Tag Archives: Carbon

Commentary

Scientific American assesses naturalistic explanations for the origin of life

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From Scientific American. (H/T Letitia via Mary)

Excerpt:

As recently as the middle of the 20th century, many scientists thought that the first organisms were made of self-replicating proteins. After Francis Crick and James Watson showed that DNA is the basis for genetic transmission in the 1950s, many researchers began to favor nucleic acids over proteins as the ur-molecules. But there was a major hitch in this scenario. DNA can make neither proteins nor copies of itself without the help of catalytic proteins called enzymes. This fact turned the origin of life into a classic chicken-or-egg puzzle: Which came first, proteins or DNA?

RNA, DNA’s helpmate, remains the most popular answer to this conundrum, just as it was when I wrote “In the Beginning…” Certain forms of RNA can act as their own enzymes, snipping themselves in two and splicing themselves back together again. If RNA could act as an enzyme, then it might be able to replicate itself without help from proteins. RNA could serve as gene and catalyst, egg and chicken.

But the “RNA-world” hypothesis remains problematic. RNA and its components are difficult to synthesize under the best of circumstances, in a laboratory, let alone under plausible prebiotic conditions. Once RNA is synthesized, it can make new copies of itself only with a great deal of chemical coaxing from the scientist. Overbye notes that “even if RNA did appear naturally, the odds that it would happen in the right sequence to drive Darwinian evolution seem small.”

The RNA world is so dissatisfying that some frustrated scientists are resorting to much more far out—literally—speculation. The most startling revelation in Overbye’s article is that scientists have resuscitated a proposal once floated by Crick. Dissatisfied with conventional theories of life’s beginning, Crick conjectured that aliens came to Earth in a spaceship and planted the seeds of life here billions of years ago. This notion is called directed panspermia. In less dramatic versions of panspermia, microbes arrived on our planet via asteroids, comets or meteorites, or drifted down like confetti.

John Horgan is not a Christian, nor even a theist. This is the state of the art if you are a naturalist.

Basically, you have at most a couple hundred million years from the time the Earth cools to the appearance of first life. You are unlikely to get one measly protein without an intelligence arranging the amino acids. This is assuming we spot you a favorable environment for creating amino acids without intervention. And then there would still be the problem of sequencing the proteins.

Atheists oppose science and evidence

Theists support science and evidence

News

EPA to stop global warming by killing jobs and raising energy prices

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First, the Environmental Protection Agency is set to impose a de-facto carbon tax by raising the cost of energy on American consumers.

Excerpt:

The Environmental Protection Agency announced Thursday that it would regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and oil refineries next year, targeting the nation’s two biggest sources of carbon dioxide.

The move, which comes as part of a legal settlement with several states, local governments and environmental groups which have sued EPA under the Bush administration for failing to act, highlights the Obama administration’s intent to press ahead with curbs on carbon despite congressional resistance.

Collectively, electric utilities and oil refineries account for almost 40 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions: Under the agreement, EPA will propose new performance standards for power plants in July 2011 and for refineries in December 2011 and will issue final standards in May 2012 and November 2012, respectively.

[…]Charles T. Drevna, president of the National Petrochemical & Refiners Association, said his industry will urge lawmakers to block EPA’s move.

“EPA’s proposals would carry tremendous costs but no benefits for the American people – all pain and no gain,” Drevna said in a statement. “Regulations can’t create technology that doesn’t exist or change the laws of physics and economics, so the only way to comply with EPA’s proposals would be to inflict massive increases in energy costs and massive increases in unemployment on families across our nation. This is exactly the opposite of what President Obama rightly called for when he said economic recovery and job creation should be our nation’s top priorities.”

Some key lawmakers such as Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), who is in line to chair the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee next year, seemed open to such suggestions.

“Rep. Issa is disappointed by EPA’s refusal to appropriately and thoroughly consider regulations that will undoubtedly kill more jobs in an already struggling economy,” said Issa spokesman Kurt Bardella in an e-mailed statement. “The fact is there are serious questions about EPA’s decision to move forward with these job-killing regulations that will usurp power from states — violating the principals of federalism that are the backbone of the clean air act. EPA’s actions will also impose a de facto building moratorium that comes at the expense of thousands of jobs.”

If you raise the cost of producing energy made by coal plants, it raises energy costs on consumers and businesses. If you raise costs on consumers, then you make ordinary people poorer. If you raise costs on businesses then you get fewer jobs. This is why we have had an unemployment rate of near 10% under the Democrats for nearly two years since Obama took office. And why the unemployment rate has been increasing since the Democrats took over the House and Senate in January of 2007. Because they know less about economics than my keyboard. They probably think that raising gas and utility prices will create jobs and increase disposable income of consumers.

I guess they think that a carbon tax is needed right now to stop the global warming monster. What global warming monster?

This one. From the horribly unreliable leftist CNN of all places.

Excerpt:

Snow fell in parts of the southeast Saturday, the leading edge of a powerful storm system that has prompted blizzard warnings in New York City and Boston and threatened to cause major travel headaches at the tail end of the holiday week.

The National Weather Service has issued a blizzard warning for the New York City metropolitan area, from northeast New Jersey through Newark and New York, and including the entirety of both the Long Island and Connecticut coasts of the Long Island Sound. That warning is in effect between 6 a.m. Sunday and 6 p.m. Monday.

Forecasters predict between 11 to 16 inches of blowing snow in much of that region, bringing visibility to near zero at times. Sustained winds as strong as 30 miles per hour could hit Sunday night, with gusts up to 55 mph in parts of central and eastern Long Island.

And, starting at noon Sunday and extending through 6 p.m. Monday, a similar warning is out for all of Rhode Island and most of eastern Massachusetts. Parts of that region could see as much as 20 inches of snow, with strong winds contributing to near blinding travel conditions and likely significant power outages.

The weather service also put out a blizzard watch from Sunday evening through Monday afternoon for coastal New Hampshire and Maine, up to the Canadian border.

I think Obama better hurry up the socialism before global warming fries us all!

News

UN IPCC official admits that climate policy is about wealth redistribution

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From Newsbusters. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

If you needed any more evidence that the entire theory of manmade global warming was a scheme to redistribute wealth you got it Sunday when a leading member of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change told a German news outlet, “[W]e redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy.”

Such was originally published by Germany’s NZZ Online Sunday, and reprinted in English by the Global Warming Policy Foundation moments ago:

(NZZ AM SONNTAG): The new thing about your proposal for a Global Deal is the stress on the importance of development policy for climate policy. Until now, many think of aid when they hear development policies.

(OTTMAR EDENHOFER, UN IPCC OFFICIAL): That will change immediately if global emission rights are distributed. If this happens, on a per capita basis, then Africa will be the big winner, and huge amounts of money will flow there. This will have enormous implications for development policy. And it will raise the question if these countries can deal responsibly with so much money at all.

(NZZ): That does not sound anymore like the climate policy that we know.

(EDENHOFER): Basically it’s a big mistake to discuss climate policy separately from the major themes of globalization. The climate summit in Cancun at the end of the month is not a climate conference, but one of the largest economic conferences since the Second World War. Why? Because we have 11,000 gigatons of carbon in the coal reserves in the soil under our feet – and we must emit only 400 gigatons in the atmosphere if we want to keep the 2-degree target. 11 000 to 400 – there is no getting around the fact that most of the fossil reserves must remain in the soil.

(NZZ): De facto, this means an expropriation of the countries with natural resources. This leads to a very different development from that which has been triggered by development policy.

(EDENHOFER): First of all, developed countries have basically expropriated the atmosphere of the world community. But one must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy. Obviously, the owners of coal and oil will not be enthusiastic about this. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore, with problems such as deforestation or the ozone hole.

For the record, Edenhofer was co-chair of the IPCC’s Working Group III, and was a lead author of the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report released in 2007 which controversially concluded, “Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations.”

It’s not about global warming, it’s about socialism.