The Global Warming Hoax is Now Killing People

By Alan Caruba

By Friday, February 10th, an estimated 500 Europeans had died from the freezing weather gripping the continent. This is the price they and British citizens are paying for embracing the global warming hoax, spending billions for wind power when they should have been building coal-fired and other sources of energy to heat their homes and businesses.

As the British daily, The Telegraph, reported on Friday, “Serbia has started implementing power cuts in a desperate bid to stave off the collapse of its national grid as the country suffers the effects of days of freezing temperatures.”

I and others have been warning for years that the Earth has been cooling since 1998 and that the planet is on the cusp of a new ice age because the average length of an interglacial period of warmth between such ages is now coming to an end after the passage of some 11,500 years.

All aspects of global warming legislation and spending programs must be utterly reversed if we are not going to see huge losses of life and the disruption of entire economies.

The Ottawa Citizen published an Agence France Presse article on Friday reporting that “Thick ice closed vast swaths of the Danube on Thursday, crippling shipping on Europe’s busiest waterway, as the death toll from bitter cold across the continent rose…as it has every day for nearly two weeks.” The report noted that “Navigation was impossible or restricted in Serbia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Austria, as ice covered the river or formed dangerous floes in shipping lanes.”

No shipping means no delivery of coal and oil and no shipping of food and other necessities. Europe is freezing over as the United States has been experiencing an unusually mild winter thus far. That, too, is likely to yield to the increased cooling of the planet and then, maybe, Americans will realize the threat to their lives that the closing of coal-fired plants, instigated by the Environmental Protection Agency, really means.

In England, the Mail, reported on Sunday, February 12th, that large numbers of its elderly citizens are being “frozen to death as fuel bills soar: hypothermia cases among the elderly double in five years.” England, now gripped by foolish green notions of renewable energy, has covered itself with wind turbines, despoiling its countryside and coasts while proving unreliable and incapable of meeting its energy needs.

Figures showed that “1,876 patients were treated in hospital for hypothermia in 2010-2011, up from 950 in 2006-2007” reported the Mail. “Three-quarters of victims were pensioners, with cases soaring among the over-60s more than any other age group.”

In Europe, other news organizations reported that “Many of the dead were homeless people, who literally froze to death as the temperatures dropped to minus 50 degrees in some parts of the continent. Their bodies were found in the streets buried under snow, in rivers, and in doorways. Dozens of people were also killed in weather-related accidents.”

Writing in a Turkish newspaper, the Hurriyet Daily News, Sophie Quintin Adali, an analyst for a project of the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, said, “As if the debt crisis weren’t bad enough news, the climate freeze sweeping across Europe is wreaking havoc by severely disrupting travel, business and people’s lives. Local authorities, indeed whole countries, are caught poorly prepared.” Turkey is experiencing record snowfall and low temperatures.

“The lack of readiness should come as no surprise because for decades the sensationalist message of global warming has dominated the public area,” said Ms. Adali.

“Politicians and decades of political environmentalism have a lot to answer for,” said Ms. Adali. “The man-made climate theory…is still supported by a mighty European Union bureaucracy and a green network addicted to public funds.” Even now, the Green Climate Fund “through which millions of taxpayer’s money will still be disbursed” is threatening the lives and the economy of people worldwide.

The current freeze is not just affecting Europe, but reaching across the Mediterranean to North African nations. And at some point America will feel it too.

We have not built a single new nuclear plant in America since 1978. EPA rules are forcing the closure of coal-fired plants throughout the nation. The national grid for the distribution of electricity is in need of upgrades.

The nation’s policies are controlled by the most environmentally insane administration in its history, wasting billions on so-called green energy. Its new budget raises taxes and proposes a trillion-dollar deficit without any significant effort to cut the spending that has left this and future generations in debt while the price of gas soars to new heights.

America and the rest of the world have been horribly deceived by the United Nations Intergovernmental Climate Change Panel that continues to drive the global warming hoax. The lying scientists who got on the global warming gravy train, the politicians that embraced it, and the media that misled millions are all culpable, all responsible.

They should be driven from office, defunded, and chased through the streets like villagers in pursuit of  Frankenstein.

People are freezing to death in their homes and in the streets. What will it take to drive a stake into the heart of the global warming monster?

© Alan Caruba, 2012

Editor's Note: You can learn more from Robert W. Felix's article, posted here

It Really Is a Small World

By Alan Caruba

There is a flood in Australia of biblical proportions though it must be said there is little news of it in the U.S. media. Much of Queensland is under water which would be comparable to saying that much of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and a large portion of New York is under water. Australia is very big.

If that news was not disturbing enough, on Tuesday, Krakatau volcano in Indonesia erupted, forcing the evacuation of tens of thousands in its vicinity as ash rained down on two large provinces. Meanwhile, the Kizimen volcano on Kamchatka is erupting as well.

England is passing through the worst winter in the last hundred years of recorded history. Its heavy investment in clean energy, specifically wind turbines, has turned out to be a bad idea since they tend not to turn much when the weather turns cold. Having shut down most of its coal mines, England is experiencing a lack of electrical power that is killing some folks.

No, it is not the Apocalypse, but it might as well be for people fleeing or trapped by these huge events.

No doubt some people are trying to organize efforts to save the kangaroos and koala bears in Australia while others are worrying about indigenous animals in Indonesia. If this sounds like they have idiotic priorities, they do. The same indifference Nature shows to these critters applies to you as well.

The anniversary of the Haiti earthquake, January 13, will occasion a flurry of articles and analysis of what has happened since (not much) but will fade by the weekend. Haiti hasn’t had a good day for centuries.

Meanwhile, snow has fallen in 49 of the U.S. States including Hawaii! It covered 69% of the lower 48. The northeast just experienced its second blizzard since Christmas.

Time to panic? Hardly.

So when should we panic? I would suggest a good time would be when we in America wake up and discover that the current administration has forced enough coal-burning utilities to shut down and there’s no electricity or just not enough to go around. Coal provides fifty percent of all of the electricity we use in the U.S.

We might begin to panic when we realize that the government remains steadfastly in the way of building more nuclear plants to generate electricity, despite its rhetoric stating the opposite.

Most Americans will begin to get angry when a gallon of gasoline hits $4 or more and will wonder why without wondering what happens when the U.S. government shuts down much of the drilling in the Gulf of Mexico by simply not issuing permits and forbids exploration or drilling off the long East and West coasts where billions of barrels of oil are believed to exist. Brazil is doing it. Why not us?

Oil is a global commodity which means that its price is determined by supply and demand. Right now, as China’s economy continues to surge and ours continues to stagnate, China is buying up as much oil as it can get its hands on. It is drilling for it off the coast of Cuba, a mere 90 miles from the tip of Florida.

Due to the floods in Australia, a major producer of coal, China is looking to purchase coal dug out of the mines in Appalachia, precisely where the Obama administration has done its best to shut down mines.

So, you see, it really is a small world after all.

The last great eruption of Krakatau actually lowered the temperature worldwide by throwing so much “schmutz” into the atmosphere it interfered with the Sun’s warming rays.

No matter where you live, it helps if the government doesn’t behave in a totally irrational and stupid way in the name of some bogus notion like global warming.

By the way, where is Al Gore these days? I hear China is experiencing some monster snow storms and it wouldn’t surprise me to hear he’s over there.

© Alan Caruba, 2011

Weekend Musings

By Alan Caruba

The April 7 edition of Business Week takes notice of a new Harris Interactive poll that asked 1,304 U.S. adults to name the most influential role models for today’s youth. Of the role models, 31% said entertainers were the most influential and 19% said athletes were. Presumably, the other 50% were spread out among a variety of others such as teachers, family, et cetera.

When asked if they could name a scientist, only 11% of the adults could come up with Stephen Hawking, the physicist, and there is a strong likelihood it is because he appeared as a character in an episode of The Simpsons. Three out of four adults admitted they don’t have a good understanding of science.

BW thinks there might be a correlation between this ignorance of scientists and the reason why U.S. high school students rank 16th out of 30 nations on standardized science exams.

I think it’s because this generation of adults are the product of the same schools their children are attending. With a dumbed-down curriculum, it should come as no surprise they have little knowledge and probably less interest in science than their kids. It also explains why they are so easily duped to believe the discredited “science” offered to justify the global warming hoax.

Operating on the assumption that, since the media is full of stories and mentions of global warming it must be real, they are easily duped and, of course, so are their children.

The Brits Lose Their Stiff Upper Lip

I have friends in England and like reading Melanie Phillips’ blog. She writes for The Spectator and is both brilliant and ruthless in her examination of how utterly servile her fellow Londoners and Brits have become in the Nanny State called Great Britain. This is particularly true in the many ways they are yielding to the incessant demands of their large Muslim community.

Just about every aspect of their lives is determined by some government program and demand. The latest is London Mayor Ken Livingston, known as Ken the Red, who has a plan to charge drivers of what are deemed to be the most polluting cars $50 a day to enter the capital. He is expected to be reelected on May 1st. This, in itself, demonstrates how spineless Londoners have become since their glory days of standing up to the Nazi bombardment. There is already a congestion charge for vehicles that emit more than 225 grams of CO2 per kilometer. Livingston would triple the current charge of $16 charge per day. (Consider too that New York's Mayor Bloomberg and others are advocating a similar charge.)

It’s worthwhile reminding ourselves that CO2 is a very minor element of the Earth’s atmosphere and is essential to the growth of all vegetation. British drivers are being robbed and intimidated at the same time.

The Air as the Enemy

The March 31 edition of Business Week noted “The Elusive Cost of Cutting Emissions.” Proving that the Brits aren't the only morons paying for the nonsense of so-called greenhouse gas emissions (CO2).

“In mid-March an analysis by the National Association of Manufacturers found that the U.S. would lose more than $631 billion in gross domestic product in 2030 if Congress enacted the leading bill” on cleaning the air apparently to the point where anything airborne is judged to be a threat to all life. “If Congress enacted the bill, electricity and gasoline prices would double according to NAM’s figures. Naturally the Environmental Protection Agency had to respond, saying that gross domestic product would suffer to the tune of only $250 billion.

Pause now and think about this. Both NAM and EPA are talking about “billions” in losses to the economy if the new clean air legislation becomes law. Can this nation afford such losses? I think not.

Running Out of Food

With everyone correctly obsessed about rising food prices and a few people actually making the connection between the government’s requirement that billions of gallons of ethanol be made from corn and soy, you’d think the obvious impact would cause somebody in the U.S. government to try to reverse this catastrophe. But no.

Given the ceaseless twaddle about “climate change”, you’d think someone would take some time to learn about the role weather plays when it comes to farming. The fact is America’s wheat stocks are at their lowest ebb since before World War II. The price of soybeans is way up and, as Roy Roberson of the Southeast Farm Press recently reported, “One bad production year could mean disaster for the agriculture infrastructure of the U.S.” or to put it another way, we’re one drought away from some seriously hungry and angry voters.

In Asia, they’re running out rice. Considering it is the main staple of their diet, this is yet another cause for folks in charge of governments there to worry.

If the winters get colder and longer—as I think they will—the weather and its impact on agriculture around the world is going to cause food riots sooner or later. This stuff isn’t made in a factory. Wheat, soy, rice, and other grains have to grow out of the ground somewhere.