Walter Russell Mead: "How Al Gore Wrecked Planet Earth"

...[T]he movement to stop climate change through a Really Big and Comprehensive Grand Global Treaty is dead because there is no political consensus in the US to go forward. It’s dead because the UN process is toppling over from its own excessive ambition and complexity. It’s dead because China and India are having second thoughts about even the smallish steps they put on the table back in Copenhagen.
...

[T]he mainstream media is now coming to terms with the death. Environmentalists are still trying to avoid pulling the plug, but the corpse is already cool to the touch and soon it will begin to smell. As the global greens move from the denial stage of the grief process, brace yourself for some eloquent, petulant and arrogant rage. Tears will be shed and hands will be wrung. The world is stupid, uncaring, unworthy to be saved. Horrible Republicans, evil Chinese, demented know-nothing climate skeptics have ruined the world and condemned our grandchildren to lives of sorrow and pain. Messengers will be shot; skeptics will be blamed for asking questions and the media (and the internet) will be blamed for reporting the answers.
...

I think Al Gore failed the climate change movement and that his negligence and blindness has done it irreparable harm. If the skeptics are right and the world isn’t warming — or if natural causes are responsible for climate change – it doesn’t matter much. But if Al Gore and the climate change people are even half right about what is happening to our world, the cost of Mr. Gore’s failures are incalculably great. He was the one world leader who had the standing inside the climate change movement to lead it onto a more sustainable path and, as far as we can tell from the facts now before us, he didn’t really try.

blogs.the-american-interest.com...

Mead teaches at Yale, is a member of the CFR, and Mead contributes to for several journals, magazines and newspapers such as Foreign Affairs, The New Yorker, and Wall Street Journal. He is currently on the staff of Foreign Affairs and the editorial board of The American Interest.

He may have something here for all angles of the AGW debate to consider.

The AGW advocates and IPCC pushed an Alarmist agenda through bias (as scientists less certain of the AGW hypothesis dropped out of the process) and its structure where bureaucrats eager to expand the reach of government were determined not to waste a "good crisis."

At first, it didn’t much matter outside the Green community, but during the worst recession in over a generation, the Green community wanted to revamp world economies and destroy millions of existing jobs at great cost.

AGW scientists should have formulated a falsifiable theory (as in any other 'science') of climate, instead of vague "models" that withstood or passed tests by all interested. Until they achieve that, one of the consequences is the lingering suspicion that they are motivated by bad science, socialism, and paternalistic authoritarianism.

jw

Originally posted by jdub297
.........................
At first, it didn’t much matter outside the Green community, but during the worst recession in over a generation, the Green community wanted to revamp world economies and destroy millions of existing jobs at great cost.

AGW scientists should have formulated a falsifiable theory (as in any other 'science') of climate, instead of vague "models" that withstood or passed tests by all interested. Until they achieve that, one of the consequences is the lingering suspicion that they are motivated by bad science, socialism, and paternalistic authoritarianism.

jw

Of course they, the AGW believers, will never admit to this, but that is exactly what they have been "demanding" of the world; for everyone else to unconditionally accept their blind faith in the AGW scam, and to them it doesn't matter that billions of people would suffer for their demands.

To these people "the end justifies the means", and to them that end is to have more control over people "to save the Earth", (which of course they have never realized the Earth doesn't need mankind to save it) and for their goals, which include political goals, to be implemented "for the betterment of mankind"....

I have posted this before but it deserves to be posted again so certain people are reminded of these wise statements.

"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants, it is the creed of slaves." -- William Pitt.

"The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule." -- H.L. Mencken

If you check the constant speech of dictators like Chavez you will find that they have used, and continue to use similar false claims/arguments to the ones given by the AGW believers, and these claims are given just because certain people have an urge to have some measure of rule over others.

reply to post by ElectricUniverse

To these people "the end justifies the means", and to them that end is to have more control over people "to save the Earth", (which of course they have never realized the Earth doesn't need mankind to save it) and for their goals, which include political goals, to be implemented "for the betterment of mankind"....

(emphasis mine)

Their "end" was never achievable, but consisted of grasping at various straws as if they could, in concert, "rescue" the ignorant masses; not one of which was feasible or practical.

"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants, it is the creed of slaves." -- William Pitt.

I just thought that bore repeating. Again.

jw

reply to post by ElectricUniverse

Of course they, the AGW believers, will never admit to this, but that is exactly what they have been "demanding" of the world; for everyone else to unconditionally accept their blind faith in the AGW scam, and to them it doesn't matter that billions of people would suffer for their demands.

No one cares that "green jobs" in Spain cost twice the prevailing wage and killed 2.2 jobs for every one created.

Or that Denmark has the highest electric rates as well as the highest % of "green power."

Or that the UK has seen brownouts, loss of coal power generation capacity, imports wood to burn for power and pays higher rates than ever to support carbon trading.

The only thing green about this is "greenbacks."

jw

UK power stations burn wood? are you mad? coal is cheaper, and has more calories per ton than wood, is easier to handle as well. Also, what brownouts?

reply to post by pikestaff
UK power stations pay for shiploads of lumber to burn. It is more expensive than coal, less efficient, but the Home Office has decided to cut back on coal.

They've been predicting brownouts since last summer when E/ON shot down a new power station..

Google it and weep.

jw



[edit on 23-2-2010 by jdub297]

Originally posted by pikestaff
UK power stations burn wood? are you mad? coal is cheaper, and has more calories per ton than wood, is easier to handle as well. Also, what brownouts?

Here, I did some of it for you:

#
Wood Burning Power Station at Wilton 10 - Power Technology
Wood Burning Power Station at Wilton 10, United Kingdom Wilton 10 Power Station has become the UK's first large scale biomass power station to use wood as ...
www.power-technology.com/projects/Wood-Burning/ - Cached - Similar
#
Wood-burning power plant proposed in Perry Co. - Business ...
Feb 22, 2010 ... Wood-burning power plant proposed in Perry Co. ... UK-Vandy notes: Patterson's tenacity comes just in time · Kansas No. 1, UK No. ...
www.kentucky.com/.../wood-burning-power-plant-proposed.html - 22 hours ago
#
the uk's first major waste wood-burning power station opened ...
The UK's first large power plant to provide a market for lower grade waste wood officially opened yesterday in Middlesbrough, writes Caelia Quinault.
www.wastexchange.co.uk/detailNews.phpsc?doc=/.../4E4... - Cached - Similar

jw

reply to post by jdub297


Kentucky is in the USA

And Britain imports more lumber for cricket bats than it does for biomass power stations.

reply to post by Essan

Did you just choose to ignore the 1st and 3rd Google results?

I will not spoonfeed posters who can't read on their own.

Regardless of the quantity, they burn wood. The answer to the question/insinuation is "Yes," they burn wood for power.


Here's a few more:

#
Britain cuts down forests to keep 'green' power stations burning ...
Nov 16, 2009 ... A series of biomass-fired plants are being built in the UK that will burn equivalent to 744 sq miles of forest... The size of forest needed for UK wood-fuelled power ...
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6918024.ece
#
Manchester Report: Carbon capture plants part-fired with wood ...
Jul 13, 2009 ...
www.guardian.co.uk/.../2009/jul/.../manchester-report-energy - Cached - Similar
#
Wood fired power plants cause health effects and global warming ...
Wood Fired Power Plants: Enviromental Saviors or Disasters? ... UK Biomass Plant is Stopped (PDF224K)...
burningissues.org/woodpower-plants06.html - Cached - Similar
#
UK's largest wood-fired power station
Mar 19, 2008 ... First Minister opens the UK's largest wood-fired power station near ... Steven's Croft is a 44MW biomass power plant, burning a mixture of ...
www.scotland.gov.uk › ... › News Releases › 2008 › March - Cached - Similar
#
BBC NEWS | UK | England | Trees felled for wood power plant
Dec 19, 2006 ... The Forestry Commission is sending 22500 tonnes of timber from Cumbria and Northumberland to the £60m Wilton 10 wood-burning power station. ...
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/6192915.stm - Cached - Similar
#
Phase out coal and burn trees instead, urges leading scientist ...
Sep 14, 2008 ... Coal power stations should be equipped with special "carbon capture ... Humanity must urgently embark on a massive programme to power civilisation from wood to ... burning them instead of fossil fuels to generate electricity
www.independent.co.uk › Environment › Climate Change - Cached - Similar

"22500 tons of wood" makes a lot of cricket bats, I bet. 744 sq. miles (would) wood, too!

Deny ignorance.

jw