Posts Tagged ‘environment’

Three unanimous Supreme Court decisions against the government suggest that the administration has a faulty view of federal power.

As the world awaits the Supreme Court’s ruling on ObamaCare, there’s a larger story that the pundits are missing: the court’s rejection of the Obama administration’s increasingly extreme claims on behalf of unlimited federal power.

This term alone, the high court has ruled unanimously against the government on religious liberty, criminal procedure and property rights. When the administration can’t get even a single one of the liberal justices to agree with it in these unrelated areas of the law, that’s a sign there’s something wrong with its constitutional vision.

Let’s take these cases in order:

Rea more By ILYA SHAPIRO at Wall Street Journal

A few years old, but still funny if you’re not North Korean, from The People’s Cube

Justice may be blind, but who works overtime to make it deaf, dumb, and stupid?

Which would you imagine might attract more aggressive enforcement from the Justice Department: the theft of $1.2 billion from supposedly segregated customer brokerage funds, or lying about an alleged incident of whistling to attract the attention of a whale so that whale watchers could get a better peep? If you said the latter, then you appreciate the extent to which federal law enforcement priorities have run off the rails.

Read more by Bill Frezza at realclearmarkets.com

The supposed ‘consensus’ on man-made global warming is facing an inconvenient challenge after the release of new temperature data showing the planet has not warmed for the past 15 years.

The figures suggest that we could even be heading for a mini ice age to rival the 70-year temperature drop that saw frost fairs held on the Thames in the 17th Century.

Based on readings from more than 30,000 measuring stations, the data was issued last week without fanfare by the Met Office and the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit. It confirms that the rising trend in world temperatures ended in 1997.

Read more by David Rose at the Daily Mail

No Need to Panic About Global Warming

(WSJ) Editor’s Note: The following has been signed by the 16 scientists listed at the end of the article:

A candidate for public office in any contemporary democracy may have to consider what, if anything, to do about “global warming.” Candidates should understand that the oft-repeated claim that nearly all scientists demand that something dramatic be done to stop global warming is not true. In fact, a large and growing number of distinguished scientists and engineers do not agree that drastic actions on global warming are needed.

In September, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Ivar Giaever, a supporter of President Obama in the last election, publicly resigned from the American Physical Society (APS) with a letter that begins: “I did not renew [my membership] because I cannot live with the [APS policy] statement: ‘The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring. If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth’s physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now.’ In the APS it is OK to discuss whether the mass of the proton changes over time and how a multi-universe behaves, but the evidence of global warming is incontrovertible?”

In spite of a multidecade international campaign to enforce the message that increasing amounts of the “pollutant” carbon dioxide will destroy civilization, large numbers of scientists, many very prominent, share the opinions of Dr. Giaever. And the number of scientific “heretics” is growing with each passing year. The reason is a collection of stubborn scientific facts.

Read more at the Wall Street Journal

Asthma patients will need to switch to prescription-only alternatives by Dec. 31 as part of US efforts to protect environment

Asthma patients who rely on over-the-counter inhalers will need to switch to prescription-only alternatives as part of the federal government’s latest attempt to protect the Earth’s atmosphere.

The Food and Drug Administration said Thursday patients who use the epinephrine inhalers to treat mild asthma will need to switch by Dec. 31 to other types that do not contain chlorofluorocarbons, an aerosol substance once found in a variety of spray products.

The action is part of an agreement signed by the U.S. and other nations to stop using substances that deplete the ozone layer, a region in the atmosphere that helps block harmful ultraviolet rays from the Sun.

But the switch to a greener inhaler will cost consumers more. Epinephrine inhalers are available via online retailers for around $20, whereas the alternatives, which contain the drug albuterol, range from $30 to $60.

Read more by MATTHEW PERRONE at MSNBC

By State Sen. Frank Lassee

Two families that I represent have moved out of their homes because of the headaches, dizziness, mental fog, ear aches, agitation and lack of sleep that occurred when Industrial Wind Turbines (IWT) were built near their home last October. How would you feel if you couldn’t live in your home because of these symptoms? How would you feel paying two mortgages?

These people aren’t the only families that have moved because of health reasons. A family in Fond du Lac County abandoned their $300,000 remodeled farm house because their 16 year old daughter had intestinal lesions, and was hospitalized for it. The good news is it cleared up when they moved away. This family also reported their lamas stopped conceiving after the IWTs were built.

These new towers are nearly 500 ft. tall, nearly twice as tall as the State Capitol building. IWTs create vibrations and noise. There are studies coming from other countries that have had IWTs longer, suggesting some people have very real health problems.

If you want to know what it’s like to live near an IWT, watch a couple of minutes of this You Tube video taken near the Horicon Marsh. It’s one thing to talk about the problems; it is another to actually experience them – even via video. Because we aren’t building them in cities, more people from urban areas are content to have them in other people’s backyards.

The first thing you will notice on the video is the noise. They make a lot of it. One man compared it to the sound of a jet plane with a whirl to it. I was told by someone who lives near them that they have fans in them that they can hear when the wind is not blowing and all is quiet.

There is a place for wind energy; it shouldn’t be too close to a person’s home. That’s why I introduced the “Health Study for Wind Turbines” bill earlier this week. It creates a moratorium on future wind turbines until we study these health effects further. It requires the Public Service Commission (PSC) to work with the Department of Health Services to make setback requirements that are appropriate in light of the possible health problems.

We need to learn more about the health impacts of IWTs on people and animals. We need to find out what is “too close” and what distance is acceptable. Right now, we don’t know.

In this country of ours, we should not be locating 50 stories industrial wind towers near people’s homes and farms until we know what can happen. It isn’t fair to the people who have lived for years in their homes. Our citizens should be protected. People should be secure and safe in their own homes.

Wind Turbine Shadow Flicker and Noise, Byron Wisconsin

At approximately 8:45 a.m. on August 24, federal agents raided Gibson Guitar Corporation facilities in Nashville and Memphis, making off with an estimated $1 million worth of Gibson property. Gibson’s alleged crime? Using imported wood from endangered trees. At least that’s what the company assumes the feds have in mind. Gibson hasn’t actually been notified of any charges against the company. In fact, according to a Gibson press release, they still haven’t been told on what charges “more than a dozen agents with automatic weapons” raided their factory and stole their property in November 2009. They’re being forced to sue in federal court to get their property back, and even there the government is stalling, having requested an indefinite stay of the case.

Read more by Michael Tennant at The New American

Special meeting to discuss ‘green helmets’ force to intervene in conflicts caused by rising seas levels and shrinking resources

by Suzanne Goldenberg, guardian.co.uk, 7/20/2011

A special meeting of the United Nations security council is due to consider whether to expand its mission to keep the peace in an era of climate change.

Small island states, which could disappear beneath rising seas, are pushing the security council to intervene to combat the threat to their existence.

There has been talk, meanwhile, of a new environmental peacekeeping force – green helmets – which could step into conflicts caused by shrinking resources.

Read more at http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jul/20/un-climate-change-peacekeeping