religious extremism

#rsrh HAHAHAHAHAHAHA…

The Obama administration has urged the Supreme Court to toss out an appeals court decision that would allow lawsuits against major emitters for their contributions to global warming, stunning environmentalists who see the case as a powerful prod on climate change.

(Via Hot Air Headlines)

He can be taught! – Mind you, the argument here from the government is that the EPA has regulatory authority over carbon dioxide already, thus making it unnecessary for guaranteed-heavy Democratic donor groups to pursue punitive lawsuits against not-guaranteed-heavy Democratic donor groups. Or is that too cynical? Heck, does “too cynical” even mean anything, these days? Continue reading #rsrh HAHAHAHAHAHAHA…

Today’s laugh-out-loud moment about the hardcore Greens.

Prime comedy. Prime. This guy apparently thinks that the Greens would be swayed by this argument:

…people in developing countries have much more important things to worry about–such as earning a living and getting ahead. Fighting climate change ranks low on the list of Third World priorities. The sprawling slums of Mumbai need more energy, not less; they want better roads, not fewer. More economic development would produce the money to help clean the now foul water and air, but also provide access to better education, one of the best ways to assure more manageable birth rates.

Instead of looking to make developing countries even more dependent on Western largesse, greens should focus on ways to help improve the day-to-day lives of their people. Rather than prattle on about the coming apocalypse, they could work to replace treeless, dense slums with shaded low-lying clean houses that are easier to heat or cool. Those interested in nature might purchase land and rebuild natural areas. The children of cities like Mumbai should have the opportunity to experience wildlife other than crows, pigeons and rats.

(Via Instapundit) I mean, this assumes that deep ecologists actually care about non-white people*. I’m not exactly sure why: all the evidence points the other way.

Moe Lane

PS: It’s a sensible article. A pity that the intolerant theocrats that it’s aimed at will dismiss it utterly, as being heretical about their ecologically-flavored dogma.

*I was going to type out ‘non-white people living outside of First World countries:’ only, most of the worst offenders among the Greens are Europeans, and, well…

Crossposted to RedState.

Phrase of the day: ‘Climategate Denier.’

As per Simon Scowl of Deceiver.com, who uses it with malice aforethought against Cubslayer Gore. The context: Gore claimed that the Climategate emails were ten years old, and the CNN guy called him on it right away, and Gore… said nothing further about it. Simon Scowl:

His financial and psychological investment in this crap is way too deep for him to acknowledge such, ahem, inconvenient truths. The only way to deal with such a massive blow to his ego is to just bull through it. Pretend it’s not happening. He is, to borrow a phrase, a Climategate denier.

Perfect.

Moe Lane

PS: Having listened to Gore, I’m reminded: dag. Triple-digit IQ people believe in this guy? And how long will the CNN guy last at his job?

Crossposted to RedState.

The non-AGW non-snows of Kilimanjaro.

Oops.

Professor Sinninghe Damste’s research, as discussed on the site of the Dutch Organization of Scientific Research (DOSR) — a governmental body — shows that the icecap of Kilimanjaro was not the result of cold air but of large amounts of precipitation which fell at the beginning of the Holocene period, about 11,000 years ago.

The melting and freezing of moisture on top of Kilimanjaro appears to be part of “a natural process of dry and wet periods.” The present melting is not the result of “environmental damage caused by man.”

Guess that Al Gore’s going to come up with a new talking point – HA! I kid, I kid. He’ll ignore it completely, of course. Doesn’t fit the religious orthodoxy. It’s too good an iconic image for proselytizing efforts. Can’t confuse the faithful, no?

[pause]

Eppur e’ meno umido.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Al Gore might as well be walking on the sun*.

Another entry in the Democratic party’s War on Science:

Mr. Gore apparently thinks that we live on the surface of Sol; as Ed Morrissey notes, this temperature range is more accurate for stellar cores than for terrestrial ones. Ed also notes that this is unlikely to destroy Gore’s credibility, which is a conclusion that I reluctantly share. If his acolytes have swallowed everything else that the man says, they’ll swallow this, too…

Moe Lane

*Surprisingly apropos.

Crossposted to RedState.

Scenes from the Inquisition: heretic Nathan Myhrvold speaks.

(H/T: Instapundit) Get a cup of coffee, because you’re going to enjoy reading this.

Political movements always have extremists — bitterly partisan true believers who attack anybody they feel threatens their movement. I’m sure you know the type, because his main talent is making himself heard. He doesn’t bother with making thoughtful arguments; instead, his technique is about shrill attacks in all directions, throwing a lot of issues up and hoping that one will stick or that the audience becomes confused by the chaos.

Although not for the reasons Mr. Myhrvold thinks. He thinks that he’s correcting some unfortunate, hysterical, and inaccurate criticisms of his work that were made by a anti-carbon enthusiast; what he’s actually done is help legitimize the religious fanatic by taking him seriously enough to address. At great length. Which will now be seized upon by said religious fanatic and parsed until he can find something else to hammer Myhrvold on, thus hopefully sparking another rebuttal in the Freakonomics NYT blog.

Well, this is how you learn to learn better. The sooner Myhrvold works out that this has more to do with theology instead of politics – and that he’s the heretic – the happier he’ll end up being.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Hope and Change: Obama administration kills Kyoto treaty.

Fair’s fair: if the previous administration had to take the heat for refusing to flush the American economy down the toilet for the sake of that nonsensical treaty, then so can this one. This one goes out to every voter whose primary motivation for voting Democratic was climate change:

The United States never ratified the agreement because it doesn’t require any action from the developing world, including China, the world’s largest emitter. The Bush administration considered that a fatal flaw. And so does the Obama White House.

“The notion that we should have an agreement which looks explicitly and exclusively at a handful of countries, doesn’t seem right. The whole purpose of this is to move the world to a better place, not to move one set of countries down that road,” said Jonathan Pershing, a top U.S. negotiator.

Odd how this never came up during the campaign; in fact, quite the opposite. Of course, now that the President’s in charge he has to actually do something besides pander to religious extremists like the Greens; so a more… nuanced stance becomes necessary. Besides, it’s not like “It’s Bush’s fault” isn’t this administration’s handy-dandy, one size fits all excuse anyway.

Via Ronald Bailey of Reason Hit & Run (via Instapundit), who wants to know when Waxman-Markey’s going to go away now. I assume that he’s being sarcastic: there’s too much money earmarked towards Democratic allies in that monstrosity to make it disappear right away.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

The Democratic Party’s War on Science.

No, that’s not an ironic title, as anybody who deals with either the anti-vaccination or the anti-nuclear power crowd* for any length of time will readily enough attest. Ronald Bailey of Reason (H/T: Instapundit) is busy beating his head against the wall over the smug, self-congratulatory rhetoric of James Speth (from the latter group): Bailey had to read Speth’s book, and noted that Speth was bragging over helping to block the production of fast breeder reactors. Now, you can make the argument that blocking these kinds of nuclear plants is a good thing, as fast breeder reactors produce Evil Sinful ScaryDevil Killing-Metal plutonium and The Triple-Cursed Dirt of Hell radioactive waste; and if nuclear weapons are your absolutely greatest worry, well, it’s a free country. But Speth’s supposed greatest worry is global warming.

Or, as Bailey notes:

…in an alternative universe in which 200 reactors come online, U.S. greenhouse gas emissions would be about 35 percent lower than they currently are. In other words, the reactors that Speth opposed could have been a huge part of the solution to what Speth claims is humanity’s “biggest threat.”

They could have, but that would have been a violation of Speth’s religious beliefs. And we should all stop pretending that we think that the anti-nuclear Left is motivated by anything more rational than a particularly illogical theology; or that the Democratic party isn’t happy to pander to them.

Moe Lane Continue reading The Democratic Party’s War on Science.

Did you enjoy Earth Day?

Really?

I think that was rather rude of you, considering that it’s 34 years too late to save the planet, or maybe 24/9, and the planet’s no longer suitable for human habitation, and the pollution’s long since killed us all, and of course the eight billion people that died of hunger for the last four decades, thanks to all the famines, and mass starvation, and how outside of Western Europe / North America / Australia’s everybody’s without food, and of course the gas masks that we all have to wear, not that we can see where we’re going because of the reduced sunlight from the increased pollution and nitrogen buildup, although we should be grateful that the air pollution only takes hundreds of thousands of lives, but we don’t have any resources left, particularly oil, and we lost 3/4ths of all species, and of course we’re in an ice age right now.

Yup. Predictions from Earth Day 1970. Via I Hate The Media, via Urbin Report, via Ed Driscoll.

And they wonder why the ‘threat’ of global warming isn’t having the punch that it used to have. Or why it’s suddenly necessary to explain that away. Although I really shouldn’t let myself get caught up in religious arguments, particularly when I don’t subscribe to that particular faith…

Moe Lane

PS: On the bright side, you can always buy Arrrbon Credits (I think H/T: Ed Driscoll). And yes, in point of fact I am taking the situation as seriously as it deserves.

Crossposted to RedState.