Peddling Fear

The climate change junk science peddlers have moved on from their claims that the polar bears will die off unless we act now. They're now claiming that humpback whales and other whale species could die off unless we act to stop climate change.

Jammie has the details of that.

That follows speculation that colony collapse disorder affecting honeybees was also the result of global warming and the latest craziness from the econuts who think that the salmonella poisoning from tomatoes was due to global warming. Here's a note to the budding environmentalists. Salmonella poisoning is due to a bacteria - salmonella, which is commonly found in feces. Global warming has no part in such contamination. Hygiene does.

Is there anything that cannot be attributed to global warming even though the actual science is razor thin on such endeavors?

Oh wait, there is one thing.

Al Gore has yet to reduce his carbon footprint. Even after claiming to make his home more eco-friendly, it draws more power this year than it did last year. Gore's press flacks say that Gore buys power from alternative green energy sources, as though the kilowatts don't count.

Sorry, but he's still using more than the average American. To be more precise, more than 232 average Americans per year.

In the past year, Gore’s home burned through 213,210 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity, enough to power 232 average American households for a month.

In February 2007, An Inconvenient Truth, a film based on a climate change speech developed by Gore, won an Academy Award for best documentary feature. The next day, the Tennessee Center for Policy Research uncovered that Gore’s Nashville home guzzled 20 times more electricity than the average American household.

After the Tennessee Center for Policy Research exposed Gore’s massive home energy use, the former Vice President scurried to make his home more energy-efficient. Despite adding solar panels, installing a geothermal system, replacing existing light bulbs with more efficient models, and overhauling the home’s windows and ductwork, Gore now consumes more electricity than before the “green” overhaul.

Since taking steps to make his home more environmentally-friendly last June, Gore devours an average of 17,768 kWh per month –1,638 kWh more energy per month than before the renovations – at a cost of $16,533. By comparison, the average American household consumes 11,040 kWh in an entire year, according to the Energy Information Administration.

When Gore gets his usage down to where the rest of us mere pikers on the American energy usage information superhighway, then we'll know just how serious Gore is about global warming (or has he now latched on to climate change as the term of art since the earth is now apparently no warmer today than it was in 1998?).

UPDATE:
Now some are trying to link destructive quakes to global warming? Completely different processes at work, and if there is any explanation for why quakes are deadlier, it may have to do with a larger human population in regions prone to quakes.

And yet, in that kernel of nonsense comes one fact that seems to go completely unremarked upon:

"Increase in the annual energy of earthquakes is the strongest symptom yet of planetary overheating.

"NASA measurements from space confirm that Earth as a whole absorbs at least 0.85 Megawatt per square kilometer more energy from the Sun than it is able to radiate back to space. This 'thermal imbalance' means that heat generated in the planetary interior cannot escape and that the planetary interior must overheat. Increase in seismic, tectonic and volcanic activities is an unavoidable consequence of the observed thermal imbalance of the planet," said Dr. Chalko.

If the sun changes its output by the slightest margins, the entire planet has a different energy reading.

UPDATE 6/20/2008:
CBS has pulled that earthquakes story without comment. Apparently, someone decided to look deeper and realized that Chalko is a glorified loon and the "science" is simply junk.