First of all, the entire basis for green ideology and the ideologues following and enforcing it is based on a sham of a lie. Global cooling led to global warming led to climate change, but the earth hasn’t burned up yet and the Eastern Seaboard hasn’t been swallowed by the Atlantic Ocean.

Yes, there are weather patterns and hot years and cold years and wet years and dry years. But yet, we persevere. Anything out of the ordinary is treated as, well, completely out of the ordinary, when the fact remains “average” meteorological behavior all the time would itself be highly unusual.

The so-called “scientists” at East Anglia who provide data to the U.N. International Panel on Climate Change can cook their books, “lose” facts running counter to their templates and cherry-pick data best supporting their statist diagnoses, but no matter. Their theories and ideas have become so ingrained in the minds of a guilt-ridden public it’s to the point where we must now live under these assumptions, whether or not they have any basis in reality. Their solutions are always the same: tax oil companies, tax the rest of us and force everyone to do with less.

These assumptions are enforced in the office I personally work in (it’s a television show), that proudly proclaims itself a “Green Office”. What makes the office green? Email is used whenever possible in place of memos, scripts are printed double-sided, and other paper-related material is sometimes printed on the backsides of the discarded scripts. This is all well and good, but the office kitchen run by the little green tyrannists seems to offend mostly everyone across the ideological spectrum (and being a television show in New York City, this would consist almost entirely of liberals). There are no paper plates or cups, only porcelain dishes and glasses, all of which require washing by hand upon their return to the kitchen after use.

The sink doesn’t have a garbage disposal (those are illegal in New York City), so whatever doesn’t get caught in the filter drips down the drain and into a compost machine. Signs (printed on paper) are everywhere urging people to return their dishes and glasses, and while you’re at it, please wash them. Unfortunately, many don’t, so it’s left to the poor young interns to embark on a scavenger hunt for those missing items, and they’re the ones who get stuck at the sink for 20 minutes at a time cleaning up after those who rudely ignore the rules.

Multiple times, as someone grabs a dish, I’ve heard: “I’m all for being green, but . . .” But what? When it affects you personally? When you’re the one who must spend more of your daily man-hours not designing a $20,000 set, but washing your own dishes? I’ll respond to the grumbling with “I’m not just not green. I’m anti-green. It’s tyrannical.”  I let that sit for a second before walking out. You see, I –like many others — have taken to hoarding plastic and paper container material for my food and beverages like a squirrel hoards acorns for the winter. These are hot commodities. In fact, I could probably make an extra buck or two by setting up a paper cup stand in the parking lot.

Initially, the film set was still a refuge where one could drink from a plastic water bottle, then discard it when finished. No more. New rules came down from on high: We’re going totally green, and that means no more plastic water bottles! (Who pushed those plastic water bottles on us all those years ago anyway? Wasn’t it the same leftists who were claiming our municipal water supplies were all polluted and contaminated? I can’t remember …)

There were two solutions to the problem of excessive plastic water buildup damming our nation’s rivers and streams: There would now be a water cooler dispensing water on set, and each crew member would receive a company-issued metal water bottle, complete with belt hook.  I had visions of burly stagehands walking around a quiet soundstage with metal water bottles clanking around on their tool belts. The idea caught on with some of the crew, but for those it didn’t, there were now small plastic cups next to the water cooler: Thimble-like small. More than one visiting director, upon learning of our water bottle policy, then seeing the small plastic cups next to the cooler, would say: “So let me get this straight. You banned plastic water bottles, but drink out of plastic cups?” Yeah, that’s what we’re saying. Got a problem with that?

As the greens are ruining our kitchens and making us spend expensive man hours washing dishes and making us thirstier on film sets, they’re also moving further and further into that most personal of sanctuaries: the bathroom.

If you’ve read Mark Levin’s book “Liberty and Tyranny”, you’ll know he rails more than once against the federal government’s regulation of the water level of our toilets. Not only does this result in a less effective toilet, but it also carries the unintended consequence of more flushes, which results in using even more water.

And how long before they come for my precious shower pressure? If they attempted to place thermostat regulation into a climate bill, it’s not farfetched to imagine a day when bureaucrats manage the power and length of our showers. Levin’s point becomes completely relevant: what CAN’T they regulate?

Rob Long wrote a piece several months back for National Review Online entitled ‘Dim Idea,’ on the subject of Japanese toilets, those marvels of luxury and modernity. The Japanese give people everything they want . . . in a toilet. (Didn’t we used to give people what they want here in America?) There are hoses and nozzles and buttons and spraying water (lots of water!). While here in the USA, the bureaucrats tell us how much of that precious toilet water we’re allowed.

Then there’s the current bull’s eye target of the greens: our incandescent light bulbs, which they are currently regulating out of existence and replacing with those curly spaghetti-like luminaries. Mr. Long envisions a dim, badly lit future with fewer and fewer “Eureka!” moments, right here in the country that gave us Thomas Edison. Instead, we’re asked to do with less under ugly yellow lights produced by the Chinese.

Late last year, a green British group called the “10/10 Project” produced a cute little ad called “No Pressure”. The 10/10 Project was launched as an attempt to get Britons to lower their carbon emissions by 10 percent over 10 years.

In the ad, anyone who doesn’t go along with suggestions for lowering their emissions, including school children, are summarily, uh, blown up. I initially thought this must have been produced by a green critic as a parody. Realizing it wasn’t, it suddenly felt like a horror movie, and not because of the gore and exploding bodies.

The horrific part was the zombie-like mentality of the followers of green environmental policies, as well as the ease with which any dissent was dispensed with, in this case, simply by blowing up the free-thinkers in the crowd. (This ad was pulled shortly after its initial airing.)

The little green tyrannists in our midst are invading our most personal spaces, from our kitchens to our bathrooms to the very light we view our world with. They attack luxury, comfort and convenience. Their goal is to make us all do with less. The 10/10 ad actually got it right: Don’t question. Submit. Otherwise we might just decide to blow you up.

Via Andrew Lawton at Landmark Report:

One of Gibson’s leading competitors is C.F. Martin & Company. The C.E.O., Chris Martin IV, is a long-time Democratic supporter, with $35,400 in contributions to Democratic candidates and the DNC over the past couple of elections (though, to be fair, he did donate a whopping $750 to Republican Congressmen in the 90s.) According to C.F. Martin’s catalog, several of their guitars contain “East Indian Rosewood.” In case you were wondering, that is the exact same wood in at least ten of Gibson’s guitars.

If true, it add another piece to an increasingly disturbing puzzle.

You can listen to Gibson CEO (and Republican supporter) Henry E. Juszkiewicz’s interview with Dana Loesch here.

You can listen to the collective music world’s outcry over this seemingly partisan witch hunt being conducted by The Man here.

Cowards all.

—–

Via Wikipedia:

Captain Planet and the Planeteers is an American animated environmentalist television program, based on an idea by Ted Turner and Robert Larkin III.^[2][3] The show was produced by Andy Heyward, Robby London, Barbara Pyle and Nicholas Boxer. The series was developed and co-produced by Turner Program Services along with the partnership of DiC Entertainment and ran new episodes from September 15, 1990 until December 5, 1992. A sequel series, The New Adventures of Captain Planet, ran for three seasons and was produced by Turner Broadcasting and then-corporate sibling Hanna-Barbera Productions. Both programs continue today in syndication.^[4]

The program is a form of edutainment and advocates environmentalism.

On Andy Heyward:

Andrew Heyward could tell you. He could also locate Waldo, Beany and Cecile, Inspector Gadget, Madeline, the Real Ghostbusters, Heathcliff, G.I. Joe, Gadget Boy, Dennis the Menace, ALF, Captain Planet, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Bill and Ted. Andy Heyward’s excellent adventure began at UCLA and he Scooby-Dooed through Bedrock, writing and directing many Hanna-Barbera animated classics, including The Flinstones. Currently he is the chairman and CEO of DIC (pronounced “deek”) Entertainment, producers of child content for the worldwide market. Producers of more than 3,000 half-hours of animation, Andy’s company now independently owns the second largest library of American animation in the world. Captain Planet was the first environmental superhero and raised the environmental consciousness of an entire generation of kids.

Gasland is very pretty, the shots are artistic and the editing is slick and attractive. Josh Fox, the film’s director and narrator, has a soft laid back tone that is alluring and soothing. He can play the banjo and he does. He presents himself as a regular guy from Pennsylvania who was offered $100,000 to allow an energy company extract natural gas from his land. He turned them down. Fox says he loves his home and has been hearing bad things about how the gas is extracted.

—–

Fox sets out to expose the “scandal” of fracking – a process to extract natural gas from shale by using a cocktail of chemicals and a lot of water. By using this method America will get about 100 years worth of energy.

The bad news, according to ‘Gasland,’ is that fracking is killing countless unsuspecting poor people all over the US. Pancreatic cancer, dizziness, loss of sense of taste and smell, ringing in ears, disorientation, coughing, asthma, swelling, tumors and death are all caused by fracking according to the film. This is powerful stuff, compelling. On one side there are the greedy energy companies and on the other poor rural families being poisoned to death.

Incredible that this would happen here in the US. I waited for the killer interview with medical experts in toxicology or pathology and for even one of the of the many cases of illness and death to be closely examined and the evidence of a connection laid bare for all to see. It didn’t come. Why would Josh Fox not investigate the story further? Why would he not interview the kind of experts who would confirm the cause of the illnesses and deaths?

Fox says at one point: “As a detective, I was totally out of my league”. In truth, it’s not so much that he is out of the league of investigative reporters, but that he didn’t want to join them. If he had done any investigation he would find there is no credible, independent evidence that shows fracking for natural gas poses any risk to human health.

But fracking is too good of a story to be spoiled by serious investigation. The truth is that fracking is the feelgood story of the decade. It has meant an economic boom to hundreds of thousands of rural poor in America who until now had owned what was often fairly unproductive land. Now they still own the land but are getting paid huge sums of money to allow gas companies access.

Further investigation by Fox would have uncovered that if you really want to Make Poverty History, as the hipsters claim they do, then people need cheap, plentiful energy to run the cities, hospitals factories and universities.

Why can’t we just have solar panels instead, he says at one point. It’s a very interesting idea. A bit like why can’t we all just get along and not have wars or why can’t we have candy for breakfast. However, this type of juvenile thinking doesn’t really help solve the energy needs of the US or the rest of the world for that matter. It is such a shame Gasland didn’t answer more of its own questions, we might have ended with a great documentary if he had.

So last Saturday, Earth Hour took place- that mystical event when cities around the world pledge to turn off the power, and go dark for an hour.

It began in Australia in 2007, and has since spread like a pimply rash to more than 130 countries.

But If you missed it, it’s not your fault.

I totally drank my way through it – and the only thing I had off were my pants.

And now, after five years, some commentators are pronouncing the fad over, which suggest we’re all uncaring jerks.

Which I know I am anyway.

And that’s where I’m going with this.

See, if you took a bunch of “caring” people, and a bunch of people like me, and compared our environmental behaviors, would you really see a difference?

To steal a quote from David Mamet’s new book, “no adherent of either view is going to live his life in congruity with all, or even most of the precepts he believes himself to endorse.”

Meaning, the girl lecturing me on carbon offsets, is still lecturing me at the bar, which is powered by oil and electricity. And we’re also drinking the same beer, trucked in by giant gas guzzling semi’s. We are both the same (except I made her up).

Anyway, it’s no wonder “Earth Hour’s” in trouble. Fact is, no one is going to sit in the dark for that long, when there’s fun stuff to do that involves electricity and/or batteries.

Which is why this earnest dreck will continue, in sympathy only. Meaning, people will engage in this symbolic activity… only with their feelings.

“Oh isn’t that a nice idea,” says a concerned citizen, as she boards her flight to Prague. For that moment, just thinking about “earth hour” feels like you’re doing something good – even if the chihuaha you’re holding was trucked in from Guam.

And if you disagree with me, you’re a racist homophobe.

Tonight:

Jim Norton!

Jedidiah Bila!

and a first-timer Krystal Ball!

My participation in “Carbon Nation” came about quite fortuitously.  After I retired from the Army, I was working as a government analyst, looking at the tactical implications of energy security. I was leaving that position to try to encourage commercial interest to get involved with the Department of Defense to help solve what had been a strategic dilemma since the ‘70s: oil dependance.   A friend asked me to speak to a documentary film maker about my concerns.  I met Pete Byck outside the U.S. Capital building on a bright spring day and tried to tell the story of DOD’s efforts to solve a national security issue. 

Having received a post graduate degree in National Security and Strategic Planning from the U.S. Naval War College, I put those tools to work to understand the larger implications of our addiction to fossil fuels.   What I concluded was that climate change was a concern, the economic drain was unfortunate and that the national security implications were terrifying.  …

—–

“Carbon Nation” tells a story that must be heard.  There are people throughout the world who are taking action, but leadership at the national and international level is lacking.  We have “islands of excellence” in the quest for solutions, but we lack vision.  To paraphrase a good book I read, without vision, the people perish.  At no time has this had greater meaning.  It is my sincere hope that “Carbon Nation” supplies the impetus to change, to find our vision and to plot a new course into the future.

Read the full piece at Big Government…

—–

In Hypocrite, it’s the development of eco-friendly housing near Redford’s Napa Valley vineyard that has him removing the welcome mat for genuine environmentalists. Contrary to his now long-in-the-tooth image as the Sundance Kid,when Redford’s financial interests are threatened by genuine environmental projects, he looks to be more Butch NIMBY*, than Butch Cassidy.

Redford is one of the main opponents of a plan by the Pacific Union College to build an eco-village in Angwin California. The college says it needs the funds because of a dire financial situation. The village is close to Redford’s vineyard in the Napa Valley. However whilst publicly opposing this development “to preserve the rural heritage” Redford has been quietly selling development lots in the Sundance Preserve for $2 million. These lots are intended for vacation homes close to Redford’s Sundance Ski Resort.

The double standard is revealed in a short film Robert Redford Hypocrite which has just been released.

*NIMBY (Not in my back yard)

The researcher’s conclusion: That while this doesn’t mean mercury can make humans gay, there are enough reasons “why cleaning up the environment for birds also reduces risk for humans.”

So let me get this straight (no pun): are the researchers suggesting that if we don’t clean up the environment, birds will turn gay? If so, this implies that preventing gay birds is an incentive to going green.

Now, isn’t this homophobic? I mean, who’s to say gay birds are any less valuable than straight ones? If anything, having gay birds around can only mean one thing: fabulous nests. And that can only drive up real estate prices in your neighborhood.

But regardless, here you have environmental science slamming head first into a politically correct cul de sac. You can’t say pollution is bad, because it causes homosexuality. Because homosexuality, isn’t bad. In a way, this study seems to be telling me that pollution is, like, totally awesome! And simply by discarding mercury thermometers into rivers and streams, we will help create a more cosmopolitan wetlands.

Can’t hurt. Have you seen a wetlands lately? Frankly, they could use makeover.

And if you disagree with me, you’re a racist homophobic ornithophobe.

Tonight’s guests:

Kimberly Guilfoyle!

John Devore

Newcomer, and comedian, Wali Collins!

Catch me on O’Reilly tonight!

The elevation came in the form of a supercilious warning to put the brakes on the world’s second largest proved oil reserve. It could, he feared, become a curse if not properly managed.  This revelation came upon reflection via a government sponsored helicopter tour and a token chat with a group of not-so disenfranchised First Nations peoples in the area. (In 2009, oil sands companies contracted more than $890 million for goods and services from Aboriginal owned businesses and employed 1600 Aboriginals in permanent jobs).

And with that, Mr. Cameron and the media were able to close the case on the oil sands, as Mr. Cameron purportedly had to jet.  It’s not Mr. Cameron’s fault, completely. The oil complex is just that – complex.  It’s not the kind of business one just picks up as a hobby horse.  Sure, Cameron can regurgitate the technical terminology if he likes. It would be difficult for a techno-geek of titanic proportions to resist a sexy term like steam gravity assisted drainage (SAGD).

Here is where I suggest “putting the brakes on.”  Perhaps a moratorium on incendiary statements by celebutantes or politicians a-la-Pelosi who are not able to, because of their lack of training, do the type of deep comprehensive assessment required for these matters.

There are a few facts that cannot be disputed and you will get those out of Mr. Cameron, the enviro-statist and their press sycophants.  In this case it can be narrowed down to just two: the area containing the deposit and the size of the estimated reserves in Alberta.  Then it’s down the rabbit hole we go.

The oil sands deposit covers an area that would equate to the size of England (54,132 square miles).  For Americans without passports, that is the size of the state of New York.  Of the total 170.4 billion barrels of remaining established reserves, about 80% is considered recoverable through in-situ (no tailings ponds and contrary to what is stated results in significantly lower GHG and energy intensity) the remaining 20% will be mined.  Total estimated reserves are actually 1.7 trillion barrels but at this stage only 10% are recoverable at current technologies and prices.

To put these numbers to reality, to date only 0.3% of the total oil sands area has been disturbed, roughly equal to a small to medium sized city. Even more crucial to understand is that as only 3% of the total surface area could ever be mined (the deposits lie deeper than 75 meters) which leaves 97% of the surface area with some, but not much, industry impact.  Mathematically this scales the land disturbance of oil sands development back to about 0.5% the size of England, and all area that are mined need to have a reclamation plan laid out by producers.  In respect to Alberta’s boreal forest, in 40 years of oil sands activity, a mere 0.02% of the boreal forest has been disturbed.

In 2007 Alberta became the first jurisdiction in North America to legislate GHG reductions for large emitters. However, industry had already vastly mitigated its footprint and has every incentive to do so. Less energy in for every barrel of oil out means increased cash flows.  Strong show of cash flows increases marketability to shareholders and helps shield a company from the inherit volatility of commodity prices.  At current rates of production, 2.6 MMbbls/d, about half bitumen (WCS) and half synthetic light (SCO), the oil sands are responsible for 0.1 percent of total world emissions and that number is doubtful to increase much even if production ramps up to 4MMbbls/d as projected by the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.

As far as climate change is concerned, the oil sands are not really Alberta’s dirty secret at all.  Environmentalists may still choose to call this resource “tar sands” like the brat at school who won’t let a nickname die, but they would be better served to make their mockumentaries where GHG is unregulated such as Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, or Venezuela where Hugo Chavez may believe he can bend time and space. And of course there’s no place like home; the GHG from the oil sands equates to only 1% of the emissions of the U.S. power sector where coal happens to be the “King of the World.”

Just like little bit of meat will never do for a vegan, neither will a little bit of oil development for an environmentalist. Therefore there will always be an entire portion of the story that the enviro-statists will obfuscate.  This is the basic social cost/benefit analysis that economists are required to do.

As the leading exporter of crude and petroleum products to the United States, Canada is not only the safest, most secure supplier, but an economic partner.  The North American energy complex is one of the most valuable business chains in the world precisely because every aspect from Main Street to Wall Street is linked and integrated.  Hundreds of thousands of jobs will depend on the oil sands both directly and indirectly in the coming decades. The input goods, materials, and services for oil sands and in the U.S. oil shale – tires, trucks, gauges, pumps, steel, are produced across North America. It is this understanding of the political economy of North American oil, and how it positively impacts the average person, which the enviro-statist circumvents every time.

As one final example I will let Mr. Cameron’s own words to MSNBC hit the nail on the head.  “[T]here’s an opportunity for all of North America to be weaned to some extent off of OPEC oil so that’s why it makes me very nervous… we need more science… we have the capacity for ecological disaster here on an unprecedented scale…”

As standards of living and GDP per capita increases worldwide and millions of individuals are lifted out of poverty, the global demand for energy is expected to increase by as much as 40% over the next two decades. Given even the most ambitious outlook for alternatives, biomass, hydro, and nuclear, unconventional oil remains the integral component of non-OPEC supply. There would be no realistic manner to supplant unconventional production other than increasing the call-on OPEC crude.

In reality, the disaster has been averted.  Thankfully, enough people understand the inextricable link between North America’s oil (and gas) resources and economic growth and prosperity for all.

——

It’s the forced hilarity between James Cameron and Governor Schwarzenegger at the very end of the video that ultimately changed our minds about how we’ll vote on Prop. 23, that swung us over to the dark-side of over-regulation and middle-class job destruction.

How could anyone resist that Rat Packy ring-a-ding-ding rapport?

Over at NRO, however, Mark Krikorian wasn’t as awed as we were:

I don’t know anything about the substance of the issue, though my inclination would be to assume Cameron’s full of it. But what’s interesting is that Cameron is a foreigner, a Canadian citizen, who withdrew his application for U.S. citizenship after Bush won reelection in 2004. So what business does he have telling Americans how to vote on anything? Do Americans appear in Canadian political ads?

James Cameron, full of it?  Mark, please stop believing your lying eyes.