Tag: environmentalism

Federal court rules a farmer plowing his land violates Clean Water Act

9:14 pm

Fascists: A federal court has ruled that a farmer in California is violating the Clean Water Act by plowing his own property.

The court ruled that the company violated the Clean Water Act by plowing its property, even though the Act exempts normal farming practices. And, the implementing regulations state that plowing is never even subject to the Act, so long as it does not convert wetlands to dry land. Since no wetlands were lost or reduced in acreage by the plowing in this case, the court’s decision amounts to a rule that you may not plow in federally regulated wetlands without an Army Corps permit, the clear exemptions to the contrary notwithstanding.

The court also reversed an earlier ruling in the case and held that although the Corps ordered Duarte Nursery to halt all activity in any area of its property that could be considered waters of the U.S. on its property, the company did not suffer any deprivation of its property. On this basis, the court then ruled that Duarte Nursery’s due process rights have not been violated by being ordered not to farm its property for the last three years.

More here. Even though the Supreme Court has twice told the EPA and the Army Corp of Engineers that their interpretation of the Clean Water Act is wrong and overreaching, the agencies continue to use their interpretation to fine and restrict the actions of farmers and private property owners. In this case, they are forbidding a farming company from farming their property under Clean Water Act regulations, even though the law specifically exempts farming from Clean Water Act regulations and the Supreme Court has also ruled that interpretation of the law by these agencies is wrong.

What makes this worse is that a California federal court has agreed with the agencies, even though the Supreme Court has previously ruled otherwise. It is as if the lower federal court in California have decided they don’t need to follow the rulings of the higher court.

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Oakland city council micromanages the shipping industry

11:46 am

Fascist California: The Oakland city council has voted to block coal shipments through its brand new marine terminal.

The Oakland city council voted unanimously to bar shipments of coal through a proposed marine terminal on Monday, setting the stage for a legal battle.

The prospect of train cars carrying millions of tons of coal mined in Utah through Oakland before heading to Asian markets has inflamed passions in the city. Opponents argue it will harm health and exacerbate climate change. Proponents say it will provide good jobs in an impoverished area.

And I say it is none of the damn business of these petty dictators to decide what and where stuff gets shipped, especially if it is legal product.

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Sunspot cycle update

9:56 am

NOAA today released its monthly update of the solar cycle, showing the Sun’s sunspot activity in May. It is annotated and posted below.

Mayl 2016 Solar Cycle graph

The graph above has been modified to show the predictions of the solar science community. The green curves show the community’s two original predictions from April 2007, with half the scientists predicting a very strong maximum and half predicting a weak one. The red curve is their revised May 2009 prediction.

Though sunspot activity increased in May, the increase was not significant. The ramp down from solar maximum continues to track the 2007 low prediction for this maximum.

Meanwhile, the Sun continues its first multi-day string of blank days since 2011, now up to 3 days with all indications suggesting it will continue at least one more day. This early blank string, combined with the relatively fast decline in sunspots in the past two years, suggests that the solar maximum is ending sooner than predicted by the 2009 prediction (the red curve above), and that the next minimum will possibly be longer as well.

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California effort to make climate dissent illegal fails

12:51 am

The Democratic fascists in the California Senate have lost their bid to pass a law that would have made it a crime to express skepticism of human-caused global warming.

The bill only failed because the Senate did not take action before the end of its session, and could reappear agian.

Later this year, however, the same language could be reintroduced under a waiver of the rules or inserted into another bill as part of the gut-and-amend process.

And I fully expect these fascists to try again, especially considering this:

The measure was introduced amid a national push by Democrats and activist groups to use the legal system to prosecute climate change “fraud,” prompting a backlash from skeptics who have denounced the campaign as an assault on free speech. A coalition of 17 state attorneys general, including California Attorney General Kamala Harris, have joined forces to pursue climate change skeptics. At least four prosecutors reportedly have launched investigations into Exxon Mobil for climate change “fraud.”

Introduced by state Sen. Ben Allen, Santa Monica Democrat, S.B. 1161 had strong support from environmental groups, led by the Union of Concerned Scientists.

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California moves to ban climate dissent

11:35 am

Climate fascists: The California legislature is considering a bill that would make it illegal to express skepticism about human-caused global warming.

The bill declares that there is no legitimate disagreement on the causes and extent of climate change, stating that, “There is broad scientific consensus that anthropogenic global warming is occurring and changing the world’s climate patterns, and that the primary cause is the emission of greenhouse gases from the production and combustion of fossil fuels, such as coal, oil, and natural gas.”

What I find frightening about this is that the liberal Democrats who are writing and pushing this bill, with the full support of numerous liberal environmentalist groups, no longer feel the slightest shame about their oppressive and tyrannical preferences. They are now out in the open, suggesting that they sense a wide support for their actions. I fear that they are right.

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Wyoming rancher beats EPA over stock pond

2:29 pm

Good news: A Wyoming rancher who built a stock pond on his property, after obtaining all local permits, and was then hit by the EPA with gigantic fines totaling more than $16 million if he didn’t remove it, has won his case in court.

Under the settlement, Johnson’s pond will remain and he won’t pay any fines or concede any federal jurisdiction to regulate the pond. And the government won’t pursue any further enforcement actions based on the pond’s construction. The only conditions, according to Johnson’s lawyers, are that willow trees be planted around the pond and a partial fence installed to “control livestock.” “This is a victory for common sense and the environment, and it brings an end to all the uncertainty and fear that the Johnson family faced,” said Jonathan Wood, a staff attorney with Pacific Legal Foundation who represented Andy Johnson in his court challenge to the EPA, and in negotiating the settlement.

“The EPA never identified any environmental problems with the pond,” Wood told FoxNews.com. “In fact, it’s been a boom for the environment.”

Though he won his case, because there apparently was no cost to the EPA for attacking him it is really the EPA that has won. In the future I expect them to use their ability to impose fines more widely in even more egregious situations, knowing it will cost the agency nothing and might gain them more power. It will worth it, since the only way to stop them would be to hire lawyers and spend a lot of money in court.

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A review of Al Gore’s movie “An Inconvenient Truth”, ten years later

12:29 pm

climate data showing pause in warming since 1998

The uncertainty of science: A new review of Al Gore’s movie “An Inconvenient Truth”, ten years later after its release, looks closely at the predictions the film made to see if they have come true, or were at least pointed in an accurate direction.

Guess what? The film’s predictions have turned out to be generally wrong. From predicting an ice-free Arctic to a snow-free Mt. Kilimanjaro to more extreme weather to a continuing warming as carbon dioxide increased, Gore’s predictions have each failed.

I especially like the last one, that as carbon dioxide rose the temperatures would rise in lockstep, as predicted by all climate models. The article notes that temperatures have not done so, that the global climate temperature has been practically unchanged since 1998, and backs up this point with a paper published by the science journal Nature.

The graph above is from that paper. The black line that rises above the red, blue, and gold lines is one of the more respected climate models. The other lines are from the actual data. As you can see, the climate model fails to predict the climate, meaning that the theory used to create it is incomplete or inaccurate.

This is not to say that the theory might not be true. Global warming, initiated by the increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, might very well happen. The data shows however that the climate scientists touting this theory do not yet understand the Earth’s complex global climate well enough to prove their theory true. There are other factors influencing the climate they have not yet recognized, factors such as the Sun’s variability and the fact that CO2 by itself is a actually a trace gas and not the atmosphere’s chief global warming component, which is water.

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The Oil Seepage Thread

12:10 pm

Because the comment thread to this post, “New research confirms CO2 increase is greening Earth,” has become quite long and somewhat off the original topic, yet still interesting and worth continuing, I have decided to create a specific post where comments relating to these two questions, asked by Wayne DeVette, can continue:

  • How much does Volcanic activity contribute to particulate & “greenhouse gas” emission’s on the Planet ? (I am under the impression contributions by human-activity are dwarfed by natural-events.)
  • What is the natural (non human-activity related) background seepage rate of crude-oil, into the Worlds oceans, across the Planet?

I thought these were great questions, and ask Wayne and others to do some digging. Gary and Wayne did, and what they found is worth reading.

Please place future comments on this topic here.

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New research confirms CO2 increase is greening Earth

9:11 am

The uncertainty of science: New data from satellites have confirmed that the increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in the past century is contributing to an expansion of plant life globally.

Researchers studying NASA satellite data on the Earth’s vegetation coverage have discovered that plants have significantly increased their leaf cover over the last 35 years to the point that new growth across the planet is equivalent to an area twice as large as the continental United States. According to the study, the largest contributor to this greening is the growing level of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere.

Using data collected from instruments such as NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer mounted on the AquaProbe satellite and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (such as that deployed on NOAA’s DSCOVR satellite), an international team of researchers has determined that CO2 fertilization explains fully 70 percent of the greening effect observed.

I love how the article repeatedly inserts several out-of-context comments about the dangers of global warming, even though everything in the story suggests that global warming might actually be beneficial.

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The failed predictions of Earth Day

5:47 pm

On this anniversary of the first Earth Day in 1970, it behooves us to once again review the predictions of the environmental experts that even today the environmental movement relies on and continues to worship, men like Paul Ehrlich and David Brower, the first executive director of The Sierra Club.

The Daily Caller today provided us a list of the seven most significant predictions from that day, all of which turned out to be wrong. For example, Ehrlich repeatedly predicted that millions would starve in the coming decades:

Stanford professor Dr. Paul Ehrlich declared in April 1970 that mass starvation was imminent. His dire predictions failed to materialize as the number of people living in poverty has significantly declined and the amount of food per person has steadily increased, despite population growth. The world’s Gross Domestic Product per person has immeasurably grown despite increases in population.

Ehrlich is largely responsible for this view, having co-published “The Population Bomb” with The Sierra Club in 1968. The book made a number of claims including that millions of humans would starve to death in the 1970s and 1980s, mass famines would sweep England leading to the country’s demise, and that ecological destruction would devastate the planet causing the collapse of civilization.

Brower meanwhile revealed the tyrannical aspect of the environmental movement, stating that “[a]ll potential parents [should be] required to use contraceptive chemicals, the government issuing antidotes to citizens chosen for childbearing.” He went on to found Friends of the Earth and the League of Conservation Voters.

Ehrlich continues to push the same predictions, even though none of his past predictions have come true. But, then, what does that matter? Why should reality have anything to do with anything? It’s that he cares that matters!

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San Francisco requires new buildings have solar panels

9:10 am

Another reason to leave California: San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors has unanimously passed a local law that will require all new buildings, both commercial and residential, that are lower than 10 stories tall to install solar panels on their roofs.

San Francisco’s new regulations add to already existing Californian laws which require 15 percent of rooftops on buildings of 10 stories or less to be unshaded and solar ready. Under the new law, buildings must have either solar photovoltaic or solar water panels installed, or a mix of the two.

As part of a concerted effort to one day run the city entirely on renewables, the mayor set up a taskforce in 2011 to develop policies and programs that steer it in this direction. It hopes to achieve this goal by 2025.

1. This will add a significant cost to the construction of new buildings, guaranteeing that there will be a decline in construction of such buildings in San Francisco.

2. I am certain that the task force that the mayor set up in 2011 was dominated by individuals in the solar power industry, all of whom are going to benefit greatly by this new law. I would also not be surprised if I learned that they donated money to the mayor’s campaign fund.

3. This law, as well as the city’s plan to run itself entirely on renewables by 2025, are pure fantasies based on ideology that no law can dictate. They must evolve, based on the realities of economics and technological discovery. That San Francisco’s political leadership can’t understand this fundamental fact of life indicates that this city is going to bankrupt itself in the near future, especially since its population overwhelming agrees with the fantasies of their political leaders. Expect more stupid laws like this, and except the situation there to become increasingly oppressive as these ideologues increasingly impose their unworkable fantasies on everyone.

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Another subsidized solar power company going bust?

11:13 am

Your tax dollars at work! The U.S.’s largest solar power company, heavily subsidized by the federal government, now faces bankruptcy.

An SEC filing from TerraForm Global, a unit of SunEdison, claims “due to SunEdison’s liquidity difficulties, there is a substantial risk that SunEdison will soon seek bankruptcy protection.” Both SunEdison and TerraForm are delaying the filing of their annual financial report to the SEC.

News of SunEdison’s impending bankruptcy filing comes after the company’s shares fell 95 percent in the past 12 months, with shares now trading for less than $1 for the first time since the green energy company went public in 1995. SunEdison’s market value fell from $10 billion in July 2015 to around $400 million today.

The news also comes after the SEC announced it was launching an investigation into SunEdison’s disclosures to shareholders regarding the company’s liquidity. SEC enforcement officials “are looking into whether SunEdison overstated its liquidity last fall when it told investors it had more than $1 billion in cash,” according to The Wall Street Journal.

…The pro-labor union group Good Jobs First reported last year that SunEdison and its subsidiaries got nearly $650 million in subsidies and tax credits from the federal government since 2000. It was the 13th most heavily-subsidized company in America. This includes nearly $4.6 million in subsidies from the Department of Energy and Department of Treasury. Watchdog.org reported in October 2015 that SunEdison had gotten nearly $4.6 million from the Obama administration, including funding to build semi-conductors. A SunEdison bankruptcy could leave taxpayers on the hook for more than $2 billion.

But hey, what’s a few billion here or there, if the cause is worthwhile?

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