NC Media Watch

Our government at work

Russ Steele

I monitor the Cal EPA Climate Action Team by subscribing to their list-server CLIMATECHANGE-LIST.  This arrived in my e-mail at 1:53 this afternoon, the 28th, just a few days late.

The Climate Action Team's Market Advisory Committee public meeting is
Tuesday, February 27th, 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.

Due to the very large expected turn out for this meeting, Cal/EPA
encourages participation via webcast to the greatest degree possible.

Due to safety restrictions, no more than 375 attendees will be allowed in
the meeting area.

Link to the live webcast, presentations and other materials are
available on line at:

http://www.climatechange.ca.gov/events/

Eileen Wenger Tutt
Assistant Secretary for Climate Change Activities
California Environmental Protection Agency
(916) 323-2657

I  would say this is notice is about three days too late. I hope the Cal EPA is more on top of climate change than they are in sending out 72 hour Brown Act public meeting notices.

Well maybe not, they still believe in the IPCC climate reports, after peer reviewed papers and reports have repudiated the hockey stick global warming icon, including a National Academy of Science investigation which indicated the science supporting the hockey stick is flawed.  No hockey stick, no extraordinary warming.  They believe in unverified computer models cobbled together with fudge factors.  Go figure, they are behind the power curve. After five years of cooling climate, which started in 2003, they may finally catch up.

I may have figured it out Al Gore's energy use

Russ Steele

In California the police look for homes that are consuming excessive electrical energy. Excessive energy use is an indicator that home owners, or renters, are using  powerful lights to grow marijuana. If a neighborhood home is using excessive electricity in California, they can expect a visit by the police. Al Gore is using five times the energy of neighborhood homes.  Has anyone checked Al Gore basement for growing lights?

California Transportation Commission funds SR-49/La Barr Meadows Improvements

Russ Steele

The Nevada County Transportation Commission did not take no for an answer when their project was rejected by Caltrans. When Prop 1B passed, the Nevada County Transportation Commission submitted the SR-49/La Barr Meadows intersection as a Mobility Corridor Improvement Project to Caltrans District 3, for inclusion in their package to Caltrans HQ in Sacramento. Based on District 3’s advice, this was a scaled down version of the total project. Caltrans HQ remove the SR-49/La Barr Meadows project before their list of projects went to the California Transportation Commission.  But, NCTC’s Dan Landon and the Commission did not accept Caltans action as the final solution.

Dan Landon looked a the CMIP criterial and decide the project met all the criteria and submitted a package directly to CTC.  Not the scaled down package, but for the whole $18.5 million   The CTC announced today that they will fund this whole project. From the NCTC Press Release:

This morning the California Transportation Commission (CTC) looked at statewide projects recommended for funding from the Corridor Mobility Improvement Account (CMIA), a program created as a result of the approval of Proposition 1B which provides $4.5 billion for projects that relieve congestion and improve connectivity. The CTC adopted seven staff recommended projects for the Sacramento Valley Region: two for Sacramento County, three for Placer County, one for El Dorado County, and one for Nevada County, which is the signalization and widening project on SR 49 near the La Barr Meadows Road intersection. The CTC also gave an additional project for Sacramento County. The amount of funding approved for the SR 49/La Barr Meadows Road project is for $18.5 million.

The CTC Executive Director told Dan Landon this morning in Irvine that Nevada County's project “was the best one submitted from the whole state, because it met all the criteria.”  NCTC’s Mike Woodman also played a role in securing funding for this project. Mike is currently Chairman of the Rural County’s Task Force, and testified this morning on the behalf of rural counties being considered for CMIA funding.  Chairman Beason, also made sure Senator Sam Aanestad and Assemblyman Rick Keene were aware of the Commission's effort to secure this critical funding for the safety of all SR-49 users.

NCTC’s success proves once again, accepting the first no may not be the right answer. Two other lessons from this success. Make sure of your criteria, and show your commitment. Some Counties lost out when they failed to show up at the hearings in Sacramento to defend their projects, other because there submission packages were not complete.  Today was decision day at the CTC and NCTC was there with a complete package.  As a philosopher once said, success is life is all about being prepared and showing up!

Spinning, spinning, spinning global warming science

Russ Steele

Think you are getting the truth about global warming from your newspaper? Well that depends on if the newspapers are getting their news from University or Science Foundation press releases, or news services that regurgitate these press releases, that choose to spin published scientific papers to fit a global warming template. Consider this from Roger Pielke Jr at Prometheus, Spinning Science.

Read the press release head lines and then read the scientists conclusions in the paper. They are 180 degrees out of phase. How can this happen, unless there is an agenda?  Really!

This gross distortion of science was also posted to Climate Audit. Following the comments at both Prometheus and Climate Audit, will be real interesting as knowledgeable observers expose this global warming spin machine. 

   

Only part of the story

Russ Steele

People who have lived here for years, know that open dumping is only part of the story. There is tons of garbage buried in “them thar hills.”

Laura Brown writes Illegal dumping is 'rampant', February 23, 2007

This anonymous comment is on to the real story, it is a good bet they have lived here for years.

There are so many mine shafts that have been filled in with garbage, cars, discarded appliances its amazing. And whats even more interesting is after they've been covered up, folks new to the area, have no idea that they are living on a dump, nor that their well may have leachates from it. With all the BLM land that's recently sold and being developed, lots of dumps on them......

Robinson’s heavy equipment is gone now, the spoils piles for multiple shaft have been cleaned up, the dirt and rock hauled to a land fill near Lincoln. This is what the heavy equipment exposed, multiple mine shafts filled with garbage.

Ellen and Backhoe, Click for a larger image

This garbage has been hiding in these empty shafts since the 50s when families started building homes on Banner Mountain. Rather than go to the dump, which was not much more than a smoke filled ravine outside of Nevada City, the folks started dumped their garbage in these abandoned mine shafts.

Shaft filled to the brim

The coyote holes, exploratory shafts, and hillside tunnels were dug by the early miners looking for a quartz veins laden with gold, which they thought to be hiding under the red volcanic soil of Banner Mountain. These early miners were often disappointed. When the money ran out, they just gave up and walked away from these dangerous open holes.

Another shaft full of garbage

With out telling our parents, my brothers and I often took candles and flashlight, crawling into some of these tunnels in the 1940s and early 50s.  Once we tied a rope to the rear hitch on our war supplies jeep we used to explore the woods, lowering our selves into several of the shallow shafts.  Most were less than 75 feet deep, our rope was only a 100 ft long.  My mother was most upset when we gave her some of the antique clay jugs we found in one tunnel. “No more mine exploring,” she said.  Been there, done that so we quit, and started panning for gold in Wolf Creek, finding some color, but no big strikes. More Wolf Creek adventures in a future article.

Trench that led to tunnel

Green economic opportunity for Nevada County

Russ Steele

Schwarzenegger To Put His Jet On Global Warming Registry crows the LA Times.

The Registry plants or protects trees according to the article, implying that the Governor will be  planting trees to off set the CO2 his personal jet spews into the atmosphere.  “. . .as much as 8,700 pounds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere for a single one-hour flight from Santa Monica to Sacramento."  He takes these flights several times a week, plus vacationing in  Hawaii, Idaho and the Kennedy Compound on the East Coast multiple times a year.

A mature healthy tree consumes 13 pounds of carbon annually according to Colorado Trees  And, has a mature life of 100 years, or consumes about 1,300  lbs per the mature life of the tree. More if  you consider a longer life and include the youthful period.

So for every hour of flight, the Governor would need to plant 7 mature trees, or protect that many mature trees per hour of operation. Remember these figure are for mature trees, so it will require the planting of large mature trees, or enough little trees equal to the CO2 consumption of larger trees.

Now, for Nevada County’s economic opportunity.  The County should launch it’s own Tree Planting Carbon Registry. The Governor and all the State Legislators can send their carbon offset money to Nevada County to plant trees, or mark protected trees, to off set their carbon foot print. This would be much better than paying a third party company to plant trees in South America, or in the Nevada Desert.  We can organize all the young people who are just hanging about in Grass Valley and Nevada City and put them to work planting trees, or to marking protected trees. We have a lot of trees to protect. Plus pine and cedar trees grow like weeds in Nevada County.  There is an economic opportunity in every tree in Nevada County. 

But, we must act quickly before the press and the Governor figures out how absurd this whole tree planting carbon off set business really is.  How many trees can we plant before we run out of room to plant trees, or out of trees to mark protected. What do we do with all these protected trees?  How do we insure they stay protected. I suggest the Board of Supervisors from a citizens committee and let’s get started on this money making opportunity, time is of the essence.    

This is so true

Russ Steele

As our four girls grew into women, they all participated in the Girl Scouts. When no troop existed, their mother started one. She was a volunteer leader from Brownies through Girl Scouts for all four. Some real dedication!

Doug Renick and Pam Saltenberger write Give kids a strong start in world of business, February 27, 2007

Still, entrepreneurship education today is more the exception than the rule for young people.

If as a society we want to lead in innovation, our public schools and nonprofit organizations should look for opportunities to integrate entrepreneurship and financial literacy into their curriculums.

They will not be able to do it alone. Business leaders, civic groups and others can lend their time and their resources to assist schools and organizations to bring entrepreneurship and finances to life for young people. And those groups can play a part in encouraging policy leaders to make such education a priority.

Young people who are exposed to such programs will be better equipped to handle their own finances, make career decisions and become tomorrow's business leaders.

I have 100s of Steel Family Girl Scout stories, but this one gives more context to this story.

In high school our youngest daughter was part of a troop earning money by selling donuts and coffee at the Farmers Market every Saturday at the Fair Grounds.   With the money they earned, from donut and cookie sales, they took a train trip across the country to Washington DC. In her junior year at high school, the youngest wanted to work at Blockbuster part time. EDD was doing the screening interviews, and I went with Caitlin to fill out the forms at EDD in Grass Valley, on a Saturday morning. Only two people were in the office, the interviewer and another person who was catching up on some office work.   Helping my daughter insure all of her work history was on the form, the clerk ask additional questions. The donut sales came up in the conversation.  When my daughter said she made change from a shoe box, the other worker called across the room, “Get her name and phone number,” she said. “Monday she can have her choice, I have five jobs open, but applicants must be able to make change from a cash box.”  A skill they no longer teach in school.

Caitlin never went to work for Bloclbuster, or any of the other stores since she was a full time student. But, she did teach herself how to develop web pages and stated a web page development company, taught web development to her college professors, development web pages for nonprofit agencies in graduate school, and designed this web page in her spare time.  She became an entrepreneure. 

If our local business community was to do some thing positive for economic development, it would be to start intern programs to introduce our youngsters to the real world of business and help them develop their entrepreneurial skills.

Nashville hypocrite

Russ Steele

After Al Gore encourages us all to adopt green technologies at the Oscar's, this is exploded on the news.   Al Gore and his wife Tipper live in  a 10,000-square-foot, 20-room, eight-bathroom home in Nashville.   His average annual power consumption is 221, 000KWH, or about 20.7KW per square foot/ per year. Ten times the national average for most homes in America. 

I compared our energy consumption with Al Gore's. At our house we consume about 12,216KWH per year, or about 4.4 KWH per square foot/per year.   It look like we are about 2,000 above the national average, even for a solar home. My guess is the home office consumers that extra energy, computers are on 24/7/365.  We build a solar home in the 1980s, with wood as your back up. But, today we use natural gas and have a lot more electrical appliances.  Over time our carbon foot print has grown.

More on the Goreacle’s power consumption at the Instapundit

UPDATE: Little did we know what the Press was hiding, details here.

Live blogging the Gloracle.

Russ Steele

Al Gore looks as chunky as ever, I guess he is really is serious when he said he was not running for President in 2008, using an Oscar as part of his launch platform. However, It was telling where Hollywood stands on global warming,  he almost received a standing ovation when introduced by Ellen DeGeneres.

The Academy made time for the Goracle on stage with Leonardo DiCaprio to promote global warming by announcing Oscars are now green. Really, there was no explanation, no data to support the point, just a bald statement by Al, “the Oscars are now green.” No list of folks that drove a Prius to the gala, no count of the florescent bulbs used on the set, or carbon offset chits deposited in the vaults of shame carbon trading firms for spewing tons of CO2 on cross county flights.   How do we know Oscar is truly GREEN?  We only have the word of a man who could not tell the truth about the science of global warming.

UPDATE: The best original song went to An Inconvenient Truth, "I Need to Wake Up"  Music and Lyric by Melissa Etheridge. Now you can see how committed Hollywood is to the politics of global warming.

UPDATE: Jeff Pelline has some thoughts on Al Gore at the Oscars in the Union Opinion Column this morning. He is also skeptical of the Oscar going green. The real moral issue is, is Al telling the truth, not if we agree with his thought provoking claim the world is doomed us less we follow him to salvation. It is all politics, all the time. If Hollywood is divided over Hillery and Obama, they seem to be all behind Al. This could be bad for both if he starts sucking up the political money. This is the next thing to watch. Where is the Hollywood money going?

An Inconvenient Truth at the Academy Awards

Russ Steele

The buzz over Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth continues to build as Al’s red carpet time draws near.  I would not be upset if Al and his team were to win in the science fiction category. That is what his documentary is -- hardcore science fiction.  And, I am not the only one who thinkings Al Gore’s documentary is nothing more than science fiction. Here is Patrick Michaels, Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute, in National Review Online:

This Sunday, Al Gore will probably win an Academy Award for his global-warming documentary An Inconvenient Truth, a riveting work of science fiction.

The main point of the movie is that, unless we do something very serious, very soon about carbon dioxide emissions, much of Greenland’s 630,000 cubic miles of ice is going to fall into the ocean, raising sea levels over twenty feet by the year 2100.

Where’s the scientific support for this claim? Certainly not in the recent Policymaker’s Summary from the United Nations’ much anticipated compendium on climate change. Under the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s medium-range emission scenario for greenhouse gases, a rise in sea level of between 8 and 17 inches is predicted by 2100. Gore’s film exaggerates the rise by about 2,000 percent.

Even 17 inches is likely to be high, because it assumes that the concentration of methane, an important greenhouse gas, is growing rapidly. Atmospheric methane concentration hasn’t changed appreciably for seven years, and Nobel Laureate Sherwood Rowland recently pronounced the IPCC’s methane emissions scenarios as “quite unlikely.”