The Sun. Our own personal star. The energy output of this giant is not constant. It is variable. The Sun is in a constant state of flux. The Sun goes around in cycles, the smallest of which is about 11 years, and some larger ones are as long as 8000 years. Energy output during these cycles can severely change. Not only that, but our planet is constantly moving towards and away from it, in various angles and speeds. Just the angle and distance of us to the Sun creates the temperature differences between summer and winter. The way we face the sun influences the temperature difference between day and night.

It has been shown that the temperature changes in Earth’s history closely follow the Sun’s cycles. When the Sun has a long interval of relatively large energy output, the Earth experiences global warming.  When the energy output by the Sun is low for an extended interval, the Earth cools off.  If such a quiet interval lasts for a very long time, the Earth experiences an ice age.

One of the main parties interested in making a living of the man-made-global-warming hoax are governments.  They love “global-warming” because the public’s acceptance of the hype constantly provides new means to collect new taxes and to ram through its agenda for socialization and world-income equalization, until we all are at the same level of poverty, or until the economy collapses in ruins, whichever comes first.

> better than > ???

Why environmentalists insist dumping ton after ton of potentially toxic materials into a big hole in the ground is somehow better for the environment than using plasma gasification to produce heat and electricity is beyond me. You would think, since it reduces CO2 output due to less reliance on coal-burning plants, the environmentalists would welcome such a plan. The City of Ottawa, in partnership with the Plasco Energy Group (http://www.plascoenergygroup.com) are about two weeks away from starting up their new Plasma Gasification plant to convert MSW (Municipal Solid Waste) into Plasma gas to drive turbines to generate electricity. Their unique process has NO EMISSIONS.

For every tonne of solid waste they generate 150 kg of slag which can be used for paving, 1400 KwH of electricity, and 5 kg of saleable sulfur. Nothing else.

It is this, versus a 10 story deep hole in the ground with God knows how many tons of toxic waste just eating through the liner every day seeping into groundwater, and polluting the air with bad odours and methane. What seems less polluting to you?

I am in a conundrum: I loathe hypocrisy, yet I may have to do something that is so hypocritical it makes me sick. I am ecstatic that my favourite band, Genesis, is going to tour again, not for the money, but for the fun (yeah, right). Got my ticket for Ottawa, dished out my 200 dollars (where’s the fun?), everything is honky-dory. However, now I learn Genesis is going to open, with a 20 minute set, the London Live Earth concert in July. If you know me at all, you’ll know that puts me in a very difficult position: I would like to watch it on TV, record it, and play it over and over again, but since it is organized by Al Gore, Cameron Diaz, and whoever else wants to jump on the bandwagon, and concerns the notion that humans are responsible for the incredibly minute 0.6 degree warming of the earth in the past 125 years, I’ll have to boycot. But I don’t know if I can.

Live Eath is billed as: The concerts for a climate in crisis, 7 Concerts across 7 countries in 1 day. First of all, I didn’t know the climate is really in crisis. I mean, a rise in temperature of 0.6 degrees in 125 years is not exactly what I would call a ‘crisis’. Apparently, forests will be on fire within the next 20 years. How hot does it have to be for a tree to spontaneously combust? 3000 degrees? At the current rate of temperature rise, that makes…. 3000 divided by 0.6 times 125… 625,000 years. Whoop-de-doo. I’d better run and turn off a light or two.

And last but not least: 7 concerts, with about 20 bands each, about 80,000 people each watching it live. Recording it, transmitting it. Billions of TV’s displaying it. How much are these concerts contributing in CO2? 140 bands flying in private jets, 560,000 people driving and idling to the venues. High power consumption for the music, recording, beaming up to satellite, beaming down, running cable stations, TV’s etc. etc. I think the combined CO2 emission number will closely resemble Al Gore’s energy consumption at his four mansions, it may even eclipse it. Oh, but that’s all right: he’ll plant some trees, and send some money to China. Thanks, that’ll save us.

You know what? I will boycot it. There. And I am extremely disappointed my favourite band fell into the Global Warming scare trap. Shame on you.

Okay, okay, I admit it. I love Knut. He’s cute, he’s cuddly, he’s adorable. When he first became popular, animal activists wanted him destroyed, because being raised by humans isn’t a polar bear thing to do. I suppose being euthanized is. Anyway, he survived that attempt on his life, and led a happy few little weeks, being his sweet and adorable self. But unfortunately, Knut has gotten himself in some hot waters recently. First he was suspected of killing his next door neighbour Yan Yan, the lethargic panda. Seems like Knut generated some long line-ups, and bored people at the end of the line decided to visit Yan Yan instead, who promptly died from all the attention. It appears that Pandas can’t take camera flashes. Go figure. So now, after delightful little Knut survived that character assassination, I just spotted him on the evening news as the poster boy for Global Warming. What an orphaned son of a zoo raised polar bear has to do with global warming, I don’t know. But there he was, amongst melting icecaps, and burning forests, there was Knut, jumping off his little floe into a little pond. Making a cute little splash. And back to flooded streets, and desiccated deserts, fleeing people.

Born in a zoo in Berlin. Shunned by his mother, accused of murdering his neighbour, now he’s rooting for David Suzuki. I think he would have been better off dead.

I was eagerly awaiting the 6 o’clock news yesterday. I was waiting for Jack Layton to come on again. I saw him on that very same news show on January 12ish, when it was a nice and balmy 10 degrees out. He was sitting on his Toronto rooftop patio in his summer jacket, and he said “I am here outside, in the middle of January, with my summer jacket on. Clearly, there’s something wrong here. This is a global catastrophe!”. So, since yesterday was the coldest March 6th EVER in eastern Ontario, with Pembroke going down to -32 overnight, I thought I’d see Jacky on his Toronto rooftop again, with sixteen winter coats on, freezing his ass off, saying “It’s March 6th! I’m freezing my ass off! Clearly there’s something wrong here!” But alas, Jacky did not show. There was no segment on the cold weather. Jacky had gone into hiding. He will emerge, no doubt, when the next global catastrophe occurs. To fight it… for the people.

March 6th, Ottawa, ON. 11 am. The mercury is stuck at -26 C, overnight it was -27. This is the coldest recorded temperature on March 6th EVER. We have just finished the coldest February in the last 10 years. Where are the reports of ‘Global Cooling’? One abnormally hot day in June will get the Global Warming nuts have their say. Where are they now? I know where they are. They are hiding, hiding in their caves, until the first hot day of spring comes around, and then they’ll emerge. Sweatting and triumphant, shouting ‘Global Warming is here again!’

Is recycling paper environmentally sound? I think not: 29 per cent of all recycled paper in North America is currenty sold to–you guessed it–China. Coal burning container ships carry over nine million tonnes of recovered paper fibres across the ocean to China. Chinese plants use mostly coal to provide the energy to make paper, as opposed to cleaner hydro here in Canada. After China has produced the paper, it is increasingly selling the newsprint back to North American companies, again shipping it across the ocean using coal burning container ships.

read more…

I was reading, with interest, the Citizen’s Art Quiz ‘Life is wonderful for Forsyth’ (Ottawa Citizen, Thursday, February 8, and subsequent dog related follow up). I was impressed with Ms. Forsyth’s answers until I laughed out loud reading the sentence: “Lately, I’ve been worried about the polar bears”. I laughed because everything else she mentions in the quiz screams ‘I don’t give a hoot about polar bears’: from eating black cod in New York and loving her blackberry, to having a new gown for every performance in cities across the globe, and vacationing on Anguilla.
Ms. Forsyth, if you were one of those people who believe humans are 90% certain to be responsible for global warming, and the related decline in polar bear population, and claim to be concerned about it lately, would you not do anything in your power to reduce your own greenhouse gas emissions, encourage others to follow your example, and last but not least, abstain from eating eat cod since that takes food out of the polar bears’ food chain?
As I am pretty sure Ms. Forsyth didn’t bike or jog to New York or Calgary, didn’t row to Anguilla, didn’t made sure the black cod in New York was farmed, didn’t do her research on how and where her silk gowns are produced, and didn’t look into the fact the blackberry she loves so much was manufactured in a Kyoto exempt, coal powered polluting factory in China, I’m left wondering if Ms. Forsyth is genuinely concerned for the wellbeing of our polar bears, or if being concerned about them is really just something you say.

So, Al Gore is on the campaign trail. Now, how does one get elected in general? First you need a crisis. Invent a crisis. Anything. Make sure it scares people. It has to scare enough people to assure a majority of votes. Make the people believe there is a crisis, then portray to be the one to TRY to save them from this imminent crisis. Election is almost assured. So, what better crisis than one the majority already believes? Global Warming, yeah, that’s a good crisis! Over 70% of the world today believes global warming is a huge crisis. OK, we have our crisis. The problem is, Americans do not care too much for countries far away flooding.  Shanghai, China? No…  Calcutta, India? No… They care, but not enough. It has to hit closer to home. Hmm… closer… Florida. Oh wait! Better yet: The World Trade Center Memorial Site! There’s one sure to be touching a raw nerve. Make people believe the WTC Memorial will flood, and people will get really scared. (see photo taken from ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ trailer).
So, election 2009 comes up. There’s a threat the WTC Memorial site will flood. There’s a gazillion candidates to choose from, but only one who will do everything in his power to stop this unthinkable catastrophy from happening. Who will you be voting for?

It is so obvious that this ‘documentary’ Al Gore came up with is nothing more that a giant fund raiser for his presidential campaign. You rent the movie, you fund his campaign. You go see his speeches, you fund his campaign. Come election 2008/09, Al Gore will be in the people’s mind as the one for the environment. That good man who cares about our planet. He made that movie a couple of years ago, that won an Oscar(!). He’s going to fix our planet!

Isn’t he the same idiot that claimed he invented the Internet a few years back?