Save the Planet - Move to the South

From time to time, I have been accused of criticizing the idea of man-made (or anthropogenic) "global warming". Well sir, no more. I've read an article that has made me realize how much some of our brothers and sisters living in the Northeast are killing the planet for their lavish lifestyle. I'm fully on the global warming train, and I'm here to address a large factor in energy consumption in the United States.

As you may be aware, the more energy you use, the more the planet dies a little. As you can see from this chart below, one of the main sources of household energy consumption is space heating. (It's the sky-blue part of the bar at the bottom of each column.) Note how the energy used for heating in the Northeast is significantly higher than everything else. By comparison, heating is far and away more of an energy waster than air-conditioning in the South and the West.

So, if you live in the Northeast, you're really being a wasteful energy consumer. You're living in a cold place that you have to use a great deal of energy to heat, just so you can continue to live there without your little toesies getting frostbitten. I, as the new global warming sheriff am here to tell all y'all up North: It's time to move down to the South.

So if you want to help save the planet, move out of Vermont and get yourself to Alabama where people know how to live in harmony with Mother Gaia. Moving out of New England could be the purest form of environmental activism; your selfish, earth destroying choice of living in Massachusetts in killing us all. And as for Canada, Gaia’s message is clear: shut it down, now.

I guess that if you don't want to move, being a selfish person who cares only about living in Connecticut, we could come up with a cold-climate heat-waster surtax. As a citizen of the earth, I'm sure that you Yankees would be happy to pay it.

You do care about the earth, don't you?
[H/T Insty]

Elizabeth Warren and the Keystone Pipeline

One issue that I haven't heard much about has been the Keystone pipeline. As I understand it this is the deal:

Canada has a bunch of oil. They need to refine this oil. We have one of the world's largest refinery complexes in Houston, TX. Accordingly, a company in Canada would like to partner with some private companies in the USA and build a pipeline (with their own money) to get the oil from Canada to Houston. However, before they can build the pipeline, they need the US Government to agree to let them do this. Seems pretty straightforward to me.

However, the Democrats (in control of the White House and the Senate) are opposed to having the pipeline built. Their argument is that building this pipeline will be a climate-change disaster. Apparently, the benefit of the jobs created, the lowering of the price of oil, and the reduction of our reliance on imported oil from the Middle-East is not enough to offset the danger to Gaia that will result from building a pipeline through the mostly uninhabited great plains.

Even the Boston Herald is starting to see the sheer lunacy of the resistance to this project. They have a new article out criticizing Elizabeth Warren's opposition to this pipeline, who all the Democrats like to think of as "the smartest person in the room".

Here's my favorite part of the article, which perfectly sums up the current Democratic energy policy:

Instead, the Liz Warren left starts with “No war for oil,” then “No oil from Canada,” “No nukes,” “No coal” and then the inevitable, “Hey — wait! My iPad just died and there’s no electricity to charge it. Where’s my oil?!”

Remember: They’re the smart ones.

Just to review: The pipeline will cost zero government dollars; it's being built by private companies. It's the perfect kind of infrastructure we need right now. It will create jobs. It will lower the price of oil. It will reduce our dependence on oil from the middle-east. Oh, and if you think that not building the pipeline is going to thwart Canada from refining the oil - think again. So the oil is going to get refined one way or another. The only question is who do you want refining it: the USA or China?

On a final note: Everything still runs on fossil fuels, so until Elizabeth Warren invents a car that runs on oatmeal and will do 0-60 mph in 7 seconds and will drive for about 400 miles, we're going to still need oil. That's just a damn fact.

My reaction to the Democratic energy policy.

US Government Delays Approval of Pipeline from Canada

Voting "Present" because he's worried about upsetting the environmentalists. How can you support a party that constantly tells you: Your job [building this pipeline] is not as important as a minnow.

You remember that person who does all the MSNBC ads talking about how we don't do "big things" anymore? They are unavailable for comment.

[HT Ace]

Remember Those Endangered Polar Bears?

Remember this?

“This is a watershed decision in the way this country deals with climate change. The science of global warming and the impact to polar bears are so clear that not even the Bush administration can deny that polar bears are threatened with extinction because of global warming.” U.S. lists polar bear as "endangered"; 2006

Well, it turns out that the polar bears are actually doing quite well these days. We actually have 5 times as many polar bears as we did fifty years ago. I know, you're shocked. Want me to blow your mind even more? Ok....

The guy who wrote the "scientific study" that led the U.S. government to put the polar bears on the endangered list with one report and undertake policies costing millions of dollars...was a bird expert.

Drowning polar bears made no sense since polar bears are sturdy swimmers. But then considering Jeffrey Gleason is an avian biologist, perhaps the researchers did not know that...Jeffrey Gleason now faces a lie detector test to determine his integrity, the London newspaper reported.

Delicious. In any event, the polar bears are ok. [H/T Instapundit]

#OccupyColumbia

So, we've got about 75 people sleeping on the front lawn of the capital here in Columbia. Awesome. Why are they there? Are they upset about unemployment? Are they upset about our foreign policy? Or maybe it's one of those controversial social issues like abortion or gay marriage.

The protesters are part of demonstrations taking place across the country that criticize the influence of corporate money in politics, tax policies that favor the wealthy and policies that don’t show good stewardship of natural resources. -The State

 Well, isn't that special. Let's take these three issues in turn:

1. The influence of corporate money in politics. Corporations are groups of people working together to make money. They donate money to candidates who support their agenda. This has happened since the dawn of democracy. It's not a new phenomenon. Read your history books, kids. If you don't like it, you're not going to get very far by protesting the corporations. They should be protesting at Capitol Hill and at the White House.

It's like this. If you have a friend who drinks too much, you don't go protest the liquor store for selling him booze. You try to convince your friend not to drink too much. There's always going to be someone who will sell him alcohol. It's the same thing with money in politics. If you don't like it, hold the politicians accountable. They are the ones you vote for, not the donors. Finally, if you're really upset about the contributions of big Wall Street banks, guess who the #1 recipient of money from Goldman Sachs is? Also, if you don't like the bank bailouts, maybe you should join the TEA Party, bro.

2. Tax policies that favor the wealthy. Currently, our main federal tax system is based on your income. The more you earn, the higher your marginal rate. However, the tax code is full of deductions, loopholes, and exemptions that are the result of the government trying to encourage or discourage certain types of behavior. Example: The government wants people to own homes (for some reason) so they encourage it by making your mortgage interest deductible. Same with having kids, same with donating to charities, and so on and so on....If you don't like this system of taxation, what do you propose? Simply raising the marginal rates? That's not really going to change much since you'll still have the swiss cheese of the deductions and exemptions. If you really want to change the system, you need to make the tax code simple.

3. Policies that don't show good stewardship of natural resources. All three of these points are broad, but this point is really vague. I'm not sure what they're upset about. Are they upset that the internal combustion engine is the most efficient way to power a car? Are they upset that America is too large and spread out for efficient mass-transportation? Are they upset that the wind doesn't blow all the time, or that it's not sunny all the time, making wind and solar pie-in-the-sky ideas at this point? We have an EPA that seems more worried about CO2 levels than anything else. Also, what does Wall Street have to do with this? Doesn't the guy over at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue have a small role on what America does as far as natural resources are concerned? I think you're protesting the wrong people, bro.