January 14, 2009

Drudge draws national attention to Madison's planned "climate change" ordinances.



The link goes to a business website that freaks out about "central planning gone wild" and "draconian" regulation that would "dramatically limit free enterprise and personal liberty":
According to the “Broad Strategies” section of a meeting agenda recently posted on the City of Madison Web site, an ordinance being considered would force city zoning to account for and mitigate climate change:
10. Zoning should adapt to meet the demands of climate change; use zoning to address or mitigate effects, or adapt to climate change; remove any barriers to mitigating the effects, adapting to climate change (trees, green space, mobility, renewable energy, land use).
I guess a lot more people will want to live here if things warm up.
Another item in the “Broad Strategies” section has a grim outlook for the future. It includes a proposal that spells out a doomsday scenario – allowing for the city to function should shortages in energy and food occur:
11. Write the code to allow the city to function when automobile travel will be severely limited and oil-related products, including food and heating fuel, become prohibitively expensive because of the scarcity and high-cost of fuel.
Don't you want your town's ordinances to become more science fiction-y?

69 comments:

KCFleming said...

That item is funnier when placed next to tomorrow's temp in Madison: -6°F.

Oh, I'm sorry.
It's climate change now, is it?
Never mind, they've got all the possibilities covered. Resistance, as they say, is futile.

Ron said...

Clearly, zombies in Madison are lobbying. They can't "come out" and declare their love of the brain-eating, but they want the city to give them cover for the occasional pre-frontal "gnosh."

Crimso said...

I recommend a reading of the works of Frank Herbert.

chickelit said...

What a Madison non-story. I'll bet you Drudge is just tweeking your site on it's birthday--seeing if you'd link.

I'm Full of Soup said...

."oil-related products ...like heating oil become prohibitively expensive because ........of high-cost of fuel."

That is like explaining the Eagles victory by saying they scored more points than the other team.

Balfegor said...

Clearly, zombies in Madison are lobbying. They can't "come out" and declare their love of the brain-eating, but they want the city to give them cover for the occasional pre-frontal "gnosh."

Unfortunately, this zoning proposal does not include adequate provision for anti-zombie safeguards. Like barriers to enable easier quarantine of infected portions of the city and regularly spaced weapons caches to enable citizens to defend themselves more effectively in case of zombie attack.

It is also weak on readiness for alien attack.

Wince said...

The power grab perpetrated via the fraud of AGW is slowly being revealed, tellingly by the new "climate change" mantra, which is specific neither to cause nor to direction of temperature.

The wording of the Madison ordinance, which repeatedly says "climate change," reminds me of the disclaimer on this ad.

Do not taunt climate change.

joewxman said...

"That is like explaining the Eagles victory by saying they scored more points than the other team."


I have a brother in law that to this day says that dallas losing to the giants was only because they scored less points than the other team.

John Stodder said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
John Stodder said...

Absent human influence, it could well be that the earth is entering a cooling phase. Indeed, that phase might be a matter of earth returning to a state it has achieved many times before -- of a big snowball, with glaciers reaching the equator. It might never been as warm as it is now again for tens of thousands of years.

If so, what does that make policies like Madison's? Still justifiable on the basis that we shouldn't interfere with these natural processes? Or by continuing to allow global warming by building houses farther apart, selling more SUVs, and doing a lot more Google searches, do we have a chance to hang onto the status quo for a few hundred more years? Would that make us arrogant?

In other words, it could well be that global warming is real, but is in the process of being offset by a far more powerful trend going in the other direction. If so, what's the correct moral position with respect to global warming?

John Stodder said...

P.S. Ironically, given the blame for global warming is being placed on humans, the most prominent victims of global warming will also be humans in the built environments along the coasts, like New York, Miami, San Francisco, Seattle and Los Angeles.

Is saving such cities really worth it? I mean, if you're talking polar bears, that's one thing. But humans? In cities? Ewww.

Donna B. said...

We all need to start buying carbon credits and renewable energy tags NOW!

The only way to prevent the disaster of climate change is to line the right pockets.

Crimso said...

"If so, what does that make policies like Madison's? Still justifiable on the basis that we shouldn't interfere with these natural processes? Or by continuing to allow global warming by building houses farther apart, selling more SUVs, and doing a lot more Google searches, do we have a chance to hang onto the status quo for a few hundred more years? Would that make us arrogant?"

Yes. For some thought-provoking musings on such issues, I would again recommend a reading of the works of Frank Herbert. For someone who was not a classically-trained scientist, he had some brilliant insights on science and its relationship to other aspects of life.

garage mahal said...

Whatever we do I hope to God we don't rely on thermometers and scientists trained in this field to inform us what do. Maybe Tito the Builder as Climate Czar?

George M. Spencer said...

"[Princeton physics professor William] Happer explained that his beliefs about climate change come from his experience at the Department of Energy, at which Happer said he supervised all non-weapons energy research, including climate change research. Managing a budget of more than $3 billion, Happer said he felt compelled to make sure it was being spent properly. “I would have [researchers] come in, and they would brief me on their topics,” Happer explained. “They would show up. Shiny faces, presentation ready to go. I would ask them questions, and they would be just delighted when you asked. That was true of almost every group that came in.”

The exceptions were climate change scientists, he said.

“They would give me a briefing. It was a completely different experience. I remember one speaker who asked why I wanted to know, why I asked that question. So I said, you know I always ask questions at these briefings … I often get a much better view of [things] in the interchange with the speaker,” Happer said. “This guy looked at me and said, ‘What answer would you like?’ I knew I was in trouble then. This was a community even in the early 1990s that was being turned political. [The attitude was] ‘Give me all this money, and I’ll get the answer you like.’ ”

TitusRenalFailure said...

This is a true story. My mid afternoon loaf was the color green.

Every now and then I pinch green loaves.

TitusRenalFailure said...

It was the kind of loaf where I was walking on the street and had to sprint into a hotel and ran to the bathroom, pulled my pants down and just sprayed it. You know what I am talking about. Not sure whether or not you are going to make it to the can. That is way too much strees for one day.

Almost all of the bathrooms at the hotels in New York are cruisy. I didn't have time to see if there were more than one pair of shoes in the stalls beside me. I was too focused. But afterwards I thought to myself, "did I ruin a couple's intimate moment".

The entire toilet wreaked from my green loaf.

Wide Boy Agamemnon said...

Not completely off topic... but my wife, teenage daughter & I will be in Madison this weekend – any suggestions on touristy things to do, places to go, places to stay? ("Freezing" is not good option – we can do that at home.) Thanks!

JohnAnnArbor said...

Someone should sue Madison under the establishment clause for basing ordinances on religious belief.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

The entire toilet wreaked from my green loaf

Bile and liver problems.

TitusRenalFailure said...

I have a story to tell.

I had a major "drama attack" recently and I am finally coming out of it.

It involves a married man that I dated for years-married to a woman. Well I just found out he is no longer married, living in San Francisco and has busted the door open. He is in gay sports groups and is on board of directors of gay things. He and his wife only divorced 3 years ago. I am not on anything gay and I have been out forever. Oh and to make matters worse he is a doctor-that hurts.



I am going to not use names to protect the guilty.

When I was 21 I was living in Boston and met a guy who was married to a women. He was 28. He was working in research at one of the Boston hospitals. I was going to be graduating from college and he had just got accepted into one of the medical schools in Boston. After graduation from college I was going to move to San Francisco but he convinced me to stay in Boston while he and his wife got a "divorce". Well that didn't happen. He ended up telling his wife that he was gay but that he never "acted on it" which was a lie. I went through this charrade for a couple of years and then ended up moving to San Francisco. He continued to call me. He ended up getting his residency or internship in Ct. He and his wife continued to stay together. He then got a position in Florida as a doctor and they moved there. I had not heard from him in years.

I have been having really fucked up dreams and had one about him. So in the middle of the night I googled him. I found out he got divorced, moved to San Francisco, is practicing medicine a block from the Castro and now is on every gay sports team and really gay. Not "really gay" like looking gay just really gay in actively participating in gay stuff. He is actually really butch-added benefit. He did this all in the past three years. How fucking gay is that?

And yes, I found multiple pictures of him on some gay sporting team with a trophy, or cookout or water event. He looks exactly the same. Oh and he was really hot.

My drama was where was my fucking call when he decided to become all gay? Sure, I wouldn't of wanted to be some gay tutor to the new gay but I would of appreciated a call saying I am divorced and now ready to be your lover. I would of said no because he always wanted to do "gay stuff". Gay bars, gay this, gay that. I was like bitch I am not your gay tour guide.

The sad thing is he is now experiencing this all at the age of 45. Sure it is fine to go to all the clubs and shit when you are 21-30 but at 45 it can be a hard sell. Needless to say I am sure he has been very succesful, did I mention that he was hot?

TitusRenalFailure said...

I think my loaf was green because I had a smoothie with grass and creatine and a bunch of stuff that made the smoothie look green.

Anonymous said...

Just when I thought loony bin lefties had run out of new things to tax they invited a new big lie--that planet is getting warmer and CO2 is the cause of it. If you pretend you are saving the planet, there is no limit to how much you can tax people. From here on out, everything we do, from popping the cork on a bottle of wine to unwrapping a condom (think disposal fee, as with used tires), is going to cost more money. And all for a non-existent problem. The planet's getting cooler, not hotter and CO2 isn't the cause anyway.

JohnAnnArbor said...

Titus, you may be interested in Teutonic toilet technology, based on numerous past comments of yours.

TitusRenalFailure said...

I guess the biggest shocker of my story is San Francisco. That is intense. He could of picked anywhere to practice medicine but he chose San Francisco and not just San Francisco but the Castro. I mean wow. That blows me away. He really went all out. That is serious. He had a goal. He was determined. I didn't even live in the Castro. I actually think it is kind of gross although it has changed and it much more gentrified than it was.

Cedarford said...

In more important news, Ricardo Montalban died.
Whatta guy! Loved him as a kid, in Fantasy Island with all those Chrysler car commercials about "reeech Kor-Eeenth-Ian leth-or".

Then my Dad took us and some friends to see "Star Trek, Wrath of Khan"...where Ricardo chewed up any scene he was in. One of the best Sci-Fi movies ever, especially with the passage of time. Right up there with Bladerunner, which also came out about then...

They gave Ricardo some great villain lines. From IMDB:

Joachim: They're still running with shields down.
Khan: Of course! We are one big, happy fleet! Ah, Kirk, my old friend, do you know the Klingon proverb that tells us revenge is a dish that is best served cold?
[pause]
Khan: It is very cold in space!


You have defeated the plans of Admiral Kirk. You do not need to defeat him again.
Khan: He tasks me. He tasks me and I shall have him! I'll chase him 'round the moons of Nibia and 'round the Antares Maelstrom and 'round Perdition's flames before I give him up!


Khan, [about to put Ceti Eels in Terrell and Chekov's ears]
Khan: You see, their young enter through the ears and wrap themselves around the cerebral cortex. This has the effect of rendering the victim extremely susceptible to suggestion. Later, as they grow, follows madness and death.
Chekov: Khan, listen to me...
Khan: These are pets, of course. Not quite domesticated.


Khan: I've done far worse than kill you, Admiral. I've hurt you. And I wish to go on hurting you. I shall leave you as you left me, as you left her; marooned for all eternity in the center of a dead planet... buried alive! Buried alive...!
Kirk: KHAAANNNN!
[echo]
Kirk: KHAAANNNN!


No Oscar nomination, but one of the best Baddies ever!

Dead at 88. Proud lifelong citizen of Mexico. Rich career, spent most of his life in superb physical shape as a horseman. Pope Paul II was a fan.

**********
Patrick McGoohan also died same day. Most his stuff was before my time, but I have to say the DVR set from "The Prisoner" seen 40 years later, was pretty interesting.

TitusRenalFailure said...

I hope his wife got a lot of money in the divorce.

The Drill SGT said...

John is correct.

The question is, can you get a Teutonic technology Green (e.g.) low flow, EPA compliant toilet for installation in NYC?

However, a Kraut toilet beats an AYrab toilet in all ways:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOq7LePcnWs

chuck b. said...

I don't go the Castro a lot myself, but I don't think the place has changed all that much in recent years, esp. wrt/ gentrification.

In a small town like San Francisco, it would be so very easy to use the information Titus provided to track this doctor down and perhaps get to the bottom (so to speak) of this mysterious Titus.

After all, it's a small town and everyone knows everyone. I could just e-mail people I know on the Tsumami swim team, or Swimming with Balls (water polo) and ask them if this doctor sounds at all familiar to anyone, etc. I could e-mail people I know at Davies Medical Center and ask them about sporty new doctors.

I could be talking to this person in no time at all.

It's like Titus wants to be unmasked.

Cedarford said...

Sorry Titus, in saying Montalban was more important....I didn't mean to diminish your regular "status of my crap" posts.

I'm sure your coprophilia is important to you, and your studies of it.
Germans, if you didn't know, are also anal people. When you visit Deutschland, you notice that German toilets frequently have a feature that no other shitters have - a sort of shelf - where turds don't "splash down" submerge and stop stinking up a place - but sit on this shelf until flushed.

I was told that Germans are keen on examining and whiffing their turds for any sign of shape, color, or odor "irregularities" that threaten the "order of things" happening in their body. Also to see from fragments of meals if peristalsis is working to German standards, and bowel movements are satisfactorily on schedule. Being even a bit too early or late - "Das iss jvust wrong"!

I believe you can special order a German toilet. Perhaps it would improve your examinations and the reports you deliver on Althouse's blog.

Of course, errr...you're being gay..a question..Does fudgepacking interfere with your schedule or mar the normal shape from lozenge to sort of a bunched-up, dickhead cratered, round chocolate-covered baseball shape? Or resemble a beaten to death gerbil?

Palladian can answer, but as a gay teacher, he appears to favor smoking young guy's salami over the Hershey Highway. He may not be able to address this question...

Michael Haz said...

I sense a commonality of themes. Shit and the Madison City Council's planned climate change ordinance.

John Althouse Cohen said...

Do not taunt climate change.

Ironically, the right's whole strategy on the environment is: taunt climate change.

Palladian said...

"In a small town like San Francisco, it would be so very easy to use the information Titus provided to track this doctor down and perhaps get to the bottom (so to speak) of this mysterious Titus...

It's like Titus wants to be unmasked."

I know Titus' name, where he works and even have a picture of him and a clumber.

But I'm an honorable man and would never reveal it to anyone. Unless I get upset with him or something...

Palladian said...

I once tried to give Cedarford a blowjob but just couldn't go through with it after he handed me a jeweler's loupe and a pair of forceps and said, apologetically, "You'll need these".

chuck b. said...

I'm an honorable man too!

But it's wrong to assume that everyone else is.

Anyway, I'm not currently bored enough to bother. And I don't want to destroy the dream.


I might need to google clumber tho'.

Nichevo said...

C4:

1) While it is your stock in trade to mock those who are different from you,

a) Nobody here needs you to tell them that Montalban had an accent

b) His English diction and vocabulary nevertheless exceed yours

2) You seem to know a little bit too much, about pushed-in turds, for a straight guy. NTTAWWT - but then why hate on Palladian?

3) If you can believe a word Titus says, he is always the pitcher, never the catcher, so would have no personal experience (unless he observes his partners' feces) with the impact of, well, impaction.

4) OH NOES on Mr. O'Rourke, but also The Prisoner died? Danger Man? Hells no! BTW, on AMC you can now watch all 17 eps of The Prisoner online. amctv.com.

Chip Ahoy said...

They left out what you can spread on your crackers, and what kind of crackers are acceptable, and what hours of the day you can eat them and how many. Tisk, tisk. They're not trying hard enough.

Palladian said...

"Do not taunt climate change.

Ironically, the right's whole strategy on the environment is: taunt climate change."

Not being a member of "the right" I can't comment on their behavior regarding "climate change". But people who understand and respect science and humanism, people like me and many other commenters here, have a bad habit of mocking those who naively practice magical thinking and who view humanity as a malignant fungus growing on virginal Mother Earth. I didn't become an anarchic libertarian in order to allow so-called liberals to preach and moralize and condemn me for my supposedly sinful choices. Hence why so many of us like to mock people who cry at tree stumps and compost excrement in their 2000 square foot lofts in Soho.

Environmentalism, as practiced by the political left, is Puritanism for people that don't believe in God anymore.

Actually, strike that. Puritans are too often unfairly maligned. It's profoundly disrespectful of me to compare a consistent and rigorous philosophical system like Puritanism with something as hare-brained, naive, cynical and stupid as leftist environmentalism.

Palladian said...

"NTTAWWT - but then why hate on Palladian?"

Because I am not afraid to denounce him as a blowhard, a Jew-hater, a collectivist, a fascist and a boring, repetitive writer at every opportunity. Therefore I'm subjected to intimations that I'm a pedophile and a pervert, that I have sex with my students, etc. This is possible because, unlike Cedarford, I don't have to hide my identity like a chickenshit coward. I say what I want to say and accept the consequences of being a non-anonymous commenter. Cedarford gets to hurl his big, grey, boringly featureless, rock-like comments from the safety of darkness. I don't really care, since I love to parry his blunt little missives and thrust with my own sharp foil. If you know what I mean...

TitusRenalFailure said...

I was reluctant to write about that doctor but he is out now so it is not really unmasking him. Palladian does know who I am, so does Althouse.

I didn't give his specialty or anything like that and he is out. He wouldn't even know how to get a hold of me. You can't even google me-not a trace. No phone, just a cell that is pretty untraceable. I like it that way. Friends always want to invite me to be their facebook friend and get on this site I am like fuck no. The less people know about me the better. There really isn't that much to know anyways. Also, my name is really common and there are millions with the same name-thousands in my city.

Automatic_Wing said...

Not to worry. When (not if) we enter the next glacial period, Madison will once again be under 30 feet of ice and all will be well.

Palladian said...

Can I post a heavily cropped picture of the clumber?

TitusRenalFailure said...

Cedarford so interested in gay's sex? I don't bottom so I don't have that problem and I don't even know if bottoms have a problem of "fudge packing".

TitusRenalFailure said...

yes you can Palladian.

TitusRenalFailure said...

I see the guy across the street in the apartment every night but have never seen him outside.

That is kind of weird.

chickelit said...

Cedarford said:
I was told that Germans are keen on examining and whiffing their turds for any sign of shape, color, or odor "irregularities" that threaten the "order of things" happening in their body.

ganz richtig. Some Germans have also been known to fondly count and name their turds, and to delight in the appearance of "twins" = Zwillinge.

TitusRenalFailure said...

Germans are weird. There is a German who lives in my building. He is straight but wears these very small shorts during the summer. He bikes to work and always has some major bike outfit for the ride to work. Two summers ago he would wear a tie and no shirt and walk to work-with shorts too. On the condo website he sometimes tells us when he is having a girl over so none of us should disturb him. Yes, I may say weird things here but I would never to people that I see live or that live in my building. Thank God for the internet.

sonicfrog said...

I didn't become an anarchic libertarian in order to allow so-called liberals to preach and moralize and condemn me for my supposedly sinful choices. Hence why so many of us like to mock people who cry at tree stumps and compost excrement in their 2000 square foot lofts in Soho.


Best example... Cameron Diaz's noble shit huts!

At least in Madison you can still use your fireplace. Here in Central California, due to environmental regulations, we can't, except for the few days during the winter when the Air Quality Board gives us permission.

Jason (the commenter) said...

I hope they remember to zone in the Soilent Green plant. Tons of green collar jobs, small carbon footprint, and it will definitely help when food becomes prohibitively expensive.

chickelit said...

Here in Central California, due to environmental regulations, we can't, except for the few days during the winter when the Air Quality Board gives us permission.

Not so down here. But shooting a BB gun outside your property is a full on firearms violation.

Palladian said...

I bring you a photo of one of the actual RARE CLUMBERS!

Cedarford said...

Nichevo, don't go PC. I said I loved Montalbon and his accent - and his "reeel Kor-eenth-ian leth-or" remark was once of the most widely repeated lines ever from TV advertising.
**************
As for Palladian, he likes doing a sucker punch out of the blue now and then on me, and I enjoy reciprocating.
***************
chickenlittle got into the appropriate "flavor" of German's and Titus's coprophilia.
When I think of Renee Zellwegger, I think "Zwillingers"...will have to purge the thought of turd twins from my head after a little amusement on it. And the thoughts of a gerbil in Palladians butt found by ER staff to be clubbed to death with a blunt instrument - since he is getting huffy about remarks on his salami smoking lately...
"Ja, look Hans!" "Vat iss it, Heidi?" "Unt der bowl, identical zwillingers! Look, perfect - iss it not so!" "Ja! ja!!!"

Unknown said...

> Pope Paul II was a fan.

Paul II? Goodness, Señor Montalban was a lot older than I thought!

Cedarford said...

Good catch Jess, John Paul II!

traditionalguy said...

Pope Alvin the Gore is infallible. Therefore you mere humans better buy your carbon indulgences before the price goes up. The new papal states/vatican needs to build more additions to the Gigantic East Tennessee holy sites. Oh never mind, just stick to city Tree Ordinances which while a ridiculous charade, as if trees were in any danger, does fund government jobs and landscape architects jobs all of whom are Americans now in need of work.

Nichevo said...

Hmm, well, there is no kind of porn like German porn...il faut souffrir pour etre super-freaky? Perhaps it is a professional requirement.

Or maybe they are using it to collect smuggled items from stool...

That's fine about the accent, C4, just let's not make the gentleman out to be another Senor Wences. I maintain that you seem to know a little more about some things than is good for you.

Jason (the commenter) said...

JAC:

"Do not taunt climate change.

Ironically, the right's whole strategy on the environment is: taunt climate change."

Don't forget: they started taunting "global warming," and now people don't use that phrase anymore.

Besides, none of this is very scientific. If the climate change people want my respect they need to produce valid predictions. They have not done that yet.

They can barely tell the weather in a week. But THAT is science and I wouldn't make fun of someone who followed that advice.

rhhardin said...

I always advise against incorporating townships, because it attracts busybodies, handwringers and hysterics to local government service.

garage mahal said...

Palladian.....
Environmentalism, as practiced by the political left, is Puritanism for people that don't believe in God anymore.

As if it takes faith in a fucking god to observe mercury readings or watch time lapse satellite photographs of retreating glaciers and polar ice caps! You hate a group of people so bad you'd actually prefer to swim up to you eyeballs in sea water and nuclear waste rather than ever admit they were right. And if that happened you'd be blaming them for it the whole time.

Palladian said...

"As if it takes faith in a fucking god to observe mercury readings or watch time lapse satellite photographs of retreating glaciers and polar ice caps! You hate a group of people so bad you'd actually prefer to swim up to you eyeballs in sea water and nuclear waste rather than ever admit they were right. And if that happened you'd be blaming them for it the whole time."

Wow, you're a lot stupider than I suspected. Nuclear waste? Sea water? Blaming who?

I hope the end is near. It's generally urban leftists who are least prepared to defend themselves and survive without Mommy Government coming to save them.

Automatic_Wing said...

As if it takes faith in a fucking god to observe mercury readings or watch time lapse satellite photographs of retreating glaciers and polar ice caps!

About those polar ice caps, why not take a look for yourself:

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/

Looks like a lot of ice to me. In any case, melting all the sea ice in the ocean would not raise sea level one centimeter.

Palladian said...

"As if it takes faith in a fucking god..."

Don't put your faith in a fucking god.

Automatic_Wing said...

Let me try to link that:

Ice Cap Pictures

Ice caps disappearing? Decide for yourself.

Wince said...

JAC said...

Ironically, the right's whole strategy on the environment is: taunt climate change.


Actually, I think it's the green "environmental movement" (h/t Titus) that is attempting to "attack" the "problem" of "climate change."

In the fashion of a Bizarro Don Quixote tilting at the weather with windmills.

Most critics of AGW don't doubt there is actual climate change. Indeed, they are the ones who accept that climate change is the status quo. What they are is skeptical of those who propose radical changes, the extent of the human cause and the cost-benefit of attempting to alter it.

Titus said...

I think my loaf was green because I had a smoothie with grass and creatine and a bunch of stuff that made the smoothie look green.


Ya think?

Speaking of the green environmental "movement."

John Althouse Cohen said...

Actually, I think it's the green "environmental movement" (h/t Titus) that is attempting to "attack" the "problem" of "climate change."

Have you been reading Jonathan Chait for tips on how to write like a Wall St. Journal editorial?

John Burgess said...

Drill SGT: Not to go all PC on you, but the 'bear prints and a bombsight' toilets aren't actually Arab. I've seen and had to use them from Italy east to Tokyo.

If it cheers you up, you can consider that the squat toilet was an advancement over what Arabs had before its arrival.

Wince said...

JAC,

Honestly, I think the "scare quotes" are always "bad" meme is an article of faith, much like AGW.

Notice my two uses of scare quotes above. The scare quotes around the term "scare quotes" is meant to illustrate that its the opposing party's own widely used words or stated position to which I refer. Not a specific quote, necessarily, but language and the self-identified position of the group to whom I refer. I really don't see the problem with using quotes in this fashion, especially when faced with demonstrating so painstakingly obvious a point as it's the environmental movement, not AGW skeptics, that inveigh against climate change.

I think the second set of scare quotes I put around "bad" can be criticized in the manner of Chait, because it's nothing but a loaded term meant to question the value system of the opposing party.

Notice, my use of the scare quotes in my original comment all were meant to illustrate the language and positions adopted by the group to whom I was trying to identify to say that in fact it is they who purport to "taunt climate change."

Crimso said...

"Ironically, the right's whole strategy on the environment is: taunt climate change."

I may or may not be on the right (matter of perspective), but I am a scientist. I know shaky science when I see it.

Howard said...

W.F. Buckley pegged the environmental movement as a fetish. More reminiscent of the Salem Witch trials than Puritans, the current explosion of Green Climate Change hysteria will fade into the past as an embarrassing anecdote.

It is important to remember that we are currently living in a Glacial Epoch. For more than 25 million years, the world climate has been dominated by ice. This is not the usual earthly condition.

Civilization exploded with the melting of the massive continental glaciers. No matter what we do, these slabs of ice will once again steam roll over the land. This will result in lower crop production and higher energy demand.

Is carbon dioxide responsible for the 20th century warming trend? I don't know, maybe 20%, maybe it stunted the natural warming due to negative feedbacks. No one knows. The scientists who model these things are still in the caveman era of understanding therefore, their results are not reliable.

Should we lower our carbon spewing into the atmosphere? I say no, we should increase planting to stabilize carbon dioxide levels.

The main environmental issues that should get our attention includes:

1)human and agricultural waste runoff to oceans which cause anoxic dead zones. This is very very bad, we know what causes it and can use existing technology to fix it.

2)burning of coal in China and India create global air pollution that includes radiation (much more than any nuke leaks), mercury, carbon soot and fine particulates. Clean coal should focus on removing these real pollutants, not the fertilizer carbon dioxide.

3)mismanagement of fresh water resources. The worlds largest aquifer that irrigates the bread basket and corn belt is drying up and will be gone at the end of this century. California faces unprecedented water restrictions after 15-years of over abundance of rain and snow pack with inadequate storage. We need to build surface and underground water storage projects like was done in the 1930's.

Not sexy, I know.