Tag: News

The film Not Evil Just Wrong is far too politically incorrect to be feted in Hollywood or the politicos. This is the last movie they want anybody seeing.

By Peter Foster, National Post
I rish filmmaker Phelim McAleer pulled a Michael Moore at the recent New York “eco-premiere” of the environmental disaster movie The Age of Stupid. The film suggests that flying is one of the worst things you can do to the planet, so Mr. McAleer, microphone in hand, started asking those coming down the recycled green carpet how they’d travelled to the Big Show. Gillian Anderson, of X-Files fame, pronounced, “you know sometimes, sometimes people have to fly to make a stand in order to get peoples’ attention for these issues.” The film’s director, Franny Armstrong, evaded the question and claimed that the film had only generated the emissions of four average Americans over a year. Mr. McAleer persisted and soon found himself hustled outside the green velvet rope, insisting “I only want to ask celebrities difficult questions.”

Some hope.

Mr. McAleer was trying to drum up a little publicity for his own, very different, film, Not Evil Just Wrong, which has its world premiere on October 18. Only it won’t be at the World Financial Center. It will take place in homes, on campuses, and at privately-organized screenings across North America. (You can be part of the event by ordering a package complete with DVD, poster, and swatch of red carpet from www.noteviljustwrong.com.)

Mr. McAleer and his wife Ann McElhinney — who also made Mine Your Own Business, a documentary that fingered anti-development radicals and “the dark side of environmentalism” — have inevitably not attracted the kind of attention lavished on The Age of Stupid, which features a lone archivist looking back from a devastated world in the year 2055 and wondering how we could have allowed it all to go so terribly, terribly wrong.

It is surely worth noting that those who claim that there is “consensus” on global warming science being “settled” seem to imagine that this gives them licence to then compete with each other in producing eco-porn that goes far beyond anything in the very worst scenarios peddled by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Shouldn’t warmists stick to the script before they roll the carbon credits?

Not Evil Just Wrong in fact has a field day with apocalyptic science, particularly that peddled by Al Gore and his pet boffins. NASA’s James Hansen almost convulses onscreen at the mention of Canadian independent researcher Stephen McIntyre, the man who broke the IPCC’s iconic “hockey stick” temperature graph, and continues to hold alarmists to the highest standards. Meanwhile another of Mr. Gore’s gurus provides a parallel to Mr. McAleer’s being escorted off Stupid’s green carpet. The Not Evil team went to Stanford University to interview climatologist Stephen Schneider. It was apparently inconceivable to Professor Schneider that anybody in the film community could be anything other than a full warmist, so imagine his surprise when Messrs. McAleer and McElhinney were impolite enough to point out that in the 1970s he had been one of the leading proponents of catastrophic global cooling! Clearly Professor Schneider didn’t want his image attached to any such inconvenient recollections, so Stanford University’s lawyers withdrew permission for any shots of either the good professor or the campus to be shown.

Not Evil Just Wrong is far too politically incorrect to be feted in Hollywood, or welcomed by political elites. This is the last movie that those squabbling down the road to Copenhagen want anybody seeing or thinking about. That’s why it needs maximum exposure on October 18.

What is truly frightening is the slavish adulation that film makers such as Ms. Armstrong receive. While claiming to be “indie” and low-budget, and grassroots “crowd-funded,” Ms. Armstrong has the vast clout of environmental organizations such as Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth behind her, as well as billionaire George Soros’s Moveon.org. The New York premiere was beamed to numerous locations around the world. In Nigeria, the Governor of Lagos was an attendee. In Amsterdam and Copenhagen, membes of the Dutch and Danish Royal Families turned out. The New York premiere was followed by a question and answer session featuring Kofi Annan, former secretary general of the United nations, and Mary Robinson, a former president of Ireland and past head of the UN’s Human Rights Commission.

Stupid meanwhile had already been screened for “the United Nations, Center of American Progress, EPA, The World Bank, the UK Parliament, the European Union, and the Scottish, Welsh, Swedish, Australian and Dutch parliaments.”

The film’s London premiere early this year was attended by a bevy of politicos, including the Labour government’s Environment Minister, Ed Miliband, who was promptly ambushed by the film’s star, Pete Postlethwaite, over new coal plants. Mr. Postlethwaite threatened to hand back his Order of the British Empire if they weren’t stopped! That must have sent a shudder through Buckingham Palace.

Being a bit of calculated masochist, Mr. Miliband then agreed to debate Ms. Armstrong, whereupon she used the occasion to launch a “10 by 10” campaign, to cut carbon emissions by 10% by the end of 2010. Soon not only Mr. Miliband but Prime Minister Gordon Brown and the entire cabinet had signed on, plus the shadow cabinet, along with a raft of major corporations, municipalities, soccer clubs and other publicity seekers.

Messrs McAleer and McElhinney meanwhile have received death threats, been described as “stinking, selfish, sociopathic fascists,” and received wishes that their children be born handicapped. That’s what you get for asking “difficult questions.”
Source

By Bob Ellis

Environmentalists like to paint a picture that tells us their interest in robbing us of our money and freedom is altruistic, while the motives of anyone opposing them is all greed and avarice. That has sold well over the years, but as the dominance of the “mainstream” media wanes, we are beginning to see the truth. We are see that environmentalists are like the pigs in George Orwell’s “Animal Farm;” while they want us to think they believe everyone is equal, they actually consider themselves “more equal” (and entitled to a bigger share of things) than everyone else. So it comes as no surprise that while average Americans are going to take a huge hit from the cap and trade global warming tax in the form of lost jobs, higher energy costs, and government mandates, some folks are going to make out like bandits on the deal. When people start talking about taking your hard-earned dollars from you along with your freedom in order to “protect the environment”, don’t buy it. They’re most likely looking not for altruistic fulfillment but for a cash crop, and they’re looking for it in your wallet. David Alan Coia at Human Events outlines some of the bandits who are going to end up with your money if the Senate passes this tax:

• Congressmen desperate for campaign cash – Shortly before cap and trade passed by a narrow margin in the House, four key Democrat PACs gave $130,000 to 41 wavering Democrat congressmen to secure their vote
• Congressmen desperate for taxpayer money with with to bribe the voters – Shortly before the vote in the House, earmarks totaling $5.45 billion went to the districts of four Democrat congressmen: Bobby Rush (D-IL), $1 billion; Alan Grayson (D-FL), $50 million; Mary Kaptur (D-OH), $3.5 billion; and Frank Kratovil (D-MD), $1 billion.
• Congressmen desperate to placate wealthy interests caught in the cross hairs of this fraudulent assault on the American way of life – Emission allowances were given away to threatened areas of industry to buy the votes of wavering congressmen

But here’s one that even a good socialist should get upset about:

Energy companies are among the Waxman-Markey legislation supporters, and the authors cite a story in Forbes magazine in which American Electric Power CEO Mike Morris says his company’s rates “could go up as much as 30% to 50%” as the company begins “to react in a costly cap-and-trade market or deploy carbon-capture and storage technology.” However, carbon law will not negatively affect AEP, he says. “Our business profile actually increases.” “John Rowe — CEO of Exelon, one of the nation’s largest electricity distributors — estimates that for every $10 increase in the price of cap-and-trade permits, Exelon’s annual revenues will increase $750 million,” the report says, adding that “electric utilities support Waxman-Markey, because they stand to make a fortune from it.” “Everyone acknowledges that the cost of Waxman-Markey will fall on citizens and small businesses, not on so-called ‘carbon polluters,’” many of whom, the report says, “can shift their production activities — and the corresponding jobs — to countries with less stringent environmental standards.”

Alas, while such evil profits for diabolical energy companies almost certainly give good socialists indigestion, there are bigger considerations that help them get over this momentary distaste: the expansion of government influence and greater wealth distribution through the sticky fingers of government. Now I have no problem with private companies making a profit. That’s what happens in a free market, and it’s a good thing. The free market is the best, most fair economic system ever devised, working the darker elements of human nature against one another to keep abuses to a relative minimum. Capitalism is a key component in America’s unparalleled success. What I do have a problem with is (a) government imposing a massive new tax that is (b) founded on a fraudulent and unscientific premise, and (c) will kick average Americans in the stomach through the costs that naturally get passed along to them, (d) cost jobs, (e) make our foreign trade deficit even worse, (f) steal our everyday freedoms, (g) and hurt our struggling energy infrastructure…while (h) propping up these congressional enemies of the Constitution and the American people. How about you? Do you have any problem with that? Source

By Dr. Stephen Murgatroyd

The United Nations is pulling out the “big guns” in an attempt to create a climate of urgency about climate change so that the meeting of over one hundred world leaders in Copenhagen some 75 days from now can produce an agreement to replace to failed Kyoto accord.

Nature, however, is not co-operating. Average global temperature is rising at 1.40C per century, not the 3.90C indicated by the IPPC models. We are in the seventh year of global cooling. Sea levels, despite messages to the contrary, are rising at normal rates – eight inches per century – much less than the IPPC models suggested. There has been no significant rise in sea levels over the last four years. Arctic sea ice, currently in its summer state, is more extensive in 2009 than it was in 2007 and 2008. Antarctic sea ice is at record high. Global sea ice shows relative stability over the last thirty years. While CO2 levels are rising, the rate of growth has slowed considerably – the IPPC suggested that CO2 levels would grow at around 468 parts per million (ppm) per century, when in fact the observed growth in CO2 is 204 ppm per century – less than half of the IPPC model suggestion.

Hurricane activity, which does not appear to be connected to CO2 emissions, is at the lowest level since satellite monitoring and observation began in 1979. In the Northern Hemisphere, hurricane activity is currently one of the quietest in a decade. Reefs off the Keppel Islands on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef have shown rapid recovery of coral dominance, despite repeated coral bleaching events that many ascribe to CO2-induced global warming. All in all, nature does not seem to be co-operating with Secretary General of the United Nations Ban Ki Moon and the climate change negotiators.

Neither is China. Despite high expectations that they would enter into a global agreement which involves a commitment to curb green house gas emission by an agreed targeted amount, China indicated that they see this issue as a national one, requiring balance between China’s need to continue rapid development and manage its environmental conditions. It will not be told what to do by the international community. Neither will India.

The United States is ambivalent. While President Barack Obama clearly sees climate change as a clear and present danger, legislatures are deeply divided about the appropriate response. The House of Representatives has approved a bill that provides for a cap and trade for carbon credits, the free allocation of a large number of carbon credits to polluting companies and regulation of vehicle emissions. The Senate, however, is delaying consideration of the issue and is not likely to pass any legislation before Copenhagen.

The current US proposals will not have any substantial impact on either carbon emissions in the US or on global temperature. They will, however, have an impact on the economy – higher energy prices, changes in transportation systems and in consumer behaviour. They may also help to stimulate the creation of green jobs, but at the expense of jobs in other sectors. What will certainly happen is that the emerging financial services (carbon trading, carbon offsets) and climate research will expand and grow. The carbon trading industry is currently worth $100 billion worldwide and research on climate change is a $7 billion industry worldwide.

Most committed are the member states of the European Union. Collectively, they have determined emissions targeted, new transportation standards and have been operating a cap and trade system for a number of years. They are also now considering the scale of technology transfer and financial aid to developing countries. They have also enacted, through EU regulation, constraints on consumer behaviour – making it illegal to sell certain kinds of light bulbs, creating incentives for smart energy purchases and smart grid technologies.

It will be a long meeting in Copenhagen and it looks unlikely that it will be able to conclude the kind of comprehensive agreement Ban Ki Moon is seeking – the fractures between the parties and the challenges of securing agreed targets are likely to be significant.

The G8 summit showed that this was the case with just eight nations – there will be over one hundred in Copenhagen.

Some climate change scientists are becoming concerned that the momentum for Copenhagen is already fading and that the possibility of agreement is looking more unlikely than it was at the beginning of the year. They are beginning to use science to argue the polemics of the case rather than just draw attention to the science – the lines between scientific inquiry and political action are becoming blurred.

It will be an interesting time between now and December, with the voices of concern already becoming shrill. What is needed are some calm, reflective and realistic minds focused on what is possible and the consequences of the possible actions for both the environment and the economy. They may well be in short supply and will almost certainly find themselves castigated for not being committed to environmentally-sound change or as “deniers” – but we need such objective analysts to provide support for the general public in their attempts to assess the work of their governments.

Source

By Greg Gutfeld So, at the opening of the U.N. climate change summit on Tuesday, a hundred or so world leaders (including our own President) were greeted by a thirteen year old girl from India, named Yugratna. Her name might seem complicated to western ears, but her message was simple: we’re just not doing enough to fight global warming. She added, “Please help: Qaddafi asked me to Applebee’s.”
Yugratna Anyway, here’s a key rule one must know about left-wing propaganda: that once they trot out the kids, you know you’re being fed a pile of crap the size of Al Gore’s houseboat. Using pubescent pawns is based on the successful belief that no one dare question children – because they’re smaller and weaker than adults – and for the most part, sincere. Also: they’re adorable and can make up damaging stories about you if you don’t submit to their fickle wishes. So you know if anyone at that meeting were to stand up to Yugratna, and say, “Hey kid, shouldn’t you be in school instead of trying to ruining our economy based on phony science,” you’d be stoned to death. With knives. Made of stone. Shaped like knives. So, dammit: God bless Czech President Vaclav Klaus. The world’s gutsiest leader went after the U.N. for this shameless BS, saying “It was sad and …frustrating. It’s a propagandistic exercise where 13-year-old girls from some far-away country perform a pre-rehearsed poem. It’s simply not dignified.” See, Klaus is a skeptic on global warming – and he’s no dope. He realizes, like a growing number of experts in the scientific community, that climate change is more likely naturally based – not the fault of evil humans. It’s too bad, however, that politicians, like our own Obama, would choose to listen to a teenage girl instead. Maybe if Klaus got pigtails, things would change. And if you disagree with me, then you’re probably a racist.Source