It seems our illustrious Governor attended a "global warming" rally chaired by a "scientist" named Bill McKibben last night in Nevada City. HERE is the Union article. I was shocked, shocked I tell you, that Jeff Pelline did not post a critical article on why the opponents of "man-made global warming" were not there to counter the carbon hater McKibben. Since Mr. Pelline writes screed after screed about this issue of "fairness" all the time (against the Union Newspaper no less), I assumed he would entertain us with a lengthy article. Well, maybe not.
I will leave the science up to the Russ Steele's and George Rebane's and Anthony Watts. I was interested in the attendance of our Governor and others who actually believe this McKibben character and his bag of hooey. I don't recall in the Union article any comments from McKibben about the "little ice age" or the fact the earth is cooling for the last 15 years, but hey, when you get those government grants in the untold millions of buckos, why undermine the mantra?
The Gov used to own some land on the Ridge I heard. There was an apparent scandal concerning the growing of a bright green plant on it I also heard. Oh, well, maybe it was a "carbon sink". With AB32 being implemented in the most "fascist" of government ways, Californians will soon give up their SUV's and gasoline powered lawnmowers for the "coal fired" electric Prius's and push mowers. Oh goody! All the progress our once "golden state" showed the world will be changed for the likes of Mary Nichols and the "moonbeam" (oh and thanks for nothing Arnie). The result will be the return of humans to the cave, but there are not enough caves.
When one wants to build their house on their own property in California, we can see first hand the results of these "carbon" hating types like McKibben and Nichols etal. Hell, every light fixture, electrical switch and light bulb must be approved by these nuts. The "codes" one must adhere to are adding tens of thousands of hard earned dollars to the cot of the house. First through the need to hire "experts" to draw the plans and comply with the gazillion rules, then through the "plan check" and "comprehensive site plans" then onto the actual construction of your home!
These are the practical affects of the McKibbens and their philosophy. Every time you pay five bucks a gallon at the pump, 55 bucks for a light bulb and the plan check fees to the county (implementing the "energy regulations" of the state and feds), you can thank the McKibbens of the "scientific" community. For all their so-called concern for the people on the planet. To me it is simply that they just want to tell others how to live their lives. The science has been challenged yet apparently not a peep of dissent at the "meeting" last night. Not a peep from the Pelline's that a contra person should have been on the dais to counter the true believers in AGW. No wonder the McKibbens and Pellines have become irrelevant.
Todd J. Juvinall
I Miss my Husband very much! Todd was simply all about loving God, County, Family and People. My love , My husband is with Jesus in Heaven. He enjoyed communicating with each of you on Sierra Dragon's Breath. Todd was a Great, Loving, Kind man and will be Missed. Love you honey! Till wee meet again. 
Todd,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the input. How big was the audience? Well attended or more sparse attendance? How many would you estimate?
I was running late and just decided that $20.00 for only part of the show was too much.
I did not notice Toddy actually saying he attended. Did you attend Todd?
ReplyDeleteSF
Russ, My info was from an attendee and the Union. I was at the troops packing party.
ReplyDeleteTodd, since you are so positive that the great majority of the world's scientists doing research on this topic are wrong and the so called deniers are right--I'm not a scientist either--I have a question for you, or Mr. Steele. I feel the proper question is never being asked or answered. Specifically, how can the pristine environment--with all its various ecosystems--not be affected 0nce the Industrial Revolution began, accellerated, pouring hundreds of thousands of tons of chemicals in their various forms into this once pristine and in balance environment? As a child I know if I didn't maintain the proper chemical balances in my aquarium, the fish died.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me, climate denial is really based on nothing more that changing our life styles is indeed inconvenient, and of course unprofittable for many companies.
I'll only add that I have no dog in this fight. As Walter Brennan would say in his last TV series, "No brag, just fact," Nam was hard on me, no kids and I definitely won't be here in 2020 to read the more revealing tea leaves.
EdP, I am not a scientist either but like you I have read and followed this issue for many years. I did an op-ed in the Union in 1997 where I expressed my opinion the issue was not science but politics( I had people threatening me for my heresy). I believe I have been correct. When you review the science, and Russ and George Rebane and Greg Goodnight all have that background you have to wonder. Why would they, people in science with "no dog in the fight" be people who say AGW is make-believe? I say it is because they are honest and the "scientists" getting the billions in grant funding from the taxpayers are the ones who are dishonest. If you have an open mind and review the science you will see the "global warming", errr, "climate change" debate is simply a ploy of the proponents to gain money and power. I know you are smart enough to know a "bandwagon" can het started and people become true believers as long as the money holds out.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your service to our country.
Well I know neither one of us is going to influence the other's viewpoint, and I don't accept that it's all about grant money, nor the bandwagon theory. One must assme then that grant money is also the motivater for the scientist from other countries who also endorse man made climate change. Having European in-laws, I know how strongly they feel on this subject. When I was young, growing up in outside NYC, summer eves were lit by hundreds of fire flys. My friends back there tell me no more, there gone. I wonder why? Perhaps they retired in Florida, or perhaps the ecological balance shifted just enough for them to die off?
DeleteAnd you are welcome. Pardon the aside. I too own guns, was taught to shoot when I was six, but have no respect for Nugent. He's just a year or two younger than me, played the hippie,but after the war was always acting the Great White hunter he-man, rifle carrying bad as+, but like so many hawks, avoided putting his body where his mouth is. If someone spoke words similar to what he said against Bush during his administration, I'll wager they'd be in jail. I didn't read your column, just got up from bed to eat something and check mail. Perhaps you addressed this issue. It is also why I developed such a deep loathing for Bush and his neocons, while I once thought he was reasonable. They were all my age or younger, all hawks and all found a way out of going to name. College guys like me were a rarity
I was never in the military. I figure since I wasn't I need to make sure I have the proper respect for those like my dad and grandpa who were. In politics, Clinton was the first anti-war post WW2 Prez. Then Bush was in the Guard and a trained fighter pilot but still got grief from the left. Obama is now probably the farthest away from the military a Prez could be. It appears a military background is now not as important as it has been.
Delete'Nuff said. You didn't serve. Same as Nugent. I can tell you that not all vets favor the foaming-at-the-mouth, self-righteous, Il Duce-like posturing you and Nugent so dote on; most, in fact, keep a pretty low profile. The giddy, flag-waving, black-and-white POV of the "patriot" is, in fact, the bailiwick of the chickenhawk. Ed Peritz: Thank you, sir, for both your service and your sane perspective.
DeleteI thought a chicken hawk was a homosexual man who trolled for boys.. Are you a troll Eagle? Sice you seem to think someone who is a patriot is some neanderthal then tell us about you. Maybe start with your real n ame and address. What you anonymous trolls do is so "chicken".
DeleteCorrect, Indeed. Obama was 12 years old when yhe U.S. withdrew its last troops--save a scattering amount of embassy Marines and others "advisors." So that there is no misunder-standing, I respected those that sincerely (as best that I could tell; of course there were some good pretenders) opposed the war and avoided service, choosing one of the various means open to them at the time. And the duty of serving our country was deeply instilled in me, as my father was a highly decorated Army officer--five bronze stars among other decorations--who was part of the less publicized,long and torturous Italian campaign, fighting in mountainous terrain-Monte Casino, Anzio (where his best friend received machine gun rounds to head and neck and for whom I recieved my name)against Field Marshall Kesselring, one of the Nazis truely great generals. And, like so many of early arrivers to this continent (1637 we've traced one limb of the family tree) we can document Revolutionary War participants and probably all the wars fought even before. That was the nature of life in the colonies, versus the French, or the local Indians, or both.
ReplyDelete(Had to break comments in two due to length).
ReplyDeleteAnd Bush could easily avoided the grief he recieved had he not been so secretive about his past; first by sealing all his governmental papers in, I think it was his father'sPresidential library, so that no one had access to them. This was an unprecedented and I believe, probably illegal move. And, while I don't know what the situation was in CA or TX during the Vietnam war, I doubt that the difficulties of gaining admittance to the National Guard were much different than in N.Y., meaning near impossible--had to be connected. And we still don't know about his mysterious abscence. Let's face it, most who served were drafted, minimally educated, with very little awarness or knowledge of the history leading up to the Vietnam conflict. I had been following events there since age 14, considered the tactics of the V.C. barbarous, like annialating uncooperative Montangard villages, and always believed and still do, that this is how they gained the support of the peasantry. It didn't help that the various Saigon regiemes, especially Diem's were so corrupt, but a reasonally fair and worable democracy is hard enough to build, eeven when not under constant external attack. Further, to this day I reject the argument that it was a civil war which we should have stayed out of. A simple glance at a map conclusively shows the logistical advantages which were available to Uncle Ho and which were used to great advantage, tipping the scale decidedly in favor of anti-Diem forces. One more point; some say the domino theory was bunk. I beg to differ, although it is rather moot thses days. Other regional countries did fall, although not all. When I returned to S.E. Asia in Oct. 2004, Thailan, Cambodia then 10 days back in Vietnam it was very educational. In Cambodia, my personal guide was terrific and took great care of me--I had fallen on my first day and was in pain and limping badly. But his history was incredibly tragic, having been imprisioned by the Khmer Rouge in a re-education camp. Obviously he survived, but his eight siblings did not and both his parents--his father was a minister in Lon Nol's gov't--were both executed by decapitation. Of course, every thing was lost and he now made his living as a tour guide. His gentleness and kindness overflowed, but the sorrow and sadness was always casting a shadow deep within his eyes. And in Vietnam, in Saigon, my guide spoke of circling the U.S. Embassy, trying to gain entrance, as the last helicopter departed. He still talked of the North Vietnamese as "Those people." But capitalism is taking over in Vietnam too, and it visibly shows in the quality of housing, at least in the urban areas. As one man told me, "Vietnam is red on the outside, but green on the inside." And as my lengthy travels through the European part of the U.S.S.R. in 1972 indicated, the communist system, as has been proven, is not workable, even when not degraded into Stalinism. This comment you won't like, much less agree with, but with the study of 20thc Russian history having been my major focus over most of my life, I do stay tuned to this issue, President Reagan, in reality, had little more to do with winning the cold war than Ford or Carter or Nixon. Even Ford said so, shortly before his death. This is a claim totally American-centric, disregarding the history and independent factors already brewing in Eastern Europe and the Soviet SSRs.
Sorry I ran on so long, I do have that tendency, But I can talk/wrie seemingly forever on these topics.
I agree with most of what you wrote here and I appreciate your personal historic perspective. Regarding the USSR and their proxy, Vietnam (oh, BTW, I was 326 in the first lottery). This was a war no one really won and many lives were lost. We did see the "killing fields" created by he Khmer Rouge and the destruction of millions of kind and peaceful Cambodians. That is a signature of the communists. Kill the smart people, kill the trade unionists, kill the teachers. Re-educate the people into slavery.
ReplyDeleteReagan actually forced the Russians to spend themselves into bankruptcy. I recall Gorbachev's visit and his tour of a grocery store here in the USA. He had left a country on the visit that forced people to stand in line all day for a loaf of bread. He remarked that his country was not long for the planet because of the things he saw in the store. But, a collapse of the USSR is a more complex thing than just one man. I have friends here from Russia who are now Americans. I took one lady to the swearing in in Sacramento 10 or 12 years ago. She has told me what it was like in Russia under the commies. It was terrible for the little people. I thought the commies were all about the little people. Just a lie.
Yes, of course being about the little people was a lie. But it is not what Marx had in mind, and even Lenin's new Soviet State was foundering badly until he instituted the N. E.P. Even when I was there, the place to shop was the farmer's markets, where the peasants were allowed to sell what excess they grew on their own, but tiny plots of land.
ReplyDeleteIt is the constantly repeated myth of Reagan forcing the Soviets to spend their way into bankruptcy that can not be substantiated by an unbiased evaluation of evidence from both sides of the Atlantic. But I'm not going to beat the point to death. Presently I', taking a break from important things and just reading about the massacure of the American provincials and British Regulars under Col. Monro after surrendering Ft. William Henry--excellently staged in the Danial Day Lewis version of The Last Of The Mohegans, incidentally, the tribe that inhabited the area of N.Y. and CT. where I was raised.
I feel like telling some tales out of school to lighten up the discourse a bit. But first, let me lay a little ground work. My family moved to Nevada City in the summer of 1945 just as the Pacific war was ending. I was in 7th grade and my brother, Jim, was in the 6th.
ReplyDeleteIn June 1950 I graduated from Nevada City High School and went into the Air Force and spent about a year in Korea during the 'police action' after which I attended Sierra College and became a surveyor.
After a stint with the California Division of Highways, I returned to Grass Valley and worked at T.H.McGuire and Son.
And now for the tale: Jerry Brown's dad was a good guy to many but was as gullible as his kid. During his time as governor he recieved very harsh criticism via letters to the editor as published in the Union by some one named Lizzie Glotzmier. This went on for some time and eventually governor Brown wanted to meet
with Lizzie to try to reconcile differences, however they never did manage to meet because Lizzie was always vacationing in Rinaldo, Spain.
Anyway Brown's aides finally convinced him that it was all a hoax. For being a good sport about it, he was made a member of E Clampus Vitus, Chapter 10, Nevada City.
....And so recorded.