green-deal-is-hopium/

    So this is either an exercise in hopium, or if we are lucky and all that is wrong, then, basically, it’s Democrat operatives pushing for a carbon tax that will add more patronage jobs to their existing portfolio. They are incredibly cynical.

    they are not really afraid of global warming. if they were, then they would not be living at ground zero place that would get swamped first, would they?

  9. The Invalidity of Activism:
    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=v4PjHHTv4b4

    These kids will be allowed to leave school to ‘demand an end to the age of fossil fuels’.

    New York apparently thinks it’s fine for students to wallow in ideology. There is a discussion to be had on this issue, but I seriously doubt these kids will be having an actual discussion about the important elements of the facts at hand or the pros/cons of such a complex matter.

  10. What do I think? Be careful!

    There are “riot boosting” laws on the books. Mainly from the DAPL Protests in North & South Dakota. Oil pipelines. Next 1 is the KXL oil pipeline. Be careful what you say on social media.

  11. It’s not as if they’re getting an education in the New York City schools’ classrooms anyway so this can’t be any worse for them. And since they’re growing up in NYC there is no hope for them – they’re already indoctrinated. It’s their parents and grandparents who voted the economic idiot AOC into the Congress and the pedantic socialist fool de Blasio into the mayor’s office. The productive people and tax base are bailing out for more tax-friendly environments leaving the unproductive SJWs behind to stand in their own, er ah, movements.

  12. Dr. T – you need to stop the pandering and start standing for something. This has nothing to do with “global warming/climate change” — this is pure and simple state-sponsored indoctrination. Aren’t you starting to see the Democrat/liberals re-education-camp mentality? All of this is fine as long as students are excused for ANY rally (pro-life, religious services, etc) . But of course the Left/Democrats are in the camp of Mao, Lenin, Chavez and are about re-educating the youth with these types of sanctioned events. Please get a backbone.

    1. Several years ago I took it upon myself to independently examine the hysteria over Global Warming that has now morphed in to Climate Change. I was very worked up over Global Cooling in the seventies but had no practical way to independently investigate and had to take the word of “experts”. Now I have access to everything. I determined that Climate change is normal and not to be feared. As it is being portrayed is nothing short of a hoax!

      1. You were not listening to experts in the 70s or apparently now. Global cooling WAS NOT the accepted wisdom of climate scientists in the 70’s. Global warming is now, as the IPCC position is officially accepted by every respected and relevant scientific.organization in the world, including all National Academies of Science, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (“The last national or international scientific body to drop dissent was the American Association of Petroleum Geologists,[23] which in 2007[24] updated its statement to its current non-committal position.[25”) – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_consensus_on_climate_change.

        “…In 2008, several scientists decided to go back and review the peer-reviewed literature at the time. Despite the media coverage highlighted by Huckabee, it turns out that peer-reviewed articles on global cooling were in a distinct minority compared to those concerned with global warming. “The survey identified only seven articles indicating cooling compared to 42 indicating warming. Those seven cooling articles garnered just 12% of the citations,” the researchers reported.

        Here’s a chart from their report showing the findings:

        (see link)

        From Thomas C Peterson, THE MYTH OF THE 1970S GLOBAL COOLING SCIENTIFIC CONSENSUS (2008)
        This explains why the “new ice age” boomlet petered out fairly quickly. “Science represents an accumulation of knowledge, so incorrect hypotheses become exposed,” especially over a 40-year period, said Reed Scherer, associate director of the Institute for the Study of the Environment, Sustainability and Energy at Northern Illinois University. “The current consensus regarding global warming builds on all scientific studies to date.”

        In fact, the review of actual scientific articles demonstrates that, as usual, many reporters were late to the story. By 1975, there were five times more peer-reviewed articles on global warming than global cooling.

        In fact, in 2006, Newsweek admitted it had been “spectacularly wrong” in publishing the article. “Even by the time it appeared, a decades-long trend toward slightly cooler temperatures in the Northern hemisphere had already begun to reverse itself — although that wouldn’t be apparent in the data for a few years yet — leading to today’s widespread consensus among scientists that the real threat is actually human-caused global warming,” the magazine reported.”

        https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/06/25/huckabees-claim-that-global-freezing-theories-from-the-1970s-shows-the-science-is-not-as-settled-on-climate-change/

      2. You were not listening to experts in the 70s or apparently now. Global cooling WAS NOT the accepted wisdom of climate scientists in the 70’s. Global warming is now, as the IPCC position is officially accepted by every respected and relevant scientific.organization in the world, including all National Academies of Science, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (“The last national or international scientific body to drop dissent was the American Association of Petroleum Geologists,[23] which in 2007[24] updated its statement to its current non-committal position.[25”) – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_consensus_on_climate_change.

        “…In 2008, several scientists decided to go back and review the peer-reviewed literature at the time. Despite the media coverage highlighted by Huckabee, it turns out that peer-reviewed articles on global cooling were in a distinct minority compared to those concerned with global warming. “The survey identified only seven articles indicating cooling compared to 42 indicating warming. Those seven cooling articles garnered just 12% of the citations,” the researchers reported.

        Here’s a chart from their report showing the findings:

        From Thomas C Peterson, THE MYTH OF THE 1970S GLOBAL COOLING SCIENTIFIC CONSENSUS (2008)
        This explains why the “new ice age” boomlet petered out fairly quickly. “Science represents an accumulation of knowledge, so incorrect hypotheses become exposed,” especially over a 40-year period, said Reed Scherer, associate director of the Institute for the Study of the Environment, Sustainability and Energy at Northern Illinois University. “The current consensus regarding global warming builds on all scientific studies to date.”

        In fact, the review of actual scientific articles demonstrates that, as usual, many reporters were late to the story. By 1975, there were five times more peer-reviewed articles on global warming than global cooling.

        In fact, in 2006, Newsweek admitted it had been “spectacularly wrong” in publishing the article. “Even by the time it appeared, a decades-long trend toward slightly cooler temperatures in the Northern hemisphere had already begun to reverse itself — although that wouldn’t be apparent in the data for a few years yet — leading to today’s widespread consensus among scientists that the real threat is actually human-caused global warming,” the magazine reported.”

        https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/06/25/huckabees-claim-that-global-freezing-theories-from-the-1970s-shows-the-science-is-not-as-settled-on-climate-change/

        1. Global cooling WAS NOT the accepted wisdom of climate scientists in the 70’s.

          Carl Sagan and a batch of co-authors placed an article in Science in 1979, advancing the thesis. Articles in Science and Nature are peer-reviewed and that’s where you get maximum exposure. Unlike Scientific American, they do not traffic in popular writing.

          1. “….the review of actual scientific articles demonstrates that, as usual, many reporters were late to the story. By 1975, there were five times more peer-reviewed articles on global warming than global cooling.”

            Somebody help TIA.

            1. Did he say how the review was conducted? Did he provide a taxonomy of conclusions? Did it occur to you that study numbers can reflect funding patterns?

      3. You were not listening to experts in the 70s or apparently now. Global cooling WAS NOT the accepted wisdom of climate scientists in the 70’s. Global warming is now, as the IPCC position is officially accepted by every respected and relevant scientific.organization in the world, including all National Academies of Science, the American Association for the Advancement of Science

        “…In 2008, several scientists decided to go back and review the peer-reviewed literature at the time. Despite the media coverage highlighted by Huckabee, it turns out that peer-reviewed articles on global cooling were in a distinct minority compared to those concerned with global warming. “The survey identified only seven articles indicating cooling compared to 42 indicating warming. Those seven cooling articles garnered just 12% of the citations,” the researchers reported.

        Here’s a chart from their report showing the findings:

        From Thomas C Peterson, THE MYTH OF THE 1970S GLOBAL COOLING SCIENTIFIC CONSENSUS (2008)
        This explains why the “new ice age” boomlet petered out fairly quickly. “Science represents an accumulation of knowledge, so incorrect hypotheses become exposed,” especially over a 40-year period, said Reed Scherer, associate director of the Institute for the Study of the Environment, Sustainability and Energy at Northern Illinois University. “The current consensus regarding global warming builds on all scientific studies to date.”

        In fact, the review of actual scientific articles demonstrates that, as usual, many reporters were late to the story. By 1975, there were five times more peer-reviewed articles on global warming than global cooling.

        In fact, in 2006, Newsweek admitted it had been “spectacularly wrong” in publishing the article. “Even by the time it appeared, a decades-long trend toward slightly cooler temperatures in the Northern hemisphere had already begun to reverse itself — although that wouldn’t be apparent in the data for a few years yet — leading to today’s widespread consensus among scientists that the real threat is actually human-caused global warming,” the magazine reported.”

        https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/06/25/huckabees-claim-that-global-freezing-theories-from-the-1970s-shows-the-science-is-not-as-settled-on-climate-change/

      4. You were not listening to experts in the 70s or apparently now. Global cooling WAS NOT the accepted wisdom of climate scientists in the 70’s. Global warming is now, as the IPCC position is officially accepted by every respected and relevant scientific.organization in the world, including all National Academies of Science, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (“The last national or international scientific body to drop dissent was the American Association of Petroleum Geologists,[23] which in 2007[24] updated its statement to its current non-committal position.[25”)

        “…In 2008, several scientists decided to go back and review the peer-reviewed literature at the time. Despite the media coverage highlighted by Huckabee, it turns out that peer-reviewed articles on global cooling were in a distinct minority compared to those concerned with global warming. “The survey identified only seven articles indicating cooling compared to 42 indicating warming. Those seven cooling articles garnered just 12% of the citations,” the researchers reported.

        Here’s a chart from their report showing the findings:

        (see link)

        From Thomas C Peterson, THE MYTH OF THE 1970S GLOBAL COOLING SCIENTIFIC CONSENSUS (2008)
        This explains why the “new ice age” boomlet petered out fairly quickly. “Science represents an accumulation of knowledge, so incorrect hypotheses become exposed,” especially over a 40-year period, said Reed Scherer, associate director of the Institute for the Study of the Environment, Sustainability and Energy at Northern Illinois University. “The current consensus regarding global warming builds on all scientific studies to date.”

        In fact, the review of actual scientific articles demonstrates that, as usual, many reporters were late to the story. By 1975, there were five times more peer-reviewed articles on global warming than global cooling.

        In fact, in 2006, Newsweek admitted it had been “spectacularly wrong” in publishing the article. “Even by the time it appeared, a decades-long trend toward slightly cooler temperatures in the Northern hemisphere had already begun to reverse itself — although that wouldn’t be apparent in the data for a few years yet — leading to today’s widespread consensus among scientists that the real threat is actually human-caused global warming,” the magazine reported.”

        https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/06/25/huckabees-claim-that-global-freezing-theories-from-the-1970s-shows-the-science-is-not-as-settled-on-climate-change/
        —
        Jan Frentzen Frentzen Construction, Inc. 6812 NW 85th Terrace Gainesville, Florida 32653 cell 352-219-1215

        1. Sorry, but you were not listening to experts in the 70s or apparently now. Global cooling WAS NOT the accepted wisdom of climate scientists in the 70’s. Global warming is now, as the IPCC position is officially accepted by every respected and relevant scientific.organization in the world, including all National Academies of Science, the American Association for the Advancement of Science

          “…In 2008, several scientists decided to go back and review the peer-reviewed literature at the time. Despite the media coverage highlighted by Huckabee, it turns out that peer-reviewed articles on global cooling were in a distinct minority compared to those concerned with global warming. “The survey identified only seven articles indicating cooling compared to 42 indicating warming. Those seven cooling articles garnered just 12% of the citations,” the researchers reported.

          Here’s a chart from their report showing the findings:

          From Thomas C Peterson, THE MYTH OF THE 1970S GLOBAL COOLING SCIENTIFIC CONSENSUS (2008)
          This explains why the “new ice age” boomlet petered out fairly quickly. “Science represents an accumulation of knowledge, so incorrect hypotheses become exposed,” especially over a 40-year period, said Reed Scherer, associate director of the Institute for the Study of the Environment, Sustainability and Energy at Northern Illinois University. “The current consensus regarding global warming builds on all scientific studies to date.”

          In fact, the review of actual scientific articles demonstrates that, as usual, many reporters were late to the story. By 1975, there were five times more peer-reviewed articles on global warming than global cooling.

          In fact, in 2006, Newsweek admitted it had been “spectacularly wrong” in publishing the article. “Even by the time it appeared, a decades-long trend toward slightly cooler temperatures in the Northern hemisphere had already begun to reverse itself — although that wouldn’t be apparent in the data for a few years yet — leading to today’s widespread consensus among scientists that the real threat is actually human-caused global warming,” the magazine reported.”

          https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/06/25/huckabees-claim-that-global-freezing-theories-from-the-1970s-shows-the-science-is-not-as-settled-on-climate-change/

    2. I would say yes Mao’s late support for the insane students called the “Red Guard” is definitely an inspiration for this. I don’t know about Lenin or Chavez. Definitely Mao.

      But Mao inspires a lot of things. Maybe someday someone will get their own inspirations from Mao.. Perhaps like taking these kinds of useless SJW professional activist type people and making them march on foot from New York city off to far flung desert locations with reeducation camps. There, they will get free shovels and the opportunity to grow their own food.

      The outcome of such an exercise would be good for the climate, since they would soon stop emitting carbon dioxide in their breath.

  13. (music)
    For its one, two, three, ..
    What are we fighting for?
    Don’t ask me i don’t give a damn!
    Next stop is Viet Nam!
    And its five, six, seven, …
    Open up the Pearly Gates!
    Ain’t no time to wonder why…
    Bill Gates is gonna die.

  14. Just another indication, in case we needed one, that liberals have a proprietary attitude toward common institutions. Also another indication, in case we needed one, that Bilge diBlabbio has made the pathologies of the New York City schools worse than they would otherwise be. Carranza and his crew are certainly not pedagogues.

    There really isn’t much cause for public demonstrations on issues like ‘climate change’. The extent of the problem is uncertain, ascertaining the extent incorporates a great many arguments over esoterica, and any responses to the problem are going to involve intricate questions of cost allocation and trade-offs.

    That aside, these are young people who have their own objects in life (some assigned, some chosen). Only an odd minority are working and paying taxes. They have much to occupy their time, and that doesn’t include distractions like this. Elementary school students should be learning the fundamentals of American history, geography and civics (and only when they’ve reached a certain level of mastery in the realm of literacy and numeracy). Secondary school students, if they’re not still working on mastering basics, should generally be in VoTech programs. As for students in academic programs, geosciences should be only an odd sliver of the curriculum for all but a few. And they should be learning something about geomorphology, climatology, structural geology, volcanology, petrology and mineralogy, stratigraphy, palaeontology, soil, and hydrological systems. Not out on the street carrying sandwich boards at the behest of school administrators who have no business being in the positions that they’re in.

  15. FROM N.Y. TIMES ARTICLE:

    “Students will need consent from their parents or guardians to be excused on Friday, education officials said”.

    Theoretically this day won’t be a Free-To-Skip-School pass. Parents will have to be involved in the decision.

    1. You think Carranza’s school system will be giving youths the day off to attend the March for Life (with parental permission, natch)?

      1. No, Tabby, they shouldn’t. The NYPD doesn’t want to create a division for investigating ‘Abortion Crimes’. They don’t want cops going to city hospitals to question doctors and nurses regarding miscarriages.

          1. Tabby, you might consider moving to Chile. They’re tough on abortion there. Women really go to prison. Just what they deserve!

            2. Try to concentrate, Peter. The subject is the politicization of the New York City school district. This isn’t that difficult.

  17. Why bother with “reading, writing and arithmetic” when you can effect social change, fight for justice and save the planet?

    Even medicine is not immune from “social justice”. I’m referring to the recent WSJ article entitled, Corrupting Medical Education.

    antonio

      1. I also read the WSJ article you referenced. He is telling the truth. There are articles along those lines in JAMA.

  18. “As someone who has long advocated for action on climate change and opposes the Trump environmental policies, I am entirely in support of demonstrations.”

    Okay, sooo stop advocating,and start doing something! Turn off your air conditioner in your home, and your office. Learn to live with an electric fan. Stop driving your fossil-fuel burning vehicle to Billy Goat Trail, and other such locations so you can walk among the beauty of nature. If you want to hike/walk, then hike/walk around your neighborhood. Quit wasting fossil fuel on your personal pleasures. Quit taking vacations, and traveling. Go to meetings via Skype-like video conferencing. Start carpooling to work. Downsize your home. Plant a garden in your backyard to reduce the need for those big diesel trucks to bring you fruits and veggies from 3,000 miles away. Reduce what you buy, and compost. Reduce your trips out in your car, and go to the grocery store once or twice a month.

    You see, “advocating” is just a form of virtue signalling. You get to appear all concerned and stuff, while not actually doing anything. It is empty of meaning, and kind of hypocritical. You might as well get up in front of the church and start thumping your chest. No, if you want “action” on climate change, then start acting. Today. Now. You have 63,000+ subscribers here, and you can set an example for all of us.

    Squeeky Fromm
    Girl Reporter

    1. Right. If Everyone chips in and maybe I can continue my life. I did reuse a plastic bag yesterday. I did my part for the week.

    2. You think people shouldn’t kill each other? Then set an example and don’t kill anyone! We don’t need no stinking laws.

      1. A more appropriate analogy would be someone killing people while advocating not killing people.

        You see, you don’t need the government to keep you from wasting fossil fuels. You can do that yourself, now. And, since so many privileged white people seem to be in favor of it, then gee! Think how much good they can do right away! Because, you know we only have 10 years to save Planet Earth, right???

        If you want to advocate for laws, too, then go ahead. BUT YOU PERSONALLY go ahead and start now. Practice what you advocate! Or , it is hypocrisy and virtue signalling.

        Squeeky Fromm
        Girl Reporter

    3. “You see, “advocating” is just a form of virtue signalling. ”

      You got it exactly wrong. Those people who only take individual action (and are proud of it) may be virtue signalling. Those who are insisting on communal action actually want to get something done, regardless of what they do individually.

      1. Yyy,
        Individuals may or may not flaunt what they do. It is the individual dr dual, though, who should choose to effect change in their own lives.

        I am not saying there is no place for group action, but to voice concern. Too easily can group action become coercive. Or, it is all sound and fury. Real action is at the individual or family level.

        Groups like Mother Earth News can disseminate ideas to individuals not only through their magazine, but also their Fairs. People as far ranging as the Amish to contemporary hippies and all sorts between attend these Fairs.

        How can communal action be effective if they are off-putting to others?

        What do you mean by “Those who are insisting on communal action actually want to get something done”? What is it that they want to get done? Also, your statement implies individuals do not actually want to ‘get something done’. They do not have to be in opposition. What is the group without individuals?

        1. Activism is work. Women’s rights, worker’s rights, civil rights, lgbt rights, animal rights… have all been advanced by the work of activists. And in all cases, the successes have included new laws, not just changes in individual consciousness and behavior.

          1. I think you are just arguing to be arguing. If you wish to preach one thing, and then not do it yourself, or do the opposite, then you are the one who has to live with yourself.

            But to the rest of us, that makes you a hypocrite*.

            Squeeky Fromm
            Girl Reporter

            *You know, like Bernie Sanders who was paying his campaign workers less than the “livable wage” he advocated.

            1. The serious people who are addressing a serious problem that affects every living being on the planet don’t give a damn about opinions of them as individuals. Again, they are not concerned with the choices of individuals; they want new laws to be passed. They want real results in the real world. Your insistence on judging them as individuals is just a dodge. It’s just a distraction. People who care about climate change understand that whether or not any individual drives a car or travels by air is completely irrelevant. Only people who don’t care will fail to, or pretend not to, understand that.

              1. Yyy,
                Individuals are not irrelevant. Without individuals there would be no group. If 500 people decide to alter their lifestyles because they wish to align their values with actions in their lives, that matters.

                As far as I can tell, activists want change their way whether or not it is indeed the most prudent or effective. They would rather coerce than convince.

                Bjorn Lomberg has argued that focusing on infant care and decreasing infant mortality will actually be the best means to dealing with climate problems. Others have talked about helping women have access to birth control would also be of huge benefit.

                “Real results in the real world.” What does that even mean, especially if you mean it to contradict Squeeky’s suggestions? Encouraging victory gardens sounds pretty real world with real results.

                Eliminating use of fossil fuels is too heavy handed, considering underlying issues aren’t definitively understood.

                1. “They would rather coerce than convince.”

                  They want to coerce through the law, that’s true. Laws are inherently coercive, obviously. But before they can coerce, they need to convince enough people that new laws are necessary. That’s pretty much already been done, it’s just inertia — the power of deeply entrenched interests — that’s preventing the necessary changes. But there’s no “coercion” other than whatever laws or regulations are eventually enacted through democratic process.

                  “If 500 people decide to alter their lifestyles because they wish to align their values with actions in their lives, that matters.”

                  In this case it doesn’t matter the slightest bit.

                  1. Yyy,
                    People aligning their values with action does matter. People emulate good models. 500 will increase to 5000 and beyond. A few quirky people back in the 60s started the organic food movement; now demand outstrips domestic supply, all without coercive legislation.

                    “But before they can coerce, they need to convince enough people that new laws are necessary.”

                    Activists’ sweeping, unrealistic demands and chanting and marching is not convincing, it’s self-righteous and unserious. Solid arguments, facts, and a willingness to humbly listen to and concede there are legitimate concerns (and maybe even valid points) from other perspectives IS convincing.

                  2. The average conservative has no clue how nutty the green radicals can get. this conversation reveals it.

                    Look at how easily they point to mass coercion. But do they get what they are talking about?

                    Most people tossing these subjects around, aren’t even close to ready for the level of mass coercion that would be necessary to curtail global warming, assuming what the “experts” say is true. You ask for your own lifestyles to be decimated in ways that you don’t comprehend.

                    the far likeliest and most feasible means for cutting emissions permanently is actually not technological innovation, it is one far more simple and brutal and feasible thing….

                    major depopulation. population restriction on a massive scale. including brutal means like rationing of food and health care deliberately to restrict life span and family size and doing it more radically than the Chinese did back when they shoved their one child per family rule down their population’s throats. for starters.

                    But understand that the government that did that, also saw (and presided over) the Great Chinese Famine. Government casualty count 15 millions. probably three to four times as many as that actually died acc to Frank Dikotter. that regime is still in charge and on its way to exceeding the US in some big ways and perhaps soon.,

                    Their 59-61 Famine was due to communist incompetence. but some famines in history have been caused on purpose, and that might be the plan in the future too

                    The fact is for the heads of states and empires, yes, laws are coercion and wars are coercion too. coercion is always on the table. imagine where that may lead if things look as bad as these guys say they’re going to look

                    indeed maybe they will say they look that bad even if they’re just lying to us and using it as an excuse for ….. whatever…

                    keep an eye on this thing, the US military is, the Davos boys are, that means you better keep it on the horizon too

    5. SQUEEKY PULLS A ‘WHAT ABOUT?’

      This type of ‘What About?’ is designed to ridicule those accepting the science of Climate Change. The idea is to paint them as hypocrites unless they’re living on Walden Pond. Like, “You can’t accept Climate Change while inhabiting the modern world”, a totally negative message.

      It would be like saying you can’t accept the dangers of cigarettes while owning a car for transportation. “What about your car, isn’t that creating smoke?”. ..See how that works..?? It’s a form of ‘shut-up’. “Shut-up unless you have a list of all the actions you are taking”. Like one must accept denial unless they can prove they create no waste whatsoever.

      This line of ‘thinking’ is intended to cast Climate Change as a nutty concern of squishy liberals. “Only flaky hypocrites care about the environment’. “Good Christian conservatives know the world will end when Jesus returns”. Those ‘good Christians’ support Donald Trump, of course. Never mind that Trump has never set foot in church.
      He’s a denier like us.

      1. Oh, I think I have struck a nerve! I never said anybody had to move to Walden Pond. Just, start using much less fossil fuel. People used to live without air conditioning. They had an electric fan, I did not say replace electric fans with palm leaves or anything.

        No, I think what I ask is pretty much common sense. When we had an emergency in WWII, people were asked to plant gardens in their back yards. Why not now? If we have a critical emergency.

        No, what the problem here is, is that the educated white-folks class think they can just deprive some deplorable hick in West Virginny of their job in the coal mine, and every thing will be hunky dory. Nope. If we have a real emergency, and not a manufactured one, then my above proposals are quite common sensical.

        Squeeky Fromm
        Girl Reporter

        1. Squeeky, if you kept current with issues you’d know coal is obsolete. The power companies now prefer natural gas. Coal is OLD technology! It dates, in fact, to the horse & buggy era.

          But your mention of coal reveals you ‘were’ engaging in ‘What Abouts’. The idea being that, “People who care about Climate Change are Coastal Elites’ with no regard for coal miners”.

          1. Hardly obsolete. You still get about 28% of electricity generated from coal. Pus, we export the stuff. Plus, it can be processed into liquid fuels.

            Quit trying to characterize me, and spend more time dealing with what I said. You will find that much more productive.

            Squeeky Fromm
            Girl Reporter

            1. Squeeky: 28%..?? What are the trends? Downward! Coal is less and less important. The idea that we need to blow off mountain tops and pollute streams with toxic ash is aggressively ignorant.

              1. Nuclear is the only proven mass source of energy which minimizes carbon emissions. Obviously safety is a paramount concern. However:

                The environmentalists threw that baby out with the bathwater a long time ago.
                how are you guys doing on getting the environmentalists to wake up to the potential of nuclear?
                do you scold them about listening to scientists when it comes to that one?
                https://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear-power/nuclear-power-and-global-warming

                I guess it takes a ruthless Chinese communist party to see the obvious sometimes

                https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-a-f/china-nuclear-power.aspx

      2. You said, “This line of ‘thinking’ is intended to cast Climate Change (AGW) as a nutty concern of squishy liberals. “Only flaky hypocrites care about the environment’. ”

        No, if a person is a hypocrite, then they don’t care about Climate Change, because they do not really believe it. So, you have two or three sorts of climate change advocates – flaky liberals, liberal hypocrites, and people who are simply mistaken about the facts.

        All of which is partially irrelevant to my point about fossil fuel consumption, which is a whole nother thing.

        Squeeky Fromm
        Girl Reporter

        1. Yeah, Squeeky, you’ve made yourself clear, “People with common sense know Greenland isn’t melting. All that documentation is faked by scientists wanting government grants”.

          Like I said before, “Good Christian Trumpers know the world ends when Jesus returns. Until then we can, “Drill Baby, Drill”.

          1. You said, “People with common sense know Greenland isn’t melting. All that documentation is faked by scientists wanting government grants”.

            And to think, people said you were slow!

            Squeeky Fromm
            Girl Reporter

            PS, seriously, think how many times you have been lied to by people wanting to make money off you. Our countless wars, and Russiagate alone should make you skeptical. Weapons of mass destruction, for example. I think AGW is just another one of them.

            1. Yeah, Squeeky, you’ve made yourself clear. You think Climate Change is a joke. You’re a denier. Just come out and say it then, Don’t hassle Turely with stupid ‘What Abouts’.

              1. I am sorry. I was being insensitive to your particular situation. As a Professional Shill, there is naturally a huge gap between what you say in public, and what you actually believe in real life. I should have been more understanding about the whole “hypocrisy” thingy. I know you have to make a living. Please accept this heartfelt and sincere apology!

                Squeeky Fromm
                Girl Reporter

  19. ” I am concerned over how students will be treated with an opposing viewpoint.”

    I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.

    1. Don’t worry, Prairie. NYC has only one POV. Education and other American values do not seem to count under his administration.

      “This week as well Mayor De Blasio of New York has announced a plan to destroy the best public schools in New York—schools that have been a transmission belt for those of modest incomes to become Nobel Prize winners and leaders across the arts, sciences, law and business. The problem for the Mayor is that these schools have student bodies that do not track the ethnic representation of New York, because they select by examination. And that disproportion is principally on account of the over-representation of Asian Americans. At Stuyvesant, the best of schools, students of Asians descent constitute 65 percent of the class! The mayor’s solution is to eliminate the exam and admit the top seven percent from any grade school although these grade schools themselves have hugely different standards of performance. The result will be to end elite public high school education in New York, as the previous standards of excellence will be impossible to sustain with students of widely differing abilities and preparation.”

      https://www.lawliberty.org/2018/06/15/discrimination-against-asian-americans-reveals-the-ugliness-of-racial-selection-harvard-lawsuit-drew-gilpin-faust/

  20. Undereducated students miss another day of school to further the leftist dad de hour.

    By coincidence, the teachers and administrators also get either a day off, or a day with few demands.

    Way to prepare young people both academically and with the work ethic to succeed in the workplace.

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