Posted by
Always To The Right on Wednesday, October 22, 2008 3:12:39 AM
Obama's Carbon Ultimatum: The coming offer you
won't be able to refuse. - Liberals pretend that only President Bush is preventing the U.S. from adopting some
global warming "solution." But occasionally their mask slips. As Barack Obama's energy adviser has now
made clear, the would-be President intends to blackmail -- or rather, greenmail -- Congress into falling in line
with his climate agenda.
Jason Grumet is currently executive director of an outfit called the National Commission on Energy Policy and one of
Mr. Obama's key policy aides. In an interview last week with Bloomberg, Mr. Grumet said that come January the
Environmental Protection Agency "would initiate those rulemakings" that classify carbon as a dangerous
pollutant under current clean air laws. That move would impose new regulation and taxes across the entire economy,
something that is usually the purview of Congress. Mr. Grumet warned that "in the absence of Congressional
action" 18 months after Mr. Obama's inauguration, the EPA would move ahead with its own unilateral carbon
crackdown anyway.
Well, well. For years, Democrats -- including Senator Obama -- have been howling about the
"politicization" of the EPA, which has nominally been part of the Bush Administration. The complaint has
been that the White House blocked EPA bureaucrats from making the so-called "endangerment finding" on
carbon. Now it turns out that a President Obama would himself wield such a finding as a political bludgeon. He plans
to issue an ultimatum to Congress: Either impose new taxes and limits on carbon that he finds amenable, or the EPA
carbon police will be let loose to ravage the countryside. (Wall Street Journal)
If people are dumb enough to pay for hot air... Pollution
Credits Let Dumps Double Dip - CAPE MAY COUNTY, N.J. -- America's garbage dumps are reaping a windfall from the
fight against global warming. But their payday might not be doing much to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.
For more than a decade, the landfill here has made extra profit simply by collecting methane given off by rotting
trash, and selling it as fuel. Last year, the landfill learned that doing this also qualified it to earn hundreds of
thousands of dollars via a new program that pays companies to cut their greenhouse-gas emissions.
Eliminating methane lets dumps sell "carbon credits" to environmentally conscious people and companies.
The long-term goal of trading credits -- basically, vouchers representing reductions in carbon dioxide and other
greenhouse gases -- is to reduce global pollution by encouraging others to cut emissions when the buyers of the
credits can't or won't cut their own.
"It seemed a little suspicious that we could get money for doing nothing," says Charles Norkis, executive
director of the Cape May County Municipal Utilities Authority, which has raised $427,475 selling credits since
February, or 3% of the authority's projected solid-waste revenue for the year.
The sale of credits by these landfills undermines a premise of the global fight against climate change. The credit
system was designed to encourage pollution cuts that wouldn't have happened without a financial incentive. But the
credits aren't helping the environment if they're merely providing extra profit for cleanups already made. And dumps
already have an incentive to capture methane because selling it can be profitable [Wall Street Journal]
Are they really so deranged? Climate
Deniers and Freedom of Screech - Does the right of freedom of speech extend to shouting “Hoax” on a burning
planet? The climate change / global warming Deniers made much hysterical arm waving out of James Hansen’s “call
for the chief executives of large fossil fuel companies to be put on trial for high crimes against humanity and
nature” and David Suzuki’s call for Denier politicians to be “hold politicians legally accountable“, do the
Deniers have a point?
If you check the Denialosphere’s version of both the Hansen interview and Suzuki’s comments the narrative is
that both were calling for the criminalization of legitimate dissent, the suppression of freedom of speech, and the
punishment of thought crimes. As Richard Littlemore notes, according the the Denialosphere it is “environmental
fascism,” “enviro-totalitarianism” and/or the beginning of an “enviro-inquisition.” Is that what really
happened?
No, of course not. Every demonstration that Denierism is utter nonsense get’s labeled as something like
“Greenhouse robots clamp down on true climate debate.” Typically the claim is utter hogwash (Aside: as a general
guideline, if it comes from the Denialosphere it is probably nonsense). (greenfyre)
Seems unlikely anyone actually subscribes to such a position unless they've been neglecting to take certain
prescription medicaments...
UK Telegraph
falls prey to photo cherry picking - They say a picture is worth a thousand words right? Depending on what you
are trying to present, that picture can make or break any presentation.
So it was with great interest that I noticed this picture in the article from the UK Telegraph with this alarming
title: Climate change is ‘faster and more extreme’ than feared (Watts Up with That?)