Good environmental policy is good economic policy. We are not only helping to save the planet in terms of global warming, we are also moving to get this country out of the economic crisis that we are in right now. Are we making some progress? We really are. In the stimulus package, for example, we are spending more money on energy efficiency and sustainable energy then in the history of the United States of America. We certainly have moved far more aggressively in the last year then Bush did in eight years. Here is what I think we have got to do. I think the low-hanging fruit and a real job creator is energy efficiency. And as we struggle with the most significant economic crisis since the Great Depression, it is imperative that we create millions of good-paying jobs and, as I said, the interesting thing here is that good environmental policy is good economic policy.
Bernie, you and your site seems wholly committed to doing the right thing in many areas. May God Bless you and your works. On behalf of the American people, I beseech you to also help in the following:
Regarding the recent BP debacle, one has to ask, "Why we are still driving gas powered vehicles anyway?" - We have the technology to utilize hydrogen-powered cars, but for some reason, that technology seems to be continuously suppressed.
All of the fighting over oil, the pollution due to, and the enriching of middle Eastern countries and oil companies/mavericks/investors is brainwashing by them towards us into thinking we need oil/gas for our cars. Please stop the fraud perpetuated by the oil companies, the Corporation of America and all other baloney minded liars. Feel free to look up info on Denny Klein, Clearwater FL and Stanley Meyer, Ohio, both inventors who strove to get their ideas implemented regarding hydrogen technology.
I am wondering why BP is still allowed to handle the drilling debacle of the recent oil spill as well as to be allowed to continue their efforts to drill in shallow waters. It is very apparent that the American Congress and Senate are not taking our natural resources or the state of our environment as a serious matter. What's going on in the Gulf is a disaster and should be deemed a state of emergency that the US handles and puts to permanent rest. Why again are outside corporate interests getting preferential treatment? With BP currently erecting roadblocks, keeping reporters at bay, denying cleanup crew to talk to anyone, and keeping pictures of dead sea life full of oil from the world, I wonder Who is in control? We the People need to be heard. This is our country, not BP's (or is it?)
The US people need you to know we want control of our natural resources (not oil in this case, but the ocean and it's health!). Those of you reading this may or may not be religious or spiritual, but I know from the bottom and top of my being that we are all connected, not just the human parts, all the world is indeed connected! The ocean floor in the Gulf is hemorrhaging and BP is only interested in "capturing" the flow, not patching it forever and leaving it alone. Considering if the oil companies didn't have DC in it's pockets, our country and indeed the world would be running on hydrogen powered cars. It's obvious that our engineering efforts towards gas and oil-free cars has been silently quashed by big oil/auto makers/our government over the years. If you care about the health of our continent, let alone our planet, I hope you will encourage your brothers and sisters in DC to put a spike in the BP gusher that cannot be removed. It seems those in congress sit in silent acquiescence to let BP run their horror show. They are more interested in "capturing" the escaping oil than stopping the travesty at hand. There comes a time when doing the right thing should take precedence over the interests of a few corporate companies and their investors. Why aren't those in DC hopping with anger over this? I am, and I'm tired of the continual litany of lies and deceptions about oil and gas.
Corporations are ruining our world, one falling domino at a time (from rain forests to the housing market to all pollution). If the housing debacle and the inconceivable "bailout" by those in congress of the white-collar crooks in the banking, mortgage lending servicers, Fannie and Freddie, AIG and of course the bank lobbiests isn't a recent reminder of illogical actions by congress, I'd like to remind those in DC, that we the people wonder why only Bernie Madoff sits behind bars. He might have been a one man show, but the financial industries, complicit with the US government, dealt the American people a ponzi scheme and a house of cards as well. If there is a vestige of decency in you and your brothers and sisters in Congress, please put a permanent end to the oil hemorrhaging in the Gulf of Mexico. Also, put your weight in support of hydrogen powered cars. Anything else is a blatant attempt to keep the real axis of evil going strong. If you think God above isn't monitoring the content of all our hearts, motivations and actions to protect our earth and God-given (not corporate-given) resources and keeping them pure, I'd think again. I hope you help put a permanent end to the evil of oil, and permanently ending BP's efforts in the Gulf.
PS - "Evil flourishes when good men and women do nothing." - Edward Burke PSS - Pray for the world you want to live in. See the beauty in the world, absorb it, project it, protect it too." In all things pray. PSSS - "Be the change you would like to see in the world." - Ghandi
God Bless you all & Hope you have a great day!
roscoe82
A MINORITY VIEW
BY WALTER WILLIAMS
RELEASE: WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 13, 2010
Global Warming Is a Religion
Manmade global warming, for many, is an Earth-worshipping religion. The essential feature of any religion is that its pronouncements are to be accepted on the basis of faith as opposed to hard evidence. Questioning those pronouncements makes one a sinner. No one denies that the Earth's temperature changes. Millions of years ago, much of our planet was covered by ice, at some places up to a mile thick, a period some scientists call "Snowball Earth." Today, the Earth is not covered by a mile of ice; a safe conclusion is that there must have been a bit of global warming. I don't know the cause of that warming, but I'd wager everything I own that it was not caused by coal-fired electric generation plants, incandescent light bulbs and SUVs tooling up and down the highways.
The very idea that mankind can make significant parametric changes to the Earth has to be the height of arrogance. How about a few questions because temperature is just one characteristic of the Earth. The Earth's orbit is another. If all 6.5 billion of us, all at once, started jumping up and down for a little while, do you think we'd change the Earth's orbit or rotation? Do you think mankind could change the direction and timing of the ocean's tides? Is there anything that mankind can do to stop or start a tsunami or hurricane? You say, "Williams, it's stupid to suggest that mankind could change the Earth's orbit or rotation, ocean tides or cause or stop a tsunami or hurricane!" You're right and it's also stupid to think that mankind's activities can make globalized changes in the Earth's temperature.
Nonetheless, there is much at stake in getting people to subscribe to the global warming religion. There is so much at stake that some scientists, using government grants, are fraudulently manipulating climate data and engaging in criminal activity, as revealed in what has been called "Climate gate." One of the most dangerous features of the global warming religion is its level of intimidation of heretics or would-be heretics.
A few years back, Dr. Heidi Cullen, the Weather Channel's climatologist, advocated that the American Meteorological Society (AMS) strip their seal of approval from any TV weatherman expressing skepticism about the predictions of manmade global warming. Scott Pelley, CBS News "60 Minutes" correspondent, compared skeptics of global warming to "Holocaust deniers." Former Vice President Al Gore called skeptics "global warming deniers." But it gets worse. On one of her shows, Dr. Cullen featured columnist Dave Roberts, who, in his Sept. 19, 2006, online publication, said, "When we've finally gotten serious about global warming, when the impacts are really hitting us and we're in a full worldwide scramble to minimize the damage, we should have war crimes trials for these bastards -- some sort of climate Nuremberg."
As a result, many climatologists have been intimidated into silence. That means the public is not informed about counter-alarmists facts such as: Over long periods of time, there is absolutely no close relationship between C02 levels and temperature. Humans contribute approximately 3.4 percent of annual C02 levels compared to 96.6 percent by nature. There was an explosion of life forms 550 million years ago (Cambrian Period) when CO2 levels were 18 times higher than today. During the Jurassic Period, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, CO2 levels were as much as nine times higher than today. Contrary to what educators are brainwashing our children with, polar bear numbers increased dramatically from around 5,000 in 1950 to as many as 25,000 today, higher than any time in the 20th century.
Political commentator Henry Louis Mencken (1880-1956) warned that "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and hence clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." That's the political goal of the global warmers.
Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University. To find out more about Walter E. Williams and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2010 CREATORS.COM
roscoe82
A MINORITY VIEW
BY WALTER WILLIAMS
RELEASE: WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2010
Global Warming Update
Private industry and governments around the world have spent trillions of dollars in the name of saving our planet from manmade global warming. Academic institutions, think tanks and schools have altered their curricula and agenda to accommodate what was seen as the global warming "consensus."
Mounting evidence suggests that claims of manmade global warming might turn out to be the greatest hoax in mankind's history. Immune and hostile to the evidence, President Barack Obama's administration and most of the U.S. Congress sides with Climate Czar Carol Browner, who says, "I'm sticking with the 2,500 scientists. These people have been studying this issue for a very long time and agree this problem is real."
The scientists whom Browner references are associated with the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Let's look some of what they told us. The 2007 IPCC report, which won them a Nobel Peace Prize, said that the probability of Himalayan glaciers "disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high" as a result of manmade global warming. Recently, IPCC was forced to retract their glacier disappearance claim, which was made on the basis of a non-scientific magazine article. When critics initially questioned the prediction, Rajendra Pachauri, IPCC's chairman, dismissed them as "voodoo scientists."
The IPCC also had to retract its claim that up to 40 percent of the Amazonian forests were at risk from global warming and would likely be replaced by "tropical savannas" if temperatures continued to rise. The IPCC claim was based on a paper co-authored by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), two environmental activist groups.
England's now-disgraced University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (CRU) has been a leader in climate research data. Their data, collected and analyzed by them, have been used for years to bolster IPCC efforts to press governments to cut carbon dioxide emissions. Climatologists, including CRU's disgraced former director Professor Phil Jones, have been accused of manipulating data and criminally withholding scientific information to prevent its disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act.
Professor Jones, considered to be the high priest of the manmade global warming movement, has been in the spotlight since he was forced to step down as CRU's director after the leaking of e-mails that skeptics claim show scientists were manipulating data. In a recent interview with the BBC, he admitted that he did not believe that "the debate on climate change is over" and that he didn't "believe the vast majority of climate scientists think this."
Long denied by the warmers, Professor Jones admitted that the Medieval Warm Period (800 A.D. to 1300 A.D.) might well had been as warm as the Current Warm Period (1975-present), or warmer, and that if it was, "then obviously the late-20th century warmth would not be unprecedented." That suggests global warming may not be a manmade phenomenon. In any case, Professor Jones said that for the past 15 years, there has been no "statistically significant" global warming.
During the BBC interview, Professor Jones dodged several questions: why he had asked a colleague to delete e-mails relating to the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report and ask others to do likewise; whether some of his handling of data had crossed the line of acceptable scientific practice; and what about his letter saying that he had used a "trick" to "hide the decline" in tree-ring temperature data?
Given all the false claims and evidence pointing to scientific fraud, I don't think it wise to continue spending billions of dollars and enacting economically crippling regulations in the name of fighting global warming. At the minimum, we should stop the Environmental Protection Agency from going on with their plans to regulate carbon emissions. Companies should resign from the United States Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), a lobbying group of businesses and radical environmentalists. Dr. Tom Borelli, who is director of the National Center for Public Policy Research's Free Enterprise Project, says that BP, Caterpillar, Conoco Phillips, Marsh, Inc. and Xerox had the common sense to do so already.
Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University. To find out more about Walter E. Williams and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2010 CREATORS.COM
roscoe82
A MINORITY VIEW
BY WALTER WILLIAMS
RELEASE: WEDNESDAY, MARCH 3, 2010
Who Poses the Greater Threat?
Bill Gates is the world's richest person, but what kind of power does he have over you? Can he force your kid to go to a school you do not want him to attend? Can he deny you the right to braid hair in your home for a living? It turns out that a local politician, who might deny us the right to earn a living and dictates which school our kid attends, has far greater power over our lives than any rich person. Rich people can gain power over us, but to do so, they must get permission from our elected representatives at the federal, state or local levels. For example, I might wish to purchase sugar from a Caribbean producer, but America's sugar lobby pays congressmen hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions to impose sugar import tariffs and quotas, forcing me and every other American to purchase their more expensive sugar.
Politicians love pitting us against the rich. All by themselves, the rich have absolutely no power over us. To rip us off, they need the might of Congress to rig the economic game. It's a slick political sleight-of-hand where politicians and their allies amongst the intellectuals, talking heads and the news media get us caught up in the politics of envy as part of their agenda for greater control over our lives.
The sugar lobby is just one example among thousands. Just ask yourself: Who were the major recipients of the billions of taxpayer bailout dollars, the so-called Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP)? The top recipients of TARP handouts included companies such as Citibank, AIG, Goldman Sachs and General Motors. Their top management are paid tens of millions dollars to run companies that were on the verge of bankruptcy, were it not for billions of dollars in taxpayer money. Politicians preach the politics of envy whilst reaching into the ordinary man's pockets, through the IRS, and handing it over to their favorite rich people and others who make large contributions to their election efforts.
The bottom line is that it is politicians first and their supporters amongst intellectuals who pose the greatest threat to liberty. Dr. Thomas Sowell amply demonstrates this in his brand-new book, "Intellectuals and Society," in which he points out that: "Scarcely a mass-murdering dictator of the twentieth century was without his intellectual supporters, not simply in his own country, but also in foreign democracies ... Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Hitler all had their admirers, defenders and apologists among the intelligentsia in Western democratic nations, despite the fact that these dictators each ended up killing people of their own country on a scale unprecedented even by despotic regimes that preceded them."
While American politicians and intellectuals have not reached the depths of tyrants such as Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Hitler, they share a common vision. Tyrants denounce free markets and voluntary exchange. They are the chief supporters of reduced private property rights, reduced rights to profits, and they are anti-competition and pro-monopoly. They are pro-control and coercion, by the state. These Americans who run Washington, and their intellectual supporters, believe they have superior wisdom and greater intelligence than the masses. They believe they have been ordained to forcibly impose that wisdom on the rest of us. Like any other tyrant, they have what they consider good reasons for restricting the freedom of others. A tyrant's primary agenda calls for the elimination or attenuation of the market. Why? Markets imply voluntary exchange and tyrants do not trust that people behaving voluntarily will do what the tyrant thinks they should do. Therefore, they seek to replace the market with economic planning and regulation, which is little more than the forcible superseding of other people's plans by the powerful elite.
We Americans have forgotten founder Thomas Paine's warning that "Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one."
Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University. To find out more about Walter E. Williams and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2010 CREATORS.COM
sheilacollins
Sanders is absolutely right. Greening the economy with jobs is the ONLY way we are going to work our way out of this recession. The National Jobs for All Coalition is building a new movement for jobs at living wages to meet human needs, rebuild our infrastructure and provide an environmentally sustainable future. Join the movement! Write us at: www.njfac.org.
This is the kind of bold thinking needed in the US.
Andrew
Energy efficiency alone is not the solution to the environment because of Jevons Paradox. Energy has to be made expensive regardless of supply. The most obvious way to do this is to tax fossil fuels and then direct those revenues to the building of a renewable energy infrastructure.
MGSelig
Senator Sanders, there is is very little reason to hope that the Obama administration OR Congress will act fast enough to save this planet. Here is the Obama administration's action on behalf of the environment so far:
1) approve yet another mountaintop approval in West Virginia 2) approve the clearcutting of 365 acres in the Tongass National Forest in Alaska 3) approve the shooting of wolves 4) approve the poisoning of prairie dogs (in addition to the fact that this is animal cruelty--their deaths are slow and agonizing--it poisons the land--so much for Lisa Jackson's "concern" about chemicals in the environment) 5) appointing Ken Salazar as Secretary of the Interior (every rancher's friend, he is the fox guarding the henhouse) 6) appointing Lisa Jackson head of the EPA. When Bill Maher asked her about the devastating effects of factory farming, she looked like a deer caught in headlights. She doesn't have a clue. 8) a commitment to "clean coal"--are they kidding??? Sadly, no.
And neither does Obama--who gets his environmental education by reading Tom Friedman--you know, the journalist who told us all how wonderful life would be with globalization? Why should Obama read Gus Speth, Tom Wessels, Paul Hawken, David Suzuki, Karl Hendrik-Robert, Bill McKibben, etc., when he can rely on the soundbites of Tom Friedman?
The fact is that neither Obama nor the members of Congress (yourself and a couple of others aside) have any ecological education, and are completely clueless when it comes to figuring out how to revision our world. They are all operating in a 19th-century paradigm of "truth." Hence, the CONSTANT capitulation to industry interests. And, I'm sorry, but cap-and-trade is a joke. We are waaaay beyond that now.
So forgive me if I have absolutely zero faith in Obama's plans for a "green economy." We have a bought and ignorant Congress. Realistically speaking, there is little reason for hope.
richardstein
I have recommended this weekly message to members of the Pioneer Valley Biochar Initiative headquartered in Belchertown, MA. Biochar is a form of carbon prepared by pyrolyzing biomass (heating in limited air) which may then be buried in the ground where it remains inert for long periods of time. I refer to it as "coal mining in reverse" in that it removes CO2 from the atmosphere (Through photosynthesis during its formation) and buries its carbon in the ground where it serves as an aid to agriculture. It is one of the few techniques that is "CO2 negative" in that it serves to reduce atmospheric CO2 and helps us get back to the desired 350 ppm. Studies are currently in progress at the New England Small Farm Institute. A national symposium will tale place in Amherst on Nov. 13 with demonstrations in Belchertown on Nov. 14. For more information, please contact me at <stein@ecs.umass.edu>.
Richard (Dick) Stein Goessmann Professor of Chemistry, Emeritus University of Massachusetts, Amherst (413) 549-0245
mgselig
Except that burning CO2 in the ground is playing with fire. According to David Suzuki, we have NO IDEA what the biological/ecological ramifications are in doing this. Far from "[serving] as an aid to agriculture," it may very well be an extremely dangerous act.
I agree that pumping CO2 underground is a risky procedure. We don't understand enough about what happens to it to be sure that there will be no bad effects in the future. If the approach proves wrong, reversal would be extremely difficult.
I believe that conversion of biomass to biocat, a form of carbon, and burying it is much safer. This has been shown to be stable over very long periods of time and does serve as an aid to agriculture.
mgselig
Interesting. Is it possible to effect that conversion with a low-carbon footprint, as well? Also, do we know anything about how it is an aid to agriculture? Or whether its burial will affect the surrounding ecosystem?
Dave Kisor
(Video problems, so I’ll as my questions here.) Hemp is one of the most versatile and sustainable plants ever grown, as it can be used for food, fuel, fabric, paper and building materials, but thanks to the bureaucratic intransigence of the DEA, those of us who support it can not get it past a mental block in congress. Hemp does not have sufficient THC and is as related to marijuana as the tomato is to the deadly nightshade. One you can eat, while the other a deadly poison. A Canadian grower once stated she stood in a field of burning hemp and all she got was a headache, for a buzz she needed to drink a beer. Will congress consider legalizing the growth of industrial hemp in this country? Many other countries grow it, so why can’t we?
anonymiss
Dave, I agree with your assertion that hemp is a versatile and sustainable material and we should look past the moral roadblocks we've had erected for us over the past half a century or so. What I don't agree with is your comparison of the relationship between "marijuana" and hemp to the relationship between a tomato plant and "deadly nightshade", or atropa belladonna. Hemp and "marijuana" are the same plant (cannabis), while the tomato and belladonna plants are two different plants in the same family (solanaceae). Hemp is cannabis grown to maximize seed production and fiber content, and marijuana is cannabis grown to maximize cannabinoid content and flower production. I'm not trying to nitpick, I just wanted to clarify for anyone who may read your comment and walk away under the impression that hemp and marijuana come from different plants, when really they are both from the same plant that's been bred and grown for different purposes.
