High Flying John Kerry Says Skeptics Shouldn’t Be Allowed In Elected Office

By William Teach October 21, 2015 – 10:23 am

How about a new term: Unintentional Deniers. They are people who say they believe in anthropogenic global warming/climate change, but fail to do more than take token steps to make their own lives carbon neutral. This would especially apply to people like John Kerry, who live high on the hog, use tons of energy, don’t eat local, and use lots and lots of fossil fuels. People who are total climahypocrites

Kerry: Climate Deniers Should Be Disqualified From High Public Service

Climate change deniers do not deserve to serve in high public office, Secretary of State John Kerry said at the kickoff of his Climate and Clean Energy Investment Forum in Washington on Wednesday. (snip)

“And to suggest that when more than 6,000-plus peer-reviewed studies of the world’s best scientists all lay out that this is happening and mankind is contributing to it, it seems to me that they disqualify themselves fundamentally from high public office with those kinds of statements,” he said.

Seems like Kerry wants to apply a religious test as to whom is qualified, which, last time I checked, was against the Constitution. This is what the far Left does, though: refuse to allow any dissension from their cultish doctrine.

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Climate Change Adding Billions To Non-existent US Hurricane Costs Or Something

By William Teach October 21, 2015 – 8:19 am

Remember that hurricane that made landfall in the U.S. just the other week? Oh, wait, the United States has only been hit with one actual hurricane since 2008, and that one, Issac, could be argued was actually just a tropical storm. We’re three days away from the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Wilma, which was the last time the US was hit with a major hurricane, the longest period of no major landfalling hurricanes since the Civil War. But, hey, things are supposedly really, really bad, according to Doyal Rice

(USA Today) The cost of U.S. hurricane damage has increased dramatically from 1900 to 2005 as a result of man-made climate change, an economic study released Monday concludes.

“The rise in losses is consistent with an influence of global warming on the number and intensity of hurricanes, an influence which may have accounted for 2% to 12% of the U.S. hurricane losses in 2005,” according to the study, which was published in the peer-reviewed British journal Nature Geoscience.

In 2005 alone, climate change was likely responsible for close to $14 billion of additional damage, including devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina.

Huh. The study avoids any mention of the last 10 seasons. I wonder why?

The study claims that the extra costs in recent decades do not just stem from more homes, businesses and infrastructure that have been built near the coastlines. “Increases in wealth and population alone cannot account for the observed trend in hurricane losses,” according to the study, whose lead author is Francisco Estrada, an economist at Mexico’s National Autonomous University.

Estrada and two colleagues from Europe said that this unexplained increase in economic losses over time is consistent with a climate change signal.

So, since there has been so few landfalling hurricanes and tropical storms since the start of the 2006 season, and they have almost dried up since 2008, does that mean there’s no “climate change signal” now? Some of the worst hurricane years occurred during….wait for it….Modern Warm Period pauses. The mid-1940’s through mid-1970’s was a big period, especially in the 1960’s. What of the great Galveston hurricane of 1900? Wasn’t much time for “climate change” to kick in, and it was when CO2 was well below the “safe” level of 350ppm.

University of Colorado’s Roger Pielke, who was not involved in the study, said it should have included hurricane damage data from just the past 10 years (2006-2015), which have been quiet for hurricane activity. He said it’s “misleading” to end an analysis with the “exceptional” hurricane year of 2005.

“The period 2006-2015 has been well below average in terms of damage and U.S. hurricanes,” Pielke said in an email to USA TODAY. “It is shocking that they did not include this further data.”

No, it’s not shocking, it’s what the Cult of Climastrology does. They claim that it is cherry picking to work backwards from today to show how long the Pause has been going on. Will they say it is cherry picking to ignore data from 2006-2015? Of course not, the idea here is to create a Scary Fable, for which we have to Do Something, namely, increase taxation and control of citizens, private entities, and economies.

Read: Climate Change Adding Billions To Non-existent US Hurricane Costs Or Something »

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San Francisco Explodes Myth That Sanctuary Cities Don’t Exist

By William Teach October 21, 2015 – 7:54 am

After the cold blooded killing of Kate Steinle by a 6 time deported illegal alien who’d been convicted of multiple felonies, many on the Left were quick to tell us that sanctuary cities just don’t exist, and, even if they do, they’re totally safer, and not the problem, dagnabit!

Yes, they do exist

(AP) San Francisco supervisors vigorously reaffirmed the city’s status as a sanctuary city on Tuesday, nearly four months after a woman was killed by a Mexican national who had been released from jail despite federal requests to detain him for deportation proceedings.

The Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a resolution urging the sheriff not to participate in a detainer-notification system that asks jails to let Immigration Customs and Enforcement officials know when an inmate of interest is being released.

The action sent a strong but symbolic message to critics who had lambasted San Francisco after the July 1 waterfront shooting of 32-year-old Kate Steinle.

What is that message? It seems to be “to hell with the safety of legal residents of the United States, we’re protecting those who are in the country illegally and may also be felons”.

“All of us in this room agree that the death of Kathryn Steinle was senseless and tragic, but what many of us disagree on is the role — if any — that San Francisco’s existing sanctuary and due-process-for-all” ordinances played in the event, Supervisor Malia Cohen said to cheers from the crowd that gathered for the meeting.

Supervisors said they wouldn’t let hateful commentary undermine a long-standing policy that improves public safety and embraces immigrants.

So, if you dare speak out against a city being a magnet for illegal aliens, many of them dangerous felons, you’re “hateful”.

Public safety? San Francisco is rated as a 3, meaning it’s safer than just 3 percent of US cities. The violent crime rate is 8.64, compared to the national median of 3.8 and California media on 4.02. Robbery and assault are well above the national median. Property crime is also double the national median, with theft and motor vehicle theft well above double the national median. Can all this be blamed on illegal aliens? Of course not. But, being a magnet for illegals surely does not help public safety.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

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Latest Warmist Meme: Climate Pledges Aren’t Enough, We Have To Do Way More

By William Teach October 20, 2015 – 3:59 pm

As we approach the next Conference On The Parties in Paris, where lots of Warmists will take lots of fossil fueled trips from all over the world, many of them sucking at the teet of the government via taxpayer funded hotel rooms, etc and so on, members of the Cult of Climastrology are trotting out a new Imperative. Brad Plumer at Vox is the latest

The math on staying below 2°C of global warming looks increasingly brutal

Here’s a capsule summary of the big UN climate talks this year:

1) The good news: Every country is submitting a detailed pledge to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

2) The bad: Those pledges, added together, aren’t nearly enough to keep us below 2°C of global warming. Short of drastic changes, we’re in for some serious shit.

Point 2 can be tricky to conceptualize, since it involves so many moving parts. For more detail, I’d recommend this new paper in Environmental Research Letters by Glen Peters, Robbie Andrew, Susan Solomon, and Pierre Friedlingstein. It’s the clearest presentation I’ve seen of how far off course the world is from its stated 2°C climate goal. And it illustrates why the United States, Europe, China, and even India would have to drastically rethink their climate policies to stay below that target.

Now, for years and years we’ve been told that the CO2 cutting pledges and such just aren’t good enough to keep the world below 2C (3.6F) warming by 2100 (despite there only haven been a meager .8C (1.4F) increase since 1850, and, at best, statistically insignificant warming since 1997), but, now, the Cult of Climastrology is demanding that more be done than what they call meager “carbon pollution” cuts, as espoused in the rest of the Vox screed, along with many, many others. There’s been a growing movement to push for more and more and more. Yet, interestingly, most Warmists aren’t willing to make changes in their own lives. Weird, eh?

Read: Latest Warmist Meme: Climate Pledges Aren’t Enough, We Have To Do Way More »

Posted in Global Warming, New Climate Deniers | 5 Comments | Trackback URL

If All You See…

By William Teach October 20, 2015 – 1:00 pm

…is an evil dog sucking up the Earth’s natural resources and causing more/less hurricanes, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Jammie Wearing Fools, with a post wondering why Michelle O is unveiling new websites.

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Surprise: Another Warmist Calls For Changing The Whole Economic System

By William Teach October 20, 2015 – 10:30 am

But don’t say that this is a political movement, because this is totally about “science”! Here’s Warmist Prof. Alice Bows-Larkin (video here) (via Climate Depot)

So that poses very significant challenges for wealthy nations. Because according to our research, if you’re in a country where per capita emissions are really high — so North America, Europe, Australia —emissions reductions of the order of 10 percent per year, and starting immediately, will be required for a good chance of avoiding the two-degree target. Let me just put that into context. The economist Nicholas Stern said that emission reductions of more than one percent per year had only ever been associated with economic recession or upheaval. So this poses huge challenges for the issue of economic growth, because if we have our high carbon infrastructure in place, it means that if our economies grow, then so do our emissions. So I’d just like to take a quote from a paper by myself and Kevin Anderson back in 2011 where we said that to avoid the two-degree framing of dangerous climate change, economic growth needs to be exchanged at least temporarily for a period of planned austerity in wealthy nations.

Interesting. Leftists have been telling us “austerity” is a Bad Thing, from the tiny itty bitty “austerity” implemented via Mr. Obama’s sequestration to asking Greece to live within their means, well, at least the means of all the loans (that don’t get repaid) provided for them. But, hey, for ‘climate change’? Austerity for all!

This is a really difficult message to take, because what it suggests is that we really need to do things differently. This is not about just incremental change. This is about doing things differently, about whole system change, and sometimes it’s about doing less things. And this applies to all of us, whatever sphere of influence we have. So it could be from writing to our local politician to talking to our boss at work or being the boss at work, or talking with our friends and family, or, quite simply, changing our lifestyles. Because we really need to make significant change. At the moment, we’re choosing a four-degree scenario. If we really want to avoid the two-degree scenario, there really is no time like the present to act.

She’s not just talking about changing lifestyles (which Warmists rarely do for themselves), but changing the whole economic system. To what, you ask? She won’t quite say, because that would give the game away. She and Kevin Anderson have called for “de-growth” in 1st world nations. Naomi Klein, who has advocated for a complete economic change to a socialist system, cites the Anderson/Bows-Larkin paper. So does Socialist Climate and Capitalism. As do other Socialists and Progressive sites. Surprise?

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Poll: Support For Civilian Possession Of Handguns At Highest Level Ever

By William Teach October 20, 2015 – 8:35 am

Gallup is running an article entitled Americans’ Desire for Stricter Gun Laws Up Sharply, and liberal gun grabbers (meaning, they want to grab Everyone Else’s guns, not their own), are crowing about this. They really love this poll

Fifty-five percent of Americans say they want laws covering the sale of firearms to be stricter than they are now, a distinct rise of eight percentage points from 2014. Fewer Americans than last year want the laws to be less strict, and the proportion who want the laws to stay the same has also declined slightly. (snip)

The rise in the proportion of Americans who want stricter laws on firearm sales can be attributed partly to an increase among certain demographic groups. Support rose among Democrats and especially independents from 2014, and among those who do not personally own a gun. However, support increased even among those who say they own a handgun, from 30% in 2014 to 36% this year.

Here’s what it looks like.

Interestingly, American’s have had much higher support in the past. More interestingly, just wanting stricter laws on gun sales doesn’t say what should be stricter, or how strict. Personally, I think they should be more strict, in terms of making it much harder to make a straw purchase and knowing if the person has mental health issues that make the person a danger to other people, along with better information when it comes to violent misdemeanor and felony charges. We want to keep guns out of the hands of people who might use them for nefarious purposes.

Of course, what Liberals mean is making it so hard to purchase a gun that people won’t. How’s that working out in Democratic Party run cities like Chicago, Baltimore, and D.C., among others?

Here’s where it gets fun, though, so fun that liberal gun-grabby websites fail to even bother mentioning this part

While there’s a slight uptick in the number who want civilian ownership of handguns banned, there is still a record level for support for handgun ownership. That’s your takeaway from this Gallup poll. Gun grabbers won’t care. And they still won’t push to enact policies that go after those who illegally possess handguns. Just the law-abiding owners.

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NY Times Blames Republicans For Ocare Coop Failures

By William Teach October 20, 2015 – 8:10 am

If you haven’t noticed, Obamacare co-ops are losing lots of money, and are not just on shaky ground, but are failing left and right and shutting down. Guess who the NY Times blames for this?

A New Attack on Health Care Reform

In recent months, several nonprofit insurance plans that were created to compete with for-profit insurance plans under the Affordable Care Act have run into financial difficulties. Republicans and other critics of health care reform are cynically pointing to their problems as evidence that the whole reform effort is a waste of money that ought to be repealed.

They neglect to mention that the nonprofit plans, known as health insurance cooperatives, were created as a weak, underfunded alternative to a much stronger option that the Republicans blocked from passage.

Here’s where it gets truly amusing. Can you guess what that option was?

Back in 2009, while the reform law was being debated in Congress, most Democrats were pushing for a so-called public option, a government-run plan that consumers could choose as an alternative to private insurance. Such a plan would not have to generate profits and would have stronger bargaining powers to obtain discounts from health care providers, enabling it to charge lower premiums than private plans.

When it became clear that no public plan could survive a Republican filibuster, Senator Kent Conrad, a North Dakota Democrat, proposed setting up these cooperatives to compete with the profit-making plans. They, too, were presumed able to charge lower premiums because they would not have to earn profits. The co-op provision was included in the reform law enacted in March 2010.

See? It’s all Republicans fault for refusing to allow the implementation of a completely socialist, namely, government run/owned, healthcare option, one in which the Central Government would create their own insurance, which would compete against private plans. This would be Medicare for people under 65. It’s not single payer, but it would supposedly provide competition for the existing insurance companies. It would, of course, force doctors and medical facilities to accept payment far below market price, and below existing insurance company values, all backed by the money and power of the Central Government. And they’ve done such a wonderful job with other programs, like the Postal Service, Medicare and Medicaid, Social Security, etc.

[The coops] problems have been attributed to wrong estimates for how many people might enroll and to setting premiums too low to cover the cost of care, as well as severe reductions in the amount of money available to the co-ops from federal loans and for risk adjustment payments, both the result of Republican opposition to supporting the plans.

So, the people who wrote the bill messed up, not one Republican voted for Ocare, but it’s the Republicans fault?

Now [The Republicans] are after smaller game, the co-ops. The Obama administration should see if there are ways to buttress the remaining co-ops financially. Even if some of the co-ops close, their enrollees will be able to find other sound health coverage thanks to the reform law Republicans were unable to repeal.

Exactly how are Republicans going after co-ops? What, exactly, are they doing? The editorial fails to tell us the answers. I suppose it’s due to Republicans going against the public option 5 years ago. The Editorial Board is blaming Republicans for the failure of Democrat policies. Gotta love it.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

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Having Solved All Problems, Obama Spends Day On ‘Climate Change’

By William Teach October 19, 2015 – 5:52 pm

It’s like everything has been fixed. There’s no strife in the Middle East, Palestinians are stabbing and shooting Jews for the next Intifada. A US military jet was hit in Afghanistan. Obamacare coops aren’t melting down. Russia isn’t in Syria. Iran isn’t breaking the deal already. ISIS isn’t attacking the US power grid. Everything is lollipops and unicorns!

(USA Today) It’s a science kind of Monday for President Obama, who hosts one event on climate change and another on astronomy.

In the morning, Obama meets with a group of CEOs “to discuss efforts to tackle climate change both in the United States as well as on a global scale,” says the White House schedule.

The discussion includes new technologies that can reduce carbon pollution. The meeting is also part of Obama’s ongoing campaign to build support for a global climate change agreement.

Hmm, so, all these CEOs are going to take fossil fueled travel to discuss something that doesn’t exist (there’s no such thing as carbon pollution in context).

(VOA)  From Coca-Cola to Nike, more global companies are pledging to take steps to reduce emissions and increase clean energy use in order to fight climate change.

The White House announced Monday that 68 additional companies have signed on to the administration’sAmerican Business Act on Climate Pledge, bringing the total to 81 since July when the pledge was launched.

Nike has pledged to reach 100 percent renewable energy in its owned or operated facilities by 2025. Other companies like Sony say they will reduce the annual energy consumption of their products.

So, when the costs for products from these companies spikes, you’ll know why.

PS: I actually wrote most of this post in the am, forgot to hit publish at 1030, and see that Twitchy has some interesting Tweets on the subject, such as

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Posted in Climahypocrites, Global Warming | 1 Comment | Trackback URL

If We Don’t Do Something About ‘Climate Change’ Now It’ll Be Like Dante’s Inferno Or Something

By William Teach October 19, 2015 – 1:57 pm

The NY Times’ Andrew Revkin, a Warmists who has told us that Warmists should avoid over-the-top yammering, seems to really like this

Avoiding A Climate Inferno

The current issue of Science features a short, but forceful editorial by the journal’s editor in chief, the geophysicist Marcia K. McNutt, calling for humanity, after decades of delay, to get serious about cutting greenhouse-gas emissions linked to global warming.

“The time for debate has ended,” she writes. “Action is urgently needed.”

Wait, I thought Warmists were denying that kind of thing, the whole “settled science” and ending debate? No? Of course, that shows us that this is about politics, not science, because the debate over science never ends.

McNutt (who was just nominated* to be the next president of the National Academy of Sciences) points to studies showing that nations’ emissions-cutting pledges made ahead of Paris climate treaty talks this December are insufficient to keep the planet from heating up beyond the 2-degree Celsius threshold the world’s nations previously agreed to avoid. (Learn more about that seemingly simple, but very complicated, temperature target here and here.)

Why propose something that won’t actually achieve the goals? As the old saying goes, when the question is why, the answer is money.

McNutt frames her argument around morality as much as data, alluding to Dante’s 14th-century allegorical journey through hell in setting the tone of her piece:

In Dante’s Inferno, he describes the nine circles of Hell, each dedicated to different sorts of sinners, with the outermost being occupied by those who didn’t know any better, and the innermost reserved for the most treacherous offenders. I wonder where in the nine circles Dante would place all of us who are borrowing against this Earth in the name of economic growth, accumulating an environmental debt by burning fossil fuels, the consequences of which will be left for our children and grandchildren to bear? Let’s act now, to save the next generations from the consequences of the beyond-two-degree inferno.*

Well, there’s an easy answer: all those who believe in anthropogenic climate change should immediately give up all use of fossil fuels. If you think this is just more of my “strawman meme”, au contraire. Let’s look at the paragraph right before the Dante’s Inferno one

I applaud the forthright climate statement of Pope Francis, currently our most visible champion for mitigating climate change, and lament the vacuum in political leadership in the United States. This is not the time to wait for political champions to emerge. Just as California has decided to go it alone, every sector (transportation, manufacturing, agriculture, construction, etc.) and every person need to do whatever is possible to reduce carbon pollution by conserving energy, adopting alternative energy technologies, investing in research, and capturing CO2at the source.

She is specifically stating that everyone MUST do this. Who better to show the way than those who believe this is all mostly/solely Mankind’s fault?

*Andrew Revkin left the last line of that paragraph out, not sure why. I would think it would go better with his headline. And, yes, I understand that Revkin’s DotEarth article is from July 7, 2015. It showed up in his Twitter feed a couple days ago, though, and perfectly encapsulates the nuttiness of the Cult of Climastrology.

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