JayStream

It was only a matter of time. The former head of the Royal Bank of Scotland, Sir Fred Goodwin, today had his home vandalized. Someone broke out the windows of his home and his Mercedes. An e-mail claim of responsibility has been made by a group calling itself “Bank bosses are criminals.” The group also made a threat: “This is just the beginning.”

Goodwin left his job at RBS last October with a pension of 700,000 pounds (about one million dollars). When the UK government bailed out RBS, they asked Goodwin to give back the pension he earned after eight years creating one of the world’s largest companies, he refused. His wife has been yelled at, and his children have been bullied.

Last week in America, the news media somewhat gleefully reported on a bus tour of wealthy AIG executives’ homes. About twenty mostly-jobless people – followed a horde of national and international media – went to the homes of two AIG execs demanding “their” money back. The media gathered sound bites from the protesters, identifying each person by their name, and the name of the company they used to work for.

CBS, ABC, NBC, and CNN all reported the story. They were clearly duplicitous in trying to embarrass the homeowners – even though, ironically, the people whose homes were targeted had already agreed to give the money back. There was no concern over the deliberate attempt to smear private citizens who have only received money they were legally and contractually entitled to.

One of the first rules learned in journalism is to “follow the money”, but the news reports in the “mainstream media” clearly did not do so in this case. Reporters either did not ask, or did not care to report, who paid for the protest, stating only that the tour was organized by the Connecticut Working Families Party.

What is the “Connecticut Working Families Party”? It is an activist group jointly founded by ACORN, according to a newspaper editorial posted on the CWFP’s own website. Fox News commentator Glenn Beck investigated further, revealing that the tour bus and the protestors were actually paid for by ACORN.

The same ACORN that President Obama worked for. The same ACORN that has been involved in civil disobedience against home foreclosures. The same ACORN that gets money in the Obama stimulus plan. The same ACORN that will be involved in the government’s 2010 census count, which will realign congressional seats, voting districts, and funding distribution. ACORN is the activist organization that the national news media sanctions – by not reporting on its mob-mentality of activism.

About Sir Fred Goodwin: He is said to be considering a move so South Africa. No surprise – when news of his home vandalism was carried by the left-wing Huffington Post, the first reader comment was, “They shoulda been more clever like leave some mercury on the floor and put some toxic mold in the walls. Breaking glass is so yesterday.”

Jay News, Television industry acorn, aig, banker, Fred Goodwin, mob mentality, RBS

Great Britain has an official government position of Chief Scientific Advisor to the UK Government, a post which is currently held by John Beddington. Professor Beddington is a distinguished biologist, and his job description is to be “responsible to the Prime Minister and Cabinet for the quality of scientific advice within Government.”

Yesterday at the Sustainable Development UK Conference in London, Professor Beddington delivered a Nostradamus-quality forecast of doom.

He predicts that by 2030, the world will face a “perfect storm” of shortages of food, energy, and water – leading to a crisis of unprecedented proportions. Beddington suggested it would lead to war, unrest, and mass migration. Beddington’s speech received front page coverage in Britain’s national newspapers, and probably conjured up visions of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Besides being struck by yet another rhetorical use of the phrase “perfect storm” (I thought we were already in an economic “perfect storm”?), I was reminded about other well-respected scientists who boldly and confidently predicted catastrophe. There was former presidential science advisor Paul Ehrlich, who wrote a book in 1968 called “The Population Bomb.” It predicted hundreds of millions of people would die of starvation in the 1970s and 1980s as population outgrew food supplies.

A worldwide environmental disaster was predicted by famed astronomer Carl Sagan. He suggested in 1991 that if Kuwaiti oil wells were torched, the resulting fires would pollute the atmosphere and plunge the planet into wintry cold. He erroneously discounted the ability of man to extinguish the fires, and the atmosphere to cleanse itself.

The current US administration has promised to “restore science to its rightful place.” Britain’s Beddington suggests European governments involve independent scientists in policymaking. As something of a scientist myself, I thought I knew what science is and what scientists do. I’m not sure I know anymore.

admin News Carl Sagan, John Beddington, Nostradamus, Science

With few in government or media prepared or able to stand in the way, it looks like full speed ahead for President Obama’s proposed cap and trade program. In fact, the program is likely to be locked into place when the United States agrees to an international climate change treaty later this year. Cap and trade is designed to lower industrial emissions by making it expensive for American industries to release carbon dioxide into the air. Industries will be required to pay a carbon tax to the government, the cost of which would certainly be passed along to consumers.

Contained in the President’s proposed 2009 budget is a forecast that industries will pay the government $79 billion in 2012 alone for permission to emit carbon dioxide into the air. How will that affect our pocketbooks?

According to Point Carbon, a European consultancy which analyzes carbon trading schemes, the initial cost for energy industries will be about 14 dollars per metric ton of carbon emitted. That would result in an increase of 12 cents per gallon of gasoline, and a 7 percent price hike in the cost of electricity.

For consumers, the sacrifice does not end there. Businesses will have to pay those additional energy costs, which will lead to trickle down price hikes on everything that is bought and sold. Again, the consumer will pay the penalty.

Remember – this is only the initial cost. The president’s projection is that by 2019, the carbon tax on industries will reach $646 billion, and the cost to consumers will rise accordingly.

Never mind the 2009 economic stimulus package and how much federal debt is being accumulated on the backs of future generations. Even before we have figured out how to get out of the current economic crisis, the seeds are quietly being sown for a green attack on the American economy three years from now.
If the American people wish to increase their cost of living to benefit a global initiative, so be it. But shouldn’t cap and trade receive a thorough debate and up or down vote in Congress before the executive branch quietly makes it the law of the land?

UPDATE, 3/18/09 – At least eight Senate Democrats have joined with two dozen Republicans opposing the president’s plan to sneak cap and trade into the annual budget bill, according to an Associated Press report.

Jay News cap and trade, carbon dioxide, climate change

The current economy seems bad, horribly bad to most folks. It’s so bad that the media has run out of words to describe it, since it already accepted and repeated Barack Obama’s claim we were in the “worst economic crisis since the Depression” last year – just as it accepted and repeated the claim of candidate Bill Clinton that his opponent had the “worst economic record in 50 years” sixteen years ago. To reporters it may feel like the worst economy they have ever known – if they weren’t alive or don’t care to recall 1971. Unemployment was at 6% and inflation was at 4%. Both would be somewhat manageable numbers today, but in 1971 they were enough to create a crisis mentality, and the public demanded drastic action by the federal government.

I was barely a teenager, but I clearly remember. Prices and wages were spiralling out of control, with the value of a dollar shrinking in freefall. Price tags seemed to change in the stores every day, and everyone was concerned about the runaway cost of living. On the night of August 15, 1971, President Nixon addressed the nation in a (back then) rare, live television appearance. Barack Obama and FDR notwithstanding, he made what – to me – is the single most sweeping economic statement ever made in a presidential speech:

I am today ordering a freeze on all prices and wages throughout the United States for a period of 90 days.

I did not see the speech live, because I was at a grocery store shopping with my father. But I saw the effects of Nixon’s order as an economic lesson played out before my eyes. The grocery store manager, who had been continually raising prices due to runaway costs, suddenly feared that Nixon’s order might drive him out of business. He called in all of his employees to work that night, and they frantically grabbed grease pencils and label machines and set about the task of marking up the price of every item in the store. Since this was before the age of computers, the cost of our groceries was literally going up while we were shopping. There was panic, there was fear, and it became the night our economy nearly collapsed.

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Ultimately, the wage and price freeze did not work. There were shortages of some items in stores because they simply could not be produced and sold at a price that was fixed for three months. A deep recession ensued, and inflation reached 10% when Gerald Ford succeeded Nixon as president. One term later, during Jimmy Carter’s term, inflation peaked at 13.5% and unemployment hit 7%. (I use the presidents’ names here only for historical reference, because everyone but journalists know that presidents receive too much credit and too much blame for economic conditions.)

When government takes bold action in an attempt to fix an economy, it doesn’t really know if the cure will work. Often the action is something of a gamble, a bet that no one in Las Vegas would take. Sometimes, as I saw in my teenage years, government can only make things worse.

Expecting governments to fix economies is ludicrous, because in the free market it is only business and consumer confidence that drives recovery. The public puts its faith in the wrong place during economic downturns when it demands government “just do something.”

Jay News economy, inflation, nixon, price freeze

A few years ago while visiting Europe, I was privileged to attend a public forum on climate change. Several prominent scientists answered questions from informed citizens on the topic of what individuals could do about global warming. One recurring theme was whether people in that country should bother reducing carbon emissions if the United States continued to ignore international climate change efforts. To be honest, I felt a little embarrassed – although over the years I have often seen global warming used as an issue with which to bash America.

Today, London’s The Independent newspaper kicked off a series of news articles previewing the Copenhagen conference to be held in December. The conference is expected to produce a Kyoto-like treaty that will impose limits on emissions of carbon dioxide. Unlike Kyoto, this time America is very likely to sign agreement to the treaty. President Obama’s goal is to lower US carbon emissions by 2020 -  the same level of emissions we had in 1990.

But the article contained two statistics that have received little or no attention. One is that the United States is no longer the world’s top carbon polluter. China currently emits 6.018 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide, surpassing America’s 5.903 billion metric tons. It is interesting that if the 2001 Kyoto accord been adopted by the United States, this country would have been working under restrictive regulations for the past several years – while China was expanding its economy at will. The Kyoto treaty mostly exempted China because it was considered a developing nation.

I am certain many critics would respond that China has 1.3 billion people; so it might be justified in emitting more carbon dioxide than the United States, which has only 304 million people. But before we start to feel guilt for our prosperity, we should think about the second key statistic in the article.

When you compare nations based upon the amount of carbon dioxide emitted per person, the United States again comes in second. Australia emits 20.58 metric tons of CO2 per person, followed by the US at 19.78 metric tons per person, and Canada and Saudia Arabia at 18.81 and 15.7 metric tons per capita respectively.

While I truly respect and cherish other countries, I wish they would stop blaming all the world’s carbon pollution on the United States. Despite their “green” rhetoric, when other industrialized nations point fingers at us for global CO2 concentrations – we could point a finger back.

Jay News carbon dioxide, China, climate change, Copenhagen, emissions, Kyoto

According to a front page story in the London Sunday Telegraph, Britain’s Prince Charles is set to announce that the world has “100 days to act” to reverse climate change. “The clock is ticking,” according to the prince, who will reportedly make a speech on Thursday insisting that catastrophe looms within eight years unless something is done about global warming.

The prince’s plea is nothing new. The London Guardian newspaper said “governments must act swiftly” to address global warming – in an article in 2006.

It is always interesting when people ask governments to act swiftly. It is against the nature of government to do anything swiftly even when they do act. Frankly, the faster governments act, the more mistakes they make. Yet people constantly claim we are in crisis mode, demanding that governments “do something.” In recent years, we have been told “Governments must act swiftly…

…to prevent an outbreak of bird flu.” (World Health Organization, 2005)
…to free up credit markets.” (Arab World’s Business Information Service, 2009)
…to stabilize markets.” (Harvard, 2009)
…to incentivize antibiotics R&D.” (Nature, 2006)
…to enact policies that protect river health.” (International Rivers, 2003)
…to make major infrastructure investments.” (FCM Canada, 2008)
…to send a message to those who perpetrate and support terrorists.” (OJC, 1996)
…to get stimulus money.” (Miami Today, 2009)
…to ensure Canadians get mental health treatment.” (National Union Research, 2008)

No wonder governments never get anything done. They’re too busy dealing with stuff upon which they are supposed to act swiftly.

Jay News climate change, government

Shortly after the conclusion of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s speech to the US Congress, the afternoon newspapers hit the stands in his home country. The front page of the London Evening Standard screamed, “Brown tells US: Save our Planet.” As if merely rescuing the world’s economy isn’t a tough enough task.

It seems curious that as the American people believe the president is focused like a laser beam on financial issues, other nations are seizing on President Obama’s climate change initiatives. They see what the American media has largely ignored – the president’s stimulus and spending bills include easter eggs in the form of climate change legislation.

For example, President Obama claims, despite the current “throw money at everything” approach, that he will simultaneously reduce a suddenly enormous federal deficit to $600 billion by 2012. Part of the way he plans to do it is by charging a huge new tax on people and industries that produce anything. It is called “cap and trade,” and will force everyone who emits any carbon dioxide into the air to purchase – at auction – the right to do so. Obama says this tax will bring $79 billion into government coffers in its first year, and $646 Billion by 2019. The same companies that are supposed to find money to pay workers must also find money to pay this confiscatory new environmental tax.

President Obama’s pronouncements have emboldened Green movements in other countries. The idea of a carbon tax has been bouncing around Europe for some time. But the newspaper, Les Echos, recently reported that, “L’idee de taxe carbone fait son chemin”, or “The idea of a carbon tax is gaining” in France. The article starts out by saying the concept is welcomed by Greens, and is a “reflection of Barack Obama.”

Twelve years after the US Senate passed a resolution opposing the Kyoto Treaty 95-0, there is now international expection that President Obama will not only concede to the wishes of other nations, but actually lead efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions. An article in the South China Morning Post expects that a global climate change treaty will be settled in Copenhagen by the end of the year. Even China, which was largely exempt from Kyoto because it was considered an underdeveloped nation, seems willing sign a treaty to reduce its carbon emissions. But according to the Morning Post article, “the US, in Beijing’s view, has a moral obligation to make much deeper cuts, much sooner, than China.”

Right now, you would have to say President Obama appears inclined to do just that.

UPDATE 3/6/09: The following was printed in an analysis piece by a reporter based in England and printed in the The Standard and several other newspapers throughout Canada on 3/6/09:

A U.S.-China deal must include … much stronger emission curbs in the U.S. than in China in the early stages, technological help and largescale American investment in clean Chinese energy sources, and probably a carbon-trading deal as well. But if it can be done, it will provide the template on which other industrialized and industrializing countries can join up to a global deal for steep emissions cuts in Copenhagen.

Jay News, Weather China, global warming

Temperature data is recorded at ten thousand locations across the earth. But actual measurements of carbon dioxide – the key component in global warming theory – are only collected at about three hundred land-based locations around the globe. There are some existing satellites capable of monitoring carbon dioxide levels from space, but their coverage area and effectiveness are limited.

The lack of reliable, real-time carbon dioxide measurements is one of the bones of contention in the reliability or believability (depending on you who talk to) of our global climate models. Because CO2 is not sufficiently measured, the CO2 numbers input into the models must be parameterized, or estimated based upon other equations. How accurate those numbers are is contested within the climate change community.

That is why the recent launch of the Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) was so highly anticipated. The satellite was designed not only to measure CO2 over land and oceans, but measure how the earth’s oceans and landmasses capture and store some portion of that CO2.

Significant amounts of CO2 are absorbed by vegetation, which is why graphs of CO2 measurements look like “jagged teeth” (the red line on the Mauna Loa graph) over time. During the growing season, CO2 is absorbed by vegetation and the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is at a minimum. In winter, when vegetation is dormant, photosynthesis is minimized and CO2 levels are at their highest.

Everyone in the scientific community was publicly disappointed that the rocket failed shortly after launch, and the $280 million satellite was destroyed. But let’s be honest – the launch failure actually benefits some of the scientists and politicians involved in the climate debate.

There are huge dollars being spent by both sides (though hardly in equal amounts) of the manmade global warming issue. Some scientists regularly quoted by the media are little more than activists in lab coats. Prolonging the debate serves their personal interests, as it keeps them in the spotlight.

The OCO could have provided answers – definitive answers – to some of the questions currently at the crux of the global warming debate. For those who make money from the climate change debate – and for a few who have become rich in the process – the loss of a satellite that could settle some of the disputed numbers has an unintended beneficial side effect: job security.

Because of the satellite’s destruction, climate modelers will continue to parameterize carbon dioxide numbers and effects, and climate debaters will continue to debate their accuracy. The climate change rhetoric will continue at shrill levels because a key question – how much carbon dioxide is in the air at any given time and what happens to it – is just another issue for debate.

UPDATE 3/2/09: One of those activists in a lab coat is NASA’s James Hansen, who urged “mass civil disobedience” during remarks to protesters who barricaded gates at a coal-fueled power plant. Hansen’s former boss wonders “why he has not been fired.”

Jay Weather carbon dioxide, global warming