What Would the McKenzie Brothers Think, eh?

Is nothing sacred?

Study: Canadian Beer Drinkers Threaten Planet

Scientists have found a new threat to the planet: Canadian beer drinkers.

The government-commissioned study says the old, inefficient "beer fridges" that one in three Canadian households use to store their Molson and Labatt's contribute significantly to global warming by guzzling gas- and coal-fired electricity.

Why are they picking on Molson and Labatt's-- just because they're the biggest? There are several other brands of beer brewed in Canada that are just as likely to be found in the beer-fridge, and therefore guilty of contributing to global warming.

One in three households still use these old, inefficient contraptions. The article fails to mention the remaining two in three households have either placed them in the front yard where they form the centerpiece of the weed garden, or they're out back leaching lead and rust into the water table and freon into the atmosphere.

"People need to understand the impact of their lifestyles," British environmental consultant Joanna Yarrow tells New Scientist magazine. "Clearly the environmental implications of having a frivolous luxury like a beer fridge are not hitting home. This research helps inform people — let's hope it has an effect."

Frivolous luxury? Them is fightin' words! Funny coming from a Brit, too. Though generally served warmer and therefore environmentally friendly, U.K. liter per capita beer consumption is almost twice as high as it is in Canada.

The problem is that the beer fridges are mostly decades-old machines that began their second careers as beverage dispensers when Canadians upgraded to more energy-efficient models to store whatever Canadians eat besides doughnuts and poutine.

Ah, poutine. If Quebec had a national dish, it would be poutine. There's nothing better that a plate piled high with french fries, gravy and cheese curds after a long night of drinking a "two-four" of environmentally hostile suds.

University of Alberta researcher Denise Young, who led the study, suggests that provincial authorities hold beer-fridge buy-backs or round-ups to eliminate the threat — methods that Americans use to get guns off the streets.

It's not often that Canada looks to the USA for guidance, unless it's for an example of what not to do. I bet if the government funded a beer fridge buy-back program, it'd be just as successful as our gun buy-back program--that is, not very successful.

When beer-fridges are outlawed, only outlaws will have beer-fridges.

U.N. Climate Summit

One could be forgiven for thinking this story was a parody:

U.N. Report: poor hit hardest by climate change

The poor, poor. Always taking it in the keester. Has there ever been a time when this has not been the case?

UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- Developed nations must immediately help fight global warming or the world will face catastrophic floods, droughts and other disasters, according to U.N. report released this week.

Before global warming appeared on the scene, I wonder what caused catastrophic floods and droughts? They're not exactly new phenomenons. Just in case you do not acknowledge your responsibility to engage in this battle for the future of our planet, there might be other disasters, too. Perhaps fire and brimstone, or plagues of locusts that black out the sky. Just imagine the worst disaster you can conjure up, and it's gonna happen!

The report said rich nations will need to provide $86 billion a year by 2015 to "strengthen the capacity of vulnerable people" to cope with climate-related risks.

Because it's our duty, as "rich nations" to care for the rest of the world, since it's only an accident that some nations are rich and others are poor. And hey, what's $86 billion anyhow, especially at today's exchange rates? That's only $57.9 billion euros, the currency of the future.

"The scenario is that our generation will experience reversals on a grand scale in the areas of health, education and poverty. For the future there is real threat of ecological catastrophe," Kevin Watkins, the report's lead author, told reporters in Brasilia, the country's capital.

Global warming will render people unhealthy, and unable to work and go to school. And not just a few people, it's gonna happen on a grand scale. I'd like to see the methodology behind that conclusion.

Half the cost, $44 billion, would go for "climate-proofing" developing nations' infrastructure, while $40 billion would help the poor cope with climate-related risks. The other $2 billion would go to strengthening responses to natural disasters, the report said.

"Climate-proofing" is what we used to do in the winter when we would put clear plastic sheets over our windows to improve heat retention. $44 billion seems like a lot of money for plastic. Really though, it sounds like a pork barrel spending spree to me; another chance for 3rd world kleptocracies to feast at the trough of misplaced and mismanaged international largess.

Here's the best part:

The nearly 400-page Human Development Report comes just a week before the world's nations convene in Bali, Indonesia, to negotiate a new climate treaty.

At the report's release ceremony, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva called on rich nations to do their part.

"In Bali we are going to very seriously discuss the price rich countries have to pay so that poorer countries can preserve their forests," Silva said. "Because you're not going to convince a poor person in any country that he can't cut down a tree if he doesn't have the right to work and eat in exchange."

I give you this from the Bali News website:

A Lack of Apron Area Will Compel Delegations Attending the UN Climate Change Conference to Park their Planes Outside of Bali.

11/3/2007) Tempo Interaktif reports that Angkasa Pura - the management of Bali's Ngurah Rai International Airport are concerned that the large number of additional private charter flights expected in Bali during the UN Conference on Climate Change (UNFCCC) December 3-15, 2007, will exceed the carrying capacity of apron areas. To meet the added demand for aircraft storage officials are allocating "parking space" at other airports in Indonesia.

The operational manager for Bali's Airport, Azjar Effendi, says his 3 parking areas can only accommodate 15 planes, which means that some of the jets used by VIP delegations will only be allowed to disembark and embark their planes in Bali with parking provided at airports in Surabaya, Lombok, Jakarta and Makassar.

Climate change is so serious that our U.N. Climate Knights in Shining Armor have to fly with their VIP entourages in C02 belching private jets to a beautiful, remote, tropical South Pacific island to discuss the imminent crisis that threatens to end the world as we know it. If this were truly a crisis, shouldn't the U.N. moral preachers just hold a video conference? I think the carbon footprint might be just a tad smaller. They tell us the goal is to reduce the world's carbon footprint after all.

I do have a feeling that the lack of tarmac parking space is the only thing they really feel is an immediate crisis. At the minimum, shouldn't they jetpool?

Developed countries, meanwhile, are failing to meet their targets under the current climate treaty, the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, for cutting greenhouse gases by 2012, the report said. France, Germany, Japan and Britain have reduced their emissions somewhat, it said, but the European Union is falling short of its goal of a 20 percent cut by 2020.

Kevin Rudd of the center-left Labour Party, was just elected as the new prime minister of Australia in a landslide victory. Best I can tell, the sum of his platform was that he promised to sign the Kyoto Protocol after years of resistance under John Howard. Never mind that Kyoto is ineffective, what's important is that you posture correctly.

Olav Kjorven, head of the U.N. Development Program's bureau for development policy, said help is only natural "when we know that the frequency of droughts and floods is going up."

Because of global warming, he said, 600 million more people in sub-Saharan Africa will go hungry from collapsing agriculture, an extra 400 million people will be exposed to malaria and other diseases and an added 200 million will be flooded out of their homes.

"We're suggesting 1.6 percent of (global) GDP -- still very affordable," Kjorven said. "The countries of the world that are the principal culprits, if you wish, for creating this problem in the first place need to act strongly to safeguard the future of those that have done nothing to cause this problem but are the most vulnerable."

If global warming were not happening, 600 million people would not go hungry, 400 million would not be exposed to malaria and 200 million would not be flooded out of their homes. How about, if you wish, 600 million people would not go hungry if they had roads on which to get their crops to the marketplace, and were not bullied into not planting genetically modified crops by the EU. If you wish, consider that if DDT were not vilified, 400 million would not be exposed to malaria. Imagine, if you wish, that if deforestation weren't rampant, 200 million people would not be flooded out of their homes.


I would like to see a poll of what the average third world citizen thought were the 10 most pressing problems facing them today. I'd wager global warming wouldn't make the list.

When the United Nations moves its headquarters to, say somewhere in Namibia, I might start to take them slightly more seriously. It's hard not to conclude that their only function is to hold endless jaw-jaw sessions in exotic places like Bali. That is, when they're not enjoying all that New York City has to offer.

U.N. OUT OF NYC! Now that's a bumper sticker.

0 for 3

Unless you're the guys that write the Farmer's Almanac, it seems that predicting the weather over any length of time--even only one season--is a tough business.

Another hurricane season is about to end, and for the second year in a row, expert predictions overstated the number and intensity of storms that materialized. This is in stark contrast to 2005 when experts were wide to the other side of the mark when their predictions understated the number and intensity of storms.

Nevertheless, NOAA is not deterred:

'The seasonal forecasts are quite good,'' said Gerry Bell, NOAA's lead seasonal forecaster. ``Last year, we over-predicted and this year we over-predicted, but our track record, I think, is excellent.''

If you put your monopoly money chips on "black" long enough, you're bound to come out a monopoly money winner sooner or later; as opposed to the real people who earn real money and have real livelihoods on the line and make decisions based on what these hurricane experts are saying.

This reminds me of what the Bureau of Labor Statistics does when they report the Consumer Price Index numbers each month, then back out food and energy and call it the "core CPI" because food and energy prices are "volatile." At some point, one must ask, "what's the point?"

If hurricane forecasting is wrong as often as it is right, what's the point in forecasting at all?

I wonder how this news will affect the opinions of those that believe Global Warming is supposed to cause an increase in hurricane activity?

The Intersection of Politics and Science

I've been trying not to blog about Al Gore and the peace prize as it's old news at this point, but today the following story crossed the newswires, and once again he was on my mind:

Al Gore Joins Venture Capital Firm To Focus On Clean Tech

SAN FRANCISCO (AP)--Nobel Peace Prize winner and former vice president Al Gore announced Monday he is joining a Silicon Valley venture capital firm to guide investments that help combat global warming.
Gore will join Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers as it and dozens of other venture firms headquartered in Silicon Valley expand beyond software, computer hardware, the Internet and biotechnology to so-called "clean-tech" investments worldwide.
Gore is expected to be a high-profile, active partner at Kleiner Perkins. He is already a senior adviser to Google Inc. (GOOG) and a member of the board at Apple Inc. (AAPL). Alliance for Climate Protection, the advocacy group he co-founded, is based in Palo Alto.
Also Monday, Kleiner Perkins partner John Doerr announced he's joining the advisory board of Generation Investment Management, the $1 billion investment firm that Gore founded with David Blood, who previously managed $325 billion in assets out of Goldman Sachs' (GS) London office.
Gore said in a statement that he'll donate 100% of his salary as a Kleiner Perkins partner to the Alliance for Climate Protection, which focuses on accelerating policy solutions to the climate crisis.

To his many disciples, the fact that Al Gore recently won half of the Nobel Peace Prize only serves to reinforce and legitimize what they already knew and have been endlessly bleating about: "The end is nigh! Curb your CO2 emissions or suffer the wrath of Gaia!"

Or something to that effect.

The first thing that cynically occurred to me upon hearing the news of his big win was that the Nobel committee must have been fresh out of science prizes. Man-made global warming is supposed to be all about science after all, isn't it? So why would he win the peace price?

It may be worth recalling that the 5 member committee that chooses the winner of the peace prize is itself nominated by the Norwegian parliament. This means that the peace prize winner is selected in a purely political process. That's all fine and well, but when science and politics mix, you can bet the farm which will trump the other (hint: it ain't science that comes out on top).

The following press release is from the Nobel prize website:

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2007 is to be shared, in two equal parts, between the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Albert Arnold (Al) Gore Jr. for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change.

Nowhere is a delineation drawn between what is man-made and what is naturally occurring. That is because it is impossible to do. I have not waded through all of the IPCC report, but I understand it is not as one-sided to Gore's bias as global warming fear-mongers would have us believe. We're celebrating their courage in laying the foundations to counteract change. Counteracting an unquantifiable amount of change on this scale seems like an exercise in futility to me, especially when change is as natural as life and evolution itself.

Indications of changes in the earth's future climate must be treated with the utmost seriousness, and with the precautionary principle uppermost in our minds. Extensive climate changes may alter and threaten the living conditions of much of mankind. They may induce large-scale migration and lead to greater competition for the earth's resources. Such changes will place particularly heavy burdens on the world's most vulnerable countries. There may be increased danger of violent conflicts and wars, within and between states.

Notice how many times the word "may" is used in that paragraph. Of course, the opposite of may is may not; as in many of these apocalyptic forebodings may not happen at all. Justification for taking action now against an unknown quantity is defended by citing the precautionary principle, which is defined as:"...a moral and political principle which states that if an action or policy might cause severe or irreversible harm to the public, in the absence of a scientific consensus that harm would not ensue, the burden of proof falls on those who would advocate taking the action."

Without acknowledging that science does not need consensus, the whole global warming debate is so hopelessly politicized that there will never be a scientific consensus. Since there's no consensus, those that advocate taking action against global warming are burdened with proving it's real, and that it poses an imminent danger. That explains the junk science used to justify acting now. But how many times have we heard from Al Gore himself that the debate is over, and there is in fact a scientific consensus concerning global warming?

I've got news for the Nobel Committee--wars for resources have been happening since, forever.

Through the scientific reports it has issued over the past two decades, the IPCC has created an ever-broader informed consensus about the connection between human activities and global warming. Thousands of scientists and officials from over one hundred countries have collaborated to achieve greater certainty as to the scale of the warming. Whereas in the 1980s global warming seemed to be merely an interesting hypothesis, the 1990s produced firmer evidence in its support. In the last few years, the connections have become even clearer and the consequences still more apparent.

As I already stated, real science has no need for consensus. Either something is verifiable using the scientific method, or it is not. In fact, If the science is so convincing, why are we talking about the peace prize right now?

Al Gore has for a long time been one of the world's leading environmentalist politicians. He became aware at an early stage of the climatic challenges the world is facing. His strong commitment, reflected in political activity, lectures, films and books, has strengthened the struggle against climate change. He is probably the single individual who has done most to create greater worldwide understanding of the measures that need to be adopted.

In the preceding paragraph we're told that the 1990's produced firmer evidence to support man-made global warming. Al Gore was Vice President of the United States of America for 8 of those years. Does anybody recall anything he did during those years to combat this imminent threat--aside from make a symbolic attempt to get the U.S. to sign on to the Kyoto Accord in 1997--a treaty that our Congress said they'd not sign?

He in fact may be the single individual who has done the most to create greater worldwide understanding of the measures that "need" to be adapted to combat man-made global warming. If true, he's achieved this feat largely by using dishonest fear-mongering scare tactics. That's nothing to be proud of. For this he's earned the peace prize.

By awarding the Nobel Peace Prize for 2007 to the IPCC and Al Gore, the Norwegian Nobel Committee is seeking to contribute to a sharper focus on the processes and decisions that appear to be necessary to protect the world’s future climate, and thereby to reduce the threat to the security of mankind. Action is necessary now, before climate change moves beyond man’s control.


Oslo, 12 October 2007

Protect the world's future climate--like it's a spotted owl or some other endangered species. The last sentence is my favorite; it reveals the underlying hubris that motivates the man-made global warming agenda pushers.

Back to the big news, Mr. Gore joining Kleiner Perkins.

I am wondering what Kleiner Perkins stands to gain from making Mr. Gore a partner? They're wildly successful in their own right, after all. His name certainly has billboard appeal, but the VC world exists mainly in the fine print of the business page, so cache is generally not part of their charter. I am sure they'd be able to spot the next big thing in green energy without him, since they're very good at what they do. If campaign donations are any indication--and they are--Wall St. and "big business" in general are betting heavily that the Democrats will take the White House next year. I'll be waiting to hear the deafening silence from our good left-leaning citizens who make big business-bashing part of their daily routine, when it's big business funding their side of the aisle.

The fact that he's donating his salary to a favorite enviro-hippie charity should not be treated as evidence of his selfless nature. VCs don't make most of their money off their salaries, they make their fortunes instead on "carried interest" -- a share in the profits from their investments -- and management fees. Recently there's been chatter about changing the tax code to treat hedge fund and VC gains in the same manner as corporate earnings are treated. So far, Charles Schumer, the other Democratic Senator from New York, has successfully blocked this legislation at the behest of the HF/VC industry.

I am betting that making Mr. Gore a partner is a business hedge. John Doerr, a PK partner, has been and remains a big supporter of the Democrats, so it makes sense. Mr. Gore can surely provide a hefty amount of influence on Capitol Hill.

Tom Perkins recently designed and built the largest and most expensive sailing vessel in the world, the Maltese Falcon. To say that it is an impressive sail boat is a wild understatement. Maybe Mr. Gore is finally going to swear off private jet travel--for the sake of the environment--and traipse the globe aboard the Maltese Falcon.

Three things need to happen before I take seriously the proclamations of the man-made global warming crowd:

1) Politicians and movie stars need to stop traveling in private jets, helicopters and large limousines and instead fly coach (OK they can fly first class) and take the bus like they advocate for the rest of us.

2) Barbara Streisand surrenders her Malibu home to the rising tide; and the price of beach front property worldwide needs to plummet in general.

3) Self-proclaimed environmentalists need to present solutions to problems that don't conform to their preconceived biases.

I've been of the mind that conservation and developing alternative energy sources are good ideas long before Mr. Gore made it fashionable; and I believe the solutions to our energy problems will come about not from punishing people for the way they live, but from innovation germinated and nurtured in places like Silicon Valley. So from that perspective, I am happy to hear that Mr. Gore is joining the VC world. Perhaps it is his first step away from his fantasy world of misleading bar charts and killer powerpoint presentations.

Now, if he'll just shut up.

UPDATE 11/20/07: The Wall Street Journal has an editorial piece today that more eloquently captures the gist of my post.