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A little something to think about Global Warming
Here is a little bit to know about the New Church of Global Warming and it’s Goracle.
Is global warming caused by the buildup of greenhouse gases or by solar activity?
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Oh my God it coming right at us, Shoot it
Oh my God, the world is coing to an end because of all the hurricanes that are happening. Oh, wait a minute, it is only the 3rd named storm and it is a tropical storm.
I guess Manbearpig is getting more elusive than ever. If you ever see Manbearpig, please call the Goracle.
000
WTNT33 KNHC 311431
TCPAT3
BULLETIN
TROPICAL STORM CHANTAL ADVISORY NUMBER 3
NWS TPC/NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL AL032007
1100 AM EDT TUE JUL 31 2007…CHANTAL STRENGTHENS…BUT HEADED FOR COOLER WATERS…
AT 1100 AM EDT…1500Z…THE CENTER OF TROPICAL STORM CHANTAL WAS
LOCATED NEAR LATITUDE 40.2 NORTH…LONGITUDE 62.7 WEST OR ABOUT 305
MILES…495 KM…SOUTH OF HALIFAX NOVA SCOTIA AND ABOUT 660 MILES…
1060 KM…SOUTHWEST OF CAPE RACE NEWFOUNDLAND.CHANTAL IS MOVING TOWARD THE NORTH-NORTHEAST NEAR 29 MPH…46 KM/HR
…AND THIS MOTION IS EXPECTED TO CONTINUE WITH SOME INCREASE IN
FORWARD SPEED TODAY AND TONIGHT.MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS HAVE INCREASED TO NEAR 50 MPH…85
KM/HR…WITH HIGHER GUSTS. LITTLE CHANGE IN STRENGTH IS FORECAST
DURING THE NEXT 24 HOURS AND CHANTAL COULD LOSE TROPICAL
CHARACTERISTICS TONIGHT OR ON WEDNESDAY.TROPICAL STORM FORCE WINDS EXTEND OUTWARD UP TO 175 MILES…280 KM
FROM THE CENTER.THE ESTIMATED MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE IS 999 MB…29.50 INCHES.
REPEATING THE 1100 AM EDT POSITION…40.2 N…62.7 W. MOVEMENT
TOWARD…NORTH-NORTHEAST NEAR 29 MPH. MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS…50
MPH. MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE…999 MB.THE NEXT ADVISORY WILL BE ISSUED BY THE NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER AT
500 PM EDT.$$
FORECASTER BLAKE
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Redstate guys on Tennessee Politicians
Here’s the redstate guys who asked a question at the most recent Democratic debate about Al Gore who is also from their state of Tennessee.
Now here they are talking about Fred Thompson who is also from Tennessee.
You’ll have to paste this in your browser – couldn’t get it imbedded.
http://redstateupdate.blogspot.com/2007/06/red-state-update-fred-thompson-vs.html
And finally here they are discussing Ron Paul who is from Texas.
Julia
A ban on sprts cars in the EU???
A British member of the European Parliment wants to outlaw any car that goes over 101 mph. Then pretty much any car on the road right now except maybe the Smart Car and a few others would have to go. The old Ford Fiesta I drove in college only got up to about 65 then statred to shake, so maybe then they could use the old Fiestas, but only if the rubber band and guinea pigs were up to snuff.
Doron Levin wrote a great oped piece on Bloomberg.com about the Environmentalist Wacko crowd.
July 10 (Bloomberg) — If one of the more extreme responses to global warming comes true, driving a sports car anywhere but on a racetrack might be relegated to history’s dustbin.
Fast, powerful cars within a few years may be outlawed in Europe, an idea that has been raised ostensibly because Ferraris and Porsches produce too much carbon dioxide. For those who abhor sports cars as vulgar symbols of affluence (along with vacation homes, furs and fancy jewelry), such a ban could be a two-fer: Saving the planet while cutting economic inequality.
Who are these people anyway who decide on behalf of everyone what car is proper to drive? In the U.S. they’re members of Congress, which is considering fuel-efficiency standards that will affect vehicle size. In Europe, it’s the ministers and parliamentarians of the European Union, which wants to limit how much CO2 cars can emit as a proxy for a fuel- consumption standard.
Chris Davies, a British member of the European Parliament, is proposing one of the most-extreme measures — a prohibition on any car that goes faster than 162 kilometers (101 miles) an hour, a speed that everything from the humble Honda Civic on up can exceed. He ridiculed fast cars as “boys’ toys.”
The proposed ban would take effect in 2013. Davies told the Guardian newspaper that “cars designed to go at stupid speeds have to be built to withstand the effects of a crash at those speeds. They are heavier than necessary, less fuel-efficient and produce too many emissions.”
His last point is telling, even though there are many reasons why cars are heavier, including safety measures such as air bags and steel-reinforced crumple zones.
Focused on Cars
The idea is to limit CO2, a so-called greenhouse gas blamed for causing the earth’s temperature to rise.
But the debate isn’t just about how much carbon dioxide to allow into the atmosphere and whether the amount actually matters. It’s also about disdain some hold for the size or speed of the cars others drive.
“Automobiles always seem to be the focus, even though they only consume 15 percent or 20 percent of energy,” said Csaba Csere, editor of Car & Driver magazine. If politicians really cared about the atmosphere they might concentrate first on power plants or factories, he said.
The folks against sports cars in Europe and big sport utility vehicles in the U.S. often are same ones who hate McMansion-sized homes, corporate jets, jumbo freezers, yachts, 60-inch flat-screens TVs, overnight-delivery services and other trappings of Western-style wealth and energy use.
Do people demonize these goods because they can’t afford them? Or because they think others shouldn’t have them? Proposals to limit carbon dioxide often sound like basic opposition to prosperity and rising living standards.
Planet in Peril?
Outside of a handful of command economies, few today would agree that a central authority ought to regulate who owns what. But attacking those who “waste” energy achieves the same goal.
Many ardent environmentalists are convinced that the planet is in peril. Why can’t they be just a bit cautious, humble or skeptical in their advocacy of reduced energy consumption, which in turn must mean reduced global economic growth?
The main reason I’m wary of Al Gore’s call for radical, immediate reduction of worldwide energy consumption is that he’s way too sure that the human race is on the cusp of catastrophe. With no credentials of his own, Gore relies on scientists who insist we must hurry because we’re approaching a point of no return.
But how about other scientists, ones who aren’t sure we’re on the brink? Richard Lindzen of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a leading climatologist, says that even if nothing is done to limit CO2, the world will heat up by 1 degree Celsius, or a couple of degrees Fahrenheit, in the next 50 to 100 years.
Move Inland
We know from everyday experience that weather forecasting is a notoriously inexact. And if the world got a bit warmer there might be more arable land and longer growing seasons in northern latitudes. Is it heresy to suggest that if seas rise, moving back from the shore might be more practical than trying to change the weather?
The polar bear population, supposedly close to being wiped out, is “not going extinct, or even appear to be affected at present,” Mitchell Taylor of the Department of the Environment, Government of Nunavut, told the Toronto Star last year. One population in the eastern Arctic has grown to 2,100 from 850 since the mid-1980s, he said.
A half-century ago Rachel Carson popularized the modern environmental movement with “The Silent Spring,” a book claiming that the pesticide DDT was destroying America’s wildlife. The book’s impact was reduced use of the pesticide DDT, thereby leading to the unintended consequence of more mosquitoes and more malaria deaths in developing countries.
One Little Bite
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other health agencies noted an alarming rise of malaria in places like South Africa and Peru after DDT was banned in the late 1970s. Since the mid-1990s, when DDT spraying resumed, the incidence of the disease has fallen.
Calls for limits on carbon dioxide ignore a basic point. People are likely to be better judges of the benefits of fast cars, TVs, air conditioners, and jets than government planners.
Besides, the brunt of government limits on energy use may well fall on the world’s poorest nations, which need more energy — thus generating more carbon dioxide — to provide lighting, refrigeration, harvesting, water purification and transportation.
What right do environmentalists in rich countries have to deny residents of poorer ones the benefits of higher living standards?
I have a hunch that a ban on sports cars won’t be enacted soon in Europe, largely because the Italians love their Lamborghinis, the British their Bentleys and the Germans their Porsches. But this won’t be the last time that anti-consumption crusaders come disguised as guardians of the Earth.
(Doron Levin is a Bloomberg News columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.)
To contact the writer of this column: Doron Levin in Southfield, Michigan, at dlevin5@bloomberg.net
Basically all of the environmentalist wackos are against any kind of prosperity. The more money you havethe harder the environmentalists will come after you. It is basically a jelousy issue, not a environmental issue with most of them. Because the science just doesn’t add up to the catstrophe that the Goracle and his disciples are saying. More and more evidence of climate change from before the evil sports cars and big mansions is coming out all the time. The Sun and many other natural cycles are what change the climate, not CO2 (which is only %.002 of Gobal Warming, and is what makes life possible). The Goracles concert over the weekend was a total flop and more people are realizing that all the hypocrisy and disingenuos talk form the environmentalists wackos is a bunch of crap.
It’s the end of the World
You know it is just 10 mjore years (again) until the woeld is going to spiral out of control and we are all going to die because fo Manbearpig and Global Warming. You see it is never 2 years 7 years, it is always 10 years down the road before we hit that time where the world comes to an end as we know it. Just far enough away to not really see if it is true or not. But AlGore thinks it would have been different if he was President insteed of the Chimpanzee. See he would have converted everyone into goood disciples of the New Church of Manbearpig and we would all be worhsipping Gaia, or be thrown into jail. See we didn’t get that "consensus" thing down in time. Enen though there is no "consensus" right now either. And "consensus" in anything dealing with science is impossible, but that is another story.
Too little, too late: Gore blames scientists for climate crisis
US could have acted sooner if experts had reached consensus
By Jonathan Owen
Published: 24 June 2007
In an extraordinary outburst aimed at America’s failure to tackle global warming, Al Gore says that if scientific agreement on the climate crisis had been reached sooner it would have been easier to "galvanise the public and persuade Congress to act".
The failed presidential candidate claims that the stronger scientific consensus he knew was about to emerge meant "we in the US were about to shift into high gear in addressing the climate crisis". Mr Gore argues that if he had made it to the White House, he would have been able to use the office as a "bully pulpit" to achieve change.
"The nature and severity of the climate crisis had seemed painfully obvious to me for quite a long time," claims Mr Gore, writing in a new foreword to a revised edition of his book, Earth in the Balance, being published this week.
In a swipe at the scientific community, he says: "I wish that we could have had in the 1990s the deafening scientific consensus that has emerged in more recent years."
Mr Gore accuses his nemesis, President George Bush, of having taken "virtually no steps to address the problem. Worse, he and Vice President Cheney have led the nation in precisely the wrong direction."
He goes on to detail how the Bush administration reversed a pledge to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant, pulled out of negotiations on the Kyoto treaty and replaced key scientific advisers with ones suggested by oil giant ExxonMobil.
The point of no return will be reached within 10 years, the former vice president says, and we cannot wait any longer to solve the crisis. He blames a focus on instant gratification for the "exclusion of long-term consequences in our decisions and policies" and writes about his "mission of solving the climate crisis". His Oscar-winning documentary on climate change, An Inconvenient Truth, became the surprise box-office hit of 2006.
Mr Gore claims that concerns over the environment formed his "principal agenda for eight years in the White House". But he is light on details of what he did while in office, beyond a brief mention of his work with the Kyoto treaty (which was never ratified by Congress).
During his tenure as vice president, America’s carbon dioxide emissions shot up far faster than at any time in modern history – by 15 per cent, compared to just 1.65 per cent during President Bush’s first term.
Although Mr Gore is currently promoting the Live Earth concerts that will take place next month, speculation is increasing that he may exploit the surge in his popularity and run for president in 2008 – 20 years after first standing for the office.
He is one of a growing number of political figures who have embraced the green cause.
Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Hollywood star turned "green Governor" of California, will be in Europe this week for meetings with Tony Blair and the French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, to find ways of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Record cold temperatures and snow everywhere
OK, I thought we were all going to die in a fiery inferno because of Manbearpig, I mean come on the Goracle told us so. It has to be true. So why are they having record cold temperatures and snow all over Europe, North and Sounth America, Asia and everywhere else you can tink of???
Dutch tourist Antoinette Vegchel wipes away snow on her car in Germany’s Black Forest region
If you thought our weekend was bad look at the weather across the water…
Last updated at 23:38pm on 29th May 2007
It was the same story in towns close to the Alps in Austria, Switzerland and even northern Italy where temperatures in May routinely climb into the 80s.
In one Swiss valley, 3,000 were trapped in hotels and guest houses because trains could not reach them in the snow.
Ironically, the weather follows one of the worst winters ever for snow at Alpine ski resorts.
On the Mediterranean island of Corsica, two hikers died in freezing fog and on its beaches a 19-year-old man was killed by a wave.
Argentina Rations Gas to Companies, Chile Amid Cold (Update1)
By Bill Faries and Eliana Raszewski
May 29 (Bloomberg) — Argentina rationed electricity to companies and severed natural gas supplies to Chile as a cold wave prompted record demand for electricity in South America’s second-largest economy.
The temperature in many parts of Argentina fell below freezing yesterday, pushing electricity demand to a record 18,300 megawatts, according to the country’s energy regulator. Argentina cut shipments of gas to Chile to meet the surge in demand, forcing their neighbor to rely on residual gas in the pipeline.
Rolling blackouts and gas shortages in Argentina threaten more than four years of economic growth of over 8.5 percent per year. The ban on gas deliveries to Chile jeopardizes supply for an estimated 1.2 million residential users in eastern Santiago and may lead to increased energy costs for mining companies as power generators switch to more expensive diesel fuel.
“There’s no short-term solution to the shortage of gas,” energy consultant Francisco Mezzadri, the former head of natural gas operations at CMS Energy Corp., said in a phone interview. “Electricity prices have been frozen since 2002, a new pipeline from Bolivia has yet to be built and domestic gas reserves are declining. It’s a critical situation.”
Dozens of people were feared killed in remote parts of north-western Nepal after the areas were hit by a freak snow storm, officials said on Tuesday.
The casualties were reported in the remote north-western mountainous district of Dolpa, about 450 kilometres north-west of the Nepalese capital, on Monday.
"We have reports that at least 16 people died and about a hundred others were blinded by a freak snow storm and blizzard," Home Ministry spokesperson Baman Prasad Neupane told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.
The snow storm is said to have hit a mountainous area where hundreds of people had gathered to collect an herb locally known as Yarshagumba, which is thought to increase sex drive.
Be on the Lookout for Manbearpig, he is wanted for questioning in the freak snow and cold spell that has gripped alot of the Earth. It was thought that he would warm the Earth, but now he is cooling it off and the Goracle wants to question him. If you see him call the New Church of Global Warming or your nearest Gorebot.
The Indoctrination cotinues
The movie "Inconvenient Truth" to schools around the world. It is being taught as fact without showing the other side. Our educational system is goingto bring us down. It is indoctrinating our youth into the multicuturist folly and the Goracle’s "science". Even people that agree with the Goracle are saying his little movie has many errors and untruths. But that won’t stop the disciples of Manbearpig from indoctrinating our children. Facts ans science be damned, the Goracle speaks and we should listen.
So how did An Inconvenient Truth become required classroom viewing?
Even climate change experts say many of the claims in Al Gore’s film are wrong.
Kevin Libin, National Post
Published: Saturday, May 19, 2007
First it was his world history class. Then he saw it in his economics class. And his world issues class. And his environment class. In total, 18-year-old McKenzie, a Northern Ontario high schooler, says he has had the film An Inconvenient Truth shown to him by four different teachers this year.
"I really don’t understand why they keep showing it," says McKenzie (his parents asked that his last name not be used). "I’ve spoken to the principal about it, and he said that teachers are instructed to present it as a debate. But every time we’ve seen it, well, one teacher said this is basically a two-sided debate, but this movie really gives you the best idea of what’s going on."
McKenzie says he has educated himself enough about both sides of the climate- change controversy to know that the Al Gore movie is too one-sided to be taught as fact. Even scientists who back Mr. Gore’s message admit they’re uncomfortable with liberties the politician takes with "science" in the film. But, McKenzie says most of his classmates are credulous. His teachers are not much more discerning. "They don’t know there’s another side to the argument," he says. McKenzie’s mother was outraged to find out that Mr. Gore’s film was being presented as fact in her son’s classroom. "This is just being poured into kids’ brains instead of letting them know there’s a debate going on," she says. "An educational system falls down when they start taking one side."
But Mr. Gore’s filmed climate-change lecture is showing up in classrooms across Canada, frequently unaccompanied by critical analysis or a discussion of competing theories. "One of the teachers at my kid’s school showed it and he even said ahead of time, ‘There is some propaganda in this,’ " says Tim Patterson, a Carleton University earth sciences professor. "I said to him, ‘You even knew this was a propaganda film, and you still showed it in your classroom?’ " The weirdest part: It was the gym teacher.
If you have children in junior or high school, there is a good chance they have been shown An Inconvenient Truth in school–or they will be soon.
Last month, Vancouver’s Tides Canada Foundation and a local eco-friendly courier firm teamed up to buy DVD copies for every public high school in B.C. Climate Learning, a non-profit Vancouver outfit, is a third of the way to raising the $68,000 it needs to buy copies of the film for every high school in the country, after just weeks of campaigning.
"I think it’s important for high schools to have this film," says Will Cole-Hamilton, the group’s director.
"Our objective is to get them into schools by September."
Two weeks ago, 900 students from grade 7 to 12 in Ontario’s Halton Region were treated to a screening — sponsored by ethanol producer SunOpta Inc. — with a second showing scheduled at a Georgetown high school this Wednesday.
SunOpta has donated 60 copies of the DVD and the book version of An Inconvenient Truth to public and Catholic schools as a resource.
After showing the film to students, a London, Ont., board launched a contest for kids to win tickets to hear Mr. Gore address a fundraiser this month, by making their own environmental videos.
Earthcare Canada, an energy consultant sponsored group, is working with the Ottawa-Carlton school board and one in Belleville, Ont., to raise awareness about energy conservation. The Gore movie is one of the materials it suggests as a teaching resource.
"We would definitely recommend it and make them aware that it is there, and then how to use it," says Earthcare’s executive director Rose-Marie Batley.
"I get e-mail from parents all across the country about this, in Calgary, B.C., Ontario," says Albert Jacobs, the founder of Friends of Science, a Calgarybased group that promotes alternative theories to climate change.
"They say my kid has been exposed to this stuff which is totally one-sided and totally wrong and we want them to see the other side."
Hand it to Paramount, the studio behind An Inconvenient Truth, for tapping the classroom market in a way skeptics cannot.
In addition to a companion book written for school-aged children, producers have created a lesson plan, "AIT in the Classroom," for teachers to download.
In England, the government has made the movie part of the public curriculum.
In Spain, the government is buying copies of the movie for all of its schools. In Australia, private donors are buying copies for schools.
Politicians and educators may accept on face value filmed warnings of a world tumbling toward catastrophe if we don’t dramatically cut back on our greenhouse gas emissions.
But some of Mr. Gore’s allies have acknowledged glaring inaccuracies in the film.
Though Mr. Gore was right for "getting the message out," University of Colorado climatologist Kevin Vranes told The New York Times last month that he worried about the film "overselling our certainty about knowing the future."
James E. Hansen, a NASA scientist and one of Mr. Gore’s advisors, agreed the movie has "imperfections" and "technical flaws."
About An Inconvenient Truth’s connection of rising hurricane activity to global warming — something refuted by storm experts — Mr. Hansen said, "We need to be more careful in describing the hurricane story than he is."
Among other things, since the film’s release last year, scientists have rejected Mr. Gore’s claims that 2005 was the warmest year on record (temperatures have been receding since 1998), that polar bears are heading for extinction (their numbers are growing), that Antarctica is warming (interior temperature readings show cooling) and that sea levels will "rise 18 to 20 feet," swamping coastal cities (the International Panel on Climate Change predicts a few inches).
Last year, when producer Laurie David offered to donate 50,000 DVDs to the National Science Teachers Association, the group refused, citing a policy "prohibiting product endorsement."
In the U.K., one parent is taking the Department for Education and Skills to court to stop it from using the film in science, geography and citizenship classes.
A Washington-state school board now requires that any teacher showing the film must ensure a "credible, legitimate opposing view will be presented" as well.
In B.C., a Surrey school trustee, Heather Stilwell, has been fighting for a policy to ensure teachers in the Vancouver suburb also present a balancing viewpoint.
Meanwhile, Vancouver-based businessman Michael Chernoff, says his charitable foundation will provide to high schools DVD copies of the new British documentary, The Great Global Warming Swindle, featuring interviews with scientists who dissent from Mr. Gore’s claims, as soon as the producer is ready to ship the discs.
"And if they start sending [An Inconvenient Truth] to all Canadian schools, then I’ll buy a copy of Swindle for all the schools, too," Mr. Chernoff says. "I think showing it is fine, but they should present the other side as well."
But even with Mr. Chernoff ‘s gift, there’s no requirement teachers to show both sides of the argument unless school boards demand it.
"We’ve gone to school boards offering to provide them with materials that present the other side," says Mr. Jacobs.
"You get the same answer, that the teacher has to teach a certain curriculum and how he does it is his business." Some teachers are open to alternative theories, he says.
But others, like Mr. Gore, have an agenda.
On a discussion board on the CBC Web site last month, readers debated the Surrey controversy. One commentor, who identified himself as a teacher, wrote this:
"Yes students should look at both sides on an issue and learn to judge for themselves. But there are times to do this and times to stop."
He is certain Mr. Gore is right. Now, he wrote, "It is time for action."
Carbon Credit Killers
Ahh, just the kind of thing that makes you glad you are alive. Carbon Credit Killers will cut down a tree and send cut down a tree if you send them money. Isn’t America great????
What We Do
Very simply, we provide a way to fight the fallacy of Carbon Credits by selling Carbon Debits. These are not just meaningless words but have actions behind them as we remove a tree for every debit purchased. After receiving a Carbon Debit purchase we would process it as follows:
1. Carbon Debit Purchase is recorded and Certificate of Purchase is emailed 2. Our Carbon Debit Specialist is notified of the Carbon Debit Purchase 3. The Carbon Debit Specialist executes one tree for every Carbon Debit purchased. 4. The destruction of the tree is relayed back to Carbon Debit head-quarters for final Carbon Debit confirmation.Although our actions are obviously a bit tongue-in-cheek we take all Carbon Debit orders seriously and will execute a tree and remove the equivalent of one Carbon Credit from those who are trying to be guilt free in their energy gluttony.
We also provide t-shirts and others items so that you may show those around you that you have taken action on the threat of Global Carbon Credits. Encourage everyone you know – buy a Carbon Debit today!
It will just drive your environment wacko Gorebot friends mad.
H/T tot Moonbattery
All Hail the Goracle
The Goracle of the New Church of Manbearpig has gotten a stalker. Laurie David wants the Goracle to adopt her.
Laurie David’s interview with The Rocky Mountain News
5 questions for global warming activist Laurie David
Global warming guru Laurie David, producer of the Academy Award-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth starring Al Gore, pops into town tonight to speak at the Colorado Convention Center. She’s here to wrap up a month of "green" events sponsored by the Denver Public Library and Greenprint Denver, the city’s program of environmental initiatives. The event is sold out.1 What’s it like to be the producer of an Academy Award-winning film?
What’s amazing to me is how many people have seen that movie and how many people are buying DVDs. Every single article you see (on global warming) now mentions the movie, and it’s been personally gratifying to see.
2 What was it like to work with Al Gore?
By the time I was done working with him, I was begging him to adopt me. He’s like a father figure to me, one of my heroes. He’s so charming and lovely and smart and funny. He makes fun of himself; he’s got a great sense of humor. He’s dry and he laughs at other people’s jokes.
3 If you could have dinner with Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), who called global warming the "greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people," what would you say to him?
There’s something in my heart that makes me believe if I could get 10 minutes with these guys, I could change their mind. I would love to have dinner with Inhofe. We’re at the point where we have to do something big to stop global warming. I would want him to watch the movie. I would pop the popcorn. I would pick up the check (for dinner).
4 So how do you react to the Bush administration’s stance on global warming?
It’s terrifying. I’ve spent a lot of time saying to people that I believe the changes are going to come when these guys are still in office. I don’t personally believe we have two years to waste before we start solving this. I’m not focused on ’08. I’m focused on right now. Here’s a perfect analogy: if you had a choice between being in a 5 mile-per-hour car accident or a 50 mile-per-hour car accident, what would you choose? I would choose everything we have to do avoid the larger collision ahead.
5 What changes have you made in your own life?
I don’t believe everyone has to do everything. I don’t do everything. It’s about everyone doing something. I have changed as many lightbulbs as I could to (higher efficiency) bulbs. I started a new idling rule at the school carpool lane (cars dropping and picking up kids can’t idle their engines more than 30 seconds). I bring a garment bag to the dry cleaners (instead of having the dry cleaners wrap her clothes in petroleum-based plastic). I drive a hybrid.
Don’t you just love how she drinks the Manbearpig kool-aid. She can talk all she wants, but she will never convince me that man has a large amount on the effect of Manbearpig. I am Cereal.
More and more scince is debunking the Manbearpig theory. The Sun and natural cycles have more to do with Global warming than does Manbearpig. The Earth has been around for a couple billion years and I don’t think that little humans, which have been on Earth for a millisecond of time can drmatcally change the climate of the Earth. think about it. We had several Ice Ages, how did the Earth come out of those????? The Earth warmed and them cooled again to form another Ice Age. It has been going on longer than we humans have been around and will continue after wea re long gone, or at least until the Sun implodes on itself. There is much more inportant tings to worry about other than Manbearpig, we got the War on Terror, a new improved TB that is resitant to most drugs out there, we have the Mega-Valcano at Yellowstone, we have the islands in Hawaii and the Canary Islands that are going to split in half and create a sunami that would dwarf the Indonesian sunami by a few hundred times. So give it a rest with the New Religion of Manvearpig. We can not and will not destroy the Earth. It is impossible. Like us destroying the Ozone. The Sun forms the Ozone Layer and the only way to destroy it is to get rid of the Sun. And declaring CO2 a pollutant is ludicrous. It is what makes us be able to live on this planet. Withour CO2 we would not have the plants that are the staples of food for the billions of people around the world.
Algore’s Bible in a Hotel Room
The Religion of Manbearpig is going to take over hotels. Instead of a Bible in hotle rooms, they are going to have Algores’s Bible of the Manbearpig in the rooms. All praise the Goracle.
California Hotels Go Green With Low-Flow Toilets, Solar Lights
By Ari Levy and Carole Zimmer
April 27 (Bloomberg) — Visitors to the Gaia Napa Valley Hotel and Spa won’t find the Gideon Bible in the nightstand drawer. Instead, on the bureau will be a copy of “An Inconvenient Truth,” former Vice President Al Gore’s book about global warming.
They’ll also find the Gaia equipped with waterless urinals, solar lighting and recycled paper as it marches toward becoming California’s first hotel certified as “green,” or benevolent to the environment. Similar features are found 35 miles south at San Francisco’s Orchard Garden Hotel, which competes for customers with neighboring luxury hotels like the Ritz-Carlton and Fairmont.
“I’m not your traditional Birkenstocks and granola type of guy,” said Stefan Muehle, general manager of the Orchard Garden, who said green measures are reducing energy costs as much as 25 percent a month. “We’re trying to dispel the myth that being green and being luxurious are mutually exclusive.”
The Gaia and Orchard are seeking to be the first hotels in California certified by the U.S. Green Building Council, which has authenticated 800 buildings across the U.S. and has about 6,000 in the process, including 30 hotels. San Francisco and other cities offer financial incentives to lessen water and energy use and reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
Seven years ago, the Green Building Council developed a rating system called the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED. Buildings are certified based on their use of environmentally friendly features such as recycled construction materials, solar lighting, and efficient energy and water systems. Older buildings may be retrofitted.
Sleeping Well
“If that choice is available, why not take advantage of it,” said Josh Dorfman of New York, founder of furniture company Vivavi Inc. and a frequent traveler. “It’s a way to be able to enjoy traveling and to still feel good that I’m doing it in a way that supports a cleaner planet. It’s a win-win.”
Building green isn’t a priority for most publicly traded hotel chains, said Robert Lafleur, a hotels analyst at Susquehanna Financial Group in Stamford, Connecticut.
“The only green investors care about is the green that’s on the money, not the green that’s in the hotel rooms,” Lafleur said. For visitors, “it’s location, price, convenience and brand affiliation.”
Some chains are participating on a limited basis. Marriott International Inc., the biggest U.S. hotel operator, has one LEED-certified hotel in Maryland and seven under construction. Hilton Hotels Corp., the second-largest, received its first certification in January for a hotel in Vancouver, Washington.
“We have a social responsibility,” said Pat Maher, a senior vice president of Bethesda, Maryland-based Marriott. “It also makes good business sense.”
`A Sea Change’
Swinerton Inc., a San Francisco-based construction company, has worked on more than 20 buildings seeking certification. The 86-room Orchard Garden, completed last year, was its first hotel, said Grant French, a Swinerton engineer.
“There’s been a sea change,” said French. Some companies “are considering rolling out entire product lines of green hotels.”
Wen-I Chang opened the 132-room Gaia in the town of American Canyon last year. He’s building other green hotels in Anderson and Merced and said he hopes to develop at least six more within three years.
Shorter Showers
Chang said he became an environmentalist in 1999, when he couldn’t get a glass of water at a restaurant in Santa Cruz, California, because of a shortage in the area.
“I started thinking that there are many ways I can save water,” said Chang, 62. “I changed my shower habit from eight minutes to two minutes.”
Then he changed his building habits, after 10 years of developing Holiday Inn and Hilton franchises.
Chang said 43 cities have asked him to build green hotels. Some offer incentives to help cover construction costs, which were about 15 percent more for the Gaia. Chang said it’s saving 25 percent on electricity and almost 50 percent on water, which may enable the hotel to turn profitable next month.
American Canyon slashed Gaia’s transient occupancy tax by $1 million over three years. Anderson waived a $100,000 environmental impact fee, in part because a green hotel may encourage tourists to stay longer, said Scott Morgan, city manager.
San Francisco began giving priority to green projects last year. A developer may have to wait only four weeks to start construction instead of eight months, said Richard Chien, residential green building coordinator with the San Francisco Department of the Environment.
Getting Traction
“We need to get more traction,” Chien said. “We’re facing problems with global warming and climate change and we’re taking a cue to develop programs to address that at a citywide level.”
Any big new buildings California’s government erects must be designed for LEED certification, by order of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. The state is working to enact green construction standards for all buildings, said David Walls, executive director of the California Building Standards Commission.
Efforts by the state and cities have contributed to a surge in green development, said Bill Worthen, a senior associate at Simon & Associates Inc. in San Francisco. The consulting company is getting a call a day for projects, he said.
“It’s a hip and trendy thing to do and one that’s actually good for the planet,” he said.
To contact the reporters on this story: Ari Levy in San Francisco at alevy5@bloomberg.net ; Carole Zimmer in New York at czimmer2@bloomberg.net .
Last Updated: April 27, 2007 03:04 EDT
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