Global Warming – A Global Scientific, er, Religious, er, Political Crisis

OK, so now the loonies are really running the asylum.

Two reasons to say so:

The Supreme Court of the US – expert scientists that they are – just came out and declared that carbon dioxide is a green house gas and the release of same should be regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency.

And, a province of Belgium has now placed a tax on barbecue grills, because they release carbon dioxide when they are used. If you want to use a grill in that area, you need to buy a license for it. And the government intends to use helicopters with infrared detectors to check for unlicensed grill use. How nuts is that?

In case you do not know, every living thing that breathes on this planet exhales carbon dioxide with every breath. That is a lot of carbon dioxide. “Leading scientists” (what exactly is a leading scientist anyway?) say carbon dioxide is a major greenhouse gas – which of course it is. Every internal combustion engine gives off carbon dioxide in its exhaust, as do electric power plants (at least those that run on coal and natural gas), and volcanoes. So, which source leads the pack? No one knows. I mean it, no one knows. The scientists argue about this all the time. It may be cars and trucks and power plants. Or it may be breathing. Or it may be volcanoes. Not much anybody can do about volcanoes, and very little can be done about breathing (although, I can think of some people who I would volunteer to stop breathing), so the other sources are the target of those who need a crisis to feel alive

The decision by the Supremes could open the flood gates to suits by tree huggers and other environmental wackos (Al Gore!) to regulate carbon dioxide from all sources – including our lungs. So, you can expect that in the future, either it will be regulated (you can take no more than 500 breaths today) or taxed (you owe $500 in 2007 for breathing), or both (every breath will cost you $.25).

Global warming is said to be a crisis. The ice at the poles is going to melt by next week and drown us all. Al Gore and the UN says so, so it must be true. The UN – the people who gave us Iraqi Oil for Food, the best retirement plan Kofi Annan and his brethren ever saw – recently released the “policy maker summary” of their report on the environment. The actual report will not be released for a couple of months, but the summary, written by bureaucrats, is what is being touted as the last word on the global warming subject. And that summary has backed off some of the dire predictions for our future from previous reports, so who knows, maybe some common sense is showing up. Nah, it can’t be that.

I actually read the last report. I think it was released in 2005. I read the full report, not just the political summary, and the main thing that struck me was the statement that the climate scientists did not know how to work clouds into their computer models. Do clouds reflect sunshine and thus result in cooling, or do they hold the heat in and result in warming, or some combination of both (the most likely solution)? They don’t know. A major element in overall global warming or cooling – the effect of clouds on the Earth’s albedo (look it up you morons) - is unknown and not included in the study. How can anyone take these studies as serious science when they leave out major factors?

So, with the slight moderation in some of the hype being feed to the media crisis mongers, you might expect the crisis mongers to let up a but.

Not Al Gore. He is trumpeting global warming as an imminent crisis, and with the Oscar his stupid movie just got, more morons are willing to listen to him. He has made global warming a religion, with himself as the high priest. The hypocritical jerk.

And for those who think environmentalism as religion is a little much, but think there is still a crisis, it has now, with the Supreme Court and the government of Belgium (makers of good waffles but little else), become a political crisis.

Expect the EPA to institute ever increasing levels of onerous regulations on the release of carbon dioxide from industrial and automotive sources, especially if a Democrat wins the White House in 2008. And don’t be surprised if the current crop of idiots in charge of the Congress do not revisit the Kyoto treaty to tax and regulate us severely – until we are on a level playing field with all those 3rd world countries who are not bound by any environmental agreements – countries like those 3rd world hell holes China & India.

Time to load up on the supplies and fort up in the mountains with the survivalists. I seem to be more and more in line with their thinking as time goes by.