Spain stops wasteful subsidies of green energy. In related news, green energy industry collapses in Spain.

Well, isn’t that strange?  It’s almost as if an idea that couldn’t be sustained by the free market was doomed to failure…almost, that is.  Details:

Saddled with a budget deficit more than twice the European Union limit and a ballooning gap between income and costs in its power system, Spain halted subsidies for new renewable-energy projects in January. The surprise move by Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy one month after taking office helped pierce investor confidence in stable aid for clean energy acrossEurope.

“They destroyed the Spanish market overnight with the moratorium,” European Wind Energy Association Chief Executive Officer Christian Kjaer said in an interview. “The wider implication of this is that if Spanish politicians can do that, probably most European politicians can do that.”

Spain’s $69 billion of investment in power capacity from 2004 to 2011 was about triple the spending per capita in the U.S. in that period, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance data and U.S. Census Bureau population estimates. Most of the 2012-2013 spending will be for the legacy of projects approved before the aid cuts to wind, solar, biomass and co-generation. …

Investment in solar photovoltaic alone is headed to skid to as little as $107 million in 2013 from $879 million this year and $1.5 billion last year, New Energy Finance estimated. For new wind projects, investment should plunge to $963 million in 2013 and $244 million in 2014 from $2 billion this year.

Listen, I’d love nothing more than to flush oil for good.  But until the free market can determine how to make alternative energy widely available and inexpensive, I want my gas, and I want it cheap.

Wind farms cause global warming?

Environuts hardest hit. Heh.

Large wind farms might have a warming effect on the local climate, research in the United States showed on Sunday, casting a shadow over the long-term sustainability of wind power. …

Researchers at the State University of New York at Albany analysed the satellite data of areas around large wind farms in Texas, where four of the world’s largest farms are located, over the period 2003 to 2011.

The results, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, showed a warming trend of up to 0.72 degrees Celsius per decade in areas over the farms, compared with nearby regions without the farms.

“We attribute this warming primarily to wind farms,” the study said. The temperature change could be due to the effects of the energy expelled by farms and the movement and turbulence generated by turbine rotors, it said.

“These changes, if spatially large enough, may have noticeable impacts on local to regional weather and climate,” the authors said.

Earth Day

Hope everyone had a stellar Earth Day yesterday.  I spent mine setting off a bunch of aerosol cans while my Hummer idled for hours, savoring the smell of the fresh manatee fillets on the coal-fired grill.

How did you guys properly observe Mother Gaia’s holiday?  😆

CNN weatherbreasts…er, meteorologist and reporter: Strong tornadoes yesterday due to global warming

I swear, just this morning, I asked a colleage how long it would be until some environut blamed those tornadoes on global “warming”!  Just this morning, I tell ya.  And I didn’t have to wait long before CNN delivered.

By the way, I’ve often noted how these rubes were looking stupid by calling it global “warming” whenever it got friggin’ cold, so they had to call it “climate change” so as to lessen the sting of their shame.  Apparently, the ladies here got the memo.

Details:

CAROL COSTELLO: Such a strange spring.STEELE: It really is. That’s kind of the climate change we are seeing. Extremes are ruling the roost and what we are seeing, more become the norm.

COSTELLO: It makes me afraid for what next spring will bring. It might be unnaturally cold.

STEELE: Because that’s not it–this global warming is really kind of a misnomer. Global climate change—so the colds are colder and warms are warmer, and the severes more severe.

Obama’s Energy secretary: Nope, I have no desire to lower gas prices

I don’t want to ever hear a liberal lament gas prices.  When Uhhhhh-bama was running in 2008, he said he’d be totally cool with higher gas prices.  So when a liberal complains about the cost of fuel, I’d simply remind them that B.O. is only sad that gas is at $4 and not higher.

Anywho, his environut Energy Secretary said he didn’t care about high gas prices.  Of course, considering this is the same tool who said he wanted Europe’s ludicrous gas prices here, this should come as no surprise:

High gasoline prices will make research into such alternatives more urgent, Chu said.

“But is the overall goal to get our price” of gasoline down, asked Nunnelee.

“No, the overall goal is to decrease our dependency on oil, to build and strengthen our economy,” Chu replied. “We think that if you consider all these energy policies, including energy efficiency, we think that we can go a long way to becoming less dependent on oil and [diversifying] our supply and we’ll help the American economy and the American consumers.”

There you go.  Just keep them tires inflated and get tune-ups, people.

Newt blasted Chu and had some career advice:

“President Obama must announce today in his Nashua address that he is firing Secretary Chu and replacing him with a pro-American-energy appointment,” said a statement from Gingrich, who cited a POLITICO story about Chu’s appearance before a House Appropriations subcommittee.

“If he doesn’t, then the American people will know the president is still committed to his radical ideology, which wants to artificially raise the cost of energy,” Gingrich added.

“Yesterday [Obama’s] secretary of anti-energy Dr. Chu literally testified in Congress that he did not favor lowering the price of gasoline, that they had no alternative policy to lower the price of gasoline and that his goal was to get us on to other things,” Gingrich said.

“Dr. Chu is apparently a brilliant scientist,” the Republican presidential hopeful said. “I’m for allowing him to go back to science as rapidly as possible. In fact I suspect the American people would chip in to buy the airplane ticket later on today.”

Oh, here’s a kneeslapper: Chu said he’s been a pretty awesome steward of our money, giving himself a good solid A-.  Yeah…an A-minus:

CBS News counted 12 clean energy companies that are having trouble after collectively being approved for more than $6.5 billion in federal assistance. Five have filed for bankruptcy: The junk bond-rated Beacon, Evergreen Solar, SpectraWatt, AES’ subsidiary Eastern Energy and Solyndra.

Throw in the Keystone Pipeline decision, and it’s clear that this administration is lethally hostile to American energy production.

Here’s the thing: These morons think that if gas gets too expensive, people will demand alternative energy.  But here’s the thing: we HAVE been demanding alternative energy, since the Carter years (which seem to have apparently returned).  But until alternative energy is mass available, fills our energy needs in the same or better ways as fossil fuels, and doesn’t cost us an arm and a leg, it is NOT going to happen!  Driving up the cost of energy by refusing to increase domestic oil production is like refusing to get a job (boy, liberals can relate to that, huh?) because you’re waiting to win the lottery: stop wasting your time, because it isn’t going to friggin’ happen!

Please.  For the love of God and all that is holy.  Get his economic illiterate Marxist ideologue the hell out of our House come November.

Bombshell: More Climategate e-mails show scientists awfully concerned about “the cause” and P/R

Ace has a great rundown, and you would be well served to read it.  One of many, many damning excerpts from the e-mails:

<3373> Bradley: I’m sure you agree–the Mann/Jones GRL paper was truly pathetic and should never have been published. I don’t want to be associated with that 2000 year “reconstruction”.

<3115> Mann:  By the way, when is Tom C going to formally publish his roughly 1500 year reconstruction??? It would help the cause to be able to refer to that reconstruction as confirming Mann and Jones, etc.

<3940> Mann:  They will (see below) allow us to provide some discussion of the synthetic example, referring to the J. Cimate paper (which should be finally accepted upon submission of the revised final draft), so that should help the cause a bit.

<0810> Mann: I gave up on Judith Curry a while ago. I don’t know what she think’s she’s doing, but its not helping the cause.

As Ace puts it, “You know what you get when you mix science and politics? You get politics, period.”

Why, it’s almost as if scientists know they’re peddling junk science and don’t care as they pursue funding grants and environut adulation!  Almost, that is.

President allegedly obsessed with job creation just killed 200,000+ jobs

No other way to polish that turd, liberals.  Details:

President Obama’s United States Department of Agriculture has delayed shale gas drilling in Ohio for up to six months by cancelling a mineral lease auction for Wayne National Forest (WNF). The move was taken in deference to environmentalists, on the pretext of studying the effects of hydraulic fracturing.

“Conditions have changed since the 2006 Forest Plan was developed,” announced WNF Supervisor Anne Carey on Tuesday. “The technology used in the Utica & Marcellus Shale formations need to be studied to see if potential effects to the surface are significantly different than those identified in the Forest Plan.” The study will take up to six months to complete. The WNF study reportedly “will focus solely on how it could affect forest land,” despite the significance of hydraulic fracturing to united proponents of the delay, “and not how it could affect groundwater.”
…
“The President’s plan is to simply say ‘no’ to new energy production,” House Natural Resources Committee chairman Doc Hastings, R-Wash, said to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar during a hearing pertaining to hydraulic fracturing. “It’s a plan that is sending American jobs overseas, forfeiting new revenue, and denying access to American energy that would lessen our dependence on hostile Middle Eastern oil.” …

Gotta keep the treehuggers happy, right?  Sure, it keeps the eocnomy in the crapper and keeps us just as dependent on foreign energy sources.  But hey, at least the environuts are pleased, right?

Yet another “Solyndra” for Obama

This is what happens when government picks winners and losers from the private sector.  Actually, with B.O.’s track record, has he even picked any actual winners?

Beacon Power, a Massachusetts-based company that won praise from renewable power activists and loan guarantees from the federal government, has filed for bankruptcy, potentially leaving taxpayers on the hook for $43 million.

The company, which promised to build storage devices for intermittent power produced by wind and solar power facilities, was never able to attract investors. Coming on the heels of the Solyndra bankruptcy and ensuing scandal, the Beacon Power bankruptcy has a growing number of people calling for an end to federal loan guarantees for risky alternative energy start-ups.

No word yet on whether or not there were any political connections involved in this one, or if this was just another in a long list of stunning and expensive failures of the administration.

Solyndra scandal beginning to enlarge

Despite many in the MSM’s attempts to wish the scandal away, a number of media outlets are engaging in random acts of journalism.

Today, the House will engage the hopelessly corrupt administration’s Energy Dept. head, Stephen Chu, about why the taxpayers are on the hook for a half a billion when the signs were there that this was a money pit.

Energy Secretary Steven Chu is prepared to say he made the final decisions on a half-billion-dollar loan to a California solar company that later went bankrupt, essentially taking responsibility for a debacle that has embarrassed the Obama administration.

Chu, in testimony prepared for delivery Thursday to a House committee, claimed he made all decisions on Solyndra Inc. with the best interests of the taxpayer in mind.

“I want to be clear: Over the course of Solyndra’s loan guarantee, I did not make any decision based on political considerations,” Chu said in testimony prepared for the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

Yeah, where would you get the crazy idea that there were any “political considerations” involved?  Oh, I dunno…

The Obama administration, which gave the solar company Solyndra a half-billion-dollar loan to help create jobs, asked the company to delay announcing it would lay off workers until after the hotly contested November 2010 midterm elections that imperiled Democratic control of Congress, newly released e-mails show.

The announcement could have been politically damaging because President Obama and others in the administration had held up Solyndra as a poster child of its clean-energy initiative, saying the company’s new factory, built with the help of stimulus money, could create 1,000 jobs. Six months before the midterm elections, Obama visited Solyndra’s California plant to praise its success, even though outside auditors had questioned whether the operation might collapse in debt.

As the contentious 2010 elections approached, Solyndra found itself foundering, and it warned the Energy Department that it would need an emergency cash infusion. A Solyndra investment adviser wrote in an Oct. 30, 2010, e-mail — without explaining the reason — that Energy Department officials were pushing “very hard” to delay making the layoffs public until the day after the elections.

The announcement ultimately was made on Nov. 3, 2010 — immediately following the Nov. 2 vote.

Yeah, well, I’m just some wingnut who always reads political motives into every Chicagoland thug politician’s decisions!  I mean, no one else thinks there were any “political considerations” involved, right?  Yeah, right:

In the two years preceding its collapse, Solyndra and its biggest investor aggressively asserted themselves in dealings with the Obama administration, pushing Energy Secretary Steven Chu to visit the company’s headquarters to help it raise private money and later suggesting it would file for bankruptcy if the Energy Department rejected its proposed rescue plan.

Executives associated with the California solar panel company also privately described Energy Department officials as more concerned with appearances than with sound business decisions.  (Considering the Marxists in this administration have never run so much as a hot dog stand, how in the Sam Hill would they know a sound business decision if it bit them in their leftist backsides? – CL)

“The DOE really thinks politically before it thinks economically,” a Solyndra board member wrote in December to George Kaiser, an Obama fundraiser whose family funds owned a third of the company.

At another point, an investment adviser to Kaiser wrote in an e-mail: “DOE is willing to accommodate Solyndra . . . but they appear to be concerned about ‘looking bad.’ ”

So even Solyndra knew that this regime placed politics and appearance before practicality and propriety.

Let’s face it: this was another boneheaded AND corrupt example of crony capitalism by the administration.  There isn’t a single honest official in this administration, and it starts at the top.  The sooner we repeal Obama in November of 2012, the sooner this nation can begin to heal from the deep wounds he has intentionally inflicted on a country he regards so very little.

Obama: That company that fleeced the taxpayers for a half billion was “a good bet”

Yeah…”a good bet”:

More: One of Solyndra’s own investors said “One of our solar companies with revenues of less than $100 million (and not yet profitable) received a government loan of $580 million,” the investor, Brad Jones, an executive at Redpoint Ventures, wrote in December 2009 to Lawrence H. Summers, then the president’s chief economic advisor, referring to Solyndra. “While that is good for us, I can’t imagine it’s a good way for the government to use taxpayer money.”

More: Like Solyndra, more taxpayer-funding of untenable “green technology” companies that are unable to make it on their own yields expected fruit.  About $200 million funded a company that…lost 110 jobs.  Once again, this is what happens when government picks the winners and losers in a free market system.

UPDATED: Administration learns from Solyndra scandal

UPDATES BELOW.

Learns nothing, that is.  Here we go again:

The Energy Department on Wednesday approved two loan guarantees worth more than $1 billion for solar energy projects in Nevada and Arizona, two days before the expiration date of a program that has become a rallying cry for Republican critics of the Obama administration’s green energy program.

Energy Secretary Steven Chu said the department has completed a $737 million loan guarantee to Tonopah Solar Energy for a 110 megawatt solar tower on federal land near Tonopah, Nev., and a $337 million guarantee for Mesquite Solar 1 to develop a 150 megawatt solar plant near Phoenix.

The loans were approved under the same program that paid for a $528 million loan to Solyndra Inc., a California solar panel maker that went bankrupt after receiving the money and laid off 1,100 workers. Solyndra is under investigation by the FBI and is the focal point of House hearings on the program.

Corruption.  Incompetence.  Crony capitalism.  2012 can’t get here soon enough.

UPDATE (09/29/2011 – 11:00 AM EST): As Kanaka Girl points out in the comments, the aforementioned Tonopah Solar Energy company getting $737 million in our money to fund 45 jobs (a bargain at $16.3+ million per job) has connections with Nancy Pelosi’s brother-in-law.  Details here.  Yep, Ron Pelosi is executive director of Pacific Corporate Group, an “investment partner” with Tonopah’s parent company SolarReserve.  But hey, I’m sure this is just another big ol’ coinkidink and not a case of the crony capitalism we’ve come to expect from the Chicagoland Thug-in-Chief.

MA Governor: Car-Free Week is good enough for thee, but not for me!

Typical liberal:

Governor Deval Patrick did walk to a morning event on Beacon Hill — a stone’s throw from the Statehouse — but was quick to sheepishly admit that he probably hadn’t set the best example earlier in the day.

“You got me!” grinned the Governor.
…
One problem.

The Governor himself recently declared this “Car-Free Week,” urging people to ditch their autos in favor of public transportation, biking, walking, or at the very least carpooling — espousing the environmental and health benefits of that switch.

Liberals are fine and dandy forcing their absurd ways on everyone else, so long as they themselves don’t have to practice what they preach.

Obama’s crony capitalism fail: “green” energy company that got a half billion dollars of our money files for bankruptcy

Details:

Solyndra, a major manufacturer of solar technology in Fremont, has shut its doors, according to employees at the campus.

“I was told by a security guard to get my [stuff] and leave,” one employee said. The company employs a little more than 1,000 employees worldwide, according to its website.

Shortly after it opened a massive $700 million facility, it canceled plans for a public stock offering earlier this year and warned it would be in significant trouble if federal loan guarantees did not go through.

Well, fortunately, the leftist-in-chief had the foresight to keep taxpayer “stimulus” dollars away from this craphole.  Or not.

Solyndra was touted by the Obama administration as a prime example of how green technology could deliver jobs. The President visited the facility in May of last year and said  “it is just a testament to American ingenuity and dynamism and the fact that we continue to have the best universities in the world, the best technology in the world, and most importantly the best workers in the world. And you guys all represent that. “

The federal government offered $535 million in low cost loan guarantees from the Department of Energy. NBC Bay Area has contacted the White House asking for a statement.

Huh.  Seems like another “green jobs” boondoggle that blew up in his face.  Go figure.

Obamanomics = Epic Fail.

Global “warming” alarmists double down on their stupid: Report blames increase in mental illness to…you guessed it…”climate change”

Judging by how crazy the envirokooks have been getting lately, including lumping skeptics in the same class as the KKK, perhaps they have a point here.  Anywho, the deets:

RATES of mental illnesses including depression and post-traumatic stress will increase as a result of climate change, a report to be released today says.

The paper, prepared for the Climate Institute, says loss of social cohesion in the wake of severe weather events related to climate change could be linked to increased rates of anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress and substance abuse.

As many as one in five people reported ”emotional injury, stress and despair” in the wake of these events.

The report, A Climate of Suffering: The Real Cost of Living with Inaction on Climate Change, called the past 15 years a ”preview of life under unrestrained global warming”.  (As opposed to “restrained global warming”?  As if it were real AND humans could “restrain” it?  LOL!  – CL)

These crazies are blaming everything but the drop in real estate values on a junk science fad.  Their desperation grows daily.

Earthquake hits east, Hurricane Irene barreling down on east…

Must be global “warming”.

Sorry, I wanted to get out in front before the environuts and Gore (pardon the redundancy) show me to be a prophet.

NASA sounds alarm: Aliens might attack us if we don’t stop global warming!

OK, I get it!  NASA is so bent on getting the Space Shuttle back that they’re now resorting to uber-absurd studies like this.  You know, “Give us the shuttle back, or we’ll p#ss away more taxpayer dollars on subsequent studies like this!”  For the love of Pete, Mr. President and Congress, PLEASE give them their funding back!

It may not rank as the most compelling reason to curb greenhouse gases, but reducing our emissions might just save humanity from a pre-emptive alien attack, scientists claim.

Watching from afar, extraterrestrial beings might view changes in Earth’s atmosphere as symptomatic of a civilisation growing out of control – and take drastic action to keep us from becoming a more serious threat, the researchers explain.

This highly speculative scenario is one of several described by a Nasa-affiliated scientist and colleagues at Pennsylvania State University that, while considered unlikely, they say could play out were humans and alien life to make contact at some point in the future.

Shawn Domagal-Goldman of Nasa’s Planetary Science Division and his colleagues compiled a list of plausible (“plausible”? Seriously? – CL) outcomes that could unfold in the aftermath of a close encounter, to help humanity “prepare for actual contact”.

So that’s what prompted Falling Skies!  The aliens have been watching us since the dinosaur days, and while Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Chernobyl, and Three Mile Island weren’t enough to prompt an invasion, the planet’s temperature inching up a nanodegree would be way more than they could take!  But hey, if there’s a silver lining here, it would be that NYT’s econorube Paul Krugman would have his dream of “alien invasion + Keynesian economics = cured economy” come true.

Maybe NASA should just stick to what they do best: Muslim outreach.

GM business savvy about what you’d expect from Government Motors

The Chevy Volt is selling like hotcakes!  OK, more like those little silver dollar pancakes the kiddies can handle.  From The Weekly Standard:

The July sales numbers are out and the Chevy Volt continues to electrify (get it?) the country. GM sold … 125 Volts last month!

Really?  A whole 125?  No comma needed to report the number sold?  Continuing:

Way back in March I made fun of the Volt for selling 281 units in February. Turns out, February was a good month. But wait, there’s more! GM says they’re going to increase production to 5,000 Volts per month in order to keep up with demand. You see, they claim that the reason the Volt isn’t selling is that they can’t keep enough cars on the lot. A GM spokeswoman recently claimed that they are “virtually sold out.”

Oh, I see.  They’ve only sold about 3,000 (the comma is optional) Volts total, which means they must ramp that up to…5,000 Volts…per month!

Well, at least they are “virtually sold out”…or not.

Which is virtually true. Mark Modicacalled around his local Chevy dealers and found plenty of Volts waiting for an environmentally conscious driver to bring them home.

All told, GM has sold close to 2,700 Volts. (Funny aside: There’s a Volt in my neighborhood and a Volt that parks in my garage at work. So I see almost 0.1 percent of all the Volts in America on a daily basis.) But hey, the EV future is just around the corner.

Government Motors.  Nuff said.

Newt: Yeah, I probably shouldn’t have filmed that global “warming” commercial on the couch with Pelosi, huh?

Ya think?  From The Hill:

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) said Tuesday that he regrets making a commercial with then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on the need to address climate change.

Gingrich, who partnered with Pelosi while she was Speaker for the 2008 ad, said the spot was “misconstrued,” and for that reason, he wouldn’t do it again.

“I was trying to make a point that we shouldn’t be afraid to debate the left, even on the environment,” Gingrich said on WGIR radio of the 30-second television commercial. “Obviously it was misconstrued, and it’s probably one of those things I wouldn’t do again.”
…
Gingrich said in January that he “meant exactly what [he] said in that commercial,” which was produced by the Alliance for Climate Protection, a nonprofit organization founded by former Vice President Al Gore (D). In the ad, Gingrich makes no endorsement of any policy solution, but says the “country must take action to address climate change.”

Still spinning: I don’t regret anything I said, only that you people were too stupid to see the nuance of my appearance.

By the way, this line is crap: “we shouldn’t be afraid to debate the left”.  Dude, you weren’t “debating” the left on that junk science fad…you were agreeing with the left!  Agreeing with San Fran Nan while sitting on a couch with the Botox queen during the filming of a commercial produced by a Gore charity isn’t going to get you far in a primary, pal.

There is no global “warming”, or if you prefer, “global climate change” going on.  Period.  And if a purportedly intelligent man like Gingrich can’t see that, then he doesn’t merit my vote or yours.

Bombshell: New findings further erode global “warming” cultists’ contention, so much that scientists responsible for findings are gagged from interpreting findings!

Al Gore, IPCC, commie retreads hardest hit.  Excerpt:

It would appear so if this is being interpreted properly:

The chief of the world’s leading physics lab at CERN in Geneva has prohibited scientists from drawing conclusions from a major experiment. The CLOUD (“Cosmics Leaving Outdoor Droplets”) experiment examines the role that energetic particles from deep space play in cloud formation. CLOUD uses CERN’s proton synchrotron to examine nucleation.

CERN Director General Rolf-Dieter Heuer told Welt Online that the scientists should refrain from drawing conclusions from the latest experiment.

“I have asked the colleagues to present the results clearly, but not to interpret them,” reports veteran science editor Nigel Calder on his blog. Why?

Because, Heuer says, “That would go immediately into the highly political arena of the climate change debate. One has to make clear that cosmic radiation is only one of many parameters.”

Oh … “only one of many parameters”, eh?  So nice to see him admit that.  Does he mean like that big yellow thing that hangs in the sky each day?

A sun?  Affecting objects in a solar system?  The heck you say!

Read it all.  It’s not long and boring.  It’s short, informative, and destructive to the junk science fad known as global “warming” (or, when it’s blistering cold, “climate change”).

Gore, father of four, favors “fertility management” to combat junk science fad known as global “warming”

I guess since his kids managed to escape their mother’s womb alive, it’s totally important now for “fertility management”.  Rather misogynist, no?

An Obama promise kept: electricity rates will “necessarily skyrocket”

Back in 2008, he promised that if he were elected, he would definitely jack up our power bills to combat the nonexistent threat known as global “warming” (or “climate change” when it’s -12 degrees outside).

Did you think he was kidding, America?  If so, the joke’s on you:

Consumers could see their electricity bills jump an estimated 40 to 60 percent in the next few years.

The reason: Pending environmental regulations will make coal-fired generating plants, which produce about half the nation’s electricity, more expensive to operate. Many are expected to be shuttered.

The increases are expected to begin to appear in 2014, and policymakers already are scrambling to find cheap and reliable alternative power sources. If they are unsuccessful, consumers can expect further increases as more expensive forms of generation take on a greater share of the electricity load.

The story goes on to show that not only will people be forking money over to the power companies, but to city and county governments who will also be incurring costs that they aren’t going to be eating.

I can see the campaign slogan now:

“Higher gas and power prices. Higher unemployment. HIgher health care costs. Inflation. Insolvency. Obama-Biden 2012. You’re welcome.”

Canadian fishwrap: Google searches add to global warming, or something

The latest chapter from the junk science fad known as global “warming”, from Canuckistan:

It’s Saturday night, and you want to catch the latest summer blockbuster. You do a quick Google search to find the venue and right time, and off you go to enjoy some mindless fun.

Meanwhile, your Internet search has just helped kill the planet. Depending on how long you took and what sites you visited, your search caused the emission of one to 10 grams of carbon into the atmosphere, contributing to global warming.

Sure, it’s not a lot on its own — but add up all of the more than one billion daily Google searches, throw in 60 million Facebook status updates each day, 50 million daily tweets and 250 billion emails per day, and you’re making a serious dent in some Greenland glaciers.

Exit question: Since Al Gore supposedly invented the Internet, isn’t it ironic that his invention is sautéing the planet while he crusades against global “warming”?  😆

Gore: Combating global warming is like Selma, or something

I guess it’s a good thing he didn’t have this conference in Minneapolis, where snow was on the ground in mid-April.  Anywho, from the Goreacle:

I remember when I was young, a young teenager growing up part of the time in the South, and I remember when my generation saw the fire hoses being turned on African-Americans and all of the resistance to the Civil Rights movement. And young people asked their parents in that era, “Explain to me again why it’s okay to have legal discrimination on the basis of skin color.” And when they could not answer that moral question coming straight from the conscience of young people, that’s when the laws began to change.

And you need to ask, “Tell me again why it’s alright to put 90 million tons of global warming pollution into the atmosphere every 24 hours, 20 percent of it will still be there in 20,000 years from now.” You need to ask that question and other related questions. Don’t they see the evidence? Don’t they hear what the scientists are saying? Do they actually believe this line from the large carbon polluters that the scientists are making this up, committing fraud in order to get research grants?

Give me a break. They are trying to kill us, too.

Well, heck!  Louise Slaughter (D-NY) figured out we’re trying to kill women (and Republican women are apparently trying to get all jihadist-like and kill themselves and other women).  Now Gore has picked up our plot at mass extinction…which must mean we’re trying to kill ourselves, too, since we live on the same planet as he does.  Well, physically we live on the same planet.  Obviously, mentally speaking, we are on a far different and more reality-based planet than the one he occupies.

Exit question: Using Gore’s line of thinking, does Gore’s energy hog of a house count as a weapon of mass destruction?

Gas prices double since Obama took office

But I’m sure it’s Bush’s fault. Right, environuts?

Congressional Democrats: Drilling for oil destroys jobs, or something

To the morons who keep putting these boobs back in Congress: Why do you hate the rest of America?  From CNS News:

Appearing at a press conference with Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) on job creation, Rep. Andrews said, “I agree with my colleague and friend that drilling for oil off the coast is a problem, not a solution, but let’s get back to the main point here that if the Republicans really believe that was really a job-creating idea, why don’t they put it on the floor?”

Here’s a typical left-wing canard right here:

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a member of the House Budget Committee, said there would be no “immediate” reduction of gas prices from more drilling.

Using that “logic” (and when it comes to liberals, I use that term loosely), why bother eating healthy or exercising, since you’re not going to see the “immediate” reduction in weight? Pass the extra-meat pizza, dude!  Besides, it’s just flat-out not true.  Remember when Bush lifted the moratorium on offshore drilling in 2008?  Just the promise of lifting the moratorium resulted in the precipitous drop in oil futures prices.

Had these imbeciles not gotten their way during the Clinton years, we would have oil flowing from ANWR by now and available in gas stations and refineries across America. But we were told in 1995 that “it will take at least 10 years before we get the oil out”. Sixteen years and another $3/gallon later, that oil is still in the ground, thanks to the treehuggers.

Exit question: If drilling for oil destroys jobs, does this mean that Brazil’s unemployment is about to skyrocket?

Boxer walks into global “warming” trap

Babs Boxer (Moonbat-CA) came up for air long enough to stop ranting about the GOP’s assassination plot against Elmo and walk directly into the trap set by Senators Barrasso (R-WY) and Inhofe (R-OK).  These two reminded Babs and everyone else about how B.O.’s own “science technology advisor” warned us about the impending Ice Age in the 1970’s.

Hilarity ensues.

Senate Environment and Public Works Committee members sparred Wednesday over whether there existed a consensus in the 1970s that the earth was cooling.

During the hearing, Republican Sens. James Inhofe of Oklahoma and John Barrasso of Wyoming questioned the supposed need to enact policies to combat global warming by pointing to similar predictions in the 1970s of a global cooling phenomenon.

The exchange started with Barrasso addressing the committee’s witness, Environmental Protection Agency Director Lisa Jackson. “Forty years ago, the same scientists that are predicting the end of the world now from global warming were predicting the end of the world from global cooling,” said Barrasso. “So if we had committed the same amount of taxpayer resources and government manpower that the administration now wants us to commit to prevent global warming — if we’d done that prevent global cooling, we wouldn’t be the most prosperous nation on earth.”

He continued: “The fact is that the same doomsday predictions we were getting 40 years is the exact same thing this agency and this administration today. Only now…the problem is man-made global warming.”

…

Still later, Inhofe got into the science debate by citing a 1971 study by Dr. John Holdren, who just so happens to be President Obama’s advisor on science technology. In that study Holdren wrote, “The effects of a new ice age on agriculture and the supportability of large human populations scarcely need elaboration here.” Holdren went on to write that the effects could “generate a tidal wave of proportions unprecedented in recorded history.”

A visibly satisfied Inhofe then turned to Boxer, and stated, “So even the president’s people are agreed with me, Madam Chairwoman!”

You mean there wasn’t consensus about global cooling in the late 1970’s, when the issue was featured prominently in various MSM outlets and on the front page of Time magazine? Huh. Could have sworn there was.

Watch this video clip and see how ol’ Babs (and her white knight Udall (D-NM)) beclowned themselves in front of the camera.

Oh, for Heaven’s sake! Middle East and Arab revolutions result from…global “warming”

No, this isn’t satire, though it darned well should be.  It’s sadder when you realize that this jabroni is 100% serious.

Business leaders are equally frank. “The fact is that climate around the world is changing,” says Sunny Verghese, chief executive officer at Olam International, among the world’s three biggest suppliers of rice and cotton. “That will cause massive disruptions.”

Civilization has faced down pandemics and world wars — and has emerged stronger for having met the test. The current series of droughts and floods are not simply wreaking havoc on food supplies. They’re harbingers of life in a hotter (except it’s not. CL) and more chaotic climate. Could hunger, and the threat to power that accompanies it, be what finally forces political leaders to act?

Point to ponder: If we want all dictatorial weirdbeards out of power in the Arab world, shouldn’t we ALL be rushing out to buy Hummers right now?

Actually, I would argue that if there is any correlation to global “warming” and starving revolutionaries, it is that the environuts that have perpetuated this junk science fraud known as global “warming” (or “climate change”, when it’s friggin’ freezing outside) are to blame.  They have convinced corn producers to grow corn for fuel instead of for food.  As a result, corn is going into our fuel tanks instead of our guts, and thus, food is seeing a supply pinch that it shouldn’t be seeing.

The world is starving so we can try to address a problem that isn’t even real, and in turn, we create food shortage problems that are very real indeed.  Thanks, you greenie whackadoodles.

Global “warming” causes more snow…and less snow

The inventor of the Internet (and of the junk science fad known as global “warming”):  All of this snow is caused by global “warming”.

Democrats over the years:  The lack of snow is due to global “warming”.

Amazing, isn’t it?  Global “warming” can cause both lots of snow AND a shortage of snow.

Gore: I pushed ethanol for political purposes

Hey, Al, thanks for the Internet and stuff, but I could have done without my grocery bill spiking just to “fuel” your presidential (and environut street cred) ambitions.  Details:

Former U.S. vice-president Al Gore said support for corn-based ethanol in the United States was “not a good policy”, weeks before tax credits are up for renewal.

U.S. blending tax breaks for ethanol make it profitable for refiners to use the fuel even when it is more expensive than gasoline. The credits are up for renewal on Dec. 31.

Total U.S. ethanol subsidies reached $7.7 billion last year according to the International Energy Industry, which said biofuels worldwide received more subsidies than any other form of renewable energy.

“It is not a good policy to have these massive subsidies for (U.S.) first generation ethanol,” said Gore, speaking at a green energy business conference in Athens sponsored by Marfin Popular Bank.

“First generation ethanol I think was a mistake. The energy conversion ratios are at best very small.

“It’s hard once such a programme is put in place to deal with the lobbies that keep it going.”

So why was he so gung-ho about ethanol in the first friggin’ place?  Simple: political gain.

He explained his own support for the original programme on his presidential ambitions.

“One of the reasons I made that mistake is that I paid particular attention to the farmers in my home state of Tennessee, and I had a certain fondness for the farmers in the state of Iowa because I was about to run for president.”

Gotta make those corn farmers in Iowa happy if you want to get that early nod in the primary and the later nod in the general election, no?

If you ever wonder why food prices have jumped, the answer is that when people stick food in their fuel tanks, there is a shortage of food to stick in people’s gullets.  Gore knows that:

A food-versus-fuel debate erupted in 2008, in the wake of record food prices, where the biofuel industry was criticised for helping stoke food prices.

Gore said a range of factors had contributed to that food price crisis, including drought in Australia, but said there was no doubt biofuels have an effect.

“The size, the percentage of corn particularly, which is now being (used for) first generation ethanol definitely has an impact on food prices.

“The competition with food prices is real.”

Ethanol has been a bust.  It is less fuel-efficient than fossil fuels, and in many engines (especially boat engines), it actually does damage.  Yet due to political connections, the taxpayer is forced to subsidize this failure.  And you know d#mn well this boondoggle is going to get its subsidies renewed, don’t you?

Environuts claim another victim: last GE light bulb plant in America shuts down

The left has been telling us that moving to “green jobs” will benefit the economy.  They were correct.  It will be a boost to the economy…of China.  Details:

The last major GE factory making ordinary incandescent light bulbs in the United States is closing this month, marking a small, sad exit for a product and company that can trace their roots to Thomas Alva Edison’s innovations in the 1870s.

The remaining 200 workers at the plant here will lose their jobs.

“Now what’re we going to do?” said Toby Savolainen, 49, who like many others worked for decades at the factory, making bulbs now deemed wasteful.

During the recession, political and business leaders have held out the promise that American advances, particularly in green technology, might stem the decades-long decline in U.S. manufacturing jobs. But as the lighting industry shows, even when the government pushes companies toward environmental innovations and Americans come up with them, the manufacture of the next generation technology can still end up overseas.

What made the plant here vulnerable is, in part, a 2007 energy conservation measure passed by Congress that set standards essentially banning ordinary incandescents by 2014. The law will force millions of American households to switch to more efficient bulbs.

The resulting savings in energy and greenhouse-gas emissions are expected to be immense. But the move also had unintended consequences.

Rather than setting off a boom in the U.S. manufacture of replacement lights, the leading replacement lights are compact fluorescents, or CFLs, which are made almost entirely overseas, mostly in China.

All to address a problem that doesn’t freakin’ exist!  200 jobs sacrificed on the altar of the Church of Mother Gaia.  As for how “immense” the savings will allegedly be, The Optimistic Conservative does great analyzing.  Teaser: he uses the expression “fart in a thunderstorm” to describe just how “immense” the energy savings will be.  On that expression alone, you should read his post!  😆