Category Archives: climate change

After The Energy Audit – All of the things that I suggested that you do

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All of those things could have taken SEVERAL Years to complete.You have to ask yourself, “How badly must my house have been designed for me to have to do all this work”? The answer is VERY badly. The big housing push in post WWII America led to many bad practices. But let’s face it our population went from 60 million to over 325 million in 3 decades and energy was a nickle or less a kilowatt. That is just an excuse I know but it is all I got. Hostility to our environment is a genetic trait for Americans. Having a Capitalistic Economy does not help because it has a total disregard for the environment. It is in fact dismissed as an externality.  Is Capitalism psychotic? Look at how it treats the only home we have got. It defiles it.

So hear is a look at more earth friendly models.

http://scienceray.com/biology/ecology/three-extreme-eco-friendly-houses-of-the-future/

Three Extreme Eco-friendly Houses of the Future

Published by Nelson Doyle
November 9, 2008, Category: Ecology

The most extreme eco-friendly houses of the future reduces the environmental impact on the planet and demonstrates how less means more quality living.

With so much attention being drawn towards the perils of our planet and the environmental impact that a global population is causing on natural resources, some forward-thinking companies and individuals are developing new ways to solve our housing needs and the future impact to the environment once built. It requires creative people like these to develop solutions to solve critical issues like the ones we have to deal with in today’s environment.

The majority of eco-friendly houses share similar engineering characteristics such as; smaller living spaces and recycled building materials incorporated into the design. Some houses incorporate solar panels, wood-burning stoves or other energy-saving heating and cooling appliances. The potential costs saving on utility bills, property taxes, home maintenance, and furniture would more than make this kind of living ideal for single or duel family housing.

Ewok-Style Tree House

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I could post the photos but out of respect I will say please see the article for more.

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This Ewok-style tree house designed by Canadian carpenter Tom Chudleigh saw the future and built it.

Portable Martin House-To-Go

Honestly, this has to be the most practical house on the planet that is eco-friendly to the extremes. Live anywhere and change your scenery when the mood strikes in your own portable house. The Martin portable house-to-go is built to the highest building standards and is weatherproofed with NASA-approved insulation to endure in extreme weather conditions.

Dome House

The Japanese are amazing engineers in both housing and technology, so it shouldn’t be too surprising that a prefab home manufacturer Japan called “Japan Dome Housing Co., Ltd., developed an amazingly energy-efficient, extreme weather durable, Styrofoam expandable modular igloo-shaped kit house. Oh, yes, it’s true. The house of the future that can be purchased and assembled by you and two or three of your friends in just a matter of 3-days if you work around the clock or about a week if you take your time.

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More tomorrow.

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I Was Gona Do Another Post On Solar Water Heaters – The commercially available ones complete with installation

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I was going to include a rant here:

That Americans have been brainwashed to believe that  energy isn’t free. The point being that if all we allowed was renewables that is all we would have. If we mandated geothermal and solar water heating for residential then in 20 years most of America would be off the grid. But powerful mining operations employing 1000s of people and powerful oil interests employing 10s of 1000s of people are never going to allow that, let alone the utility industry which employs millions of people. Then I ran across this article on PeakOIL and I thought isn’t this a much better way to put it…more on solar water heaters tomorrow.

(This was my original lead in march with the below citation for an obscure publication that ran an interesting article about the transition movement in Milwaukee of all places. I am not even sure I like the town that much..But after a nasty interaction with the editor I have taken that piece down completely…..June, note DN)

According to this dreadful woman:

From: Katherine Keller <editor@bayviewcompass.com>
Subject: You have published copyrighted material (publisher is “bitching”)
To: info@censys.org
Cc: “Daniel Gray” <dangray35@gmail.com>
Date: Wednesday, June 2, 2010, 9:29 PM

I am really only allowed to publish 12 words, but she would graciously give me 150 if I would just limit myself to that. SO:

please do not go to this website…ever…because it really sucks

http://bayviewcompass.com

Here are some sites that don’t:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transition_Towns

Transition Towns

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Totnes, Devon: a Transition Town

Transition Towns (also known as Transition network or Transition Movement) is a movement that originates from a student project overseen by permaculture teacher Rob Hopkins at the Kinsale Further Education College in Ireland. The term “transition town” was coined by Louise Rooney[1] and Catherine Dunne. Following its start in Kinsale, Ireland it then spread to Totnes, England where Rob Hopkins and Naresh Giangrande developed the concept during 2005 and 2006.[2] The aim of this community project is to equip communities for the dual challenges of climate change and peak oil. The movement currently has member communities in a number of countries worldwide. The Transition Towns movement is an example of socioeconomic localization.

Contents

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http://www.transitiontowns.org/

What is a Transition Town (or village / city / forest / island)?

Here’s how it all appears to be evolving…

It all starts off when a small collection of motivated individuals within a community come together with a shared concern: how can our community respond to the challenges, and opportunities, of Peak Oil and Climate Change?

They begin by forming an initiating group and then adopt the Transition Model (explained here at length, and in bits here and here) with the intention of engaging a significant proportion of the people in their community to kick off a Transition Initiative.

A Transition Initiative is a community (lots of examples here) working together to look Peak Oil and Climate Change squarely in the eye and address this BIG question:

“for all those aspects of life that this community needs in order to sustain itself and thrive, how do we significantly increase resilience (to mitigate the effects of Peak Oil) and drastically reduce carbon emissions (to mitigate the effects of Climate Change)?”

After going through a comprehensive and creative process of:

  • awareness raising around peak oil, climate change and the need to undertake a community lead process to rebuild resilience and reduce carbon
  • connecting with existing groups in the community
  • building bridges to local government
  • connecting with other transition initiatives
  • forming groups to look at all the key areas of life (food, energy, transport, health, heart & soul, economics & livelihoods, etc)
  • kicking off projects aimed at building people’s understanding of resilience and carbon issues and community engagement
  • eventually launching a community defined, community implemented “Energy Descent Action Plan” over a 15 to 20 year timescale

This results in a coordinated range of projects across all these areas of life that strives to rebuild the resilience we’ve lost as a result of cheap oil and reduce the community’s carbon emissions drastically.

The community also recognizes two crucial points:

  • that we used immense amounts of creativity, ingenuity and adaptability on the way up the energy upslope, and that there’s no reason for us not to do the same on the downslope
  • if we collectively plan and act early enough there’s every likelihood that we can create a way of living that’s significantly more connected, more vibrant and more in touch with our environment than the oil-addicted treadmill that we find ourselves on today.

If you want to find out more, check out the other menu items on the left hand site of the page.

Final point

Just to weave the climate change and peak oil situations together…

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http://www.transitionus.org/

  • Great Unleashings in Carrboro-Chapel Hill, NC, Bloomington, IN and Laguna Beach, CA!

    As part of the Transition Model, the Great Unleashing is the coming together of the people in a community to envision a positive, resilient future in response to climate change and the end of cheap oil. For many groups, the Great Unleashing marks the kick-off of working groups to start in earnest to build the community that they want to see. Here are some recaps of the Unleashing events this month across the country, with each place with its own unique flavour.

  • May Round-up of What’s Happening in the World of Transition – US Edition

    Here are some highlights of what’s keeping Transition Initiatives busy across the country and around the world…

  • Tucson takes it up a notch: Cyclovia Tucson

    In Arizona, members of Sustainable Tucson, 29th Official Transition Initiative in the US, have been collaborating with the folks planning Cyclovia for Tucson. The Inaugural Cyclovia Tucson took place on April 18th, 2010, within the comfortable traffic free city streets, public parks and areas in-and around the University of Arizona.

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More tomorrow

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Awnings For Doors And Windows – Solar Shading

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Much of the common sense that was built into our homes up until the 1950s was thrown out for what was called modernism. We here call it 20 year obsolescence and stupid. One of those Common Sense ideas was the idea of solar shading. This meant that for most parts of the temperate US all the houses would have roughly 2 or 3 foot eves. The idea being that you want the Sun during the winter and you don’t want it in the summer. Since most houses no longer have such eves and especially in the south where your eves would have to be 5 foot long, awnings have gotten popular. In Springfield IL for instance:

http://www.benmarremodeling-il.com/

Benmar Remodeling & Building Corporation

(217) 814-0278 Our goal is not to be the biggest, but rather, the best! 929 E Carpenter, Springfield, IL 62702

In addition to renovating, designing or remodeling your outdoor spaces, we offer a large selection of awnings by several different manufacturers. Choose from a variety of styles and materials, including:

• Aluminum patio covers & pergolas
• Fabric
• Fiberglass
• Retractable fabric awnings
• Retractable – manual or motorized
• Stationary

We also sell and install Joyce windows, which are all welded, rigid vinyl construction and are extremely energy efficient. All styles are custom sized and have detailed contoured framing for an elegant “wood-like” look, all the while creating shadow lines in the main frame sash that mimic real wood windows. You really have to see them to believe how beautiful they are!

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http://www.cheapawnings.com/

Retractable Patio Awnings
Welcome to CheapAwnings.com!
Don’t let the name fool you! We offer high quality, do-it-yourself awnings, canopies, hurricane shutters and umbrellas at reasonable prices with FREE ground shipping.
Convenient On-Line Shopping and Ordering
Phone (800) 422-6827 ext. 278

Canvas AwningsCanvas Awnings
View our collection of high quality and affordable Stationary Canvas Window and Door Awnings for your home or office. Custom order your awning or canopy from our available line of fabric awning colors and available sizes.
Metal AwningsMetal Awnings
Choose from our distinct line of outdoor Metal Awnings and Metal Canopies. These rigid metal window awnings and metal door canopies are ideal for enhancing exterior looks and protection from the elements.

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http://www.awninginfo.com/


 Welcome to the Professional Awning Manufacturers Association (PAMA) Web Site – your first source for awning information. Learn about the benefits and energy savings of awnings, view awning designs, contact one of over 300 professional awning manufacturers who are PAMA members. If you are an awning company or a supplier to the industry, find out how membership benefits you by clicking on About PAMA! Enjoy your visit.

View Membership Advantage Video
Be part of the most exciting promotion ever attempted by IFAI/PAMA. Bring customers to your door by becoming a PAMA member. All PAMA members are included in the Awning Consumer Awareness Campaign. As an awning fabricator or industry supplier you can be part of this exciting initiative to educate millions of consumers about awnings and awning benefits. The campaign has already reached over 2 billion readers through publications, web sites and blogs. Join PAMA now to get in on this awning industry initiative to drive residential customers to your business, directly or through your customers. Join PAMA now.
VideosHow to Protect Your Pet from Sun & Heat

Awnings Today Awnings and Energy Savings ? Awning Benefits See how awnings help reduce energy usage, and how awnings can expand living space, protect from UV Rays and beautify the home exterior. The video features an interview with John Carmody, Director of the Center for Sustainable Building Research at the University of Minnesota, discussing the Awning Energy Study, Awnings in Residential Buildings: The Impact on Energy Use and Peak Demand.

The video also features PAMA Member, Gary Buermann of G & J Awning discussing the benefits of using awnings on the home, and some of the attractive features of modern awnings including a wide selection of fabrics and remote controls.

Buying Awnings: A Homeowner’s Purchase from Start to Finish

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There you have it from the professionals

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The Koch Bros – Doing business in the oil hood and damn climate change

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What more can you say about a couple of spoiled rich kids whose daddy helped form the John Birch Society and was in the KKK. You can send em to school, dress em up and make em smell pretty. You can not make them smart or socially responsible. They pay Walter Williams and George Mason (alleged) University a loto money to be their best black man however.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koch_Industries

The Koch brothers also operate the Koch Family Foundations, a major source of funding for conservative and libertarian political causes in the United States, including think tanks such as the Cato Institute. Their father helped found the John Birch Society, though neither brother is a member or supporter of the organization. David’s political activism also included running as the vice presidential nominee of the United States Libertarian Party in 1980, when he and running mate Ed Clark finished fourth with 921,299 votes.

In April 2006, the Fred C. and Mary R. Koch Foundation announced it had contributed $1 million to help preserve the tallgrass prairies of the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve in Chase County, Kansas. The donation made to the Kansas Prairie Legacy Campaign is reportedly the single largest private donation in the State’s history.[citation needed] Currently Liz Koch is the president of the Fred C. and Mary R. Koch Foundation and has been reported as saying that the Flint Hills of Kansas were a special place for both Fred and Mary Koch.

Koch Industries also founded Americans for Prosperity, formed as a successor to Citizens for a Sound Economy. Koch Industries and its subsidiaries spent more than $20 million on lobbying in 2008 and $5.6 million in 2009, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan research group. [10][11]

Rich Fink, a Koch executive vice president, is a member of the board of directors of Americans for Prosperity. Previously he served as president of Citizens for a Sound Economy. He also founded the Mercatus Center.

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BURN BURN BURN that’s all they want to do.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/31633524/the_climate_killers/16

The Tea Partiers
Charles and David Koch
CEO and Executive Vice President, Koch Industries

The multibillionaire brothers not only run the nation’s largest private energy company, they rival Exxon in funding the front groups that spread disinformation about the dangers of climate change. Over the years, the Kochs and their foundations have lavished millions on climate deniers at the Heritage Foundation, the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the Cato Institute, which Charles founded in 1977. Cato, in turn, supports the work of Patrick Michaels, a leading climate denier who attempts to discredit the international scientific consensus on global warming while accepting money from coal companies. As author Thomas Frank observes in What’s the Matter With Kansas?, “Koch money subsidizes the mass production of bad ideas.”

One major recipient of Koch cash is Americans for Prosperity, where David chairs the foundation’s board. In addition to fomenting last summer’s town-hall brawls over health care reform, AFP sponsored a “Hot Air Tour” on climate change, deploying a manned balloon at 75 events for the purpose of “Exposing the Ballooning Costs of Global Warming Hysteria.” At the events, the group’s president, Tim Phillips, grossly exaggerated the costs of climate legislation, calling it a trillion-dollar tax on American families.

Last October, at an AFP summit attended by David Koch, the assembled Tea Partiers screened a climate-denial film that accused advocates like Al Gore of wanting to take civilization “back to the Dark Ages and the Black Plague.” Such events, Koch proclaimed, “bring to reality the vision” of “fighting for the economic freedoms that made our nation the most prosperous society in history.” Last year, seeking to defend its own prosperity against a carbon-capped future, Koch Industries spent more than $8.5 million on lobbying.

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There is a place that they can burn in and I Hades I believe is the place for it:

http://www.mythencyclopedia.com/Go-Hi/Hades.html

In Greek mythology, Hades was the god of the underworld, the kingdom of the dead. (The Romans called him Pluto.) Although the name Hades is often used to indicate the underworld itself, it rightfully belongs only to the god, whose kingdom was known as the land of Hades or house of Hades.

Hades was the son of Cronus* and Rhea, two of the Titans who once ruled the universe. The Titans had other children, the gods Zeus* and Poseidon* and the goddesses Demeter*, Hera*, and Hestia. When Hades was born, Cronus swallowed him as he had swallowed his other children at birth. However, Zeus escaped this fate, and he tricked Cronus into taking a potion that made him vomit up Hades and his siblings.

Together these gods and goddesses rebelled against the Titans and seized power from them. After gaining control of the universe, Hades, Poseidon, and Zeus drew lots to divide it among themselves. Zeus gained control of the sky, Poseidon took the sea, and Hades received the underworld.

The Underworld Kingdom. The kingdom of the dead was divided into two regions. At the very bottom lay Tartarus, a land of terrible blackness where the wicked suffered eternal torments.
Read more:

Hades – Myth Encyclopedia – mythology, Greek, god, names, ancient, people, children, evil, fire http://www.mythencyclopedia.com/Go-Hi/Hades.html#ixzz0eUsHq0ie

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More tomorrow

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Rep. Joe Barton – You can’t regulate God

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But you CAN regulate the airlines, the world’s Air Forces, the Coal companies, and the water born freight business. You can regulate the Navy and you can regulate the 500 largest point of source polluters. But trying to regulate Al Gore proved difficult:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqUHM2gf5g4

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Barton

Barton was born in Waco, Texas to Bess Wynell Buice and Larry Linus Barton.[1] He graduated from Waco High School. He attended Texas A&M University in College Station on a Gifford-Hill Opportunity Award scholarship[2] and received a B.S. in industrial engineering in 1972. An M.Sc. in industrial administration from Purdue University followed in 1973. Following college Barton entered private industry until 1981 when he became a White House Fellow and served under Secretary of Energy James B. Edwards. Later, he began consulting for Atlantic Richfield Oil and Gas Co. before being elected to Congress in 1984.[3]

Barton was elected to represent Texas’s 6th congressional district in his first attempt, defeating Democratic opponent Dan Kubiak with 56% of the vote in a contest to succeed Phil Gramm, who left his seat to run for the United States Senate that year. He was one of six freshmen Republican congressmen elected from Texas in 1984 known as the Texas Six Pack. He received 88% of the vote in 2000, 71% of the vote in 2002 against Democratic challenger Felix Alvarado, and 66% of the vote in 2004 against Democratic challenger Morris Meyer.[citation needed]

In 1993, Barton ran in the special election for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by the resignation of Lloyd Bentsen, who became Secretary of the Treasury in the Clinton administration. Barton finished third in the contest and missed a runoff slot.[citation needed]

Congressman Barton is the Ranking Minority Member on the Energy & Commerce Committee.[

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Rep. Barton has been regarded as a climate change denier[5] and his opposition to addressing global warming has been consistent and long-term. As a chairman with primary responsibility over the energy sector, Barton has consistently acted over the years to prevent congressional action on global warming.[11] In 2001, Barton declared, “as long as I am chairman, [regulating global warming pollution] is off the table indefinitely. I don’t want there to be any uncertainty about that.”[12] Barton led opposition to amendments that would have recognized global warming during consideration of the Energy Advancement and Conservation Act in 2001, opposing an amendment to require the President to develop and implement a plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels as called for by the non-binding United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which the U.S. is a party to.[13] In 2003, Barton again opposed amendments that would have recognized global warming during consideration of the National Energy Policy Act of 2003, opposing a nonbinding amendment that would have put Congress on record as saying that the U.S. should “demonstrate international leadership and responsibility in reducing the health, environmental, and economic risks posed by climate change.”[14] In July 2003, Barton offered an amendment to the Foreign Relations Authorization Act to remove language that both recognized global warming and called on President Bush to reengage with the international community to find solutions.[15] In addition, Barton has consistently opposed proposals to reduce the nation’s dependence on oil.[16][17][18]

In 2005, prompted by a February 2005 Wall Street Journal article,[19] Rep. Barton has launched an investigation into two climate change studies from 1998 and 1999.[5] In his letters to the authors of the studies, he requested not just details on the studies themselves but significant information about their entire lives and previous studies. This has been widely regarded as an attempted attack on the scientists rather than a serious attempt to understand the science,[20] although some view it as a normal exercise of the committee’s responsibility and an effort to make possible scientific debate on a subject within its jurisdiction.[21][22] The Washington Post condemned Barton’s investigation as a “witch-hunt“.[23] Environmental Science & Technology, an obscure policy journal often cited by politicians, including Barton, reported what it said was scientific proof that global warming science is wrong.[24] See also Barton’s own response to this controversy in The Dallas Morning News.[25] The dispute expanded with Sherwood Boehlert‘s House Science Committee taking a strong interest.[26]

In 2006, Barton earned two “environmental harm demerits” from the conservative watchdog group Republicans for Environmental Protection, the first “for derailing floor passage of a sense of the House resolution … acknowledging climate change and the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions”; the second, “for holding hearings, in his role as chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, designed to intimidate climate scientists and raise doubt about the impacts and causes of climate change.”[27] The hearings were held by Barton’s committee on July 19, 2006, chaired by Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-KY), Chair of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations; there, several skeptics testified regarding the hockey stick graph.

During Former Vice President Al Gore‘s testimony to the Energy and Commerce Committee in March, 2007, Barton asserted to Gore that “You’re not just off a little, you’re totally wrong,”[28] thus reinforcing his denial that carbon dioxide emissions contribute to global climate change.

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http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/31633524/the_climate_killers/15

The Inquisitor
Rep. Joe Barton
Republican, Texas

As ranking Republican on the House energy committee, Barton is a mini version of Sen. James Inhofe. In his view, the climate is changing for “natural variation reasons,” and humans should just “get shade” and learn to adapt. “For us to try to step in and say we have got to do all these global things to prevent the Earth from getting any warmer is absolute nonsense,” he insists. “You can’t regulate God.”

During the Bush era, Barton bottled up all climate legislation and pushed to open up public lands for drilling by private interests. He also targeted leading climate scientists, demanding that they provide Congress with detailed documentation of their financial interests. (Barton himself has received $1.4 million from oil and gas donors, plus $1.3 million from electric utilities.) The inquisition drew sharp rebukes, even from Barton’s fellow Republicans. Your “purpose seems to be to intimidate scientists rather than to learn from them,” then-Rep. Sherwood Boehlert told Barton. The effort “to have Congress put its thumbs on the scales of a scientific debate” is “truly chilling.”

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With liars like this can the republic survive?

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Fred Singer – He has been making up science since he said cigarettes wouldn’t kill you

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Of course he has been in favor of bad air for 50 years…so at least he is badly consistent….

Oh it’s Jam Band Friday and I am going to do something a little different….today i bring you the Grammy Picks by State Journal Register writers Rhys Saunders, Brian Mackey and Brian Murphy. Caution – most of these songs I have never heard – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAwjZLztd28&feature=related

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( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7JthgTMHDU )

He lies about the atmosphere, he also lies about his credentials

http://www.desmogblog.com/people/fred-singer

18 November 09

Fred Singer, lacking nobility, still claims the Prize

Climate skeptics are, not surprisingly, hitting the European speaking circuit in the weeks leading up to the U.N. climate summit in Copenhagen. But what is surprising is that notorious global warming denier S. Fred Singer was described at a skeptic conference today as a Nobel prize winner, a flat out lie.

According to a Belgian journalist who alerted DeSmog to Singer’s appearance today at a skeptic conference in the European Parliament building, Singer was described in event materials as:

“a reviewer of IPCC reports, he shares the 2007 Nobel peace prize with Al Gore and 2000 others.”

The idea that Fred Singer shares any part in the IPCC/Gore Nobel prize is laughable, of course.  Other than Mr. Gore, the Nobel committee recognized only the IPCC authors, and they all received framed Nobel certificates.  If Singer can produce a framed Nobel, I’ll produce my Olympic gold medal (Singer must eat cereal too, I sure enjoy the prizes inside, although I’ve never seen a Nobel peace prize before).

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( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXG0YMv5Fvk )

Last week at the Copenhagen climate summit, we saw Christopher Monckton, the head of the delegation for the oil industry-friendly Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), accuse young climate change activists of being “Nazis” and the “Hitler youth.”

Another member of Monckton’s Copendenier delegation is a gentleman by the name of S. Fred Singer, who is well known to our team at the DeSmogBlog.

Readers might say why are you picking on this guy? You did not post much extra stuff about a lot of the earlier people?  The answer is that he is that he is the only one purporting to be a scientist…and he is from that bastion of lying and cheat…George Mason University. God typing that made me feel unclean.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kevin-grandia/copendenier-fred-singer-o_b_390152.html

In fact, we once received a letter from Singer’s lawyer threatening to sue us after we reported that Singer once did work for the cigarette lobby. We never heard back from Singer after we sent along all the research behind our claim.

Like Monkcton, Singer has an “expert” opinion on many subjects. Not coincidentally, many of these expert opinions greatly assist the work of various industries looking to avoid being saddled with expensive health and environmental regulations.

Our research team recently came across a 1996 Washington Times article by Singer, titled Anthology of 1995’s Environmental Myths [pdf]. In the article, Singer outlines “five topics that demonstrate distortion or misuse of science in shaping policies.”

The five are: global warming, the hole in the ozone, second-hand tobacco smoke, the “Radon scare” and toxic substances in our food.

Take a read of Singer’s article and ask yourself this: what would our planet and people be like today if we had listened to Singer’s advice 13 years ago? Then ask yourself: why would anyone in their right mind trust his supposedly “expert” opinion – or the opinions of those in his delegation – here at the Copenhagen climate talks.

( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1Xr-JFLxik )

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( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4m1EFMoRFvY )

But the real deal is this:

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/31633524/the_climate_killers/13

The Hack Scientist
Fred Singer
Retired physicist, University of Virginia

A former mouthpiece for the tobacco industry, the 85-year-old Singer is the granddaddy of fake “science” designed to debunk global warming. The retired physicist — who also tried to downplay the danger of the hole in the ozone layer — is still wheeled out as an authority by big polluters determined to kill climate legislation. For years, Singer steadfastly denied that the world is heating up: Citing satellite data that has since been discredited, he even made the unhinged claim that “the climate has been cooling just slightly.” Last year, Singer served as a lead author of “Climate Change Reconsidered” — an 880-page report by the right-wing Heartland Institute that was laughably presented as a counterweight to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world’s scientific authority on global warming. Singer concludes that the unchecked growth of climate-cooking pollution is “unequivocally good news.” Why? Because “rising CO2 levels increase plant growth and make plants more resistant to drought and pests.” Small wonder that Heartland’s climate work has long been funded by the likes of Exxon and reactionary energy barons like Charles Koch and Richard Mellon Scaife.

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( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYaiGB7eYU8 )

Don’t worry Radon Gas won’t hurt you. What a scientist hahaha

( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSD4vsh1zDA )

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Don Blankenship – He blows the tops off mountains and pushes the rubble into the valleys

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These are the guys I think should lead the list but he is number 12 here. Don’t just take it from me or Tim Dickinson

http://www.grist.org/article/don-blankenship-seventh-scariest-person-in-america/

Don Blankenship: Seventh scariest person in America

Massey Energy CEO is a really bad dude

24 Oct 2006 5:40 PM
by David Roberts

The venerable print magazine Old Trout was recently relaunched with a splashy issue on “The Thirteen Scariest Americans.” I was asked to write up the scariest American from an environmental point of view.

The choice was not difficult. The scariest polluter in the U.S. is Don Blankenship, CEO of Massey Energy. The guy is evil, and I don’t use that word lightly.

The issue is out now. (Look for it on a newsstand near you!) The folks at Old Trout have given me permission to publish an expanded version of the piece after a suitable period of exclusivity. So watch for that at the beginning of December.

In the meantime, check out three things.

First, there’s this longish New York Times piece on Blankenship from Sunday. In the usual style of mainstream reportage, it is studiously neutral in tone, woefully downplaying the environmental destruction Massey does and the thuggish tactics Blankenship has imposed. But you can get a pretty accurate general picture of the guy.

Second, watch this short clip from Bill Moyers‘ PBS special Is God Green? At the end there’s an archival clip of Blankenship from 1984. To me it’s absolutely mesmerizing. I’ve probably watched it 50 times. The sunken, lifeless eyes, the flat affect, the utter lack of empathy … like I said, it bespeaks psychopathy. I’ve shown it to a bunch of other people and they don’t find it quite as chilling as I do, so your mileage may vary:

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http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/31633524/the_climate_killers/12

The Climate Killers

Meet the 17 polluters and deniers who are derailing efforts to curb global warming

TIM DICKINSON

The Coal Baron
Don Blankenship
CEO, Massey Energy

In an age when most CEOs are canny enough to at least pay lip service to the realities of climate change, Blankenship stands apart as corporate America’s most unabashed denier. Global warming, he insists, is nothing but “a hoax and a Ponzi scheme.” His fortune depends on such lies: Massey Energy, the nation’s fourth-largest coal-mining operation, unearths more than 40 million tons of the fossil fuel each year — often by blowing the tops off of Appalachian mountains.

The country’s highest-paid coal executive, Blankenship is a villain ripped straight from the comic books: a jowly, mustache-sporting, union-busting coal baron who uses his fortune to bend politics to his will. He recently financed a $3.5 million campaign to oust a state Supreme Court justice who frequently ruled against his company, and he hung out on the French Riviera with another judge who was weighing an appeal by Massey. “Don Blankenship would actually be less powerful if he were in elected office,” Rep. Nick Rahall of West Virginia once observed. “He would be twice as accountable and half as feared.”

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Trust me, if he could sell you coal and make you eat it he would.

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Tom Donohue – He even lies about his member’s positions

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Shouldn’t they fire this useless puke.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/31633524/the_climate_killers/11

The Know Nothing
Tom Donohue
President, U.S. Chamber of Commerce

As the de facto chief of American business and industry, Donohue has turned the biggest lobbying presence on Capitol Hill into the biggest friend of climate polluters. In the first nine months of last year, the Chamber spent $65 million — three times more than ExxonMobil — mounting a campaign to block Congress from placing limits on carbon pollution. “Not only has the Chamber spent decades denying the existence of the climate crisis,” Al Gore observed, “now it is dedicating a significant quantity of resources and money attempting to prevent Congress from taking action.”

The extreme anti-climate position staked out by Donohue runs counter to the position of his own members. Of the 23 companies on the Chamber’s board that made their position on climate legislation public, only four are against it — and three of those are coal companies. Yet the Chamber claims, in scaremongering language, that climate legislation threatens to “completely shut the country down” and “virtually destroy the United States.” For his part, Donohue is proudly ignorant of the risks that a changing climate poses to the business community: “Is the science right? Is science not right? I don’t know.”

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Like I have been saying all these last 2 weeks everyone should read Burn and Climate Killers in the Rolling Stone.

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George Will – Wild denier of any efforts to curb pollutants.

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I wonder what George Will would say if I said the following about him. George Will is a stupid man who never graduated from college. He is on his third wife, allegedly because he is abusive, and he is rumored to be bisexual. I have it on good authority that whether it’s a boy or girl he likes them young. We know he has been in rehab twice but we don’t know why. Drugs? Drinks? Mental illness?  Who knows?

That would be pretty much the way Will writes about the environment. The truth is:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Will

Will was born in Champaign, Illinois, the son of Frederick L. Will and Louise Hendrickson Will.[1] His father was a respected professor of philosophy, specializing in epistemology, at the University of Illinois.

Will graduated from University Laboratory High School of Urbana, Illinois, and attended Trinity College, in Hartford, Connecticut (B.A.). He subsequently studied PPE at Magdalen College, University of Oxford (B.A., M.A.), and received M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in politics from Princeton University. His 1968 Ph.D. dissertation was entitled Beyond the Reach of Majorities: Closed Questions in the Open Society.

Will then taught political philosophy at the James Madison College of Michigan State University, and at the University of Toronto. He taught at Harvard University in 1995 and again in 1998. From 1970 to 1972, he served on the staff of Senator Gordon Allott (R–CO).

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So this entry in Burn is totally expected. Oh and I do not know if he has admitted it or not but George is a bisexual.:

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/31633524/the_climate_killers/10

The Pundit
George Will
Commentator, ABC

Leveraging his status as the nation’s most recognizable pundit, Will has become a one-man front for corporate-funded “science” that denies the existence of global warming. From his institutional perches at the Washington Post, Newsweek and ABC’s This Week, Will preaches about the “indoctrination” of Americans by “environmental Cassandras” in the “media-entertainment-environmental complex” over a climate threat that is “hypothetical” and only “allegedly occurring.” To buttress such wild-eyed denial, Will cherry-picks data points — or simply makes them up, as when he claimed in a recent column that “there has been no recorded global warming for more than a decade” and that “global sea-ice levels now equal those of 1979.” Both assertions are flat-out wrong: Eleven of the warmest years on record have occurred in the past 13 years, and researchers have recorded a decrease in global sea ice bigger than Texas and California combined.

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I can’t recommend these 2 articles (this one is linked to another at the top of it) enough.

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Dick Gephardt – He pollutes minds as well as the air

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This pains me almost as much as Mary Landrieu. I never worked for Dick but he was always good on so many issues. C’est la vie…sigh

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20091019/jones

Dick Gephardt’s Spectacular Sellout

By Sebastian Jones

This article appeared in the October 19, 2009 edition of The Nation.

September 30, 2009

In March, months after the government gave an unprecedented $85 billion to AIG, the insurance giant released a list of counterparties, exposing some of the world’s top financial institutions as the real recipients of the bailout. First among its peers, Goldman Sachs got a whopping $12.9 billion, despite having claimed in September to be insulated from AIG’s troubles. Based on these revelations, Maryland Democratic Congressman Elijah Cummings, who had dogged the financial industry since the crisis began, told his staff to prepare a letter calling for an investigation.

Two Congressional staffers familiar with the matter told The Nation that a draft was circulated to House members on March 23. Within hours, Cummings’s office had received a phone call from a lobbying firm hired by Goldman Sachs, making an “insistent but polite” request for a meeting. Cummings, intending to send the letter regardless, granted the audience, and so it was that top Goldman executives like president Gary Cohn and CFO David Viniar arrived the next day. They brought someone else too, a big-name Democratic politician with serious populist credibility: Dick Gephardt.

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But the real issue here is pollution.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/31633524/the_climate_killers/9

The Arm Twister
Dick Gephardt
CEO, Gephardt Group

The former House majority leader now uses his considerable political clout as a lobbyist for Peabody Energy, the world’s largest private-sector coal company. Working behind the scenes on Capitol Hill, Gephardt has emerged as the most credible proponent of “clean coal” — an imaginary technology being touted by the industry as an alternative to limits on carbon pollution. (“Clean coal is like healthy cigarettes,” says Al Gore. “It does not exist.”) In July, Gephardt was the keynote speaker at the Clean Coal Technology Conference, an honor bestowed after he helped win $1 billion in stimulus funding for FutureGen, a “clean coal” boondoggle promoted by Peabody. That’s a significant return on the $1.7 million that Peabody and the FutureGen Industrial Alliance have invested in Gephardt Group’s services since 2007. His firm also lobbies for Ameren, the nation’s fourth-dirtiest utility, as well as for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The head of Peabody’s Washington office, Fred Palmer, marvels at the access the ex-congressman still enjoys on Capitol Hill: “I can meet with a lot of people, but I’m Fred Palmer. He’s Dick Gephardt.”

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So to Dick we must say – Smoke gets in our eyes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTxZOEdEE8I

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