Absurd Claims for Catatrosphic Man-Made Global Warming Never Stop

Absurd claims of catastrophic man-made global warming continue at a mad pace in preparation for the "climate change" conference to be held in Paris later this year.  At that conference, developed nations are supposed to place themselves under energy restrictions so severe that income inequality will be reduced around the world by virtue of decreasing the future standard of living in the developed countries.  In addition, the developed countries are supposed to deliver large sums of cash to underdeveloped and largely poorly governed and corrupt nations to "aid them in adapting to the harm of catastrophic man-made global warming."  The planned economic transformation is massive and will be catastrophic.  Obama claimed catastrophic man-made global warming is mankind's greatest problem, rampant beheadings by Islamists being the small stuff we ought not to sweat.

The U.S. government, the United Nations, and many other developed nations around the world have poured hundreds of billions of dollars into rigged "research" of the causes of catastrophic man-made global warming.  Government funding agencies and the universities dependent upon their research funding have been vicious in destroying or damaging the careers of such research scientists as have had the scientific principles to oppose the agenda mandating that funded research will not shed doubt on the politically essential agenda for catastrophic man-made global warming.  Yet, if any skeptic of this hypothesis receives a piddling amount of money from U.S. industry, from an oil company, or from a limited government think tank that in turn receives a piddling amount of money from an oil company, this is enough to completely discount all of the scientific arguments made by the scientist.

An example of this is a foolish article by a Jay Michaelson called Armageddon for Climate Change Deniers.  He plays the further old game of mocking those who believe the U.S. government has an agenda to acquire more power over the daily lives of Americans and their use of energy and all that implies for economic controls.  He makes the claim that 13,926 of 13,950 peer reviewed papers from 1991 to 9 Nov 2012 agreed with catastrophic man-made global warming.  The "study" [found on an infamously foolish blog] in question actually only counted very strong and explicit claims of falsity of that hypothesis and did not count those cases in which the authors allowed that some doubt was reasonable.  Given the tight controls on who is allowed research money to write journal articles capable of being published in the peer-reviewed journals, with additional journal editorial and peer reviewer (with funding) controls on the orthodoxy, the fact that few authors who want to publish will explicitly say that catastrophic man-made global warming is false, is not surprising.  Scientists who think it is false commonly wait until they have retired before they come out as doubters.  It is amazing how many have done so.

Given my explanations on this blog and by many other scientists elsewhere as to how bad the science theory of CO2-induced catastrophic man-made global warming is, the obvious failure of the highly touted climate models to predict the temperature rise, the heavy-handed alterations of the actually measured surface temperature data record, the recent 18-year constancy of the satellite lower atmosphere temperature record, and the many claims by politicians that bad science explaining the theory should not be allowed to get in the way of the political agenda, there should be many, many scientists who do doubt the hypothesis of man-made global warming.  There are.  Yes, few of them are actively funded by the government for the purposes of climate research.  But many of them are good physicists, chemists, meteorologists, geologists, or engineers.  Over the years because of the great attention the catastrophic man-made global warming hypothesis has been given as the greatest of all problems facing mankind, many scientists have looked into this hypothesis and evaluated it.  The skepticism is huge.  Very large fractions of the membership of many, many scientific organizations are skeptics.  We scientists are not all fools.  And no, very few of us are receiving any funding from oil companies to support our skepticism.

I am more than a skeptic.  I say the hypothesis is very wrong.  The physics of the hypothesis is horribly wrong.  The empirical evidence has proven the hypothesis wrong.  It is not just that the effect of CO2 on warming is not catastrophic.  It is not even significant.

I have received piddling amounts of funding for my laboratory over the last 19 years from oil companies.  The amount of funding I have received from alternative or so-called green energy companies to solve problems of wind power generation, solar power, or biomass use has been significantly greater than the funding from oil companies.  Many of the oil companies are big and can do most of their own materials problem-solving or have long-established relationships with older laboratories. Oil companies are not clustered near Maryland, though my clients come from across the country.  I am happy to help oil companies and alternative energy companies alike with solving their materials problems.  I strongly prefer that they all operate in a rich and robust private sector with no government meddling, however.

So, advocates such as Michaelson will dismiss all I say because I have received a smidgeon of income from oil companies.  How convenient that they need not address the scientific analyses that I have published on this blog.  How convenient that they dismiss all I say because I am not funded by the government to perform climate research.  How convenient that they can dismiss me because I am not a climate scientist, but merely a physicist who studies materials properties using a range of radiations.

You alarmists are having a bit of trouble convincing Americans and many others around the world that man-made global warming is mankind's greatest problem.  I take comfort in the fact that I have convinced some people to be such skeptics.  I am doing my bit to promulgate what I believe to be the truth.  I am doing my part to uphold the scientific method of free inquiry, careful observation, the use of known scientific principles to understand phenomena, and the idea that an hypothesis has to stand up to empirical testing.  I will not destroy the credibility of science so that politicians can acquire more power and I will not have them buy me off with research grants.

Why the Democrat Senate Will Not End the Slimdown of the Government

Why is the slight slimdown of the government, wrongly called a shutdown, continuing?

First the Republican House authorized all spending except that small part of the funding for ObamaCare which is in the so-called discretionary budget.

Then the Republican House authorized all spending, but required a one-year delay of the ObamaCare fiasco.

Then the Republican House authorized all spending including that for ObamaCare but with the proviso that the House and Senate and their staffs had be subject to ObamaCare just as everyone else was.

So, as Ann Coulter has pointed out, the only reason that the government slimdown, incorrectly called the government shutdown, continues is because the Democrat Senate recognizes ObamaCare to be so awful that they refuse to obey the law they passed over everyone else' objections.  Obama gave them an exemption, which is surely illegal anyway.  We are to be subjected to rationing, high expense requirements, and its capricious will and they are not.  After all, the Rulers of the People must have their special privileges.  They deserve them because they are the Progressive Elitists caring for we the mere sheep.

You can see why they hate the Constitution so much.  That document is the People's mandate to the government and makes it clear that government is to serve the People.  The People do not serve the Government or its politicians and bureaucrats.  But, this mandate of government service is inherently unsustainable with a big government model.  That model insists upon rulers with prerogatives and peons who do as they are told.

A Piecemeal Approach to Appropriations is Exactly the Way for Congress to Proceed

We are constantly hearing from most of the media and from Obama and his allies generally that the proper way to appropriate funding for government is to pass an omnibus authorization to continue the massive spending of the government and every current program.  They demand a "clean" continuing resolution that includes the very dirty ObamaCare program with full funding.

They choose to ignore many things in this assertion.  Among them:

• The debt due to this unsustainable spending has surpassed the GDP and will be harder and harder to roll-over.  The debt will saddle the People with much higher interest rates in the future.  Any attempt to increase taxes to pay the increased debt payments and the increases in Medicare, Social Security (retirement and disability), Medicaid, and ObamaCare spending, will slow the growth of the economy enough to result in a decrease in tax revenues.  In other words, only spending less is a possible sustainable solution.  This solution is to be avoided at all costs according to Democrats.

•  It is the job of Congress, especially the House of Representatives, to carefully review spending and only authorize that spending which is constitutional and necessary.  This constitutional responsibility is forfeited in the continuing resolution process.  Only in a piecemeal consideration of government program funding will irresponsible, unnecessary, and unconstitutional programs be ended as they ought to be.  Programs should be examined closely by Congress.  This takes time and effort, which it is all too clear Congress is not up to.  Neither is Obama up to it.  This is a great reason to demand huge reductions in government spending and in the number of programs all by itself.  Giving Congress so much money and so many programs is like giving a five-year-old a house, a gun, and a car of his own and filling the house to the ceiling with hundred dollar bills.

• The infamously named Affordable Care Act is very unpopular with the People.  It is a major source of increased government spending.  This spending will add greatly to the national debt.  Many will push for higher taxes to fund it in the future, despite the fact that higher taxes will result in less tax revenue over time, while lowering our standard of living.  Of course a past Congress passed ObamaCare without reading it and without regard to its many violations of individual rights and of the limited powers given the government by the Constitution.  This does not mean that the present or future Congresses are not obliged to stop the funding for this program if they assess it to be unworthy of funding, unconstitutional, or against the will of the People.  Indeed, if any is the case, then it is Congress' responsibility to stop the program.

So much for the nonsense that only a Continuing Resolution to fund all government programs at present levels is responsible.  Nothing could be more untrue.

If Obama Gets All of the Funding He Wants, He Will Listen

I heard the tail end of Obama's speech today.  As usual, I was nauseated by the constant stream of lies, misrepresentations, and the utter disdain for the intelligence of the American citizen.

He posed as a reasonable man by saying that he was open to negotiations with the Republican House as long as he got everything he wanted up front.  Yes, then he would sit down with them and listen to their complaints.  Well, if the Republicans prove stupid enough to give him all the funding he wants, they will find that he will spend a token few minutes listening to their complaints about ObamaCare and some of his other wild and unfunded spending and he will do nothing to fix the huge problems the Republicans have concerns about.  The Republicans will have lost all leverage and will become powerless.

A legitimate government is one of very limited power, as is ours when it abides by the enumerated powers of the Constitution.  Government has not done so in 100 years under the authoritarian influence of the self-proclaimed Progressives.  Our government was designed to distribute power between the two houses of the Congress, the President, and the Federal Courts.  It was purposely designed so that it would be difficult to spend money and enact laws unless there was overwhelming support for those laws and expenditures.  The Progressives have worked hard and consistently to decrease the distribution of power and centralize it in the hands of the President as much as possible.  This is because when they hold the presidency, they can shove through large chunks of their socialist agenda and anchor them in place.

These anchored programs are very hard to repeal as we are finding with the very unpopular and floundering ObamaCare.  The funding for almost all socialist transfer programs is even termed mandatory.  Congress no longer even has effective control over the 80% of government expenditures termed mandatory.  We have a government which finds it much too easy to spend money and to pass mandates.  Obama objects mightily to the Republican House attempt to thwart his will, though the House was explicitly given the lead in funding and taxing legislation by the Constitution.  Good government is only possible if the agenda to grow government and to displace the private sector is thwarted frequently and with principled determination.

Seth Mandel at Commentary made some very good observations on Obama's speech and answers in the Q & A today.