March 6th. My Picks of the Day

By Rich Kozlovich

Global Warming Alarmists Flip-Flop On Snowfall
The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Third Assessment Report was as straightforward as Frank Pentangeli’s earlier confession that he had killed on behalf of Michael Corleone. “Milder winter temperatures will decrease heavy snowstorms,” IPCC reported......The alarmists used to claim global warming was causing the retreat of Kilimanjaro’s mountain snowcap, but scientists now understand that local deforestation is the culprit. IPCC claimed in its 2007 assessment that global warming would likely melt the Himalayan glaciers by 2035, but IPCC now admits there is no scientific basis for such an assertion. IPCC claimed in its 1990 assessment that global temperatures should rise 0.6 degrees Celsius between 1990 and 2010, yet NASA satellite data show global temperatures warmed by merely half that amount, at most.

For years, alarmists have claimed “the science is settled” and “the debate is over.” Well, when was the science settled? When global warming would allegedly cause Himalayan glaciers to melt by 2035, or now that it won’t? When global warming would allegedly cause fewer heavy snow events, or now that it will allegedly cause more frequent heavy snow events?

My Take - The “science” behind all of this can be daunting, but I understood from the beginning that this scare was fraudulent. There is one area that can be universally understood. The whole concept of disastrous consequences as a result of global warming failed the test of history. We know that during the Medieval Warming Period, a thousand years ago, it was warmer than it is today. Not only was it warmer, but it was substantially warmer. The scare mongers tried to claim that the warming experienced during that time was merely localized; that also proved to be false.

We also know that there was a Roman Warming period that was also substantially warmer than it is today. Well, someone may ask; so what? Well, if modern day warming is supposed to cause massive disasters today we have to ask; did those disasters occur during those warming periods? Since there is absolutely no historical data to show that any of the things that they have predicted for today occurred then; we have to ask the next obvious question: if these things didn’t occur then, why should we believe they will occur now? The answer is that we shouldn’t!

In reality the only argument left to these grant chasing junk scientists is that man can cause global warming….oops….I mean climate change….you see it isn’t getting warmer….it’s getting colder, so they had to change it to “climate change”. And since they claim that it is CO2, specifically manmade CO2, is the cause of all the warming (CO2 isn’t really good at holding in heat, but water vapor is, however, mankind doesn’t have anything to do with determining the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere) they are in a conundrum. You see, the level of manmade CO2 is increasing worldwide, and the temperatures are dropping, they are forced to flip flop into the “newspeak” that Orwell outlined in his book 1984.

In his book he created a “fantasy” country where the Ministry of Truth was created to spread lies, Forced labor camps were called “joycamps”, and the ruling party’s slogans were War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength. Just as Orwell’s story showed a topsy-turvy world of irrational “logic” we live in a world where China, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, and until recent events, Libya have seats on the Human Rights Council. The greenies and their supporters will twist, lie and spin to maintain their climate change deception. Eventually the lies will crush them and then a host of scientific reputations will be destroyed. 

(Please read Daniel J. Flynn's book, Intellectual Morons, How Ideology Makes Smart People Fall For Stupid Ideas.)

But for those of you who are true believers, have no fear. They have a host of other scares on the horizon with more junk scientists who will happily step up and make liars of themselves. The acidification of the oceans, and sustainable development and species extinction are just three they have on the back burner. Their ability to recycle this stuff is uncanny. It never ends with these people, and for good reason. If they don’t have scares they don’t get contributions and grant money. Then the worst possible disaster that could happen would occur. They would actually have to go out and get a job!

I would have a great deal of sympathy for the poor schnooks who would hire them though.

Close the EPA
It’s time to stop funding carbon mysticism with taxpayer dollars
As Congress looks for ways to trim the budget, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) represents an opportunity for up to $9 billion in savings. This outfit has become little more than an advocacy group for trendy leftist causes operating on the public’s dime. Many liberal policies being promoted are so unpopular that congressional Democrats can’t muster the votes to get them through the proper legislative process. So they go to the EPA instead…….. The House has voted to defund the EPA’s greenhouse-gas campaign. It ought to go further and ask why a federal agency is needed when all 50 states have their own departments of environmental quality, natural resources or environmental protection. If the left wants to pursue pseudo-scientific mysticism, it should do so without taxpayer money.

Dr. Jay Lehr recently agreed to do an interview with Michelle Crawley, a freelance writer working for The Standard, the Ohio Pest Management Association’s quarterly newsletter. Here is an excerpt from that interview and his views on the USEPA.

In the late 60's I got involved in the formation of the U.S. EPA, and in the ‘70s was instrumental in the establishment of a safety net of environmental regulations. I had my hand in the writing of seven different pieces of legislation: the Water Pollution Control Act (which later became the Clean Water Act), the Clean Air Act, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (which dealt with waste disposal), the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Federal Insecticide, Rodenticide and Fungicide Act (FIRFA), the Superfund, and the Surface Mining and Reclamation Act.

During this time, several of us had to teach environmental science to the Legislature and get them to pass different bills that would wake the public up to the need to maintain clean air, water, soil and groundwater, and to dispose of our waste in a more reasonable manner.

During that decade we did a terrific job. However in the ‘80s that work was complete and then the pendulum swung. Environmental advocacy groups saw the environment as a way to promote big government and liberal ideas that reduced individual freedom, and threw a monkey wrench in the path of progress and capitalism. Quite frankly, U.S. EPA has done nothing useful since 1980, and is, in my opinion, the worst agency today in the federal government and one that could be disbanded with no negative impact on the public.

Each state has their own EPA and they do a good enough job that we really don’t need the Feds anymore. I began to realize that everything was being taken to an extreme during the ‘80s and in 1991, I published a book called “Rational Readings on Environmental Concerns,” where I contacted 50 different experts on various environmental issues and asked them if the government was handling their issues correctly or in an overbearing manner. All 50 of the scientists said things had gotten out of hand and there were distortions and mythologies creeping into their areas of environmental science.

Each of them wrote a paper on this topic for the book, and it was a huge success. I focused attention in the ‘90s on the overbearing anti-progress that the environmental movement had taken on. Some years later, I began to realize that this concept wasn’t really new, and one of my colleagues and I wrote a book where we actually traced the use of green over centuries. We found threads of green in the conservation movement and in philosophical writings. The idea that the earth and nature is superior to man goes back a very long way, and I’ve been writing about it now for the better part of 25 years.

When people who were responsible for the formation of the EPA and responsible for some of its foundation laws want the EPA disbanded you cannot help but conclude there is something seriously wrong at this agency.   

House Democrat to co-sponsor bill to 'rein in' EPA
House Republicans can claim "bipartisanship" in their bid to handcuff the EPA's climate change rules. Rep. Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) told POLITICO on Wednesday that he will be co-sponsoring the legislation from House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.) that puts a freeze on EPA's regulatory agenda for major industrial polluters like power plants and petroleum refiners….."The EPA needs to be reined in," said Peterson, the top Democrat on the House Agriculture Committee and a frequent critic of the agency.


###