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Archive for June 10th, 2008

“Bush lied” is a lie

Posted by Richard on June 10, 2008

What's up with the WaPo? An epidemic of remorse about past sins? Just one editor having second thoughts? Hard to say. A week ago, I noted with surprise that The Washington Post had editorialized that the news from Iraq "ought to mandate an already-overdue rethinking by the 'this-war-is-lost' caucus in Washington, including Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.)."

Now, WaPo's Editorial Page Editor has declared that the most pervasive leftist meme, "Bush lied," is false. But don't jump right to the WaPo opinion piece by Fred Hiatt, read the analysis by Doug Ross first.

On issue after issue, Hiatt points out that Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence, claimed to have evidence that "Bush lied," but in fact Rockefeller's report clearly shows that on issue after issue, the President's statements were "substantiated by the intelligence community."

After five years of WaPo (and the rest of the MSM) supporting and promoting the "Bush lied" meme, it's quite a change.

Fred Hiatt concluded (emphasis added):

Why does it matter, at this late date? The Rockefeller report will not cause a spike in "Bush Lied" mug sales, and the Bond dissent will not lead anyone to scrape the "Bush Lied" bumper sticker off his or her car.

But the phony "Bush lied" story line distracts from the biggest prewar failure: the fact that so much of the intelligence upon which Bush and Rockefeller and everyone else relied turned out to be tragically, catastrophically wrong.

And it trivializes a double dilemma that President Bill Clinton faced before Bush and that President Obama or McCain may well face after: when to act on a threat in the inevitable absence of perfect intelligence and how to mobilize popular support for such action, if deemed essential for national security, in a democracy that will always, and rightly, be reluctant.

For the next president, it may be Iran's nuclear program, or al-Qaeda sanctuaries in Pakistan, or, more likely, some potential horror that today no one even imagines. When that time comes, there will be plenty of warnings to heed from the Iraq experience, without the need to fictionalize more.

 Doug Ross concluded:

The Bush Lied meme, which was marketed incessantly by the Democrats and the mainstream media (but I repeat myself), was unadulterated partisan pap. Furthermore, it was dangerous pap, as it presents a future CINC with additional complexities and bickering even when the need to take military action is clear and present.

Yep. Thanks, Mr. Hiatt, for finally setting the record straight. Better late than never.

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Bonfires and inanities

Posted by Richard on June 10, 2008

For the second time in four years, Seattle Parks and Recreation tried last week to ban beach bonfires (they’re already restricted to a handful of fire rings and require a permit). Why? To save the planet, of course:

According to a memo to the park board from the staff released Thursday, “The overall policy question for the Board is whether it is good policy for Seattle Parks to continue public beach fires when the carbon … emissions produced by thousands of beach fires per year contributes to global warming.”

Apparently, they’ve again backed down — at least for now. But this is yet another illustration of how immune to reason, logic, and reality the AGW true believers are. Banning bonfires to prevent global warming is only slightly less inane and absurd than banning pictures of guns on T-shirts to prevent plane hijackings.

Meanwhile in California, development is grinding to a halt and the Governator has declared an official statewide drought because of a water supply crisis. What caused this crisis? The New York Times story doesn’t mention the precipitating event until paragraph 18 (emphasis added):

Even more significant, a judge in federal district court last year issued a curtailment in pumping from the California Delta — where the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers meet and provide water to roughly 25 million Californians — to protect a species of endangered smelt that were becoming trapped in the pumps. Those reductions, from December to June, cut back the state’s water reserves this winter by about one third, according to a consortium of state water boards.

So 25 million of California’s 38 million residents have their water supply threatened in order to prevent a two-inch fish from meeting its demise in a water pump instead of in the mouth of a larger fish. Unbelievable.

These Gaia-worshipping eco-nuts are at base profoundly anti-human. When a lightning-caused wildfire consumes thousands of acres of forest, they say it should be allowed to burn because that’s “nature’s way.” But when humans harvest trees, they say that’s raping the land — and an infinitesimally smaller bonfire on a beach threatens the planet. When beavers dam a creek and flood a mountain valley, they say it’s natural and beautiful. But when humans do the same thing, they call it despoliation. No one gives a moment’s thought to the farts of bears, bison, or wildebeest. But the farts of our livestock are a cause for grave concern.

To the environmentalist true believers, every species of plant, animal, fungus, and microbe on Earth is entitled to live in the manner to which it’s suited — except human beings. They look upon their own species as alien interlopers who threaten the pristine perfection that would exist if we all just went away. It’s the Bambi and Peaceable Kingdom myths commingled with a deep-seated self-loathing, and it’s disgusting.

(HT: Skeptics Global Warming)

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Earth is greener. Do SUVs deserve the credit?

Posted by Richard on June 10, 2008

It should be obvious to anyone who compares, say, the north coast of Alaska (top picture) to a tropical rainforest (bottom picture) that living things struggle when it's cold and thrive when it's warm. 

[UPDATE: Sorry, Internet Explorer 6 users — I just discovered you couldn't see the right-aligned pictures. I have no idea why and lack the patience to investigate. This seems to fix things.] 

ANWR coastal plain

Rainforest

If you remember your high school biology lesson on photosynthesis, you also know that CO2 is a natural fertilizer for plants, which remove the life-giving carbon and release the O2.

So there's really nothing all that unexpected about the NASA data on the Earth's biomass. Scientists analyzing the satellite measurements of plant matter on land were nonetheless surprised. Lawrence Solomon, a long-time environmentalist and recovering Anthropogenic Global Warming True Believer, explains (emphasis added):

The planet is the greenest it's been in decades, perhaps in centuries.
…

The results surprised Steven Running of the University of Montana and Ramakrishna Nemani of NASA, scientists involved in analyzing the NASA data. They found that over a period of almost two decades, the Earth as a whole became more bountiful by a whopping 6.2%. About 25% of the Earth's vegetated landmass — almost 110 million square kilometres — enjoyed significant increases and only 7% showed significant declines. When the satellite data zooms in, it finds that each square metre of land, on average, now produces almost 500 grams of greenery per year.

Why the increase? Their 2004 study, and other more recent ones, point to the warming of the planet and the presence of CO2, a gas indispensable to plant life. CO2 is nature's fertilizer, bathing the biota with its life-giving nutrients. Plants take the carbon from CO2 to bulk themselves up — carbon is the building block of life — and release the oxygen, which along with the plants, then sustain animal life. As summarized in a report last month, released along with a petition signed by 32,000 U. S. scientists who vouched for the benefits of CO2: "Higher CO2 enables plants to grow faster and larger and to live in drier climates. Plants provide food for animals, which are thereby also enhanced. The extent and diversity of plant and animal life have both increased substantially during the past half-century."

Screw Al Gore and the doomsayers — that sounds good to me. Unfortunately, it may be coming to an end, and all those "save the planet, reduce your carbon footprint" efforts may be horribly misguided (emphasis added):

This blossoming Earth could now be in jeopardy, for reasons both natural and man-made. According to a growing number of scientists, the period of global warming that we have experienced over the past few centuries as Earth climbed out of the Little Ice Age is about to end. The oceans, which have been releasing their vast store of carbon dioxide as the planet has warmed — CO2 is released from oceans as they warm and dissolves in them when they cool — will start to take the carbon dioxide back. With less heat and less carbon dioxide, the planet could become less hospitable and less green, especially in areas such as Canada's Boreal forests, which have been major beneficiaries of the increase in GPP and NPP.

Doubling the jeopardy for Earth is man. Unlike the many scientists who welcome CO2 for its benefits, many other scientists and most governments believe carbon dioxide to be a dangerous pollutant that must be removed from the atmosphere at all costs. Governments around the world are now enacting massive programs in an effort to remove as much as 80% of the carbon dioxide emissions from the atmosphere.

If these governments are right, they will have done us all a service. If they are wrong, the service could be all ill, with food production dropping world wide, and the countless ecological niches on which living creatures depend stressed. …

All the Gaia-worshippers' finger wagging aside, I don't believe that air conditioning and SUVs have played much of a role in 20th-century warming and CO2-level increases. Nonetheless, I think we all ought to do what we can to preserve the Earth's biomass by countering the misguided efforts of Al Gore's disciples. I'm going to help protect our forests by increasing my carbon footprint. I encourage you to join me — pledge to participate in Carbon Belch Day on June 12.

(HT: Watts Up With That?) 

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