The Tennessee Valley Authority is often cited as an example of enlightened state intervention made necessary by market failure. What is not well known is that in 1921 Henry Ford laid out a similar plan for the area. Ford's proposal was frustrated by Senator George Norris — a Teddy Roosevelt Republican — who thought the project too important to be allowed to fall into the hands of private enterprise. In 1924 Ford was forced to withdraw his proposal. - Gerard Jackson, Brookes news' economics editor
It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. - Adam Smith, over 200 years ago
A reporter asked a KGB head shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall and Communism. "How was is that you were able to have total control over all those millions of people?" The KGB head drew a long drag on his cigarette and said, "It was simple you keep the people ignorant, an ignorant man doesn't question authority, he fears it, and obeys it without question." Somebody named Melvin
”Giving people access to cheap, inexhaustible supplies of energy, is like giving a machine gun to an idiot child.” Paul Erhlich
The trouble with always trying to preserve the health of the body is that it is so difficult to do without destroying the health of the mind. —G.K. Chesterton
Not only can you have environment as well as economy but you must have a booming economy to support environmentalism. The reverse, however, does not hold and a dud economy makes environmentalism totally unaffordable. Editor, Junkscience
The environmental activist is happy with his emotionally-dominated life and nothing will be allowed to interfere with his emotionally-dominated conclusions. Paraphrased quote from John Jay Ray.
When science gets rich it becomes political. - Freeman Dyson
The entire IPCC process is but obfuscation by the secular and atheist Left. It has allowed the Left to conflate the vanity of secular opinion with scientific and/or moral truth. Gregory Young
History has a relentless repetition to it. Alan Caruba
As has become routine, the strength of the science is inversely related to the amount of media coverage. When hundreds of news outlets around the world report on a single study, of the hundreds released each day, all saying exactly the same thing, you can be sure someone issued a press release. Sure enough, this paper came with a press release, too. Marketing departments issue press releases. (Junkfood Science)
"It does not take a majority to prevail, but rather an irate and tireless minority keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men." Samuel Adams
“Economic storm clouds and a lukewarm reception to the Liberals’ Green Shift plan will likely shelve a national carbon tax for now, experts say. Economists and environmental groups say it’s unlikely future governments would adopt the policy.“ [see: ‘Carbon tax likely shelved for now: experts’, The Canadian Press, October 14]
Events shape our lives, even distant and dark ones. From the time I was a wee little one, I have stopped my fear of dark places. I pick up my torch and journey alone through darkened corridors leading down into bottomless caverns of events past. I stumble upon the remnants of an intricate puzzle, which I bring back with me, and in the quiet of my dreams, are assembled before me. - James Marusek
The problem is that most news is the same news. Only the names change. There is, of course, the constant issue of bias in the reporting of the news, but quite possibly the most serious problem facing the news media and those of us who consume their offerings is the way our attention span is somewhere between that of fungus and algae. Alan Caruba
What's wrong is the assumption contemporary "environmentalism" is a legitimate perspective, which is false. What passes for "environmentalism" has degenerated to pure misanthropy and must never be entertained. Editor, Junkscience
We waste incredible amounts of time on largely meaningless matters. Ban Ki-moon, secretary general of the UN.
We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings to be fruitful. — C.S. Lewis
Greenies will never be happy because what they want is self-contradictory: A return to a primitive past plus all the comforts of modern life. - Jon Ray
The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in the insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding. - Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis
United Nations agencies continue to urge policies that do nothing for the alleviation of hunger, but instead further an agenda for the socialist redistribution of wealth common to communist regimes. U.N. agencies have consistently sought to thwart the development of gene-slicing technology to enhance crop production along with the banning of pesticides and herbicides to protect crops, animals and humans. Its ban on DDT has been called “tantamount to withholding antibodies from patients with infections; it is mass murder, and the U.N. is a co-conspirator in the deadly campaign against the chemical’s use.” Its charge that the Earth is warming when it is, in fact, cooling, is a pure deceit. Alan Caruba
A scientist’s prayer: “Lord, grant that my work increase knowledge and help other men. Failing that, Lord, grant that it will not lead to man's destruction. Failing that, Lord, grant that my article in Nature be published before the destruction takes place.” – --Walker Percy, Love in the Ruins
"The man who is prepared has his battle half fought." - Miguel D. Cervantes
Some of us have been joking among ourselves that once natural cyclical cooling started, the global warming alarmists would blame it all on CO2. Well here we are - it has happened. "Conservation group WWF has blamed climate change for the coldest August in Sydney for more than 60 years." Could it be that the alarmists have known for years that warming has stopped, and is this why they changed their mantra from "stop global warming" to "stop climate change"? Scientifically, their AGW theory cannot support CO2 as the primary driver of both warming and cooling - this hypothesis is nonsense. The only logical scientific conclusion, given the data, is that warming and cooling are overwhelmingly natural cycles, and the impact of human-made CO2 on these cycles is negligible. –Allan MacRae
Ignorance is the natural state because we all start out our lives ignorant. And for all of our lives we will remain ignorant about a great many things. Because there is so much to learn about so many subjects, a degree of ignorance is understandable. Ignorance simply means that we don’t know. That is fixable! By learning about things, many things, we can reduce our level of ignorance continually, but never totally! However, if we choose to remain ignorant, that is stupidity. It is the stupidity that I hate. RK
"CO2 causes global warming like wet roads cause rain".- Viv Forbes
Prediction is very difficult…especially about the future. - Niels Bohr, Danish physicist (1885 - 1962)
The spirit of Munich has by no means retreated into the past; it was not merely a brief episode. I even venture to say that the spirit of Munich prevails in the 20th century. The timid civilized world has found nothing with which to oppose the onslaught of a sudden revival of barefaced barbarity, other than concessions and smiles. The spirit of Munich is a sickness of the will of successful people, it is the daily condition of those who have given themselves up to the thirst after prosperity at any price, to material well-being as the chief goal of earthly existence. Such people -- and there are many in today's world -- elect passivity and retreat, just so as their accustomed life might drag on a bit longer, just so as not to step over the threshold of hardship today -- and tomorrow, you'll see, it will all be all right. (But it will never be all right! The price of cowardice will only be evil; we shall reap courage and victory only when we dare to make sacrifices.) From Alexandr Solzhenitsyn's Nobel Literature Prize lecture in 1970:
CO2 is a greenhouse gas: it makes up just .04% of the atmosphere, only 1-30th of that is manmade, and if you include water vapor, is less than .1% of the greenhouse effect. Human CO2 is insignificant. Hardly worth taxing people over, or fretting about! Colin, Newark, United States
Being green is easy! When I shower, I exhale directly into the water stream, and a substantial part of my carbon output goes directly down the drain--trapped in the plumbing for ages I hope. I think that it is actually a little cooler around here already! M Park, Glenview, USA
"The politicians have not been entirely honest about the cost of our renewables commitment, and so the public don't really know what's coming their way." - Paul Golby, the head of E.ON UK, the British arm of Europe's biggest supplier of wind power.
The rules for being right.
You must have the desire to be right.
You must be willing to take the time to be right.
You must be willing to put the effort into being right.
You must have the courage to say what is right.
You must have to fortitude to be right in order to stand against the conventional wisdom.
Heterodoxy is not for the faint of heart. – Rich Kozlovich
JunkScience.com announces that the major professional society for U.S. physicists has declared that there is no scientific consensus that humans are causing global warming. The American Physical Society announced in the July issue of its journal Physics & Society that it would begin on its pages a debate on the central issue of the global warming controversy -- that is, does manmade CO2 drive global climate. "This is the death knell for the falsehood spread by Al Gore and other global warming alarmists that there is any sort of consensus of scientists supporting the notion of catastrophic manmade global warming," said JunkScience.com publisher, Steve Milloy. "We are elated that we survived to see the truth emerge and that we helped bring this sea change about," STATEMENT OF STEVE MILLOY, PUBLISHER, JUNKSCIENCE.COM:
The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses to acknowledge authority, as such. For him, scepticism is the highest of duties; blind faith the one unpardonable sin. -- Thomas H. Huxley
Science ... warns me to be careful how I adopt a view which jumps with my preconceptions, and to require stronger evidence for such belief than for one to which I was previously hostile. My business is to teach my aspirations to conform themselves to fact, not to try and make facts harmonize with my aspirations. -- Thomas H. Huxley
Environmentalism is a luxury, and like all such, is best taken in moderation. The environment requires protection, but that's all. Primitive pantheism has no place in this millennium. Nature is not an utterly benign continuum, and human beings are not a disease. Pseudo-religious environmentalism has long outlived its welcome. It's time to bring down the curtain. - By J.R. Dunn
It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. - C.S Lewis
The sun heats the earth.
The earth heats the atmosphere
After the sun sets, the atmosphere cools back down.
"If we were to have 96 continuous hours without sunlight, temperatures would likely be below freezing over all the world's land masses. The warmest place you could find would be to take a swim in the nearest ocean. There is no physical process in the atmosphere which "traps" heat. The so-called "greenhouse effect" is a myth." - Jim Peden
It's all so confusing. Liberals tell us that we mustn't develop energy resources because of the impact on the polar bear -- even though polar bear numbers are on the increase. We shouldn't develop oil resources in ANWR because it is a pristine wilderness. We shouldn't develop offshore oil resources because 40 years ago there was oil spill in the Santa Barbara Channel. Anyway there's no point in developing oil and gas resources because it won't make any difference to the price of gasoline. Anyway we are running out of oil and gas so there isn't any point in developing any more oil and gas resources. We shouldn't mine coal because coal creates global warming. We shouldn't develop nuclear power because Jane Fonda once made a scary movie about it. We should develop solar and wind power, “renewables”, even though both are extremely expensive right now. But we shouldn't build wind farms where Ted Kennedy could see the wind turbines from his window. And now with a straight face liberals say we'll have to starve the people in order to save the planet. Now who's in denial? - Christopher Chantrill
Truth may enter the world by many doors, but she is never escorted by force. - REX MURPHY
Scarcity is not inevitable. Often it is a political choice, the result of concessions to powerful special interests who have a pecuniary interest in high prices, artificial scarcity, and fomenting fear. The precious bird of environmentalism has been flying for too long with only one wing, the left one. Read on, and learn a little more about how easy it might be to know abundance. - Ed "Redwood" Ring
Carbon is the building block for all life on earth. Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere sustains all life. Carbon provides all of the food and most of the energy for the human race. To be anti-carbon is to be anti-life and anti-human. - Viv Forbes, Chairman, The Carbon Sense Coalition.
Man has always had a healthy desire for knowledge, and it is the feeding of this hunger that ennobles journalism. Hearst and Pulitzer were acutely aware that man has a less healthy but no less voracious desire to believe that he has knowledge, particularly knowledge of something sensational. It is the feeding of this hunger that irreparably disgraced journalism, and a century later now threatens to do the same to science. – James Kerian
My mission, in what is left of a long and exciting lifetime, is to stamp out this Global Warming silliness and let all of us get on with enjoying our lives and loving our planet, Earth. - John Coleman, founder of the Weather Channel is an American news weathercaster and presently works as an on-camera weathercaster at KUSE-TV in San Diego.
At some point, something has to give, and it will either be the US economy, or Greenism, the obsessive-compulsive Environmentalist Personality Disorder that will sacrifice the jobs, fortunes, futures, and lives, of three hundred million Americans, in slavish homage to the myth that burning "fossil fuels" is causing climate change, and that by reducing our "carbon footprint" we can end climate change. Nothing is further from the truth. The climate has been changing as long as there has been a climate, long before we could have had anything to do with it. - Raymond S. Kraft
The free man owns himself. He can damage himself with either eating or drinking; he can ruin himself with gambling. If he does he is certainly a damn fool, and he might possibly be a damned soul; but if he may not, he is not a free man any more than a dog." - G. K. Chesterton Broadcast talk 6-11-35
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their consciences." -C.S. Lewis"
The climate system is particularly challenging since it is known that components in the system are inherently chaotic; there are feedbacks that could potentially switch sign, and there are central processes that affect the system in a complicated, non-linear manner. These complex, chaotic, non-linear dynamics are an inherent aspect of the climate system. ... We simply do not fully understand the causes of climate drift in coupled models." - IPCC
In a time of universal deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act. ~ George Orwell
If the organic community wants consumers to embrace their products, they need to be affordable, not a self-proclaimed panacea to the ills of a modern, indulgent society. --Julie Gilbert, a Brisbane dietitian, in the Courier Mail.
Eco-activists in general…..betray their radical urban roots…………with little knowledge of the outdoors, the ocean, the atmosphere, the solar system and science in general. Yet they have no fear of pronouncing on and denouncing subjects that are beyond their ken. Rather than seek meaningful solutions, they always resort to "object! object! object!" to whatever is proposed even on the flimsiest of grounds, even if it contradicts their previous objections. Keep this in mind the next time radical environmentalists protest an industrial project in your region. – Unknown
I do have to agree with them about one thing. The danger and cost to human society from climate change will be catastrophic and is, apparently, unavoidable……..The danger is not from a catastrophe arising from soaring temperatures and human misery that alarmists claim will follow (a highly debatable proposition). The catastrophe that seems unstoppable is the human misery that will unquestionably arise from the massive costs of soaring imprudent government regulation of CO2 emissions in the form of Gore-enriching "cap and trade" schemes that will, in the end, provide no discernable impact on global climate. - Bob Webster, WEB Commentary
Willie Nelson had it right--- on the golf course he built and owned he was asked; what is par? His answer was; "Whatever I say it is." we need to learn some of the activists fighting techniques--- don't apologize for not being green enough by someone else's made-up standard--- define our own standard, proclaim ourselves great (and getting even better) then go toe-to-toe with them in the public arena if that is the best choice--- or let them slink away to dry-up on their own, because they are foolish and/or irrelevant, in other cases. -- Frank Gasperini
The truth is incontrovertible, malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end; there it is.”-- Winston Churchill
What are the facts? Again and again and again—what are the facts? Shun wishful thinking, forget what “the stars foretell”, avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind the unguessable “verdict of history”—what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your single clue. Get the facts!-Robert Heinlein, 1907-1988
Dunn’s First Law. With enough idiots, you don't need a conspiracy.
It took only about 60 years for highly organized anarchists, professional pests and unemployable buffoons disguised as protesters to turn the developed world into a "Cuckoo's Nest". The odd thing about the developed world, and it’s most ardent haters, is that many of those who hate development the most keep living in the midst of it. The developed world is the choice of activists everywhere. In actuality, the avoidance of living in countries that have little or no development is a sign of some modicum of intelligence. Perhaps there is hope for these thugs after all. –Paraphrased from an unknown source, Rich Kozlovich
When the US National Assessment compared the results of two top-tier computer models for various regions of the United States, the models frequently generated precisely opposite rainfall scenarios, University of Alabama at Huntsville climatologist John Christy points out. Depending on which model was used, the Dakotas and Rio Grande valley would supposedly become complete deserts or huge swamps; the Southeastern US would become a jungle or semi-arid grassland.—Paul Driessen on the reliability of climate computer models.
Almost nothing about the claims and demands of environmentalists make sense, unless you look behind the curtain and discover that most of them involve destroying the U.S. economy.—Alan Caruba
Patrick Moore, one of the founders of Greenpeace, said, "But I later learned that the environmental movement is not always guided by science. As we celebrate Earth Day, this is a good lesson to keep in mind." --the Wall Street Journal, April 22, 2008.
Too many mindlessly follow green initiatives and bask in how good it feels -- without recognizing the unintended consequences. Magicians Penn and Teller have a video posted on YouTube in which hundreds of naive greens at a rally happily sign a petition to ban a "chemical found in reservoirs and lakes" and used in pesticides and nuclear energy that is finding its way into grocery stores and baby food. The chemical the people signing the petition want banned? Dihydrogen monoxide -- water. –Jeff Stier
We [dissenting scientists] discount the possibility that everything is caused by human actions, because everything we’ve seen the climate do has happened before. Sea levels rise and fall continually. The Arctic ice cap has shrunk before. One millennium there are hippos swimming in the Thames, and a geological blink later there is an ice bridge linking Asia and North America.-- John Christy
For those scientists who value their scientific reputations, I would advise that they distance themselves from politically-motivated claims of a ’scientific consensus’ on the causes of global warming — before it is too late. Don’t let five Norwegians on the Nobel Prize committee be the arbiters of what is good science.-- Dr. Roy W. Spencer–a principal research scientist for the University of Alabama in Huntsville and the U.S. Science Team Leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (AMSR-E).
One of the more unpleasant characteristics of the adherents of the ‘Global Warming’ religion is their blood lust for heretics and sinners. They seek out with the most vitriolic language those who deny ‘The Faith’, or who fail to obey the minutiae of their daily imprimaturs. They must have witches to hang, to burn, and to drown. In the words of Bruno Latour: “Nous n’avons jamais été modernes” (We Have Never Been Modern, RK).
It seems the parents who reject vaccines have it all figured out: they've done their 'research' and claim to 'understand' the risks and benefits of exempting their children from vaccines. One question remains: Whom will they sue when their children die of preventable diseases? Themselves"--Carl Baum, pediatrician and director of Center for Children's Environmental Toxicology at Yale-New Haven Children's Hospital
So, what is the point of all this? The point is a simple one. It is that anthropogenic global warming, now spun to climate change, has not a scintilla of authentic scientific evidence to support it. Likewise, there is not a scintilla of authentic scientific evidence to support the plethora of catastrophic phantasmagoria which the likes of David King and Al Gore are determined to promote as fact. In other words, King, himself a distinguished chemist if not scientist, is content not simply to watch the corruption of scientific method, and therefore the scientific endeavour generally, but to act as an enthusiastic participant. This issue, we are admonished ad nauseam, is the defining challenge to the species in the 21st century. R.C.E. Wyndham
This is the fifth time that the world is said to be running out of oil," says CERA Chairman Daniel Yergin. "Each time -- whether it was the 'gasoline famine' at the end of WWI or the 'permanent shortage' of the 1970s -- technology and the opening of new frontier areas has banished the specter of decline. There's no reason to think that technology is finished this time.
What are the facts? Again and again and again—what are the facts? Shun wishful thinking, forget what “the stars foretell”, avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind the unguessable “verdict of history”—what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your single clue. Get the facts!-Robert Heinlein, 1907-1988
The IPCC has been in existence for 20 years. Yet there is still no scientifically believable evidence of the claimed adverse consequences of human activities. In South Africa alone there have been no floods or droughts during this period that exceeded the historical maxima. Claims of increased desertification and loss of our unique plant and animal species are demonstrably false. Sea levels are not rising along our coasts. Yet as a result of rising populations African nations are increasingly vulnerable to natural climatic extremes. Blaming these extremes on human activities and proclaiming that they are therefore avoidable is false and misleading. This in turn can lead to increasing political instability in African countries when disasters occur and governments are blamed for doing nothing to avoid them…Robert Bryce
Earlier that morning, the president of the Czech Republic, Hon. Vaclav Klaus, received a standing ovation when he declared Europe's emission reduction goals impossible to meet without lowering populations or creating widespread poverty. So, they're wrong on the science. They're wrong on the solutions. And, implementing their wrong solutions will impede freedom, retard growth and, ultimately, destroy economies. All while changing global mean temperatures not one single degree. Not one. As I hopped on the train headed for home, it struck me -- I may well have just left the only place on Earth where walked, however briefly, more sane-thinkers on the subject than not. The chill the thought sent up my spine is not completely gone….Marc Sheppard at the NYC Climate Conference
People only insist that a debate stop when they are afraid of what might be learned if it continues. George Will
An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last. Winston Churchill
Capitalism delivered more people out of the mud and misery than any system ever and continues to do that. John Stossel
America is gripped by a form of life-threatening insanity perpetrated by the Greens and legislated by politicians who haven’t a clue about the ways they are wrecking our economy in the name of global warming.” Alan Caruba
……….climate models are being developed with very little ability to test out of sample. Furthermore, the climate science bandwagon has come about solely because of supposed anthropogenic climate change, which means that their funding is intrinsically tied to climate change happening and being man-made. A more self-interested group I could not find anywhere, even looking at the researchers who were paid by big tobacco companies to tell us cigarettes are safe…….John Atkinson
Can anyone out there provide me with any empirical data in support of the theory that humans control climate warming? No, don't tell me that climate is changing - we geologists absolutely know that climate changes all the time, in both directions, and at many scales of time and intensity………From Lee C. Gerhard [leeg@sunflower.com], Senior Scientist Emeritus, Kansas Geological Survey, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas
Fallacies are not simply crazy ideas. They are usually both plausible and logical – but with something missing. Their plausibility gains them political support. Only after that political support is strong enough to cause fallacious ideas to become government policies and programs are the missing of ignored factors likely to lead to “unintended consequences,” a phrase often heard in the wake of economic or social policy disasters. Another phrase often heard in the wake of these disasters is, ‘It seemed like a good idea at the time.” That is why it pays to look deeper into things that look good on the surface at the moment-Thomas Sowell, Economic Facts and Fallacies.
Intelligence is a necessary part of a scientist's innate equipment, but intelligence alone is insufficient. Insight and character count too, for without them a scientist lacks judgment, the absence of which will eventuate in self-deception. Bad character leads to worse, until it undermines and defeats intelligence”.……..Unknown
This cancerous abuse of science will continue to discredit the science establishment in the United States and around the world. And it should. It is utterly mendacious and abusive of real science………..James Lewis
Today people worship actors, but former times saw them as lowlifes, as unstable people driven to pretense and false dealings. In other words, as hypocrites. It's heresy to say so but former times might have had a point………Jon Ray
The recent cold snap in America's midwest area proves that global warming is real," ……"People don't understand that global warming takes many forms, including global cooling, an important part of global warming.…..The Spoof.
"Antarctica is the last bastion of a pristine environment compared to the rest of the world." Dana Bergstrom
Why is it that the greenies keep calling barren wastelands “pristine environments”? Is it because it is largely untouched by man? Maybe that’s the problem; then it wouldn’t be barren or a wasteland. Rich Kozlovich
Exterminators believe all of what they see. Greenies see all of what they believe. Rich Kozlovich
First they demanded that we get rid of DDT and we did not speak out because we believed. Then they demanded that we get rid of Chlordane and we did not speak out because we believed. Then they demanded that we get rid of Dursban, Ficam and pyrethroids; but by then it didn’t matter that we no longer believed. Rich Kozlovich, paraphrased from an unknown source.
Ethanol – An alcohol based fuel produced from organic materials used as a gasoline alternative that has become an obsession that nobody wants. It can't be transported safely and uses up a gigantic amounts of fresh water. It is corrosive, ruins pipes and gives you very little gas mileage. Extensive use of it is a direct cause of soaring food prices worldwide. To grow crops for its production requires the use of large tracts of land which, according to greenies in the past, would negatively impact wildlife (endangered species) and eliminate forests. It is also unaffordable unless subsidized by the government. Another brilliant obsession from the environmental movement; which they are now protesting! Partial quote from Robert Bryce and paraphrased by Rich Kozlovich
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