We all know about President Obama’s concern regarding global warming.  We all know he blames whatever warming he alledges on the use of fossil fuels.  To put his money where his mouth is, so to speak, President Obama has told federal workers to cut down on their travel and commuting by car:

In a statement, Obama noted that the government is the biggest energy user. “The government has a responsibility to use that energy wisely, to reduce consumption, improve efficiency, use renewable energy, like wind and solar, and cut costs,” he said.

By doing this, President Obama has set a goal of reducing greenhouse emissions by 13% a reduction by 2020.

President Obama for once, is practicing what he preaches and I applaud him.  In January, 2009 when President Obama took office, there were approximately 2.772 million federal government employees.  As of June, 2010 the Bureau of Labor Statistics says there are now 3.227 million federal government employees, an increase of over 16%!  I suggest that rather than chide employees to drive less, President Obama simply reduce the federal employee employment level back to 2008. By doing so he would not only reduce the greenhouse gasses, perhaps as much as 16%, but also reduce the budget deficit…another goal that President Obama tells us is important to him, and you know how fervent he is in achieving his goals.

Go ahead President Obama, use my idea, I won’t even charge you for my consulting time!

No, I’m not referring to the new movie out starring Robin Williams, Seth Green and John Travolta!

Of the many reasons that I was opposed to John McCain’s nomination last year, one that stood out towards the top, was McCain’s position on Global Warming.  You may remember that McCain was one of the authors of the Lieberman McCain Climate Stewardship Act, more commonly known as the McCain/Leiberman bill.  The bill assumed that carbon dioxide was the cause for global warming.  It further assumed that by limiting or capping the amount of carbon dioxide released, the earth would cease its warming trend.  The method for “capping” the gas was to provide a series of disincentives for creating the gas through a mechanism known as cap and trade.  Fortunately, the bill was unable to pass the Senate in 2003 and subsequent attempts to pass similar legislation have also failed in the Senate.

Earlier this year the House passed its version of Cap and Trade legislation.  Thus far, the Senate has not offered a bill for debate that would marry with the House bill and allow Cap and Trade to move forward. 

While Cap and Trade is generally not supported by Republicans because they know the global warming science is junk and that Cap and Trade is just one more way for government to regulate significant portions of our liberty, there are a few Republicans who have sided with the alarmists.  Lindsey Graham has always looked to support Can and Trade and until recently, so did John McCain.

Huh?  Until recently you say?  Yup!

Politico is reporting that John McCain has done an about face on Cap and Trade:

McCain has emerged as a vocal opponent of the climate bill — a major reversal for the self-proclaimed maverick who once made defying his party on global warming a signature issue of his career.

Further:

McCain refers to the bill as “cap and tax,” calls the climate legislation that passed the House in June “a 1,400-page monstrosity” and dismisses a cap-and-trade proposal included in the White House budget as “a government slush fund.”

The Politico article goes on to attempt to figure out why McCain has changed.  Most of the article is focused on McCain’s staff changes, arguing that the new staff doesn’t have the history or passion for the global warming issue.  They get quotes from a professor, lobbyists, former aides and even Graham himself that express their confusion over McCain’s change in position. 

Maybe, just maybe, I was wrong about McCain.  Maybe, John McCain can be the Right’s most notable example of an old dog learning new tricks….maybe.

Most of the piece on the suggestive picture that McCain’s change is the oddity not that other folks who still buy into a theory who’s only truth is that by its perpetuation, Al Gore increases his income, are the oddity. However, in the near middle of the piece, as an almost throw away paragraph, The Politico hits on this:

Arizona politics could be another factor. Republicans hope to use the cap-and-trade bill to attack Democrats on economic issues by saying it will raise electricity costs for businesses and spike electric bills. Those attacks could resonate in Arizona, which has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country.

In a poll released by Rasmussen this week, McCain is leading J.D. Hayworth by only 2%, within the margin of error, in an Arizona Republican primary for McCain’s Senate seat.  In an earlier poll, Rasmussen found that 61% of Arizona Republican voters believe that McCain had lost touch with the Republican party.

Learning new tricks?  Probably.  However, I don’t believe for a minute that the “new trick” is a core change in belief of global warming.  

In last year’s Presidential election, McCain saw what happens when the Republican base abandons you.  What was a problem in a Presidential election would be political death to McCain in an Arizona primary.  With the rise of the teaparty movement and the subsequent desire for candidates who are more conservative, McCain has a problem.  In a state where illegal immigration is a significant issue and you supported amnesty, where the independence of the wild west still lives and you supported McCain/Feingold to limit free speech, McCain has a problem.  He can’t undo McCain/Feingold and no legislation is pending to “correct” his position on amnesty.  John McCain has thrown Cap and Trade under the bus in an effort to establish some conservative bona fides and keep the the torches and pitchforks at bay.

Old dog and new tricks?  Nope.  Just the same old dog using the same old political tricks in an attempt to keep his cushy job!

I gave you a video earlier from a town hall meeting in Delaware hosted by Republican Congressman Mike Castle.  The previous video showed him getting grilled about health care reform.  Here’s another piece from the same meeting.  This time the natives are upset about Cap and Trade. 

Listen as Castle tells the forum that the Cap and Trade bill was really too complicated for anyone to “absorb” and that he relied on what Democrat leadership told him about the bill. 

Listen as people laugh at Castle as he states that “he reads all legislation.”

Listen as Castle states that he received more calls in opposition to the bill than for it yet he still voted for the bill!

Folks, the August recess will be here in just a couple of weeks.  Many of your Congresscritters and Senators will be holding similar townhall meetings during this recess.  Make sure and attend these.  If you’re folks have been voting properly, make sure and give them positive reinforcement.  If they haven’t, take some notes from the folks in Delaware!

Finally, note to the GOP:  If you think folks are safe just because we’re so pissed off with the Democrats, think again.  We don’t care what party you belong to.  If you are stupid enough to support the government take over of America, whether it be Cap and Trade, health care, auto manufacturers or any of a number of other areas, repent now because you are just as useless to us as any Democrat!

The following just came into the comm-box:

House Passes Punitive Cap-and-Tax Bill

New energy tax “demonstrates just how distant and out of touch

Washington is from Wisconsin,” says Ryan

WASHINGTON – Wisconsin’s First District Congressman Paul Ryan today spoke out on behalf of the families and small businesses that would be on the receiving end of a massive new energy tax. Earlier today, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 2454, American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, by a vote of 219 to 212, with bipartisan opposition. Ryan voted against this legislation.

The center of the deeply flawed H.R. 2454 is a cap-and-trade scheme aimed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by increasing energy costs on all Americans. The complicated cap-and-trade program would require all energy producers to purchase expensive government permits in exchange for the right to produce energy from certain natural resources or to produce certain goods like steel, aluminum, or cement. Without regard for the detrimental economic consequences, the proponents of the legislation believe this unilateral energy tax would help reduce global temperatures by a fraction of a degree by the end of the century.

Ryan’s vote against the 1,200 page bill came after only three hours of general debate, with Majority rejecting the single amendment they allowed. In addition to the job losses that would result from the smaller economy, Ryan raised concerns with the impact on the budgets of individual households. Families would face increasing costs on not only energy – but all products that require energy to make them (i.e., everything). Various nonpartisan studies have estimated that average annual household cost increases would range from $425 per household to over $4000 per household. Specifically, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimate that Wisconsin families will pay an extra $230 million in energy tax once the bill is fully implemented in 2012.

Congressman Ryan fought against this draconian energy tax and supports H.R. 2828, the American Energy Innovation Act, a commonsense alternative to promote a cleaner environment without causing further economic devastation in the middle of a painful recession.

Following today’s action of the House floor, Congressman Ryan issued the following statement:

“Today’s vote reminds me of just how distant and out of touch Washington is from Wisconsin. At a time when jobs are increasingly scarce across Southern Wisconsin, Congress passed legislation explicitly designed to shrink our economy and increase energy costs on all Americans. Wisconsin is one of the nation’s top manufacturing States. Wisconsin entrepreneurs, small businesses, and workers shouldn’t need permission from the federal government to produce, grow, and create jobs, yet that is exactly the paternalistic message sent by Congress today.

“The Majority added a 300 page amendment to the 1100 page bill at 3:09am this morning which effectively regulates the national energy sector (8% of the U.S. economy), and no member of Congress has even read it. This bill is the biggest federal power grab of the American economy this year and that’s quite a statement.”

“Should this bill become law, Wisconsin would suffer a disproportionate economic blow. As the legislation’s authors and chief advocate reside far from the Midwest, the cap-and-trade legislation wasn’t primarily concerned with cold-weather, manufacturing States that get most of their energy from coal. Families in Southern Wisconsin don’t have the luxury of turning off the heat in the winter.

“What’s worse, because we are imposing this energy tax unilaterally, the legislation will actually hinder the environmental goals we’ve set out to achieve. By making manufacturing more expensive here in America, this bill would send our manufacturing jobs overseas to our competitors like India and China. For every ton of emissions we reduce, India and China will produce several tons more. Under this bill, we will send our competitors American jobs while they are negating the minimal environmental gains made here at home.

“There is a better way forward. I was proud to support a substitute energy reform – the American Energy Act – on House floor today, which focused on an all-of-the-above approach to creating a cleaner environment and a stronger economy. Rather than lock-up domestic energy supply, we should expand our use of American-made resources as we encourage the use of renewable and alternative energy sources, including nuclear, wind, solar, and more. Environmental stewardship and economic growth are not mutually exclusive goals, and I will continue to fight for both of behalf of those I serve in Southern Wisconsin.”

In case you don’t have C-SPAN on, you might want to turn it on right now. House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) is reading the entire 300-page amendment to the cap-and-tax Waxman-Markey bill that was introduced at 3:09 am this morning. He’s just over halfway through as I type.

Did you know that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac made it into this amendment?

Per President Obama:

But let’s be clear: Promoting science isn’t just about providing resources — it’s also about protecting free and open inquiry. It’s about letting scientists like those who are here today do their jobs, free from manipulation or coercion, and listening to what they tell us, even when it’s inconvenient — especially when it’s inconvenient. It is about ensuring that scientific data is never distorted or concealed to serve a political agenda — and that we make scientific decisions based on facts, not ideology. (emphasis mine)

UW-Milwaukee Study Could Realign Climate Change Theory
Scientists Claim Earth Is Undergoing Natural Climate Shift

“The research team has found the warming trend of the past 30 years has stopped and in fact global temperatures have leveled off since 2001.”

And

8 Dems oppose quick debate on global warming bill

Again I’ll ask, whose science will we be using?

You may not be aware of it but there is a global warming conference going on this week.   The International Conference on Climate Change is in New York.   You probably haven’t heard about the conference because it is specifically for skeptics of global warming.   You know, the folks who also believe that the Earth is flat and at the center of the universe?

Ronald Bailey from Reason magazine is covering the conference and has a recap of the presentations here.   Included in yesterday’s presentations was the following scientific data:

• According to Indur Goklany, assuming the worse case scenario for global warming, income in both developed and undeveloped countries would be higher, worldwide deaths would increase by less than 1/2% and the amount of land required for agriculture would drop by 1/2.
• According to Paul Reiter, head of the insects and infectious disease unit at the Institut Pasteur in Paris, 150 EDEN studies have been published so far and that “none of them support the notion that disease is increasing because of climate change.”   In fact,

Reiter pointed out that many of the claims that climate change will increase disease can be attributed to an incestuous network of just nine authors who write scientific reviews and cite each other’s work. None are actual on-the-ground disease researchers and many of them write the IPCC disease analyses. “These are people who know absolutely bugger about dengue, malaria or anything else,” said Reiter.

• Finally, Stanley Goldenberg, a meteorologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Hurricane Research Division in Miami presented evidence refuting the notion that hurricanes have become more prevalent due to global warming.   Goldenberg showed evidence that hurricanes increase and decrease over decadal cycles he provided this synopsis:

Tropical North Atlantic SST [sea surface temperature] has exhibited a warming trend of [about] ) 0.3 °C over the last 100 years; whereas Atlantic hurricane activity has not exhibited trend-like variability, but rather distinct multidecadal cycles….The possibility exists that the unprecedented activity since 1995 is the result of a combination of the multidecadal-scale changes in the Atlantic SSTs (and vertical shear) along with the additional increase in SSTs resulting from the long-term warming trend. It is, however, equally possible that the current active period (1995-2000) only appears more active than the previous active period (1926-1970) due to the better observational network in place.

Goldenberg completed his remarks with:

“Not a single scientist at the hurricane center believes that global warming has had any measurable impact on hurricane numbers and strength,”

Yesterday, President Obama announced that he would be lifting the ban on Federal funding for stem cell research that had been implemented by President Bush.   In his statement describing the reason for his decision, President Obama said:

But let’s be clear: Promoting science isn’t just about providing resources — it’s also about protecting free and open inquiry. It’s about letting scientists like those who are here today do their jobs, free from manipulation or coercion, and listening to what they tell us, even when it’s inconvenient — especially when it’s inconvenient. It is about ensuring that scientific data is never distorted or concealed to serve a political agenda — and that we make scientific decisions based on facts, not ideology.   (emphasis mine)

I have to say, this is the first statement I can completely get behind President Obama on.   We should allow science to operate “free from manipulation or coercion.”   We should follow the facts and findings and “listen to what they tell us, even when it’s inconvenient.”   That leaves me with just two questions for President Obama:

1. Free from manipulation or coercion by whom?
2. Even when it’s inconvenient for whom?

All animals created equally?