Illinois Rep. Shimkus (R) Reads Bible at House Hearing to Prove Global Warming Doesn't Exist

Hello Mr. Knowles, I think this is kind of funny, but Global Warming should be talked about with back up with research from experts on that subject, as there are many that think Global Warming is occurring and many experts that Dont think it is happening that is is  natural recurring, warming and cooling trends.

Hi, Kathy,

Thanks for your comment. Indeed, there is a debate about global warming. I'm no climatologist, but do follow the literature now and again. My point in this post was that quoting the bible is a terrible way to get at the facts about rising temperatures.

Though there are certainly some notable skeptics, the overwhelming majority of scientists who study this matter have concluded that warming is real and, in part, man made.

Part of the reason the republicans have been voted out, Theocracy does not work. Seperation of church and state and freedom from religion. No government shall endorse one religion. I am outraged that a senator is trying to use the bible to force his idea down our throsts, he was elected to govern not teach bible study.

Another shining example from Illinois.

The Bible also says that Jesus said to pray quietly alone and not to make a big deal out of it including NOT erecting large buildings of worship. Why don't people who follow the Bible follow this?
This guy is an idiot. ANYONE can interpret the Bible to mean ANYTHING they want for the most part.
Moderate: believe me, a Republican elected in IL is not there to govern, but to, indeed, push religion into public policy. I agree with everything else in your post. :)

moderate:
Couldn't agree with you more on that! It is my biggest complaint with the Reps.

And to make clear how passionately I am against religion mixing with politics, I will say that I would rather see this whole country fall completely to it's economic ruin before I would want the wall of separation between church and state crumbled. And there is not one goddamn thing anyone can say to ever change my mind on that.

Yes, there is some HISTORICAL evidence of natural warming and cooling of the Earth, but not to the extent and speed that has occurred in the past 25-30 years or so. Of course the extreme and speed have been caused by humans. There's no reason in the world NOT to try to slow it down. Will it hurt ANYONE to recycle, cut energy use, use clean energy regardless of how they feel about global warming? We can't continually take, take, take from the Earth.

Always remember that the protection of separation of church and state was not to keep church out of government but to keep government out of the church. Our founding fathers based much law and government upon the written word of God from the Holy Bible. In 1776 no one feared the Bible as they do today and there was not a threat of Muslim interference or terrorism. History has proven the Bible correct even tho there is constant efforts to disprove it.. God Bless America !!!!

"cause the bible tells me so" Yeah right...well, here's the deal...if these people who read the bible, don't like science so much, please, please go back to living in caves and attempting to read off animals skins (since science produced the printing press, not God) and leave the rest of us who have a clue, alone...

some people will not change, these same people use the bible to tell them what to think. I find it hard to articulate my disgust with these people. Keep the seperation wall strong.

Forr...theocracy has never worked!

To view charts and read full article with referenced documents:
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/ice_ages.html

"In the 1970s concerned environmentalists like Stephen Schneider of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado feared a return to another ice age due to manmade atmospheric pollution blocking out the sun.

Since about 1940 the global climate did in fact appear to be cooling. Then a funny thing happened-- sometime in the late 1970s temperature declines slowed to a halt and ground-based recording stations during the 1980s and 1990s began reading small but steady increases in near-surface temperatures. Fears of "global cooling" then changed suddenly to "global warming,"-- the cited cause:


manmade atmospheric pollution causing a runaway greenhouse effect.





What does geologic history have to offer in sorting through the confusion?


Quite a bit, actually.





--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


"If 'ice age' is used to refer to long, generally cool, intervals during which glaciers advance and retreat, we are still in one today. Our modern climate represents a very short, warm period between glacial advances." Illinois State Museum



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Periods of Earth warming and cooling occur in cycles. This is well understood, as is the fact that small-scale cycles of about 40 years exist within larger-scale cycles of 400 years, which in turn exist inside still larger scale cycles of 20,000 years, and so on.
______

A Matter of Opinion
Has manmade pollution in the form of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other gases caused a runaway Greenhouse Effect and Global Warming?

Before joining the mantra, consider the following:


Compiled by R.S. Bradley and J.A. Eddy based on J.T. Houghton et al., Climate Change: The IPCC Assessment, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1990 and published in EarthQuest, vo. 1, 1991. Courtesy of Thomas Crowley, Remembrance of Things Past: Greenhouse Lessons from the Geologic Record 1. The idea that man-made pollution is responsible for global warming is not supported by historical fact. The period known as the Holocene Maximum is a good example-- so-named because it was the hottest period in human history. The interesting thing is this period occurred approximately 7500 to 4000 years B.P. (before present)-- long before humans invented industrial pollution.


Figure 1
2. CO2 in our atmosphere has been increasing steadily for the last 18,000 years-- long before humans invented smokestacks ( Figure 1). Unless you count campfires and intestinal gas, man played no role in the pre-industrial increases."

ICF Green Business
Leader in Environmental & Climate Change Consulting for 30 Years
www.icfi.com/greenbusiness



The Rich and Famous and Carbon Offsets

From Hawaii Reporter, January 22, 2009

It’s OK to have a carbon footprint if you pay enough. You do this by buying carbon offsets. These are used by politicians, environmentalists, movie stars, athletes, and others to claim the impact of their high-consumption lifestyles on the environment can be canceled out by paying someone else to invest in carbon-reducing initiatives, reports Lorrie Goldstein.Many famous people who are for sustainability and against global warming live in many very big houses, drive many very big cars, and fly in private jets. If you travel frequently by air, even on commercial flights, you can’t escape having a huge carbon footprint. Yet many of the most vocal advocates of cutting emissions—politicians, entertainers, environmentalists, journalists, scientists—are continually jetting off to campaign events and conferences and workshops. Are they going to change the way they operate? If not, how are they going to persuade anyone else to cut back emissions, asks John Tierney.

The World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, was ‘carbon neutral,’ despite all the folks flying to attend, because in large part, people donated money to third world countries to plant trees or build hydroelectric dams for electricity.

The Live Earth concerts held in 2007 created a huge carbon footprint on the globe in the name of climate preservation; an estimated 7,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions. This does not include the private jets of all the celebrities who attended or the thousands of people who drove their cars to each concert. An official volume, The Live Earth Global Warming Survival Handbook, presents 77 ‘essential skills for stopping climate change.’ Here are some guidelines from the book: “Let’s say that despite your best efforts, you still have to fly to your best friend’s wedding.

You’re dumping 3,000 pounds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and you’re wracked with guilt about your contribution to global warming. Relax, you can throw money at the problem. Go online, find a company that sells clean energy credits, and buy enough to make up for the greenhouse gases your trip created.” The book goes on to state that you must choose your offsets carefully and points out that trains are the most ecologically low-impact way to cover long distances. How many celebrities take Amtrak? And speaking of celebrities and their eco-friendliness, let’s look at a few.

Celebrities

Al Gore, academy award winner and Nobel Peace Prize recipient, has to be high up on the list. Bruce Nussbaum notes, “Gore deserves a gold statue for hypocrisy. Gore’s mansion, (20-rooms, eight-bathrooms) located in Nashville, consumes more electricity every month than the average American household uses in an entire year, according to the Nashville Electric Service (NES). The average household in American consumes 10,656 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year, according to the Department of Energy. In 2006, Gore devoured nearly 221,000 kWh—more than 20 times the national average. Last August alone, Gore burned through 22,619 kWh—guzzling more than twice the electricity in one month than an average American family uses in an entire year. Gore’s extravagant energy use does not stop at his electric bill. Natural gas bills for Gore’s mansion and guest house averaged $1,080 per month last year. In total, Gore paid nearly $30,000 in combined electricity and natural gas bills for his Nashville estate in 2006.”

Like a good citizen, Gore buys carbon offsets to assuage his high energy lifestyle, and this is good. But here’s the rub. He buys his carbon offsets through Generation Investment Management, a company he co-founded and serves as chairman. Through this company, he and others pay for offsets. The firm invests the money in solar, wind and other projects that reduce energy consumption around the globe. As co-founder and chairman of the firm, Gore presumably draws an income or will make money as its investments prosper. In other words, he ‘buys’ his ‘carbon offsets’ from himself, through a transaction designed to boost his own investments and return a profit to himself.

Madonna, who was the main attraction at the London Live Earth concert owns a collection of fuel-guzzling cars, including a Mercedes Maybach, two Range Rovers, Audi A8s and a Mini Cooper S. She flies everywhere in her private jet and her Confessions tour produced 440 tons of carbon dioxide in four months last year. This was just the flights between the countries, not taking into account the truckloads of equipment needed, the power to stage such a show and the transport of all the thousands of fans getting to the gigs.

John Travolta says, “Everyone can do their bit. Global warming is a very valid issue—we have to think about alternative methods of fuel.” Travolta once starred in a movie about bringing industrial polluters to justice. But in real life he has probably the biggest carbon footprint of any Hollywood star. He parks his personal Boeing 707 on his front lawn—next to his three Gulfstream jets and a Lear jet. Rather appropriately, he has called his home Jumboair.’

The Red Hot Chili Peppers produced 220 tons of carbon dioxide with their private jet alone over six months on their last world tour which was 42 dates.

All this prompts Ginny Buckley and Max Flint to ask, “Is the hot air emitted by celebrities when they spout ecological platitudes a greenhouse gas?”

Enron and Lehman Brothers

There’s big money to be made in the carbon business. Enron and Lehman Brothers are two examples. Ken Lay became a celebrated corporate executive praised for his ‘21st century’ business visions. But Enron’s internal memos, leaked to reporters during its bankruptcy scandal, revealed other motivations. Christine MacDonald in her book, Green, Inc., notes that Lay had two meetings with President Bill Clinton and Vice-President Al Gore on a treaty capping carbon emissions. An internal Enron memo predicted this would ‘do more to promote Enron’s business than almost any other regulatory initiative outside of restructuring the energy and natural gas industries in Europe and the United States.’ MacDonald adds, “Enron also had plans for using its support among environmentalists, who cooed over Lay.”

Lehman Brothers was at the forefront of the vast trade created by the new worldwide regulatory system to ‘fight climate change’ by curbing emissions of carbon dioxide. Jane Orient notes, “In 2007 they released a long and highly publicized report about climate change in which they preached about decarbonization, trying to make their investors keep getting high profits from the Kyoto carbon trade scheme and the support of huge public subventions. They recommended to their investors what they considered a central value of the carbon ton 50 years into the future. All of this of course, with the applause of the usual choir of politicians, the entire media, and the Greens.”

Thousands of green militants have been using the Lehman report as a proof of global warming and impending chaos. The report is the basis for policies on climate change in Spain, Argentina, and several other countries, it is used by economy professors playing climatologists, and by newspaper editorialists. Yet in spite of their ability to predict the climate 50-100 years ahead, they couldn’t predict their own bankruptcy.

http://www.hawaiireporter.com/story.aspx?46b4a943-c45b-4e00-8737-e26cd39edae7




WSJ: Environmentalists Block Alternative Energy: http://blog.teammitch.com/blog/_archives/2008/8/18/3844369.html

Feinstein seeks block solar power from desert land
March 21st, 2009 By KEVIN FREKING , Associated Press Writer Enlarge
In this Friday, July 22, 2005 file photo, a rainbow forms in rainy skies over State Highway 178 between Death Valley National Park and the town of Shoshone, Calif. More than 500,000 acres in the Mojave Desert would be off-limits to wind or solar energy production under legislation Sen. Dianne Feinstein intends to introduce. The land is coveted by companies seeking to develop alternative energy, setting up a potential clash with one of the more powerful members of Congress. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon)

(AP) -- California's Mojave Desert may seem ideally suited for solar energy production, but concern over what several proposed projects might do to the aesthetics of the region and its tortoise population is setting up a potential clash between conservationists and companies seeking to develop renewable energy.


Nineteen companies have submitted applications to build solar or wind facilities on a parcel of 500,000 desert acres, but Sen. Dianne Feinstein said Friday such development would violate the spirit of what conservationists had intended when they donated much of the land to the public.

Feinstein said Friday she intends to push legislation that would turn the land into a national monument, which would allow for existing uses to continue while preventing future development.

The Wildlands Conservancy orchestrated the government's purchase of the land between 1999-2004. It negotiated a discount sale from the real estate arm of the former Santa Fe and Southern Pacific Railroad and then contributed $40 million to help pay for the purchase. David Myers, the conservancy's executive director, said the solar projects would do great harm to the region's desert tortoise population.

"It would destroy the entire Mojave Desert ecosystem," said David Myers, executive director of The Wildlands Conservancy.

Feinstein said the lands in question were donated or purchased with the intent that they would be protected forever. But the Bureau of Land Management considers the land now open to all types of development, except mining. That policy led the state to consider large swaths of the land for future renewable energy production.

"This is unacceptable," Feinstein said in a letter to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. "I urge you to direct the BLM to suspend any further consideration of leases to develop former railroad lands for renewable energy or for any other purpose."

In a speech last year, Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger complained about environmental concerns slowing down the approval of solar plants in California.

"If we cannot put solar power plants in the Mojave desert, I don't know where the hell we can put it," Schwarzenegger said at Yale University.


But Karen Douglas, chairman of the California Energy Commission, said Feinstein's proposal could be a "win-win" for energy and conservation. The governor's office said Douglas was speaking on the administration's behalf.

"The opportunity we see in the Feinstein bill is to jump-start our own efforts to find the best sites for development and to come up with a broader conservation plan that mitigates the impact of the development," Douglas said.

Douglas said that if the national monument lines were drawn without consideration of renewable energy then a conflict was likely, but it's early enough in the planning process that she's confident the state will be able to get more solar and wind projects up and running without hurting the environment.

"We think we can do both," Douglas said. "We think this is an opportunity to accelerate both."

Greg Miller of the Bureau of Land Management said there are 14 solar energy and five wind energy projects that have submitted applications seeking to develop on what's referred to as the former Catellus lands. None of the projects are close to being approved, he said.

The land lies in the southeast corner of California, between the existing Mojave National Preserve on the north and Joshua Tree National Park on the south.

"They all have to go through a rigorous environmental analysis now," Miller said. "It will be at best close to two years out before we get some of these grants approved."

Feinstein's spokesman, Gil Duran, said the senator looks forward to working with the governor and the Interior Department on the issue.

"There's plenty of room in America's deserts for the bold expansion of renewable energy projects," Duran said.

Nation
Livestock owners raise stink: Beware the flatulence tax
The Associated Press
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 12.06.2008
advertisement
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — For farmers, this just plain smells: Belching and gaseous cows and hogs could start costing them money if the federal government decides to charge fees for air-polluting animals.
Farmers so far are turning their noses up at the notion, which they contend is a possible consequence of an Environmental Protection Agency report after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that greenhouse gases from motor vehicles amount to air pollution.
"This is one of the most ridiculous things the federal government has tried to do," said Alabama Agriculture Commissioner Ron Sparks, an outspoken opponent of the fees.
EPA officials insisted Friday that the lengthy, highly technical report, which mostly focuses on other sources of air pollution, does not include a proposal to tax livestock.
But the American Farm Bureau Federation said, based on federal agriculture department figures, it would require farms or ranches with more than 25 dairy cows, 50 beef cattle or 200 hogs to pay an annual fee of about $175 for each dairy cow, $87.50 per head of beef cattle and $20 for each hog.
The executive vice president of the Wyoming Farm Bureau Federation, Ken Hamilton, estimated the fee would cost owners of a modest-sized cattle ranch $30,000 to $40,000 a year.
Sparks said Wednesday he's worried the fee could be extended to chickens and other farm animals and cause more meat to be imported.
"We'll let other countries put food on our tables like they are putting gas in our cars. Other countries don't have the health standards we have," Sparks said.
The farm groups say the fee would apply to farms with livestock operations that emit more than 100 tons of carbon emissions in a year and fall under federal Clean Air Act provisions.
EPA officials said the agency has not taken a position on any of the matters discussed in its response to the Supreme Court ruling.
And John Millett, a spokesman for EPA's air and radiation division, said there has been an oversimplification of the EPA's document "to the point of distortion."
"EPA is not proposing any type of tax on livestock," he said.
The EPA briefly mentions "raising livestock" in its report on ways to regulate greenhouse gases under the provisions of the Clean Air Act.
Paul Schlegel, director of public policy for the American Farm Bureau Federation, said it determined the possible fees that could be imposed by using Agriculture Department statistics on the amount of greenhouse gases that come from livestock and applied it to the EPA's permitting rules.

Well I agree with one of David's articles... weird!

I like to read the Bible as I was raised in a Christian church and my Dad is a pastor. It gives me comfort and tend to read the New Testament much more than the old. However I also believe in seperation of church and state.

Do I believe Global warming... No... not one bit... I'm no scientist so it is very likely that I am wrong. But when I see record cold temperatures across the nation and one cold ass winter I start to think it is all bullshit. Besides, different scientist will tell you different things.

Who knows... But one thing is for sure if people need to start conserving energy to help save the planet you all can just forget about it. It aint gonna happen. Our machines are to important to us these days... and the TV is too important to most as they can't live without shit like American Idol...

Will the Government start regulating how much energy we use? Well that will just piss me right off!

bong!

Finally! A use for my undergrad philosophy degree.

California May Ban Black Cars

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Who's Blogging» Links to this article
Michael Arrington
TechCrunch.com
Thursday, March 26, 2009; 2:21 PM

The California legislature is considering regulating the color of cars and reflectivity of paint to reduce the energy requirements to cool them. A presentation on the proposed legislation by the California Air Resources Board is below.

The problem isn't the color per se, but the reflectivity of the paint overall. And dark colors just don't reflect well, so they are likely out. "Jet black remains an issue," says the report.

Anyone who's ever entered a very hot car knows that it can be cooled down immediately by driving a few feet with the windows open, effectively neutralizing any color-caused heat issues before engaging the air conditioner. But whatever, black is evil.

The new regulations would be phased in beginning in 2012, so if you want that black car, you better buy it soon. More on Autoblog and CrunchGear.

And you thought that black Toyota Pious you bought made you such a good person. Think again, you tree hating energy slob. Luckily, black websites are still ok, even though they, too, use more energy.

**Note: Since Rush mentioned this on his show...CARB has "publically" said they are no longer considering the issue of banning black paint, and making it reflective is technolically not possible yet, and too costly to ban.

Then again, reality bites. See David's weed article.

The farther down this road the RepuliKKKans travel, the deeper into oblivion they fall. Soon the only elections they can win will be in the deep south where they cater to the redneck bigots and inbred morons.