Obama administration intends to rule by fiat if Congress doesn’t submit?

According to a Fox News story today, administration officials acknowledge privately that the EPA’s newly-claimed powers allow the executive branch to function as a dictatorship if it so chooses.

The Obama administration is warning Congress that if it doesn't move to regulate greenhouse gases, the Environmental Protection Agency will take a "command-and-control" role over the process in a way that could hurt business.

The warning, from a top White House economic official who spoke Tuesday on condition of anonymity, came on the eve of EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson's address to the international conference on climate change in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Jackson, however, tried to strike a tone of cooperation in her address Wednesday, explaining that the EPA's new powers to regulate greenhouse gases will be used to complement legislation pending in Congress, not replace it.

"This is not an 'either-or' moment. It's a 'both-and' moment," she said.

But while administration officials have long said they prefer Congress take action on climate change, the economic official who spoke with reporters Tuesday night made clear that the EPA will not wait and is prepared to act on its own.

And it won't be pretty.

"If you don't pass this legislation, then ... the EPA is going to have to regulate in this area," the official said. "And it is not going to be able to regulate on a market-based way, so it's going to have to regulate in a command-and-control way, which will probably generate even more uncertainty."

So.  Obama would prefer that Congress take the actions that the administration demands of it.  But if Congress fails to get its act together, the administration will publicly hold Congress responsible for the economic chaos that will follow.

And that economic chaos is a virtual certainty if the administration resorts to fiat rule through the EPA. Who would want to invest in an economy where regulations are changing suddenly and radically (and almost always to the detriment of businesses)?

Attack of the cannibal polar bears!

Did somebody mention polar bear cannibalism in Copenhagen this week?  I ask because so many people have arrived at this blog in recent days via a search on that topic.  Next to the acronym “AGW”, this is by far the most popular search that results in a visit here.  If you’re one of the folks that arrived in this manner… Well, HOWDY!

For the record, I blogged on the topic more than a year ago.  If any new information has arisen that enhances the then-dubious case for the [novelty of the] phenomenon, please let me know.

UPDATE: Inserted three words in final sentence (between the brackets).  I argued in the linked blog entry that there wasn’t necessarily anything new about polar bear cannibalism.

EPA declares plant food to be a public health threat

A bit late in reporting on this, but hey, this is a blog, not a news service.  But just for the record, here’s what happened on Monday, as reported by the Associated Press:

The Obama administration took a major step Monday toward imposing the first federal limits on climate-changing pollution from cars, power plants and factories, declaring there was compelling scientific evidence that global warming from manmade greenhouse gases endangers Americans' health.

Does anyone else see a logical disconnect here?  Not the Environmental Protection Agency, because they’ve consciously named carbon dioxide a dangerous pollutant.  A gas that occurs naturally, the existence of which is essential for plant life – is a dangerous pollutant.

And notice – only “manmade” carbon dioxide seems to be capable of causing global warming.  Oh, and how is it a danger to public health?  They don’t say here, but it’s obvious that they’re playing the Six Degrees game.

So, what kind of powers has the EPA amassed for itself by this “finding”?  The article gives us a taste:

The price could be steep for both industry and consumers. The EPA finding clears the way for rules that eventually could force the sale of more fuel-efficient vehicles and require plants to install costly new equipment — at a cost of billions or even many tens of billions of dollars — or shift to other forms of energy.

It almost certainly goes beyond this.  If human generated carbon dioxide emissions are as dangerous as the EPA says they are, there is no logical or moral reason why the EPA shouldn’t extend its regulatory tentacles into every aspect of our lives.

In other words, this finding will serve as the greatest mechanism ever devised for state control of American people and resources, all in complete, deliberate mockery of the constitutional limits on the powers of the federal government.

It’s almost as if that was the plan.

Do I REALLY think that the environmental left is on a QUEST to destroy the world’s economy?

Someone asked me this question in the comments section of a recent post, and I thought it deserved a high-profile answer.

In the banner of this blog I refer to the “quest by the environmental left to destroy the world’s economy” through various means. I was asked: Why would they want to do that? What’s their motivation?

For me to call this the "quest" of the entire environmental left is a bit of hyperbole -- but IMO the characterization is justified because, whether consciously or unconsciously, the environmental left is aggressively pursuing an agenda that can have no logical end other than the destruction of the world economy.

On one hand, I accept at face value their claim to be motivated by concern for the environment. So much of modern civilization is based on customs, technology, etc. that the environmental left feels are harmful to the environment. AGW, real or not, is to them the golden opportunity to remake civilization into a form more to their liking.

On the other hand, many now marching under the banner of environmentalism would in a previous generation have been classified as good old-fashioned Marxists. Their true motivations are economic, not environmental. But overt Marxism is a bit out of fashion in the west, and environmentalism is quite fashionable, so what better cover can one find for one’s war against capitalism? Just think about how many people out there are saying that the only way to lick the climate crisis is to shift more and more of the economy to state control.

So, agree or not, that is why I used these pointed words in the blog banner.

UPDATE: I almost forgot the following point about how AGW is a good cover for Marxists... Think also about how many out there are preaching that the greatest moral imperative of "rich" countries is to transfer increasing amounts of their wealth to poor countries -- with no strings attached.

There was a time when erosion was just erosion

The media are quite deft at taki ng some phenomenon that has been occurring since time immemorial and suddenly attributing it to some alleged climate change consequence that hasn’t even happened yet.

AFP tells the sad story of  Thai fishing villages that are slowly falling into the sea.  This much is real. But what could be causing this?

She is one of 25 million people under threat in Thailand's vast Chao Phraya river delta, which is sinking because of river damming and the clearing of mangrove forests, as climate change pushes up sea levels.

Which of these things doesn’t go with the others?  River damming, forest clearing, rising sea levels: which of these isn’t actually happening today?

The article doesn’t bother to present evidence that the sea levels are actually rising. Every reference to this afterwards is speculation about future sea level increases. 

In other words, there was no legitimate reason to mention climate change at all – except as part of a drip-drip-drip campaign of public scaremongering, most likely coordinated with the ongoing Copenhagen Chicken Little Confab.

Memo to the AGW boosters in the scientific community: you’d get a lot more respect from the skeptics if you would lift a finger now and then to denounce such fraudulent reporting on this issue that is so dear to you.

Then again, as we dig deeper and deeper into the muck of CRU correspondence, we get the impression that the AGW boosters in the scientific community might be too ideologically (or financially) invested in the world they’ve created.  There’s too much at stake – they can’t let the truth get in the way.

They’re really thinking about a different kind of green

These days, countless businesses spare no effort reminding us how much they care about planet earth. 

Have these companies really become true believers in global warming, or is something else at play here?

I suspect that in most cases, what we see in this July 14 Dilbert comic is a little closer to the truth.

(Click for full size)

They were okay with the statue, but they drew the line at including an altar and incense

The Tennessee State Senate has, thankfully, rejected a Democrat lawmaker's attempt to have a statue erected in honor of Al Gore's Nobel "Peace" Prize. The Chattanooga Times Free Press reports:

A resolution urging that the state Capitol Commission erect a statue on the Capitol grounds in honor of former Democratic Vice President Al Gore for winning the Nobel Peace Prize failed on the Senate floor today.

The resolution, which also urged a statue be erected for Nobel Peace Prize winner Cordell Hull, failed on a 15-14 vote with most Republicans voting no. It needed 17 votes to pass.

Earlier, the sponsor, Sen. Andy Berke, D-Chattanooga, said the measure had “broad bipartisan support in the House.”

I say "thankfully", because we wouldn't want Gore to start thinking that his Nobel Prize actually meant something.

I am generally opposed to permanent public honors (statues, building/street/park names, etc.) of people who are still living. People -- especially politicians -- have a knack of doing things later that make us want to withdraw the honor.

Just as I believe that people will some day regret naming their kid after Barack Obama, so also I believe that some day -- as the alleged global warming "consensus" collapses like the West Antarctic Ice Shelf is predicted to do -- people will regret holding Al Gore in such high esteem.


(Photo credit: National Post)

Soy burgers: Ban them! (#3)

Where were the soybeans grown?

Food miles, people. Food miles!



(Explanation of the "Ban Them" series here)

Reusable grocery bags: Ban them! (#2)

Reusable grocery bags are an indispensable accessory for the eco-conscious shopper. But perhaps the true believers should reconsider the virtue of using them.

Not only do they increase your risk of food poisoning, I'd be willing to bet that your bag was not manufactured locally.

Vendors such as ECOBAGS like to trumpet the fact that their products are manufactured in the USA, but how many miles did the bag travel before it reached the store where you got it?

This very argument is used to discourage the consumption of food that is not locally grown, so aren't you being hypocritical when you use a shopping bag made who knows where?

There ought to be a law.


(Explanation of the "Ban Them" series here)

Water fountains: Ban them!

Yesterday I was taking a walk near my office to shake off my traditional midafternoon drowsiness. My route took me past this fountain, which is part of a retail development.

Somehow, I began to wonder how the global warming true believers would view this fountain. It occurred to me that if they were consistent with their stated beliefs, their reaction might be something like this:

This fountain is an outrage! What a waste of water, just to provide a little selfish enjoyment for people.

And the electricity! Every minute the pumps are running brings us another step closer to the destruction of the polar bear's habitat. I will find out who owns this shopping center and DEMAND that they shut the fountain down IMMEDIATELY.

Come to think of it... the problem is much bigger than this. There are fountains in towns and cities all over the country. If banning incandescent bulbs makes a difference, think about what we'll gain if we can ban water fountains!

I'll call my city council. No, wait. Local governments are a little too sensitive to the voters, and might be reluctant to take an action that is unpopular. Heck, they own a lot of the fountains. Going after this at the local level will yield spotty results.

We need a federal law. The environmental organization I'm a member of has a lot of pull in Washington. I'll give a call to the president of our local chapter and see if he can send my idea up the chain.

But what would we do with the old fountains once they're shut off? We can't let the space go to waste. Oh, wait -- we can let it go to waste! We should dedicate the fountain sites to community composting!

And so on. Absurd, perhaps, but my point is that if the true believers are going to follow their ideology to its logical conclusion, many things we take for granted in our society will have to go.

They might actually agree with the suggestion that water fountains are a wasteful extravagance, but we can go a lot further with this idea, and it's a matter of time before we come across something that even the true believers will be unwilling to surrender.

From time to time I will post candidates for things that should be banned. Look for the BAN THEM label.

Let's take the CoGW at its word and show its adherents what they need to do to avoid being called hypocrites.

Hoaxing the media: A parable

If you are inclined to believe whatever the mass media tells you about global warming, it might be worth your while to ponder this May 11 AP story:

When Dublin university student Shane Fitzgerald posted a poetic but phony quote on Wikipedia, he was testing how our globalized, increasingly Internet-dependent media was upholding accuracy and accountability in an age of instant news.

His report card: Wikipedia passed. Journalism flunked.

The sociology major's obituary-friendly quote-which he added to the Wikipedia page of Maurice Jarre hours after the French composer's death March 28-flew straight on to dozens of U.S. blogs and newspaper Web sites in Britain, Australia and India. They used the fabricated material, Fitzgerald said, even though administrators at the free online encyclopedia twice caught the quote's lack of attribution and removed it.

A full month went by and nobody noticed the editorial fraud. So Fitzgerald told several media outlets they'd swallowed his baloney whole.

"I was really shocked at the results from the experiment," Fitzgerald, 22, said Monday in an interview a week after one newspaper at fault, The Guardian of Britain, became the first to admit its obituarist lifted material straight from Wikipedia.

"I am 100 percent convinced that if I hadn't come forward, that quote would have gone down in history as something Maurice Jarre said, instead of something I made up," he said. "It would have become another example where, once anything is printed enough times in the media without challenge, it becomes fact."

Why so many socialists love AGW alarmism

As many of you know, I also run a politics and culture blog. I usually post on the various toxic-but-popular "isms" (socialism, Marxism, communism, statism, fascism) over there, but every once in a while something comes along that blurs the boundaries between these blogs.

I've noted before that the manufactured AGW crisis is tailor-made for those who favor state control of people and resources. Today we see this principle in action in the form of a proposal by Mexico, as reported by Reuters (with a dash of TEOTWAWKI alarmism):

Global talks on combating climate change this year might progress best by focusing on Mexico's proposal for a world climate change fund, one of the European Union's top negotiators said.

The talks in Copenhagen to find a successor to the U.N.'s Kyoto protocol from 2012 are seen as the world's last chance to avert catastrophic climate change and the drought, famine and huge migrations of people it is expected to cause.

Jos Delbeke, number two in the European Commission's environment directorate, told Reuters the Mexican approach might offer the flexibility needed to unlock a deal.

"It's not a question of what we like, but of what may work, and the Mexican proposal gives flexibility that may be appreciated by the United States, Japan and by other donors," he told Reuters on the sidelines of a climate conference.

The proposal sees every country in the world contributing to a central pot, with the size of contributions based on a formula that takes account of each country's population, gross domestic product and level of greenhouse gas emissions.

That central pot would then be divided among all countries according to their needs for cutting emissions, building green technologies and adapting to the impacts of climate change -- with investments such as flood barriers or drought resistant crops.

Note in particular the last two paragraphs (highlighted). They can be summarized as follows:

From each according to his abilities
To each according to his needs

Now, where have I heard that before?

To no one's surprise, countries that have already traveled a considerable distance down the socialist road are warming up to the idea....

....especially since the United States, not they, will foot the bulk of the bill.

Deliver us from experts

We have not overthrown the divine right of kings
to fall down for the divine right of experts.

-- Harold MacMillan, British Prime Minister (1957-1963)

Congressional Democrats press their AGW propaganda offensive with expert testimony from... Ashley Judd

Democrats in Congress love to gin up popular support for their causes by bringing in demonstrably nonexpert celebrities to give high-profile, impassioned testimonies.

In this week's episode, we learn that if we don't Do Something Now, we face The End Of The World As We Know It (TEOTWAWKI). Let's meet the climate scholars who testified.

Actress Ashley Judd and TV personality Jeff Corwin are urging Congress to spend $7 billion a year to help safeguard America's wildlife from the impact of global warming.

An argument could be made for hearing from Corwin, whose college education is actually related to wildlife. Judd, however, has only a bachelor's degree in French to back her up. Oh, and she owns a farm in Tennessee, and she's certain that "evidence of global warming is already being felt" there.

She was there because of her celebrity status (which adds to the propaganda value of her testimony), nothing more. Kind of like when environmentalists used Meryl Streep as their front person in the effort to bully Congress into banning Alar back in the late 1980s. The Alar scare turned out to be unfounded as well, but the damage was done.

Corwin, for his part, did not disappoint. He warned that we risk the extinction of a third of all animal species on the planet if we don't Do Something Now. Nothing like some good, reckless alarmist predictions to provoke our legislators into reckless policymaking.

Why environmentalists may be to BLAME for recent warming

The Register reports on a study by NASA scientist Dr. Drew Shindell suggesting a strong correlation between the fight against acid rain in the 1970s and the abrupt reversal in northern hemisphere temperature trends.

Dr Drew Shindell of NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies has led a new study which indicates that much of the general upward trend in temperatures since the 1970s - particularly in the Arctic - may have resulted from changes in levels of solid "aerosol" particles in the atmosphere, rather than elevated CO2. Arctic temperatures are of particular concern to those worried about the effects of global warming, as a melting of the ice cap could lead to disastrous rises in sea level - of a sort which might burst the Thames Barrier and flood London, for instance.

Shindell's research indicates that, ironically, much of the rise in polar temperature seen over the last few decades may have resulted from US and European restrictions on sulphur emissions. According to NASA:

Sulfates, which come primarily from the burning of coal and oil, scatter incoming solar radiation and have a net cooling effect on climate. Over the past three decades, the United States and European countries have passed a series of laws that have reduced sulfate emissions by 50 percent. While improving air quality and aiding public health, the result has been less atmospheric cooling from sulfates.

So, the reduction in sulfate pollution meant the elimination of a significant counterbalance to increasing soot pollution.

Am I advocating the wholesale repeal of sulfate emission restrictions? Not really -- in fact, I'm not ready to concede any human influence in the climate cycle (hence the blog name). I do note, though, that those who believe in consequential human influence on climate must acknowledge that attempts to "fix" what is allegedly broken can often have unforeseen effects.