Making Ripples: post-corporate adventures in Floyd County Virginia

‘You’ve Been Gored’: The Climate Change Fraud

 Larry Bleidner wrote YOU’VE BEEN GORED, after his six year-old, parroting her teacher, proclaimed, “If we don’t fix Climate Change, we’re all gonna die!”

(Reposted from Andrew Breitbart's Big Government)

The environment has become the hottest political issue of our time. And when anything is politicized, falsehood flourishes. The volume of lies, disinformation, propaganda, hypocrisy and exaggeration far exceeds the quantity of material pollutants – and is more hazardous.

Green has become the convenient, safe, lucrative cause for politicians, corporate weasels, celebrity eco-frauds, power-hungry government agencies and fast-buck swindlers hustling everything from gas-to-water engine conversion plans to carbon offset credits.

There’s a combination gold-rush/Armageddon’s a-comin’ zeitgeist that’s very troubling. It’s like watching the panicked crowd flee from Godzilla. Their mindless fear is more dangerous than the monster.

Statistics of doom are conjured and accepted without vetting. Idiotic “solutions” are clutched in desperation. Most terrifying of all, leaders are anointed and followed — without scrutiny.

Preparing for winter and a down economy

It's time to tear our attention away from the antics of our unprofessional and inept administration and concentrate on preparing for a long cold winter.

  While the leader of the free world concentrates on one of the few things he does well, the rest of us are helping each other to prepare for an increasingly uncertain future.

This year I did not wait until September to order firewood and it arrived yesterday. I was not the only one who is anticipating a cold winter because the owner of Sawbrier Farms who supplied the wood said he already has ten more orders to cut and deliver and this is a month ahead of the normal schedule.

My neighbors to the south came over and helped me stack the first storage area which is on the front porch. This is usually a three week supply in the coldest weather. When it runs out, we move firewood in from from the second and third storage areas that are further away.

I have about four cords of wood on hand and will need another two cords to get through the winter. I expect that my total out of pocket expense for this winter's firewood will be about $500 which makes it very attractive compared to propane or pellets.

On the economic front, we are pursuing every avenue that offers the potential for increasing our current income and generating another revenue stream.  Things are going well in that regard and we are just one of many families in Floyd who have multiple jobs or multiple businesses. It is not easy, but we are taking control of our futures and making headway as part of a tightly connected community.

I feel that this is the wave of the future. In increasingly uncertain times with a corrupt central government, becoming more self-reliant and sharing with others who are doing the same is the only way to achieve greater peace of mind.

Agenda 21: US and UN Share a Global Vision - can we in Floyd resist it?

We have in Floyd the culmination of many dreams. We love the land and appreciate the people whose efforts make the county what it is today. The banner of international sustainable development is a screen for the implementation of communitarian wealth sharing and centralized control. It has little to do with actual conservation of resources.

If local planning efforts actually listen to the citizens living here, we may be able to implement needed changes without losing local control and losing private property rights. If we eagerly jump for the government grants held out as carrots for compliant communities, we can find ourselves obligated to turn control of our communities over to unelected regional authorities.The blueprint for this bleak future is shown below:

Agenda 21: US and UN Share a Global Vision

- reposted from biggovernment.com

by Laura Rambeau Lee

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) was held on June 14, 1992 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.  At this conference, referred to as the Rio Earth Summit, the participants crafted a blueprint for the world, commonly known as Agenda 21.

In its preamble, Agenda 21, Chapter 1 states “Humanity stands at a defining moment in history. We are confronted with a perpetuation of disparities between and within nations, a worsening of poverty, hunger, ill health and illiteracy, and the continuing deterioration of the ecosystems on which we depend for our well-being.  However, integration of environment and development concerns and greater attention to them will lead to the fulfilment of basic needs, improved living standards for all, better protected and managed ecosystems and a safer, more prosperous future. No nation can achieve this on its own; but together we can – in a global partnership for sustainable development.”

In other words, the goal of the United Nations is social and economic justice through a redistribution of wealth scheme using the threat of anthropogenic (man-made) global warming or climate change to implement the market based solution of carbon emissions trading. The International Monetary Fund has proposed a plan for a Green Fund to achieve this goal.

Following this Earth Summit President George H. W. Bush declared:

“Effective execution of Agenda 21 will require a profound reorientation of all human society, unlike anything the world has ever experienced –a major shift in the priorities of both governments and individuals and an unprecedented redeployment of human and financial resources. This shift will demand that a concern for the environmental consequences of every human action be integrated into individual and collective decision-making at every level.”

–signed by G.H. Bush, 1992

Despite pressure from the United Nations partners, U.S. delegates did not sign on to the convention.

On June 29, 1993 President Clinton issued Executive Order 12852 establishing the President’s Council on Sustainable Development as a result of the Rio Earth Summit in an effort to cooperate and implement the goals of Agenda 21.  That EO was revoked by Executive Order 13138 on September 30 1999.

During George W. Bush’s two terms as President he continued to further the goals of this UN agenda, following his father’s lead.

Why is all of this important?  This ties in directly with the push for cap and trade legislation that had been floating around the House and Senate the past few years.  When Congress failed to pass a cap and trade bill, on May 14, 2010 the E.P.A. unveiled their rules to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from the largest industrial facilities, with a phased in approach that began on January 1, 2011.  As a result we are hearing about the many coal plants that will be forced to shut down in the next few years, because they cannot meet these emissions reduction numbers, and it will be too expensive to retrofit their plants.  President Obama announced new CAFÉ standards for automobiles that will require them to achieve 36.5 miles to the gallon by 2016 and 54.5 miles per gallon by the year 2025. The talking points are that this will help us achieve energy security and reduce our use of foreign oil.  But the truth is that the United States has committed to the United Nations and its partners to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and these CAFÉ standards will have to be met in order to achieve this goal.

When the cap and trade legislation failed to pass, Senator John Kerry (D-MA) said “The Obama administration has again reminded Washington that if Congress won’t legislate, the EPA will regulate.  Those who have spent years stalling need to understand: killing a Senate bill is no longer success.   And if Congress won’t legislate a solution, the EPA will regulate one, and it will come without the help to America’s business and consumers contained in the American Power Act.”   It is apparent in his statement that this administration is intent on pursuing this agenda with or without Congressional approval.

In April of 2010 Jon Stewart, of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, interviewed Lisa P. Jackson, the Administrator of the E.P.A.  During their discussion she stated that they were waiting for the price of carbon to be established so that we could meet our obligations to the country and the entire world.  At the time I did not understand what she was talking about, but it is apparent now what she meant.

The United States made commitments to the global community that it would implement emissions reductions, and even though this country never ratified this treaty it is intent on complying with its dictates.

Click below to see the Daily Show interview with Lisa P. Jackson

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-april-26-2010/lisa-p--jackson

 

Wind-Energy is a mirage - when you need it most, its not available

(look at the graphs for the story in a nutshell. The green line represents the load curve and the blue line represents the available wind power.)

August 12, 2011 4:00 A.M. The Wind-Energy Myth by Robert Bryce - reposted from National Review Online

The claims for this “green” source of energy wither in the Texas heat.

Hot? Don’t count on wind energy to cool you down. That’s the lesson emerging from the stifling heat wave that’s hammering Texas.

Over the past week or so, Texans have been consuming record-breaking quantities of electricity, and ERCOT, the state’s grid operator, has warned of rolling blackouts if customers don’t reduce their consumption. 

 Texas has 10,135 megawatts of installed wind-generation capacity. That’s nearly three times as much as any other state. But during three sweltering days last week, when the state set new records for electricity demand, the state’s vast herd of turbines proved incapable of producing any serious amount of power. 

Consider the afternoon of August 2, when electricity demand hit 67,929 megawatts. Although electricity demand and prices were peaking, output from the state’s wind turbines was just 1,500 megawatts, or about 15 percent of their total nameplate capacity. Put another way, wind energy was able to provide only about 2.2 percent of the total power demand even though the installed capacity of Texas’s wind turbines theoretically equals nearly 15 percent of peak demand. This was no anomaly. On four days in August 2010, when electricity demand set records, wind energy was able to contribute just 1, 2, 1, and 1 percent, respectively, of total demand.

Over the past few years, about $17 billion has been spent installing wind turbines in Texas. Another $8 billion has been allocated for transmission lines to carry the electricity generated by the turbines to distant cities. And now, Texas ratepayers are on the hook for much of that $25 billion, even though they can’t count on the wind to keep their air conditioners running when temperatures soar. 

That $25 billion could have been used to build about 5,000 megawatts of highly reliable nuclear generation capacity, or as much as 25,000 megawatts of natural-gas-fired capacity, all of which could have been reliably put to work during the hottest days of summer. 

The wind-energy lobby has been masterly at garnering huge subsidies and mandates by claiming that its product is a “green” alternative to conventional electricity. But the hype has obscured a dirty little secret: When power demand is highest, wind energy’s output is generally low. The reverse is also true: Wind-energy production is usually highest during the middle of the night, when electricity use is lowest. 

The incurable intermittency and extreme variability of wind energy requires utilities and grid operators to continue relying on conventional sources of generation like coal, natural gas, and nuclear fuel. Nevertheless, 29 states, plus the District of Columbia, now have renewable-energy mandates. Those expensive mandates cannot be met with solar energy, which, despite enormous growth in recent years, still remains a tiny player in the renewable sector. If policymakers want to meet those mandates, landowners and citizens will have to learn to live with sprawling forests of noisy, 45-story-tall wind turbines. 

The main motive for installing all those turbines is that they are supposed to help reduce carbon-dioxide emissions, which, in turn, is supposed to help prevent global temperature increases. But it’s already hot — really hot — in Texas and other parts of the southern United States. And that leads to an obvious question: If the global-warming catastrophists are right, and it’s going to get even hotter, then why the heck are we putting up wind turbines that barely work when it’s hot? 

 — Robert Bryce is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. His fourth book, Power Hungry: The Myths of “Green” Energy and the Real Fuels of the Future, was recently issued in paperback.

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Wind Power - an industry with a bright and burning future! Invest now!

Encouraging News about Climate Change

NASA DATA SHOW LESS HEAT TRAPPED THAN EXPECTED

NASA satellite data from the years 2000 through 2011 show the Earth’s atmosphere is allowing far more heat to be released into space than alarmist computer models have predicted, reports a new study in the peer-reviewed science journal Remote Sensing. The study indicates far less global warming will occur in the future than United Nations computer models have predicted and supports prior studies indicating increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide trap far less heat than alarmists have claimed.

Study co-author Dr. Roy Spencer, a principal research scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and U.S. Science Team Leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer flying on NASA’s Aqua satellite, reports that real-world data from NASA’s Terra satellite contradict multiple assumptions fed into alarmist computer models.

“The satellite observations suggest there is much more energy lost to space during and after warming than the climate models show,” Spencer said in a July 26 University of Alabama press release. “There is a huge discrepancy between the data and the forecasts that is especially big over the oceans.”

In addition to finding that less heat is being trapped than alarmist computer models have predicted, the NASA satellite data show the atmosphere begins shedding heat into space long before United Nations computer models predicted.

The new findings should dramatically alter the global warming debate.

SOURCE: Forbes.com

The AGW con game is dead, what will be the next con?

I realize that most people have put away their Al Gore and their Bill McKibben 350 T-shirts by now, but for those who still await the promised Climatic Armageddon it's time to find a new game with more chance of a payoff this lifetime.

When hard-line Greenies start swearing off the government crack pipe, the Global Warming climate change game has definitely jumped the shark, as they say in show biz.

This is just the tip of the iceberg: (Previously posted on http://hotair.com/greenroom)

 

Former “alarmist” scientist says Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) based in false science

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posted at 6:00 pm on May 15, 2011 by Bruce McQuain
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David Evans is a scientist. He has also worked in the heart of the AGW machine.  He consulted full-time for the Australian Greenhouse Office (now the Department of Climate Change) from 1999 to 2005, and part-time 2008 to 2010, modeling Australia’s carbon in plants, debris, mulch, soils, and forestry and agricultural products. He has six university degrees, including a PhD in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University. The other day he said:

The debate about global warming has reached ridiculous proportions and is full of micro-thin half-truths and misunderstandings. I am a scientist who was on the carbon gravy train, understands the evidence, was once an alarmist, but am now a skeptic.

And with that he begins a demolition of the theories, premises and methods by which the AGW scare has been foisted on the public.

The politics:

The whole idea that carbon dioxide is the main cause of the recent global warming is based on a guess that was proved false by empirical evidence during the 1990s. But the gravy train was too big, with too many jobs, industries, trading profits, political careers, and the possibility of world government and total control riding on the outcome. So rather than admit they were wrong, the governments, and their tame climate scientists, now outrageously maintain the fiction that carbon dioxide is a dangerous pollutant.

Minnesotans For Global Warming

This could have been shot in Floyd this week. Note the woodstove in the 1977 Argosy.

 

 

If you liked the video above, you may also like: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TF5F6eYho8U

How bad was the drifting snow today?

You can get an idea of the difficulties facing drivers in our area when you see someone driving an ATV to buy groceries.

Our trek to the Food Lion in Floyd was a white-knuckle drive at about twenty miles an hour. Our Subaru stayed on the icy road pretty well, but we barely had enough traction to plough through some of the heavier drifts.

Once the drifted snow got deep enough, the car no longer responded to the steering wheel and we fishtailed on through until we got to the other side of the drift.

Less than two miles from the house, the first car we saw was canted down into a ditch. The driver was OK and was waiting for a truck to arrive and tow him out.

Some roads were open, but Franklin Pike was down to a single lane in some places because of the drifting snow. It was especially treacherous because there would be long stretches of road that were fairly clear except for spotty patches of hard-packed snow and then you would suddenly enter an area that was almost blocked by foot-high drifts.

I resisted the temptation to pick up speed on the open stretches and stayed at 20 miles an hour. Even then it was touch and go when cars came at me from the other way and we were both straddling the center line.

The only reason we were able to get out onto the road at all was that our new neighbor John Hale had taken it upon himself to clear all the driveways in our lane. It was a pleasant surprise to see his big John Deere backhoe zipping up and down our driveway even before we had finished our morning coffee. It inspired me to take advantage of his generous act and get into town while we could.

I understand that there are some who have still not been able to get out of their driveways. It is unfortunate that global warming is merely political fiction. We sure could use some of it this winter.

What month is this again?

For the past two days, our wood stove has been merrily burning up next winter's firewood and we seem to be having a repeat of last month's cold spell. Is there more to come?

We have seen no frost yet, but the temperature was below 40 degrees a few nights ago.

I am very glad that I finally broke down and purchased a truckload of firewood last month. Most of it will be saved for next year but on days like these, it's a relief to know that our heating needs are covered.

Since I am increasingly sure that global warming will not occur, except in the minds of our legislators, I am already stockpiling firewood for next year and the year beyond. As I have managed to obtain covered storage, I feel that neatly piled firewood is like money in the bank.

My blogging has been hard hit by a real shortage of free time because I am beginning to see the rewards of promoting my framing business last month. New customers have been showing up every week and it has been an interesting scramble to keep up. I enjoy working on customer projects, but I haven't had an opportunity to visit our favorite local restaurants for weeks!

We are also seeing results from our deck gardening efforts. (Deck gardening is what you do when you have deer roaming your yard at night.)

We are seeing blossoms on our tomatoes, the potatoes are coming on strong, and Gretchen has planted carrots, onions,beans and peas, all of which are doing well. They are all doing better than I expected given the colder weather we have been having.

After building my own version of a Square Foot Gardening experience, I discovered that one of my friends has come up with a better solution for planting a deck garden. He bought livestock feeders that can be converted into heavy duty planting beds. His solution looks a lot better and is cheaper than what I came up with. His 8 ft long planters stand 24 inches off the ground and are fully supported by a welded structure made of 2 inch galvanized pipe.

I will photograph his solution and add it to this post later today.

This seems like a good year to plant gardens, lay in firewood, take care of loose ends in life, and connect up with old friends.

Our search for firewood in Floyd County

Even the best laid plans can go awry and this year gives us a painful example of that. We had laid in a larger supply of firewood this year than ever before but the continuing cold weather has caused us to burn it all with more freezing weather ahead of us.

It is still a long time to spring and our wood stove will be running 24/7 for several more months unless we get a reprieve.

I put a backup plan (Plan B) into action several weeks ago in which a number of dead trees were cut down so I could attack them with a chainsaw and split them up into firewood. Unfortunately this backup plan was stymied by the fact that 16 inches of snow fell and we cannot get to the trees to work on them.

So, we went to plan C in which we called our neighbor who had offered to deliver logs which we can cut up into firewood. He would have been be happy to deliver, but he couldn't get to the logs because his tractor could not handle the deep snow.

Now we were down to one day's worth of firewood and things were looking grim. I start calling around and found that nearby firewood dealers cannot get to their woodlots because of the deep snow. The phone book was not much help as firewood is a seasonal thing and is often a sideline activity so it is not widely advertised.

We persisted and I got a partial load from Pete Hall, who lives just down the road from us. He had a little left over from another delivery and the wood he delivered would hold us for a week if all went well.

It' was time for Plan D and I was looking for firewood everywhere. I was driving home and I saw a large load of oak firewood being driven down the road ahead of me. I followed the truck for quite a while until the driver saw me and pulled off the road so we could talk. I arranged for him to deliver a truckload of firewood as soon as possible

As soon as I got home, I secured a load of pallets from my neighbor to dump the firewood on so that it will stay dry until we can store it away. That is what you see in the image at the top of this post.

The truckload of firewood arrived two days later and looked like this before we covered it all up with a tarpaulin.

I think it will hold us until Spring, but I am going to keep an eye on our consumption and will reorder if necessary.

If you live in Floyd County, VA, here are a few people who can supply you with firewood:

Bob Backlund, Sawbrier Farm 3182 Webbs Mill Rd 540-391-8999

Frank Griffith, Mountain Top Logging, 386 Silverleaf Lane 276-692-5806

Pete Hall, Franklin Pike, 540-745-7228