NASA Warming Scientist James Hansen Blasts Obama's 'Counterfeit' Climate Bill

Calls H.R. 2454—the Waxman-Markey bill “a monstrous absurdity...less than worthless!”

James Hansen, the rogue NASA researcher largely responsible for the “Global Warming” hysteria, rakes the “climate” bill over the coals

Excerpt from James Hansen’s statement:

It didn't take long for the counterfeit climate bill known as Waxman-Markey to push back against President Obama's agenda. As the president was arriving in Italy for his first Group of Eight summit, the New York Times was reporting that efforts to close ranks on global warming between the G-8 and the emerging economies had already tanked…

This requires nothing less than an energy revolution based on efficiency and carbon-free energy sources. Alas, we won't get there with the Waxman-Markey bill, a monstrous absurdity hatched in Washington after energetic insemination by special interests.

For all its "green" aura, Waxman-Markey locks in fossil fuel business-as-usual and garlands it with a Ponzi-like "cap-and-trade" scheme…

The fact is that the climate course set by Waxman-Markey is a disaster course. Their bill is an astoundingly inefficient way to get a tiny reduction of emissions. It's less than worthless, [Emphasis mine] because it will delay by at least a decade starting on a path that is fundamentally sound from the standpoints of both economics and climate preservation.

Here are a few of the bill's egregious flaws:

•It guts the Clean Air Act, removing EPA's ability to regulate CO2 emissions from power plants.

•It sets meager targets -- 2020 emissions are to be a paltry 13% less than this year's level -- and sabotages even these by permitting fictitious "offsets," by which other nations are paid to preserve forests - while logging and food production will simply move elsewhere to meet market demand.

•Its cap-and-trade system, reports former U.S. Undersecretary of Commerce for Economic Affairs Robert Shapiro, "has no provisions to prevent insider trading by utilities and energy companies or a financial meltdown from speculators trading frantically in the permits and their derivatives."

•It fails to set predictable prices for carbon, without which, Shapiro notes, "businesses and households won't be able to calculate whether developing and using less carbon-intensive energy and technologies makes economic sense," thus ensuring that millions of carbon-critical decisions fall short.

End Hansen Excerpt.

To read the complete Hansen article go to this link.

My, my. A falling-out amongst thieves.

Even the most rabid climate-change lunatics are demonizing H.R. 2454, the so-called Waxman-Markey or Cap-and-Trade, (more like Graft-and-Tax), bill as an abomination.

For more on Hansen and global-warming go to this link.

Obama On U.S. Oil Imports: Lying Or Just Ignorant?

In a 6 July 2009 interview with the Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, Obama gave the same false information on U.S. oil imports he has been repeating since at least February of this year:

We have known for decades that our survival depends on finding new sources of energy.  Yet we import more oil today than ever before [Emphasis mine].

That quote is from the official White House transcript of the interview.

Obama was wrong in February and is wrong today.

The above chart from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, shows that U.S. oil imports peaked in November 2005 and have been declining ever since.

On the page at the above link, you may view a data table of the U.S. weekly oil imports from 1991 to date.

Now, I know the facts on this, you (now) know the facts on this, but the President of the United States keeps spouting inaccuracies about U.S. oil imports. I found this data very easily, and I would kinda think Obama—backed by dozens of staff and a trillion-dollar bureaucracy—could as well.

Yet Obama has been spouting this drivel since at least February 2009—even though the facts are laughably easy to obtain.

So my question is this:

Are Obama and his administration lying or simply ignorant and inept?

The answer has to be one of those two choices.

Frankly, neither answer sits well with me, nor should it with you.

GOP Fairytale? $30 Million For Harvest Mouse?

Here is the interesting tale as reported by PolitiFact:

No money in the stimulus for San Francisco mice

To hear Republican House members tell it, you'd think House Speaker Nancy Pelosi stuffed $30 million into the stimulus bill to benefit an endangered mouse in her district.

Rep. Steve King of Iowa called it an earmark and "a pet project" while pointing to a sign he made that said "Pelosi's Mouse slated for $30 Million."

Rep. John Boehner of Ohio opposed the bill and asked how money "for some salt marsh mouse in San Francisco is going to help a struggling autoworker in Ohio?"

And Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana said on Fox News that there was "$30 million in there to protect mice in San Francisco."

The tale of the mouse appears to have originated around Feb. 6, 2009, from Republican staff members of the U.S. House of Representatives Appropriations Committee.

"Appropriations Republicans, concerned with this irresponsible process and possible abuse of taxpayer funds, have asked various federal agencies how they intend to spend the windfall of cash that Congress may approve in the 'stimulus' bill," said a memo posted to the site. "One peek behind the bureaucratic curtain has yielded the following examples of hidden program information that is not included in the language of the bill or report . These are programs which various federal agencies have privately indicated they will fund with 'stimulus' money."

The memo lists a number of projects, including up to $37.5 million for "wetland restoration in the San Francisco Bay Area — including work to protect the Salt Marsh Harvest Mouse."

That became fodder for a Feb. 11 e-mail from Michael Steel, Boehner's spokesman. "Thirty million dollars for wetland restoration in the San Francisco Bay Area — including work to protect the Salt Marsh Harvest Mouse," Steel wrote. "This sounds like spending projects that have been supported by a certain powerful Democrat in the past. And it certainly doesn't sound like it will create or save American jobs."

That e-mail made it into a Feb. 12 story in the Washington Times headlined "Pelosi's mouse slated for $30M slice of cheese." The story stated, incorrectly as it turns out, that the stimulus bill "includes $30 million for wetlands restoration that the Obama administration intends to spend in the San Francisco Bay Area to protect, among other things, the endangered salt marsh harvest mouse."

And that story was then picked up by the Drudge Report.

That's when the mouse references exploded, morphing from a possible project of an unnamed agency to Pence's "$30 million in there to protect mice in San Francisco."

We wanted to get to the bottom of this issue and find out what was up with the mouse.

Turns out the salt marsh harvest mouse is a previously obscure beneficiary of a major environmental restoration project for the San Francisco Bay area.

"A friend e-mailed me and asked me if any of the $30 million for the mouse was for us, and I was like 'What are you talking about?'" said Steve Ritchie, an engineer with the California State Coastal Conservancy, a state agency charged with preserving and restoring the coastline.

When the stimulus bill was first proposed and a call went out for ready-to-go projects, Ritchie prepared a list of the agency's shovel-ready projects and submitted it to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, both of which received money in the final version of the stimulus bill.

Three projects would turn abandoned industrial salt operations back into natural wetlands, about 26,000 acres in all. It turns out the mouse is an endangered species that likes tidal salt marshes, and it's mentioned by name as one of several species that will benefit.

But the projects themselves — the South Bay Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project , the Napa Plant Site , and the Napa Salt Marsh restoration — are intended to do more than just benefit wildlife. It's major construction work to create recreation areas and to restore marshland that will resist flooding and storm surge.

"This is bulldozers, front-end loaders, backhoes. These are major earth-moving projects to break down levees, to resculpt the landscape and to make sure nature can do its thing," Ritchie said. "Right now, we just have these lousy little salt pond levees and they break."

"These are real jobs, and these are truly ready to go," he added. "We can definitely spend this money for construction by Nov. 30, 2010."

Given this description of the projects, which were first reported in the San Jose Mercury News , it's a serious distortion to say there's money in the bill to protect San Francisco mice. The bill doesn't even list the San Francisco projects by name. And the funding agencies — the Corps of Engineers or NOAA — could still decide to fund the projects or not. The bill passed a final vote in the House on Feb. 13, with no Republicans supporting it.

So Pelosi did not put an earmark in the bill to save the mice. In fact, there's no money in the bill for mice. For this reason, we rate Pence's remark False.

And here is the take on the tale from Media Matters for America:

In his February 12 blog entry, posted at 1:27 p.m. ET, Sargent explained how he determined the source of the Pelosi-mouse allegation, and how he debunked it:

How did this one get going? Yesterday a House Republican leadership staffer circulated a background email, which I obtained, charging that GOP staffers had been told by an unnamed Federal agency that if it got money from the stim package, it would spend "thirty million dollars for wetland restoration in the San Francisco Bay Area -- including work to protect the Salt Marsh Harvest Mouse."

The GOP staffer's email didn't say what agency it was. It didn't say the money was actually in the package -- just that an unnamed agency had said they would spend it on that if they got it.

But conservatives picked up the claim and began stating as fact that the mouse money was in the bill. On Fox News yesterday, Mike Huckabee blasted the bill for containing money for Pelosi's mouse, and today GOP Rep Dan Lundgren hammered the alleged mouse money in the bill as "absurd." Today's Washington Times ran with a story called: "Pelosi's mouse slated for $30M slice of cheese."

But I just contacted the House GOP staffer [and his name would be…?] who wrote the initial email laying out this talking point, and he conceded that the claim by conservative media that the mouse money is currently in the bill is a misstatement. "There is not specific language in the legislation for this project," he said.

Politicians: Loathe them or despise them, you can’t like them.

Or trust them.

Twit Issues Fake Evacuation Order

Chris Sanders Wins Our Useless Git of The Week Award!

On 1 January 2009, Christopher C. Sanders, an unqualified “geologist,” posted a YouTube video and a bogus “evactuation order” on a website, (since taken down), illegally featuring a USGS logo and designed to scare the holy-hoppin’ bejeesus out of everyone in the known universe:

"I am advising all State officials around Yellowstone National Park for a potential State of Emergency. In the last week over 252 earthquakes have been observed by the USGS. We have a 3D view on the movement of magma rising underground. We have all of the pre warning signs of a major eruption from a super volcano. - I want everyone to leave Yellowstone National Park and for 200 miles around the volcano caldera."

Chris Sanders in a quiet moment just before the world blows up.

The United States Geological Survey, (not affiliated with Chris or his spider-web of online sites), issued this press release on a genuine USGS website:

“The USGS is not affiliated with a web site that recommends evacuation of Yellowstone National Park and bears the USGS logo. The USGS is not recommending the evacuation of the park. Officials at the USGS are working through the appropriate legal channels to have both the warning and logo removed from the web site. Yesterday, the USGS issued a press release announcing that the swarm of earthquakes has stopped for now and may have ceased entirely.”

Mr. Sanders apparently became spooked at a number of earthquakes—like Chris, very shallow and insignificant—in the Yellowstone vicinity. He has neither the authority, qualifications nor the requisite amount of grey-matter, (the required amount, I understand, being at least 947cc or about one quart), to make such a judgement or release such an “order.”

Chris also gave an amusing, paranoid, rant extemely plaintive email interview to a journalist a transcript of which is posted at this site.

He also has more shady websites, (all asking for your money), than you can shake a bought senator at, including—and I submit this explains a very great deal—The North Dakota Hemp Council.

You may express your disapproval and send dead, stinky fish to Chris at:

Chris Sanders
President
The Gas Company
chris.sanders@yahoo.com
7510 Sunset Blvd. Suite #1073
Los Angeles, CA 90046

(Please don’t really send dead, stinky fish through the US mail. I have a friend in the postal service. Use Fedex.)

There has been much gnashing of teeth and beating of breast and "OMG where do I hide?" about this, and since everyone and his dog has put in his two drachmas' worth, I hope no-one minds if I do so.

I live a short, pleasant drive from the northern entrance to Yellowstone Park. The animals here are behaving normally. The scientists here are behaving normally. The residents here are behaving normally, (Chris Sanders doesn’t live here). No-one's worrying about the Park blowing up--except this one, dull-witted, so-called "geologist.”

There are ALWAYS earthquakes in the Park--hundreds a year. I know when there is one much over a mag 3, because my power-pole does the hula in proportion to the severity of the shock.

A look at the raw data from the pretty-much official Yellowstone Earthquake Data site shows that most of the recent quakes are quite shallow--some only a few hundred feet in depth. Not at all what one would expect of an imminent “Deep-Magma Hot-Spot" super-eruption.

I'm with one of the country fire departments. I talk to meteorologists on our weather and climate and how they affect wildland fire behavior. I talk to the geologists about the Park. I get briefed on emergency procedures and evacuation plans, because our department will be instrumental in carrying them out.

I am not a trained geologist, but my training IS in astrophysics, so I'm not a complete and utter dimwit unlike…well…some.

I pretty-much know what goes on around here.

Let me first tell you about Heart Mountain near Cody, Wyoming. Heart Mountain's geologic layers are upside-down, and match geologic layers of areas of Yellowstone Park, to the west, (you can read about this in geologist John McPhee's seminal book, "Rising From The plains"). The last time the Yellowstone "Super Volcano" erupted, it picked up what is now Heart Mountain and deposited it—the whole fraking mountain—upside-down about 100 miles away. That last eruption was a doozy-and-a-half, (I might point out that the Wikipedia entry on Heart Mountain is full of what drops out of the south end of a north-bound bull, but that's typical of Wikipedia).

I might also mention that a small number of geologists believe that there is currently NOT one or two huge magma pool under the Park, but a series of small ones. Their findings cause everything from gasping, sputtering and jaw-dropping to outrage among many "PhDs" and—through decades of experience with other scientists—and academia in general—I therefore tend to believe that handful of geologists are likely correct, (only the truth tends to make tenured hack "scientists" that upset).

Much has been made recently of the uplift of parts of the ground surface in Yellowstone, which showed an uplift rate 3 times that observed in the 1920’s. There is some discussion that the 1920’s surveys may not have been as accurate as formerly believed, leading many to question just how much uplift may really have occurred during and since that period.

Let me now tell you the warning signs of a major eruption in Yellowstone Park. A major magma expansion is going to exude pressure onto the rock strata above, (yes, yes, and below and to the sides but that's not my point here, read on). High school physics will show the pressure will be expressed as heat. This heat and pressure will spread—finally—to the geyser-water table under the Park. All the geysers in the Park will start spouting—including those that haven't spit a drop of luke-warm water in decades or centuries. When you see THAT happening, start worrying. Until then, find something else to do.

If the Yellowstone caldera erupts in the fashion it did some 640,000 years ago, Bend Over And Kiss Your Sweet (insert appropriate skin color here) Patootie GOODBYE. It is believed that eruption ejected 1,000 cubic kilometers, (240 cubic miles), of material into the atmosphere. By contrast, the 1815 eruption of the Indonesian volcano Mount Tambora threw about 93 cubic miles as high or higher as 30 miles into the atmosphere—along with some 400 million tons of gas—resulting in 1816’s “Year Without A Summer,” during which it snowed in New England in June and crop failures were the norm in Europe and North America. Hundreds of thousands of people died as a result.

There is nowhere on this entire planet you can go and be unaffected by an eruption of the nature of the one in Yellowstone 640,000 years ago, and there are frightfully few places you can go where you won't die within a year or two.

Within 600 miles or so you will likely be dead within a few days. The further away you are in the northern hemisphere, the longer it will take to kill you, but it will—almost certainly—eventually kill you directly or indirectly. The ash is mostly macro-to-microscopic particles of glass, (I can dig down a few yards in my pasture and show you a sample if you wish—it's pretty nasty and never comes out of your skin—don't inhale it), and it will kill much of the animal life—including humans—in an enormous region. And an awful death it will be: The thousands of microscopic shards of volcanic glass you inhale with each breath will slash the alveoli, (air sacs within your lungs), and you will slowly and painfully drown in your own blood. If you are--I hesitate to say, "lucky"--the amount of ash you breathe in will not be fatal and you may contract fibrosis, alveolar proteinosis, epidermoid tumors, lymph node granuloma, or half-a-dozen other nasty afflictions.

Then, after a time—not a terribly long time—much of that ash will drift south into the southern hemisphere.

Somewhere in the process, the billions of tons of debris and gases—such as sulfur dioxide—the super volcano will blow into the atmosphere will block the sunlight and cause much of the Earth to freeze. Noontime will look like twilight. Snow and ice will cover the ground everywhere. A large amount of sunlight will be bounced out into interstellar space. Spring and summer as we now know it will simply not occur in many regions, perhaps for years, perhaps for generations—depending on whose models you believe. Thousands of plant and animal species with be extinct in a year or two.

Further devastation may result through the landing—perhaps hundreds or thousands of miles away—of volcanic ejecta capable of starting forest fires of a number, extent and ferocity such as man has never seen. This would further add to the sunlight-blocking material in the atmosphere, and would directly and indirectly kill even more people.

A Yellowstone super eruption certainly won't cause the mass extinctions Earth endured during the asteroid strike 65,000,000 years ago, but most humans will not survive it, simply because:

Because the vast majority of us have our food brought to us by truck and ship and plane—sometimes from many hundreds—thousand—of miles distant.

Because our water is electrically pumped to us through pipes from somewhere-or-other.

Because we depend on our heat from electricity and gas: The eruption will cause those services to fail in much of the world.

Because the infra-structure the majority of us depend on—and blithely ignore—for our very survival cannot, itself, survive such a cataclysm: Part of it will collapse due to the direct, physical assault of the eruption and the remainder will collapse because the humans who operate and service it will be dropping dead by the thousands.

The human race will not die out, but it will be a pale, sickly shadow of what it was the day before such an eruption. Those who do not die of the ash, or the cold, will simply starve, or be the victim of anything from hungry animals, suicidal depression or vicious humans fighting to save themselves.

Realistically, there won't be many of us left.

I am not generally not one to speak in anything approaching absolutes, but the bottom line is:

If there is a "super volcano" eruption in Yellowstone Park of the nature of the last one, you—reading this—almost certainly will not survive it. If there ISN'T an eruption, you are worrying for nothing.

Me? I'm not going anywhere. I see nothing to worry about now. Though if I did, well, I'd prefer the quick death of the blast wave to the slow, agonizing death the rest of civilization would have.

BTW: The "ash fallout map" which has been mentioned on many websites and forums, is perfectly circular, which is complete and utter bilge. The explosion will not be uniform, for one thing. No living human being can possibly predict the force—nor ANY—conditions of such an eruption. The eruption will not be nearly instantaneous then come to a screeching halt. The map also, and obviously, does not—cannot—take into account the speed and volume of the eruption, seasonal weather fronts, trade winds, ground winds, upper winds which vary depending on altitude, winds induced by the massive force of the eruption itself, etc, ad infinitum, ad nauseum.

If this indeed meant to be an ash fallout map, as many say, it is a complete fraud. The last Yellowstone eruption spewed major amounts of ash most of the way to the Mississippi, some all the way to the Eastern Seaboard and such ash has been identified by isotopic analysis in Europe, Asia and Africa.

Whoever came up with that map should be first publicly flogged with a copy of the "Principia Mathematica" and then relegated to a job suitable to his level of intelligence—such as flipping burgers.

Such a map would, however, serve to illustrate the proposed—and laughably ridiculous—evacuation area in the event of the imminent eruption of Yellowstone. How would such an evacuation be carried out? There’s is no way it could be carried out that I can determine. Where would all those millions of people go? Well…um…er…

I am reminded of the Civil Defense plan, several decades ago, to evacuate Kansas City in the event of a nuclear, (pronounced new-clee-er, not new-kyuu-ler), attack. Said plans had the fleeing residents on busses or driving themselves through the nuclear missile fields of Missouri and Kansas—bigger targets than Kansas City itself. Perhaps this was the governments’ way of seeming to be on top of the situation while at the same time making it unnecessary to find housing for the refugees.