"Die-hard" Californian environmentalists helping to "destroy planet"

Are "die-hard environmentalists" in California helping to "destroy the planet"? That could very well be the case, if one is to believe IPCC scientist Evan Mills, who has published the paper “Energy Up In Smoke: The Carbon Footprint of Indoor Cannabis Production.”

indoor pot consumes an estimated 8 percent of all electricity generated in California and 1 percent of all electricity generated in America. Its greenhouse emissions equal that of six million cars. Growing just one joint indoors emits two pounds of CO2.
Indeed, marijuana, once synonymous with all that is green, has become anything but in the region that gave birth to the environmental movement. Residents in the liberal Bay Area routinely elbow past each other to buy cage-free eggs, free-range beef and organic strawberries, and yet their weed habit costs a Fukushima’s-worth of power every year.
Why? Because medical cannabis users seem to prefer the high they get from indoor-grown pot, not to mention the way it looks, smells and tastes–even if it’s helping to destroy the planet.
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Mills’ analysis also turned the stomachs of many die-hard environmentalists in Humboldt County. Because, in a way, they knew they helped create the problem.

Read the entire article here


While one should not be too worried about alarmists´worries about the pot smokers´ contribution to the "destruction" of our planet, there is, however, another question with regard to the "die-hard" warmist environmentalists, which Mills does not address: Could the use of pot actually explain much of their often strange antics?

It could very well be true, when we remember how marijuana affects a person´s behavior:

Since marijuana drastically effects short-term memory, it is not uncommon for the user to often forget what he is doing or talking about.

PS

Sometimes one has a feeling that these symptoms are not uncommon among many warmist climate scientists, either.

President Sarkozy deserves some credit for his Libyan policy

Taylor Dinerman lauds president Nicolas Sarkozy for his Libya policy. The victory over Gaddafi belongs to the Libyans themselves, but Sarkozy also can take some credit for the success:

Much of the credit should also go to the world leader who, early on, decided to bet on the rebels: France's President Nicolas Sarkozy. After some prodding from the celebrity intellectual, Bernard Henri Levy, Sarkozy began to lobby the rest of the West, especially US President Barack Obama and a few Arab governments,against Gaddafi.
While there were some political reasons for Sarkozy's actions, including the need to make everyone, in Libya and elsewhere forget about the ill-considered 2008 arms sales to Libya, the French government's motives were less cynical than one might have come to expect, based on past performance from past regimes. This is to Sarkozy's credit, and may presage an enduring shift in France's overall foreign policy towards a less automatic anti-US and anti-NATO posture.
It was Sarkozy's decision in June to airdrop a massive supply of weapons, including especially the Milan wire-guided anti-tank missiles, for the Arab and Berber rebels in the Jebel Nefousa mountains south of the Libyan capital, Tripoli, that future military historians will probably see as the decisive move that broke the back of Gaddafi's military forces. France's traditionally intimate knowledge of Berber tribal politics may have been one of the reasons behind this move; also, the fact that French intelligence believed, correctly as it turned out, that, if well armed, the Berbers would prove formidable fighting men.

But Sarkozy´s Libyan success may not be enough to get him re-elected:

His poll numbers are far worse than those of any other Western leader. In one recent survey roughly 50% of Frenchmen said they would not vote for him under any circumstances. His job approval rating hovers consistently around 25%.

Read the entire article here

One must hope that Dinerman is right about the shift in French foreign policy "towards a less automatic anti-US and anti-NATO posture". That would be most welcome from a transatlantic/NATO point of view. There have not been too many positive developments in that area during the last few years.

Warmist Kevin Trenberth: Come rain or come shine - always blame it on global warming

Nobel Laureate (shared) for Nobel Peace Prize 2007 (as part of IPCC) Kevin Trenberth has made the the following announcement about the connection between climate change and recent disasters:

 "Given that global warming is unequivocal," he said, the assumption should be "that all weather events are affected by global warming, rather than the inane statements along the lines of 'of course we cannot attribute any particular weather event to global warming.' "

Now we have it from the highest possible authority: Irene, Katrina, heatwaves, coldwaves, floods, droughts, you name it - global warming is always to blame. "Science" is as simple as that - on the Nobel Peace Prize level.

Flashback 1821:
In 1821, a major hurricane passed directly over New York City, probably a strong category 4. Historical records show it caused a 10-foot storm surge at low tide. At that time, not that many people were living in New York, so people didn't pay a lot of attention to it.
But William Redfield, the "father of hurricane science", observed the 1821 storm. Just as a debate goes on today over whether global warming causes more frequent or more intense hurricanes, the mid-19th century debate was over "the law of storms".

Cary Mock, Associate Professor of Geography, University of South Carolina

Australian study: 18% reduction in log availability in 2050 due to global warming

        There will be 18% less logs and 19% fewer loggers in Australia by 2050


The flow of new studies about the impact of  (bogus) human caused global warming/climate change seems to be endless. One of the latest comes from the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics. The bureau has released a report on the effects of climate change on forestry in six Australian regions.

The main finding of the ABARES report appears to be that there will be an 18 per cent reduction in log availability by 2050 with increasing global temperatues of on average 1.5 per cent.

Graph projections also show that that there would be an average drop in production of 21 per cent, with employment down 19 per cent.

Read an article about the study here

The report can be downloaded here

PS

The (probably quite large) ABARES team of researchers seem to have made good use of the various models created by alarmist climate scientists. However, knowing the widely known amazing accuracy of these models, it is somewhat surprising that the Australian researchers have not actually been able to give the exact number of   logs missing due to human caused global warming in the year 2050. Or maybe the logs are numbered in an appendix? 

Professors and fools

Michael C. B. Ashley is a Professor in the School of Physics at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia, whose "main research interest is in conducting astronomy and making measurements of atmospheric properties from the Antarctic plateau". He has also taught "several undergraduate courses of relevance to climate science".

This academic giant also is "teaching" Australians that "the science underpinning anthropogenic climate change is rock solid". Scientists - and others - who are not convinced about human induced global warming are "fools":

The problem is that on one side of the debate you have 97% of the world’s published climate scientists and the world’s major scientific organisations, and on the other side you have fools.
Excuse my bluntness, but it is past time to acknowledge that the science underpinning anthropogenic climate change is rock solid. The sceptics have had the time and opportunity to come with up a convincing case, but their best efforts read like arguments that NASA faked the moon landing.

Read the entire article here

PS

If you would like to remind the professor about who is the real fool, here is the address:

m.ashley@unsw.edu.au

"Battery apathy" - Car buyers do not want ineffecient and expensive electric cars

Car buyers are rational people. That´s why they don´t buy into their governments´ battery car hype. Detroit News columnist Neil Winton explains:

Governments in Washington, Berlin, Brussels and Beijing have decided that battery-only cars are the path to the future, and are using taxpayers' money to make it happen.
The trouble is car buyers aren't cooperating.
Governments see battery-only cars as a way of cutting greenhouse gases, which many think cause global warming, and a route to lessening reliance on foreign oil. Car buyers see vehicles that cost about twice as much as they should, and which go about a quarter of the distance they want.
A recent survey in Germany by technology consultancy Gartner Group showed just how high the barrier manufacturers must climb if consumers are willingly going to buy battery cars.
According to the survey, only 16 percent of Germans would consider buying a battery car, compared with 52 percent who want gasoline power, 43 percent hybrids, 37 percent diesel and 25 percent natural gas motors. Of course, Germans don't necessarily speak for Europeans, but the country is Europe's biggest market, accounting for roughly 25 percent of car sales. There's no reason to think their car preferences will be much different from other Europeans, or Americans for that matter.

Voting in the US 2012 presidential election

Ari Berman, writing in Rolling Stone:

As the nation gears up for the 2012 presidential election, Republican officials have launched an unprecedented, centrally coordinated campaign to suppress the elements of the Democratic vote that elected Barack Obama in 2008.
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Florida and Iowa barred all ex-felons from the polls, disenfranchising thousands of previously eligible voters.

Read the entire article here