Friday, November 22, 2013



British PM  reportedly tells aides to 'get rid of the green c**p'

David Cameron has reportedly told ministers to scrap the “green c**p” driving up household energy bills.

The Prime Minister, who once promised to lead the “greenest government ever” is said to have privately ordered to find a way to ditch green commitments that are putting added financial pressure on consumers.

Mr Cameron has promised to “roll back” green levies which he says add around £112 a year to the average energy bill.

A senior source is reported to have said: “He’s telling everyone, ‘We’ve got to get rid of all this green c**p.’ He’s absolutely focused on it.”  Downing Street denied the claims and said: “We do not recognise this at all.”

It is claimed that Downing Street has now abandoned Mr Cameron’s pre-election slogan, “vote blue, go green”.  “It’s vote blue, get real, now – and woe betide anyone who doesn’t get the memo,” a source told The Daily Mail.

The reported comments are a far cry from Mr Cameron's previous image as a green Conservative. After becoming party leader, Mr Cameron travelled to the Arctic in a bid to prove his green credentials. He also put a windmill on his house.

According to Government figures, the green levies add £112 to a typical household bill. The money is then used to pay for loft insulation schemes and subsidies for renewable energy projects, under the Coalition’s rules.

Downing Street has said that, if there was no policy change, green levies could rise from the current £112 to £194 - or 14 per cent of the typical household bill - by 2020.

Labour has said that £67 of the £112 levies were accounted for by measures introduced by the coalition.

Tim Farron, the Lib Dem president, told The Sun: “The ‘green c**p’, as the Tories call it, are the funds that pay for insulating the homes of elderly people and which support thousands of British manufacturing jobs.

“This is depressingly cynical – only bothering about political spin, not in protecting our children’s future.”

SOURCE





GOOGLE private jets blow 100 million lbs CO2 into atmosphere with its government subsidized fuel

Google may tout itself as being a publicly responsible, green fingered, all-things-good company that touts green technology, but the companies chief executives are not setting a good example from on high.In fact, it would appear they're flying high whilst American taxpayers foot the bill.

Despite lobbying the federal government on environmental policy, Sergey Brin, Larry Page, and Eric Schmidt have put 3.4 million miles on their private jets in recent years, polluting the atmosphere with 100 million pounds of carbon dioxide according to The Blaze.

Forget using Google Hangouts to conduct business, the execs prefer the old-fashioned method of face-to-face communication. Often, they'll take a trip on one of the enormous corporate fuel-guzzling 757 or 767 aircraft or the more exclusive Gulfstream V at a moments notice – and sometimes to the most exotic of vacation destinations.

Their trips have been analyzed and logged and show that despite trying to convince federal lawmakers to introduce stringent and restrictive environmental regulations, they happily jet off using gallons of polluting aviation fuel.

It might not be such a big deal if Google would practice what it preaches. The search engine powerhouse has been a leading proponent of encouraging the federal government to, as the company says, ‘put a price on carbon through cap-and-trade or a carbon tax.’

Through has introduced its own Google Green Initiative as well as a Clean Energy 2030 proposal to wean the U.S. off its reliance on fossil fuels.

Google wishes to transform the economy from one running on fossil fuels to one largely based on clean energy.

They’re happy to talk about building whole new industries and creating millions of new jobs along with cutting energy costs both at the gas pump and at home. Could it be that this is nothing more than hot-air in an effort to maintain its hip image?

The Blaze claim that when a company attempts to manipulate the government into using environmental policies to determine what types of cars Americans can drive, what kinds of jobs Americans can have and how taxpayers’ hard-earned dollars are spent, it should at least be unerring in its commitment to the environment.

Drew Johnson, a fellow at the Center for Individual Freedom has been looking through the hours and hours of flying time generated by Google’s Sergey Brin, Larry Page, and Eric Schmidt.

Google maintains a hangar of jets ready to take to the air at a moments’ notice.

In total, according to flight data that was analyzed, Google executives have flown more than 3.4 million miles, burning an average of 100,000 gallons of fuel every month in recent years.

Google’s planes burned through nearly 59 million barrels of crude since 2007, much of it on non-essential trips to adult playgrounds Nantucket, Aspen, Costa Rica, St. Maarten, Hawaii, Bermuda and Tahiti.

The supposedly environmentally conscious company’s jets have emitted more than 100 million pounds of carbon dioxide over the last four years alone.

It even appears that Google is hand-in-glove with the government.   Google has snagged a few favors along the way and has been getting preferential rent when it comes to housing their collection of gigantic jets.

Since 2007, the private airplane fleet owned by Google execs has been housed in a hangar at NASA’s Ames Research Center just outside Google’s Mountain View, California HQ.  The hangars are funded by the taxpayer and are supposed to be for aircraft conducting scientific research for NASA.

The government is even allowing Google to fill itself up with jet fuel at a cut price deal – again, thanks to U.S. taxpayers.  The fuel was of course meant for NASA and Department of Defense aircraft, but why fly somewhere else to fill up when you have it on tap?

Mr Johnson estimates that Google officials spent $29 million on jet fuel – a saving of around $10 million. But what is $10 million to a company that has generated $60 billion in revenue over the past few years?

It should come as no surprise that as a result of Google’s involvement with the government and securing their cheap and exclusive parking space and fuel s for the company’s jets, Google also happens to be among the largest contributors to political campaigns in the United States.

Almost a million dollars was given to President Obama’s campaign in 2008 with a similar amount in 2012.

Mr Johnson claims that ‘by pushing strict ‘climate change’ policy on everyone else, while polluting up a storm themselves. ‘ Google reaches levels of hypocrisy not seen since I uncovered the inconvenient truth about frenzied environmentalist Al Gore, who devours about 20 times more electricity in his mansion than the average American family uses in their home over the course of a year.’ Incidentally, Mr Gore has been an company has had plenty of time to learn directly from the discredited environmental prophet, whom they have paid handsomely to serve as a ‘senior adviser‘ since 2001.’

As Google continues to extol the virtues of environmental purity and encourage the government to limit carbon emissions for the rest of the American economy, its own company VIPs are busy zooming around, polluting the skies as they go on travel subsidized by American taxpayers.

Perhaps Google should begin by Googling the word ‘Hypocrites’?

SOURCE




Fueling the American resurgence

In the modern world, where energy flows, commerce and prosperity follows. The growth of the United States’ economy is being stunted by the Obama administration’s activist energy policies which are bankrupting the producers of abundant, affordable energy.

The American way of life developed over the last century stands as history’s greatest example to date of what an economy and society can achieve through robust industrial growth and technological innovation. The last generation’s historic growth was fueled by the energy expansion through fossil fuels such as coal and petroleum that now sustain the foundation of the modern economy.

At the end of the fourth year following the 2009 recession, the United States economy (as measured by GDP) continues to experience anemic growth at less than three percent annually. To put that into perspective, three percent represents less than half the 7.26 percent average annual growth from 1972 to 2007 and would be the second slowest post-recession annual growth rate since 1960.

A second American economic ascension beyond the achievements of the last generation necessitates the growth of our current energy foundation as a springboard into the future.

Coal and petroleum are mainstays of the last century’s development and together offer a stable, long-term foundation for innovation and future competition in the energy market. Unless politically-driven government regulations render them unsustainable, there is enough of these resources alone to power the nation for hundreds of years.

Natural gas is a relatively recent addition as a primary energy producer in the United States. Fifty year old hydraulic fracturing technology has advanced quickly over the past decade almost exclusively through private sector funding and it is quickly becoming a primary producer for national energy needs. Similarly, nuclear energy shows great potential to operate with high efficiency. Natural gas and nuclear energy productions emit next to no emissions and together produce 49 percent of the nation’s electricity.

Today there are more options for energy production than at any time in history. Competition within the ever-evolving market creates a consistent demand for more abundant, inexpensive energy sources and dynamic innovation in developing new power-generation technologies.

The opportunity for growth into another American century of economic pre-eminence and prosperity is immediately available. Inexpensive domestic energy will allow manufacturing to thrive, transportation industries to grow, good jobs to be created, and a middle class that sees the wage stagnation of the past twenty years ended due to American ingenuity and the increased demand for the services of skilled workers.

The single greatest threat to this renewed American economy and the bright future it promises  is the obstructionism from our federal agencies.

The nation must allow the development of our naturally abundant resources for inexpensive, domestically produced energy and in time, the market will achieve an economic renaissance beyond even the wildest promises of any politician.

However, if federal agencies like the EPA continue operating as political agents for leftist environmental organizations, that promise will be squelched and likely killed forever.

Instead, if the federal government focused on ensuring the safe production of energy, the resulting market stability will result in massive investment and even greater innovation.

The technological advances of the last hundred years could never have been presumed by the 1912 world. Similarly today, we have no idea what energy solutions the market will develop to meet the needs of the nation.

What we do know is that if regulatory policies like the ones championed by the current Administration become entrenched, these innovations will almost certainly be achieved outside of the United States where the free market is given room to thrive. It is up to each American whether they will choose to build for their posterity a greater future, or if America resigns itself to having seen its best days.

SOURCE





States Fight for Their Rights with the EPA

EPA regulations have been getting tougher, and now the states are fighting back to try and take back some of their power in this situation. The newest carbon emissions standards for existing power plants will be coming out in June and the states are looking to keep the EPA from destroying their abilities to make their own decisions.

The National Association of State Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) adopted a resolution today calling on the EPA to recognize the primacy of states to “lead the creation of emission performance systems that reflect the policies, energy needs, resource mix, economic conditions of each State and region.”

The NARUC also stated in their resolution that,

“[T]he guidelines should be flexible enough to allow States individually or regionally to take into account, when establishing standards of performance, the different makeup of existing power generation in each State and region.”

[T]he guidelines should provide sufficiently flexible compliance pathways or mechanisms that recognize State and regional variations to achieve the most cost-effective emissions reductions in each State,”

How many times does one need to explain that states always know what’s best for their citizens and their companies. The NARUC couldn’t have said it any better. The EPA needs to stop meddling in states’ rights and allow them to prosper, yet comply with new (absurd) regulations in their own ways.

SOURCE





UN aims for ‘complete transformation of the economic structure of the world’

The United Nations’ climate change meeting began on Nov. 11 in Warsaw, Poland, to discuss “global warming,” but when the globe stopped warming 16 years ago, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change was forced to reveal its real agenda.

Last year in Doha, Qatar, the treaty’s Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres told the world that the purpose of the UNFCCC is a “complete transformation of the economic structure of the world.” The scheme is to use the eternally unpredictable weather that affects everyone to manipulate a transfer of wealth from rich to poor nations, which in turn degrades every nation’s standard of living.

Rather than serving as a warning to Americans, President Obama’s delegation in Warsaw is steadfastly supporting the development of funding mechanisms for the transfer of wealth scheme through the Green Climate Fund, although it is somewhat reluctant to support its proposed new mechanism for “loss and damages.” A new treaty to replace the redistributionist Kyoto Protocol is in the works and set for completion in 2015 in Paris, France, to go into affect in 2020.

Americans are paying for the rope to hang ourselves. We pay nearly $567 million a year while two dozen countries of the 193 UN members pay only about $1000 or less, yet have the same voting privileges as the U.S.

Worse than one nation, one vote is that voting rarely happens at the UN. Instead, consensus is the UN’s preferred process.

Consensus is unilaterally determined by a facilitator leading a meeting. It lacks transparency and allows the UN to manipulate for predetermined outcomes.

Former Prime Minister of the UK Margaret Thatcher defined consensus stating, “To me, consensus seems to be: the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values, and policies in search of something in which no one believes, but to which no one objects; the process of avoiding the very issues that need to be solved, merely because you cannot get agreement on the way ahead. What great cause would have been fought and won under the banner ‘I stand for consensus’?”

Everybody talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it. That is until the United Nations started talking about it. Their talks started with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1992.  They have since convinced the world they can not only predict the weather but can control it.  These talks continue in Warsaw, Poland for the next two weeks, November 11-22, 2013, as the Conference of the Parties COP19 meet with country delegates, non-government organizations NGO’s, and media to discuss not the weather but the climate.  The climate is what you expect.  The weather is what you get and the UN is certainly getting something much different than what they predicted.

The U.N. persists in its quest to convince the world that human activity is causing global warming and global warming will lead to the devastation of the earth.  The earth has not warmed since 1998 but the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change IPCC continues to issue reports claiming global warming not only exists but is getting worse.

Their claims are based on pseudo science and totally unreliable computer models used to predict future weather patterns.  The latest report issued just before COP19 claims that projected warming will likely raise temperatures 0.5 to 8.6 degrees Fahrenheit by the late 21st century if carbon emissions are not reduced.  The report responds to the lack of warming since 1998 as probably linked to natural swings in the climate.  In other words, they can’t explain why their computer models have been so wrong.

The talks are about blame.  To blame is to make someone responsible for the supposed wrong doing and if someone has done wrong they should pay a penalty.  The U.N. has made the case that developed nations such as the U.S. are to blame because we’ve enjoyed the fruits of the industrial revolution in our lifestyles.  These lifestyles have polluted a finite  atmosphere causing global warming.  Having used up this finite atmosphere cheats developing nations from achieving similar lifestyles.  This is referred to as “historical responsibility.”  The penalty to be paid by developed nations, according to the U.N., is reparations (money) and technology.

Since global warming isn’t really occurring now, the IPCC claims it’s the cause of all the extreme weather patterns that have occurred in the past few years.  The most recent tragic events of typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines has given the perfect fuel for developing nations at COP19.  The tragedy the Philippine people have suffered is incomprehensible to most of us, but to think the human activity of developed nations caused the event should be beyond the realm of any intelligent person’s thinking.  Not so at COP19.

The first day of the conference, the Climate Change Commissioner from the Philippines, Nadrev Sano, gave a speech in the main plenary blaming this on developed nations.  He began crying and said he would, in solidarity with his people, voluntarily fast until the COP reaches a meaningful outcome and delivers on climate action.   Translated this means “Let me see the money.”

In a press conference, another Philippine delegate made similar remarks, saying the tragedy was “an abomination which is not our doing” and “we have to get support from someone else’s pocket.”   Yet nobody mentioned the U.S. Marines went in immediately to the worst hit areas bringing water, generators and other critical supplies.  The U.S. military also offered aircraft and manpower for search and rescue.  Private groups from the U. S. have sent in medicines, food, blankets, etc.  U.S. AID sent 55 metric tons of food.  So how much is enough?

This redistribution of wealth for the perceived “moral and ethical injustice” of climate change was first tried by the U.N. through Clean Development Mechanisms CDM’s.  This was a way to get money and technology to developing nations through investments and loans for new infrastructure or just anything green.  But as with most U. N. programs there was abuse.  Most investments and loans went to China, India and Brazil and almost nothing went to the very small countries.

When CDM’s didn’t work, the Green Climate Fund GCF was introduced at COP15 in Copenhagen in 2009.  It was proposed $30 billion be given by developed countries over three years until 2012 as fast-start funding.  Then additionally, none other than Hillary Clinton proposed that developed countries collectively pledge $100 billion per year until 2020.  This sounded good but the pledges have been far short of anything close to $100 billion.  The U.S. claims to has given $32 billion from 2010-2012 and it is calculated, according to a U.S. delegate, the 2013 contribution will be $2.7 billion.

If the U.N. bureaucrats and the developing countries can’t get concrete funding for the GCF at COP19, then the next trick up their sleeves is something called a “loss and damage” mechanism.  Loss and damage are insurance terms.  Legally loss means “the value placed on injury or damages due to an accident caused by another’s negligence, a breach of contract or other wrongdoing.”  Damage can mean “injury or harm impairing the function or condition of a person or thing.”  Damages can also be ordered to be paid as compensation for injury or loss.

Defining and developing a loss and damage mechanism at COP19 is a top priority.  Whatever form this mechanism takes, it can only be seen as having one function and that is developed countries being responsible for insuring developing countries against natural disasters.  Again, the typhoon tragedy in the Philippines happened at an opportune time for COP19. This will be used as a driving force to get loss and damage pushed through.

One nation is taking issue with the consensus process by demanding that it be defined. Russia, not America, balked at the unilateral decision-making consensus process and is demanding transparency. The reason for the Russians demands is that at last year’s meeting in Doha, Qatar, the UN took away its greenhouse gas credits accrued before the fall of communism. That means that Russia would “supposedly” be on an even playing field in this proposed new economic order being built under the treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol.

The U.S. is a party to the UNFCCC, but not its Kyoto Protocol that was ratified by 192 of the UNFCCC Parties. The U.S. declined to be one of the 37 nations to be legally bound to Kyoto’s emission limitation and reduction commitments. In Doha in 2012, a second commitment period was created for the Kyoto Protocol, with the U.S. remaining out. However, the U.S. is looking favorably at joining the 2015 treaty. More than 100 Heads of State of the 195 Parties to the treaty are scheduled to attend the high-level segment of the meeting, which concludes on November 22.

SOURCE





$4.5M Fed Study: 'Effects of Climate Change on Indoor Air

The Environmental Protection Agency is seeking non-profit organizations to conduct “research to improve understanding of the effects of climate change on indoor air quality and the resulting health effects.”

The total funding for the grants, announced on Oct. 25, is $4.5 million and applicants have until Jan. 23, 2014 to submit proposals.

In a 20-page explanation and guidelines for the “funding opportunities,” the synopsis of the project states: “EPA is interested in supporting research that will explore the anticipated effects of climate change on indoor air quality directly through a variety of mechanisms, and indirectly through adaptations in building use and design.”

The background portion of the document includes a list of ways (with related-studies notations) that “climate change has the potential to affect human health in indoor environments” as follows:

Changes in pesticide use and ventilation patterns in response to changes in seasonal survival and geographic distribution of disease vectors and indoor pests. These changes may lead to increased body burden for a variety of agents, and correspondingly diverse associated health effects.

Changes in VOC (volatile organic compounds) exposures resulting from increased thermal insulation potentially associated to health endpoints that remain poorly explored.

Changes in exposure to bioaerosols and VOCs resulting from decreased ventilation and increased relative humidity, manifesting in respiratory, neurological, or other morbidity.

Increases in radon exposure resulting from reduced ventilation when combustion-free (e.g. heat-pumps) or high-efficiency combustion equipment is installed in basements.

Changes in the proportion of time spent outdoors vs. indoors, for some age groups, or in the physical intensity of activities.

The project, part of EPA’s Science to Achieve Results (STAR) program, is closely tied to the agency’s agenda to improve “public health.” The document states that the lack of research on indoor air and climate change “poses significant challenges to the development of guidelines for adaptations that would be broadly applicable to protect public health.”

CNSNews.com asked EPA a series of questions about the $4.5 million grant funding via e-mail. The agency’s responses to those questions follow:

CNSNews.com: What is the definition of climate change as it applies to this study -- is it strictly based on the United Nation's data?

EPA: As stated in the Indoor Air and Climate Change Request for Applications (RFA), the interaction of air quality, climate and energy, and their human health impacts has been designated as a high-priority research area by the agency. The general definition for climate change refers to any significant change in the measures of climate lasting for an extended period of time. This definition and additional information on climate change can be viewed at www.epa.gov/climatechange. Beyond the general meaning as used by the Agency, applicants are free to use the operational definition of climate change with the greatest merit in their own judgment when applying for Science to Achieve Results (STAR) grants through RFAs.

CNSNews.com: How will the results of this project be used by the EPA, i.e. for regulatory or other purposes?

EPA: EPA-funded research allows our nation's scientist and engineers to provide critical information supporting the scientific basis for decisions on national environmental issues. For any research results or direct impacts from the STAR grants awarded under this RFA, view the annual reports that will be posted on EPA Extramural Research pages through the duration of the grants.

CNSNews.com: How is this grant funded?

EPA: Any grants awarded under this RFA will be awarded through the Agency’s Science To Achieve Results (STAR) program. Applications are evaluated on scientific merit by expert reviewers from outside the Agency.  For more information on the Peer Review process, visit www.epa.gov/ncer/peerreview.

CNSNews.com: Can you explain what is meant by "development of guidelines for adaptations that would be broadly applicable to public health?" (page 3) The Indoor Air and Climate Change RFA states "development of guidelines for adaptations that would be broadly applicable to protect public health."

EPA: To counter any effects of climate change relevant to public health, such as extreme heat episodes, or deteriorating air quality, some adaptation measures can be developed. Those verified as effective can then be compiled into guidelines by a variety of organizations with public health protection objectives. However, some adaptations (as exemplified in the text) may be more likely than others to be adopted because of geographic, demographic, or socio-economic issue.

SOURCE

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