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Today’s incident at Discovery Channel got me to thinking a bit about how someone evolves from your basic heathen to a guy who thinks human babies are filth and tries to take over a cable network. It’s a progressive mental illness and goes something like this:

• The Heathen:  He’s the guy who doesn’t give a crap about the earth, drops his litter wherever he wants, doesn’t recycle anything, and feels free to abuse resources at will.
• The Good Citizen:  Picks up his trash, recycles the stuff he’s supposed to, turns off lights when he’s not using them, but still drives whatever car he pleases.  Put me in this category.
• The Activist:  Picks up other people’s trash, recycles with a committed fervency, turns off lights even if he needs them, and buys a Prius because he thinks it will save the planet.
• The Evangelist:  Not only does everything The Activist does but lectures you to do the same thing lest you lead to the destruction of the planet.  “One Sheet” Sheryl Crow comes to mind with her crazy environmental contract demands.
• The Hypocrite:  Says he does everything The Activist does, preaches environmentalism like The Evangelist, but owns multiple mansions that use more energy than your average housing tract and travels the world in his fuel-gulping private jet (see Al Gore).
• The Guilt Tripper:  This is the poor sap who has become a devoted convert of The Evangelist.  His self-esteem is so small he feels he’s personally guilty for the sins of mankind against Mother Gaia and weeps at the thought of oceans rising and swallowing Pacific islands whole.  He’s a sucker and easily devolves into the more radical element listed below.
• The TV Terrorist:  Ever watch Whale Wars on the Animal Planet Channel (owned by Discovery Networks)?  A group of radical environmentalists try to stop the Japanese from conducting whaling activities that appear to be legal under international law, whether or not the Sea Shepherd people agree.  Their activities border on piracy, but because they can claim the moral high ground they get away with it.  Frankly, I don’t know why the Japanese don’t just sink them.
• The Real Terrorist:  See today at the Discover Channel Network headquarters.  Someone with an environmental bent finally goes completely off the reservation making crazy demands and taking hostages.  He pays for his mental illness with his life.

Most people are able to stop by the time they hit The Activist level. The sicker ones keep descending into madness.

First this:

The world is heading for the next major climate change conference in Cancun later this year on course for global warming of up to 3.5C in the coming century, a series of scientific analyses suggest. The failure of last December’s UN climate summit in Copenhagen means that cuts in carbon emissions pledged by the international community will not be enough to keep the anticipated warming within safe limits.

Two analyses of the Copenhagen Accord and its pledges, by Dr Sivan Kartha of the Stockholm Environment Institute, and by the Climate Action Tracker website, suggest that, with the cuts that are currently promised under Copenhagen, the world will still warm by 3.5C by 2100. Such a rise would be likely to have disastrous effects on agricultural production, water availability, natural ecosystems and sea-level rise across the world, producing tens of millions of refugees.

And then this:

A high-level inquiry into the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found there was “little evidence” for its claims about global warming.

It also said the panel had emphasised the negative impacts of climate change and made “substantive findings” based on little proof.

I think I’ll go with number 2.

Geez:

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other officials are pointing to the devastating floods in Pakistan and other extreme weather events as signs that climate change is getting worse.

Clinton, in an interview with Pakistan’s Dawn TV, said “there is a linkage” between the recent spate of deadly natural disasters and climate change.

“You can’t point to any particular disaster and say, ‘it was caused by,’ but we are changing the climate of the world,” she said.

Clinton said that on top of the Pakistan floods, which have forced millions out of their homes, the forest fires in Russia stand as another example. She said there’s no “direct link” between the disasters in Pakistan and Russia but that “when you have the changes in climate that affect weather that we’re now seeing, I think the predictions of more natural disasters are unfortunately being played out.”

Climate change skeptics say the planet is going through natural phases — the kind it’s gone through for eons. Pakistan, in particular, is prone to flooding and is routinely drenched by the monsoon rains. Some officials have partially blamed deforestation and inferior levee systems for the historic flooding which has affected one-fifth of the country’s landmass and triggered nearly a half-billion dollars in international aid commitments.

If it is global warming then the forest fires in Russia are Mother Gaia’s way of cooling things off since they put tremendous amounts of particulates into the atmosphere which will then reflect more sunlight and reduce temperatures.

See, I can play that game too.

By the way, the longest heat wave on record?  The Marble Bar heatwave in 1923-24. 

Hope. Change.:

References to a cap on carbon emissions and a campaign pledge to spend $150 billion on clean energy technologies disappeared from the White House website in June — even as the Senate was still trying to pass legislation implementing those priorities.

Peter Bray, president of Versionista, a Portland, Ore.-based company that tracks changes to the White House site, said the Obama administration made “whole-cloth” changes to its Energy & Environment issues site on June 10.

Deleted items include a section titled “Closing the Carbon Loophole and Cracking Down on Polluters” that offered broad-brush goals for “protecting American consumers” and “promoting U.S. competitiveness.”

Also eliminated was President Barack Obama’s oft-repeated campaign call to spend $150 billion over a decade on “energy research and development to transition to a clean energy economy.”…

The website changes came with little fanfare at the same time that environmental groups were pleading with Obama to take a more proactive role to find the votes for a sweeping climate bill. The president’s prime-time address from the Oval Office on June 15 drew criticism from activists when he didn’t mention the words “carbon,” “greenhouse gases,” “global warming” or “cap and trade.”

I’m thinking the White House knows now what a loser those ideas are and wants them out of the way for the midterms in November. Better to let Harry Reid and his energy bill swing on his own out there rather than join him in his political suicide.

Poor Al Gore. With little evidence of global warming to be found and various “massage therapists” coming out to report on his “chakra” issues, he’s become quite irrelevant. That’s hard for a guy who was once hailed as the great savior of the world.

Today’s he’s trying to rekindle a spark of recognition among the global warming crowd with a call for protests:

Former Vice President Gore is calling for major rallies to protest congressional inaction on climate change.

In a post on his personal blog headlined “The Movement We Need,” Gore linked to and quoted from an Australian wire service report that “tens of thousands of protesters … have taken to the streets across Australia to urge the major political parties to take action on climate change.”

“Across the world, when politicians fail to take action to solve the climate crisis, people are taking action,” Gore wrote.

He added after excerpting the news report: “It is my hope we see activism like this here in the United States.”

Sorry, Al, but after nearly two years of Obama we’re just not as susceptible to the cries of false prophets anymore.

Pat Sajak, TV game show host and former TV weatherman, has a good idea about global warming enthusiasts:

Manmade global warming, like so many other social and economic issues, has become hopelessly politicized. Each side has dug in its heels and has accused the other of acting irresponsibly and dishonestly. For the believers, the other side has become the equivalent of Holocaust deniers; and for the doubters, the other side has become a cult intent on manipulating mankind to remake the world in some sort of natural Utopian image.

The divide has become so great, it seems virtually impossible to bridge the gap. However, I’m not writing for Ricochet merely to outline problems; I’m here to offer real solutions. And I’m not just blowing carbon dioxide.

Let’s assume that a third of the world’s population really believes mankind has the power to adjust the Earth’s thermostat through lifestyle decisions. The percentage may be higher or lower, but, for the sake of this exercise, let’s put it at one-third. Now it seems to me these people have a special obligation to change their lives dramatically because they truly believe catastrophe lies ahead if they don’t. The other two-thirds are merely ignorant, so they can hardly be blamed for their actions.

Now, if those True Believers would give up their cars and big homes and truly change the way they live, I can’t imagine that there wouldn’t be some measurable impact on the Earth in just a few short years. I’m not talking about recycling Evian bottles, but truly simplifying their lives. Even if you were, say, a former Vice President, you would give up extra homes and jets and limos. I see communes with organic farms and lives freed from polluting technology.

Then, when the rest of us saw the results of their actions—you know, the earth cooling, oceans lowering, polar bears frolicking and glaciers growing—we would see the error of our ways and join the crusade voluntarily and enthusiastically.

There’s more a the link.

I still remember when he was the weather guy on Channel 4 in Los Angeles one day he was standing in front of the satellite map and said it was so clear out you could see all the state lines.

The global warming crowd wants you to believe the Earth is burning to a cinder, but could it be their data collection methods are bogus?

The world is hotter than ever.
March, April, May and June set records, making 2010 the warmest year worldwide since record-keeping began in 1880, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says.

“It’s part of an overall trend,” says Jay Lawrimore, climate analysis chief at NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center. “Global temperatures … have been rising for the last 100-plus years. Much of the increase is due to increases in greenhouse gases.”…

Joe D’Aleo, a meteorologist who co-founded The Weather Channel, disagrees, too. He says oceans are entering a cooling cycle that will lower temperatures.

He says too many of the weather stations NOAA uses are in warmer urban areas.

“The only reliable data set right now is satellite,” D’Aleo says.

He says NASA satellite data shows the average temperature in June was 0.43 degrees higher than normal. NOAA says it was 1.22 degrees higher.

At Watts Up With That, a blog run by a professional meteorologist, there has been a long running series of posts showing weather sites around the U.S. and elsewhere located in areas where the air temperature readings can be affected by nearby asphalt roads and parking lots, or reflected heat from buildings. Because urban areas tend to collect heat thanks to all the buildings and roads, these stations are not giving reliable information.

Mother Gaia will continue to regulate her own temperatures with or without our help.  We know there were periods in the earth’s history when the climate was much wetter and warmer and there wasn’t a man or carbon-spewing man-made creation in sight.  We can’t change what the earth is going to do, and neither can we “fix” it.

On the Los Angeles Channel 4 evening news tonight weatherman Fritz Coleman showed some interesting statistics.  In Los Angeles and many other communities in the area the average temperature for the first 11 days in January was warmer than the average temperature for the first 11 days in July.

Did the poles switch?  Are we now in the Southern Hemisphere?

Darned global warming.

Five years ago today I stood outside the gates of the White House waiting for a tour that unfortunately never happened (that story is here).  The remnants of a Gulf hurricane had blown north into D.C. and the humidity and heat were off the charts.  Even at 7 o’clock in the morning it was absolutely brutal.  When we found out our tour was canceled we headed over to the White House Visitor’s Center across the street and was greeted with blessed air conditioning.  When the door opened and I was hit with that cold blast all I wanted to do was stand there and bask in the hurricane of cool heaven pouring from the building.

Today in the Washington Post Stan Cox tries to make the case that the country needs to stop using air conditioning to save the planet from global warming.  While he didn’t convince me in the least that America needs to do without, he did make a good case for ending air conditioning in D.C.:

Washington didn’t grind to a sweaty halt last week under triple-digit temperatures. People didn’t even slow down. Instead, the three-day, 100-plus-degree, record-shattering heat wave prompted Washingtonians to crank up their favorite humidity-reducing, electricity-bill-busting, fluorocarbon-filled appliance: the air conditioner.

This isn’t smart. In a country that’s among the world’s highest greenhouse-gas emitters, air conditioning is one of the worst power-guzzlers. The energy required to air-condition American homes and retail spaces has doubled since the early 1990s. Turning buildings into refrigerators burns fossil fuels, which emits greenhouse gases, which raises global temperatures, which creates a need for — you guessed it — more air-conditioning.

A.C.’s obvious public-health benefits during severe heat waves do not justify its lavish use in everyday life for months on end. Less than half a century ago, America thrived with only the spottiest use of air conditioning. It could again. While central air will always be needed in facilities such as hospitals, archives and cooling centers for those who are vulnerable to heat, what would an otherwise A.C.-free Washington look like?

At work

In a world without air conditioning, a warmer, more flexible, more relaxed workplace helps make summer a time to slow down again. Three-digit temperatures prompt siestas. Code-orange days mean offices are closed. Shorter summer business hours and month-long closings — common in pre-air-conditioned America — return.

Business suits are out, for both sexes. And with the right to open a window, office employees no longer have to carry sweaters or space heaters to work in the summer. After a long absence, ceiling fans, window fans and desk fans (and, for that matter, paperweights) take back the American office.

Best of all, Washington’s biggest business — government — is transformed. In 1978, 50 years after air conditioning was installed in Congress, New York Times columnist Russell Baker noted that, pre-A.C., Congress was forced to adjourn to avoid Washington’s torturous summers, and “the nation enjoyed a respite from the promulgation of more laws, the depredations of lobbyists, the hatching of new schemes for Federal expansion and, of course, the cost of maintaining a government running at full blast.”

Post-A.C., Congress again adjourns for the summer, giving “tea partiers” the smaller government they seek. During unseasonably warm spring and fall days, hearings are held under canopies on the Capitol lawn. What better way to foster open government and prompt politicians to focus on climate change?

Of course, the writer ignores the fact that just about every office-type building built in the last 50 years was built with air conditioning in mind and doesn’t have any windows that can be opened. That certainly would complicate his plan.

However, the idea of a Congress restricted to cooler months would be a blessed relief for America.  And while we’re at it, let’s take away their heat too so they can’t meet during the coldest part of the winter and pass stupid things like Obamacare on Christmas Eve like they did last year.

Byron York has a very detailed retelling of what happened between a randy Al Gore and a masseuse hired by the hotel to…er, um, service him. I won’t give you all the “gory” details, but I will give you this paragraph that I found interesting. It describes what happened shortly after the woman got away from what she described as a “sex crazed poodle”:

Finally she got away. Later, she talked to friends, liberals like herself, who advised against telling police. One asked her “to just suck it up; otherwise, the world’s going to be destroyed from global warming.”

Take one for old Mother Gaia, dearie.