Interesting Proposal: Use Wastelelands For Solar Farms

By William Teach August 27, 2015 – 3:17 pm

This is actually a pretty good idea, using wastelands instead of pristine wilderness. Think about turning huge swaths of dilapidated Detroit into a solar farm

(Christian Science Monitor) When utility giant Exelon built its pioneering inner-city solar plant on an abandoned factory site in Chicago’s West Pullman neighborhood, there was at least one unanticipated hazard: the shattering of glass photovoltaic panels by stray bullets falling from the sky. Exelon City Solar may not have resolved the deep-seated social problems of this crime-ridden South Side community, but it has demonstrated that solar power can breathe new life into polluted properties that have lain dormant and decaying for decades.

OK, mostly a good idea.

Surveying more than 35 million acres of abandoned mines, landfills, factories, and hazardous waste dumps, the US Environmental Protection Agency has identified a total of 5.5 trillion watts of solar potential – enough to produce about seven times the total electricity consumed by all US households. Site preparation costs may be prohibitive at some of these properties; cheap electricity from coal and gas may further inhibit solar development in certain areas; access to transmission lines may be a constraint at others. But already solar developers have overcome these constraints at hundreds of “brownfield” sites across the country, and hundreds of additional projects are in various stages of development. Huge clean energy prospects await us if we are willing to look anew at the wastelands we have long shunned as best forgotten.

There are quite a few places in the US which would be almost perfect, areas that are no longer used because they are polluted. It would be a great idea to put solar panels and wind turbines in these areas. Much better than putting them up in forests and parks and such, land that has benefit.

Tapping all these solar resources, it’s no idle fantasy to imagine a third or more of America’s electricity coming from the sun by mid-century. Brownfield sites are a promising piece of this puzzle. The opportunities abound; we just have to step beyond often-forbidding factory fences and “Danger – No Entry” signs to find them.

I really like this idea. We would just need to keep the gangbangers and scumbags from shooting the solar panels.

Read: Interesting Proposal: Use Wastelelands For Solar Farms »

Posted in Energy | 3 Comments | Trackback URL

If All You See…

By William Teach August 27, 2015 – 1:00 pm

…is an evil burger coming from an evil carbon pollution cow, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Fire Andrea Mitchell, with a post on a “Hillary For Prison” sign.

Read: If All You See… »

Posted in If All You See | 1 Comment | Trackback URL

Almost 200 Retired Generals And Admirals Call On Congress To Reject Iran Deal

By William Teach August 27, 2015 – 7:17 am

Unfortunately, it won’t stop the deal, because most Democrats are voting in lockstep with Obama, rather than the best interests of the United States, oh, and Senator Tom Cotton made it so that the deal doesn’t need Congressional approval.

(Washington Post) A group of nearly 200 retired generals and admirals sent a letter to Congress on Wednesday urging lawmakers to reject the Iran nuclear agreement, which they say threatens national security.

The letter is the latest in a blizzard of missives petitioning Congress either to support or oppose the agreement with Iran, which would lift sanctions if Iran pared back its nuclear program. Letters have come from ad hoc groupings of rabbis, nuclear scientists, arms-control and nonproliferation experts — and now, retired senior military officers, many of whom have worked in the White House during various administrations dating to the 1980s.

“The agreement will enable Iran to become far more dangerous, render the Mideast still more unstable and introduce new threats to American interests as well as our allies,” the letter states.

The letter goes on to say

The agreement as constructed does not “cut off every pathway” for Iran to acquire nuclear weapons. To the contrary, it actually provides Iran with a legitimate path to doing that simply by abiding by the deal. JCPOA allows all the infrastructure the Iranians need for a nuclear bomb to be preserved and enhanced. Notably, Iran is allowed to: continue to enrich uranium; develop and test advanced centrifuges; and continue work on its Arak heavy-water
plutonium reactor. Collectively, these concessions afford the Iranians, at worst, a ready breakout option and, at best, an incipient nuclear weapons capability a decade from now.

At the end of the day, every single result, good and bad, but, surely, mostly bad, will be laid at the feet of Obama, John Kerry, and the Democrat Party.

Of course, Liberals are asking “what’s the alternative?” How about a deal that permanently dismantles Iran’s nuclear weapons program, rather than kicking the can down the road? Was that not the point of the negotiations?

Read: Almost 200 Retired Generals And Admirals Call On Congress To Reject Iran Deal »

Posted in Iran | 8 Comments | Trackback URL

Obama: Highly Visible Shooting “Breaks My Heart”

By William Teach August 27, 2015 – 6:51 am

It doesn’t break his heart enough to actually submit legislation to Congress, nor do more than demand Congress Do Something, and the incident will be quickly forgotten by Obama as he pushes climate change regulations and stuff

(The Hill) President Obama said Wednesday the shooting death of two TV journalists “breaks my heart,” adding that U.S. gun deaths dwarfs those related to terrorism

“It breaks my heart every time you read or hear about these kids of incidents,” Obama said in an interview with Philadelphia TV station WPVI.

“What we know is that the number of people who die from gun-related incidents around this country dwarfs any deaths that happen through terrorism,” the president added.

The shooter, Bryce Williams, was a pretty bad person. He had serious anger management issues, and worked very hard to isolate himself from his coworkers. Of course, Obama, Liberals, and the media are blaming the gun, rather than Williams.

But, hey, where was Obama’s statement on four being shot in Democratic Party run Baltimore? Or the two hundred plus murders in Baltimore? How about yet another murder this week in Democratic Party run Chicago, following a murder Tuesday just 2 blocks from Obama’s home, following last week, where at least thirteen were murdered? Most of the homicides in Democratic Party run Baltimore, Chicago, and many other cities nationwide were Blacks, and most were killed by other Blacks. Where’s the concern from Obama?

Obama’s crying crocodile tears in order to disarm law abiding citizens, rather than working to get guns out of the hands of criminals, who usually are using guns they do not own legally.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

Read: Obama: Highly Visible Shooting “Breaks My Heart” »

Posted in Barry Obama, Current Affairs | 6 Comments | Trackback URL

Climate Change Is Totally Ruining Hollywood’s Winter Shoots!

By William Teach August 26, 2015 – 3:34 pm

Yesterday, I ran an If All You See… post with a sexy lady eating a burger in a movie theater. But, I couldn’t find any “climate change” hysteria related to movie making or movie theaters. Granted, I didn’t spend that long looking. But, hey, what’s this? (via Climate Depot)

How Extreme Weather Is Melting Hollywood’s Winter Shoots

While filming the first season of FX’s Fargo in Calgary in 2013, it was so cold—a reported negative-35 degrees with wind chill—that stars Billy Bob Thornton and Martin Freeman risked frostbite if their skin was exposed for more than 10 minutes. Production was canceled several nights when even the Canadians deemed the arctic temperatures unbearable. Thornton joked that conditions were so extreme he started sympathizing with the Donner party.

About a year later, filming again in Calgary, Fargo executive producer Warren Littlefield estimates that temperatures were often nearly 70 degrees warmer when wind chill was taken into consideration. Many days, he recalls, did not even fall to the freezing point. It was a nightmare for a television series named for a city synonymous with dread-inducing whiteout landscapes.

Oh, noes, Arctic level cold followed by warmth! It could have been caused by all the use of fossil fuels and energy for the production, ya know!

Climate change is no breaking news story—but it’s one that Hollywood, an industry built on the forging of fantasies, is increasingly confronting. And it’s something that a business famed for its control freaks, from auteur directors to studio heads, has no power over. Mother Earth has been throwing Hollywood climate curveballs with increasing frequency, reminding the town that she is more powerful than Ari Gold, Harvey Weinstein, and Scientology combined. And it has the potential, it seems, to get worse. A much-discussed study published earlier this year in the journal Nature Climate Change showed that higher global temperatures had led to a four-fold increase in some extreme heat patterns since the Industrial Revolution, and could lead to even more. Now, as Mother Earth tangibly extends the environmental pandemic to the movie industry, how will Hollywood have to adapt?

Eric Holthaus, a meteorologist who works for Slate, says climate change may affect Hollywood in several ways: The frequency of extreme weather makes it harder to predict which areas of the world may have snow, rain, or sunny days during any given month. And Hollywood may not be able to rely on “locations that are nearby and cheap to film, where it has filmed for decades,” as its home state grows drier. Ironically, this means productions may have to resort to the biggest environmental sin of them all—wanton air travel—to find better locations.

Except, movie and TV productions have long depended on going to places all over the country and world to film especially movies. I wonder how they would have survived in the much warmer Medieval and Roman warm periods?

Read: Climate Change Is Totally Ruining Hollywood’s Winter Shoots! »

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

If All You See…

By William Teach August 26, 2015 – 1:00 pm

…is a sea that will rise up hundreds of feet by 2100 because Someone Else ate meat, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Maggie’s Farm, with a post on scary freedom.

Read: If All You See… »

Posted in If All You See | Comments Off on If All You See… | Trackback URL

Warmists Totally Ready To Link Noctilucent Clouds Increase To “Climate Change”

By William Teach August 26, 2015 – 10:20 am

Of course they are. It’s what they do

(Weather Channel) Noctilucent clouds are a mysterious marvel of the night sky. The beautiful blue ice clouds are a rare sight to behold, but are they pointing to something sinister in the atmosphere?

According to NASA, the blue clouds were first spotted in 1885 after the eruption of volcano Krakatoa sent tons of volcanic ash high into the atmosphere. Since then, the clouds that form high in the atmosphere (nearly 50 miles above Earth’s surface) are a sight traditionally reserved for summer nights in far north regions like Russia and Scandinavia.

(more photos at the link)

They are only visible a few weeks out of the year when atmospheric conditions are perfect. “Noctilucent season” generally falls between the beginning of June and the end of July.

But according to USA Today, the formations are now appearing in southern regions such as Utah, Colorado and Virginia. So why are they appearing so far south? Some scientists say it’s a sign that noctilucent clouds could be linked to climate change. Produced in the mesosphere or upper atmosphere where clouds generally struggle to form, scientists think that greenhouse gases may be aiding in the creation of the noctilucent clouds.

And, of course, it can’t possible be mostly/solely natural now, unlike when Krakatoa exploded

While greenhouse gasses generally warm the atmosphere, they serve as a cooling agent when they reach the mesosphere which could play a significant role in making more of the icy clouds. This is only one theory and as atmospheric researcher Tony Phillips tells SF Gate, “the jury is still out.”

The point here is to create doubt, to make people go “hmm, that anthropogenic climate change is making things happen”. Why this would be bad is unclear, but, it must be, because climate change is Bad! But, hey, they kind of forgot something, noted by Eric Worrall, who predicted that the Cult of Climastrology would go down this route

Last year WUWT reported that Noctilucent clouds were on the increase, and predicted that global warming would be blamed. However, a NASA press release suggests Noctilucent clouds are more likely to be associated with decreased solar activity.

Huh.

Read: Warmists Totally Ready To Link Noctilucent Clouds Increase To “Climate Change” »

Posted in Collapsing Science, Global Warming | Comments Off on Warmists Totally Ready To Link Noctilucent Clouds Increase To “Climate Change” | Trackback URL

Trump Spars With Rude Univision Reporter, Kicks Him Out, Lets Him Back In

By William Teach August 26, 2015 – 8:28 am

Did you catch this?

(CNN) Jorge Ramos, the Univision anchor and journalist, extensively squabbled with Donald Trump twice in testy exchanges at a news conference before his rally here in Dubuque, with a security officer at one point ejecting Ramos from the event.

“Go back to Univision,” Trump told Ramos early in their first back-and-forth. Ramos had attempted to engage with Trump on his positions though he had not been called upon, standing and lobbing concerns about Trump’s plan at the candidate.

“Sit down. Sit down. Sit down,” Trump said.

Ramos started his schtick immediately at the start of the press conference, and hadn’t been called on. Trump asked him to wait his turn, giving Ramos a chance to be civil. Ramos wasn’t, so, he was escorted out. He was later allowed back in, and Trump engaged him for a goodly chunk of time. Via Twitchy, we get this nice, long video

https://twitter.com/mckaycoppins/status/636319356025073665

Trump went on to kick Ramos’s butt afterwards, during the time he allowed Ramos to ask questions.

Meanwhile, the press was chided for not walking out on Trump. And Patterico notes that the media and Democrats are making this out to be a SCANDAL! Liberals are Very Upset. Because only Trump would do something like this!

President Barack Obama has faced his share of hecklers in the past seven years, but Wednesday he took on one at a gay pride month reception at the White House, scolding the protester for being disrespectful “in my house.”

The heckler had interrupted Obama’s remarks by protesting the detention and deportation of gay, lesbian and transgender immigrants.

Obama gave the person a chance to be civil, then had them escorted out. Where was the national outcry? Nor was this the first time. He’s had hecklers escorted out numerous times. Where was the national outcry over Hillary roping reporters in?

https://twitter.com/WilliamTeach/status/636316740067045376

Read: Trump Spars With Rude Univision Reporter, Kicks Him Out, Lets Him Back In »

Posted in GOP | 18 Comments | Trackback URL

Left-leaning The Week Tries To Tell Us Why We Oppose The Iran Deal

By William Teach August 26, 2015 – 8:05 am

This is Stage 5 of The 8 Stages Of Liberal/Progressive Discussion When They Are Busted: “Concoct strange defenses based on wild psychological discourse, which no one understands, including the writer, but it sounds good, and allows a liberal/progressive to say there is no problem.” In this case, The Week writer Damon Linker attempts to project that psychological discourse on conservatives, or, as he sneeringly writes numerous times ” neocons”

The real reason hawks hate the Iran nuclear deal

….(a long whine about Dick Cheney)….

Like most pundits pronouncing on the deal, I possess no special expertise about Iran, and I’m not privy to the intelligence assessments that world leaders get to see. All I have to go on is who’s lining up for and against the deal, and the arguments they make. And this is what I see:

On the pro side, we have Brent Scowcroft, Fareed Zakaria, dozens of former Israeli military officials, dozens of retired American generals and admirals, a wide array of experts on nuclear non-proliferation, and the president of the United States.

On the anti side, we have Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (who has been warning ominously about an imminent Iranian nuclear breakout since — and no, I’m not joking — 1992), every Republican running for president and just about every Republican in Congress (though they’re quite comfortable displaying their ignorance of the deal’s details and the rudiments of Middle East policy and diplomacy), every single neoconservative pundit who was every bit as certain that we just hadto go to war to take out Saddam Hussein, and now the vice president who orchestrated the invasion and occupation of Iraq, which by this point onlyfools and ideologues deny was a blunder of world-historical proportions.

Mr. Linker forgot the roughly 57% of the American people oppose the deal. 56% say Congress should reject the deal. And the numbers get worse as we learn more and more about the deal.

Here’s where it gets fun. And weird

But such empirical considerations are beside the point. Facts have nothing to do with why most opponents reject the deal. They reject it because of an a priori suspicion of diplomacy and negotiation, which prevails in all times and places, regardless of the circumstances.

See? It’s so simple! All those people mentioned, and the people polled which aren’t mentioned, are against the deal because they’re against negotiation and diplomacy! It’s so simple. It has nothing to do with the deal kicking the can down the road. Or that it would be damned near impossible to “snap-back” the sanctions. Nor that Iran will block US citizens from being part of any inspections. Or that inspections can take weeks to start. Or that the Iranians will be allowed to inspect their own military nuclear facility. Or that Iran has stated it will ignore weapons and missile bans. Or that the deal will allow Iran to become flush with cash, which will go to terrorism and attack on US citizens. Or, etc and so on.

Nope, it must be because we don’t like diplomacy and negotiations!

The screed leads to this NY Times op-ed, arguing the same thing. Of course, both articles are meant to deflect attention away from the reality of this being a bad deal. Which it is. Period.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

Read: Left-leaning The Week Tries To Tell Us Why We Oppose The Iran Deal »

Posted in Iran, Liberal World | 2 Comments | Trackback URL

Surprise: Carbon Trading Scheme Increased Emissions

By William Teach August 25, 2015 – 4:45 pm

There was cheating involved. Can you imagine that?

(Politico) A flawed scheme that allowed companies to earn tradable carbon credits for projects supposed to abate industrial gases actually created a “perverse” incentive to generate more waste, leading to an increase in global emissions instead of cuts, according to a new study.

The Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) found that the credits may have increased emissions by as much as 600 million tons of carbon dioxide.

“What was shocking for us was the extent of the problem — we didn’t expect that it would be so big,” said Anja Kollmuss, an SEI associate who led the study.

The study could create problems for global climate talks later this year because they undercut the credibility of carbon trading schemes, one of the most popular ways of using market mechanisms to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.

One of the most popular among people who a) want to increase the size and scope of the government, b) want to redistribute Other People’s wealth, and c), refuse to make changes within their own lives to go carbon neutral.

Virtually every carbon trading scheme is failing because the cost of the credits has collapsed to “junk bond” status. And those who are forced to participate work to find ways around them, as well as pass on the costs to the consumers.

The worst offenders were in Ukraine and Russia, where the system was riddled with corruption, the Stockholm authors wrote in an article published Monday by the Nature Climate Change journal. They noted “perverse effects” that had the operators of three chemical plants removing safeguards and increasing the production of powerful greenhouse gases to earn more lucrative credits.

“If you produced more greenhouse gases only to destroy them and generate more carbon credits, you would essentially be damaging the climate for profit,” said Lambert Schneider, an SEI associate and co-author of the study.

So, the carbon trading scheme enticed the companies to engage in bad behavior. Where were the government bureaucrats?

Read: Surprise: Carbon Trading Scheme Increased Emissions »

Posted in Carbon Credits, Global Warming | 8 Comments | Trackback URL
Pirate's Cove