High Flying Christiana Figueres Calls For Leaving Almost All Fossil Fuels In The Ground

By William Teach April 4, 2014 – 10:33 am

This is the same lady who thinks communism is the best way to fight climate change and hates US democracy (via Junk Science)

(Reuters) The U.N.’s climate chief called on the oil and gas industry on Thursday to make a drastic shift to a clean, low-carbon future or risk having to leave three-quarters of fossil fuel reserves in the ground.

“The time for experimentation, for marginal changes and for conditional response is now over,” Christiana Figueres told the International Petroleum Industry Environmental Conservation Association (IPIECA) in a speech in London.

I’m sure the fossil fuels industry was thrilled by the notion of firing themselves.

She urged an “urgent transformation” to greener production after top scientists warned on Monday that climate change would damage food supplies, slow economic growth and aggravate the underlying causes of armed conflicts.

Limiting global warming to an agreed U.N. ceiling “means that three quarters of the fossil fuel reserves need to stay in the ground, and the fossil fuels we do use must be utilized sparingly and responsibly,” she said.

By “sparingly and responsibly” she probably means “allowing Christiana to take all sorts of fossil fueled trips around the world while restricting its use for Other People.” Does anyone think she walked to the speech? In the last year she’s given speeches in:

  • Bonn, Germany (twice)
  • Washington, D.C.
  • Johannesburg, South Africa
  • Songdo, South Korea
  • Warsaw, Poland
  • Cambridge, Mass
  • Bogota, Columbia
  • Barcelona, Spain
  • Boston, Mass
  • San Francisco, California

If you continue down the list, you’ll find that she visits all sorts of places around the world. Australia, Barbados, China, Abu Dhabi, Durban, etc, lots and lots of fossil fueled trips. This would be a pure example of what would be termed hypocrisy. It’s also interesting to note that she seems to want to deny the same cheap energy to people in developing nations.

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Posted in Climahypocrites, Global Warming | 2 Comments | Trackback URL

Maryland Ocare Exchange Has A Net Loss

By William Teach April 4, 2014 – 7:56 am

Remember how Maryland was supposed to be a model for how the new “Affordable” Care Act exchanges would work? Well, that was before their website turned out to be a complete failure. They’re now looking to use the Connecticut exchange software, after pissing away $125 million, which could cost another $30 million or more. Know what else failed?

(CNS News) The head of the Maryland Health Insurance Exchange testified Thursday before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that only 60,000 people have signed up for Obamacare through the state’s exchange – 13,000 less than the number of individuals reported to lose their insurance due to Obamacare.

“According to our reports, according to AP, press accounts, 73,000 individuals in Maryland were going to lose their insurance because of the Affordable Care Act, and what you’re telling me is your revised goal is approximately the same number – 75,000. So your revised goal of people you’re gonna sign up is: We’re gonna sign up the people who were kicked off of the Affordable Care Act,” Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) said.

So, there you go, a net loss of 13,000. Of course, the question is “how many said to hell with the Exchange and purchased insurance on their own?” If so, it’s interesting that so many did not want to go through the Exchange. But, then, the original goal was 150,000 “private” insurance signups through the Exchange originally.

In prepared written testimony, Joshua Sharfstein, chair of the Maryland Health Benefit Exchange, said, “We expect that by the time the dust settles, more than 290,000 Marylanders will have enrolled in coverage since January 1, including more than 60,000 Marylanders in qualified health plans and more than 230,000 Marylanders in Medicaid.”

Which should be equally as disturbing, since so many people are being moved to Government paid for and Government controlled plans, creating more entitlement.

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Could Skeptic Keith Baugues Be The Next Victim Of The Progressive Truth Squad?

By William Teach April 4, 2014 – 7:26 am

We already know that people who fail to toe the Progressive line can be hounded, demeaned, abused, and even forced out of their jobs. Witness Mozilla CEO Brenden Eichs, forced to step down because he dared to donate a measly $1,000 to Proposition 8. Even Andrew Sullivan thought forcing Eichs out was a Bad Idea, was too much, and showed no tolerance. Then witness what the IRS did to TEA Party groups. Witness the President of the United States Of America insult, denigrate, abuse, ridicule, and just plain treat American citizens who have different political views with a lack of respect. Witness Harry Reid, the Majority Leader in the US Senate, denigrate private citizens, the Charles and David Koch. Remember Joe the Plumber, hounded because he responded to a question Obama asked him? How about all the people who complained about Obamacare? I often mention that Progressives are what Jonah Goldberg refers to as “nice fascists”. Warmists are part of that movement, and most certainly have to drop the nice when people refuse to toe the line

(USA Today) Keith Baugues is not a scientist, but that didn’t stop him on a recent wintry day from expressing skepticism about global warming — something that is broadly accepted in the scientific community.

After weeks of heavy snow and freezing air, he had had enough. He took to a government message board one day in February, complaining that his normal 45-minute commute had turned into a painful three-hour slog. “Anyone who says global warming is obviously suffering from frostbite,” he wrote.

Baugues would later say he was only joking. But he wasn’t just any government bureaucrat. Baugues is assistant commissioner in the Office of Air Quality in the Indiana Department of Environmental Management, the man in charge of cleaning up Indiana’s air.

He’s apparently not allowed to hold a different position, because, as we all know, global warming is the result of everything, and has taken over the environmental movement.

Reaction was swift, according to remarks posted to the message board reviewed by The Indianapolis Star. Several Environmental Management staff members wrote that the comment flew in the face of nearly unanimous scientific consensus and offended and embarrassed them.

“Either support consensus science or please keep your opinions to yourself. The rest of us are embarrassed by your unwillingness to accept what is happening,” one worker wrote.

Of course, there is no such thing as consensus science, unless we are referring to political science. Let’s not forget that the real consensus is that 95% of the models have failed. Many of the comments whined at Baugues talking about consensus. So does the USA Today article. Funny that they so rarely talk about science, following the scientific model, doing experiments, looking at the raw data, etc.

Another said that Baugues “should not speak on such matters until he is better informed.” Then that person, who was not named, took pains to point out that recent extremes of cold weather were caused by warming global temperatures. That resulted in more water being absorbed into the atmosphere, pushing the arctic jet stream farther south.

I believe the clinical term for these Warmists is Bat Guano Insane.

Anyhow, despite attempting to mollify the Progressive Truth Squad a bit, Baugues declared that he is “a skeptic of global warming”. He also wrote that he is more than willing to have a discussion. But Warmists do not want a debate, even though Indiana has attained air quality mandate compliance under Baugues. Oh, no, a head must roll

But some scientists and environmentalists note that Baugues’ comments are at such odds with overwhelming scientific opinion that they wonder whether he is the right person to lead Indiana’s efforts to regulate air polluters.

Will this go further? Will they hound this man out of a job because he holds the wrong political belief? Time will tell. What we do know is that Mr. Baugues best watch his back, because the Progressive Truth Squad is on the case.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

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Posted in Global Warming, Liberal World | 9 Comments | Trackback URL

House GOP Goes After “Climate Change” Spending

By William Teach April 3, 2014 – 4:56 pm

This is obviously going to cause much freakout in Warmist World, where they expect Someone Else to pay up

(Bloomberg) A fiscal year 2015 budget plan developed by House Republicans aims to reduce funding for federal climate change programs.

The House fiscal 2015 budget resolution, released April 1, proposes to cut overall spending on the federal government’s climate change-related activities, mostly through reduced spending on overseas climate change activities. The budget resolution also recommends that federal agencies streamline climate change programs to eliminate “duplicative and unnecessary” spending.

The budget blueprint also recommends ending funding for renewable energy programs and expanding oil and gas development on federal land.

One thing to note: I have no problem with tax breaks/incentives for alternative energy, and if they are going to be offered for oil, coal, nuclear and natural gas, alternatives should get them. However, no subsidies, no more taxpayer funded boondoggles.

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Posted in Energy, Global Warming | 3 Comments | Trackback URL

If All You See…

By William Teach April 3, 2014 – 1:00 pm

…is a horrible ocean rising and evil rains a comin’ due to Someone Else not buying local, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Fire Andrea Mitchell, with a post on insanity at the Huffington Post.

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We’re Having The Wrong Debate On Hotcoldwetdry Or Something

By William Teach April 3, 2014 – 11:43 am

I’m going to skip the whinyness and woe-is-us from Warmist Fiona Johnson, and skip to the fun part

I find it frustrating that the comments in social media and on forums degenerate in a fairly predictable way when it comes to so-called debates about human-induced climate change.

But we are having the wrong debate. For climate change, the evidence is clear that carbon dioxide and temperatures are increasing. Where is the interest in debating observations?

Data like this?

Alas, she doesn’t really want to discuss data, probably because the real world data is pesky and blows the models and talking points out of the water.

What is more interesting is when we have to make decisions that depend on the values that we hold as a community. Someone may value free markets, someone else may value the natural diversity of our coral reefs, whilst a third may value a large house on the beach. The debate that we need to have is how these values can co-exist or if they can’t then how to prioritise them. But the current level of vitriol doesn’t promote rational discussions.

So, we do not need to discuss science and data, but feelings. Cult, anyone?

Read: We’re Having The Wrong Debate On Hotcoldwetdry Or Something »

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

Chile’s Earthquake Means We Need To Take “Climate Change” Seriously Or Something

By William Teach April 3, 2014 – 8:07 am

You just knew that some Warmist somewhere was going to link the recent 8.2 Chile earthquake to “climate change”, right? Here we go

Chile’s Terrifying Earthquake Makes It Clear That We Need to Take Climate Change Seriously

An 8.2-magnitude earthquake struck the northern coast of Chile Tuesday night, triggering landslides, fires, a small tsunami, destruction of homes and power outages. Reports say six people have been killed, either from being crushed by debris or from suffering heart attacks. The scene was chaos as more than 900,000 people were evacuated, hundreds of prisoners escaped and aftershocks rocked the country. With power and road access cut off in many areas, people were waiting in the dark atop hills for help, CNN reported.

Tuesday’s enormous earthquake and its alarming repercussions may be part of a larger phenomenon less natural than we might think: climate change. (snip)

For many, this earthquake evokes the panic Chile suffered in the aftermath of its 2010 earthquake that, at 8.8 on the Richter scale, killed more than 500 people and actually knocked the Earth a few degrees off its axis. In 2004 the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami killed more than 200,000 people and also shifted the Earth off its axis. With each small degree change in the Earth’s axis, time as we know it changes. Our days literally shorten.

Marguerite Ward attempts to make a link to the glacial melt

Today, while we’re far from our more glacial past, we are experiencing warming and rising sea levels at an unprecedented rate. As glaciers melt, fault lines are able to move more easily, making earthquakes more possible and common.

Except, the earthquake was not an area with any melting glaciers. Nor was the one in the Indian Ocean. Nor the Japanese earthquake (though she doesn’t mention it, Warmists did go down that road)

The Incorporated Research Institute for Seismology runs a live interactive map of all recent earthquakes. Both large and small, there have been nearly 33,000 earthquakes this past year alone. Hundreds of earthquakes have shaken the Earth in the past seven days. Will earthquakes like the one that rocked Chile this week become more common as the Earth’s climate changes? It may be time to rethink what exactly climate change means.

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36,000 Potential Cases Of Voter Fraud In North Carolina In 2012

By William Teach April 3, 2014 – 7:49 am

Democrats will tell us that voter fraud is virtually non-existent….well, except when they lose an election (cough 2000, cough, 2004)

(WRAL) State elections officials said Wednesday that they’re investigating hundreds of cases of voters who appear to have voted in two states and several dozen who appear to have voted after their deaths.

State lawmakers last year mandated the State Board of Elections to enter into an “Interstate Crosscheck” – a compact of 28 states that agreed to check their voter registration records against those of other states. The program is run by a Kansas consortium, checking 101 million voter records. The largest states – CA, FL, NY, and TX – are not part of the consortium.

State Board of Elections Executive Director Kim Westbrook Strach delivered the report Wednesday to the legislative Elections Oversight committee.

Strach said North Carolina’s check found 765 registered North Carolina voters who appear to match registered voters in other states on their first names, last names, dates of birth and the final four digits of their Social Security numbers. Those voters appear to have voted in North Carolina in 2012 and also voted in another state in 2012.

There are also an additional 36,000 names which match people who voted in other states, but there is no Social Security number match, because most of the states are not providing the last 4 of the SS#. There are also 13,416 dead voters on the rolls. 81 voted, though it looks like 30 voted by absentee ballot.

“I think the big bombshell today is that you have documented voter fraud that has occurred,” said Rep. Tim Moore, R-Cleveland. “We have over 36,000 people who apparently voted in this state illegally and committed felonies.”

They are running a few ideas up the flagpole, and there would have to be coordination between the states. Of course, this has brought out the anti-voter ID whiners

Sen. Angela Bryant, D-Nash, pointed out that the current changes in voting laws and the requirement for voters to present photo identification at the polls will not stop anyone from voting in two states.

Voting rights advocate Bob Phillips with Common Cause NC said he, too, is concerned about the repoirt and wants to see the cases investigated. But he said it still doesn’t justify House Bill 589, the 2013 law that included voter ID and several other key changes.

“In my mind, it doesn’t justify cutting early voting. It doesn’t justify eliminating same-day voter registration. It has nothing to do with eliminating the pre-registration for 16- and 17-year-olds. A lot of what 589 did, that is not connected to this information,” Phillips said. “But I’m saying – as an advocate for good government, and an advocate for easy, accessible voting – sure, this needs to be looked at.”

Do they have a point? Of course. None of the 589 measures will stop this particular type of voting fraud, right? Ah, but it can. One must have a North Carolina ID to vote (or something else that shows you actually live here). It’s not a perfect system, but it can help reduce the double voting. Either way, this shows that fraud does occur.

And you can bet your bottom dollar (not hard to find in the Obamaeconomy) that Democrats will fight tooth and nail against any reforms.

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Posted in Election Fraud, NC News | 10 Comments | Trackback URL

Affordable: Ocare Could Cost Large Employers Up To $5,900 Extra Per Employee

By William Teach April 3, 2014 – 6:58 am

Hooray, affordable reform!

(Washington Free Beacon) Obamacare will cost large companies between $4,800 and $5,900 more per employee and add hundreds of millions to their overhead, according to a new survey.

The American Health Policy Institute conducted a confidential survey of 100 large employers—those with 10,000 or more employees—asking what costs they expect to incur from Obamacare over the next decade.

Factoring in the health care law’s added mandates, fees, and regulatory burdens, employers anticipate cost hikes between $163 million and $200 million in 2016, a 4.3 percent increase. By 2023, employers will be paying 8.4 percent more than “what they would otherwise be spending” for their employees’ health care.

In the next 10 years, the total cost of Obamacare to all large American employers is estimated to be from $151 billion to $186 billion, according to the study.

Just to be clear, the cost per employee number is over 10 years. ACA supporters will say “hey, that’s just roughly $500 extra per year per employee! No biggie!” Of course, when it is their own company, and other things get cut, when raises are limited, when jobs are done away with, when hours are cut, hey, when they own the company and see their own earnings being reduced, they won’t like it. Fortunately, free contraception.

What could cause the increases?

  • Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute fee;
  • Temporary Reinsurance Fee;
  • General ACA implementation and administrative costs;
  • Excise tax on high cost plans;
  • Mandate to cover adult children up to age 26 as dependents; and
  • Other benefit mandates including covering 100 percent of preventive care services.

The indirect costs of the ACA include, but are not limited to:

  • New supply chain taxes passed onto employers (e.g., medical device tax);
  • Increased take up rates of employer offered coverage resulting from the individual mandate; and
  • Increased cost shifting from the expanded Medicaid coverage.

Might a large business be able to eat these costs? Perhaps, to some small degree. But, most likely, things will have to change, and the workers will be the one to suffer. Thanks, Obama and Democrats!

Crossed at Right Wing News.

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Do You Prefer Long Pork Over Going Vegan?

By William Teach April 2, 2014 – 3:58 pm

I mentioned on Monday that Warmists really, really, really want Everyone Else to go vegetarian (probably at the barrel of Government law/regulation) in order to save Gaia from getting a fever some time in the far future. Well, here’s something interesting, via my favorite crazies at Grist

Celebrity endorsements aside, converting to veganism remains a hard sell to most Americans. How hard? New research hints that more of us would rather munch on our neighbor Larry than give up meat and dairy.

According to a new poll from The Society for Progressive Meat (SPM), 10 percent of Americans would consider trying man meat, while a measly 3 percent could bear to part with all animal products. A poll and questionnaire on its website surveyed 2,500 respondents over a two-week period.

And, yes, these people are nuts

SPM President Len T. Illmore told Grist over the phone that consuming humans could solve countless environmental woes — everything from overpopulation to the horrors of factory farms to even the not-so-green funeral industry. And he has a point. With growing populations and industrial agriculture both operating as driving factors of climate change, progressive protein enthusiasts point out that humane cannibalism could both help curb our energy needs and satisfy the appetites of a populace not quite ready for a plant-based diet. All signs point to the fact that Americans are more prepared to swallow toe food than tofu.

Plus, Illmore says that while the humane meat movement sounds good on paper, “who can truly say that chicken actually had a good life? With humane human meat, we’d have prom pictures, tax returns, and even the occasional unpublished memoir to prove your meat led a mediocre to arguably happy life.”

This is what the Warmist/Environmental movement has devolved into.

Read: Do You Prefer Long Pork Over Going Vegan? »

Posted in Enviroweenies, Global Warming | 8 Comments | Trackback URL
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