Just remember, folks: it’s mankind’s fault, and it’s due to global warming!
Yeah, right.
Edited to add: FWIW, there’s a largish snowstorm hitting the USA today and tomorrow. It’s expected to drop up to a foot of snow across an area extending from Saint Louis to Philadelphia.
Last time I checked, the calendar says it’s freaking March.
SNOW HITS CAIRO, FIRST IN 100 YEARS…
Yeah, you read that right: Cairo – as in “Cairo, Egypt”, not Illinois.
Global warming. Yeah, that’s gotta be it. (smile)
(Hat-tip to the Drudge Report for the link.)
Or Part IV. Or maybe Part V – hell, I’ve lost count.
Energy Dept. Seeks Company to Turn Sunshine Into Gasoline
No, I’m not kidding.
The process was apparently discovered by a Federal lab in Albuquerque in 2007. It produces hydrocarbons that are precursors to motor fuels from CO2, sunlight, and (presumably) a catalyst. At the time of discovery, it was estimated to be “15 to 20 years” away from being market-ready.
Yeah, the process works – on a lab “proof-of-concept” prototype. But that’s far different than an economically-viable industrial production line. And the last time I checked, 2007 was 6 years ago rather than “15 to 20”. I seriously doubt the process will be producing fuel at anything resembling competitive costs any time soon.
Here we go again. Looks like we’ll now have $23/gal “sunshine-gas” for DoD vehicles to go with that $25/gal bio-fuel oil for ships. Just the thing for an era of declining DoD budgets, eh?
I wonder which “friend of the Administration” will get the contract for this financial boondoggle and obvious example of cronyism critical and important research effort?
This looks more to me like just another example of the current Administration steering Federal dollars for “clean energy” to political allies and cronies as a payback rather than a serious effort at clean energy. Further, their track record to date with “green” projects does nothing but support that impression.
But what do I know?
Volt sales drop 32% in October
GM blamed the drop in sales on “declining gas prices”.
An underpowered, poorly-designed, poorly-built, short range “gas saving” $40,000 Adam Sandler Mobile (warning – link is DEFINITELY NSFW or around children) that wasn’t worth half what people paid to buy it and was overhyped from day one whose sales fall by 1/3 when gas prices fall 15% or so. Gee – who could have predicted that?
In contrast, sales of a well-designed and well-built competitor – Toyota’s trendy car for the smug and arrogant, the “Prickmobile” (AKA the Prius) – rose 7% in October. And Toyota’s Prickmobile doesn’t have a huge government subsidy backing it, either.
I’d say YGBSM – but I’m dead serious.
Look, I’m OK with people driving a hybrid or other “energy efficient” vehicle if that’s their choice. But I don’t think they deserve any “special reward” for doing so – they get their reward every time they get fuel. And I really hate people trying to sell me a turd sandwich while telling me it’s a delicious hamburger. The Volt was government-subsidized turd sandwich from day one.
“Well done”, GM. Next time, listen to the market instead of some community organizer with no clue about real-world business or economics.
Well, according to some, it’s due to drought caused by global warming.
Seriously. That’s really what some folks are claiming.
That’s just par for the course, though. As the linked article also shows, eighty years ago the idiots in charge in Damascus blamed freaking yo-yos for causing a severe drought – and banned them.
Historical climate data shows that Syria and the rest of that part of the Middle East has been subject to periodic droughts for literally thousands of years. And yet there are tools who come up with this kind of pseudo-scientific crap to try and justify their cause du jour – as well as gullible fools who eat it up like candy.
Looks like the old quote erroneously attributed to P T Barnum was right. There really is one born every minute.
Is Al Gore holding a global warming conference somewhere?
Our buddy, Zombie, sends us a link to a graphic (not the dirty kind of graphic, the the picture kind) explanation of how the Solyndra bankruptcy affects us, the American taxpayers. I’m not especially bright, but even I understand it;
Go see the other four panels at the link.
After being chastised for remaining silent during the investigation of climate scientists for purposely altering facts to maintain their respective cash flows, Al Gore has finally spoken up in the pages of the New York Times. I suspect his carbon credit voodoo has suffered mightily and his own cash flow is stalling. But here’s what I read;
It is true that the climate panel published a flawed overestimate of the melting rate of debris-covered glaciers in the Himalayas, and used information about the Netherlands provided to it by the government, which was later found to be partly inaccurate. In addition, e-mail messages stolen from the University of East Anglia in Britain showed that scientists besieged by an onslaught of hostile, make-work demands from climate skeptics may not have adequately followed the requirements of the British freedom of information law.
But the scientific enterprise will never be completely free of mistakes. What is important is that the overwhelming consensus on global warming remains unchanged. It is also worth noting that the panel’s scientists — acting in good faith on the best information then available to them….
Um, they lied about the actual data, conspired to defraud the UN and used irrelevant anecdotal evidence and called it Science! The scientific enterprise might never be free of mistakes, but it is too much to ask that it be free of lies and fraud?
The heavy snowfalls this month have been used as fodder for ridicule by those who argue that global warming is a myth, yet scientists have long pointed out that warmer global temperatures have been increasing the rate of evaporation from the oceans, putting significantly more moisture into the atmosphere — thus causing heavier downfalls of both rain and snow in particular regions, including the Northeastern United States.
The most often repeated phrase in discussions about the weather this year around the US is “I blame Al Gore”. In this paragraph, Gore explains why there is more moisture in the air, but he doesn’t explain the most important part – why does this evaporation return to earth as snow, rather than rain, as it would if we were really experiencing warmer temperatures?
Al Gore is either a retard or a snake oil salesman. Anyone still listening to a word he says?