The Progressive Religion

As Christmas approaches, my thoughts have naturally turned towards things of a more religious nature.

The cause of this change in mindset hasn't all been Christmas-related activity. Much of what has oriented my thinking has been the religion of progressivism.

This is a topic I've addressed numerous times before--so many times, in fact, that I don't dare do a search of my archives and post every link to every article in which I've treated the subject. You'd be bored (more than usual) and I wouldn't have time to go and pick up my laundry from Tony all the way out in Queen's Park.

Suffice it to say that the progressive religion, though perhaps as not clearly outlined as other, more organized and defined religions is, in fact, a religion.

And the leftists--liberals and members of the Democrat party--who reject and sometimes mock Christianity and other religions (not all leftists, but a sizable vocal minority), are no less devout and pious in their belief system than their country bumpkin hick Christian friends on the right.

Indeed, as Byron York points out in latest article, leftist progressives are just as superstitious (in some cases, depending on definition, more so) as conservatives.

"Conservatives and Republicans report fewer experiences than liberals or Democrats communicating with the dead, seeing ghosts and consulting fortunetellers or psychics," the Pew study says. For example, 21 percent of Republicans report that they have been in touch with someone who is dead, while 36 percent of Democrats say they have done so. Eleven percent of Republicans say they have seen a ghost, while 21 percent of Democrats say so. And nine percent of Republicans say they have consulted a fortuneteller, while 22 percent of Democrats have.

There's more. Seventeen percent of Republicans say they believe in reincarnation, while 30 percent of Democrats do. Fourteen percent of Republicans say they believe in astrology, while 31 percent of Democrats do. Fifteen percent of Republicans say they view yoga as a spiritual practice, while 31 percent of Democrats do. Seventeen percent of Republicans say they believe in spiritual energy, while 30 percent of Democrats do.

There are some areas in which the two partisan groups are similar. When Pew asked respondents whether they have had a religious or mystical experience, 50 percent of Republicans said yes, as did 50 percent of Democrats. But overall, there are sizable disparities.

Progressives behave in all the same ways that conservatives do--it just so happens that their religion is become the public religion that Christianity was in Europe in preceding centuries and like Catholicism and early Protestant churches, they use public/government bodies to enforce the right amout of piety.

By recycling (in some areas here in London, you must recycle under penalty of law).

By purchasing carbon indulgences offsets (to rectify past--or future--"bad" behavior).

By paying a forced tithe (taxes) to fund "research centers" like the CRU and other so called "green initiatives" whose goals generally center around public information/marketing campaigns that guilt individuals into donating even more of their money. Or, if you have none, into supporting legislation that will compel those who do, but who do not want to pay (how unrighteous of them!) to pay higher taxes to fund Al Gore's next PowerPoint.

Whatever happened to the separation of Church & State?

Whatever happened to the separation of Church & Science?

Let's take the first, church & state. The consensus opinion in the United States is that separation of church and state has largely aided individual religious liberty. For the most part, I agree. However, if you look at Europe today, the involvement of the state with church seems to have done more damage to the latter than anyone anticipated. No one goes to church. Churches, cathedrals, meetings houses (mosques excepting) are all empty. Religion has become secularized and is no longer compelling to the masses.

In this instance, America's separation of church, while initially about religious liberty, seems to have saved American churches from the same fate as their European brethren.

It is possible, therefore, to surmise that a similar forced adoption of progressivism as the public religion would create the same sort of generational backlash that public religion did in Europe. Granted, it took centuries, but now the youth pay no mind to the faith of their fathers. Indeed, they know practically nothing about it.

The problem, of course, is that those of us who do not want to worship mother Gaia would be forced to do so until the zealotry of the current generation of environmental fanatics died out. Given the haste with which fads seem to pass nowadays (and the blatant cooking of the books at the CRU), this would probably only really hurt (and by hurt I mean kill) people in lesser developed countries while those of us in the developed world would only have to deal with the inconvenience of much higher taxes, lower standard of living, etc. I'm a poor student so whatever.

Before we go any further, take a little time to watch this enlightening Q&A with Michael Crichton:

Second & lastly (if you're still with me), science & religion. Look, I have no problem with those who honestly believe (whilst I'm a heretical "denier." note the religious language) in the religion of progressivism with environment, multiculturalism, tolerance, government, taxes (tithes) as their tenets. I wouldn't criticize your belief system at all, except that you insist on turning your beliefs into public policy.

The other major problem I have with you is this--the complete bastardization of science. If you've been following (at all) what's been happening with the scandal at the CRU, you know what I'm talking out. If you don't, here's a pretty good place to start. What has been done is nothing short of a triumph of tribal politics (the sort of stuff they're supposed to leave to me) over science. Where the data didn't produce the right graphs, they "massaged" it. Where the data contradicted their findings, they deleted it. Where skeptical scientists published articles in good academic journals, they ganged up and tried to keep them out or discredit the journal. And where all of this failed, they fantasized about beating up those who disagreed with them.

Whatever climate science has become (or ever was) it is no longer science. The only ones permitted into the inner sanctum and given access to the holy raw data are those who can be trusted to apply the right sorts of "homogenizing" effects or use the tricks of those who actually know how to use (and by use I mean really, you know, use) statistics.

If all of this only hurt their own cause, I would just laugh and laugh and laugh. But no, their complete misrepresentation, misuse and abuse of the scientific method and the peer-review process has done damage to science as a whole. And that really ticks me off. The pressures of faith and money (the environment business is worth tens of billions of dollars after all) have turned "climate science" into nothing more than propaganda machine. Like other rent-seekers, their whole goal is to do whatever is necessary to get more money (see your local newspaper for the latest alarmist prediction).

To sum up: Believe in Global Warmism if you want. I'll leave you to your religion the same way you leave me to mine. However, do not conflate your religion with science, impose it by the state, or try other public policy shenanigans to compel my observance.

If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

Global Warmists: Squelch Dissent & Delete The Evidence

Evidence that our suspicions about these alarmist global warming "scientists" were right all along.

The correspondence between dozens of climate-change researchers, including many in the U.S., illustrates bitter feelings among those who believe human activities cause global warming toward rivals who argue that the link between humans and climate change remains uncertain.

Some emails also refer to efforts by scientists who believe man is causing global warming to exclude contrary views from important scientific publications.

"This is horrible," said Pat Michaels, a climate scientist at the Cato Institute in Washington who is mentioned negatively in the emails. "This is what everyone feared. Over the years, it has become increasingly difficult for anyone who does not view global warming as an end-of-the-world issue to publish papers. This isn't questionable practice, this is unethical."

[...]

A partial review of the hacked material suggests there was an effort at East Anglia, which houses an important center of global climate research, to shut out dissenters and their points of view.

In the emails, which date to 1996, researchers in the U.S. and the U.K. repeatedly take issue with climate research at odds with their own findings. In some cases, they discuss ways to rebut what they call "disinformation" using new articles in scientific journals or popular Web sites.

The emails include discussions of apparent efforts to make sure that reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations group that monitors climate science, include their own views and exclude others. In addition, emails show that climate scientists declined to make their data available to scientists whose views they disagreed with.

[...]

In one email, Benjamin Santer from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif., wrote to the director of the climate-study center that he was "tempted to beat" up Mr. Michaels. Mr. Santer couldn't be reached for comment Sunday.

In another, Phil Jones, the director of the East Anglia climate center, suggested to climate scientist Michael Mann of Penn State University that skeptics' research was unwelcome: We "will keep them out somehow -- even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!" Neither man could be reached for comment Sunday.

The emails were published less than a month before the opening of a major climate-change summit in Copenhagen.

Given the state of the world economy, the climate for a radical reordering of world economies to show obeisance to Mother Gaia and line the pockets of the High Prophet Al Gore and the rest of the Climate-Industrial complex was already not good.

Now that we know that some of the leading "scientific" hacks are stifling dissent, well, I'm guessing people will be even less inclined to go back to living in caves to heal the earth.

Also, Bjorn Lomborg has the latest in his series of articles about practical solutions to environment-related problems in the world. This time he tackles the damage cyclones and hurricanes cause in the poor, coastal areas of the world.

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Holman Jenkins: 'Unable To Do Anything About Global Warming, Policy Defaults To Satisfying Demands Of Organized Interests For Climate Pork'

Compare and contrast the very able in-house editorial writers of the Wall Street Journal and any other given daily newspaper--take the New York Times if you like. I guarantee you any objective analysis of the writing, to say nothing of the actual merit of the ideas expressed, will come out in favor of the WSJ's Daniel Henninger, Holman Jenkins, Bret Stephens and the rest.

Here's Jenkins on Al Gore's for-profit climate change machine:

All policy salesmanship naturally defaults toward the proposition of huge benefits and negligible costs (i.e., free lunchism). Isn't that where Al Gore is today?

Mr. Gore notes that he has poured his own money into two climate action nonprofits, but, whatever his self-felt motives, aren't these nonprofits functionally propaganda arms (i.e., advertising) that benefit his for-profit investments?

The truth is, evidence of man's impact on climate remains maddeningly elusive, in part because man's impact on climate is so small as to be hard to disentangle from natural variability. This is not Mr. Gore's position, of course. If anything, however, the case for action has become less closed since he pronounced it closed in 1989, if only because of the huge sums and manpower poured into the subject to little avail.

In retrospect, a significant moment was the falling apart or debunking of two key attempts seemingly well-suited to clinch matters for a scientifically literate public. One, the famous hockey stick graph, which suggested the temperature rise of the past 100 years was unprecedentedly steep, was convincingly challenged. The other, a mining of the geological record to show past episodes of warming were sharply coupled with rising CO2 levels, fell victim to a closer look that revealed that past warmings had preceded rather than followed higher CO2 levels.

These episodes from a decade ago testified to one important thing: Even climate activists recognized a need for evidence from the real world. The endless invocation of computer models wasn't cutting it. Yet today the same circles are more dependent than ever on predictions made by models, whose forecasts lie far enough in the future that those who rely on them to make policy prescriptions are in no danger of being held accountable for their reliability.

For a while the media could patch over the scientific shortfall by reporting evidence of warming as if it were evidence of what causes warming. Inconveniently, however, just as temperature-measuring has become more standardized and disciplined and less reliant on flaky records from the past (massaged to the Nth degree), the warming trend seems to have faded from the recent record.

It seems to me that the climate of opinion surrounding climate change is beginning to change.

As in, people aren't willing to give up Western Civilization in the vague and vain hope that it may forestall some far off future, unproven, and ridiculous prophecy of doom.

(h/t Scott L.)

If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

Bret Stephens' Superfreakonomics Review: 'Climatologists, Like Everyone Else, Respond To Incentives In A Way That Shapes Their Conclusions'

Spot on, per usual (h/t Scott L.).

This week, Stephens takes aim at the Holy Church of Climate Change (formerly the Holy Church of Global Warmism). In it, he reviews Steven Leavitt & Stephen Dubner's follow-up to their smash-hit, Freakonomics.

In Superfreakonomics, they point out, very clearly, the way climate researchers respond to incentives like everyone else--that they aren't entirely disinterested observers. Additionally, they provide an honest look at some of the real costs and real possible solutions to global warming. Theirs is a small foray into a cost/benefit analysis of the global impacts of warming.

The response has been predictable. For Gore and other members of the Holy Alarmist Church of Climate Change, the solutions cannot possibly be based on a cost/benefit analysis or be relatively easy (even if they are). Stephens:

All these suggestions are, of course, horrifying to global warmists, who'd much prefer to spend in excess of a trillion dollars annually for the sake of reconceiving civilization as we know it, including not just what we drive or eat but how many children we have. And little wonder: As Newsweek's Stefan Theil points out, "climate change is the greatest new public-spending project in decades." Who, being a professional climatologist or EPA regulator, wouldn't want a piece of that action?

Part of the genius of Marxism, and a reason for its enduring appeal, is that it fed man's neurotic fear of social catastrophe while providing an avenue for moral transcendence. It's just the same with global warming, which is what makes the clear-eyed analysis in "SuperFreakonomics" so timely and important.

For them, global warming is a chance to reorder society entirely, earning huge profits (for Gore in Green Venture Capital and others in government rent-seeking--but it's all tied up together) and most importantly, acceding to themselves ever-greater amounts of power and control over the lives of men & women around the world.

Because they know better. Because they are smarter & more talented & more sophisticated & better educated & above all, more righteous than you.

So, if you don't want to be in the first group sent to the re-education camps (aka public schools where you're served small bits of reading, writing, & arithmetic, in between out-and-out global warming & other liberal indoctrination), you better prostrate yourself before the prophets of climate change destruction.

Oh, and don't forget to buy your carbon indulgences offsets

If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

Bret Stephens: Far From Being An Aberrant Choice (For The Nobel), President Obama Was The Ideal One, Scandinavianally Speaking'

Per usual, Stephens is spot on:

The peace Nobel is a much misunderstood prize. With the exception of a few really grotesque picks (Le Duc Tho, Rigoberta Menchú, Yasser Arafat), a few inspired ones (Carl von Ossietzky, Norman Borlaug, Andrei Sakharov, Mother Teresa, Lech Walesa, Aung San Suu Kyi) and some worthy if obvious ones (Martin Luther King, Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin, Mikhail Gorbachev, Nelson Mandela and F.W. de Klerk), most of the prize winners draw from the obscure ranks of the sorts of people the late Oriana Fallaci liked to call "the Goodists."

Who are the Goodists? They are the people who believe all conflict stems from avoidable misunderstanding. Who think that the world's evils spring from technologies, systems, complexes (as in "military-industrial") and everything else except from the hearts of men, where love abides. Who mistake wishes for possibilities. Who put a higher premium on their own moral intentions than on the efficacy of their actions. Who champion education as the solution, whatever the problem. Above all, the Goodists are the people who like to be seen to be good.

Columbia University President Nicholas Murray Butler, who won the Peace Prize in 1931, was a Goodist. In 1910 he wrote that "to suppose that men and women into whose intellectual and moral instruction and upbuilding have gone the glories of the world's philosophy and art and poetry and religion . . . are to fly at each others' throats to ravage, to kill, in the hope of somehow establishing thereby truth and right and justice is to suppose the universe to be stood upon its apex."

The First World War, which began four years later, rendered a less charitable judgment on the benefits of moral and intellectual instruction. Yet Butler later became a leading campaigner for the 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact outlawing war as "an instrument of national policy." This monument to hope, which won U.S. Secretary of State Frank Kellogg a Nobel in 1929 (France's Aristide Briand had already won it in 1926 for the equally feckless Locarno Pact), was immediately ratified by dozens of countries, including Japan—which invaded Manchuria in 1931; and Italy—which invaded Abyssinia in 1935; and Germany—which invaded Poland in 1939.

Characteristically, the Nobel Committee awarded no Peace Prizes for most of the Second World War: not to Franklin Roosevelt for turning America into an arsenal for democracy; not to Winston Churchill for rallying Britain against the Nazi onslaught; not to Charles de Gaulle for keeping the flame of a free France alive; not to the U.S. Army Rangers for scaling the heights of Pointe du Hoc on a June morning in 1944; not to Douglas MacArthur for turning Japan into a country at peace with itself and its neighbors.

These were the soldiers and statesmen who did more than anyone else to assure the survival of freedom in the 20th century. Being Goodists, however, the Nobel Committee chose instead to lavish its honors on people like the wan New England pacifist Emily Greene Balch (in 1946), the tedious British disarmament obsessive Philip Noel-Baker (1959) and the Irish antinuclear campaigner and Lenin Prize Winner Seán MacBride (1974).

These names don't exactly spring to mind as having made a lasting and genuine contribution to world peace. Nor, one suspects, will history lavish its highest honors on Kofi Annan, Jimmy Carter, Wangari Maathai, Mohamed ElBaradei, Al Gore or Martti Ahtisaari, to name some of this decade's winners. They are merely the Frank Kelloggs and Seán MacBrides of the future.

Ah, the "Goodists." All that Hitler/Stalin/Ahmadinejad/Chavez/Jong-il/bin-Laden chap needs is a little diplomacy--a little hope & change.

Sound familiar?

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Obama's Nobel: I Saw This And Thought It Was A Joke (UPDATED)

But then I remembered that they also gave one to Jimmy Carter.

And Al Gore.

And Yasser Arafat.

And I said to myself, "yeah, makes sense."

Like Ace said, somewhere (h/t Matt L.):

High school kids want to be popular. Nations want to be prosperous, secure and in America's case, a force for good in the world.

And like Bob & Tom said on the radio this morning (also, h/t Matt L.):

isn't this a bit like awarding super bowl MVP right now?

&

The Europeans are so mad that they weren't the ones to elect Barack Obama.

Or, like My Old Man said:

Is today April 1? This shows what a joke this [the Nobel Peace Prize] is.

But wait, there's more: I just got an invite to join someone's Facebook group (yup, I'm popular too): Help Barack Obama win the Heisman Trophy!

Then, of course, there's this: Nobel Peace Prize For Awesomeness

This is so utterly ridiculous, I almost wonder if this is a send-up of Obama. But then I remember how seriously these Nobel folks take themselves and realized that no, it is not a joke.

This is so outrageous, I almost feel bad for President Obama--I mean, this makes two weeks in a row that the Europeans (who are more in love with him, even, than the leftists) have made a clown of our President.

For shame. Does the office of the President of the United States mean nothing to these people?

UPDATE 10 October 1:09am BDT: Jansen G. does me one better and writes something intelligent about Obama's Prize:

So, Obama got awarded a peace prize for yet another promise, this time for promising a nuclear free world. After having added this venerable achievement to his trophy case, I have to say, Obama has done quite well making promises. US Senator? Check. President of the United States? Check. Nobel Peace Prize? Check. Though, all this makes me wonder: are any of these promises contractually enforceable? Because I'm not seeing much, if any, performance.

As for the substance (if you can call it that) of this Nobel Peace Prize, Obama promised reconciliation in the M-E, climate change, and a world free of nuclear weapons. Has there been any performance of any of these promises? No! Obama's speech in Egypt has had little affect on the contentious realities in the M-E, largely b/c it failed to address the real source of conflict (US involvement in anything related to or impacting M-E oil flow).
Performance on climate change? The conference on climate change doesn't start until December and its a virtually guaranteed failure given the interests of BRIC et. al.

And while Obama may believe in the ideal of a nuclear free world, he knows just how dangerous in addition to impractical an ideal it is. No one in their right mind believes disarming nuclear arsenals will do anything but create even stronger incentives for horizontal proliferation, further destabilizing already pressing crises. And that's just the catch. Obama either (A) disingenuously attempts a halfhearted, impractical endeavor to dismantle nuclear arms resulting in planned failure that potentially destabilizes a system that's fenced-in the powerful incentives of the prisoner's proliferating dilemma, or (B) he abandons the thought of an attempt to rid the world of weapons and goes down as one of the world's most undeserved Nobel Peace Prize winners. The obvious and preferable option is B, to continue to indulge in the proven double standard of the "powers-that-be." But one has to think that eventually these myriad of catch-22's that Obama promises his way into will expose him for the 'serial breachor' of promises he is.

Obama is an archetype with which, thanks to teen movies, we are all familiar: the popular kool kid who only hangs out with the leftist dork when no one else is around. And then, because the dork has a crush on the kool kid, he/she endlessly makes excuses for Obama.

Obama's apologists will always have a reason for why he was/is unable to deliver on his sweet nothings.

If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

Bjorn Lomborg's 'Climate-Industrial Complex'

From last week's journal, a great article by this blog's favorite purveyor of global warmism common sense, Bjorn Lomborg. As the article title indicates--The Climate-Industrial Complex--Lomborg warns against the many special interests that stand to gain from adoption of the radical green plans President Obama has proposed.

The cozy corporate-climate relationship was pioneered by Enron, which bought up renewable energy companies and credit-trading outfits while boasting of its relationship with green interest groups. When the Kyoto Protocol was signed, an internal memo was sent within Enron that stated, "If implemented, [the Kyoto Protocol] will do more to promote Enron's business than almost any other regulatory business."

[Aside: As James Taranto frequently reminds his readers, Paul Krugman is a "former Enron adviser." That shouldn't surprise anyone.]

I'm always surprised by liberal friends of mine who are sure that the only nefarious business interests at work in the world today are "Big Oil" companies which obviously hate the planet and just want money. They, in turn, are always surprised to learn that Al Gore, in addition to being a Nobel and Academy Award winner, is also, as Lomborg describes him,

a politician, a campaigner and the chair of a green private-equity firm invested in products that a climate-scared world would buy.

Yeah, folks, green technology is a money maker--just not for most Americans.

This is what happens when the government intervenes in the market and picks the winners--you pay more taxes and Al Gore laughs all the way to the bank.

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The Day The Earth Stood Still: Craptastic Film Of The Year

I don't even know where to begin. Last night I attended an early premier of Keanu Reeves' latest at the BFI Imax here in London.

I guess the best way to sum up this movie is to say this: Imagine if Al Gore, Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau, and those idiots who posted the anti-Christmas atheist sign in Olympia had an unholy trinity/wrote a screenplay--the result of this union, of all that environmental moralizing would be the The Day The Earth Stood Still.

Don't see it. It's worse, even, than The Day After Tomorrow--another couple of hours of my life I wish I could have back.

A little background. Aliens have been monitoring our planet and finally decided that we don't deserve it, that we are about to deserve one of the few planets in the universe capable of sustaining life. So, we are to be terminated. Reeves is the chief executioner. He brings mini ark/globes that collect samples of every other species for preservation. Meanwhile, humanity is wiped away by an alien plague of locusts. Really.

Briefly, in bullet points:

- I didn't stick around long enough to see, but did the writers give credit to Favreau for half of their lines? Every other sentence between Jennifer Connelly Keanu Reeves' alien creature/character (yes, another one) has Connelly pleading with Reeves insisting that humanity can change, "we can change! We can do it!"

- At one point, Connelly's mentor, her "leader of the world," a professor of bioethics, no less, tells her that she has to appeal to Reeves not with reason, but with herself. One envisions the emotional, angry Obamaniac advocating for change with airy rhetoric that means nothing. Change. Hope. Whatever.

- The alien (Reeves) likes Bach--Bach, the soundtrack of the Enlightenment. Of course he does.

- The destroyer of humans and all things created by humankind? Alien locusts. No kidding. Instead of the God of the Old Testament bringing locusts to cow the Egyptions into submission, Reeves brings alien locusts to consume humans and everything they have created--including, and specifically, Giants stadium, the oil fields (which figured prominently), and half of downtown Manhattan.

- At one point, when Connelly has persuaded Reeves to give humankind another chance, he says something to the effect of, "it's going to require a serious change in your way of life." Seriously? Did they get an advance look at Obama's innaugural speech?

- Did I mention the prominence of images oil derricks? Every version imaginable plus refinerys plus car manufacturing plants--hey, hey, the warming gangs' all here.

- Connely drove a hybrid Honda Civic. I suppose I should just be glad it wasn't the totally cliche Prius. Toyota probably didn't want to pay the product placement fee.

- The President and Vice President have been hustled off to separate bunkers where they are completely out of touch with the outside world and have left the female SecDef to monitor and manage things. Hurricane Katrina, anyone? Give me a break.

- At one point, Reeves-alien was cornered by a scared police officer who wants to detain him. Reeves starts a car with his hand and sends it hurtling forward, killing the man. His reasoning, as told to Connelly, "He was an obstacle." Sure, he brought the man back to life with the alien goo in his pocket, but still, this is environmental morality. Obstacles must be removed.

- I can't remember if this was a discussion between Reeves and Connelly or Reeves and Bates, but one of the latter two asks Reeves why he's saving samples of every other creature except humans. Reeves response, 'humans are just one species.' This is how the enviro-nuts view humanity--just one species of a gazillion, all of which have equal claim on the earth, none more important than the other.

- Scanning the reviews at Rotten Tomatoes, I noted that one critic complained that at no point in the film is the phrase "global warming" uttered. Really, Katey Rich of cinemablend.com, they needed to say the words "global warming" for you to know that's what the movie was all about? The multitudinous pictures of oil, oil derricks, drills, refineries, gas guzzling cars, car factories, etc., I'msureI'mforgettingsomeoilisbadcliche, weren't enough?

- Lots of typical Hollywood diatribe about American intervention abroad, torture, violence, etc.

I'm sure there's more, but this is all that occurs to me at the moment.

Let me take this moment to say how glad I am that 650 scientists are now standing up to the whole "global warming consensus." My suspicion is that we will look back at this fad and say that it hit its peak in 2006-07 and that 2008 was the beginning of the end (for the Church of the Holy Environment, not the planet).


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Paul Krugman & His Nobel (UPDATED)

So Paul Krugman won a Nobel Prize. So what? So did global warming alarmist/profiteer Al Gore. And terrorist Yasser Arafat. The Nobel Prize really no longer confers anything in the way of prestige.

Instead of reading all the articles singing his praises, read this article by Michael Lynch at Reason on why Krugman may be a good economist, but a lousy columnist.

As the Western media exposed our Saudi Arabian allies as double-dealing despots, attention turned to the obvious question: Can the United States live without Saudi Arabian oil, which, at 1.6 million barrels a day, accounts for 14 percent of our imports? The answers are mixed. The Wall Street Journal's Susan Lee says sure we can, since other countries will simply sell more oil. Newsweek reached a similar conclusion. "Not a chance," says Hudson Institute economist Irwin Stelzer, in The Weekly Standard.

The most useless contribution to the oil debate, albeit not directly addressing the narrow question of Saudi Arabia, comes from The New York Times' top economic pontificator, Paul Krugman. "Intelligent policies could break [the oil price surge and bust cycle]," says Krugman, a chaired professor of economics at Princeton.

Krugman spent much of his recent column explaining two obvious points. First, that producer cartels face difficulties in maintaining artificially low production levels. Second, he helpfully pointed out that as prices for a commodity drop people consume more of the commodity. What upsets Krugman about low prices for oil? He fears low prices are destabilizing for Saudi Arabia and, worse yet, causing people to purchase sport-utility vehicles.

Considering the stakes, it is shocking to find that the man who says "all we need is leadership" to break the "oil-hog cycle," has but one policy suggestion: increase mileage standards on SUVs to the equivalent of automobiles. Currently, SUVs are classified as light trucks for mileage standards and, on average, have to get 20.7 miles per gallon. Cars must meet a standard of 27.5 mpg.

So what of his solution? Is a government-mandated increase in mileage for SUVs the answer to our Middle East oil problem?

Not even close. Here's how the issue breaks down, according to Howard Gruenspecht, who specializes in Energy and Natural Resources for the think tank Resources for the Future. The United States consumes roughly 20 million barrels of oil each day, almost 9 million in the form of gasoline. Currently, Americans own 200 million vehicles--125 million cars, and 75 million light trucks, which meet the lower mileage standards. Recently, Americans have been purchasing roughly 16 million vehicles a year, half of them classified as light trucks, including SUVs. So over time, light trucks and SUVs constitute an increasing presence on the road.

It is immediately obvious that there are two significant time lags inherent in any effort to increase fuel economy: The time it takes the regulations to phase in and the time it takes Americans to purchase new cars and trucks. If the administration made the regulatory change tomorrow, and made it effective in five years, it would be over a decade before half of the truck miles driven come from vehicles that meet the new standards.

What sort of savings does this give us? Not much. The effected cars' fuel efficiency is increased by a third, which provides a 25 percent reduction in fuel use for those vehicles. In a decade, half of the light truck vehicle miles traveled would be affected, resulting in a 12.5 percent reduction of fuel use by light trucks. In all likelihood, by then light trucks will account for a little more half of all fuel use, so the total reduction in fuel use is between 6 and 7 percent. So a decade out, Krugman's big idea promises to save a mere 600,000 barrels of oil a day, less than 3 percent of current domestic consumption.

It gets worse. Krugman proposes to "close the loophole that exempts S.U.V.'s from mileage standards." Yet SUVs constitute only half of the light truck category that qualifies for lower standards. (It also includes pickups and small and large vans.) Therefore, Krugman's brainchild, read literally, would save Americans from purchasing roughly 300,000 barrels a day a decade out.

That might be worth doing. 300,000 barrels is, after all, a bunch of oil. But one ought to judge a proposal against the relative merits of others designed to achieve similar goals. Krugman concludes his piece by advising the Bush administration to "drop its fixation on drilling in the arctic--which would produce too little oil, too late to make any difference." So how much oil will the proposed Arctic National Wildlife Refuge site produce? According to the Energy Information Administration, a decade after development, ANWR could produce between 600,000 and 900,000 barrels of oil a day.

It may not be much, but it's as much as three times more than Krugman's plan for energy stability. Perhaps he should examine his own "fixations."

Drill here, drill now.

Holman Jenkins in the WSJ's Political diary yesterday about Krugman (h/t Scott L.):

Princeton economist Paul Krugman's Nobel yesterday was earned with some clever analysis of international trade. Among other insights, he showed that governments could, if unusually adept and disciplined, profitably game the international trade system with subsidies to capture high-paying manufacturing jobs. Airbus is the archetypal case in point.

Mr. Krugman's other job is his regular column in the New York Times. His economic insights are always interesting -- right up to the point where it all just proves the Bush administration lied about weapons of mass destruction. Yesterday's installment was a model -- a tribute to the incompetence of the Bush administration because the British beat Washington to the idea of addressing the credit crunch by injecting government capital in banks.

Um. A) Did they? B) Who cares? It takes two nanoseconds to recall the Bush administration used equity injections in the bailouts of Fannie and Freddie and AIG. As for British non-ideological competence, the less said about the Northern Rock fiasco the better, not to mention Britain's role in the Iceland meltdown. What really happened is events have outrun every magic bullet, and are outrunning the capital injection bullet too. A bigger oomph in the British plan, adopted elsewhere, is already the sweeping guarantee of bank liabilities and crypto-regulatory forbearance on capital standards, which make new capital partially redundant.

But never mind. Mr. Krugman has solved the fundamental problem of a columnist -- what to write week after week. The answer: The Same Thing. Just write it over and over. Whether the subject is health care, the banking crisis, global warming or whatever, it all just proves the Bush administration lied about weapons of mass destruction.

Priceless.

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Al Gore Is An Idiot

"The world has spent $50 billion on global warming since 1990, and we have not found any actual evidence that carbon emissions cause global warming."

--David Evans, a scientific consultant to the Australian Greenhouse Office from 1999 to 2005, writing in The Australian newspaper.

With oil and therefore gas prices high, the economic slowdown and the bursting of the housing bubble, the climate for discussion of global warming (pun intended) has changed.

Whereas before those in the academic community (usually so contrary) may have felt uncomfortable countering Al Gore's "scientific consensus," the aforementioned factors seem to have made more people feel like they can speak their minds about the so-called man-caused-carbon-caused-global-warming.

For the last few years, Bjørn Lomborg seemed like the only one tough enough to stand athwart history, yelling Stop!. His Copenhagen conferences calling attention to other, more pressing needs (easy interventions in lesser developed countries) helped. Highlighting the poor return on investment in the global warming industry helped some more.

There is a sane, rational, cost effective way to talk about all things global warming. And then there's Al Gore's way.

Opt for the former.


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The Global Warming "Consensus"

The obamaean reception given to Al Gore at the Nutroots convention in Austin, Texas (read: swooning/fainting) gives context to the following quote (h/t: S. Lybbert) which calls into question the global warmism "consensus" and Al Gore's algorean blow-hardedness.

Does anyone still take him seriously? (besides the nutroots)

"It is my professional opinion that there is no evidence at all for catastrophic global warming. . . . It is also my professional opinion that the severely limited predictive capacity of the natural sciences is no adequate basis for globally orchestrated mitigation efforts concerning greenhouse gases. Fortunately, the time rate of climate change is slow compared to the rapid evolution of our institutions and societies. There is sufficient time for adaptation. We should monitor the situation both globally and locally, but up to now global climate change does not cause severe problems requiring immediate emission reductions. . . . [Researchers have] presented no scientific basis for dire warnings concerning climate collapse. Local and regional problems with shorter time scales deserve priority."
link

Hendrik Tennekes, former director of research at the Royal Dutch Meteorological Institute, writing at climatesci.org.


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Give These Guys Gore's Oscar!

Are you like our friends who insist the debate about global warming is over? Do you believe all scientists agree that human created CO2 is causing global warming? Have you convinced yourself the Kyoto Protocol (or something like it) may actually affect global temperatures?

Think again.

Our brother Matt turned us on to a column by Thomas Sowell which referred to a movie entitled "The Great Global Warming Swindle." Our old man quickly followed with a link to the movie. Thanks Dad.

From Mr. Sowell:

Britain's Channel 4 has produced a devastating documentary titled "The Great Global Warming Swindle." It has apparently not been broadcast by any of the networks in the United States. But, fortunately, it is available on the Internet.

Distinguished scientists specializing in climate and climate-related fields talk in plain English and present readily understood graphs showing what a crock the current global warming hysteria is.

Please, dear lemmings, you owe it to yourselves to watch this movie and listen to a voice of reason before you follow Al Gore and the rest of the Apocalyptic Church of the Holy Environment off the edge of a cliff.

The religious parallels don't end with doomsday predictions as we documented here and here. They even sell indulgences!!! This time, from Charles Krauthammer on carbon credits:

In other words, the rich reduce their carbon output by not one ounce. But drawing on the hundreds of millions of net worth in the Kodak Theatre, they pull out lunch money to buy ecological indulgences. The last time the selling of pardons was prevalent--in a predecessor religion to environmentalism called Christianity--Martin Luther lost his temper and launched the Reformation.

But don't worry, we're sure zealots like the hypocritical, private jet-flying, Tennessee mansion energy-burning, Mr. Gore will cook up another environmental crusade you can feel morally superior about and persecute others for not joining.

**Update: At the request of some of our more sensitive readers, we've toned down the pejorative language of this post. Thus, "deluded" has become "convinced" and "whack job" is now "zealot." We apologize that "lemmings" remains in this draft. Our search of the thesaurus could not produce a satisfactory substitute.


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