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Monday, March 12, 2007

The Great Global Warming Swindle

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If you believe you have an open mind, take 75 minutes and watch this video... it may open your eyes. Take special note of what Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace, has to say.

From Mangan's Blog: (and many other sources)

The Great Global Warming Swindle, a superb video, not dumbed-down, on the current faddish nonsense of man-made global warming. Oddly enough, the video pinpoints the political origin of the global warming movement with Margaret Thatcher. She wanted to promote nuclear power, and since nuclear doesn't emit CO2, she pushed science which emphasized the CO2's downside. If not already convinced of the idiocy of global warming, as well as the political agenda of its promoters, this film will do the job.

As previously noted, the global warming fad is finished.
My reaction: some anger and more convinced than ever that politics and science should never mix... can never mix... without the subversion of the latter.

UPDATE:

Professor Wunsch has now come out and said that he was misquoted and his statement is quoted at RealClimate.org.

Interestingly, Dr. Lubos Motl of Harvard predicted this two days ago:
Update 3/10/2007
The video is available via:

* Google Video (copy),
* Bit Torrent (high quality, copies: XviD, AVI)
* YouTube (eight 10-minute-long segments)

The documentary is much better than I expected. The director, Martin Durkin, is a "right-wing Marxist" whose main motivation is to allow the third world to get richer. Well, I certainly agree that they have the right. There are some funny moments - for example Margaret Thatcher is painted as the ultimate mother of man-made global warming ;-) because of her complex strategy to promote nuclear energy but there seems to be a lot of good science in the documentary, too.

And there are some minor bugs - e.g. a wrong statement about the amount of CO2 produced by volcanoes. If you want to know which scientist is gonna complain that he has been misrepresented, it is Carl Wunsch. Well, just like in many similar cases, there are two Wunsches. One of them is a rational scientist who has contributed some of his technical knowledge to the documentary. The other Wunsch is controlled by his brainwashing movement and generates scientifically vacuous, alarmist, and unfriendly politicized misinterpretations of the documentary and his role in it on RealClimate.ORG.

If you kindly allow me to add one more minor criticism of Durkin's work, I also think that the self-confidence with which the solar / cosmic ray theory was promoted was a little bit too high. There are several high-profile skeptics I know - including myself - who have certain rather serious doubts about this theory.

The quality of tricks and dramatization is however very good - at least in the same league as Al Gore's movie.
Looks like the good professor from Harvard was correct.

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CO2 Cap and Trade

There is always an easy solution to every human problem—neat, plausible, and wrong.
Henry Louis Mencken (1880–1956)
“The Divine Afflatus,” A Mencken Chrestomathy, chapter 25, p. 443 (1949)
... and one could add "not all human problems really are."
It was beautiful and simple, as truly great swindles are.
- O. Henry
... The Government is on course for an embarrassing showdown with the European Union, business groups and environmental charities after refusing to guarantee that billions of pounds of revenue it stands to earn from carbon-permit trading will be spent on combating climate change.
The Independent (UK)

Tracking Interest Rates

Tracking Interest Rates

FEDERAL RESERVE & HOUSING

SEARCH BLOG: FEDERAL RESERVE for full versions... or use the Blog Archive pulldown menu.

February 3, 2006 Go back to 1999-2000 and see what the Fed did. They are following the same pattern for 2005-06. If it ain't broke, the Fed will fix it... and good!
August 29, 2006 The Federal Reserve always acts on old information... and is the only cause of U.S. recessions.
December 5, 2006 Last spring I wrote about what I saw to be a sharp downturn in the economy in the "rustbelt" states, particularly Michigan.
March 28, 2007
The Federal Reserve sees no need to cut interest rates in the light of adverse recent economic data, Ben Bernanke said on Wednesday.
The Fed chairman said ”to date, the incoming data have supported the view that the current stance of policy is likely to foster sustainable economic growth and a gradual ebbing in core inflation”.

July 21, 2007 My guess is that if there is an interest rate change, a cut is more likely than an increase. The key variables to be watching at this point are real estate prices and the inventory of unsold homes.
August 11, 2007 I suspect that within 6 months the Federal Reserve will be forced to lower interest rates before housing becomes a black hole.
September 11, 2007 It only means that the overall process has flaws guaranteeing it will be slow in responding to changes in the economy... and tend to over-react as a result.
September 18, 2007 I think a 4% rate is really what is needed to turn the economy back on the right course. The rate may not get there, but more cuts will be needed with employment rates down and foreclosure rates up.
October 25, 2007 How long will it be before I will be able to write: "The Federal Reserve lowered its lending rate to 4% in response to the collapse of the U.S. housing market and massive numbers of foreclosures that threaten the banking and mortgage sectors."
November 28, 2007 FED VICE CHAIRMAN DONALD KOHN
"Should the elevated turbulence persist, it would increase the possibility of further tightening in financial conditions for households and businesses," he said.

"Uncertainties about the economic outlook are unusually high right now," he said. "These uncertainties require flexible and pragmatic policymaking -- nimble is the adjective I used a few weeks ago."
http://www.reuters.com/

December 11, 2007 Somehow the Fed misses the obvious.
fed_rate_moves_425_small.gif
[Image from: CNNMoney.com]
December 13, 2007 [from The Christian Science Monitor]
"The odds of a recession are now above 50 percent," says Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com. "We are right on the edge of a recession in part because of the Fed's reluctance to reduce interest rates more aggressively." [see my comments of September 11]
January 7, 2008 The real problem now is that consumers can't rescue the economy and manufacturing, which is already weakening, will continue to weaken. We've gutted the forces that could avoid a downturn. The question is not whether there will be a recession, but can it be dampened sufficiently so that it is very short.
January 11, 2008 This is death by a thousand cuts.
January 13, 2008 [N.Y. Times]
“The question is not whether we will have a recession, but how deep and prolonged it will be,” said David Rosenberg, the chief North American economist at Merrill Lynch. “Even if the Fed’s moves are going to work, it will not show up until the later part of 2008 or 2009.”
January 17, 2008 A few days ago, Anna Schwartz, nonagenarian economist, implicated the Federal Reserve as the cause of the present lending crisis [from the Telegraph - UK]:
The high priestess of US monetarism - a revered figure at the Fed - says the central bank is itself the chief cause of the credit bubble, and now seems stunned as the consequences of its own actions engulf the financial system. "The new group at the Fed is not equal to the problem that faces it," she says, daring to utter a thought that fellow critics mostly utter sotto voce.
January 22, 2008 The cut has become infected and a limb is in danger. Ben Bernanke is panicking and the Fed has its emergency triage team cutting rates... this time by 3/4%. ...

What should the Federal Reserve do now? Step back... and don't be so anxious to raise rates at the first sign of economic improvement.
Individuals and businesses need stability in their financial cost structures so that they can plan effectively and keep their ships afloat. Wildly fluctuating rates... regardless of what the absolute levels are... create problems. Either too much spending or too much fear. It's just not that difficult to comprehend. Why has it been so difficult for the Fed?

About Me

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Michigan, United States
Air Force (SAC) captain 1968-72. Retired after 35 years of business and logistical planning, including running a small business. Two sons with advanced degrees; one with a business and pre-law degree. Beautiful wife who has put up with me for 4 decades. Education: B.A. (Sociology major; minors in philosopy, English literature, and German) M.S. Operations Management (like a mixture of an MBA with logistical planning)