Althouse: "The Select Committee on Global Warming – which was created to provide a political forum to promote Washington Democrats' job-killing national energy tax..."

December 1, 2010

"The Select Committee on Global Warming – which was created to provide a political forum to promote Washington Democrats' job-killing national energy tax..."

"... it will not continue in the 112th Congress."

60 comments:

Quaestor said...: The one mitigating aspect of snake oil is that people eventually catch on.; 12/1/10, 7:42 PM
Anonymous said...: Let's all fly on big jet planes to a giant party in the Caribbean and stay lavishly in hotels while we discuss it.; 12/1/10, 7:46 PM
traditionalguy said...: Let me get this straight: Energy is dirty, so we will quit using it. That is a declaration of war against the USA. Are those the same enemy agents closing down the Gulf's oil drilling industry and refusing to allow coal burning electrical plants to operate at a break even cost to destroy those energy sources too? These guys are traitors who are at war with my country. I bet Sarah Palin will lead us back from this planned death to America scheme.; 12/1/10, 7:47 PM
MadisonMan said...: I think about 100% of all Select Committees could be disbanded.; 12/1/10, 7:50 PM
Quaestor said...: A market (specifically the so-called carbon credits market) that depends on government intervention for sustenance (specifically the so-called cap-and-trade legislation) is a market with nothing of value to vend.

Al Gore has grown fabulously wealthy hawking this 21th century "South Sea Bubble" (hate him or loathe him one has to admire the chutzpah required to parlay a shitload of worthless carbon chits into real money) and all his pigeons were counting on cap-and-trade to make their investments worth something. Now it looks like Gore is the only one who'll come out of this debacle showing black ink. Though it took him the better part of a decade to butter up the marks, Albert Arnold Gore, Jr. has carried off a play of mythic proportions, one that grifters will will eulogize for ages to come.; 12/1/10, 8:09 PM
Anonymous said...: Is this the room for the Select Committee?

Shit.; 12/1/10, 8:25 PM
Martin L. Shoemaker said...: One down. That's a start.

wv: trythous. Hey, there's an idea... Let's try a thousand!; 12/1/10, 8:41 PM
Fen said...: That is a declaration of war against the USA

More than you know. The AGW Hoax is about Global Socialism - redistribution of wealth to the 3rd World via limits on energy production/consumption.

Socialism is about slavery. So it should be legal to shoot socialists in self-defense. These people are the Enemy.; 12/1/10, 8:49 PM
Unknown said...: Well, chalk up one for the racist, bitter clingers.

That sound you hear in the background is Albert Gore, the Living Redwood, trying to find a buyer for all his carbon exchanges.; 12/1/10, 8:51 PM
Quaestor said...: edutcher wrote: That sound you hear in the background is Albert Gore, the Living Redwood, trying to find a buyer for all his carbon exchanges.

No, that sound is the wailing and gnashing of teeth coming from all the upper-crust rubes who bought Gore's carbon chits in the first place. Without cap-and-trade they'll never find the proverbial greater fool.; 12/1/10, 8:58 PM
Cedarford said...: Pretty clear that carbon dioxide and methane contribute to warming effects in the atmosphere. Therefore, any endangered Okapi that farts in the woods adds to methane-driven global warming. Or Haitian woman plopping out her 10th baby husbandless and able to do so only because Western do-gooders feed her and house her and enable her high breeding rate through fossil fuel use and have to be ready to do so to support Haiti's geometric expansions of carbon users...add to CO2.

It is not just guilty liberals demanding an end to everyday Americans using "evil" coal, nuclear, oil, nat gas and demanding mandatory Algore bulbs in every house that are part of the equation.

If everything "contributes" to Global Warming..it isn't just a matter of assigning "per capita" evil and blaming only the West, discussing only oil - and exculpating animals, "noble 3rd worlders", and phenomenon like forest fires and volcanos. (there is no difference between a methane molecule created by a termite or Okapi and "evil Westerners" - no difference in carbon dioxide generation between an American family and an overbred Haitian family ..or a volcano. Just degree. )

Maybe we can agree that massive amounts of CO2 are likely to do more harm than good, we don't know how much, but less harm than Green Hysterics have claimed. Maybe we can agree that 6.8 billion people going on 12 billion when we only had 1.2 billion at the year 1900 is not a good thing...and no, Sweet Baby Jesus will not "gift" us with unlimited resources for unlimited people with unlimited capacity of the Earth to adjust for human activity.

And maybe we can agree that stupid, symbolic things to "raise Green awareness" like banning incandescent bulbs, jetting to "Global Conferences" aimed at deterring all but Green Prophets from evil oil use, and various "minimize your use of toilet paper and RV campers"......Starts with the word stupid.; 12/1/10, 8:58 PM
Cedarford said...: Trad Guy - " I bet Sarah Palin will lead us back from this planned death to America scheme."

I guess you will have to light more votive candles to your Goddess. Why just bet when you can pray to her?; 12/1/10, 9:00 PM
Opus One Media said...: I heard the Boehner is going to create a committee on turning back the clock and investigating the flatness of the earth instead.

The GOP continues to be a scientific embarrassment. The WSJ ran a test editorial/op-ed on green and warming a few days ago to loosen us all up for this.

.....Let's play a game of fraud science.......; 12/1/10, 9:08 PM
Fen said...: HDHouse didn't get the memo on the CRU hack.

This should be funny.; 12/1/10, 9:12 PM
Quaestor said...: Cedarford wrote: Maybe we can agree that massive amounts of CO2 are likely to do more harm than good, we don't know how much, but less harm than Green Hysterics have claimed.

What do you mean by "massive," and what do you mean by "good?" Is twenty times the current density of CO2 in your range for massive? That's about the content of the air in Jurassic times. If good means "good for life" then we ought not fret too much about CO2, even if it doubles over the next 100 years (unlikely for many reasons) Besides, the most important greenhouse gas by far (by orders of magnitude) is water vapor. I haven't heard Al grouse about clouds lately, have you?; 12/1/10, 9:14 PM
garage mahal said...: Pretty clear that carbon dioxide and methane contribute to warming effects in the atmosphere.

CO2 and methane are our friends, not our enemies. The earth ain't warming, it's cooling. Those state size chunks of polar ice you see aren't breaking off and melting into the ocean, they actually falling back up and freezing. They're just playing it for you backwards. Just go to Gateway Pundit or google "Lord Monckton". It's all there bro.; 12/1/10, 9:26 PM
FloridaSteve said...: good riddance...; 12/1/10, 9:33 PM
Bruce Hayden said...: I heard the Boehner is going to create a committee on turning back the clock and investigating the flatness of the earth instead.

The GOP continues to be a scientific embarrassment. The WSJ ran a test editorial/op-ed on green and warming a few days ago to loosen us all up for this.

I do believe that we are a bit beyond argument by name calling here. If you truly believe the "science" behind AGW, then maybe we should be arguing that. But name calling just makes your position look weak to most of the rest of us.; 12/1/10, 9:44 PM
Bruce Hayden said...: CO2 and methane are our friends, not our enemies. The earth ain't warming, it's cooling. Those state size chunks of polar ice you see aren't breaking off and melting into the ocean, they actually falling back up and freezing. They're just playing it for you backwards. Just go to Gateway Pundit or google "Lord Monckton". It's all there bro.

You might want to add in water vapor, since it is, by far, the most potent greenhouse gas. And, I guess with the addition of methane, we are going to have to give up meat, and probably flatulence, which means, unfortunately, no beans. Without meat and beans, I am not sure where we are going to find the proper proteins to keep us healthy, but I guess there must be a way.

But thanks for conceding that the Earth isn't warming any more. Took you long enough. It does seem a bit suspicious that the warming, and now cooling, seem remarkably correlated with solar activity.; 12/1/10, 9:51 PM
Quaestor said...: And the Arctic Ocean was to be ice-free by when? Let's see, when was that? I think 2008 was the target date on that highly scientific prediction. And wasn't there a guy who set out to kayak to the Pole just to demonstrate the grave consequences of AGW? What happened to that dude, eh? I heard he didn't get much past 80 north, or did he?; 12/1/10, 9:53 PM
Unknown said...: HDHouse said...

I heard the Boehner is going to create a committee on turning back the clock and investigating the flatness of the earth instead.

The Zero did that trying to proves Keynesianism works.

The GOP continues to be a scientific embarrassment. The WSJ ran a test editorial/op-ed on green and warming a few days ago to loosen us all up for this.

While HD holds on to his carbon exchanges.; 12/1/10, 9:55 PM
Quaestor said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 12/1/10, 10:04 PM
Quaestor said...: Sorry, my last post was gratuitously insulting. I have withdrawn it.; 12/1/10, 10:11 PM
Quaestor said...: HDHouse wrote: I heard the Boehner is going to create a committee on turning back the clock and investigating the flatness of the earth instead.

House has to make up shit like that to have something that resembles a talking point -- and not just whole-cloth calumny, but jejune, even puerile shit that would embarrass a 9th grader. Come on, House, someone your age ought to be more creative.; 12/1/10, 10:23 PM
The Crack Emcee said...: Quaestor,

The one mitigating aspect of snake oil is that people eventually catch on.

Yea, but look how long it takes them. And how much money's been blown on this bullshit? How many careers have been sidetracked, or derailed entirely, because somebody told the truth the chicken littles refused to hear?

I wish it was enough to just say "Whew! Glad that's over" but it ain't:

The AGW cult destroyed lives.; 12/1/10, 10:43 PM
bagoh20 said...: First drop, but it's a big bucket.; 12/1/10, 10:47 PM
Methadras said...: Why do leftists hate the US? Rhetorical question, I know.; 12/1/10, 10:50 PM
Methadras said...: Where is the outrage against water vapor?; 12/1/10, 10:51 PM
Automatic_Wing said...: Global warming is terrifying - it's up to -50F today in Vostok, Antarctica. The antartctic ice sheet is sure to melt way any day now.

If it weren't for our CO2, it'd be -51.2F and everything would be OK.; 12/1/10, 10:53 PM
The Crack Emcee said...: Bruce Hayden,

If you truly believe the "science" behind AGW, then maybe we should be arguing that. But name calling just makes your position look weak to most of the rest of us.

Speak for yourself. Personally, I give big points for creativity in that department.; 12/1/10, 10:54 PM
The Crack Emcee said...: Quaestor,

Sorry, my last post was gratuitously insulting. I have withdrawn it.

Jesus, you people are missing the whole spirit of this internet thing.; 12/1/10, 10:57 PM
Quaestor said...: Dear Crack:

I prefer to deal out insults that withers the soul of my target like a rapier thrust to the vitals, as opposed to a crude solipsism as wielded so ineptly by the likes of some commenters not unknown to these pages.

wv: spant - a social hymenoptera from Madrid; 12/1/10, 11:25 PM
Opus One Media said...: Bruce Hayden said... "I do believe that we are a bit beyond argument by name calling here. If you truly believe the "science" behind AGW, then maybe we should be arguing that. But name calling just makes your position look weak to most of the rest of us."

by putting "science" in quotes you are effectively calling global warmning a name. it is settled science. boehner is a boob and te GOP acts scientifically medieval.

If the right wing wants to go down with the Titanic I'm sure its fine by a lot of us but you don't have the right to take the rest of us down with you.; 12/2/10, 2:11 AM
Opus One Media said...: perhaps we could stick Quaestor and a few of his fellow voodoo scientists in a room filled with that friend co2 gas and they can report back to us on the experience.; 12/2/10, 2:15 AM
Quaestor said...: HDHouse wrote: perhaps we could stick Quaestor and a few of his fellow voodoo scientists in a room filled with that friend co2 gas and they can report back to us on the experience.

Ah, HDHouse, the epigrammist non plus ultra, he of the lightning parry and riposte of rapier-keen raillery, wielding a veritable poignard of prose has pierced my pretentious punditry to the very quick, alas...

Bear witness to my shame, oh beetling Olympus. How could I, merely mortal, know the ultimate end of AGW? Forbid, oh Daughter of Thundering Zeus, that CO2, vile exhalation of Hades, shall replace all other vapors of the firmament!

All jocularity aside, is this really your argument? Before you busy yourself arranging this experiment might I propose another, less criminal investigation? One involving plant physiology? Instead of locking me in a chamber of pure CO2 (which I'd find most regrettable, I'll admit) try locking some common plants in a chamber of pure O2, or any mixtures of gases you choose expect that nasty CO2. Tah.; 12/2/10, 3:00 AM
Bruce Hayden said...: by putting "science" in quotes you are effectively calling global warmning a name. it is settled science. boehner is a boob and te GOP acts scientifically medieval.

Let me suggest that the above is wishful thinking. Yes, a couple of years ago, before anyone really started digging into the "science" of AGW, it was pretty settled. But, then, the more that it was investigated, the shakier the science appeared.

Right now, about the only thing that you can say realistically is that we just don't know if there is, or maybe was, warming over the 20 years that ended somewhere around a decade ago. But even that is open to debate, with at least four of five of the primary global temperature databases now suspect. And, even if there were warming, it may be just a natural result of the ending of the Little Ice Age.

But what does appear to be true is that the models predicting AGW are mostly based on faulty assumptions as to the sensitivity of warming to CO2 buildup. It turns out empirically that any such feedback is slowing, not accelerating, as CO2 builds up - which in retrospect should have been expected, given that plants do increasingly better as the concentration of that gas increases.

I am not claiming that the science is settled in the direction opposite that you believe, but rather, that what appeared to be settled 5 years ago, is not anywhere close to settled today. And, I would attribute that to the fact that the light of open public inquiry and scientific scrutiny that has been shined into what had become a very small, closed, community and area of science being driven heavily in the pro-warming direction by the religious zealotry of the environmental left and the mountains of money they were making and even more that was expected to be made.

If the right wing wants to go down with the Titanic I'm sure its fine by a lot of us but you don't have the right to take the rest of us down with you.

Actually, it isn't fine at all with the warmist crowd. They wouldn't be yelling about settled science, ice caps melting 20 foot sea level increases, etc. or that we can't afford to wait to determine whether those 20 years of warming that may have occurred a decade ago were an anomoly or a trend, but, instead, we had to beggar our grandchildren now to fix this problem, regardless, really, of the actions of the developing countries in the world.

It is this attempt to panic the American public into stampeding into spending a sizable portion of our GDP in combating this perceived problem that is strong evidence that they do care, and know that the trend in the science is running in the wrong direction for them, their goals, and, in the case of many, their attempts to financially benefit from this scare.; 12/2/10, 3:14 AM
kent said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 12/2/10, 4:37 AM
AllenS said...: If you go up north, to observe the polar ice cap, you'll see ice being made. Ice expanding. Ice getting thicker. If you go up there in the summertime, you'll see chunks of polar ice breaking off and melting into the ocean. Just like it has been doing for like forever. What sank the Titanic? When did that happen?; 12/2/10, 5:38 AM
Anonymous said...: I love the moniker assigned to the eco-hysterics: "watermelons."

That means, they're green on the inside, but red on the outside.

Since the Soviet Union collapsed, the far left has had to struggle to find another way to implement communism without actually identifying their agenda as communism.

Thus, global warming.; 12/2/10, 7:12 AM
Anonymous said...: That means, they're green on the inside, but red on the outside.

Jesus, it's early in the morning.

Translated:

That means, they're green on the outside, but red on the inside.

Understood? Same old commie BS with a new cloak.; 12/2/10, 7:23 AM
Crimso said...: "it is settled science."

As a scientist, I find this claim offensive.

"perhaps we could stick Quaestor and a few of his fellow voodoo scientists in a room filled with that friend co2 gas and they can report back to us on the experience."

And herein we see just part of the problem on display. The Earth's atmosphere isn't a "room." CO2 won't necessarily have the same effects under one set of conditions as it will under another (think "emergent properties"). As a biochemist, I am well aware that a purified protein won't always demonstrate characteristics that it has when present in the milieu of a cell.; 12/2/10, 7:23 AM
Michael said...: Ethanol!!! That is the answer my liberal friends. Ethanol. It is right before our eyes and the scientists all agree, they are all in accord, they have a....consensus. Let's put food in our cars to save the earth from the evil carbon footprint expanding foreign oil. Ethanol, HD House, ethanol.; 12/2/10, 7:30 AM
Lincolntf said...: This is where we separate the truly stupid Libs(the ones who STILL believe all the debunked GW crap) and the plain evil Libs (the ones who always knew it was a scam, but needed to con their ignorant counterparts to come along for the ride).

One idea:
Any hard sciences teacher who shows "An Inconvenient Truth" as anything other than an example of "what not to do" after Jan. 1 2011 is suspended for a week. Show it twice and you're fired.; 12/2/10, 7:33 AM
Original Mike said...: "global warmning ... is settled science."

And House knows this because the scientists on one side of the debate told him so.; 12/2/10, 7:34 AM
AllenS said...: Oh, and don't forget to have white roofs like AllenS, so you can help save the planet and all of the creatures from the forest floor!; 12/2/10, 7:36 AM
Original Mike said...: "it is settled science."

As a scientist, I find this claim offensive.

This scientist finds it amusing. Especially when voiced by people who couldn't differentiate y = x.; 12/2/10, 7:38 AM
Original Mike said...: My neighbor across the street (and, unfortunately, about 20 feet lower than me) put on a white roof. It is the most God awful ugly thing I have seen.; 12/2/10, 7:40 AM
AllenS said...: I'm not sure how a white roof can be ugly. Maybe you mean too bright. How long has the neighbor had the white roof?; 12/2/10, 8:17 AM
Original Mike said...: Yeah - have to wear shades. And it doesn't go with his brown colored house.

Used to be, I had a nice view out the glass sliding doors into the garden (180-degrees from the offending roof). Now when I look out, I don't see the garden, I see a bright reflection of his roof (he's a good guy, by the way, I haven't told him his roof is an eyesore).

It's a year old, so maybe it will dim with time, but I doubt it. It's plastic, by the way. Last winter, the snow pack slid off it and took down his gutters. He brags about it being a 50-year roof, but the guys probably 70 years old so I don't quite see the point.; 12/2/10, 8:32 AM
chuckR said...: "I'm not sure how a white roof can be ugly. Maybe you mean too bright. How long has the neighbor had the white roof?"

If its asphalt and not tile, then wait a while. In order to have the whiteness, shingles are manufactured with less pressure pushing the white granules into the asphalt. Eventually, white roofs get that salt and pepper look. You can be nearly as virtuous with a pastel gray or silver gray. Or so it was many years ago when I worked thru college as a roofer. You could go ass over teakettle faster on a new white roof than anything else short of wood shingles with a morning dew....; 12/2/10, 8:39 AM
AllenS said...: Plastic roof? I've never heard of such a thing. Where did he get the panels? Or maybe it isn't panels, but something else.; 12/2/10, 8:46 AM
Original Mike said...: "If its asphalt and not tile,"

It's neither; it's a continuous sheet. Like a rubber membrane but plastic.; 12/2/10, 8:47 AM
Original Mike said...: "I've never heard of such a thing."

Yeah, they're "new".; 12/2/10, 8:48 AM
Original Mike said...: It also leaks (it was installed poorly, apparently).; 12/2/10, 8:48 AM
AllenS said...: Do you know where he bought this stuff? Who put the roof on, AlphaLiberal?; 12/2/10, 8:53 AM
Drew said...: That sound you hear in the background is Albert Gore, the Living Redwood, trying to find a buyer for all his carbon exchanges.

Sylvester McMonkey McBean's Chicago Carbon Exchange Machine was quietly sold off in late October, and we presume that Al Gore and his partners made off with quite a hefty sum:

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/if-al-gores-chicago-climate-exchange-suffers-total-failure-does-the-msm-make-a-sound/

"While we don’t know how well Al Gore and Goldman Sachs fared on their investments in the CCX, we do know that there’s no reason to cry for [Founder Richard] Sandor. He received $98.5 million for his 16.5% stake in CCX when it was sold. Not bad for a failure that somebody else financed."

What a racket. I only wish I'd had a piece of it.; 12/2/10, 8:57 AM
Original Mike said...: The foreman's name was Al...

(kidding); 12/2/10, 8:58 AM
Anonymous said...: HDHouse said...
The GOP continues to be a scientific embarrassment

You mean like this?

The White House rewrote crucial sections of an Interior Department report to suggest an independent group of scientists and engineers supported a six-month ban on offshore oil drilling, the Interior inspector general says in a new report.

OOPS. You crapped your pants again.

If it weren't for lies and silly hyperbole, you'd have nothing to say.; 12/2/10, 9:06 AM
Anonymous said...: "global warmning ... is settled science."

Hysterical.

I guess you could explain this then?

Professor Jones told the BBC yesterday there was truth in the observations of colleagues that he lacked organisational skills, that his office was swamped with piles of paper and that his record keeping is ‘not as good as it should be’.

The data is crucial to the famous ‘hockey stick graph’ used by climate change advocates to support the theory.

Professor Jones also conceded the possibility that the world was warmer in medieval times than now – suggesting global warming may not be a man-made phenomenon.

And he said that for the past 15 years there has been no ‘statistically significant’ warming.

Or this?

Two years ago, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) made the claim which it said was based on detailed research into the impact of global warming.

But the IPCC have since admitted it was based on a report written in a science journal and even the scientist who was the subject of the original story admits it was not based on fact.

The article, in the New Scientist, was not even based on a research paper – it evolved from a short telephone interview with the academic.

Don't worry, you can't answer.

hdhouse is not that bright and easily misled.; 12/2/10, 9:11 AM
test said...: " Fen said...

The AGW Hoax is about Global Socialism - redistribution of wealth to the 3rd World via limits on energy production/consumption."

You'd be more credible if you limited your assertions. AGW isn't a hoax. Most of the people supporting AGW believe it wholeheartedly while in a hoax the perpetrators know it to be false. The fact that AGW is often used to justify a reordering of society the left desires for reasons having nothing to do with the environment does not make it a hoax, and calling it so puts you in the same class as HD.

You're also wrong that the primary goal of these opportunists is to increase wealth in the third world. It's to remedy what they see as the unfairly random rewards freedom generates by siphoning a large percentage of income out of the system and re-allocating it based on their preferences. Ultimately these opportunists believe everything has to be controlled because a lack of control means the wrong people are rewarded for the wrong criteria. Further they know that by capturing a large portion of GDP and funneling it into government they are primarily rewarding college graduates with appropriately leftist politics, which just happens to be the group they think most deserving of high reward. In their vision this group deserves better because they spend their time thinking about fairness rather than producing, which they see as tainted.

As an aside, I've always been interested in how closely this last mimics aristocratic culture back as far as ancient Rome and Greece. It's odd that those attacking 'the rich' as exploiters seemingly unknowingly emulate history's true oppressors.; 12/2/10, 10:02 AM