March 1st. - Picks of The Day!

By Rich Kozlovich

Initially I intended this to be "My Picks of the Week!", that is why this one is as large as it is, but I it gets to be too much work organizing it because I have a job that interferes with my life.  So I will be posting those articles that have interested me daily...or at least on most days.  I hope you all enjoy my picks. 

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“The public has been misled on this issue by an unholy alliance of environmental scaremongers, funds-seeking academics, sensation-seeking media, vote-seeking politicians and profit-seeking vested interests.”

Viv Forbes

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If you read anything this week, please take the time to read this commentary.  RK

An introduction to environmental issues

Gordon J. Fulks, PhD Physics

The story of environmentalism is generally portrayed as one of citizens triumphing over evil corporate polluters, of public awareness, science, and affluence working together to solve pressing problems. There is no problem so huge or so abstract that we cannot solve it if we put our minds to it. And solving these problems yields all sorts of positive side-effects and no drawbacks.

While that may be the perception, it is far from the fact. Public awareness is easily swayed by media campaigns that are little more than propaganda and supported by a press that would rather take sides than present balanced reports. Science is largely bought and paid for by politicians who control the agenda and the outcome.

And our affluence, or what is left of it, is viewed as an inexhaustible source of revenue for whatever fantastic ideas the political class can dream up. Negative consequences of such folly are viewed as so impossible as to be unworthy of discussion.

Consider the plight of the Orangutan, a creature in such dire peril that biologists place its chance of survival beyond a few years to be near zero in the wild. Do we hear much about Orangutans? No, we are constantly treated to pictures of a lone polar bear floating away on a shrinking piece of sea ice. To read more follow the headline link.

Cuccinelli’s right to subpoena upheld Assembly Upholds right to subpoena, The Cavalier Daily
While some academics and AGW advocates huff about a “Mannhunt” the Virginia House of Delegates has blocked an attempt to remove the attorney general’s power to issue subpoenas for academic research at state universities.

My Take - The issue is fraud! No matter how many academic head nodders sitting around in an echo chamber of self praise say otherwise. This is not about academic freedom, it is about taking public money and knowingly producing fraudulent results.  These ivory tower intellectuals act as if scientific fraud is so rare that the very thought of challanging their integrity is a direct asssult on academic freedom.  That really is a logical fallacy!  For that matter, every exposure of fraudulent science was preceded by the same rhetoric we are hearing now about Mann's work.  Is there some reason why should we think this is any different?

If it was about academic freedom they would have followed Einstein’s example and released all the information they had available, and then asked their fellow scientists to find what flaws they could in their work.  That is known as peer review, and while flawed, it is still the basis for what constitutes "real science".  Mann only released the details of his Hockey Stick Graph because Congress forced him to do so, and the subsequent findings weren't attractive.   That isn't science.   If it really isn't fraud as they claim, then this is their opportunity to prove it.  At this point in time it appears that global warming has made scientific integrity an oxymoron.  An oxymoron created by government grant money that produced studies that were nothing more than conclusions in search of data.  Not an uncommon occurrence, and it goes way beyond Anthropogenic Climate Change.  RK

·     Many of you know that the Climategate e-mails revealed the existence of a climate cartel intent on dominating the scientific process so that challenges to the dominant dialectic involving carbon dioxide could not be effectively mounted. Conspirators maintained a tight grip on the scientific societies and their publication processes. Scientists at the very top of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had become racketeers. - Gordon J. Fulks, PhD Physics

Court case warns EPA could 'own' your land!  Petition to Supremes cites danger of 'ruinous' compliance order fines
A legal team asking the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene in an Idaho controversy is warning landowners that under the compliance order procedures being used by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency virtually anyone could be told to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in permit fees – or face hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines and penalties – over ordinary home construction work…..However, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the most overturned court in the land, said before a court could issue a ruling on the EPA's order, the family would have to go through a years-long, $200,000-plus process of formally applying for a federal wetlands permit.

According to officials with Pacific Legal, the Sacketts' land has no standing water or any continuously flowing water, and they would like an opportunity to challenge the EPA's "wetlands" determination in court.

According to the petition, "Ignoring the compliance order is no option, for several reasons. First, the CWA imposes significant civil penalties for violating compliance orders. … Just one month of noncompliance puts the landowner at risk of civil liability of $750,000. A year's worth of noncompliance puts the liability at $9,000,000." ……."The issue in this case is simple, but critically important to all property owners, and everyone who values fair play and due process," Schiff said. "When bureaucrats try to impose their will on private property, shouldn't the owners be permitted their day in court, to challenge the government's claim of control?" To read more follow the headline link.

EPA solution? Gingrich says replace it
'Science, technology, markets, and incentives' better than lawyers, litigation.  Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich says there actually is a solution to the morass of rules, regulations and litigation that makes up the Environmental Protection Agency – just replace it. His comments came at the recent Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington. He says a new "Environmental Solutions Agency" should be installed not to supplement the EPA, or work with it, but to replace it. "I want to replace, not reform EPA, because the EPA is made up of self-selected bureaucrats, who are anti-American jobs, anti-American business, anti-state government, anti-local control, and I don't think you can reeducate them," Gingrich said. To read more follow the headline link.

My Take - Funny thing that…. I was part of a panel discussion years ago and I said the very same thing, only I wanted to shift their legislative authority to agencies that already existed under the Department of Agriculture, and I also wanted to fire all the EPA employees.   The difference was that all that I got was a snort, rolled eyes, shook heads and a smugness that showed they believed that it couldn’t happen because EPA was necessary.  Really? EPA came into existence on December 2, 1970. How did everyone survive before that? What exactly do they do that can’t be controlled under Common Law? Now Gingrich says it and it makes headlines, and heads start nodding. Well, that’s ok with me…it is the end result I am concerned with.

However….there is something that I would really like to point out. I was years ahead of Newt Gingrich!  How could that have possibly happened?  He has been at the center of information for a huge percentage of his life so I have to ask; what crucial piece of information did he come across that he didn't have before which  prevented him from coming to this conclusion years ago?  Opportunism and being integrity challenged surely couldn't be the issue here....could it?    RK

Deep freeze puts Baltic on track for record
Following another extended stretch of sub-zero temperatures, ice coverage on the Baltic Sea is greater than it's been in nearly a quarter century, Sweden's meteorological agency reports.  To read more follow the headline link.

The EPA's Latest Unscientific Power Grab

Why would the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) overturn its own scientists and decide to regulate trace levels of perchlorate in drinking water after it recently decided it didn't need to be regulated? Earlier this month, the EPA announced it will develop a standard for how much perchlorate would be allowed in tap water…….It is impossible to accurately calculate the cost of each unnecessary regulation, but the cost to all of us is staggering. Perhaps these costs would be worth it if they saved lives, but because the charges against perchlorate in drinking water are so unfounded it makes this particular regulatory plan particularly hard to swallow.

Shocker: EPA air chief ignorant of atmospheric CO2 level March 1, 2011
At today’s House Energy and Power Subcommittee hearing on EPA’s job killing greenhouse gas regulations, Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) asked panel witness Gina McCarthy — chief of EPA’s air programs, including the agency’s greenhouse gas regulations — whether she had any idea of what the atmospheric level of carbon dioxide is, SHE ADMITTED THAT SHE DID NOT!

Arnold L. Goldman Says: Here you go Ms. McCarthy:

Nitrogen – 78.084%
Oxygen – 20.95%
Argon – 0.934%
Carbon Dioxide – 0.036%
Neon – 0.0018%
Helium – 0.0005%
Methane – 0.00017%
Hydrogen – 0.00005%
Nitrous Oxide – 0.00003%
Ozone – 0.000004%

Water vapor is variable but typically makes up about 1-4% of the atmosphere.

Owen Nelson Says: Knowing… the number... is one thing. Knowing what it means is another. NASA’s ever-present propagandist, James Hanson, tells us that 350 ppm is the upper end of the safe limit, so we’re already in deep doo-doo because we’re around 389 ppm. The Robinsons at OISM.org stated years ago in their famous Petition Project, agreed to by some 32000 signers, that there are benefits to us from both higher temps and higher CO2 levels. Any number of controlled experiments have shown increased plant growth when CO2 concentrations are raised. Plants carry on photosynthesis by removing CO2 from the air, so nature has a way of dealing with “excess” CO2, but all of that is contrary to the mantra of the Climate Change crowd/ industry, so it seldom makes the news.

EPA: Saving millions and making trillions? March 1, 2011

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency claimed today that it is saving millions of lives and making the U.S. trillions of dollars through the Clean Air Act.  JunkScience.com has prepared a response to the agency’s fanciful claims. Though it is still in draft form, we are posting “EPA’s Clean Air Act: Pretending air pollution is worse than it is” early in response to the EPA’s wild assertions.

iheartagw Says: Thank-you, Mr. Milloy, for making this point that no other person seems to be making. EPA is required to provide a cost/benefit analysis with every rule they promulgate. NO ONE ever goes back into the record to see if EPA’s claims ever came close to reality.

Case in point: EPA recently claimed they saved millions of skin cancer incidences/year per capita because of Stratospheric Ozone Protection Rules. I pointed out to the EPA press person that incidences of melanomas and carcinomas per capita continue at unchanged rates according to U.S. cancer statistics. Her response was that their modeling showed that it would have been worse. It is a tautology: if the EPA had not stopped all the spuing of CFCs there would have been more skin cancers. Thus, the fact that there is no increase in skin cancer rates proves that the SOP rules worked.

When will Congress EVER haul Lisa Jackson in front of a committee and force her to prove past health and cost benefits? She should be required to do this before she is permitted to promulgate the next rule. And if she cannot prove it, then neither should one more new rule be allowed to go on the books.

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Listening to the greenies tell their tale is like reading a Lewis Carroll novel.

"The time has come," the Walrus said,

"To talk of many things:

Of shoes, and ships, and sealing wax -

Of cabbages and kings,

And why the sea is boiling hot,

And whether pigs have wings."