Gas-zzler

I picked this up from another website, a video that shows a politician as king of the road.  Yeah, ok, big deal.

But what ticks me is the use of those gas guzzlers.  And to think she's supposed to be so concerned with the environment.  I thought she'd probably use a "smaller" car.  Or a Prius maybe.  

Maybe, she's modified those engines to hybrids or those things run on mixed fuel.  Hypocrite!

Or maybe, just maybe, she's traded some carbon offsets for those.  

Not all trees are created equal

In a letter to the editor, Nelia Fuentebella of Trees for Life Foundation Inc. writes:

Reducing carbon emission is unlikely with the adamancy of developed countries to cooperate, while alternative and renewable energy sources are still in the fledgling stage. That leaves the massive planting of trees—to absorb the existing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, which will mitigate global warming and climate change—as the only doable recourse. Furthermore, tree planting has multifarious beneficial effects on mankind.

Why then have world leaders not focused on this endeavor?

 So why really?  I have followed the global warming alarmism issue for many years, and I am aware of the general theory brought forward that trees in general cool the air through evatranspiration, reduce air pollutants, and act as carbon sinks when leaves absorb sunlight (which cause warming) or theory of carbon sequestration.

She asks why?  Many have debunked this, at the very least, because the amount of long-term net carbon sequestration is not very high, thus not a very good reducer of warming.  Also, it appears that trees and forests in the world do not actt the same way in terms of carbon sequestration.  Areas near the equator or the tropics may allow greater sequestration but other areas in the world would have different if not opposite effect on sequestration and warming.

So why have leaders not focused on planting more trees to fight global warming?  I think it is obvious.  It isn't slam dunk.  Period.

Hot zone spin zone

In the end, it is really how you make the spin to advance your theories.  No fact checking necessary.

The Philippine Daily Inquirer had a news report saying that this year could be the warmest in recent history.  Obviously to put forward the theory of anthropogenic global warming and climate change.

But according to an analysis, the NOAA may be guilty of problems concerning "data quality and data manipulation". 

It is clear from the following sections that NOAA performs manipulations to create false impressions from the data, including assigning temperature increases were there is zero data.

Also H/T: Public Secrets

BTW, The One's altern now, Sen. Kerry has met with some power industry people in the US, behind closed doors, before an expected push for cap and trade.  That's transparency for the most transparent US gov't.  Business as usual in DC.

Silently working to silence the screams

Sometimes, coming out too strongly with your guns ablaze may not work at all.  The abortion industry's noisy push after Roe v. Wade for doctors to offer abortions as part of their hospital practice did not work.  The theory was that if doctors included abortion in their practice, there would not be any need for abortion clinics.  Doctors did little to no effort and abortions were mostly done in Planned Parenthood and private abortion clinics and not in hospitals.

Even as the trend did not really cut down the number of abortions, doctors were not too keen at including abortions in their practice.  This may change.

Working silently in the background now are certain groups of doctors, the new abortion providers that Emily Bazelon writes about in The New York Times Magazine, who have been moving to "lift the status of abortion in medicine."  Much like how the contraceptive mentality has pervaded the minds of some doctors and medical professionals.

The mission:  ... to recruit not only future abortion providers but also the supporters they’ll need inside medicine later in their professional lives.

Add:  See Pia's take here.

When the green turns black

The climate change movement is not moving forward.  Despite the hype, this global warming alarmism spews even more hot air than ever before.  On second thought, there seems to be no more steam left in the vents.  That's it.  Finito.

Even as the movement protects its own (as in the no-fault judgment of the CRU by supposedly non-partisan panel), more and more people and groups have turned their backs on what used to be one of their top priority advocacies.  For what can you expect from a movement whose darling is now, shall we say, in hibernation.  Not that his underlings are not receiving marching orders still. He will be back, for sure. 

Reeling from the failure of Copenhagen 2009, the movement will try to put forth a unified and global policy.  What I see is failure again.  It does not get the point.

Here's Walter Russell Mead:

These days, nothing in the world is deader than the drive for a UN climate treaty ...

Something like this is going to have to happen on the climate front.  Relatively small steps, or larger steps often undertaken for reasons that have little directly to do with climate, will have to see us through.  Until more greens understand that, and until the green movement as a whole disabuses itself of the dangerous fantasy that the way to solve our environmental problems is to embrace Malthusian fantasies, utopian treaties and grandiose laws, the green movement will continue to be a drag on human progress — even as the computer models get better and the temperature goes up.

At best, the green movement might be compared to an alarm clock: jangling shrilly to wake up the world.  That is fair enough; they have turned our attention to a problem that needs to be carefully examined and dealt with.  But the first thing you do when you wake up is to turn the alarm clock off; otherwise that shrill beeping noise will distract you from the problems of the day.

The alarm clock will never understand this; making shrill and irrational noise is what alarm clocks do and is all they understand.  But sensible and thoughtful people who want humanity to live fuller, richer lives in a cleaner and more sustainable world need to get past the naive and crude policy ideas that currently dominate green thinking and start giving these questions the serious attention and careful thought they deserve.

Deserving win?

Now that the World Cup in South Africa has ended, there will be a pile of news and commentaries about how the champion deserved the title.  Stop saying that.  

Every World Cup champion deserves its crown.  The gruelling preparations of the qualifying stages, coupled with the difficult task of putting up a team, and the seven games of the World Cup finals stage make a champion team deserve the win.  Unless the team gets it through devious means, which the officiating teams will not tolerate, the team that's on top really deserves it.  

There is no need to say that they do.

Business as usual and the GMA Derangement Syndrome

Three days after the inauguration of the new President, a media worker (former radio anchor and former writer, does that count as media worker?) was shot and killed.  That was quite fast for a sitting President.  Then again, maybe it is just business as usual.  Or could be GMA's fault.  Oh I don't know, maybe the killer was a fan of GMA, hence she's at fault.  Or maybe the killer was angry at GMA, hence her fault too.  DOJ to investigate?  or Truth Commission case?