Tag Archives: Carbon Emissions

News

Environmentalists support restrictions on number of children per family

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Here’s the first story from CNS News. (H/T American Spectator via ECM)

Here’s New York Times reporter Andrew Revkin.

Excerpt:

At the event, Revkin said: “Well, some of the people have recently proposed: Well, should there be carbon credits for a family planning program in Africa let’s say? Should that be monetized as a part of something that, you know, if you, if you can measurably somehow divert fertility rate, say toward an accelerating decline in a place with a high fertility rate, shouldn’t there be a carbon value to that?

“And I have even proposed recently, I can’t remember if it’s in the blog, but just think about this: Should–probably the single-most concrete and substantive thing an American, young American, could do to lower our carbon footprint is not turning off the lights or driving a Prius, it’s having fewer kids, having fewer children,” said Revkin.

“So should there be, eventually you get, should you get credit–If we’re going to become carbon-centric–for having a one-child family when you could have had two or three,” said Revkin. “And obviously it’s just a thought experiment, but it raises some interesting questions about all this.”

And here’s the second story from the UK Guardian. (H/T National Review via ECM)

And here’s the UK Guardian’s reporter Alex Renton.

Excerpt:

The worst thing that you or I can do for the planet is to have children. If they behave as the average person in the rich world does now, they will emit some 11 tonnes of CO² every year of their lives. In their turn, they are likely to have more carbon-emitting children who will make an even bigger mess…

In 2050, 95% of the extra population will be poor and the poorer you are, the less carbon you emit. By today’s standards, a cull of Australians or Americans would be at least 60 times as productive as one of Bangladeshis… As Rachel Baird, who works on climate change for Christian Aid, says: “Often in the countries where the birth rate is highest, emissions are so low that they are not even measurable. Look at Burkina Faso.” So why ask them to pay in unborn children for our profligacy..?

But how do you reduce population in countries where women’s rights are already achieved and birth-control methods are freely available? Could children perhaps become part of an adult’s personal carbon allowance? Could you offer rewards: have one child only and you may fly to Florida once a year?

After all, based on current emissions and life expectancy, one less British child would permit some 30 women in sub-Saharan Africa to have a baby and still leave the planet a cleaner place.

A lot of people ask why I am so concerned about getting married in a nation in which 77% of young, unmarried women voted for Obama and his radically leftist science czar and radically leftist former green jobs czar. (The science czar favored mass sterilizations and forced abortions). And now we can see part of the answer: the left wants to interfere with my reproductive freedom using state coercion.

And it’s not just environmental reporters who are against people having children. It’s Obama’s own nominees. These fears of overpopulation are like “Left Behind” novels for the secular left. The failed doomsday predictions of Paul Ehrlich are identical to the failed doomsday predictions of Jehovah’s Witnesses. There is something very strange about these people – and women should not have voted for them.

Recall that Social Security and other government programs are fueled by income taxes on younger workers. Except that the overpopulation nutters aborted the next generation of American workers. Ooops. So where are we supposed to get the money for these ballooning social programs from if the left keeps putting restrictions on pregnancy? Here’s my previous post about Britain’s looming demographics crisis.

News

Are the oceans warming?

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We actually have a pretty comprehensive way of measuring the changes in the temperature of the oceans. We use a submersible sensor called an “Argo Buoy” in order to do the measurements. Since 2003, 3000 of them have been taking measurements in all the oceans of the world. The purpose of the buoys is to provide scientists with confirmation that the globe is really warming. But all was not well.

But the Vancouver Sun reports: (H/T Commenter ECM)

So why are some scientists now beginning to question the buoys’ findings? Because in five years the little blighters have failed to detect any global warming. They are not reinforcing the scientific orthodoxy of the day, namely that man is causing the planet to warm dangerously. They are not proving the predetermined conclusions of their human masters. Therefore they, and not their masters’ hypotheses, must be wrong.

In fact, “there has been a very slight cooling,” according to a U.S. National Public Radio (NPR) interview with Josh Willis at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a scientist who keeps close watch on the Argo findings.

Well, maybe the climate models predicted some cooling?

The big problem with the Argo findings is that all the major climate computer models postulate that as much as 80-90 per cent of global warming will result from the oceans warming rapidly then releasing their heat into the atmosphere.

But surely the other models are being confirmed by observations?

Modellers are also perplexed by the findings of NASA’s eight weather satellites that take more than 300,000 temperature readings daily over the entire surface of the Earth, versus approximately 7,000 random readings from Earth stations.

In nearly 30 years of operation, the satellites have discovered a warming trend of just 0.14 C per decade, less than the models and well within the natural range of temperature variation.

But maybe if we wait for a while, scientists will discover new measurements that are the opposite of these measurements. The new measurements will confirm that global warming is real, that scientists need more grant money, and that socialists must take control of the economy right now in order to save us from the horrible Flying Spaghetti Global Warming Monster! Those 700 dissenting scientists? Paid off by big oil! All of them!

The polar ice caps were also paid off by big oil. How else do you explain their refusal to melt?

UPDATE: NASA study shows that solar activity is responsible for past global warming.

News

Michele Bachmann calls for Napolitano to resign

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Representative Michele Bachmann
Representative Michele Bachmann

This video is awesome. (H/T The Maritime Sentry)

But the leaked DHS report is not the only problem that conservatives are facing from the fascist left. The tolerant left, champions of diversity and tolerance, doesn’t like the idea of hearing things that might hurt their feelings. Every word you say has the potential to incite violence against them!

So, they’ve proposed this new Hate Crimes bill so that they don’t have to listen to people they disagree with anymore.

Excerpt from a post on Atheism Analyzed: (H/T Apologetics 315)

Committee members allowed that, yes, the law could result in the imprisonment of religious leaders. Conceivably then, a threat might be perceived in the preaching from a Bible (the weapon), perceived as inciting “radicals” to do bodily harm to non-believers or gays or whoever. Thus the perception allegedly received by the alleged victim holds total sway over the actual occurrence, which in actuality might have been completely benign.

If the validity of the actual occurrence is not the basis for justice, then there is no justice under this proposed law; it is an invitation for persecution by allegation of personal offendedness, a legalization of internal outrage as the definition of a crime regardless of whether the outrage is legitimate.

Protection from outrage is not possible; so persecution of the hated must substitute. Justice misapplied can become persecution, and it undoubtedly will if H.R. 1913 becomes law.

We elected Obama, and now the whole country will look like the university campuses, where leftist fascism is the rule, and conservatives need bodyguards and police escorts in order to be able to speak.

BONUS:

Michele Bachmann talks with Neil Cavuto about cap and trade, and the recession: (H/T The Maritime Sentry)

Sensible science, sensible energy policy and sensible pollution reduction. Why won’t the socialists just listen to her? Just do whatever she says to do and we’ll get out of this mess that the Democrats put us into.