Germany´s failed foreign minister tries to save the euro with the help of his predecessors

The opposition against chanellor Angela Merkel´s policy of "more Europe" in order to save the euro is growing in Germany: 

Prominent euro-skeptic Frank Schäffler, who voted against a rescue package for Spanish banks in July, said that German taxpayer dollars shouldn't be put on the line to bail out governments of other European countries. "Things are moving closer and closer to a transfer union," he warned at the vote.

Bavaria's Finance Minister Markus Söder, a member of the Christian Social Union (CSU), the Bavarian sister party to Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and a crucial part of her governing coalition, said recently that Greece should leave the euro by the end of the year. Söder told the Sunday tabloid Bild am Sonntag that "each new aid measure, every easing of the demands, would be the wrong path."

Most prominent, however, have been the comments from Merkel's economy minister and vice chancellor Philipp Rösler, who said recently that a Greek exit from the common currency zone has "long since lost its horrors" for him. Rösler, as it happens, is also the current head of the FDP and was widely criticized for his comments.

Der Spiegel now tells us that Merkel´s foreign minister Guido Westerwelle - easily the worst foreign minister in Germany after WW II - is planning to save euro with  the help of some of his predecessors:

With Europe's common currency in trouble and the entire EU weakened as a result, German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle is determined to do his part to keep the euro from disintegrating. Indeed, he is now reportedly organizing a joint appearance with several former German foreign ministers from a trio of different political parties.

With the slogan, "We are for Europe," Westerwelle, of the business-friendly Free Democratic Party (FDP), is planning an appearance with his predecessors Hans-Dietrich Genscher and Klaus Kinkel, also of the FDP, Joschka Fischer of the environmentalist Green Party and Frank-Walter Steinmeier of the opposition center-left Social Democrats (SPD).

It is fortunately highly unlikely that Westerwelle´s project will have any influence on the more and more critical attitudes of ordinary Germans. When the reality of the European Union´s - and 

Germany´s - failed policies is fully exposed within the next few months, Germans will realize that Westerwelle´s and  his predecessor´s campaign is just another piece of empty rhetorics. 

Wind power - A 125 year old "infant industry"

The wind power industry both in Europe and the US boasts about how competitive it has become. At the same time the wind energy people are warning about massive job-losses if subsidies and tax credits are removed or reduced. 

Thomas Pyle examines this 125 year old "infant industry": 

Congress has been supporting wind production since at least 1978 on the premise that wind is an infant industry that needs just a few more years of mother’s milk – i.e. taxpayer handouts -- to be cost-competitive with more affordable and reliable sources of energy. 

But wind has to be one of the oldest infant industries on the planet. In 1882, Thomas Edison built the Pearl Street Station in New York City—a coal fired power plant. A mere 5 years later, a Scottish academic named James Blyth built a wind turbine to make electricity and run the lights on his cabin. After 125 years of generating electricity, you would think that wind would be ready to stand on its own without special favors from the federal government, but apparently it is not.

Wind proponents have been telling us since at least the early 1980s that wind is almost cost-competitive with coal and natural gas. The American Wind Energy Association asserts that wind is “cost-competitive with virtually all other new electricity generation sources.” If so, why are wind proponents still asking for help through the Production Tax Credit?

The reason is plain. The PTC is a large portion of the wholesale price of electricity, giving wind producers the incentive to produce electricity even when they have to pay the electrical grid to take the power they generate. 

Specifically, the PTC is a credit of 2.2 cents per kilowatt-hour of electricity produced from wind (and other specified sources). The wholesale price of electricity is less than 3 cents per kilowatt-hour in some markets to about 4.5 cents per kilowatt hour. This makes the PTC worth 50 to 70 percent of the wholesale price of electricity.

The law as currently written provides the two things the wind proponents claim they want—certainty and a phase out of the tax credit. As the law stands, the tax credit ends at the end of the year. This is definitely a certain outcome and a phase out.

Wind has a long history and it continues to be expensive, inefficient, and unsustainable. It’s about time that Congress ends the Production Tax Credit once and for all.

Read the entire article here

Warmist U.S. Geological Survey scientist´s warning to surfers: Waves will get smaller!

Among people who are looking forward to the larger storms predicted by global warming alarmists, surfers stand out: 

“Every time a new climate study comes out its worse than the last,” Hechter says. “Climate change means more big storms. More storms, more surf, right? I guess that’s the most you can say for such a calamity: Maybe we’ll get some epic waves.”

Not suprisingly, this positive approach is not to the liking of "experts". U.S. Geological 
Survey´s Curt Storlazzi says that there will be prolonged periods - "a month or more" - of very small waves between the "epic swells", all due to global warming!: 

According to Curt Storlazzi, a surfer and a geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey who studies coastlines, it is true that climate change will likely cause ever-larger storms, and more epic swells. But that doesn’t take into account the varied effects of climate change. The periods between those swells will lengthen: surfers may get to enjoy a week of all-time surf, but that might be followed by a month or more of excruciating flatness. “Climate change makes extremes more extreme,” Storlazzi said. Over time, he added, because the waves between storms will get smaller even as the bigger waves get bigger, the average height of waves is likely to stay the same, and may even go down a bit.

Another "expert" agrees: 

“The frequency where you have the exact right combination of tide, wind, and swell to make a classic surf day are going to be fewer and further between,” said David Revell, a senior associate with the environmental hydrology firm Phillip Williams and Associates. Revell said climate change will eventually have a profound affect on surfing, citing Rincon and Pleasure Point in Santa Cruz, as two good examples of breaks that could eventually be significantly affected by sea level rise. On a long enough time frame, Revell said, some low tide spots, like Supertubes in Los Angeles County, could disappear completely.

Both Revell and Storlazzi emphasized that new breaks will be created as sea level rise reconfigures the world’s coastlines, and they noted that surf spots that break better at high tide may benefit from the changes. But they said that for the foreseeable future the overall effect of advancing seas is likely to be more destructive than constructive.

However, Jacob Hechter, 30, a surfer at Rincon in Santa Barbara, does not seem to be too worried about Storlazzi´s and Revell´s warnings (And I agree with him. The small waves "theory"- as well as the entire global warming alarmism - is basically nothing but junk science ):  

“Who knows where my kids and grandkids are going to be surfing,” Hechter, who is 30, says before he pushes off the last rock and paddles out. “But I’m looking forward to some all-time swells.”

Read the entire article here

Global warming scaremongering: Children in tears

This is what happens when a mother, who has been brainwashed, tells her children about the forthcoming climate armageddon: 

My 12-year old has just asked to participate in another weekly activity thirty minutes away. I try a quick rebuff: “You’re already too busy and it’s too expensive.”
With more than a bit of adolescent attitude, she replies, “You just don’t want to take the time to drive me.”
I look at the clock. It’s past 7 p.m. We haven’t eaten dinner, and unfinished homework clutters the kitchen table. There is never a perfect moment to get into the real nitty gritty of why and wherefore. Still, sometimes you have to take the time to give your kids an honest answer to their questions.
“Yes, you’re partly right,” I tell her, and her sister too, who has now wandered in. “I don’t especially want to spend more time carting you around. But there is another reason. Every time we get in the car we contribute to climate change. By the end of this century – and you may both still be around – climate change is likely to make conditions for life on earth drastically different from what they are today.”

I plunge ahead. I tell them that they have just lived through the hottest decade ever recorded. I tell them that recent flooding submerged one fifth of the land surface of Pakistan, washing away 7,000 schools.
I tell them that the Arctic is melting, that hurricanes are getting stronger, droughts are lengthening, and rainfall records are being shattered. Within their lifetimes, sea level could rise by 6 feet, or more, submerging the world’s coastal cities.
The children are quiet. Finally they ask if our house, a few miles inland from the Maine coast, will be okay. This question, in its innocent disregard either for the welfare of others, or for the fact that if the world disintegrates around them it won’t matter if their house is okay, seems to reflect a child’s perspective.
But it’s how us adults think too: Sure, catastrophic drought struck Texas last year and the Midwest this summer. But here in the Northeast global warming so far has mostly meant warmer winters. In other words, our house and family are fine.
Well then, my children ask, shouldn’t we do something about it?
I tell them they are already helping by riding their bikes and walking around town, by delighting in hand-me-downs rather than shopping trips, by eating local spinach rather than asking for processed foods from afar.
Although this cheers them up a bit, they are smart enough to know that a few leaves of spinach are not going to fix a whole lot. By the end of the conversation, they’re in tears.

Read the entire column here

PS

There are probably thousands of similar families, with children in tears after listening to their alarmist parents´ global warming scaremongering. Enviro-fundamentalists obviously do not care very much about the lasting damage their alarmist propaganda causes to young, easily manipulated children, who do not yet have the ability to critically judge the quality of the information they are force-fed with. Very sad. 

Der Spiegel: "Putin´s Russia is Becoming a Flawless Dictatorship"

Finally leading western media are awakening to the fact that Vladimir Putin is a dictator. The headline of German Der Spiegel´s article says it all:

The Path to TyrannyPutin's Russia Is Becoming a Flawless Dictatorship

Vladimir Putin is rapidly transforming Russia into a repressive state reminiscent of the Soviet Union, and the Pussy Riot trial is the climax in his campaign against the opposition. However, following massive media attention, his crackdown on the punk band could backfire.

Putin's speech to the German parliament, the Bundestag, on Sept. 25, 2001, fueled expectations that the former KGB officer, who spoke German fluently, would modernize Russia and champion European values. Such illusions culminated in a now-famous comment by then Chancellor Gerhard Schröder who, in November 2004, described his Moscow friend as a "flawless democrat."

Putin has since disappointed his German friends, whose expectations were in any case too high. They had refused to believe that Russia still viewed itself as an independent power between Europe and Asia, that 500 years of authoritarian rule under the czars and the communists, could not be shed overnight, and the reservations against the West would not simply disappear because Russians like to drink Coca-Cola and carry designer bags by Yves Saint Laurent.

--

But after his four years as prime minister and his return to the Kremlin in early May, Putin abandoned his conciliatory approach. Demands for more democracy and development of Russia's weak civil society were suddenly viewed as subversive.

He quickly had his party, United Russia, which had increasingly taken on the structures and rituals of the former Communist Party of the Soviet Union in the more than 10 years of its existence, drastically tighten laws against demonstrations. Leading members of the opposition were attacked with smear campaigns.
In only three months Putin, with the help of his absolute majority in the Duma, repealed the few reforms that his predecessor Dmitry Medvedev, with whom he had switched places, had managed to carry out.
-

Vladimir Pastukhov, a political scientist and attorney, points to what he views as the "return of political terror as an instrument of the government." Naturally, he adds, Putin is not another Stalin, and yet the president has created a new form of equality, not before the law but before his despotism. "Everyone understands that the law no longer protects people," he says. "All business owners know that their companies can be taken away from them at any second, as can freedom and perhaps even their lives."

Pastukhov left the country in 2008. At the time, he represented British investor William Browder in a conflict with senior officials at the Interior Ministry and the Russian tax authority, who had apparently appropriated a few of his client's companies. In the eyes of Putin's supporters, this made Pastukhov a champion of Western interest who was being paid by foreigners. He now teaches at the University of Oxford.

-

The president is unfazed by the West's criticism of the treatment of Pussy Riot. With his policy of uncompromising toughness, Putin wants to demonstrate that Russia has once again acquired the status in the world that it had during the Cold War, when the Soviet Union battled for supremacy with the United States.
But Putin's approach could prove to be a mistake, one that threatens rather than reinforces his power. Many Russians -- especially in Moscow, where Putin no longer has the support of the majority -- are demanding a greater say in politics. Only one in three Russians now feels that the country is a democracy.

PS 
Der Spiegel says that Putin has since (2004) disappointed his German friends. That is probably true about most of his so called German friends, but his main supporter - and beneficiary - in Germany, former socialist chancellor Gerhard Schröder to this day has not retracted his statement about Putin as a "flawless democrat". On the contrary, last year Schröder restated his support of the dictator:

"I have not changed my characterisation of the Russian President, and I will not take my words back" ( Schröder, May 7, 2011)

The lunatic fringe of the alarmist movement is getting nervous about Romney´s outstanding choice as running mate

The lunatic fringe of the global warming alarmist movement is getting nervous about Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney´s excellent choice as running mate: 

@climatebrad

Brad Johnson

 Paul Ryan is a big fat F on #climate.http://t.co/3Omir578#savingamericafrombetterlightbulbs

@billmckibben

Bill McKibben

Meet Paul Ryan--it snowed in my district, so let's not do anything about climate change
http://t.co/iCkKIKU3

"In short, Paul Ryan stands with Big Oil against scientific fact and the future of human civilization".
 Brad Johnson, campaign manager for Forecast the Facts

In fact, Brad Johnson´s description of "the virulent denier" Ryan´s voting record  on climate change/global warming is a most welcome reminder of Ryan´s sensible and wise views: 

Ryan has voted to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from limiting greenhouse pollution, to eliminate White House climate advisers, to block the U.S. Department of Agriculture from preparing for climate disasters like the drought devastating his home state, and to eliminate the Department of Energy Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA-E):

Paul Ryan Promoted Unfounded Conspiracy Theories About Climate Scientists.In a December 2009 op-ed during international climate talks, Ryan made reference to the hacked University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit emails. He accused climatologists of a “perversion of the scientific method, where data were manipulated to support a predetermined conclusion,” in order to “intentionally mislead the public on the issue of climate change.” Because of spurious claims of conspiracy like these, several governmental and academic inquiries were launched, all of which found the accusations to be without merit. [Paul Ryan, 12/11/09] (The inquiries were a whitewash, NNoN)

Paul Ryan Argued Snow Invalidates Global Warming Policy. In the same anti-science, anti-scientist December 2009 op-ed, Ryan argued, “Unilateral economic restraint in the name of fighting global warming has been a tough sell in our communities, where much of the state is buried under snow.” Ryan’s line is especially disingenuous because he hasn’t been trying to sell climate action, he’s been spreading disinformation.  [Paul Ryan, 12/11/09] (Johnson and McKibben clearly misrepresent what Ryan wrote in his op-ed, which is a very sensible and realistic in its general tone - strongly recommended reading!, NNoN)

Paul Ryan Voted To Eliminate EPA Limits On Greenhouse Pollution. Ryan voted in favor of H.R. 910, introduced in 2011 by Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI) to block the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gas pollution. [Roll Call 249, 4/7/11]

Paul Ryan Voted To Block The USDA From Preparing For Climate Change. In 2011, Ryan voted in favor of the Scalise (R-LA) Amendment to the FY12 Agriculture Appropriations bill, to bar the U.S. Department of Agriculture from implementing its Climate Protection Plan. [Roll Call 448, 6/16/11]

Paul Ryan Voted To Eliminate White House Climate Advisers. Ryan voted in favor of Scalise (R-LA) Amendment 204 to the 2011 Continuing Resolution, to eliminate the assistant to the president for energy and climate change, the special envoy for climate change (Todd Stern), and the special adviser for green jobs, enterprise and innovation. [Roll Call 87, 2/17/11]

Paul Ryan Voted To Eliminate ARPA-E. Ryan voted in favor of Biggert (R-IL) Amendment 192 to the 2011 Continuing Resolution, to eliminate the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA-E). [Roll Call 55, 2/17/11]

Paul Ryan Voted To Eliminate Light Bulb Efficiency Standards. In 2011, Ryan voted to roll back light-bulb efficiency standards that had reinvigorated the domestic lighting industry and that significantly reduce energy waste and carbon pollution. [Roll Call 563, 7/12/11]

Paul Ryan Voted For Keystone XL. In 2011, Ryan voted to expedite the consideration and approval of the construction and operation of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. [Roll Call 650, 7/26/11]

Paul Ryan Budget Kept Big Oil Subsidies And Slashed Clean Energy Investment.House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) proposed FY 2013 budget resolution retained a decade’s worth of oil tax breaks worth $40 billion, while slashing funding for investments in clean energy research, development, deployment, and commercialization, along with other energy programs. The plan called for a $3 billion cut in energy programs in FY 2013 alone. [CAP,3/20/12]

UK wind energy policy: "Everything about this is delusional"

Wind power is inefficient and an enormous waste of money everywhere. Christopher Booker explains the sad reality of the Cameron government´s wind energy policy: 

Anyone impressed by the efficient way in which Britain has organised the Olympic Games might consider the stark contrast provided by the shambles of our national energy policy – wholly focused as it is on the belief that we can somehow keep our lights on by building tens of thousands more wind turbines within eight years. At one point last week, Britain’s 3,500 turbines were contributing 12 megawatts (MW) to the 38,000MW of electricity we were using. (The Neta website, which carries official electricity statistics, registered this as “0.0 per cent”).

It is 10 years since I first pointed out here how crazy it is to centre our energy policy on wind. It was pure wishful thinking then and is even more obviously so now, when the Government in its latest energy statement talks of providing, on average, 12,300MW of power from “renewables” by 2020.

Everything about this is delusional. There is no way we could hope to build more than a fraction of the 30,000 turbines required. As the windless days last week showed, we would have to build dozens of gas-fired power stations just to provide back-up for all the times when the wind is not blowing at the right speed. But, as more and more informed observers have been pointing out, the ministers and officials of the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) seem to live in a bubble of unreality, without any practical grasp of how electricity is made, impervious to rational argument and driven by an obsession that can only end in our computer-dependent economy grinding to a halt.

Read the entire article here