Obama to golf on Father's Day on plush greens in a desert during a drought...

Conservation is for the little people...

PALM SPRINGS, CALIF. —One question for President Obama as he heads for Palm Springs, Calif. this weekend: whether it's appropriate to play on plush green golf links in the desert amid a severe drought.

"This administration's commitment to helping those affected by the drought is second to none," said White House deputy press secretary Eric Schultz Thursday in answer to a reporter's question on that topic before the president headed to the West Coast.

"I know that many courses have taken water mitigation steps aimed at water conservation," Schultz said.

Ironic: Feds clean up environment by blowing up old oil rigs; kill thousands of fish and destroy artificial reefs...

Our government fails again...

MOBILE, Ala. (WPMI) A federal mandate to remove old, abandoned oil and gas rigs in the Gulf of Mexico is blowing up a lot more than just the rigs.

Undercover video obtained by Local 15 shows thousands of pounds of dead fish, mostly red snapper, floating to the surface after one of the controversial demolitions in the Gulf.

“Good Lord,” marine scientist Dr. Bob Shipp said, when Local 15 showed him the video. “As a scientist, I think it’s abominable.”

Shipp said the demolitions are frequent, sometimes three a week in the Gulf, but are seldom video-taped. Shipp also sits on the Gulf Fisheries Management Council, and has been a strong opponent of the demolitions.

“It’s a double whammy,” Shipp said, “Not only are we killing a lot of snapper, but we’re also destroying their habitat.”

The old rigs are an eye-sore, but under the surface, they’ve developed into artificial reefs with rich coral habitats. On some of the older rigs, those habitats have grown over the course of 30 to 40 years.

Hollywood moonbat Leonardo DiCaprio plans to save the environment by flying around the world in a jet plane

You can't make stuff this stupid up...

(NZ Herald) — Django Unchained and Titanic star Leonardo DiCaprio says he is planning to take a significant break from filming and concentrate on his environmental campaigning.

In an interview with Germany’s mass circulation daily Bild, the 38-year-old American actor said: “I am a bit drained. I’m now going to take a long, long break. I’ve done three films in two years and I’m just worn out.”

“I would like to improve the world a bit. I will fly around the world doing good for the environment,” added DiCaprio, in comments published in German.

DiCaprio is currently starring in Quentin Tarantino’s blood-soaked spaghetti Western tribute Django Unchained, which picked up two Golden Globes on Sunday.

Obama saves the poor hoot owls again, but how about the poor unemployed loggers?

The job destroyer at at it again...

Oregon Live reported:

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service designated 9.6 million acres of critical habitat for the northern spotted owl this morning, nearly double the last designation in 2008.

The acreage in Oregon, Washington and California won’t be off limits to logging. But the service’s decision requires heightened federal review of logging projects on lands owned by the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management, the bulk of the designated land.

The northern spotted owl has been at the center of the Northwest’s timber wars since it was listed as threatened in 1990 under the Endangered Species Act.

The listing better protected old-growth stands — the owl’s favored habitat — but drove down logging on federal lands. Harvests in Oregon’s federal forests totaled a half-billion board feet last year, down from 2.5 billion to 5 billion board feet in the 1980s.

Timber industry groups warned the expanded critical habitat could dampen efforts to increase logging on BLM lands in southwest Oregon, where rural counties are banking on revenues from increased timber sales.

The expanded area is also likely to increase lawsuits from environmental groups on individual timber sales across the spotted owl’s range, said Jim Geisinger, executive vice president of Associated Oregon Loggers.

It has begun. Obama to close 1.6 million acres of federal land to oil shale development because of some bird.

The poor hoot owls  sage grouse.

Via The Hill:

The Interior Department on Friday issued a final plan to close 1.6 million acres of federal land in the West originally slated for oil shale development.

The proposed plan would fence off a majority of the initial blueprint laid out in the final days of the George W. Bush administration. It faces a 30-day protest period and a 60-day process to ensure it is consistent with local and state policies. After that, the department would render a decision for implementation.

The move is sure to rankle Republicans, who say President Obama’s grip on fossil fuel drilling in federal lands is too tight.

Interior’s Bureau of Land Management cited environmental concerns for the proposed changes. Among other things, it excised lands with “wilderness characteristics” and areas that conflicted with sage grouse habitats.

This is an area over twice the size of Rhode Island. 

Want to drill offshore? Obama is mandating you hire a sea turtle observer...

 Photo of green sea turtle courtesy Flickr Commons/NOAA.

You can't make stuff this stupid up...

(CNSNews.com) - The Department of Interior (DOI) is requiring private oil companies to hire marine mammal and sea turtle monitors if the companies are granted a lease to drill offshore. A marine mammal observer’s job is to watch for whales, dolphins, and similar sea creatures and to advise on minimizing the underwater noise created by offshore drilling, which can affect the sea mammals.

The DOI announced in a press release last week that it will open up 20 million acres in the Western Gulf of Mexico for an oil and gas lease sale to be held Nov. 28, which is part of the administration’s “Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program for 2012–2017 (Five Year Program).”

The terms of the sale, which were finalized by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), include several environmental safeguards.

“These terms include measures to protect the environment, such as stipulations requiring that operators protect biologically sensitive features and provide trained observers to monitor marine mammals and sea turtles to ensure compliance and restrict operations when conditions warrant,” the release said.
Keep reading…

Did you know federal agencies can only buy "green electronics?"

A few years ago the federal government helped create a green electronics standard that was voluntary. Companies voluntarily had their products rated by the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT). Of course, the federal government decided to enforce the 'voluntary' standard by using the massive purchasing power of the federal government to punish those who failed to kneel before their new green rulers. Apple has decided to buck this trend. Kudos to Apple.

Via ifixit.org:

Federal agencies can no longer buy Apple products for their offices. According to a recent announcement, Apple will be pulling all of their products from the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT), the leading green consumer electronics standard. EPEAT is designed to mitigate the negative environmental and social impacts of electronics manufacturing by requiring that products meet eight environmental “performance categories,” including product lifetime, toxic materials, and recyclability of components and packaging materials.

Since 2007, all of Apple’s new products have been EPEAT Gold Certified, as they’ve widely advertised. EPEAT was developed by the Green Electronics Council, with a grant from the EPA, in 2006. By June 2007, 19 major electronics manufacturers had products registered with EPEAT, including Apple. Voluntary, government-adopted environmental standards such as EPEAT are one of the most effective ways to make the electronics industry greener. The federal government has significant buying power, and federal agencies can only purchase products that meet the EPEAT standard.

Via WaPo:

 The entire federal government is in compliance with the requirement that 95 percent of the products it buys and uses meet the EPEAT standards.

Demo Rep. Henry Waxman accuses Republicans of “getting away — literally — with murder”

It is good to see there is still some of that new civility in Washington...

Via Roll Call:

House Natural Resources ranking member Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Energy and Commerce ranking member Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) did not spare the harsh rhetoric when unloading on a Republican energy proposal slated for a House vote this week.

The legislation is a “monstrosity,” a “Trojan horse,” an “all-out assault” on the environment and a “massive giveaway” to the oil industry that would not lower gas prices by “one cent,” the two lawmakers said.

But while the criticisms were aimed squarely at the GOP, the words might also sting for a small group of Democrats who voted for the bills of which the energy package is comprised.

The GOP legislation consists of provisions in several bills that had previously been reported out of either Markey’s or Waxman’s respective committees. [...]

Asked about Democratic support for the bills, Waxman said “a couple of Democrats who may have voted for these bills does not make it bipartisan legislation. These are Republican partisan proposals advanced by the Republican leadership.”

Continuing his response, Waxman upped the ante, saying Republicans are “getting away — literally — with murder” because of their record on the environment.

“Some of these pollutants do harm, and they may even lead to fatalities,” Waxman said.

Team Obama spends $7 million to study “Environmental Justice”

WTH is “Environmental Justice”? It sounds like another way to flush $7 million of our tax dollars to a bunch of lefties.

Not even sure what the “Environmental Justice” noted in the headline above might be about? It’s likely that neither are most other Americans but that doesn’t prevent President Obama’s EPA administrator, Lisa Jackson, from sending $7 million of the taxpayers’ money to dozens of groups mounting academic and propaganda campaigns organized around that theme.

Judicial Watch reports that Jackson’s agency announced late last week that the $7 million will be awarded ”to study how pollution, combined with stress and other social factors, affects people in ‘poor and under-served communities.’ The agency refers to it as cumulative human health risk assessment research and the goal is to rid under-served communities of extensive pollution-based problems.”

Environmental nuts in California want to ban your big screen TV

Environmental nuts in California want to ban your big screen TV and they are in control of the California Energy Commission. The CEC plan proposes to ban about 200 television models. The plan was outline in a a dry-sounding reported entitled, “December 2008 Draft Efficiency Standards for Televisions”. I wonder if they will ban Obama's teleprompter on his next visit to California?

California To Ban TV: But Not For Good Reason (like there’s nothing decent to watch)
by Chuck DeVore

Why is it that many government agency names are oxymoronic? How much new water has the California Department of Water Resources delivered in the past couple of decades? How much energy has the federal Department of Energy or the California Energy Commission produced or encouraged?

It should come as no surprise that in 2009, an era when the L.A. Basin’s air quality bureaucracy, the SCAQMD, wants to ban dark cars because they need more air conditioning in the summer, that the California Energy Commissariate is drafting an order to outlaw TVs. (Perhaps if our TVs had one state-approved channel they would relent.)

Why is the California Energy Commission (CEC), a Gov. Jerry Brown creation, wanting to ban television sets? Well, it seems that a honking 48-inch plasma screen, that bright symbol of the bygone days of conspicuous consumption and purveyor of drooling vacuity, uses too much electricity, and electricity production makes too much greenhouse gas emissions (at least in America, where half of our electricity comes from coal - in France, a plasma screen would emit nary a CO2 molecule as the TVs there are nuclear powered). (excerpt) read more at bighollywood.breitbart.com

Obama gums up federal projects by undoing Bush environmental regulation(video)

President Obama issued a presidential memorandum to restore mandatory review of projects to determine if they harmed endangered species. This change may slow down many of the planned infrastructure projects in the stimulus bill. This is another example of how catering to the political base is more important to Obama than ending the recession.

Obama puts Bush species rule on hold
Dina Cappiello

President Barack Obama says he wants to resume full scientific reviews of projects that might harm endangered wildlife and plants.

In a visit to the Interior Department on Tuesday, Obama said he signed a presidential memorandum to restore the scientific process in endangered species decisions. Obama said the process was undermined by a last-minute regulation by the Bush administration.

Obama's memo puts on hold a last-minute Bush regulation until the Interior and Commerce departments complete a review.

The Bush-era regulation made optional the consultations federal scientists have performed for 35 years on projects. Their input helped to determine if a project harmed endangered species.(Excerpt)read more at realclearpolitics.com

Obama Admits Cap & Trade Will Cause Electricity Rates to Skyrocket(video)

One year ago candidate Barack Obama admitted on tape that Cap & Trade would cause electricity rates to skyrocket. Of course, critics have been saying this all along. Barack Obama's admission is about the one minute mark of the tape. Listen to his admission with your own ears.

Heartland’s “Scare” Video

The second International Conference on Climate Change will be held March 8-10, 2009 in New York. The theme of the conference is: “Global warming: was it ever really a crisis?” The The Heartland Institute has produced a video called "Scare" to invite people to the conference.

"Scare," a two-minute video highlighting the scare tactics of global-warming alarmists, makes its debut on the Internet Tuesday, February 3. The video is available on YouTube and on The Heartland Institute's Web site at http://www.heartland.org/events/NewYork09/news.html.

The video, created by Rapid Response Media, Washington, DC, launches The Heartland Institute's viral marketing campaign on the World Wide Web to promote the second International Conference on Climate Change, taking place March 8-10 in New York City. Approximately 1,000 scientists, economists, policy experts, elected officials, and civic and business leaders are expected to attend the conference.(excerpted) read more at heartland.org

The stimulus bill will force the military to buy electric vehicles

According to U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint, the stimulus bill will force the military to buy electric vehicles. You have to wonder if the democrat's cheese has completely slipped off their cracker. Are electric tanks and helicopters next? The military can not depend on electric vehicles in a time of war or emergency. That is highlighted now in the State of Kentucky where Governor Beshear has deployed the entire KY National Guard to help out in an ice storm. There is now no power in the areas they are being deployed. Electric vehicles would be useless. In an emergency, you want all your vehicles to function. I guess the Democrats have never head of an EMP pulse. If we ever had that occur, all the electric vehicles would be fried.

The Democrat bill takes money, actually it borrows money, and decides where it should go. It does virtually nothing to stimulate the economy while it wastes billions of taxpayer dollars. It's a hodge-podge of long-supported pet projects that the normal budget process would have thrown out. Using the troubled economy as their motive, Democrats have opened the floodgates for all sorts of outrageous wasteful spending. Here are just a few examples from the Senate's bill, which we will debate next week:

* $400 million for researching sexually transmitted diseases
* $200 million for bike and pedestrian trails and off-road vehicle routes
* $200 million to force the military to buy environmentally-friendly electric cars
* $34 million to renovate the Department of Commerce headquarters
* $75 million for a program to end smoking (excerpted) read more at
demint.senate.gov

Computer models forecasting global warming are not scientific

Since I am in the middle of an area ravaged by an ice storm, it seems appropriate to talk about the weaknesses of the global warming theory. The global warming predictions have been a failure. Temperatures have been falling globally since 2002. Now, the former chief of NASA says the computer models predicting radical climate change are not proven scientifically.

No Scientific Forecasts to Support Global Warming

January 29, 2009
Jennifermarohasy
YESTERDAY, a former chief at NASA, Dr John S. Theon, slammed the computer models used to determine future climate claiming they are not scientific in part because the modellers have "resisted making their work transparent so that it can be replicated independently by other scientists". [1]

Today, a founder of the International Journal of Forecasting, Journal of Forecasting, International Institute of Forecasters, and International Symposium on Forecasting, and the author of Long-range Forecasting (1978, 1985), the Principles of Forecasting Handbook, and over 70 papers on forecasting, Dr J. Scott Armstrong, tabled a statement declaring that the forecasting process used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC) lacks a scientific basis. [2]Excerpted from rightsidenews.com

For more global warming fun, Weather Channel Founder Blasts Gore.

Global warming prediction fail

Just when you thought it was safe to listen to the global warming alarmists: they have missed their top 10 predictions for 2008. When all your predictions go wrong, it is time to formulate a new theory. I doubt that will happen though. The environmentalists are using the global warming farce as a tool to bludgeon rational people into submission. Many of our so called scientists are addicted to the loose money. They can not tell the truth until there is no other option.

Top 10 dud predictions
Article from: Herald Sun

Andrew Bolt

December 19, 2008 12:00am

GLOBAL warming preachers have had a shocking 2008. So many of their predictions this year went splat.

Here's their problem: they've been scaring us for so long that it's now possible to check if things are turning out as hot as they warned.

And good news! I bring you Christmas cheer - the top 10 warming predictions to hit the wall this year.

Read, so you can end 2008 with optimism, knowing this Christmas won't be the last for you, the planet or even the polar bears.

1. OUR CITIES WILL DIE OF THIRST

TIM Flannery, an expert in bones, has made a fortune from books and lectures warning that we face global warming doom. He scared us so well that we last year made him Australian of the Year.

In March, Flannery said: "The water problem is so severe for Adelaide that it may run out of water by early 2009."

In fact, Adelaide's reservoirs are now 75 per cent full, just weeks from 2009.

In June last year, Flannery warned Brisbane's "water supplies are so low they need desalinated water urgently, possibly in as little as 18 months".

In fact, 18 months later, its dams are 46 per cent full after Brisbane's wettest spring in 27 years.

In 2005, Flannery predicted Sydney's dams could be dry in just two years.

In fact, three years later its dams are 63 per cent full, not least because June last year was its wettest since 1951.

In 2004, Flannery said global warming would cause such droughts that "there is a fair chance Perth will be the 21st century's first ghost metropolis".

In fact, Perth now has the lowest water restrictions of any state capital, thanks to its desalination plant and dams that are 40 per cent full after the city's wettest November in 17 years.

Lesson: This truly is a land "of drought and flooding rains". Distrust a professional panic merchant who predicts the first but ignores the second.

2. OUR REEF WILL DIE

PROFESSOR Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, of Queensland University, is Australia's most quoted reef expert.

He's advised business, green and government groups, and won our rich Eureka Prize for scares about our reef. He's chaired a $20 million global warming study of the World Bank.

In 1999, Hoegh-Guldberg warned that the Great Barrier Reef was under pressure from global warming, and much of it had turned white.

In fact, he later admitted the reef had made a "surprising" recovery.

In 2006, he warned high temperatures meant "between 30 and 40 per cent of coral on Queensland's great Barrier Reef could die within a month".

In fact, he later admitted this bleaching had "a minimal impact".

In 2007, he warned that temperature changes of the kind caused by global warming were again bleaching the reef.

In fact, the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network last week said there had been no big damage to the reef caused by climate change in the four years since its last report, and veteran diver Ben Cropp said this week that in 50 years he'd seen none at all.

Lesson: Reefs adapt, like so much of nature. Learn again that scares make big headlines and bigger careers.

3. GOODBYE, NORTH POLE...

The rest of the list is here.

The world has never seen such freezing heat

The world has never seen such freezing heat

By Christopher Booker
Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 16/11/2008

A surreal scientific blunder last week raised a huge question mark about the temperature records that underpin the worldwide alarm over global warming. On Monday, Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), which is run by Al Gore's chief scientific ally, Dr James Hansen, and is one of four bodies responsible for monitoring global temperatures, announced that last month was the hottest October on record.
So what explained the anomaly? GISS's computerized temperature maps seemed to show readings across a large part of Russia had been up to 10 degrees higher than normal. But when expert readers of the two leading warming-septic blogs, Watts Up With That and Climate Audit, began detailed analysis of the GISS data they made an astonishing discovery. The reason for the freak figures was that scores of temperature records from Russia and elsewhere were not based on October readings at all. Figures from the previous month had simply been carried over and repeated two months running.
GISS spokesman lamely explained that the reason for the error in the Russian figures was that they were obtained from another body, and that GISS did not have resources to exercise proper quality control over the data it was supplied with. This is an astonishing admission: the figures published by Dr Hansen's institute are not only one of the four data sets that the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) relies on to promote its case for global warming, but they are the most widely quoted, since they consistently show higher temperatures than the others.

Read more here.