Bummer: The Video Game Industry Is Impacting ‘Climate Change’

By William Teach May 6, 2020 – 3:00 pm

Considering how many young folks are believers in the climate change scam and play video games, I’m not sure blaming their favorite past-time is a good idea. Seriously, do you think they’re going to give them up, much like when the Cult of Climastrology was linking streaming movies and shows?

The many ways video game development impacts the climate crisis

…

Video games might not appear inextricably tied to the climate crisis, but they are. There’s the electricity use of gaming devices themselves, estimated to sit at 34 terawatt-hours of energy each year, or the equivalent of 5 million cars. Once you start unraveling where else the industry intersects with environmental issues, it can be difficult to stop — from the petroleum-based substances the hardware is made of, the workers mining raw materials in already sweltering conditions, to the millions of air miles underpinning business deals. Even just a cursory peek into the future shows the internet infrastructure games are reliant upon might be submerged by rising sea levels. As the crisis rolls on, game makers are beginning to give serious thought to how they might reduce their industry’s contributions to the crisis.

OK, so, add video games to the list of things the kiddies are now supposed to give up if they truly Believe. They won’t. We all know that.

Anyhow, this is a long, long, long piece. On video games linked to Hotcoldwetdry

But waiting for environmental responsibility to become a promotional checkbox implies that the climate crisis might be averted through existing economic structures. It’s worth remembering that hardware manufacturers continue to operate within a framework of planned obsolescence. “It’s great that they’re getting producer and manufacturer buy-in because oftentimes a lot of the environmental rhetoric is focused on the individual level,” says Alenda Y. Chang, professor of film and media studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and author of Playing Nature: Ecology in Video Games. “But there’s no questioning of having to replace your PlayStation every few years.” In the immediate future, Sony and Microsoft will release their respective new consoles, each of which is underpinned by eye-watering technical specifications whose environmental impacts are far from clear.

Up, that’s not ‘climate change’, that is environmentalism, where things are designed to die and/or be replaced in short order, leading to landfills chock full of antiquated stuff that is like 2-3 years old. I have a washer and dryer I purchased in 1995, still work fine. A stereo from 1987. I bet some of my old cell phones would still work (if I had chargers and if would even connect anymore). Things used to be made to last. Lithium Ion batteries were supposed to last 20 years. Now you’re lucky if you get 2 years.

Ultimately, nature doesn’t care whether we’re playing thoughtful ecological adventures or the next high-tech military shooter. There are more concrete areas game makers can focus their efforts, like switching to renewable energy and considering the performance intensity of their games. If studios want to put pressure on industries’ biggest companies, including the hardware manufacturers and major service providers, collective organization might offer not only the best shot at being heard but also of enacting substantive change. As for one potential area of focus, supply chains are still woefully invisible for the most part. Greater transparency might enable a better chance of not only lessening hardware’s environmental impact but also improving the allegedly backbreaking work conditions in developing nations that continue to prop up the industry.

I recommend that any climate cultist who plays games must do so only on renewable energy. Install solar panels or no gaming. Seems fair, right?

Read: Bummer: The Video Game Industry Is Impacting ‘Climate Change’ »

Posted in AGW Idiocy, Global Warming | 4 Comments | Trackback URL

If All You See…

By William Teach May 6, 2020 – 1:00 pm

…is a sea that will soon rise up and swamp the land, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Bunkerville, with a post on Democrats being more likely to snitch than Republicans.

Read: If All You See… »

Posted in If All You See | 29 Comments | Trackback URL

Using Bat Soup Virus, Liberals Aren’t Even Trying To Hide Their Anti-Freedom Beliefs

By William Teach May 6, 2020 – 10:30 am

Of course, they want freedom for themselves, just not Other People

Harvard Law Prof: Coronavirus Is an Excuse to Dump Free Speech, Property Rights from Constitution

Harvard Law Professor Adrian Vermeule suggests using the Chinese virus pandemic as an excuse to establish a new interpretation of the U.S. Constitution, implementing policies that do away with concepts such as “free speech ideology” and “property rights.”

Adrian Vermeule, a professor of constitutional law at Harvard Law School, recently wrote a piece for the Atlantic in which he argues that traditional interpretations of the U.S. constitution have “now outlived its utility,” and that it is now time for the government to take a more centralized role in people’s lives.

Vermeule argues that “circumstances have now changed” due to the Chinese virus pandemic, and that it is now possible to imagine “moral” constitutionalism, which he says is not “enslaved to the original meaning of the Constitution,” and is also “liberated” from the narrative of “relentless expansion of individualistic autonomy.”

The professor is advocating for a new interpretation of the U.S. constitution, which he refers to as “common-good constitutionalism.”

“Such an approach,” wrote Vermeule, “should be based on the principles that government helps direct persons, associations, and society generally toward the common good, and that strong rule in the interest of attaining the common good is entirely legitimate.”

Who wants to bet that Prof Vermeule would go Level 10 Apoplectic if Government attempted to limit his 1st Amendment Right to free speech and take his property away? Then we have Charlie Warzel at the NY Times

Open States, Lots of Guns. America Is Paying a Heavy Price for Freedom.

(lots and lots of yammering on gun violence and Coronavirus deaths for lots and lots of paragraphs, we’re skipping to the end)

As in the gun control debate, public opinion, public health and the public good seem poised to lose out to a select set of personal freedoms. But it’s a child’s two-dimensional view of freedom — one where any suggestion of collective duty and responsibility for others become the chains of tyranny.

This idea of freedom is also an excuse to serve one’s self before others and a shield to hide from responsibility. In the gun rights fight, that freedom manifests in firearms falling into unstable hands. During a pandemic, that freedom manifests in rejections of masks, despite evidence to suggest they protect both the wearers and the people around them. It manifests in a rejection of public health by those who don’t believe their actions affect others.

In this narrow worldview, freedom has a price, in the form of an “acceptable” number of human lives lost. It’s a price that will be calculated and then set by a select few. The rest of us merely pay it.

Damned freedom! I recommend the government look to restrict Freedom of the Press, just a threat, and see how the leftist press which doesn’t seem happy that Other People have freedom, reacts. I’m betting, again, Level 10 Apoplexy, denunciations of Fascism and tyranny. And not a shred of self-awareness that they’re fine with taking freedom from Other People, but not themselves.

Read: Using Bat Soup Virus, Liberals Aren’t Even Trying To Hide Their Anti-Freedom Beliefs »

Posted in 1st Amendment, 2nd Amendment, Democrats | 5 Comments | Trackback URL

We Can Kill Two Birds With One Stone On Bat Soup Virus And ‘Climate Change’ Or Something

By William Teach May 6, 2020 – 8:05 am

No, the climate cultists will not give up in attempting to use a worldwide virus that has scared, infected, and killed people, locking them down, losing their businesses, etc, to force their Beliefs on everyone.

COVID And Climate Change: How To Kill Two Birds With One Stone

Investing in a green recovery from COVID-19 will deliver rapid short-term growth and long-term economic gains while also tackling climate change, according to a new study from Oxford University.

Researchers from Oxford’s Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment looked at whether economic stimulus packages in the wake of coronavirus would help or harm progress on measures to limit climate change. They found that, far from impeding growth, investing in green policies and infrastructure would lead to both a robust economic recovery and long-term positive outcomes for society.

In addressing the twin problems of the global downturn and climate change, the authors, who include the Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, wrote: “The recovery packages can either kill these two birds with one stone—setting the global economy on a pathway towards net-zero emissions—or lock us into a fossil system from which it will be nearly impossible to escape.”

Interestingly, the massive investment in “green” stuff during the 2008 economic downturn didn’t really do much, as so many of the companies went out of business, and others couldn’t survive without continuous outside funding and government subsidies (much like the old liberal Air America radio). Your average citizen isn’t spending $10,000 or more on solar panels for their home. They aren’t spending $36,000+ on pure plugins, plugin hybrid sales are dismal, and even hybrid sales are tepid (it’ll be interesting to see what happens with the Honda CRV Hybrid, since its release coincided with the start of Bat Soup).

Why doesn’t Oxford invest their own money into “green” stuff? Have they gotten rid of all their fossil fueled vehicles used to run the school? Erected solar panels and wind turbines all across campus? Why does it always seem that Warmists always want government and others to spend their money, but they never want to spend their own money doing what they recommend?

In their paper, to be published in the Oxford Review of Economic Policy, the researchers surveyed 231 key figures from G20 countries, from central bank officials to economists, about the relative performance of 25 types of stimulus measures. The survey found that experts and officials worldwide believe recovery measures can and should be in line with climate goals, and furthermore that such measures produced better economic outcomes than “business-as-usual” models.

Of course they do. Because implementing more Hotcoldwetdry measures will give government more power. And make it harder for citizens to move around. Let me ask: if this stuff works so well, why has Europe’s economy only been so-so with all their climate policies?

The researchers further found that recovery packages “will reshape the economy for the longer-term, representing life and death decisions about future generations, including through their impact on the climate.” In their final analysis, the authors conclude that green stimulus measures “have better prospects for increasing national wealth, enhancing productive human, social, physical, intangible, and natural capital.”

Are you enjoying your test drive of Modern Socialism? Would you like to continue this? Do you want government to have the power to tell you how to live your life?

Read: We Can Kill Two Birds With One Stone On Bat Soup Virus And ‘Climate Change’ Or Something »

Posted in AGW Socialism, Global Warming | 3 Comments | Trackback URL

North Carolina To Ease Stay At Home Rules At 5pm Friday

By William Teach May 6, 2020 – 7:43 am

Well, at least North Carolina has a Democratic Party governor who is mostly playing it straight, rather than looking for ways to take power and control people

Cooper easing NC stay-at-home rules, allowing most businesses to reopen

Gov. Roy Cooper said Tuesday that the coronavirus pandemic is under enough control in North Carolina to allow businesses to reopen Friday.

The stay-at-home order went into effect March 30, forcing many businesses to close, restricting operations at others and limiting public gatherings to no more than 10 people. Cooper said the order, set to expire Friday, will be extended for another two weeks but will be modified to allow more commercial activities.

Cooper recently laid out a three-phase plan for reopening the state, but he said the timing and pace of that effort would depend on data that shows the virus is waning in North Carolina.

Dr. Mandy Cohen, secretary of the state Department of Health and Human Services, said most of those trends have been headed in the right direction over the past week or so, including a drop in the number of people reporting symptoms of COVID-19, the illness associated with the virus; expanded testing for the virus; a lower percentage of positive tests; and a flat trend of hospitalizations.

So, what does this mean as Phase 1 is enacted

The new order would eliminate the distinction between “essential” businesses like grocery stores and pharmacies that have been allowed to operate under the stay-at-home order and “non-essential” businesses, such as clothing shops and bookstores, that had to close but could now resume operations.

Restaurants and bars would still be limited to drive-thru, takeout or delivery service under the new executive order. Salons, barbershops, gyms and other personal care businesses would remain closed, as would movie theaters, playgrounds and other sites for mass gathering.

Well, that gym thing is a bummer. It would be nice if my little community gym could open. You could have 2-3 people signing up for 1:30 blocks. It would also be nice to get a haircut. Anyhow, any business that opens cannot have more than 50% capacity, and they need to make sure customers are social distancing and that they clean the store often. Churches can open for service, same rules.

Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger called the plan “a continuation of the existing lockdown.”

“Today in North Carolina, over half of our counties comprise less than 10 percent of confirmed cases,” Berger, R-Rockingham, said in a statement. “Why is a blanket, one-size-fits-all statewide order justified? I’m concerned that Gov. Cooper is ignoring more reasonable approaches and the experiences of the majority of states.”

I see his point, but, at this point, we only have to wait to May 22nd, and if things continue to trend the right way, we go to phase 2, with almost everything opening. But, are shoppers ready? WRAL uses the example of one Hallmark business and the comments in their Facebook post to say that many people aren’t. Well, OK, then. They don’t have to go. Me, I need a new pair or two of shoes. I’d like to go to the beach and sit for a bit during my next 7 days off. I’d like there to be no 7 days off. The question is, my business has been getting busier, but, is there enough to have the whole crew on, rather split crews?

Read: North Carolina To Ease Stay At Home Rules At 5pm Friday »

Posted in Bat Soup Virus, NC News | 2 Comments | Trackback URL

Hotcold Take: Your Fossil Fuels Addiction Is Causing Tropical Systems To Wander

By William Teach May 5, 2020 – 2:47 pm

As Anthony Watts notes “if you can’t prove more hurricanes, say it’s making them relocate.” Remember, the Cult of Climastrology first said there would be more hurricanes after the big season of 2005, at which point landfalling systems fell off and we were mostly getting low level hurricanes and tropical systems. And we had a record period between landfalling hurricanes and landfalling major hurricanes for the U.S. So, they said that was also ‘climate change’, and made excuses like that it was causing more wind shear, killing the systems. Then Superstorm Sandy, and said that was the new normal. Nope. And that we’d have fewer systems, but they would be stronger. Nope. Now

Study: Climate change has been influencing where tropical cyclones rage

While the global average number of tropical cyclones each year has not budged from 86 over the last four decades, climate change has been influencing the locations of where these deadly storms occur, according to new NOAA-led research published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

New research indicates that the number of tropical cyclones has been rising since 1980 in the North Atlantic and Central Pacific, while storms have been declining in the western Pacific and in the South Indian Ocean.

“We show for the first time that this observed geographic pattern cannot be explained only by natural variability,” said Hiroyuki Murakami, a climate researcher at NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory and lead author.

Murakami used climate models to determine that greenhouse gases, manmade aerosols including particulate pollution, and volcanic eruptions were influencing where tropical cyclones were hitting.

So, wait, things change on Earth? Holy cow! It’s like these people think that Earth is always the same….wait, what was that part about tropical cyclones staying the same over the last 4 decades?

Oh, but, wait

Climate models project decreases in tropical cyclones toward the end of the 21st century from the annual average of 86 to about 69 worldwide, according to the new study. Declines are projected in most regions except in the Central Pacific, including Hawaii, where tropical cyclones activity is expected to increase.

Despite a projected decline in tropical cyclones by 2100, many of these cyclones will be significantly more severe. Why? Rising sea surface temperatures fuel the intensity and destructiveness of tropical storms.

Yup, back to that one. Sigh.

Read: Hotcold Take: Your Fossil Fuels Addiction Is Causing Tropical Systems To Wander »

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

If All You See…

By William Teach May 5, 2020 – 1:00 pm

…is an area flooded from carbon pollution, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Green Jihad, with a post on the climatology cult of death.

Since I couldn’t find a bigger, clearer shot of the photo, double shot of her below the fold, so, check out 357 Magnum, with a post wondering if a Muslim shoots a 7 year old, and the media buries it, did it really happen?

Read More »

Read: If All You See… »

Posted in If All You See | 43 Comments | Trackback URL

Handsy Joe To Blacks: I’m From The Government, And We’re Here To Control You, Er, Help You

By William Teach May 5, 2020 – 10:30 am

Well, you had to know that Joe Biden was going to release a “plan” to patronize the black community, right? Because that’s what Democrats do. What they’ve been doing since the 1970’s, when the party of the KKK, Jim Crow, and segregation realized that they couldn’t continue to block blacks from everything, so they found another way to attempt to keep blacks down, while also figuring out a way to get their votes. Pander to them, give them money, crappy housing, and you know all the rest. Joe is Here To Help

Lift Every Voice: The Biden Plan for Black America

Among the greatest honors of my life was a trip I took to Memphis in October of 2018 to visit the National Civil Rights Museum and receive the institution’s annual Freedom Award. While I was there, I had a chance to stand on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel where Dr. King was assassinated half a century earlier, and reflect on all of the progress we’d made — and that which we hadn’t — in the years since that unbearable day. (snip)

Fifty-two years later, his charge remains as vital as it was that night. We have made extraordinary strides along so many fronts — but for African American families, we have not yet made America what it ought to be. The truth is, African Americans can never have a fair shot at the American Dream so long as entrenched disparities are still allowed to chip away at opportunity. You don’t have an equal chance when your schools are substandard, when your home is undervalued, when your car insurance costs more for no good reason, or when the poverty rate for African Americans is more than twice what it is for whites.

Which is interesting, since it was and still are the policies of Democrats that cause this. Who runs the schools? Democrats. It’s Democrats who try and keep blacks in their own squalid, government run neighborhoods. After 50 years of trying to get so many blacks out of poverty through government help, it’s interesting that Trump comes in and the black unemployment rate, which grew under Obama, dropped quite a bit and earnings have gone up. It’s better when government enables rather than government controls.

This is not a new priority for me — tackling systemic racism and fighting for civil rights is what brought me to public service as a local councilman in the years just after Dr. King’s death, and it has been a driving force throughout my career ever since. I was proud to fight against discriminatory school district funding and housing practices in my own community as a young man — and prouder still of the work I did in the U.S. Senate, co-sponsoring the Civil Rights Act of 1990 to protect against employment discrimination, leading efforts to reauthorize and extend the Fair Housing Act, and spearheading multiple reauthorizations of the Voting Rights Act to protect African Americans’ right to vote.

Sure you did, Joe, sure you did. Anyhow, let’s see his minuscule plan (below the fold)

Read More »

Read: Handsy Joe To Blacks: I’m From The Government, And We’re Here To Control You, Er, Help You »

Posted in Democrats, Joe Biden | 20 Comments | Trackback URL

Billions Will Have To Move Due To ‘Climate Change’ Or Something

By William Teach May 5, 2020 – 8:54 am

This is all your fault, for getting a burger to go in your fossil fueled vehicle

Global warming to push billions outside climate range that has sustained society for millennia

Just like insects, birds and animals, humans have a particular climate niche, with 6,000 years of human history demonstrating how society thrives when we stay within it, and the turbulence that ensues when it is pushed out of this zone.

In a stark new finding about the planet’s rapidly warming climate, a new study finds that for every 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit (1 degree Celsius) of global average warming, 1 billion people will have to adapt or migrate to stay within climate conditions that are best suited for crop production, livestock and a sustainable outdoor work environment.

What is rapid? A minimal 1.5F increase since 1850? Where we’ve had even more warming during previous Holocene warm periods within that same 6,000 years?

The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Monday, breaks new ground by quantifying the temperature range society is most adapted to and projecting how climate change will push people outside it.

“What we have looked for is humanity’s sensitivity to warming, and that is about 1 billion people in trouble per degree [Celsius] of warming,” said study co-author and Dutch research ecologist Marten Scheffer of the Santa Fe Institute and Wageningen University.

Scheffer and his colleagues examined the history of global temperature, human population and land-use estimates from the mid-Holocene period, starting about 6,000 years ago, to 2015.

They found that people, crops and livestock have heavily concentrated in a narrow band of relatively constrained climate conditions. This range, referred to in the study as the human “climate niche,” has remained largely unchanged since 6,000 years ago.

Um, we have people living from polar regions to deserts.

Projecting into the future using a scenario with high emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases, the researchers found that position of the human climate niche is projected to change more in the next 50 years than it has during the past 6,000. Such a shift would leave 1 to 3 billion people outside the climate conditions that have nurtured human society to date.

This is just meant to scare people into joining the Cult of Climastrology and giving up their money and freedom to Government. The usual.

“It is likely climatic changes will in effect move large cities and whole countries into temperature niches that present inhabitants would find unimaginable,” he said in an email.

“So will cities move? Unlikely. But will they become less attractive destinations for people to move to? Definitely. And ultimately some present cities will stop growing and ossify,” he said.

Why do some people live in cool cities, and others live in hot? There’s a big difference between NYC and Miami, right? The Washington Post article above attempts to slightly reduce the fear-mongering. The USA Today one doesn’t even try

If global warming continues unchecked, the heat that’s coming later this century in some parts of the world will bring “nearly unlivable” conditions for up to 3 billion people, a study released Monday said.

And when this doesn’t happen, will anyone be called out? Are there any consequences, any penalties for running this apocalyptic, prognosticating studies and articles on the studies?

Read: Billions Will Have To Move Due To ‘Climate Change’ Or Something »

Posted in AGW Scaremongering, Global Warming | 5 Comments | Trackback URL

NY Times Recommends Contact Tracing To Help Stop Bat Soup Virus

By William Teach May 5, 2020 – 8:41 am

Here’s the thing: when it comes to certain diseases and viruses, the government will track transmission. Things like syphilis, AIDS, gonorrhea, if someone has Ebolo or the bubonic plague, along with many others, Los Federales will look to see who they had contact with. If someone is spreading disease around, they lose their privacy rights because they are endangering other people. But, what about the government simply tracking all your movements? This is by Dr. Tom Frieden, a former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Dr. Kelly Henning, who is director of public health at Bloomberg Philanthropies.

Why Contact Tracing Is an Essential Part of the Coronavirus Fight

We’ve been dealt a bad hand with the coronavirus pandemic. Until we have a vaccine or effective treatment, we have limited tools to fight it. Closing large segments of our society and having people shelter at home is a blunt tool that works, but it inflicts severe hardship on individuals and the economy.

We have a sharper tool, the four-cornered Box It In strategy, to stop chains of transmission by widespread testing, isolation of cases, contact tracing and quarantine of contacts. It works, but it doesn’t work perfectly. Some say it’s hopeless to even try contact tracing on this scale. But contact tracing can work — if we do it right. Some states, like New York, Massachusetts and California, are moving quickly to expand these services.

For many places right now, that’s correct. The numbers are overwhelming. But sheltering in place is working. We project that in New York City, perhaps the hardest-hit area of the world and still documenting more than a thousand new infections per day, the number of new cases will continue to decrease — if we continue to apply the blunt instrument and stay at home — to the low hundreds per day. Combined with an urgent and extensive scale-up of contact tracing capacity, we may be able to manage that number. For areas of the country and the world that haven’t yet experienced explosive spread, extensive contact tracing can help limit the need for widespread sheltering in place.

Wait a minute: if everyone is hunkered down by Government decree, why are there new cases? If people are washing their hands and practicing social distancing, why would they contract it? Something just doesn’t add up on the transmission of Bat Soup Virus.

Contact tracing won’t stop all spread of the coronavirus. But just because you can’t fix an entire problem doesn’t mean you shouldn’t fix some of it. Every time contact tracing results in an infected person’s being isolated or a contact’s being quarantined when that person develops infection, a web of transmission is broken. The best evidence is that most people with the coronavirus don’t spread the infection at all, but a few spread it widely in superspreading events. These events are most devastating when they occur in congregate facilities that house medically vulnerable people — in particular, nursing homes, homeless shelters and correctional facilities. Contact tracing can quickly sound the alarm so that outbreaks can be either prevented or stopped early, limiting disease spread both within and outside these places.

Wait, most people do not spread it at all? Isn’t that a rather important bit of information to know? First I’ve heard of it.

Newer technologies may help increase the efficiency and effectiveness, but person-to-person interaction will always be required. For example, technologies that help contact tracers communicate with patients and contacts and allow contacts to report their status and seek assistance can make the process more efficient. In contrast, ambitious efforts to detect contacts automatically by tracking Bluetooth connections are unproven, raise important privacy concerns and will be limited by the proportion of people participating, although they could potentially be important to contact tracing in the future.

It’s nice that they don’t want people tracked by Bluetooth, but, that’s not how the government is trying to track people: it’s by the location of their phone to the cell tower. And with doctors recommending all this contact tracing, this will involve massive amounts of government intervention, and they will go to the easiest, tracing where your phone was. Turning your GPS doesn’t help. And once they start doing this, when do they stop? They’ve already set the stage that we could see another big outbreak come Fall. So, they’ll keep the program going. And they will use it for more and more things, all in the name of “public safety.” Enjoying your test drive of Modern Socialism?

Read: NY Times Recommends Contact Tracing To Help Stop Bat Soup Virus »

Posted in Bat Soup Virus | 2 Comments | Trackback URL
Pirate's Cove