Speaking of the 1%, this article at the Wall Street Journal provides me with a good opportunity to reassert what my amateur researches have suggested: that per capita carbon emissions increase sharply with income, probably exponentially. The proposals for reducing emissions tend to be regressive, that is they would fall most heavily on the lowest income earners rather than the highest.
The reality is that one meeting at Davos produces more emissions than 146 Americans do in a year. The carbon offsets which the participants claim green their meeting is unenforceable claptrap.
A 25,000 square foot home (or several of them), however efficient, will require a lot more emissions for its construction and upkeep than a 8 X 12 room, probably exponentially so. Anyone who’s serious about reducing emissions should figure out how to convince rich environmentalists to reduce their own emissions. That’s another plan I’d like to see.
It does remind me of a wry definition of “environmentalist”: someone who already owns a cabin in the woods.
There is just so much hypocrisy in the liberal democratic camps. Kerry is a prime example of a pampered rich politician, flying over in his private jet, applying a broad brush of hyperbole and criticism to climate change and skeptics — saying the former is akin to WMDs and the latter to flat earthers.
I hear there is a clown shortage in the United States. Maybe Kerry could apply for the job, as he is such a joke!
The summer of 2010 was when the wheels fell off the AWG bus. The summer of 2014 is when the AWG hoopla dies. There will be a few holdouts, but they will be pushing a political agenda.
Tasty
People are saying the reason for the AWG reruns is the administration’s desperate attempt to turn the focus away from the PPACA pot holes, fastening it once again onto a former wheel-spinner topic — global warming, aka, in evolving political-speak, as ‘climate change.’
If that doesn’t work to deflect HC criticism, there are the woes of the middle class, racism, the war on women, and so on to dwell on and divide people into warring constituencies. Of course stats showing the middle class shrinking the past 5 years, along with their income, will not enter the conversation. Neither will tidbits be revealed that Obama’s regurgitation of male/female wage disparities is erroneous, except in his own administration paychecks. Also, the congressional blame-game is always a winner for the dems, especially when they seem to successfully convey there is only one branch of Congress to disparage, when defending themselves with their low information base — a Republican-controlled House. Who knew Congress actually has two branches, with Harry Reid holding rigid sway over his Democratically-controlled Senate — one refusing to entertain most appropriation bills sent up by the House, leading to an even greater public impression, along with repudiation, of a”do nothing” Congress.
It’s a vicious cycle of deceitful gamesmanship, played by both sides, with the dems, however, demonstrating far greater skills in their political maneuvering abilities and bluffing talents than the Republicans could ever dream of mastering. Couple this with a dismal MSM, set on an automatic validation mode towards this democratic administration, the United States has dropped down to 46th in the World Press Freedom Index. Such a ranking can join all the other declines we have seen in the last 5 years, as to our standing on the world stage in various areas where we were once in the top echelon. No more….
But, hey, stay the course, for the best is yet to come!
@jan
I think what is happening is similar to how animals can sense a storm or earthquake. They know something is up, but they do not know what. The originators have gone to ground, and the supporters are left to defend an ideology they do not understand. Hence, they are left spouting “4 out of 5 scientists” blah, blah, blah.
You need to stop allowing them to frame the debate. The debate was originally “man-made global warming” or “anthropomorphological global warming” (AWG). These were their terms not mine. These terms were intentionally constructed, and they are intentionally changing them.
As of today, we believe the planet is about 4.3 billion years old, and the climate has been changing during all of those years. There never was any debate about this, and this is the reason for using this term.
The earth is oscillating between ice ages, and it is believed that this is due to a wobble in the earth’s axis (like a top). We are presently warming from the last ice age, and at some point there will be global cooling. Again, there never was any debate about this, but there is nothing man can do to stop this. Period.
The earth’s climate can be erratic for unknown reasons. During the present warming phase, something occurred to abruptly cause a sudden cooling to begin. This is known as the Little Ice Age. I am not sure if they have narrowed down the cause, but I lean towards the Gulf Stream theory.
None of this has anything to do with man-made causes, and the CO2 cause is a bust also. The CO2 levels as a percentage were much higher at an earlier time, and somehow the dinosaurs managed just fine. Actually, plant life flourished because CO2 is to plants what oxygen (O2) is to animals.
The skeptics are people who believe that humans were living with dinosaurs and driving carbon polluting cars. The skeptics are people who do not believe that we will have any more ice ages. The skeptics are people who believe that humans can overcome the physics of the earth’s axis.
I am just a realist. Humans are a tiny and infinitesimal part of this earth, but it is a really fascinating place.
A good overview of global warming, Tasty.
However, what worries me more than climate change are solar flares, falling asteroids (like the one aimed here the other night), EMP threats, and terrorists sabotaging our electrical grid. These are real and present danger issues, which warmists tend to gloss over in favor of harping on CO2 emissions, and how to shut down more clean coal plants so poor and middle class people can pay higher costs for their electricity.