Some guys just don’t get it

Here’s a proposal to save the world from global warming for $250 million. Dumb, dumb, dumb. There’s no room in this plan for Wall Street to get rich trading carbon credits, African thieves to sweeten their Swiss bank accounts, Al Gore to win another prize (and get rich with his friends – see Wall Street, supra) or for a million busybodies to tell the rest of us what to do achieve heaven on earth. What an idiot!

Nathan Myhrvold is a former technology officer for Microsoft who has found his own company, Intellectual Ventures, which is involved in a number of technology development programs, including new forms of energy generation. Nathan Myhrvold also thinks that he has found a cheap and reliable way to solve global warming, which does not involve upending and perhaps destroying the world’s economy. The global warming solution proposed by Nathan

Myhvold involves  Nathan Myhrvold’s Anti Global Warming Scheme running a hose up to the stratosphere with balloons and using that hose to pump out enough sulfur particles to dim the sun’s heat just enough to counteract the effects of global warming. The estimated cost would be about two hundred and fifty million dollars.Nathan Myhrvold suggests that volcanoes and other natural processes already pump out sulfur into the stratosphere and that his scheme, if adopted, would increase that amount by only one percent. Nathan Myhrvold therefore thinks that there would not be any unintended consequences (like starting a new ice age.)

Al Gore and profiteering

Wall Street Journal suspects his motives!

In retrospect, a significant moment was the falling apart or debunking of two key attempts seemingly well-suited to clinch matters for a scientifically literate public. One, the famous hockey stick graph, which suggested the temperature rise of the past 100 years was unprecedentedly steep, was convincingly challenged. The other, a mining of the geological record to show past episodes of warming were sharply coupled with rising CO2 levels, fell victim to a closer look that revealed that past warmings had preceded rather than followed higher CO2 levels.

These episodes from a decade ago testified to one important thing: Even climate activists recognized a need for evidence from the real world. The endless invocation of computer models wasn’t cutting it. Yet today the same circles are more dependent than ever on predictions made by models, whose forecasts lie far enough in the future that those who rely on them to make policy prescriptions are in no danger of being held accountable for their reliability.

For a while the media could patch over the scientific shortfall by reporting evidence of warming as if it were evidence of what causes warming. Inconveniently, however, just as temperature-measuring has become more standardized and disciplined and less reliant on flaky records from the past (massaged to the Nth degree), the warming trend seems to have faded from the recent record.

We could go on. But from our first column on this subject, we have been convinced that the scientific questions are interesting and irrelevant, since it was never in the cards that Western societies (or Brazil or India or China) would sacrifice economic growth for the uncertain benefits of fighting climate change. Unable to do anything meaningful about climate change, policy would therefore default to satisfying the demand of organized interests for climate pork.

Isn’t that, however much he may be distracted by feelings of sincerity, exactly the economic function of Mr. Gore today?

Al Gore, carbon billionaire

Say it ain’t so: Al Gore profits as result of his global warming scaremongering.

Representative Marsha Blackburn, Republican of Tennessee, asserted at a hearing this year that Mr. Gore stood to benefit personally from the energy and climate policies he was urging Congress to adopt.

Mr. Gore says that he is simply putting his money where his mouth is.

In fact, Gore is putting our money where his business is. What a load.

How to learn from Al Gore and preach hypocricy

All as demonstrated by that NYT’s Green, Thomas Friedman. Here’s his house: Gosh.

The Thos. Friedman Estate

It’s obvious that Friedman didn’t buy this house on his New York Times salary but the source of funds: successful wife, nice inheritence, whatever, isn’t important. What strikes me is that the energy bill endorsed by Friedman and Gore will prevent anyone from living in an energy hog like this. Unless they’re friends of Friedman and Gore.

UPDATE: Mystery of the funds revealed: he married it.

Friedman’s wife, Ann, is a graduate of Stanford University and the London School of Economics.^[2] Her father, Matthew Bucksbaum, was the chairman of the board of General Growth Properties, a real estate development group.^[3] As of 2007, Forbes estimated the Bucksbaum family’s assets at $4.1 billion, including about 18.6 million square meters of mall space, but the firm’s value later plummeted.^[4][5] The family’s trust declined in value from $3.6 billion to $25 million.^[6] On April 16 2009, the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, after failing to reach a deal with its creditors. ^[7] The GGP collapse marked the largest real estate bankruptcy in U.S. history.^[8]

Ann and Thomas Friedman live in Bethesda, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, D.C. The July 2006 issue of Washingtonian reported that they own “a palatial 11,400-square-foot (1,060 m²) house, currently valued at $9.3 million, on a 7½-acre parcel just blocks from I-495 and Bethesda Country Club.” Friedman is paid $75,000 per speaking engagement.^[6]

Remember, children, only the Little People save energy!

If he stays there, he’ll help all of us

Al Gore may go to North Korea to help reporters.

Isn’t that Jesse jackson’s job?

Al Gore reads this blog!

No, he hasn’t dropped the price of his 9,000 sq.ft. Nashville mansion – in fact, as far as I know, it’s not up for sale – but he did leave his lights on during the “Celebrate Civilization” hour last Saturday. Whatta guy.