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Climate Change Tag

Posted by Leslie Eastman on June 19, 2016 9 Comments
I have been following the antics of 17 state attorney generals who formed (AGs United for Clean Power), which intends to promote the progressive climate change agenda by targeting the fossil fuel industry using racketeering statutes. Recently, thirteen Republican members of the Science, Space, and Technology Committee Republicans sent letters to 17 state attorneys general and eight environmental groups requesting documents related to the groups’ coordinated efforts to deprive companies, nonprofit organizations, scientists and scholars of their First Amendment rights and their ability to fund and conduct scientific research free from intimidation and threats of prosecution. Now, a coalition of Republican AGs, headed up by Alabama's top cop, Luther Strange, issued a letter promising retaliation in kind, directed at "AGs for Clean Power. Call this rebuke fighting fire with fire!

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on June 11, 2016 13 Comments
The House has voted to condemn a carbon tax as "detrimental to American families and businesses." The Hill reports:
The House voted Friday to condemn a potential carbon tax, closing the door on a climate change policy popular in some conservative circles. Lawmakers passed, by a 237-163 vote, a GOP-backed resolution listing pitfalls from a tax on carbon dioxide emissions and concluding that such a policy “would be detrimental to American families and businesses, and is not in the best interest of the United States.” Six Democrats voted with the GOP for the resolution. No Republicans dissented. The non-binding resolution is first and foremost a defensive measure, to get lawmakers on the record against a carbon tax, in case it’s part of a future proposal, perhaps part of a comprehensive tax reform package or in return for repealing certain regulations. President Obama has not proposed a carbon tax, and while many Democrats support the idea, it has not taken hold as a serious legislative proposal in years.
Obama has, in fact, proposed carbon taxes, the most recent being the $10 per barrel tax on oil; a fact noted in this Hill article: "The House also voted 253-144 to condemn Obama’s proposal from earlier this year to impose a $10.25 tax on each barrel of oil, an idea that never got much support in Congress."

Posted by Leslie Eastman on June 09, 2016 19 Comments
In February, President Obama said we should not "panic over Zika." At the same time, he asked Congress for $1.8 billion in funding for the resources to combat the Zika virus, the pathogen spreading rapidly through the Americas that can cause birth defects and neurological problems. In a rare display of fiscal restraint, Congress granted $622 million (mainly from unused Ebola response money). However, as negotiations continue for even more Zika funding between these two branches of government, it seems that $500 million of those taxpayer dollars initially allotted now sits in the coffers of the United Nations.
The Obama administration siphoned $500 million that could have gone toward combating the Zika virus into a United Nations effort aimed at mitigating climate change. Sen. James Lankford (R., Okla.) wrote in an op-ed published in the Daily Signal that the Senate last year granted Obama the authority to pay for a response to Zika, but his administration chose instead to allocate those funds toward the U.N.’s Green Climate Fund.
As a reminder, that $500 million is the first installment of $3 billion that Obama agreed to turn over as part of the UN Paris climate conference deal.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on June 04, 2016 21 Comments
As a proponent of serious scientific review of environmental policies, I have been blessed to share news related to climate change with Legal Insurrection readers. Little did I realize this might have made me a criminal in my home state! Fortunately, it looks like I have dodged a bullet...legally. California Senate just sidelined a bill to prosecute climate change skeptics.
Senate Bill 1161, or the California Climate Science Truth and Accountability Act of 2016, would have authorized prosecutors to sue fossil fuel companies, think tanks and others that have “deceived or misled the public on the risks of climate change.” The measure, which cleared two Senate committees, provided a four-year window in the statute of limitations on violations of the state’s Unfair Competition Law, allowing legal action to be brought until Jan. 1 on charges of climate change “fraud” extending back indefinitely. “This bill explicitly authorizes district attorneys and the Attorney General to pursue UCL claims alleging that a business or organization has directly or indirectly engaged in unfair competition with respect to scientific evidence regarding the existence, extent, or current or future impacts of anthropogenic induced climate change,” said the state Senate Rules Committee’s floor analysis of the bill.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on May 21, 2016 20 Comments
State attorneys general aren't the only ones engaging in climate justice thuggery. The board for Portland Public Schools unanimously approved a resolution to eliminate materials that question on the existence of climate change and mankind's impact on the global environment.
"A lot of the text materials are kind of thick with the language of doubt, and obviously the science says otherwise," Bill Bigelow, a former Portland Public Schools teacher who was involved in working to present the resolution, told the Portland Tribune. "We don't want kids in Portland learning material courtesy of the fossil fuel industry."

Posted by Leslie Eastman on May 20, 2016 10 Comments
I have previously reported that a coalition of 17 state attorney generals has formed (AGs United for Clean Power), which intends to promote the climate change agenda by targeting the fossil fuel industry. The first victim of the Climate Change purge was the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), a non-profit organization that has assisted businesses in countering climate justice activism, when Attorney General Claude E. Walker of the U.S. Virgin Islands issued a subpoena in an attempt uncover the content of CEI’s comprehensive work on climate change policy.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on May 11, 2016 14 Comments
I must admit, I have seen a lot of crack-pot theories about Climate Change/Global Warming in the past two decades. However, Ghassan Hage (a Lebanese-Australian academic serving as Future Generation Professor of Anthropology and Social Theory at the University of Melbourne in Australia) has hit the motherlode of social justice nuttiness. Three Massachusetts Institute of Technology entities (Global Studies and Languages, Global Borders Research Collaboration, and Anthropology) sponsored his presentation, which answered the burning question: Is Islmabopbia Accelerating Global Warming?
This talk examines the relation between Islamophobia as the dominant form of racism today and the ecological crisis. It looks at the three common ways in which the two phenomena are seen to be linked: as an entanglement of two crises, metaphorically related with one being a source of imagery for the other and both originating in colonial forms of capitalist accumulation. The talk proposes a fourth way of linking the two: an argument that they are both emanating from a similar mode of being, or enmeshment, in the world, what is referred to as ‘generalised domestication.’
As an environmental health and safety professional, I assess that the only way Islamophobia contributed to global warming is from the hot air Hage emitted while presenting this lecture, which was given May 9.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on May 09, 2016 17 Comments
Mother Nature has engaged our neighbors to the North in a battle, as a massive wildfire has consumed the forests around the oil-sands region of Fort McMurray in Alberta, Canada since May 1. The Canadians may finally be making some progress in containing the conflagration after one-week of intense fire-fighting.
Canadian officials showed some optimism on Sunday they were beginning to get on top of the country's most destructive wildfire in recent memory, as favorable weather helped firefighters and winds took the flames southeast, away from oil sands boomtown Fort McMurray. There was still no time line, however, for getting Fort McMurray's 88,000 inhabitants back into what remains of their town, or when energy companies would be able to restart operations at evacuated sites nearby. The wildfires have cut Canada's vast oil sands output in half. "It definitely is a positive point for us, for sure," said Alberta fire official Chad Morrison in a news briefing, when asked if the fight to contain the flames had a reached a turning point. "We're obviously very happy that we've held the fire better than expected," said Morrison. "This is great firefighting weather, we can really get in here and get a handle on this fire, and really get a death grip on it."

Posted by Leslie Eastman on April 22, 2016 5 Comments
Regular Legal Insurrection readers may recall that prior to signing the new state minimum wage law, California Governor Jerry Brown was heckled at the Paris Climate Conference. Brown was challenged by a group of protesters opposed to carbon offset programs they said could hurt indigenous people. However, his enthusiasm for imposing draconian rules limiting carbon dioxide emissions has remained quite vigorous.
“This is one skirmish, but I’ll tell you, it’s increasing the intensity of my commitment to do everything I can to make sure we reduce oil consumption in California,” he said. “My zeal has been intensified to a maximum degree, and nothing, nothing is going to stop this state from pushing forward on our low-carbon fuel standard and our cap-and-trade and our ZEV [zero-emission vehicle] mandate.”
Brown's zeal was such that about a year ago he issued an executive order setting a goal for greenhouse gas emissions to be 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030. The California Governor's mandate was short on specifics about how his new goal will be achieved, and relied on currently undeveloped or uninvented technology to ultimately achieve the goal.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on April 18, 2016 35 Comments
The Environment and Public Works Committee has been gathering testimony from a wide range of witnesses (industry experts, military official, and faith leaders) to discuss the Obama Administration's Clean Power Plan. Because the Senators obviously wanted listed to many different perspectives, those invited to offer input included Alex Epstein, author of A Moral Case for Fossil Fuels and President of Center for Industrial Progress, as well as Father Robert Sirico (a Catholic priest and President of the free-market supporting Acton Institute).

Posted by Leslie Eastman on April 16, 2016 44 Comments
I just noted that environmental activists are ramping up a social media campaign against energy giant Exxon Mobil, as the Attorneys General for 17 states are looking to nail that company under racketeering statutes. This attack is the latest in the pseudo-science based thuggery that progressives have directed at those who opt to hold different, data-based views on the nature of climate and weather.  The Koch Brothers, apparently the dark center of all evil in the universe, were singled out by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in an epic rant in 2014:
“Those guys are doing the Koch Brothers bidding and are against all the evidence of the rational mind, saying global warming does not exist,” Mr. Kennedy said, Climate Depot reported. “They are contemptible human beings.”

Posted by Leslie Eastman on April 14, 2016 21 Comments
Energy company and fossil-fuel provider Exxon Mobil is the Jupiter of American business. It's so large, it's gravitational pull attracts Obama Administration strikes to promote wealth-distributing "climate change" policies and otherwise undermine the American economy. Earlier this week, I noted that one of Exxon Mobil's allies in the quest for sensible science regulation (the Competitive Enterprise Institute) was subpoenaed by the Attorney General of the Virgin Islands for correspondence related to its two decades worth of work on climate change and energy policy...including private donor information. Attorney General Claude E. Walker is one of the 17 "AGs for Clean Power" who have colluded to punish "climate change deniers" using civil racketeering statutes.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on April 05, 2016 28 Comments
Dave Bry is the author of Public Apology: In Which a Man Grapples With a Lifetime of Regret, One Incident at a Time. I suspect he is going to have one more regret to add to his list: Writing a column in The Guardian asking if its immoral to have children... because "Climate Change."
...For while the world is a wonderful place, one we humans have made nicer for ourselves with wonderful inventions like books and record players, penicillin and pizza, it’s also a really awful place, one we’ve ravaged with deforestation and smog, nuclear weapons and mountains of pizza delivery boxes and other garbage. The awfulness seems to be getting worse, especially now that climate change has sped up – sea level rise that was supposed to take centuries has recently been projected as taking just decades. This complicates the already difficult decision of whether to have a kid.... Was I complicit in the damage? I remember every extra paper towel I’ve ever unspooled from the roll, and think about a tree falling in the Amazon, and then think about my son growing up in a gray, dying world – walking towards Kansas on potholed highways. Maybe while trying to protect his own son, like the father in The Road. Will he decide to have a kid? I have foisted upon him a decision even more difficult than my own. It’s all very depressing.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on March 12, 2016 10 Comments
Don't let it be said the Obama Administration doesn't have it's priorities in perfect progressive order. And near the top of those priorities are dealing with "climate change deniers". Today's forecast related to climate change insanity is grim, indeed. United State Attorney General Loretta Lynch admitted her team has discussed the option of filing a lawsuit against the fossil fuel industry based on its handling of climate data gathered in the course of pursing business.
Attorney General Loretta Lynch has considered taking legal action against climate change deniers. The United States' top lawyer told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday that the Justice Department has 'discussed' the possibility of a civil lawsuit against the fossil fuel industry. She said any information her office has received has been sent to the FBI in a bid to build a case.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on March 10, 2016 21 Comments
We recently reported that Navy SEALs have confided that the Navy is so short of combat rifles that the SEALs have been forced to rotate rifles among returning and deploying teams. On the other end of the financial spectrum, the Obama Administration had just deposited the first installment of a planned $3 Billion into the United Nation's Green Climate Fund.
At a time when Republican opposition to President Barack Obama’s climate change initiatives is growing, the U.S. government announced Monday that it had deposited $500 million into the United Nations-backed Green Climate Fund (GCF). The payment marks the first tranche of the $3 billion the U.S. pledged for the GCF in 2014.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on February 25, 2016 23 Comments
Not too long ago, climate alarmists were predicting "bee-pocalyse". A spate of reports about American bee colonies being wiped-out for no apparent reason had people worried about the total loss of one of nature's most important species. There were numerous theories bandied about for bee colony collapse (e.g., GMO's, climate change, pesticides). But usually it was mankind that was the root cause of another impending global crisis. The experts predicted that the consequences to global food production would be unimaginable. We were all going to starve to death!

Posted by Leslie Eastman on February 23, 2016 17 Comments
One prediction I can now comfortably make after years of observation is that there is a direct, linear relationship between how much government funding a scientist gets and the inaccuracy of the theories generated. The more politically connected the researcher, the more erroneous the "consensus" will be. I have a new data point to add to the collection. There are reports that a large colony of penguins died of climate changed induced starvation.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on February 05, 2016 31 Comments
In his last year in office, Obama promised to be more bold (reckless?) in pushing his agenda, and one thing that has long irritated him about our great country is our consumption of oil. To address this pet peeve of his, Obama has released a budget in which he proposes a $10 per barrel tax hike on oil; the money, he says, will go to boost the failed "green" energy economy for which he's long pined.  Never mind his embarrassing and costly past plans to boost the green energy sector. The Hill reports:
President Obama will propose a $10-per-barrel fee on oil production to fund a new green transportation plan, the White House announced Thursday.
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