NC Media Watch

Cap-and-Switch: Grab your wallet

Russ Steele

Our mentally challenged Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) along with Senator John "I served in Vietnam" Kerry (D-MA) introduced their climate change bill in the Senate today as an alternative to the horrid “Cap-and-Trade” bill authored by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA). The purpose of the Senate bill:

To create clean energy jobs, achieve energy independence, reduce global warming pollution, and transition to a clean energy economy.

Lets see if these desired outcomes of the bill hold up, starting with “Reduce global warming pollution”, since this is the core of two other issues of "clean energy jobs", and "transition to a clean energy economy." 

First of all, there is NO global warming. Why would Congress pass a law intended to deal with something that is a complete hoax?

Now why is it that Senator Boxer and Senator Kerry cannot understand these charts?  Are they more mentally challenged than average citizens who passed basic math? If they cannot see there is no global warming, and the potential for global warming declines every day the sun does not have sun spots.  See Dalton Minimum Returns for more details on how the climate has cooled in the past when as the sunspots decline. What is it that Senator's Boxer and Kerry do not understand about this climate history. Really? Are they both math illiterates, incapable of understanding basic science? Really? If this is true, then is must be time for a change. Let's elect a political leader who is literate in math and science.  

Governor attempting to shore up his faltering legacy

Russ Steele

With his legacy being defined by the states budget problems and California's failing economy, the  Governor is attempting to shore up his environmental legacy. Schwarzenegger launched his environmentalist legacy by signing AB32 California's Global Warming Solutions Act in 2006.  AB32 commits California to reduce greenhouse gases  25 percent by 2020.  As multiple studies have shown, part of California economic decline can be traced to AB32.

To prop up his legacy, Schwarzenegger is hosting his second annual international climate summit this week in LA. Leaders from more than 70 states, provinces and countries are expected to attend, including former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and six other U.S. governors. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson is scheduled to speak at the opening ceremony today. The organizers, California State Protocol Foundation, have billed this four day conference as a precursor to United Nations talks in December to establish new worldwide emissions targets.

It looks like the UN Conference in Copenhagen will not meet it's global objectives of replacing the Kyoto Protocol and the Governor is seeking alternatives. Schwarzenegger believes that "subnational" governments such as states and provinces can play a substantial role in reducing global warming. This conference is an attempt to develop an alternative should  Copenhagen fail as predicted.

The result will continuing economic decline in California and the States that sign up to this global warming hoax on tax payers.  It will be interesting if the Governors attending are those from states that refused to sign up to the Western Climate Initiative. Stay tuned.

First it was the Hockey Stick, now the Son of Hockey Stick is dead

Russ Steele

I have been trying to figure out how to summarize the most recent work of Steve McIntrye at Climate Audit, showing how scientists have cherry picking data to produce  climate change hockey stick graphics, then hid this data to cover up their deceit.  Then these fake graphics are used in UN IPCC reports to justify CO2 reduction. These IPCC Reports are then used by Congress and California Legislature to justify cap-and-trade tax schemes, or worse yet take control of your property as reported at Rebane's Ruminations this morning.  While cogitating on the issue Jo Nova has done the heavy lifting in: Cherry Picking of Historic Proportions.

Anthony Watts has more at Watts Up With That here and here.

I have posted a touch of reality at Dalton Minimum Returns. Historical data indicates we are in for some long term cooling. In the past long solar cycles, like we are experiencing now, have produced cooler temperatures.

Cap-and Trade is based on bad science - a hoax on tax payers

Russ Steele

John McLaughlin writing at the American Thinker has an analysis of the science used to justify the House of Representative Cap-and-Trade bill.

Global Warming 'Science'

It was a startling admission.  Prior to passage of "Cap-and-Trade" legislation by the House of Representatives, Mr. Henry Waxman (D, CA), House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman and co-sponsor of the bill, in responding to a question from Mr. Joe Barton (R, TX) at a May 22 hearing, admitted the following:

I certainly don't claim that I know everything that's in this bill.  I know we left it to ....we relied very heavily on the scientists on the IPCC and others and the consensus they have that there is a problem with global warming, it's having an impact, and that we need to reduce it by the amounts they think we need to achieve in order to avoid some of the consequences.  That's what I know, but I don't know the details. I rely on the scientists.

You can read the detailed analysis here, but John McLaughlin's Conclusion are below:

From the above analysis of recent work evaluating "man-made global warming," it appears possible to respond to the two major premises which Representative Waxman uses to justify immediate legislative action:

1.  There appears to be no serious evidence that some form of unprecedented global warming is underway.  The mathematical modeling effort used to support AGW claims has been shown to be flawed, if not fraudulent.  Any  scientific "consensus" of a major problem appears to be coming from a self-reinforcing group within or financially dependent upon the IPCC.

2.  No serious scientific link between any perceived global warming and the miniscule amount of manmade CO2 in the atmosphere (beyond the flawed or fraudulent IPCC mathematical model) has been made.  Also, in 15 years since the first predictions of catastrophic events were announced, none of those events can be demonstrated to be underway today.

Visual impact of regulatory costs

Russ Steele

I found this in the COST OF STATE REGULATIONS ON CALIFORNIA SMALL BUSINESSES STUDY

• The total regulatory cost of $492.994 billion translates into a total cost per
household of $38,446.76 per household, or $13,052.05 per resident. The total
cost per household comes close to the median household income for California.

This picture came in over the email transom shortly after reading the above.

Do you see the similarity in the numbers? 

CA regulations are killing 3.8 million jobs, one tenth of population

Russ Steele

I wrote about the State's Business Tax Climate Index here.  A regular reader of this blog, alerted me to an article in the SF Chronicle on a report the Governor has been sitting on for a year. A report that demonstrates why the California is near the bottom of the Business Tax Climate Index. Also, a comment by Martin resulted in email request for the report to Dan Logue's office.

From the Chronicle:

The office of the Small Business Advocate, a department of the state Office of Planning and Research, had commissioned the report, initially called for in 2006 legislation by then-Democratic, now independent Assemblyman Juan Arambula of Fresno. In April, Arambula reportedly asked the governor's office to release the report, a version of which had been submitted in October. However, the report required careful investigation, according to a governor's spokesman.

The delay should not be surprising given the controversial numbers contained in the report. But there may have been another reason. The report's authors, led by Sanjay Varshney, dean of the College of Business Administration at Cal State Sacramento, had produced a separate study, commissioned by the Small Business Roundtable, on AB32, Schwarzenegger's climate change-fighting pride and joy. That report, released in July, concluded that the legislation will turn out be a job loser, a hit to the pocketbook and will cost California's small businesses $50,000 apiece to fully implement.

The here are the findings in the new report the Governor did not want you to see:

The Dog Who Ate Global Warming

Russ Steele

When our school home work did not get done, we have all thought about blaming the dog. Now it appears the dog has eaten the global warming data, as well million of school children's home work.  Patrick Michaels has the global warming story at National Review On Line.  Presented below for your enjoyment and enlightenment.

The Dog Ate Global Warming

Interpreting climate data can be hard enough. What if some key data have been fiddled?

By Patrick J. Michaels

Imagine if there were no reliable records of global surface temperature. Raucous policy debates such as cap-and-trade would have no scientific basis, Al Gore would at this point be little more than a historical footnote, and President Obama would not be spending this U.N. session talking up a (likely unattainable) international climate deal in Copenhagen in December.

Steel yourself for the new reality, because the data needed to verify the gloom-and-doom warming forecasts have disappeared.

Or so it seems. Apparently, they were either lost or purged from some discarded computer. Only a very few people know what really happened, and they aren’t talking much. And what little they are saying makes no sense.

Something very taxing! (Updated)

Russ Steele

As California and Nevada County attempts to recover from the economic recession and avoid a deep depression, there are taxing some things our political and economic development leaders might want to consider.

AB-32 is three years old this coming Sunday. Buried in the AB-32 are multiple carbon taxes, including a cap and trade bill that would cause energy prices to "shoot through the roof." Cap and Trades is really a hidden tax for every Californian. 

Several of the states surrounding California do not have AB-32 job killing greenhouse regulation and in many cases a much lower tax structure.

Here is the latest evaluation from the Tax Foundation's 2010 State Business Tax Climate Index, via the Tax Professor, which ranks the fifty states according to five indices: corporate tax, individual income tax, sales tax, unemployment insurance tax, and property tax.  Here are the ten states with the best and worst business tax climates:

As the Tax Professor notes that "all ten of the states with the worst business tax climates voted for Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election, and five of the ten states with the best business tax climates voted for John McCain (South Dakota #1, Wyoming (#2), Alaska (#3), Montana (#6), and Utah (#10)."

From the map below you can see that most of the states with a low Tax Index are in the western US.

Climate Change and The Story of Stuff

Russ Steele

NU Underground writers Nell PK, Liberal Thinker, and someone calling them self Walter Pendlecocke,  have visit this blog and left their opinion on the ban of iPods and similar MP3 Players on the NU Campus.  I am hoping they will return and comment on two other subjects that might be of interest to the blogging community.

Last year I asked if Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth was being shown in the class room at NU and Bear River with out presenting an opposing points of view. I got a maybe answer, saying it was up to the teachers. I was wondering of the NU students that have visited this blog would like to chime in. Are teachers showing An Inconvenient Truth?  Are there opposing views.

I would also like to know if the video The Story of Stuff being shown in NU and Bear River class rooms. The video was created by Annie Leonard, a former Greenpeace employee and an independent lecturer who paints a picture of how American habits result in forests being felled, mountaintops being destroyed, water being polluted and people and animals being poisoned using simple cartoons and powerful works.

Ms. Leonard put the video on YouTube in 2007 and by May 2009 it had been down loaded over 6000 times, as of today it has had 399,337 viewings. According to reports teachers found the video a provocative way of drawing students into a dialogue about how consumerism such as buying a cellphones and using bottled water thus contributed to environmental devastation, and often assigned viewing the video as home work, following the assignment with up with a quiz.

One school board in Montana banned the documentary because it was biased toward a single point of view, that Americans are greedy, selfish, cruel to the third world, and "use more than our fair share" of the worlds resources.

Is this one sided story being presented to NU Students? Does anyone know if it is being used in the middle schools? The best source of information are our children, as the school administrators are not giving us direct answers.

Your comments a most welcome.  What are we doing to our children?

Green Job Construction Projects.

Russ Steele

If local promoters of green jobs are waiting for the Waxman-Markey Cap and Trade bill to help them jump start a local green construction economy  they are in for a big surprise. The “Green Construction Careers Demonstration Project,” outlined in Section 424A of the bill establishes a targeted workers program for all approved green projects.  The program claims to promote middle class careers and quality employment practices in the green construction sector among all targeted workers. 

The bill establishes minimum number of hours to be worked by the targeted workers on approved projects. In other words, qualifying projects will provide a set amount of work for “targeted workers,” regardless of the costs involved.

Who are these “targeted workers?” They are individuals living near the project work-site who:

• receive child welfare,
• are veterans who receive food stamps or are disabled,
• live in a community “empowerment” zone,
• have a substantial handicap to employment and have completed a vocational rehabilitation program,
• are “summer youth employees,”
• are food stamp recipients,
• receive social security supplementary income,
• receive long-term family assistance from social security,
• resides in a census tract in which not less than 20 percent of the households have incomes below the Federal poverty guidelines,
• is a member of a family that received a total family income that, during the 2-year period prior to employment on the project or admission to the pre-apprenticeship program, did not exceed 200 percent of the Federal poverty guidelines, or
• is a displaced homemaker.

How many construction worker in Nevada County do you think will fit the above categories? Finding workers that fit these very specific requirements will result in huge expenses for local contractors and therefore huge costs to taxpayers.

Oh, I forgot, the project will have to pay these unqualified target workers "prevailing wages" under the Davis Bacon Act, as this is Federal money allocated to a Federal Program. 

Now I ask, how many of these green construction projects can we bring to Nevada County? Really? That many? 

More details on Waxman-Markey Cap and Trade bill can be found in and Americans for Prosperity  Policy Paper here. And, there is much much more that will have to wait for another post.