Warmists Claim Innovation Isn’t Climate Policy

By William Teach January 31, 2020 – 10:46 am

See, there are some Republicans who are Believers in anthropogenic climate change. Some are rather hardcore, some are just casual believers. Some are members of the Cult of Climastrology, pushing carbon taxes (such as George Shultz), others push different solutions, ones that even skeptics can get behind because they aren’t about taxes, fees, and increased government control over our lives and everything, while attempting to make our lives better. If we could dramatically increase the power generation from solar panels while decreasing their cost, along with better storage from batteries, making it easy for homeowners to afford this, that would be a good thing, right?

Nope

Dear Republicans: Innovation isn’t climate policy

For the first time in recent memory, congressional Republicans claim to have a climate strategy, with House Republicans rolling out proposals to encourage low-carbon innovation, including legislation to support technologies like nuclear energy and carbon capture and storage. Similarly, prominent GOP Sens. including John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), Mitt Romney (R-Utah), and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) are pushing for an innovation-focused policy response to the threats of climate change.

But while innovation is a critically important complement to a climate strategy, it is not nearly enough. The United States needs policies aimed at producing a carbon-neutral economy.

Innovation is not climate policy. It’s Super Bowl week, so let’s think of energy technologies as football players. Team Fossil Fuels has historically been dominant: the United States gets roughly 80 percent of its energy from coal, oil and natural gas.

Meanwhile, Team Carbon Free is the scrappy underdog: thanks to remarkable cost reductions in solar energy, wind energy, and batteries, Team Carbon Free is quickly catching up to Team Fossil Fuels.

Sigh. So, what is better “climate policy”?

Rather than banking on technological breakthroughs, we need a game plan that works backward from a winning outcome — climate policies that align the incentives of producers, consumers, and investors with a future carbon-neutral economy.

There’s good news for the Republicans turning their attention to climate change. Some of the strongest climate policies, like emissions pricing and market-based performance standards, can rapidly reduce emissions within a robustly growing economy.

So, basically, policies that punish citizens with taxes and fees, skyrocket their cost of living, and control their lives are preferred by the Cult of Climastrology. It just goes to show that they don’t want to solve anything (not that you can solve nature being mostly responsible for the current warm period), they want power and control.

Read: Warmists Claim Innovation Isn’t Climate Policy »

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Pokemon Can Teach Us About ‘Climate Change’ Or Something

By William Teach January 31, 2020 – 7:00 am

Is it that anthropogenic climate change is a fantasy, just like Pokemon? That it is not real? Fake? Meant for children who don’t know better?

What Pokémon can teach us about conservation and climate change

There’s a moment in the live-action movie Detective Pikachu when the ground beneath our heroes’ feet is crumbling. As they slip and slide, Pikachu, voiced by Ryan Reynolds, yells to no one in particular, “At this point, how can you not believe in climate change?” It’s a good quip — one of a million small jokes that’s easily missed. But it’s also one of the first times that Pokémon, the most lucrative media franchise of all time, addressed the climate crisis. It certainly won’t be the last.

Fans appreciate Pokémon for its camp humor, adorable monsters, and emphasis on the quest for excellence. But for more than two decades, Pokémon has also delivered a crash course in environmental science. Like a professor par excellence, it’s addressed ecological vulnerability and land management, extinction and de-extinction, the plight of endangered species and the dangers of invasive ones, and, most recently, the real costs of climate change. There’s a lot more to Pokémon than just catching ‘em all.

Pokémon was an eco-conscious project from its conception. Nineties kids know the origin story well. Satoshi Tajiri was born in Japan in 1965. He was an avid insect collector — the other kids called him “Dr. Bug.” At the time, Tajiri’s hometown still had rural pockets, but as the Tokyo metropolitan area subsumed outlying villages, plants and animals gave way to concrete and skyscrapers. Decades later, when he first played with a Game Boy, he saw an opportunity to ensure a new generation of urban kids could experience the simulated joys of taxonomy and tromping through the wilderness. In 1996, Tajiri’s company, Game Freak, released the first games in his fantastical universe of Pocket Monsters, better known as Pokémon.

Nothing wrong with real environmentalism, but, it is rather ironic that the same people who push the ‘climate change’ scam also want to force everyone to live in big, crowded, condensed cities like they do, eh, places with limited wilderness.

But for many of these species, time is running out. Recently, the 24-year-old Pokémon franchise has begun to grapple with the very real perils of climate change. In Detective Pikachu, it’s that one-liner from Pikachu. But in Sword and Shield, it’s much more serious. Corsola, a second-generation coral-like Pokémon, has been bleached by rising ocean temperatures. It’s been replaced by a ghost-type descendant, Cursola. Where the original reef was pink and smiling, the creature we have now is shock white with watery red eyes.

If Pokémon has taught us anything about the environment, then we know that the time for action is long overdue.

I always get my advice from cartoons and such. How about you?

Read: Pokemon Can Teach Us About ‘Climate Change’ Or Something »

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Democrats Call For Trump To Do Something On Coronavirus

By William Teach January 31, 2020 – 6:46 am

Democrats do not really have ideas as to what Trump should do, just that he should Do Something. Of course, if he Does Something, they will criticize that. There’s nothing they won’t politicize, and the Washington Post is there to help out

Trump faces pressure to respond to coronavirus threat
Democrats, including 2020 presidential candidates Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren, have argued that the president’s policies make the United States more vulnerable to an infectious disease crisis.

Of course they do

President Trump, a leading critic of the Obama White House’s handling of the Ebola outbreak in 2014, is under increasing political pressure to mount a coordinated federal response to the threat of the new strain of coronavirus — amid fears of a global health crisis with economic ramifications in an election year.

The White House has sought to tamp down criticism from Democrats in recent days by projecting an air of confidence and competence, with Trump presiding late Wednesday over an interagency briefing in the Situation Room. He also announced a new task force of senior aides to lead the government’s response, including screenings at 20 U.S. airports, the repatriation of U.S. citizens from China and efforts to develop a potential vaccine to treat the novel virus.

Sounds like a good plan. Now we’re just waiting for Democrats to complain about people being held in quarantine after they get off those planes.

[Democrats] pointed to the dismantling of a global health security team in 2018 during a reorganization of the White House’s National Security Council. And in an op-ed published in the USA Today on Monday, Biden called Trump the “worst possible leader” to oversee the government’s response, citing his call for then-President Barack Obama to implement a travel ban on West African countries during the Ebola crisis even though public health experts opposed such a move.

OK, none of that is offering a plan or solutions or ideas. Just whining

One senior administration official said Trump has been hesitant to speak out because some aides have cautioned that he could unnecessarily cause public alarm — and assured him that China is working hard to keep the virus under control. But increasingly, there is a feeling among aides that the president must say more, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations.

Another anonymous person and anonymous aids? Huh.

Meanwhile, some U.S. lawmakers have pressed for a targeted travel ban from China, which Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Okla.), a close White House ally, said in a letter to the administration was “warranted to protect Americans until we know more about the virus and the outbreak is under control.”

If he did this, Democrats would blow a gasket. Because TDS.

It’s probably a good idea Trump isn’t saying more. He does not want to start a panic, and, let’s be honest, if Trump gave advice that originates from the CDC there would be lots and lots of TDS infused Dems and #NeverTrumpers who would do the exact opposite because they’re deranged.

Read: Democrats Call For Trump To Do Something On Coronavirus »

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Your Fault: Climate Change Is Poisoning Our Food

By William Teach January 30, 2020 – 3:00 pm

Yup, your fault. You refuse to give up your fossil fueled vehicle and mortgage yourself to get a Tesla, plus, there was that steak you had the other day instead of eating bugs. Anyhow, in the BBC’s travel section (should they be recommending people take fossil fueled trips to far flung places?), Naomi Tomky got sick while on vacation, thanks to you keeping your heat above 55 degrees

How climate change poisons our food

One thing I’ve come to love about travelling around Mexico is that you’re rarely far from a toilet. Yes, it will cost you five pesos (£0.20), but it’s a small price to pay for a few folded squares of toilet paper, a clean seat and peace of mind (and bottom). But what I didn’t know as I explored Oaxaca last May, spending a few pesos to slowly, sweatily tour the bathrooms of the city’s cathedral, a few ceramics shops and the sprawling Mercado de Abastos, was that I didn’t have a typical, run-of-the-mill case of food poisoning. I had what I now lovingly call “my freaky fish poisoning”.

Some 12 hours after that first wave of nausea, as I was sitting alone in my holiday rental, the numbness in my fingers and toes crawled up to my wrists and ankles. The odd tingling felt as though I’d woken up in an odd position and my hands and feet were asleep – only instead of gradually improving and returning to normal, the numbness just steadily continued. It suddenly occurred to me that if it persisted, I might struggle to call for help by the time I needed it. So I did the only rational thing I could think of at the time: I walked down the street for ice cream.

The culprit, I would eventually find out, was ciguatera: a strange, specific form of food poisoning stemming from a toxin in certain types of fish. It is acutely misirable for 12 hours and has effects that often last months and sometimes years. There’s no way to screen fish for it and no known cure…

So, things that happen, right? Nope

…and it’s likely to become far more common as climate change warms our oceans and causes more storms, and more widespread as more fish is exported around the world.

This is the insanity of being a cult member: no matter what happens, it is the fault of anthropogenic climate change and IT’S GOING TO GET WORSE AND WE’RE ALL DOOOOOOOMED!!!!!!!

Despite rising ocean temperatures and related weather phenomena bringing ciguatera to the headlines, the toxin is extremely common and has been around for a long time. Back in the 4th Century BC, Alexander the Great supposedly forbade his soldiers to eat fish because of an illness thought to be ciguatera.

So, it’s completely common (especially in shady eateries)? Huh. But, hey, you need to pay a tax to stop Naomi from getting this again.

Read: Your Fault: Climate Change Is Poisoning Our Food »

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If All You See…

By William Teach January 30, 2020 – 1:00 pm

…are palm trees that will soon be growing in Canada due to ‘climate change’, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Moonbattery, with a post on large scale Fentanyl dealers being released in NYC.

Read: If All You See… »

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Almost 200 People Have Had Their Guns Take Via NJ’s New Red Flag Law

By William Teach January 30, 2020 – 10:30 am

I’ve said before that I am not fully against red flag laws as long as they protect Constitutional rights, such as due process, are not abused, and offer penalties for those who frivolously attempt to take people’s 2nd Amendment rights away. But, that’s not the way most Red Flag laws are structured

Nearly 200 people have had their guns seized in N.J. under new ‘red flag’ law

Nearly 200 people in New Jersey have had their guns seized under a “red flag” law that went effect last year, according to data obtained by NJ Advance Media.

The Extreme Risk Protective Order Act, which went into effect Sept. 1, allows a law enforcement officer, family or household member to submit a petition to state Superior Court showing why a judge should issue an order to keep guns away from someone who potentially poses a danger of causing bodily injury to themselves or to others.

So far, 186 temporary extreme risk protective orders have been granted as of Jan. 22, according to the New Jersey Administrative Office of the Courts, meaning more than one person a day has had their guns taken away — at least temporarily — in New Jersey since the law went into effect. In 25 cases, a petition was made but the temporary order was denied by a judge, according to court data.

There have been a total of 88 final orders granted since the law went into effect, according to the Administrative Office of the Courts. Judges have denied 29 final orders, according to the courts.

Should some people have their weapons taken away?

The law is at the center of a proposed class action federal lawsuit filed by a South Jersey man who had his firearm seized by authorities after he had “threatened, advocated and celebrated the killing of Jewish people” on an online forum.

David Greco filed the lawsuit in October, alleging his due process rights, along with other gun owners in New Jersey, had been violated, as they are not given a chance to be heard in court before a temporary order is issued and police confiscate the firearms.

Should Greco have his weapons taken away? Sure seems like it. But, he was not afforded Due Process.

But the lawsuit alleges that because the order is contingent on “good cause” and not the legal standard of “probable cause,” executing a search warrant is unconstitutional.

So, they’ve changed the legal standard to a much, much, much lower one in order to take people’s legally acquired and Constitutional property.

But, let’s go back: 50% of the final orders have been denied. So, does that mean the other 50% were frivolously filed? That there was no real preponderance of evidence to take away people’s property without due process and any real threat? How many Citizens had to spend lots and lots of money on lawyers, and how many couldn’t afford a good attorney to defend themselves in a “guilty till proven innocent” court preceding? This is all an end run around the Constitution.

Read: Almost 200 People Have Had Their Guns Take Via NJ’s New Red Flag Law »

Posted in 2nd Amendment, Constitution | 7 Comments | Trackback URL

It’s All About The Science: St. Greta Looks To Trademark Her Name

By William Teach January 30, 2020 – 8:35 am

Hmm, so, it seems to be more about getting famous then making some cash off that fame

Climate change activist Greta Thunberg applies to trademark her name

Climate activist Greta Thunberg said Wednesday that she has applied to trademark her name and that of the international school strike movement she inspired — a move meant to protect the movement from misuse for commercial purposes.

In an Instagram post, the 17-year-old Swede said that she and fellow activists have “absolutely no interests” in trademarks “but unfortunately it needs to be done.”

Thunberg said the application covers her name, the name of the Fridays for Future movement, and “Skolstrejk för klimatet” (Swedish for “School strike for climate”), which was the slogan on a sign she held during the weekly solo protests outside Sweden’s parliament that inspired similar actions by other young people.

She added that trademark protection is needed because her name and that of the movement “are constantly being used for commercial purposes without any consent whatsoever.”

“It happens, for instance, in marketing, selling of products and people collecting money in my and the movement’s name,” she wrote.

Oh, please. For all the protests about this not being about the money, it’s about the money. In the Instagram post (which I won’t be embedding, can never get those to work) we see

And third: together with my family I’m setting up a foundation. It’s already registered and existing, but it not is not yet up and running. This is strictly nonprofit of course and there are no interests in philanthropy. It is just something that is needed for handling money (book royalties, donations, prize money etc) in a completely transparent way. For instance, taxes have to be paid before we can give them away to specified purposes and charities. This takes a lot of time and work, and when the foundation is fully up and running I will tell you more.
The foundation’s aim will be to promote ecological, climatic and social sustainability as well as mental health.

Handling the money. Uh huh. Getting rich off scaring people and giving them “climate grief”. Is this the endgame she and her family and her enablers were aiming for, much like with Al Gore getting massively rich off duping idiots, or just them going “hey, we should get rich off Greta blowing off classes on Fridays”? How soon till St. Greta starts traveling around in big fossil fueled vehicles because she “needs the protection”? And many other climahypocrite things?

Read: It’s All About The Science: St. Greta Looks To Trademark Her Name »

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Hot Take: Excitable Adam Schiff Says Senate Can’t Only Rely On House Investigation

By William Teach January 30, 2020 – 8:16 am

So, is Schiff saying that they didn’t actually have the evidence in the House? He’s saying that the House investigation was incomplete and unreliable

Adam Schiff Tells Senate: You Cannot Simply ‘Rely on What Was Investigated in the House’

Lead House impeachment manager Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) tried to convince the Senate on Wednesday that it had to subpoena more witnesses and documents because it could not “rely on what was investigated in the House.”

Schiff’s odd argument appeared to admit that the House investigation was insufficient, even as fellow House impeachment manager Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) claimed that the impeachment case had already been “proven beyond any doubt at all.”

Schiff claimed that it would be unprecedented to hold a Senate trial without witnesses. However, he denied all Republican requests for new witnesses in the House Intelligence Committee, which he chairs — which was also unprecedented. (snip)

When asked why the Senate should call more witnesses and documents if the House Intelligence Committee would not release the testimony of the Intelligence Community Inspector General, Schiff dodged the query, saying that whatever deficiencies the House may or may not have brought to the Senate were not “sufficient to relieve the Senate of the obligation to have a trial.”

So, he realized later he made a big mistake and tried to correct it. It’s all a clown show. If the house wants a do-over let them come up with new articles. Let’s have a vote right now on the articles submitted.

But Schiff is making this claim despite Nadler saying the case had been “proven beyond any doubt at all.” What case? Abuse of power? Not in the Constitution. Obstruction of Congress? How is that possible when they never voted on an actual impeachment investigation? That makes any demands moot. Further, we have a 5th Amendment for protection. The Executive Branch also has executive privilege. If the Democrats in the House don’t like that, well, tough. Change the Constitution.

And they should all remember that these standards being set can and will boomerang back on them with any future Democrat administration.

Read: Hot Take: Excitable Adam Schiff Says Senate Can’t Only Rely On House Investigation »

Posted in Current Affairs, Democrats, Donald Trump | 56 Comments | Trackback URL

Surprise: UK Guardian Finally Refusing To Take Money From Oil And Gas Companies

By William Teach January 29, 2020 – 4:07 pm

The UK Guardian has long been one of the biggest and most consistent Cult of Climastrology news outlets for decades (in fairness, they do some good work on real environmental issues, though). The have a section devoted strictly to it, and have for a long time. They’re the only ones still focusing on the Keystone XL pipeline. But, um

Take it further? Good question. From the link in the St. Greta tweet

The Guardian will no longer accept advertising from oil and gas companies, becoming the first major global news organisation to institute an outright ban on taking money from companies that extract fossil fuels.

The move, which follows efforts to reduce the company’s carbon footprint and increase reporting on the climate emergency, was announced on Wednesday and will be implemented with immediate effect. The ban will apply to any business primarily involved in extracting fossil fuels, including many of the world’s largest polluters.

So, when will the Guardian take it further and stop using fossil fuels to gather the news, create the news, and deliver the news? They’d go out of business without fossil fuels.

https://twitter.com/headspace66/status/1222522997824606209

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Posted in Climahypocrites, Global Warming | 4 Comments | Trackback URL

If All You See…

By William Teach January 29, 2020 – 1:00 pm

…is horrible ice cream from world killing cows, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Jihad Watch, with a post on what happened when a 16 year old French girl insulted Islam.

Read: If All You See… »

Posted in If All You See | 41 Comments | Trackback URL
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