Environmentalism

Set the stage: former Enviro / Energy White House Advisor to Obama, Carol Browning (from US News and World Report)

We need to make sure that we’re really moving electricity in the smartest way and using the most cost-effective electricity at the right time of day. Eventually, we can get to a system where an electric company will be able to hold back some of the power so that maybe your air conditioner won’t operate at its peak, you’ll still be able to cool your house, but that’ll be a savings to the consumer. And so [we will be] giving people and companies a role in the management of how we use electricity.

Right; THAT gives me the warm and fuzzies.  Just like Obama when he said “at some point you’ve earned enough money”, Carol Browning wants to see the day when “you’ve used enough energy – and we know better where that point it”.  Sure, we will get to “play a role”, but merely a sham one – someone else will be making the shots via smart meters that will watch what you use and send that information back to our Energy Rulers.

Now for the story about a Smart Meter installation and guns…Texas Woman Pulls Gun on Meter Installer

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I remember the first Earth Day and I think that that the environmental problems we had in the US at that time did have to be addressed.  Rivers were polluted, we couldn’t see very far in our large cities and in industrial areas, and yes, the air was toxic.  And a LOT of that has been cleaned up – and from a Conservative standpoint, that was a common good that Government played the right role.

There’s also a problem with the environmental problems we have today; they are still man-caused but of a far different nature.  Instead of actually dealing with severe and and actual environmental problems, they are now from a political and ideological standpoints.  When science ignore the science, that’s a problem that spans past the scientific realm and when it spills into the political realm (and where it rooted and grown like Jack’s infamous Beanstalk) it REALLY has acquired a financial component.

But in going forward, potentially spending Trillions a year to spread the wealth mitigate less than one or two degrees of warming, it might be useful to look to the past to see where we’re going in the future.  As with NASA’s James Hansen’s predictions back in 1988 as to how things would look into the future.

As Watts Up With That? points out, the models that much of our current enviro-frenzy is built upon, that James Hansen pushed and pushed and pushed, have turned out to be flat wrong:

One of the most important publications on the “dangerous anthropogenic climate change” is that of James Hansen and colleagues from the year 1988, in the Journal of Geophysical Research published. The title of the work is (in German translation) “Global climate change, according to the prediction of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies.”

In this publication, Hansen and colleagues present the GISS Model II, with which they simulate climate change as a result of concentration changes of atmospheric trace gases and particulate matter (aerosols). The scientists here are three scenarios:

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OK, it’s that time of year again: Earth Hour is upon us where tonite between the hours of 8:30 and 9:30, we are all supposed to act like we are back in the Stone Age and just sit in the dark (ok, maybe a candle might be OK, but remember : IT’S CREATING MORE CO2!!!!!!).  But remember, it’s intentions that could (as with all things Liberal, the Environmental movement has morphed into after first being responsible) rather than actually, you know, accomplishing something concrete.

But SKIP!, you don’t think that turning off all the lights for exactly ONE hour is actually a responsible act?

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I have several different sets of “bookmarks” in my FireFox setup – one has some environmental sites that I go to.  Yes folks, there are conservative leaning (what I would consider, given that I hold two scientific degrees, “leaning on science” sites).  Others?  I would have to say that one of them is more of the “true believe” (what I would consider, given that I hold two scientific degrees, “leaning on faith” sites): TreeHugger (ya think!).  It can be VERY instructive at times – the post:

Experts Warn Urban Expansion Puts Humanity at Risk

With 7 billion people on the planet, things have already begun to feel a bit hot and crowded, particularly in swelling urban centers — but researchers warn that we’ve ain’t seen nothing yet. Over the next 38 years, Earth’s population is predicted to balloon to 9 billion, with most of those new additions taking up residence in our increasingly crowded cities. But not only does such an outlook of expanding sprawl spell trouble in terms of city planning, say experts, its environmental toll could put humanity itself at risk.

Ah yes, people after Paul Erlich’s own heart (not to mention John Holdren – the science advisor to President Obama): Malthusians (e.g.,  we denizens of earth have been overcrowding the Earth for hundreds of years now.  Now, it isn’t that these folks are just for having the right number of folks living on earth, some of them want NO folks living on earth – look at this comment that one of them left for us all:

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