We Need To Start Prosecuting People For Ecocide Or Something

By William Teach April 24, 2019 – 5:03 pm

Warmists have already called for prosecuting, jailing, and even executing Skeptics, as well as fossil fuels companies executives, so this kind of derangement should come as no surprise, nor that major world news outlets, in this case the UK Guardian, put this stuff out. This piece is about letters responding to recent coverage of ‘climate change’, the insane, violent Extinction Rebellion, and Cult of Climastrology dupe and huge user of fossil fuels Greta Thunberg, but the first letter is a doozy

Human responses to the threat of climate change and ecocide

Bill McKibben is right to believe in humans (To stop global catastrophe, we must believe in humans again, 23 April). After all, in the blink of an evolutionary eye we have gone from being able to stand upright to being able to fly off our planet, from believing that the horizon was the end of the earth to being able to peer into deep space-time, from understanding how our bodies work to being on the verge of being able to create life itself. We love to compete and we love to collaborate, often combining both activities in the name of sport. We are inherently social and have formed our immensely complex civilisation on the basis of agreeing what is “socially acceptable” and enshrining that with laws and rules.

With climate change, where we have gone astray is failing to update those laws and rules to cope with our burgeoning population, especially in our relationship with nature and the functioning of our economy.

There are two actions we could take that would transform our chances of surviving into the future. The first would be to enact a law of ecocide – the death of whose principal proponent was sadly reported in the same issue (Polly Higgins, tireless advocate for ecocide law, dies aged 50, 23 April). And the second would be to change the rules of accounting so that all companies using natural resources had to reinvest, say, 2% of their revenues in the restoration and repair of the natural environment.

As for the companies thing, well, these idiots never seem to realize the cost will not be born by the customer. As to ecocide, they been pushing this for a while now, and tried to get it added on the the Rome Statute, which is part of the International Criminal Court, to go with things like genocide and war crimes. It’s not new, going back to at least 1972, and turns doing something to the environment into a Major Crime. The Cult of Climastrology has essentially taken the extreme environmental movement over, and subsumed the notion of ecocide under the Cult’s banner.

What would they do? Prosecute companies and individuals in the ICC. Interestingly, many Leftists believe the ICC is too weak, and gives too much power to, get this, defendants. Hey, I know, we can start with all the Warmists who don’t practice what they preach, starting with the big shots like Al Gore, Barack Obama, Bill de Blasio, and others.

The major idea for Warmists, though, is to move ecocide from the ICC to national governments, making it much easier to prosecute violators and people engaged in Wrongthink. They would further move this down the chain into smaller areas. Districts, states (something mostly only used in the U.S.), counties, cities.

Read: We Need To Start Prosecuting People For Ecocide Or Something »

Posted in AGW Socialism, Global Warming | 2 Comments | Trackback URL

If All You See…

By William Teach April 24, 2019 – 1:00 pm

…is horrific heat snow from carbon pollution, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is White House Dossier, with a post on the White House attempting to stop aides from testifying to the Dem House over personal attacks.

Read: If All You See… »

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Who’s Up For Destroying The Flow Of Money Into Medical Facilities?

By William Teach April 24, 2019 – 10:47 am

So, hey, what about hospitals in the Democrats Single Payer, er, Medicare for All scheme?

This Is The Part Of ‘Medicare For All’ That You Never Hear About

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and his allies talk a lot about how “Medicare for All” would take back money from insurers and drug companies, and use those savings to help make sure every American has generous health insurance. That is accurate.

But Sanders and his allies rarely mention that Medicare for All would also restrict the flow of money into the rest of the health care industry, including the parts that aren’t as easy to demonize in speeches.

At the top of that list are hospitals, which alone account for roughly one-third of the nation’s health care spending. No other sector, not even pharmaceuticals, rivals it. Under the Medicare for All proposals from Sanders as well as some other potential reforms getting attention these days, the federal government would limit payments to hospitals, quite possibly reducing their incomes significantly.

The case for squeezing hospitals is strong, given the available research on what they charge and why. Even some experts historically wary of government regulation are warming to the concept.

But actually crafting a policy that would cut hospital payments enough to free up big sums of money without adverse effects wouldn’t be easy and getting such a policy through Congress could be even tougher. The hospital industry is already pushing back and, as this debate moves forward, it’s only going to push harder.

There’s no doubt that hospitals probably get too much money, that they charge too much for the service they provide, especially when compared to hospitals around the world. And, I’m sure, many can make the argument that the costs are what they should be (an aspirin costing $30? No.) But, do we want to squeeze them so much that they cannot provide proper care?

The promise of simplicity is one reason price regulations are getting another look. If hospitals could send bills just to one place, instead of dozens, and if they could have just one list of prices, they wouldn’t have to maintain such complex electronic billing systems and hire so many people to run them.

More important, though, giving government the power to set prices would mean giving government the power to set those prices a lot lower than they are today.

So, um, yeah, putting the Central Government pretty much fully in charge of hospitals nationwide. If you control the money, you control the institution.

Not every hospital closure is a problem. The worry is that some hospitals might cut back on services like psychiatry that typically lose money but are already insufficient to meet current demand. Reducing hospital income crudely could make these sorts of problems worse, causing even longer waits for services ― or simply making it harder to deliver care effectively. (snip to end)

Adopting Medicare for All, Medicare for America, and other schemes that would regulate hospitals would require trade-offs of one sort or another. But so would doing nothing.

You could see hospitals closing, as well as reduced care and long wait lines. Surprise? Really, though, the Medicare for All crowd doesn’t care about costs or service, they just want the government in control of everything.

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Posted in Government, Healthcare | 32 Comments | Trackback URL

Grandparents With Nothing Better To Do Embrace ‘Climate Change’ Activism Or Something

By William Teach April 24, 2019 – 7:51 am

Is this a thing now?

From the silly article

For Charlene Lange, the breaking point came on her bucket-list trip to see the Northern Lights in Canada’s far north. Her tour came by plane because melting tundra caused local train tracks to sink. Now, she lobbies governors to fight climate change.

Gary Krellenstein was an investment banker who helped finance new power plants. Part of his job was examining the data on global warming so he could argue it wasn’t real. Until he found he no longer could. He spends his time today barraging his state senators with letters advocating for clean energy sources.

Susan Dobra dealt with the consequences up close and personal – literally running down a road as a massive wildfire, partly blamed on climate change, consumed her car, her home and her entire town of Paradise, California, in November. This month, she spoke before the City Council of the town she’s taken refuge in to urge it to pass a climate emergency declaration.

You might call them senior climate commandos. Each is over 60 – some well over – an age not generally thought of as being consumed by activism. And yet they, and a growing number of other older Americans, say climate change has created an all-hands-on-deck moment for humanity, a call they are compelled to answer.

So, people who lived their lives while using lots of fossil fuels, enjoying life, enjoying travel, making cash, essentially living a life they want to deny to future generations. They got theirs, now want to deny it to future generations. Because they’re bored.

“I’ve come to the conclusion that climate change is going to ruin the planet for my nieces and nephews,” said Mike Shatzkin, a New York publishing industry veteran who’s wound down his business to rally presidential candidates to back the reduction of carbon emissions. “I’m 71 and I expect to see the beginnings of the climate apocalypse before I’m gone.”

Apocalypse!

The 66-year-old Iowa City, Iowa, native had “pretty much ignored” the issue of climate change, she said. But once she got home she started reading, beginning with old National Geographic magazines.

“Basically, I was a denier,” Lange said. “I was amazed at how my head has been in the sand. This stuff has been going on for 20, 30 years,” she said.

What she learned horrified her, but she said she was also “sometimes pleasantly surprised” to find all the work being done around the world to deal with the problem.

Funny how the information on what changed her mind, other than reading magazines made from dead trees, is missing.

But he felt he couldn’t do anything else. He’d looked at the computer models and they convinced him that without serious change the world is headed toward a fundamental change in the environment.

Would those be the computer models that don’t accord with the actual real world data?

Anyhow, this keeps going and going and going with News Activism, ending with

“I worry that government and society will break down. We’re not built to withstand the changes we face,” he said.

But he sees a bright side too: more people of his age getting involved every year.

“There are lots of us,” he said. “We care about our planet.”

Yeah, now that they’ve lived their lives they’ve decided they’re going to Do Something. Based on fake data. Good job.

Read: Grandparents With Nothing Better To Do Embrace ‘Climate Change’ Activism Or Something »

Posted in AGW Idiocy, Global Warming | 12 Comments | Trackback URL

Democrats Are Charging Ahead On Passing Some Sort Of Un-named Comprehensive Immigration Reform

By William Teach April 24, 2019 – 7:21 am

This will be right after they tilt some windmills on something else

Dems charge ahead on immigration

Hispanic Democrats are charging ahead with plans to move a comprehensive immigration reform bill this year, bolstered by recently secured support from some of the party’s top brass.

Leaders of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) are drafting a measure that some Democratic leaders say they are ready to bring to the floor after the chamber tackles legislation that would both create a path to citizenship for so-called Dreamers under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program and strengthen protections for temporary protected status (TPS) beneficiaries.

“We need to move forward first on the DACA and the TPS — people who have been here making America better, creating jobs,” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said this month during the Democrats’ retreat in Northern Virginia. “And then we need to move very quickly onto comprehensive immigration reform.”

The article offers zero details on any type of “comprehensive immigration reform”, but we do learn from it that even the squishy Gang Of Eight type legislation from 2013 might be too much in terms of border security for the Democrats new Democratic Socialist base to pass. They’ll certainly want to abolish ICE, do away with detention facilities, and give easy voting citizenship. Further, it’ll get shut down in the Senate, just like with DACA, particularly since DACA is all about just giving citizenship away with zero security measures.

Some CHC leaders are warning that there could be dire consequences for the party if House Democrats don’t have a comprehensive immigration bill to show Hispanic voters in November 2020.

They might be over-estimating the support from Hispanics who immigrated to the U.S. legally, went through the process, paid the fees, and earned their citizenship, as well as those who have been citizens for generations, even hundreds of years.

Democratic leaders appear keen to have a homegrown proposal to run on in 2020, particularly as a way to counter Trump next year, when he is all but certain to make immigration a centerpiece of his reelection campaign.

Democrats will be offering what is essentially a reward to people who entered the U.S. illegally/overstayed visas and took advantage of the nation’s generosity (not to mention their crimes like murder, rape, sexual assault on children, identity theft) while Trump will be offering security from people who break our laws. How will that work?

Still, a consensus bill is unlikely as Democratic leaders aim for legislation that delineates the party’s core position ahead of 2020.

“It is a very controversial issue and the president has made it even more controversial,” Hoyer said. “The populist mood on the right has made immigrants an enemy. They’re not an enemy. The immigration community has made America what it is. So we need to move forward on that.”

Perhaps many, even most, of illegals (notice Steny Hoyer can’t even call them illegals) are good people. It doesn’t matter. They broke our laws in entering the nation, and have zero remorse. They’re demanding food, clothing, shelter, medical care, education, jobs, citizenship, and the right to vote. Not asking. Demanding. That’s why the majority are against illegal immigration.

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CNN: We’re Losing The War On Hotcoldwetdry Or Something

By William Teach April 23, 2019 – 4:25 pm

This comes from the mind of John D. Sutter, who seems to take lots of long fossil fueled trips

We’re losing the war on climate change

For years now, people like environmentalist and journalist Bill McKibben have been screaming from the treetops that we need a World War II-scale mobilization to fight the scourge of climate change.

They’re right, of course. And on Earth Day — that 24-hour sliver of the calendar when we talk about the fact that humans exist on, and because of, a living planet — it’s clear not only that we are losing this war but that we still are failing to recognize it’s taking place at all.

I mean, yes, I’ve met Greta Thunberg, the Swedish teen who is “schooling world leaders” on climate policy and who started a global school walkout movement. I’ve read the Green New Deal and seen the videos of young people demanding that US reps adopt it. Just this month, protesters in London shut down parts of the city in their calls for a reckoning. It’s true that clean energy sources keep getting cheaper. Electric cars are more popular than ever.

If he’s met Greta, it means he took a fossil fueled airplane trip to Europe

But the scale of the outrage in no way matches the magnitude of this disaster, which, like WWII, threatens to cripple or even obliterate human life on the planet as we know it.

We’ve known the truth about climate change — that people are burning fossil fuels and warming the atmosphere, with potentially catastrophic consequences — for decades now. James Hansen testified about the dangers of global warming when he was an NASA scientist in 1988. The New York Times headline: “Global Warming Has Begun, Expert Tells Senate.”

Like flying to Europe? How about the fossil fuels used by CNN? Heck, CNN has all sorts of advertisements and articles on traveling to places using fossil fuels.

Since then, the eco-woke among us have created more than enough deadlines to try to force change. In 1990, as George Marshall wrote in his book “Don’t Even Think About It,” the magazine Ecologist published a book called “5,000 Days to Save the Planet.” About 5,000 days later, the Institute for Public Policy Research declared that there were “Ten Years to Save the Planet.” In 2008, he wrote, the New Economics Foundation said it was “100 Months to Save the World.”

As a journalist who’s been covering climate for years, I’ve been part of that deadline trend. In the leadup to the Paris climate talks in 2015, I wrote that there were “100 days to save the world.”

The deadlines aren’t the problem. It’s our failure to heed them.

See? It’s not that the deadlines keep failing…..no, wait, that is the problem. The stupid continues in the article, you’re welcome to read it.

Read: CNN: We’re Losing The War On Hotcoldwetdry Or Something »

Posted in AGW Idiocy, Global Warming | 17 Comments | Trackback URL

If All You See…

By William Teach April 23, 2019 – 1:00 pm

…is a hazy world from too much carbon pollution, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Maggie’s Farm, with a post on Dems plans to overthrow an election and other fun things.

Read: If All You See… »

Posted in If All You See | 2 Comments | Trackback URL

Senate Democrats To Create Environmental Justice Caucus Or Something

By William Teach April 23, 2019 – 11:50 am

It’s, unsurprisingly, focused on raaaaacism, and, who knew that the current environmental movement was so racist?

‘We have a nation which has stunning injustices’: Senate Democrats start new environmental push

The U.S. Senate will soon have an Environmental Justice Caucus, to be chaired by three Democrats: Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, Tom Carper of Delaware and Cory Booker of New Jersey, who is also competing for the 2020 presidential nomination.

In an interview with Yahoo News, Duckworth said that the aim of the caucus will be to approach environmental issues with attention to matters of race and class. “Oftentimes, black and brown communities are the ones that suffer the biggest consequences of pollution and a lack of enforcement on environmental issues.”

Duckworth said she was motivated to start the caucus because of racial disparities in the way environmental hazards are addressed in Chicago. She pointed to the emissions of ethylene oxide, a likely carcinogen, in the wealthy suburb of Willowbrook. A largely white community, Willowbrook has managed to attract media attention to its plight. The federal Environmental Protection Agency is currently addressing the situation there.

But in another Chicago suburb, Waukegan, “they’re not getting the same type of attention,” Duckworth says, because that town’s residents are predominantly nonwhite. She also points to Chicago’s majority-Hispanic 10th Ward, which the Chicago Sun-Times has called a “dumping ground” for heavy industry. Manganese dust, which can be especially detrimental to children, has been known to blow through parts of the area.

So, wait, there’s a lot of racism in the Democratic Party run city of Chicago? And the Leftist run EPA is involved? Huh.

Duckworth says that such disparities are related to other expressions of systemic racism, including discriminatory policing. “As we talk about criminal justice reform, as we talk about economic injustice, environmental injustice is also part and parcel to what so many communities face, and what so many children of color face,” she says. As an example, she points to the prevalence of asthma rates in low-income communities of color, arguing that associated public health costs are then foisted upon the whole of society.

So, basically, they are going to make the environment all about putting people in boxes, like they do with everything else. Democrats do not see people as individuals, but as voting boxes. It is funny that all these “children of color” are having all these problems in areas run by Democrats, is it not?

Read: Senate Democrats To Create Environmental Justice Caucus Or Something »

Posted in Democrats, Enviroweenies | 17 Comments | Trackback URL

New York City Mayor Wants To Ban Buildings With Glass And Steel

By William Teach April 23, 2019 – 7:16 am

I’ve mentioned before that NYC was looking to pass their own version of the Green New Deal (which AOC won’t demand be voted on in the House, and she, co-sponsor Senator Ed Markey, and most Democrats had hissy fits over voting for it in the Senate), and passed it. Now

https://twitter.com/DavidRutz/status/1120329694992314369

Well, what’s the carbon footprint of Legos? Can they use them? How are you going to build a new building without steel? I guess some other type of metal, which would be incredibly more expensive. As for the windows, remember that landlords will be be required to retrofit “buildings over 25,000 square feet with new windows and insulation that would make the building’s more energy efficient” which will increase costs, which will be passed on to tenants.

Us, baby, it’s on us! No, really, it is on Us in Bill’s World (click the more tag)

Read More »

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Posted in AGW Idiocy, Climahypocrites, Democrats, Global Warming | 13 Comments | Trackback URL

Liz Warren Releases Crazy Idea To Abolish Student Loan Debt

By William Teach April 23, 2019 – 6:49 am

Hey, why stop here? We could do away with similar debt for home loans, car loans, medical bills, credit card debt, and business loans, among others, right? Why not? If we’re going to use treasury money, ie, Other People’s money to take care of people who legally signed up to assume a legal debt, we can help others

Elizabeth Warren unveils ‘broad cancellation plan’ for student debt

The $1.5 trillion student debt crisis has an increasing number of former officials and prominent businesspeople calling for a solution to the crisis.

And 2020 presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren joined that chorus on Monday when she unveiled a “broad cancellation plan” for student debt.

“Higher education opened a million doors for me,” Warren wrote in a Medium post. “It’s how the daughter of a janitor in a small town in Oklahoma got to become a teacher, a law school professor, a U.S. Senator, and eventually, a candidate for President of the United States. Today, it’s virtually impossible for a young person to find that kind of opportunity.”

Well, if they’d stop obtaining degrees in worthless disciplines, often ending in “Studies”, they would be hireable. Also, it’s not exactly easy for kids to claim minority status to get cushy positions like Liz did.

The Massachusetts senator’s plan involves forgiving up to $50,000 in student debt for 42 million Americans before reforming the higher education system “that created the crisis in the first place.”

Remember, this is a higher education system that is run primarily by Democratic Party voters. The schools are staffed by Democrats, run by Dems, the teachers are Dems, and the students are Democrats (until Dem policies screw them and they become Conservatives). Obamacare, ie, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act put the federal government in charge of most student loans. The cost of books at these Democratic institutions are utterly ridiculous, and the leftist teachers who write books know they can force kids to pay stupid amounts for the books.

And the kids never seem to have a problem finding money to head to spring break or weekend drinking

While it comes with a one-time cost to the federal government of $640 billion, Warren argued that the plan would simultaneously boost the economy and close the wealth gap. (snip)

Currently there are $1.5 trillion worth of student loans out there, roughly 11.5% of which are more than 90 days delinquent or in default. The average student loan borrower holds about $28,650 in debt, according to Student Loan Hero.

Collection agencies are increasingly turning towards wage garnishments—obtaining a court order to make employers set aside portions of debtor’s paycheck — to get their money back.

Warren aims to cancel $50,000 in student loan debt for every person who has a household income of below $100,000.

For those who earn between $100,000 and $250,00, she promises a “substantial debt cancellation,” and that $50,000 amount “phases out by $1 for every $3 in income above $100,000.” In other words, a person who has an income of $130,000 would get $40,000 of debt cancelled, while a person earning $160,000 would get $30,000 off.

Now, we could discuss the insanity of “cancelling” the average $28,650 in debt for those making $100,000 a year, but let’s consider what this is really about: patronizing young kids and the Democrats at the colleges. You get Someone Else to pay for the debt (unsurprisingly, Liz is going to have The Rich pay for it through a tax) and you keep the kids voting Democrat, as well as voting for Liz. You make those who run colleges happy because they get all their money, including the 11.5% which are 90 days late (that’s repossession time with a care), immediately.

And what happens next? What about those who are going to graduate with debt soon? Do they get a break? Of course, Liz wants to make college free. Democrats are very cavalier with spending Other People’s money.

Read: Liz Warren Releases Crazy Idea To Abolish Student Loan Debt »

Posted in Barking Moonbats, Democrats | 27 Comments | Trackback URL
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