Paris

Paris Pullout and Panic, Georgia Nail-Biter, Griffin Plays the Victim

June 2, 2017 by GregC

Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America discuss President Trump making good on his promise to withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord and the liberal hysteria that followed. They’re also analyzing the very close run-off election between John Ossoff and Karen Handel in a normally red district in Georgia. And they express their disgust with Kathy Griffin as she plays the victim following the fierce bipartisan backlash in response to her photo stunt depicting her holding President Trump’s bloody head.

‘I’m Glad Trump Had the Fortitude to Stick It Out’

June 1, 2017 by GregC

President Trump officially withdrew the United States from the Paris Climate Accords, and one of the leading climate experts disputing the purported consensus on climate science is praising Trump for making the right decision for the American economy and for sound science.

“I’m glad that Trump had the fortitude to stick it out despite all the attempts to waylay him,” said Dr. Tim Ball, a retired climatologist at the University of Winnipeg and author of “The Deliberate Corruption of Climate Science.”

“He didn’t have to rely on the false science. He relied strictly on the economics of it, that it’s a very very bad deal for the United States. In fact, it’s deliberately designed to punish the United States,” said Ball.

Ball says the Paris Climate Accords were simply the latest incarnation of the old Kyoto Protocol from the 1990’s which sought to redistribute wealth from the industrial nations. He contends the Green Climate Fund, which is part of the Paris agreement, is latest effort in that regard.

Ball points out the non-binding nature of the agreement – which is the only way the deal could be struck – means most nations have not contributed what they’ve pledged to the Green Climate Fund.

Nonetheless, Trump’s decision to withdraw the U.S. from the non-binding deal resulted in howls of protest from critics, with environmental activist Tom Steyer claiming the action was treasonous and CNN’s Fareed Zakaria insisting the move means the U.S. is surrendering its role as leader of the free world.

Ball says none of the criticism is based in actual science.

“They use the environment and they use the climate as a vehicle for a political agenda. All they can do when you say I’m not going along with the political agenda is invoke that the sky is falling,” said Ball.

Ball says many of the political opponents of Trump are simply led to their position by perpetrators of bad science. He says Pope Francis is the perfect example.

“One of the most egregious ones was the pope. The pope got co-opted by (Hans Joachim) Schellnhuber at the Potsdam Institute in Germany. He was the key author for the pope’s encyclical against global warming,” said Ball.

He says the notion that humans can dictate radical changes to the earth’s climate are the height of arrogance.

“The reality is that the levels of energy involved and the amount of energy that humans put in are so miniscule that it is actually laughable to think that we can control the climate in any way,” said Ball.

Trump did say he was open to renegotiating the Paris agreement or forging new deals with other nations that would be more beneficial to the United States. Ball says those talks should be done only after Trump gets a better handle on genuine climate science.

“What I hope will happen is that this will now allow a focus more on the science that is purportedly behind the claims that CO2 is a problem,” said Ball, noting every United National climate change prediction has been badly incorrect.

“It’s got to be real science, proven science. Their science has failed. We know that because their forecasts have failed. If your forecasts are wrong, your science is wrong,” said Ball.

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Missile Test Success, Clapper’s Collusion Clarity, Climate Deal Confusion

May 31, 2017 by GregC

Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America cheer the successful test of a missile defense system targeting intercontinental ballistic missiles. They also appreciate former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper once again confirming that he saw no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. And they are excited by initial reports that President Trump plans to withdraw the US from the Paris climate agreement, but are confused after Trump himself suggests a decision has not yet been made.

‘Swamp’ Aligns Against Trump on Climate Treaty

May 19, 2017 by GregC

President Trump is running out of time to make good on his promise to withdraw the United States from the Paris agreement on climate policy obligations, and the delay is largely due to many different interests imploring him to back away from his campaign pledges.

As Trump embarks on an ambitious eight-day trip to the Middle East and Europe, the pressure is only growing on him to keep the U.S. committed to the Paris deal. However, Competitive Enterprise Institute Senior Fellow Christopher C. Horner, who served on Trump’s transition landing team at the Environmental Protection Agency, says all Trump needs to do is make good on his word.

“We have to go back to the campaign and remember that a decision was made and it was to get out,” said Horner. “He gave reasons why. He said this would give others control over our energy use, how much we could use the things that are reliable and affordable, as well as the massive wealth transfer. He made the decision.”

The Competitive Enterprise Institute released an advertisement last month urging Trump to stay true to those campaign promises.

What has changed? Horner says a lot of different interests are pushing him to accept the status quo.

“The brakes were put on it because different influences came into play. There were what I’ll call swamp considerations, which were not obviously considerations in the campaign. In fact, he ran against the swamp. Once he got here, those interests are considerable,” said Horner.

Horner says there is a long list of people and interests looking pressuring Trump to keep the U.S. in the agreement.

“(There are) tremendous business lobbies, tremendous resistance among (the government) holdovers. I could tell you blow by blow about a lot of these officials as well as some Trump appointees. But as you also know, some family members are feeling and exerting what we’ll call Manhattan social pressures to not have to defend keeping this promise,” said Horner.

Some businesses and industries are at the forefront of protesting climate-inspired restrictions, but Horner says much of big business is on board with the climate agenda for multiple reasons. He says a lot of big companies are eager for the federal subsidies that come with compliance with the Paris accords.

“The reason is simple. When you rob Peter to pay Paul, you’re guaranteed Paul’s enthusiastic support and sometimes it was Paul’s idea. So you’ve got this base of industry support, the ones who would benefit,” said Horner.

He says those same businesses also see more restrictive policies as an advantage against the competition.

“They love instituting policies that are barriers to entry to new participants or that smaller competitors can’t handle as well. Some businesses were publicly saying in news reports that, ‘We’ve planned for this so we need this to happen,'” said Horner.

Even among Trump’s top diplomats, there is deep division on the issue.

“The UN Ambassador Nikki Haley is reportedly very strong on this, even though, as I’ve said before, State will do what’s in the State Department’s interest and (withdrawing from the accords) makes Rex Tillerson’s life more difficult and not easier,” said Horner.

Horner also expects Trump’s time in Europe to be one long lobbying effort to keep the U.S. in the agreement.

“The Group of Seven, the leading economic nations who want – as a State Department cable that I found in litigation shows – they want us to share the pain, to relieve the burden of our competition of not having this agenda saddle our economy,” said Horner.

Published reports suggest multiple deadlines to make a decision on U.S. involvement in the accords have come and gone. He says that’s largely because Trump is trying to resist the tide aligned against his instincts.

“We’ve got it on pretty good authority what the president still thinks. He wants out and wonders aloud why he can’t just keep his promise. He’s surrounded by influencers saying, ‘You can’t do it for the following reasons.’ But some people are saying, ‘You have to (withdraw) for these reasons, the same reasons you said you would,” said Horner.

If Trump relents, Horner says President Obama’s promise that our electricity rates will “necessarily skyrocket” will come true and the cost of everything related to energy costs will also shoot up.

“The price will go up, leaving you with less disposable income and a less resilient lifestyle, less healthy because you’re less wealthy. There’ll be more hypothermia, more of seniors and the vulnerable dying from energy poverty. That’s what it’s going to mean for you,” said Horner.

Horner fears that if Trump was going to withdraw the U.S. from the agreement, he would have done so already. However, he is not giving up hope given Trump’s adamant campaign promises.

If Trump doesn’t make good on that vow, Horner says it will be a strong example of how difficult it is to reverse the tides in Washington.

“It means the swamp isn’t as easily defeated as a lot of people hoped,” said Horner. “This is really, so far, the ultimate test of his battle against the swamp.”

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Did Humans Cause Hurricane Matthew?

October 7, 2016 by GregC

President Obama hailed his unilateral ratification of the climate change accords this week and his allies went so far as to say the agreement goes a long way to stopping major storms like Hurricane Matthew, but a leading climate change expert says that’s nonsense.

On Wednesday, President Obama hailed the accords as the “best possible shot to save the one planet we’ve got.” NBC News White House reporter Ron Allen took the significance even further.

“It’s very interesting that this is happening on a day when there is a hurricane bearing down on the United States and in the Caribbean. Because these severe storms, beach erosion, intense weather episodes that we’ve had are perhaps the most practical example of what the president is talking about as the threat that the planet faces,” said Allen.

“This is what this whole climate agreement, signed by 190 nations and ratified by about 60 or so, is designed to stop,” continued Allen.

So is human activity in any way to blame for Hurricane Matthew?

“Absolutely not,” said Dr. Tim Ball, former professor of climatology at the University of Winnipeg. He is also the author of “The Deliberate Corruption of Climate Science” and “Human Caused Global Warming: The Biggest Deception in History.”

“By the way, Hurricane Matthew arrived off the coat of Florida on the four thousandth day of no recorded landfall hurricanes in the United States. This is why they had to hype it so much,” said Ball.

Ball says it’s not hard to refute the supposed scientific consensus on the impact of human activity on our climate. He says they’ve been wrong all along.

“If you look at the forecasts of the [United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] since 1990, every single one of them has been wrong,” said Ball. “The basics of science is that if your prediction or forecast is wrong, you’re science is wrong, But they’re not admitting that. They’re pushing ahead anyway.”

He says those trying to get the public on board with the climate agenda don’t even have the basics of climate science correct.

“From a science point of view, it’s an absolute disaster and completely unnecessary. CO2 is less than four percent of the total greenhouse gases and the human contribution of that is .04 percent. Yet they completely ignore water vapor, which is 95 percent of the greenhouse effect,” said Ball.

Ball also has a problem with some of the data presented about Matthew and other storms. He asserts that the experts consistently over-estimate the power of hurricanes.

“They determine the wind speed of the hurricane over water because they have no surface wind speed measurements. They determine it by flying an aircraft through at 30,000 feet. It gets a wind speed up there and then, using a computer model, it calculates the wind speed at the surface,” explained Ball.

“In every single case, that has been wrong. It happened with Katrina. They said it was a Category Five and it was actually barely a Category Three by the time it got ashore. The same thing is happening with Matthew,” said Ball.

Ball is also pouring cold water on the celebration of the climate accords. He says it’s not nearly the global consensus that Obama would have us believe.

“It is, of course, a non-binding treaty and that was demanded by countries like China and Russia, who said, ‘We’re not going to tie our hands with this.’ And of course China has gone ahead with building two coal-burning plants every five days. It’s just laughable,” said Ball.

He says the whole point of the Paris accords was not to line up commitments to reduce carbon emissions but to establish the Green Climate Fund, an idea that has been pursued by climate activists since the Kyoto Accords in the 1990s.

And what is the Green Climate Fund?

“The developed nations had to pay for their sins according to the amount of CO2 they were producing. Then the money was going to be given over to the developing nations because they were suffering from the sins of the developed nations,” said Ball. “It was just a great wealth transfer.”

Ball says it’s important to note that less than a third of the nations that signed the accords have actually ratified it. He also says the nations of the world are expected to contribute $100 billion to the fund every year, but so far it has less than five billion dollars.

In his Wednesday statement, Obama admitted the accords would not solve climate issues but would be a good start.

“The Paris agreement alone will not solve the climate crisis. Even if we meet every target embodied in the agreement, we’ll only get to part of where we need to go,” said Obama, while saying the deal would help to delay or avoid looming problems.

Ball fears the next steps will only involve more government or even United Nations demands on the American taxpayer. He also says many climate activists admit all this action won’t accomplish anything with respect to the climate, which was also the case with the highly trumpeted Kyoto Accords years ago.

“Even if [Kyoto] was implemented in its full form, even the scientists were saying it will not be a measurable difference. The Paris climate agreement is even worse,” he said.

“It’s a travesty from the start. It was the use of science for a political agenda and it’s properly collapsing around its ears,” said Ball.