Climatebot
Personal Opinions on Contending with the Energy Crisis
As you know, I am deeply concerned about how we are "running out of domestic energy" and engaging
in myths like "if we use biofuels, it will help us to be energy independent."
I don't want to argue with you so much as I would like to convince you that I have a handle on the actual
scientific facts. I attended a seminar by MIT professor Richard S. Lindzen in Chicago a few months ago.
He is the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. I am
reading books about the technical details concerning global temperature change.
When you sent me literature favoring the use of ethanol last year, I responded with arguments as to why
it is a big mistake. Whether I convinced you or someone else did, the bottom line is that I already knew it
was a bad idea from my knowledge of engineering and also from an earlier lecture by MIT Professor
Jefferson W. Tester who also spoke in Chicago to the MIT alumni group back in 2006.
Corn ethanol has turned out to be such a disaster but Democrats such as Amy Klobuchar, the senator
from Minnesota are still speaking in favor of it. She is a member of the Minnesota
Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, an affiliate of the Democratic Party. Have you heard her speak? This
is everything you want to vote for as far as identity groups go. She is a female and a Democrat. But
she is doing her best to keep the ethanol myth going full blast. She was on the news just the other day
defending ethanol while people in Africa are starving and rioting.
Now for the Republican idiots. George W. Bush put biofuels in his state of the union address as a
priority. What an idiot. Had we elected Al Gore, he would have put an ethanol program into effect years
ago. Would that have been worse? I don't know. Perhaps with Al Gore, we would have learned our
lesson earlier and be on to better times by now. Al Gore would probably pushed for higher CAFÉ
standards and taxes on gasoline, both of which would have helped avoid the situation we are in now.
Whereas China has engineers as leaders, the US chooses lawyers and liberal arts majors. Anyone who
understands engineering would have known that ethanol would be a step backwards. We cannot afford
to continue to take these steps backwards.
None of the candidates for president are adept at handling technological decisions and we can only
hope that they take the advice of good engineers and scientists. If the past is prolog, they will follow the
advice of the many lobbyists in Washington DC. This will lead to more errors and disasters like ethanol.
On my web site I have a page that asks the reader whether the temperature of the oceans have risen or
gone down over the last 5 years. Most people will think that the temperatures have gone up, but in fact
they have gone down. So why have these scientific measurements not become headlines in the news?
The answer is simple; they don't confirm the results that AGW advocates are looking for. Scientific facts
that are "politically incorrect" are apparently "not news", or "must be wrong" so we can ignore the
scientific data. NPR spoke of these cooling results and went on to say that they were "puzzling."
Basically they indicated that there must be something wrong with these clear scientific facts because we
"all know" that "the science is settled" and there is "global warming" and it is "man made". It makes me
sick to see otherwise intelligent people caught up in this new religion of AGW. The heat content of water
is extremely more than that of air. So even if you think that the air is hotter, it is much more important to
know that the oceans are cooling.
As you know, although I want the country to move in the direction of energy independence, I am not sure
that the myth of AGW is a good way to do it. Although it "gets people off their duff" and makes them
more active, the concept of "decreasing CO2 emissions" becomes pervasive in the descriptions of
solutions. The Mother Jones article you sent is an example of this. The basic scientific fact is that we
are entering an era of global cooling and increasing the CO2 emissions will only help, not hurt. As you
have heard me say multiple times, 15% of our crop yield is due to our having successfully raised the
CO2 levels from 280 parts per million (ppm) to 380 ppm during the industrial revolution. The plants
breathe CO2 and increasing it is a "green thing to do."
One of the young fellows at Zanies the other night was asked by Kyle "How much CO2 do you think is in
the atmosphere?" The fellow responded that he though it was probably about 28% by now. Jenny
Budniak thought it was 10 to 15% when I asked her. This is the kind of impression the average person
is getting from all of the propaganda being spewed out about AGW.
The green party is 15% of the voters in Germany. So when they have to assign people to become their
scientific representatives on the UN panel IPCC, who do they assign? Naturally they call the Green
Party for suggestions to keep that faction happy. The Green Party nominates people without scientific
credentials but with a political agenda instead. With idiots like G.W. Bush, a poorly informed public that
thinks CO2 is present in the atmosphere in multiple percentage points and "scientists" who are really
politicians being placed on "scientific" panels, I don't see much hope for the world.
While the geeks are making progress in some laboratories, the scientifically ignorant politicians are
making bad decisions such as corn ethanol.
As I mentioned, Democrats such as Senator Amy Klobuchar, still speak in favor of ethanol. You tell me
that if we had more government regulators, we could avoid crises such as the sub-prime crisis. Well,
where is the government regulator with enough power to tell Senator Klobuchar that she is wrong? One
of my predictions is that there will be another economic crisis when farmers have been found to have
been "conned" into investing in ethanol distilleries which are bound to go bankrupt in the future. When
these farmers lose their farms to foreclosure, will you be blaming the smarmy salesmen who are talking
them into these investments? Or will you be blaming Senator Klobuchar, which they should be able to
trust to give them the "straight dope" but isn't.
Is the game to sit back and wait until the next crisis hits the front page and then find someone in the
other political party to blame? Or should we be writing letters to our congressmen now and telling them
to avoid the next crisis which we see coming?
We can only hope that the scientists and engineers will come up with solutions faster than the politicians
can screw things up with plans such as corn ethanol.
Personally, I feel that I must attempt to contribute to the discussion and encourage rational and
scientifically sound solutions to these problems.
What I personally feel is the first step is to point out two main scientific facts.
1. AGW is not a problem. The oceans are cooling.
2. More CO2 is a good thing.
Once people understand these two points, it is easier to solve the energy crisis. For example, one can
conclude that it okay to burn more coal, but you must filter out the mercury, solid particles and
radioactive materials from the smoke. Much of the mercury in our fish comes from burning coal and
releasing the mercury into the atmosphere. Even if we eliminated coal burning in the US, China is
burning quite a bit of coal and the smoke drifts over the Pacific Ocean and contaminates the ocean fish
with the mercury.
The way things are now going, it seems that it will be difficult or impossible to get the truth out and avoid
catastrophes such as the food shortage we now have due to government stupidity.
My goal is not to argue. I hope that you understand that I am "one of the good guys" who is trying to
find real solutions to real problems while avoiding superstition and preconceived incorrect notions. My
goal is to wake up people like Senator Klobuchar who are heading our country in the wrong direction.
don
As you know, I am deeply concerned about how we are "running out of domestic energy" and engaging
in myths like "if we use biofuels, it will help us to be energy independent."
I don't want to argue with you so much as I would like to convince you that I have a handle on the actual
scientific facts. I attended a seminar by MIT professor Richard S. Lindzen in Chicago a few months ago.
He is the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. I am
reading books about the technical details concerning global temperature change.
When you sent me literature favoring the use of ethanol last year, I responded with arguments as to why
it is a big mistake. Whether I convinced you or someone else did, the bottom line is that I already knew it
was a bad idea from my knowledge of engineering and also from an earlier lecture by MIT Professor
Jefferson W. Tester who also spoke in Chicago to the MIT alumni group back in 2006.
Corn ethanol has turned out to be such a disaster but Democrats such as Amy Klobuchar, the senator
from Minnesota are still speaking in favor of it. She is a member of the Minnesota
Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, an affiliate of the Democratic Party. Have you heard her speak? This
is everything you want to vote for as far as identity groups go. She is a female and a Democrat. But
she is doing her best to keep the ethanol myth going full blast. She was on the news just the other day
defending ethanol while people in Africa are starving and rioting.
Now for the Republican idiots. George W. Bush put biofuels in his state of the union address as a
priority. What an idiot. Had we elected Al Gore, he would have put an ethanol program into effect years
ago. Would that have been worse? I don't know. Perhaps with Al Gore, we would have learned our
lesson earlier and be on to better times by now. Al Gore would probably pushed for higher CAFÉ
standards and taxes on gasoline, both of which would have helped avoid the situation we are in now.
Whereas China has engineers as leaders, the US chooses lawyers and liberal arts majors. Anyone who
understands engineering would have known that ethanol would be a step backwards. We cannot afford
to continue to take these steps backwards.
None of the candidates for president are adept at handling technological decisions and we can only
hope that they take the advice of good engineers and scientists. If the past is prolog, they will follow the
advice of the many lobbyists in Washington DC. This will lead to more errors and disasters like ethanol.
On my web site I have a page that asks the reader whether the temperature of the oceans have risen or
gone down over the last 5 years. Most people will think that the temperatures have gone up, but in fact
they have gone down. So why have these scientific measurements not become headlines in the news?
The answer is simple; they don't confirm the results that AGW advocates are looking for. Scientific facts
that are "politically incorrect" are apparently "not news", or "must be wrong" so we can ignore the
scientific data. NPR spoke of these cooling results and went on to say that they were "puzzling."
Basically they indicated that there must be something wrong with these clear scientific facts because we
"all know" that "the science is settled" and there is "global warming" and it is "man made". It makes me
sick to see otherwise intelligent people caught up in this new religion of AGW. The heat content of water
is extremely more than that of air. So even if you think that the air is hotter, it is much more important to
know that the oceans are cooling.
As you know, although I want the country to move in the direction of energy independence, I am not sure
that the myth of AGW is a good way to do it. Although it "gets people off their duff" and makes them
more active, the concept of "decreasing CO2 emissions" becomes pervasive in the descriptions of
solutions. The Mother Jones article you sent is an example of this. The basic scientific fact is that we
are entering an era of global cooling and increasing the CO2 emissions will only help, not hurt. As you
have heard me say multiple times, 15% of our crop yield is due to our having successfully raised the
CO2 levels from 280 parts per million (ppm) to 380 ppm during the industrial revolution. The plants
breathe CO2 and increasing it is a "green thing to do."
One of the young fellows at Zanies the other night was asked by Kyle "How much CO2 do you think is in
the atmosphere?" The fellow responded that he though it was probably about 28% by now. Jenny
Budniak thought it was 10 to 15% when I asked her. This is the kind of impression the average person
is getting from all of the propaganda being spewed out about AGW.
The green party is 15% of the voters in Germany. So when they have to assign people to become their
scientific representatives on the UN panel IPCC, who do they assign? Naturally they call the Green
Party for suggestions to keep that faction happy. The Green Party nominates people without scientific
credentials but with a political agenda instead. With idiots like G.W. Bush, a poorly informed public that
thinks CO2 is present in the atmosphere in multiple percentage points and "scientists" who are really
politicians being placed on "scientific" panels, I don't see much hope for the world.
While the geeks are making progress in some laboratories, the scientifically ignorant politicians are
making bad decisions such as corn ethanol.
As I mentioned, Democrats such as Senator Amy Klobuchar, still speak in favor of ethanol. You tell me
that if we had more government regulators, we could avoid crises such as the sub-prime crisis. Well,
where is the government regulator with enough power to tell Senator Klobuchar that she is wrong? One
of my predictions is that there will be another economic crisis when farmers have been found to have
been "conned" into investing in ethanol distilleries which are bound to go bankrupt in the future. When
these farmers lose their farms to foreclosure, will you be blaming the smarmy salesmen who are talking
them into these investments? Or will you be blaming Senator Klobuchar, which they should be able to
trust to give them the "straight dope" but isn't.
Is the game to sit back and wait until the next crisis hits the front page and then find someone in the
other political party to blame? Or should we be writing letters to our congressmen now and telling them
to avoid the next crisis which we see coming?
We can only hope that the scientists and engineers will come up with solutions faster than the politicians
can screw things up with plans such as corn ethanol.
Personally, I feel that I must attempt to contribute to the discussion and encourage rational and
scientifically sound solutions to these problems.
What I personally feel is the first step is to point out two main scientific facts.
1. AGW is not a problem. The oceans are cooling.
2. More CO2 is a good thing.
Once people understand these two points, it is easier to solve the energy crisis. For example, one can
conclude that it okay to burn more coal, but you must filter out the mercury, solid particles and
radioactive materials from the smoke. Much of the mercury in our fish comes from burning coal and
releasing the mercury into the atmosphere. Even if we eliminated coal burning in the US, China is
burning quite a bit of coal and the smoke drifts over the Pacific Ocean and contaminates the ocean fish
with the mercury.
The way things are now going, it seems that it will be difficult or impossible to get the truth out and avoid
catastrophes such as the food shortage we now have due to government stupidity.
My goal is not to argue. I hope that you understand that I am "one of the good guys" who is trying to
find real solutions to real problems while avoiding superstition and preconceived incorrect notions. My
goal is to wake up people like Senator Klobuchar who are heading our country in the wrong direction.
don
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