Climate Change is Obama’s Iraq

by Marita Noon

This year, amidst reports of cooling temperature, the climate change debate had apparently cooled as well. Then the Waxman/Markey Bill, pushing cap and trade as the solution for global warming, was introduced. Now, with President Obama addressing the UN and calling for extreme measures to prevent catastrophic consequences, suddenly it’s front page news again.

On the same day that Obama was presenting his dramatic message to the UN, the New York Times published an article acknowledging “global temperatures have been relatively stable for a decade and may drop in the next few years.” Clearly the debate is not as one-sided as our leadership wants us to believe.

While Obama and his “alarmist” science czar, John Holdren, are moving forward, the polls repeatedly show lack of public and scientific support. Aggressive climate change measures rank last on almost any list of current crises; people do not think the issue is one on which our government should be focused.

I predict climate change will be Obama’s Iraq.

Bush, it is widely accepted, went into Iraq based on his advisors’ belief that weapons of mass destruction awaited them. There seemed to be consensus. Even Democrats voted in favor of war. Once there, no WMDs were found. But Bush did not pull out. Instead we spent billions of dollars and lost thousands of lives with minimal results—all based on bad advice. The public did not like the war. They did not want it. He had great plans for overthrowing Saddam, but the Iraqi military was no where near ready to take over—leaving us foundering between being occupiers and advisors. The failure in Iraq defined the Bush presidency, turning even his own party against him.

Obama’s advisors are telling him that climate change legislation is imperative. They believe there is consensus. But the temperatures have stabilized and dropped—despite increased CO2 emissions. Even the NYT admits that the declining temperatures will make legislation a hard sell to the public. But Obama is not backing down. He is willing to kill off the American economy based on bad advice. The people do not want it now and they will hate it later. We’ll spend billions of borrowed dollars for minimal results. He is focused on overthrowing hydrocarbons, but renewable energy is many years away from being ready to take over—leaving us floundering between the light and freezing in the dark. The folly of climate change legislation will define his presidency and turn citizens against him.

Both Presidents succumbed to a type of herd mentality. When people pursue the same avenue all together, they tend to shut out all other ideas and those avenues are not always the right ones. The “facts” become propaganda—forced into a pattern that is preordained, making them look firmly established.

You can see this in the Iraq war decision. But how does it apply to climate change?

Twenty years ago, in the Journal of Scientific Exploration, Dr. Thomas Gold of Cornell University presented the hypothesis that science was reaching the place where new ideas were not being accepted. He stated, “A critical attitude is clearly required of every scientist. Whenever the established ideas are accepted uncritically, but conflicting new evidence is brushed aside and not reported because it does not fit, then that particular science is in deep trouble.” He postulates that, “there are long periods when uncritical acceptance of established ideas was a real hindrance to the pursuit of the new.”

Appling his ideas to today’s situation, I suggest that we are there now.

From a scientific viewpoint, when other motivations come into the act, judgment becomes cloudy, and decisions are not based on the ideal of evidence-based reasoning. This is where the problem lies. If support from peers and moral and financial consequences are at stake, then staying with the herd is the successful policy for the individual who is depending on them, but not the successful policy for the pursuit of pure science. If a large portion of the scientific community in one field is guided by the herd instinct they cannot adopt another viewpoint. The justification becomes, “I believe that because everyone else does.” About the herd, Gold commented, “The sheep in the interior of the herd are well-protected from the bite in the ankle by the sheep dog.”

This has happened with climate change. The man-caused warming model has become the established fact—new evidence is “brushed aside.” Those scientists and others questioning the validity of the models are vilified as skeptics and deniers.
Hence bad science is “established.” Public policy is based on it.

Just like the herd agreed that there were WMDs—when there were not—the herd has decided that climate change is caused by man’s use of CO2 when, in fact, it is likely just the normal cycle of nature. We are attempting to battle climate change based on bad advice.

Marita Noon is the executive director of the Citizens Alliance for Responsible Energy (CARE), a nonprofit, membership-based organization advocating for citizens rights to energy freedom. She can be reached at marita@responsiblenergy.org or www.responsiblenergy.org. Note: Several concepts featured here are culled from the Australian Institute of Geoscientists Spring Newsletter.

21 Pages

The Constitution of the United States is one of the most important documents in human history. Its 7 articles and 27 amendments created our government, its checks and balances, and even restricts the powers of the government it created. The entire document, including all 27 amendments is about 21 pages long.

The founding fathers understood that brevity is not only the sole of wit, it's the essence of wisdom. The knew that large, bloated legislation creates the opportunities for mismanagement and corruption.

Last Friday, the U.S. House of Representatives - under the cover of nationalized health care and the demise of Michael Jackson - debated and passed one of the most dangerous bills to come out of the House in recent memory. Dangerous because of it's size and negative impact on our economy and our lives. The bill often referred to as cap and trade, cap and tax, choke and steal, or more disingenuously entitled "The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009" creates government boards, inspectors, regulators, national building codes, and transfers an incredible amount of power to the Secretary of Energy, just for starters. This document including its 300 plus page early morning amendment totals 1201 pages. That's 1180 pages more than the document that is the foundation of our republic.

All three of New Mexico's representatives to the House voted for this massive increase in government bureaucracy. Heinrich and Lujan voted for the measure like a couple of party line toting bobble-heads. Meanwhile, their colleague and fellow freshman congressman Harry Teague cut a deal to exempt the evil carbon producing refineries in his district from the rigors of this misguided attempt to regulate carbon production.

Our question for Mr. Teague is if it's good to exempt your carbon producers how is it not good not to exempt others? We hope the true believers in choke and steal legislation can see through Teague's subterfuge and that the beneficiaries of Teague's deal understand how tenuous their situation truly is should this Obamination of a bill pass the Senate.

Today we were treated to Congressman Junior, uh... Ben Ray Lujan, Jr. trying to answer a simple question from KKOB-AM's Craig Kennedy about whether or not he had read the bill he had so enthusiastically supported. After prattling on about knowing the "major" points and other non-sense, he didn't answer - which of course means no.

Congressman Heinrich will be holding his "open house" at 4:15pm on the carbon belching diesel train commonly known as the Rail Runner. Perhaps someone from KOB could catch up with him in order to find out exactly how many of the 1201 pages he had actually read. Our bet that his answer will be no more satisfying than Bennie Jr's.

It's become a habit of the 111th Congress - passing bills without taking the time to read them, particularly when they're passing thousand page legislation that chokes our economy and steals our money and liberty.

You know, It's not surprising they haven't read the bills they're voting on. If they did, they'd probably be as horrified as the rest of us. Might we suggest however, that they take the time to read the 21 pages of the United States Constitution. By comparison it's light reading and utimately more important. At least it'd be a start.

Eco-Folly Update

A couple weeks ago we told you of the tossing of the green - APD's move to run good ol' unleaded in all of their E85 vehicles (read it here). It turns out that running the corn fed fuel ruins fuel pumps at an alarming rate, even if the engines were supposed to run on the stuff.

Our Eyes have given us a little more details regarding the eco-debacle. The Ford Crown Victorias that comprise a large percentage of APD's fleet are the vehicles popping their fuel pumps. In fact, fuel pumps are failing every 2,000 miles or so.

To put that in context, the average mileage for an average driver is about 12,000 miles per year. If you owned one of the vehicles in question and decided to save the world one E85 tank at a time, you'd end up replacing your fuel pump 6 times a year - that's every couple of months!

APD vehicles can't be considered average under any circumstances. They generally receive far more mileage and run more continuously than your average mini-van, SUV, or eco-friendly hybrid. As a result, APD's mechanics are kept quite busy replacing fuel pumps. So busy in fact, that the switch to carbon spewing petrol became an absolute necessity.

You're probably thinking that there has to be some kind of warranty, right? Well there is, except that the Almighty's edict from the 11th floor ordering APD to burn the eco-fuel voided that warranty. You see, Ford requires that a tank of regular unleaded fuel be run every third tank. Running E85 all of the time apparently ruins the fuel pump and voids the warranty.

Politicians know how to manipulate fear in all of its forms for their own political gain. Marty's eco-edict to use E85 was nothing but an attempt to tap that fear and use it to advance his personal ambition. Never mind the fact that it made little sense and has ended up wasting thousands of taxpayer dollars at a time when there are precious few of them coming in to the city.

Before making radical edicts, it's a real good idea to get all of the facts. The facts in this case are that the Fords were never designed to run exclusively on E85 - just like the new trucks purchased for the K-9 units were never designed to run on bio-diesel (read it here).

When politicians like the Almighty Alcalde grandstand on public fears, they inevitably make bad decisions. In this case, Marty turned Eco-friendly into Eco-folly.