Everywhere we look these days, it seems as though the “New Socialism” that lies at the heart of fuzzy climate science is unraveling.
And why not?
First, the so-called “science” behind climate change is falling apart, although just as importantly the politicians who are pimping this nonsense (like U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham) are being exposed as nothing but big government boondogglers hiding behind a politically-correct environmental veneer.
In fact, these left wingers (and their big government scams) are now being referred to as “watermelons” – green on the outside, pink on the inside.
The latest watermelon to get squashed? The “carbon emissions cap” being pushed in the Holy City of Charleston, S.C. by “Mayor Bailout” Joe Riley.
From the Charleston Post and Courier:
In Charleston’s own version of the climate talks going on this week in Copenhagen, City Council considered a sweeping but controversial plan to tackle the issues of sustainability and climate change, then decided to wait 60 days before voting on the plan.
The vote to defer action on the Charleston Green Plan came after an hour-long public hearing where those who said it would create jobs, reduce energy bills and help the planet squared off against climate change skeptics and those fearful of government regulation.
Among council members, several said they had not had enough time to review and consider the plan, while also struggling with the city’s 2010 budget.
“If we don’t accept the overwhelming, accumulated scientific data that greenhouse gases affect global warming, we need this Charleston Green Plan anyway,” Mayor Joe Riley said before the issued was deferred. “If we don’t develop sustainable practices, then our civilization — whether you believe the climate change data or not — is at stake.”
Sheesh.
Fortunately, Charleston City Council didn’t buy Riley’s “our civilization is at stake” nonsense – at least not immediately.
They will reconsider the issue in three months, which should give opponents of this local version of “Cap and Tax” an opportunity to mobilize more extensively against this proposal – and fully outline the impact it will have on local taxpayers and businesses.
Anyway, one of the leaders in the fight to postpone the initiative was Daniel Island, S.C. Tea Party leader Pat McBride, who helped organize constituents to make their voices heard on this issue.
McBride is one of several emerging Tea Party leaders around the state who is effectively rallying constituencies to have an impact on the political process.
Props to people like McBride, who are doing the job the S.C. Republican Party used to do … at least before it started caving on so many of its core principles.
UPDATE: To their credit (and to be fair), Charleston County Republicans have censured Graham for his left-leaning position on this very issue. Still, when it comes to actually mobilizing constituents to action, the Tea Party folks have clearly got a leg up on the GOP …
By Jed December 16, 2009 at 2:44 pm
I know all you folks in Cola and beyond would love to have the beach come closer to you, but those of us in the Lowcountry are a little concerned about sea levels. You think the BMWs, GEs, and Boeings bring a lot of money into the state — wait till you lose the tourist dollars from the coast when the coast moves upstate.
I find it hard to believe that people are really changing their position on climate change because a couple scientists were a little too attached to some minor conclusions and adjusted the data to match. That’s just a teeny-tiny part of the big picture, but it’s being used by the well-funded, pro-business, industry-at-any-cost crowd as a rebuke to the entire thing, which is ridiculous.
Science is a long and arduous process and it’s virtually guaranteed that what the smartest scientists in the world think will happen in 50 years will be wrong, but it’s about continuing to accumulate data and continue to narrow the projections, and all signs point to human-influenced global climate change being real and progressing. Unfortunately, there’s no way to prove it definitively until it actually happens, all we can do is prove that things in the past have happened, draw conclusions, and make projections.
Of course you can say the same thing about proving the existence of god, which I’m on the fence on, so I can understand the need for more proof.
Of course, outside of global warming, there are plenty of real, tangible, and financial reasons to limit emissions, stop building coal plants, develop more renewable energy, etc., which is what I think Joe is saying.
By kyle December 16, 2009 at 2:48 pm
Also you should thank Libertarian Colin Ross who is running against Wendell Gilliard who is slightly left of Lindsey Graham for SC House District 111 who has beating the drum on this for quite a while.
By peoplefromcharlestonwalkonwater? December 16, 2009 at 2:56 pm
Jed, I really don’t think we (Columbia) want the beach closer, we already have enough “I’m from Charleston and I was on water b****!” in Columbia the last thing we need is more here. The problem is that it will raise taxes on all of us, render the ability to create new business, and allow for more government oversight and regulations into our own lives. We (fishermen of SC) have already lost a huge fishing area because of the so-called “science” behind it. You sound more fit to be in DC spending our hard earned money.
By peoplefromcharlestonwalkonwater? December 16, 2009 at 2:57 pm
** edit *** walk on water… not was on water
By Not a Scientist, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn last night. December 16, 2009 at 3:46 pm
I like it when people say, “There is no way there is global warming. It is cold outside.”
We are not about a thirty degrees change, or even a ten degree change. We are talking about roughly a TWO degree change over the next ten years could radically change every low-land coastal area around the world.
Do a simple Google search of pictures of glaciers before and after. Many of are reseeding so fast that many countries are starting to worry about mass migration issues. Glaciers provide water for low lying areas. No glaciers = no water = mass migration. Some Americans are not freaking out about migrates from the south; just wait about migrates from all directions.
By Carl December 16, 2009 at 4:21 pm
God is spelled with a capital G.
By Chicken Little December 16, 2009 at 5:48 pm
The glaciers are melting, the polar bears are drowning, we’re all doomed, woe is us.
By PeeDee Herman December 16, 2009 at 5:53 pm
I’m 6 feet above sea level, 1/4 mile from the ocean, and I have yet to see one drowned polar bear wash up. Global Warming does not keep me awake at night, worrying about moonbat Cap & Tax economic suicide does.
By Billy Bob December 16, 2009 at 6:13 pm
When did survival of the human species become so GD political? When Rupert Murdoch, the pimp of the oil industry, poured his resources into brainwashing otherwise reasonably smart people that this was a scam. As long as people don’t know something, they’ll believe anything (thanks, Ben F). I have been a believer in global warming since 1990 and even started writing a book about it called 2020 Hindsight way back then.
Believe me, by 2020 there won’t be ANY doubters. It;s coming Sofa King much faster than even Al Gore thinks it is you all will be kicking yourselves in the arse in 10 years. I believe we are PAST the tipping point!!!!!
By political hack December 16, 2009 at 8:33 pm
Just let it be known that Joe Riley drives a hybrid, and for those who are worried about global warming and the rest of the fun shit going on you watch too much cnn. We are broke before global warming was going to consume us and make us all look like Jake Gyllenhall from Day After Tomorrow so I think that this is just mass media marketing for the government to make some cash before it is anything else. It makes more practical sense. Science is an institution that relies on grants, and when our busch league schools have been teaching nothing credible in terms of futuristic discoveries beneficial to mankind, they will find survivial by contracting to preach the gospel on some government program that promises to bring them millions or billions of dollars. All is well in the world of business. Follow the money anywhere and you will be surprised what you find out. Charleston doesn’t need any more tax about the environment or the rest of the bullshit, they just need more roads and a competent ports authority. Fortunately for Joe Riley and his machine, the CofC is well adept to producing enviornmentalist hippies within the ranks of that school, giving him a constitutency and a new batch of home grown suckers to buy into their political nonsense. All this is merely a distraction from the real problem, which is TRILLIONS of dollars of unnecessary spending…which people, or the college students who are dubbed to be the future of our society…
It doesn’t really matter what I write or what I bitch about, dumbasses will still vote for the demogouges who promise them utopia and everything else under the sun because they are ignorant adolescents raised under the statist banner of public school. All is lost, you are witnessing the decline of an empire from within, and the sad thing is that people are acceptable of that notion.
By OscarGoldman December 16, 2009 at 8:44 pm
His name is Mac McBride and is the State Executive Committeeman for the Berkeley County Republican Party
By No Way! December 16, 2009 at 9:00 pm
Jed,
You have been drinking the Obama Kool-Aid! Have you not heard that the data prior to about 1985 was destroyed. This trend is a really short one from the existing data available. Global warming is as much a hoax as Obama’s presidency!
By Jed December 17, 2009 at 3:16 am
Thanks “No Way” … no, I had not heard that all scientific data concerning weather, temperatures, ice caps, storm patterns, carbon emissions, ozone readings, etc. etc., etc., prior to 1985 was destroyed. I was wondering why I suddenly couldn’t recall hurricanes from my childhood, or why the weatherman keeps saying things like “hottest day since sometime before 1985″, or why my grandfathers almanac has all those missing pages. Thanks, that all makes sense now.
..and peoplefromcharlestonwalkonwater, I actually did a stint in DC spending your money (thanks, btw), but there’s a false economy to creating new unclean businesses that add to the problem — there are hundreds of thousands of brownfield sites around the country that are either unusable or are being cleaned up with billions of your tax dollars that are a direct result of that “business first, earth fifth or sixth” mentality.
Jobs and a clean environment are not mutually exclusive, and I can’t understand why so many people desperately want them to be. Is it just out of habit? or maybe that anything a Democrat says has to be wrong?
What South Carolina needs to do is not fight against the overwhelming evidence (as we are historically inclined to do) but to take advantage of the current momentum and be one of the states that is benefiting from the manufacturing and tangential jobs that green power and industry will be creating.
If it makes you feel better though, it takes a lot of cement to build an offshore wind farm, and cement is a leading contributor of mercury to the environment…. but maybe you fishermen aren’t concerned about mercury. Or maybe you’re still pissed that the state’s greenies turned back the proposed Santee Cooper coal plant that would have added all kinds of tasty mercury to our fishies. Mmmmm… brain damage….
By Ynot December 17, 2009 at 8:51 am
Copenhagen= One World Government.
Check out the data on sunspots.
They are DECREASING which does not equal warming… remember the ice age?
By Joseph Reynolds December 17, 2009 at 10:08 am
The real problem is that we have people moving to places like Daniel Island where they pay $3000 a year in taxes…from places where they paid $30,000 a year in taxes…
and now they want to only pay $300 a year in taxes…
But they want the services and quality of life they received when they paid $30,000.
By John Steinberger December 17, 2009 at 10:22 am
Tea Party and 912 members helped defeat 3 out of 4 Riley puppets in the Nov. City Council elections and flooded the tiny City Council chambers on Tues. It is a new day in Charleston and in America!
By Martha Washington December 20, 2009 at 12:13 am
This is the doing of the United Nations. See http://www.FreedomAdvocates.org. Also see http://www.AmericanPolicy.org and order the booklet (order 20) called :Sustainable Development” and it will all be clear.
Jim Meador is head of the Green Committee and belongs to an “acronym” which is heavily invested in Copenhagen.The UN is in charge of Copenhagen.
The Declaration of Human Rights is what we will be living under: herded from the country into the cities where the people are merely the worker bees.
Sustainable Development is being orchestrated through the Mayors. It’s all very clear if you just read up on it. This is the local level and they will steal property and water.