Awesome: 3 Ways To Build Deep Public Support On Hotcoldwetdry

By William Teach September 18, 2014 – 8:37 am

Warmists are Very Concerned over public support for Doing Something about “climate change” waning in recent years, and are hoping that Sunday’s climate change march in New York City will reinvigorate the movement. The UK Guardian’s Adam Corner offers 3 ways to rebuild that support, because, otherwise, we are doomed, despite almost 18 years of The Pause

This weekend marks a crucial turning point for climate change campaigning across the world. The People’s Climate March (expected to attract hundreds of thousands in New York, and smaller crowds in London and elsewhere) is the beginning of a journey that will end in Paris, December 2015, when UN negotiators have a chance to improve on the dismal outcomes of the now infamous Copenhagen talks five years ago.

Can’t wait to see the photos of all the trash they leave behind

But we have to learn from our mistakes, and ask what could be done differently this time. Here are three important ideas for re-inspiring public support – in the hope that the road to Paris has a happier ending than the long bus journey to Copenhagen:

1. Strike the right balance between ‘brightsiding’ and apocalypse

Scaring someone is certainly likely to attract their attention, but with an issue as intangible, distant and all-encompassing as climate change, it is also likely to leave them feeling unable or unwilling to take steps to reduce the threat they feel. It is much easier – as we can all attest – to ignore it.

Good luck with this. Especially since there will be tons of doom and gloom on display at the march, along with lots of apocalyptic prognostication about fossil fuels in between all the Warmists taking fossil fueled travel to get to and to leave NYC.

2. Redouble efforts to engage across the political spectrum

Like the NHS, or any other major, ongoing intervention by governments for the public good, regulating the world’s carbon emissions can only happen with support from across the political spectrum. But a fiery and deepening polarisation has gripped the Australian and American political systems on climate change. A recent poll of Westminster politicians found that among Conservatives – and only among Conservatives – sceptical views are still rife.

Shouting at Conservatives that they are wrong, irrational, or misguided is not going to help. Climate change is still seen as toxic and left-wing to many on the centre-right.

Again, good luck with this. Start with the notion about “ongoing intervention by governments for the public good“, which simply means more taxation and control of citizen’s lives by Government, more Progressive policies, and you can immediately expect the center and the right to say “no thanks!” Plus, let’s fact it, Leftists are nasty people. They are virtually incapable of being civil.

3. Nurture communities of conviction – this is not a problem to face as individuals

In his new book, Don’t Even Think About It: Why Our Brains are Wired to Ignore Climate Change, my colleague George Marshall argues that our inability to grasp and respond to the issue of climate change is fundamentally related to the lack of social infrastructure for sharing, validating and strengthening our beliefs about this challenge.

Climate change is a dealt with almost exclusively in private. With barely any public or political discourse against which to calibrate our own views, we can easily come to convince ourselves that hardly anyone shares our positive views about climate change solutions, when in fact a majority does.

Say what? The issue is constantly on the front burner. Everything is blamed on “climate change”. It’s not private in the least. It should be, in terms of the believers practicing what they preach, which should have been the fourth way to build deep public support. Why in the heck should I believe what you’re selling when you seemingly do not believe strong enough to even make token changes in your own lives?

Lefties may like being sheep led by people who are deluding them, following the popular trends as pushed by their political masters, all without realizing the damage the Progressive policies will do to their own lives, but the rest of us are rational, thinking, and thoughtful, and refuse to become involved with this junk science escapade. The real data does not support the hysteria and doomy prognostication of Warmists, and, 100 years from now, people will be laughing over the idiocy of Warmists.

Meanwhile, another Guardian article has the headline Climate change is real. Want to live? It’s up to people like you. Nothing apocalyptic about that.

Read: Awesome: 3 Ways To Build Deep Public Support On Hotcoldwetdry »

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

Australia Stops ISIS Beheading Plots

By William Teach September 18, 2014 – 8:07 am

Wasn’t ISIS supposed to simply be a localized Middle East problem?

(ABC News) Police said they thwarted a plot to carry out beheadings in Australia by supporters of the radical Islamic State group by detaining 15 people and raiding more than a dozen properties across Sydney on Thursday.

The raids involving 800 federal and state police officers — the largest in the country’s history — came in response to intelligence that an Islamic State group leader in the Middle East was calling on Australian supporters to kill, Prime Minister Tony Abbott said.

Abbott was asked about reports that the detainees were planning to behead a random person in Sydney.

“That’s the intelligence we received,” he told reporters. “The exhortations — quite direct exhortations — were coming from an Australian who is apparently quite senior in ISIL to networks of support back in Australia to conduct demonstration killings here in this country.”

Several of the Islamists made an appearance in court, and we learn

Commonwealth prosecutor Michael Allnutt alleged the plan to commit the act was designed to “shock, horrify, and terrify” the community.

“I don’t think I’ve seen much worse,” he said. (snip)

While the claims remain unconfirmed, it’s understood the plot involved abducting a random Australian, execute them by beheading in a public place, possibly Martin Place in Sydney’s CBD, and film the act and post on social media.

The ABC reported suspects arrested in Brisbane had purchased machetes, balaclavas and military fatigues.

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten said today’s events reminded Australians “how close to home the threat of terrorism can be”.

The Australian government thinks there are at least 100 citizens actively supporting Islamic extremism and extremist groups. It may not seem like much, but what can one person do with a bomb or an illegal “assault rifle”? Gun grabbers here in the U.S. want to restrict everyone’s rights, and even confiscate weapons, every time a shooting occurs.

Meanwhile, we learn that a Yemeni born NY State resident, Mufid A. Elfgeeh, was arrested in May and “faces three counts of trying “to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization” (namely, ISIS), one count of attempting to kill officers and employees of the United States, two counts of having an unregistered firearm silencer and one for possessing guns or silencers “in furtherance of a crime of violence.”” Interestingly, the police seemed to understand his links to ISIS way back in early 2013, when they started their investigation. Why didn’t our president understand the danger?

Ed Morrissey notes This is one reason why the rise of a terrorist state is not just a local issue, or a regional issue. Terrorist states do not want to just be “left alone,” but will spread their terror and destruction until stopped. There is plenty of room for rational and legitimate debate on the most effective way to deal with ISIS and its genocidal army, but ignoring it or shrugging it off as a problem for the Arabs to solve won’t do anything but make our options much more limited and much more costly when we finally do deal with the problem.

The Jawa Report notes the French busting an ISIS recruiting ring.

ISIS has also released a new video threatening attacks on the US

Islamic State in Iraq and Syria has released a new video warning the United States that ISIS fighters are ready and waiting if President Barack Obama sends troops, as his top general said may happen if the current strategy of airstrikes fails.

The slick, 52-second video entitled Flames of War shows militants blowing up tanks and images of wounded U.S. soldiers. It then shows a clip of Obama saying that combat troops will not be returning to Iraq, ending with a text overlay that reads “fighting has just begun.”

The House voted to authorize the use of force to aid Syrian rebels, 273-156, with 71 Republicans and 85 Democrats voting against. The Senate is supposed to vote on it today, probably after Harry Reid yammers at the Koch brothers for being on his lawn.

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Belle Knox: Hey, Sex Kinda Ruined A Lot Of My Life

By William Teach September 17, 2014 – 4:05 pm

This is typically the domain of R.S. McCain, but, hey, I love pointing out that actions can have consequences. Here is a weepy article from the as usual moonbat site called Salon

“A lot of my life has been ruined because of sex”: Belle Knox opens up in a gripping new documentary

A five-part series about the “Duke porn star” offers a more nuanced look at the woman behind the media scandal

“Nuanced” or something. Gripping (double entendre?)!

But in a new documentary series from Condé Nast Entertainment, “Becoming Belle Knox,” those missing details of Weeks’ story are presented in full force. Many of Weeks’ early claims still pop up: She loves what she does, and she makes no apologies for joining the adult industry to pay her Duke tuition. But in the year since she started doing porn, Weeks admits, she has grown a great deal. ”I think my experiences have aged me,” she says in the documentary. “I don’t have the mind of an 18-year-old. I kind of have the mind and the emotional baggage of somebody much, much older than me.” (snip)

Spoiler alert: The five-part series is sad. Not because it presents a portrait of some poor, lost girl who has taken a wrong course trying to find her way, but because it shows in greater detail the burden that sexually empowered women — especially empowered sex workers — are forced to bear. At one point, Weeks says flatly, “A lot of shit in my life has been ruined because of sex.” It’s true, but only partly. A lot of shit in Weeks’ life has been ruined because of her enthusiastic participation in sex — and because of the cultural condemnation that accompanies it.

Read: Belle Knox: Hey, Sex Kinda Ruined A Lot Of My Life »

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Minnesota’s Biggest Obamacare Insurer Drops Out Over Massive Costs

By William Teach September 17, 2014 – 3:30 pm

Most Obamacare exchanges are already rather limited in the number of insurance providers. Minnesota’s now has one less

(Daily Caller) The largest insurer with the lowest premium rates on Minnesota’s Obamacare exchange is dropping out because the government health-exchange is unsustainable, the company announced Tuesday.

PreferredOne Health Insurance told MNsure, the state-run exchange, Tuesday morning that it would not continue to offer its popular insurance plans on the marketplace in 2015. It’s “purely a business decision,” spokesman Steve Peterson told KSTP-TV. The company is losing money on administrative costs for plans offered on the bureaucratic and glitchy government exchange.

Part of the problem, according to PreferredOne, is that MNsure hasn’t even been able to verify its customers’ information. PreferredOne said that some of its customers have turned out not to even live in Minnesota.

Fifty nine percent of the signups were through PrefferredOne. There are four other companies, all of which are much more expensive.

The Lonely Conservative has more news on the super wonderful most awesome majesty that is Obamacare.

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If All You See…

By William Teach September 17, 2014 – 1:00 pm

…is a rising sea destroying the works of Man, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is The Jawa Report, with a post noting that Islamaphobia causes Islamic terrorism.

Read: If All You See… »

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Oops: New Duke Study Shows Contaminations From Wells, Not Fracking

By William Teach September 17, 2014 – 12:08 pm

Blunting the hysteria of anti-fracking forces

(Raleigh N&O) A group of Duke University scientists often accused of anti-fracking bias have published their most definitive research to date linking shale gas exploration with methane gas contamination of drinking water.

But their paper, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, exonerates fracking from the most serious environmental risks. The study blames the water contamination on leaky well shafts near the earth’s surface, not on the process of hydraulic fracturing itself, which takes place thousands of feet underground.

The distinction is critical because fracking foes base much of their opposition to natural gas drilling on the fear that fracturing shale rock poses an environmental danger. They worry that fracturing, or fracking, could cause toxic chemicals and radioactive elements to flow out through fissures and contaminate freshwater aquifers on which residents and farming operations depend.

The findings of the Duke researchers, based on 133 drinking water wells in Texas and Pennsylvania, corroborate claims by the energy industry that the fracturing process alone is not likely to imperil drinking water.

This in no way means that we shouldn’t be cautious and diligent in the push for fracking, nor give up looking at all the different energy methods. What it does show is that certain people have made outlandish accusations based on feelings rather than facts.

Obviously, Warmists/enviro-weenies are not taking this well, as shown by the hysteria in the article comments.

Read: Oops: New Duke Study Shows Contaminations From Wells, Not Fracking »

Posted in Energy, Global Warming | 9 Comments | Trackback URL

Can You Guess What The Blueprint Is For Saving The World From Climate Hell?

By William Teach September 17, 2014 – 7:17 am

If you guessed “Warmists should give up use of fossil fuels, air conditioning, ice makers, hair dryers, DVRs, smartphones, computers, and should walk/bike to work, only buy local, plant their own gardens, line dry their clothes, and just go completely carbon neutral in order to show non-believers that they’re serious and believe what they say”, well, um, no. Usually one can say “this is Salon, of course they’re nuts.” But, this is typical of all Warmists

Blueprint for saving the world: Why the solution to global warming is staring us right in the face
Washington remains unable to do anything about climate change. Here’s how to finally change that

(yammer about the coming climate march Sunday which will have a massive carbon footprint and surely leave lots and lots of trash)

Yet what needs to be the march’s largest contingent may be nearly invisible amid the throng: citizens insisting that a carbon tax be the centerpiece of American and, ultimately, global action on climate. My Carbon Tax Center will be present, under a banner urging a tax on dirty energy, but we’re a small research clearinghouse, and not widely known. The Citizens Climate Lobby will be out in force promoting its “fee and dividend” program to tax carbon emissions and distribute the proceeds pro rata to U.S. households ― an arrangement designed to protect lower- and middle-income Americans without directly involving government. But adherents of carbon taxing remain a niche within the climate movement. And while recent polls indicate rising support for climate action and even for carbon taxes, the same polls show the climate issue lacking the urgency that wins elections and drives legislation.

See? It’s so simple. A carbon tax will cure all, and magically put money back in the pockets of citizens after their cost of living skyrockets.

The motivating logic for a carbon tax is as elegant as it is powerful: Making emitters pay for their carbon pollution is the only way to bring the climate damage caused by burning coal, oil and natural gas within the arc of the decision-making that determines how much of those fuels society uses. Without a tax on carbon emissions, alternatives won’t dislodge fossil fuels from their central position in world energy supply — or at least not fast enough to keep climate change from spiraling out of control.

OK, so a good chunk of those attending the climate march should pay a penalty for using fossil fuels to travel to the march.

Humanity is now in its third century of cheap fossil fuels driving industrialization and energizing human progress — a process that enriched Europeans and North Americans and has begun lifting Asians out of poverty as well. For most of this era, the “market failure” by which carbon pollution went unpriced was of little consequence. Only in recent decades has worldwide combustion of coal, oil and gas pushed the volume of carbon dioxide suspended in earth’s atmosphere high enough to elevate the greenhouse effect from a textbook truth to a veritable Cloud of Damocles.

Sooooooo, fossil fuels are wonderful at lifting people out of poverty? Then why should we get rid of them? Oh, right, taxes. More money in government hands to redistribute (or not) as they see fit. I do like that in this article it’s only the last few decades, rather than since the Industrial Revolution began. Unfortunately, there has been no statistically significant warming in the last 18 years.

Lest one thinks that Warmists are out of ideas, think again. This is one of the Main Ideas, taxing and (supposedly) redistributing, which gives Government more power over the lives of citizens, private entities, and economies. As well as puts more money in Government coffers. And makes citizens more beholden to Government, which supposedly will send them some money to help them out.

Read: Can You Guess What The Blueprint Is For Saving The World From Climate Hell? »

Posted in Carbon Credits, Global Warming, Taxation | 2 Comments | Trackback URL

Having Nothing Better To Do, Democrat Senator Threaten NFL Over Tax Status For Redskins Name

By William Teach September 17, 2014 – 6:58 am

Democrats have spent lots of time dealing with populist and other issues that really do not help the US citizenry, all in an attempt to keep the Senate Democrat. They write bills that include poison pills to make sure that Republicans will not vote for it. They do things like pushing the so-called “equal pay” bill for a second time this year, a bill that will primarily benefit lawyers and give even more private and personal data to the Federal government. They refuse to even consider the hundreds of economic bills passed by the House. Nor have they taken up the defense authorization bill. And now

(AP) A U.S. senator threatened the NFL with legislation over Washington’s nickname, a letter was dispatched to the other 31 team owners, and the issue was linked to the league’s others recent troubles Tuesday as the anti-“Redskins” movement took its cause to Capitol Hill.

In a news conference that featured Native American, civil rights and religious leaders, Sen. Maria Cantwell took aim at the NFL’s pocketbook by announcing she will introduce a bill to strip the league’s tax-exempt status because it has not taken action over the Redskins name. While prospects for such a bill becoming law would be tenuous, the inevitable hearings before lawmakers would enhance the spotlight on a movement that has gained substantial momentum over the last two years.

“The NFL needs to join the rest of America in the 21st Century,” said Cantwell, D-Wash., the former chairwoman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. “We can no longer tolerate this attitude toward Native Americans. This is not about team tradition. This is about right and wrong.”

Awesome. Government extortion. The Godfather would be very proud. I love the “21st Century” talking point. Democrats love trotting that out, in regards to ISIS and Russia. We keep being told they’re “living in the past”. Yet, they keep going.

71% of Americans still support the Redskins name. The numbers have dropped from back in 1992, mostly due to Democrats toeing the line in Believing In What A Good Progressive Should Believe Because They’ve Been Told To Believe That Way.

Halbritter had harsh words for the league as a whole, referencing the NFL’s handling of health problems suffered by former players, as well as the recent Ray Rice domestic violence saga and the child abuse charge levied against Adrian Peterson.

“The NFL is currently facing an integrity crisis. … While these are different issues, they are joined by a common thread of showing commercial and moral arrogance and a blatant lack of respect for those being negatively impacted,” Halbritter said.

Good grief. It’s absurd to conflate serious, real issues with a ginned up controversy in which most people do not see any disrespect towards Indians. But, this is yet another attempt at populism, avoidence of dealing with serious issues, and federally elected Democrats using their position to bully private citizens and entities.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

Read: Having Nothing Better To Do, Democrat Senator Threaten NFL Over Tax Status For Redskins Name »

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NC Sea Rise Is Under 7 Inches Per Century

By William Teach September 16, 2014 – 4:46 pm

Per a new paper

(The Hockey Schtick) A new paper published in Quaternary Research reconstructs sea level rise in North Carolina over the past 1000 years and finds sea level rise since 1845 has been only 1.71 mm/year, equivalent to 6.7 inches per century and in line with many other papers finding global sea level rise of less than 7 inches per century.

Data from the paper indicates no evidence of acceleration since the end of the Little Ice Age in ~1850. No acceleration of sea level rise means no evidence of a man-made contribution. The data also shows that sea levels “paused” their natural 20,000 year rise during the Little Ice Age from ~1,200 to  ~164 years ago.

Let’s put this in context: the average sea rise during the last 7,000 years of the Holocene (this time period used because that’s around the time that the massive sea rise from melt due to the end of the last glacial period stabilized) is 6-8 inches per century. During warm periods we should expect more sea rise, and during the cool ones less. That’s how we get an average.

Still, even if it was 20 inches per century right now, it wouldn’t prove anthropogenic causation.

Obviously, Warmists will state that sea rise is going to happen in the future, even if it isn’t happening now, and it will doooooooom us!

Read: NC Sea Rise Is Under 7 Inches Per Century »

Posted in Collapsing Science, Global Warming | 3 Comments | Trackback URL

If All You See…

By William Teach September 16, 2014 – 1:00 pm

…is the game of baseball which will suffer mightily due to “climate change”, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Nice Deb, with a post on the freed Sudanese mother Miriam Ibraheem, and how she was treated by the US embassy.

Read: If All You See… »

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