Global warming, my bum

The Tribune gives us the scoop:

August is the wettest and often the muggiest month of the year. Yet, summer heat continues in short supply, continuing a trend that has dominated much of the 21st Century's opening decade. There have been only 162 days 90 degrees or warmer at Midway Airport over the period from 2000 to 2008. That's by far the fewest 90-degree temperatures in the opening nine years of any decade on record here since 1930.

This summer's highest reading to date has been just 91 degrees. That's unusual. Since 1928, only one year—2000—has failed to record a higher warm-season temperature by Aug. 13.

The Green fad may be ending

Has anyone noticed that everything everywhere is green (or should I write, Green)? I was just thinking about it last night. There I am, watching Special Report with Brit Hume, and I get pummelled with another goofy gas commericial by BP or somebody. In it, I am told that they do all kinds of things to "protect the environment".

What does that even mean? What do they mean by "environment"? Anything specific? Also, how are they "protecting" it, and from who or what? See what I mean when I write that this stuff is just plain goofy? I also think it's meant to appeal to idiots who don't think about things like this, but that's another issue.

Anyway, I was thinking about how everything has to be Green. It's so annoying. Can't anybody just sell me some gas or burgers or beer and leave it at that?

I am glad the fad is dying. And yes, environmentalists, it was always fad. I knew people were smarter than that, and they are proving me correct:

As global warming was first becoming a cause célèbre a few years ago, many serious environmentalists worried that green was in danger of becoming a fad -- something that would inevitably recede from consciousness after overtaxing our limited pop-cultural attention span.

Sad to say, that prediction shows signs of coming true. Last week, The New York Times noted that the advertising industry is pulling back from green-themed marketing, having "grasped the public's growing skepticism over ads with environmental messages.

Global warming update

This post is far too long and interesting for me to just post some excerpts, so I recommend reading the whole thing. The best part is the quoting of a physicist who demolishes the establishment opinion on global warming.

John McCain pushes me closer to the edge

John McCain is making voting for him in November more and more difficult. Obviously (to anyone who reads this space with any regularity, that is), his open-borders and pro-amnesty stance for illegal aliens is the big one. He's lately been getting worse on this issue (after his mild flirtation with enforcement that brought back his campaign last year), which was bad enough.

The other day, though, he gave a big speech on global warming. Conservatives didn't like it:

It looks like Senator McCain is going to be his own worst enemy. He’s feisty and stubborn and those attributes are showing (and not in a good way) in his refusal to compromise with conservatives on issues like global warming and illegal immigration. The more I hear from McCain, the less likely I am to vote for him. I initially intended to vote for him because he’s the Republican candidate, but with a Democratic-controlled Congress and McCain’s inclination to “reach across the aisle,” what will I get for my vote?

Exactly my thoughts. Then there is this:

The latest sign of that is the recently introduced “eco-friendly” campaign merchandise the McCain campaign has showcased on its Web site. Included are his and hers “Go Green” McCain embroidered polo shirts, T-shirts, hats and visors with or without the recycle logo. Organic cotton onesies for the babies. You can also find “Go Green” McCain tote bags, notebooks and travel mugs (with up to 100 percent recycled material and an “enhanced biodegradability additive”).

It sounds like a joke, and I wish it was. This is nauseating to me. If hippies want to get into that stuff, fine, but for the conservative party's nominee to is too much for me. Here's Rush's take:

“The troubling thing here, Senator McCain, is I’m mapping out plans here to try to persuade Republicans to eventually cross over to vote for you and this is not making it any easier,” conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh said on his May 12 show. “At some point Republicans are going to have to decide whether to cross the aisle and vote for McCain. Clearly, he’s rolling the dice in thinking that the ‘green’ community and the independents and the yutes out there will buy into this global warming business and think he’s different than the average conservative Republican and that will stand him in good stead.”

If the election was today, I'd leave the presidential spot blank.

Just in case you thought ethanol was a good idea

Think again:

You may have read about the high energy inputs necessary to squeeze corn and other materials and brew the mash into alcohol for biofuels; that it takes more energy to make the stuff than you end up with; and that the energy it takes to make it is mostly generated by burning petroleum.

And you've probably heard about the way increasing demand for alcohol fuels like E85 is driving up the cost of food. More and more land and crops formerly devoted to production of stuff to fill our gullets is turned over to production of stuff to fill our tanks, all to line the pockets of politically connected agri-business combines like Archer Daniels Midland.

But here's a new one for you: Alcohol fuels may constitute a new type of fire hazard because they are harder to extinguish than gasoline fires and require new types of fire-extinguishing equipment and training.

The problem is especially acute when a railroad tanker carrying pure alcohol is involved. The foam flame suppressants currently in use are reportedly ineffective; the fires just burn through. According to news accounts, many fire departments are either not trained to fight these alcohol fires, or inadequately equipped to do so.

Al Gore was unavailable for comment

Wonder if he's going to update all those Powerpoint presentations from his fictional documentary:

Meteorologist Anthony Watts compiled the results of all the sources. The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C -- a value large enough to erase nearly all the global warming recorded over the past 100 years. All in one year time. For all sources, it's the single fastest temperature change every recorded, either up or down.

In fairness, one year doesn't mean anything. But then a short period of 50 years doesn't either, and it didn't stop him and all of his acolytes from saying that it was guaranteed proof that irreversible global warming was happening and being caused by man.

Electric roadster

I'm no environmentalist hippie, but this car is pretty cool. It has the potential to change the way automakers think about cars that use less (or no) gas.

Upon reflection, it's not surprising that a car like this would come from a small start-up as opposed to a large company. Think of the beauracracy a GM or Toyota would throw up in the way of the development of a car like this. This line especially stuck out to me as how quickly these guys could a move to make improvements:

At the time of the ride I took in Southern California, the car had a Blaupunkt radio with an extra screen hanging below for the navigation system. Customers weren't fond of that look so it has been replaced with a JVC unit with an integrated (although considerably smaller) screen. The Tesla interior crew is currently working on a revised dashboard that will support a double-din head unit with a larger screen.

More on Hippie Biggest Loser

From Jonah Goldberg (mainly about NBC, but including this snippet):

NBC’s “Green Week” continued apace (well after this writing). Morbidly obese contestants on The Biggest Loser lugged piles of recyclable cans up ramps and into enormous collection bins. Of course, the cans were delivered to the stunt by diesel truck. So a lot of energy — and sweat! — that could have been used toward fermenting homebrew tofu, or whatever energy is supposed to be used for, was wasted on viewer schadenfreude. The winners of the challenge each received a hybrid SUV. Alas, one of the winners didn’t own a car to begin with, so the net result was one more car on the road and a little more CO2 in the air.

Ha!

That annoying Ford hybrid commercial

Some comedian makes fun of it. It's funny.

Hippie Week on The Biggest Loser

This environmentalist wacko episode is just HURTING for a takedown from me, but I'll take it easy so I don't waste three hours writing about it. It's all just so ridiculously stupid and just plain wrong. I digress, though, and I'll focus on Jillian's rant about organic food.

She claims that organic food is better for one's body than commercially-raised products due to the lack of hormones, pesticides, and whatnot. The question that this raises is why would pesticides be used in the first place? The reason is that pesticides kill germs that organic foods carry. I'd much rather avoid organics for that reason.

Also, she said it's better for the environment since all kinds of gas is not used to ship it long distances. Again, not so. It's quite economically- and fuel- efficient to ship any product in semi-truck trailers that I doubt it's better to have a farmer lug it from his farm in a pickup truck. Second, if pure efficiency is important to her, organic farming is overall much more wasteful. More land is needed for farming, and there is more spoilage and other loss due to the elimination of pesticides.

As I wrote earlier, the entire episode is ridiculous but the organic food topic was what prompted me to post. Being a good trainer does not mean you know anything about agriculture, Jillian.