Bummer: Unchecked Consumerism Driving Climate Doom

By William Teach December 27, 2022 – 3:34 pm

Say, who’s going to put a check on it? Will Corporate Knights’ (they’re pretty Woke) Jennifer Ellen Good tell us?

How unchecked consumerism helps drive climate change

As extreme weather events in Canada and around the world are linked to human-made climate change, there is one story that continues to be left out: the connection between climate change and the products we purchase.

Recent research shows that across a product’s life cycle — from raw material extraction through manufacturing, distribution, use and disposal — the total embedded carbon emissions are 6.3 times the product’s weight. Interestingly, it is the product’s supply chain, or what we do not see related to making and distributing products, that is especially carbon intensive.

In the context of human history, the changes to our relationship with the material world have happened in the blink of an eye. Our ancestors lived in direct connection with the land that physically and spiritually sustained them.

Only in very recent human history have so many of us lived our lives at such a great distance from that which sustains us. Today, unchecked consumerism is helping drive a changing climate that is very much affecting all people.

Lots of whining about buying too much for the holidays, and people should make an effort to buy less. Nag nag nag.

We must challenge stories that encourage fast and “cheap” consumption and demand the telling of — and share — stories that accurately link our copious consumption to the devastating effects of climate change. We must elect leaders who will do the hard work of transitioning away from an endless growth economy based on the excessive consumption of monetarily cheap but planet-expensive products. We must demand vital product information such as life cycle carbon footprints. And we must all commit to resisting the constant appeals to consume fast and cheap, by giving less stuff, more slowly and thoughtfully.

Who’s this we? And who’s going to enforce this? Oh, right, the elected leaders who will implement laws. Jennifer doesn’t want to quite come out and say that government must force this change. That could make a few climate cult disciples a bit nervous.

Read: Bummer: Unchecked Consumerism Driving Climate Doom »

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If All You See…

By William Teach December 27, 2022 – 1:00 pm

…is wood rotting from extreme weather, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Don Surber, with a post on looters doing the government’s work.

Read: If All You See… »

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COVID Cult Seems Rather Upset Over DeSantis’ Vaccine Probe

By William Teach December 27, 2022 – 10:30 am

The vaccine makers and all those who support the vaccines have nothing to hide, right? They should welcome an inquiry as to how well the vaccines work, right?

DeSantis’s request for COVID vaccine probe denounced by health experts

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s (R) petition for a grand jury investigation into COVID-19 vaccines, in which he decries the ongoing vaccine campaign as “propaganda” by the Biden administration, is drawing fierce criticism from health experts.

Physicians and public health experts say his request betrays decades of established procedure designed to ensure the safety and efficacy of the vaccines, and only serves to stoke further immunization fears.

DeSantis’s petition for a grand jury investigation was approved by the Florida Supreme Court on Thursday, clearing the way for what his office described as a probe into “wrongdoing committed against Floridians related to the COVID-19 vaccine.” (snip)

In his petition, DeSantis expressed suspicion over the COVID-19 vaccines’ ability to prevent transmission of the virus, as well as public statements made on the subject by officials like President Biden and outgoing chief White House medical adviser Anthony Fauci. As has been previously stated by physicians and researchers, no vaccine is 100 percent effective, but studies have consistently shown the coronavirus vaccines offer strong enough protection for recipients to prevent severe disease, hospitalization and death.

“It is impossible to imagine that so many influential individuals came to this view on their own. Rather, it is likely that individuals and companies with an incentive to do so created these perceptions for financial gain,” DeSantis suggested in his petition.

Rather than showing the data that proves that the Wuhan Flu vaccines are safe and protect people from getting COVID, the “experts” would rather demonize DeSantis and bloviate

Brian Castrucci, president and CEO of public health group the de Beaumont Foundation, said DeSantis “appears to be focused on creating fear around vaccines that have been shown to be safe and effective,” rather than protecting the lives of Floridians.

“These vaccines have been tested and scrutinized more than any other vaccine, and they continue to save lives. Vaccine safety is not a partisan issue and attempting to make it one puts lives at risk,” Castrucci added.

Um, the majority of people who are dying with COVID were vaccinated. How many people do you know who were vaxxed and caught COVID?

Joshua Sharfstein, vice dean for public health practice and community engagement at Johns Hopkins University and former principal deputy commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), said in a statement to The Hill that while there are legitimate avenues for evaluating vaccine recommendations, DeSantis’s investigation request was not an example of one.

“This is turning a matter of health and science into a political wedge issue, with the likely consequence that many people will be misled into placing themselves and their families at risk of serious illness and death,” Sharfstein said.

Right, because the vax Fascists didn’t use the vaccines as a political wedge issue, with all their mandates, firings, forced vaccinations, vaccine passports, and so forth.

Read: COVID Cult Seems Rather Upset Over DeSantis’ Vaccine Probe »

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Your Fault: Expect More Bomb Cyclones Due To Carbon Pollution

By William Teach December 27, 2022 – 8:23 am

We can solve this with a tax, you know. And remembering that this is what is known as “winter”

Expect more ‘bomb cyclones’, courtesy climate change

A severe winter storm or ‘bomb cyclone’ has seized large parts of the United States and Canada, enveloping them in snow and rain. Several video clips out of affected areas seem straight out of apocalyptic movies. Such events may become more common with global warming not being abated any time soon.

The bomb cyclone is a mid-latitude storm fuelled by the interaction of cold Arctic air and warm air over subtropical regions. The storm named Elliot has taken the lives of more than 30 people and affected around 250 million people across the US and Canada.

Elliot has caused record levels of snowfall, rainfall and winds in many regions, all across the United States, right from the border with Canada up to the border with Mexico, an expanse of more than 3,000 kilometres.

Heck, at this time it’s still snowing in the Buffalo and Watertown, NY areas.

The rapid intensification was caused by the interaction of the low-pressure system with the cold air from the Arctic. An undulating polar jet stream across the Arctic region brought the cold air so far south.

The undulation of the polar jet stream — a swift swirling band of winds that encircles the Earth — usually happens during winter months. The formation of a bomb cyclone is rather rare. But it happened in 2019 as well.

The Arctic region warms much faster than the rest of the world. This happens due to a positive feedback climate mechanism called the albedo effect, as ice is reflective and returns a large part of the sun’s rays back to the atmosphere.(snip)

As the Earth warms further due to human-emitted greenhouse gases, such events could become much more frequent in the near future — one of the many impacts of climate change.

So, extreme winter weather is created by *checks notes* heat trapping gases? Good grief.

Read: Your Fault: Expect More Bomb Cyclones Due To Carbon Pollution »

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State Democrats Are Super Excited To Criminalize “Election Misinformation”

By William Teach December 27, 2022 – 8:06 am

Now, just imagine this NY Times article was about Republicans passing legislation that makes sure that the person voting is who they say they are. How would that go? (Free at Yahoo News)

Democrats, Feeling New Strength, Plan to Go on Offense on Voting Rights

For the past two years, Democrats in battleground states have played defense against Republican efforts to curtail voting access and amplify doubts about the legitimacy of the nation’s elections.

Curtail = one person one vote. Might I remind the NY Times about the caterwauling from Democrats over 2000, 2004, and 2016?

Now it is Democrats, who retained all but one of the governor’s offices they hold and won control of state legislatures in Michigan and Minnesota, who are ready to go on offense in 2023. They are putting forward a long list of proposals that include creating automatic voter registration systems, preregistering teenagers to vote before they turn 18, returning the franchise to felons released from prison and criminalizing election misinformation.

Criminalizing? I’d like to read more about that. Surely the Times’ reporter will ask questions on that, right?

Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a fellow Democrat, said that while her office worked to carry out the election changes approved by voters, she would like to see sweeping new rules and penalties for disseminating and amplifying misinformation that interferes with voting — things such as flyers or mailers with the wrong dates for an election or deceptive language on petitions that are gathered for proposed ballot amendments.

“The greatest threats to our democracy right now continue to be the intentional spread of misinformation and the threats and harassment of election officials that emerge from those efforts,” Benson said. “We owe it to voters on all sides to ensure we are seeking accountability for anyone who would intentionally try to essentially block someone from voting through misinformation.”

Benson said she believed the measures she was seeking would withstand any challenges on First Amendment grounds.

So, if I make a joke about election day being on a Wednesday, that’s not just room for being permanently suspended from Twitter, but, being prosecuted for a crime? Deceptive language has always been a part of politicalspeak, including petitions, mailers, etc. You can bet that prosecutions will only go one way. And what else will they try and do? I doubt this survives lawsuits. But, this is what Democrats do: attempt to stifle Wrongthink, even criminalize it.

It’s a long piece, with all sorts of attempts by Democrats to make it easier to vote, some of which aren’t bad, such as

And in Oregon, the first state in recent years to institute a host of methods to expand voting access, including universal vote-by-mail, Tina Kotek, the governor-elect, said she would aim to enact limits on campaign contributions from people and corporations. Nike founder Phil Knight spent millions in an effort to defeat her.

I’m all for enacting monetary limits. I’d like to see donations from outside of the state blocked to virtually nothing. Why should other states have a say? And then there’s bad

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said at the recent governors’ gathering that she was considering backing automatic registration and making it easier for out-of-state students attending Michigan universities to register to vote. (Republicans in some states have sought to make it harder for out-of-state college students, who tend to lean Democratic, to vote, arguing that they should cast ballots in their home states.) (snip)

In Pennsylvania, Shapiro has rare powers to appoint the top election official, in contrast to most other states, where elections are run by other elected officials or appointed boards.

He pledged to pick someone “pro-democracy” and said he was optimistic that Republicans would agree to change the state’s law that forbids the processing of absentee ballots and early votes before Election Day.

Students should vote in the state where their license says they live. That used to be common sense. The Pa. law forbids vote by mail expect in very specific cases, even though Dem leaning judges have allowed it. Of course Democrats want to legalize it and expand it. It makes cheating easier, just like voter ID makes cheating harder.

Read: State Democrats Are Super Excited To Criminalize “Election Misinformation” »

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We Must Rethink Capitalism To Solve Climate Apocalypse

By William Teach December 26, 2022 – 3:00 pm

Most Warmists try and keep this on the down-low, as they do not want to let the average citizen know that one of the goals of the climate cult is for government to fully control the economy. It’s all part of the Modern Socialist agenda. Yet, the peasants never wonder “hey, is this going to mess up my own life?”

Letters to the Editor: Our wealth and consumption are killing the planet. We must rethink capitalism

To the editor: Times reporter Sammy Roth raises an important issue with respect to the role of capitalism in exacerbating the climate crisis.

Changing capitalism will require more time than our climate can afford, thus the profit motive will have to be, for the present, a driving force in any climate solution. However, in the long run our economic systems will have to change.

Having huge mansions and private jets as a measure of status is contradictory to having a sustainable future. The profit motive and economic expansion cannot continue to be the primary drivers of our society if we want to have lasting solutions to maintaining a livable Earth.

Pro-tip, bub: the rich folks will still have all their mansions and jets and yachts and such if you manage to create a government run economy (of course, the letter writer fails to say how he wants to change capitalism). You’ll be left with scraps. The government will tell you what you can buy and when you can buy it, and what line to wait in to buy it. If it doesn’t run out. See Venezuela and Soviet era Russia, among others. Think you’ll be allowed to stream all those videos and movies, travel around to take your selfies and upload them? Think your small business will be open? Only if you allow government to run it.

To the editor: The free market has run amok with greed.

While the full price of a product is being paid, the seller is not telling the buyer what the full price is.

You are not told by the seller of plastic bags that they will eventually choke off all life in the sea. The oil companies are not telling you that you may die of lung disease if you use their product. Elon Musk is not telling you that the lithium he sells in his electric vehicle batteries causes destruction of the environment.

And economists are not telling you that our economy is based on an ever growing population and how that growth is not possible on a finite planet.

So, it’s Elon’s fault? What about the US states that are mandating EVs? That Brandon is trying to push these? That governments are mandating EVs?

To the editor: Roth’s piece illustrates that environmentalism is cut from the same cloth as socialism and communism.

Environmentalism, socialism and communism are all strains of the same virus. The common denominators include hostility to private property, massive propaganda, coercion instead of freedom, austerity instead of prosperity, and vast shortages of the essentials and desirables of life.

Environmentalism is dominated by an elitist class that accuses the struggling productive class of living too well, and wants to cheat the productive class out of having nice things.

Spot on.

Read: We Must Rethink Capitalism To Solve Climate Apocalypse »

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If All You See…

By William Teach December 26, 2022 – 1:00 pm

…is horrible heat snow caused by ‘climate change’ amplification, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Bookworm Room, with a post on the importance of the Battle of Trenton, December 26, 1776.

It’s snow week! And, good grief, it’s still snowing in the Buffalo and Watertown, NY, areas.

Read: If All You See… »

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Unexpected: Nationwide Marijuana Glut Dropping Prices, Harming Businesses

By William Teach December 26, 2022 – 10:30 am

Who could have possibly seen this coming?

A national weed glut is causing prices to plummet and imperiling businesses

unintended consequencesMichigan has way too much weed.

The number of cannabis grow operations serving the state’s recreational market has almost doubled in the past year. The number of active marijuana plants now exceeds 1.2 million, roughly six times the volume seen in 2020.

By one estimate, Michigan has enough cultivation capacity to supply three times as much weed as the state’s consumers are buying — and that doesn’t include the huge illegal market that by all accounts commands a large share of sales.

Michigan is emblematic of what’s been happening across the country all year — and why the industry’s been in a funk even as legalization spreads: Ill-fated hopes that a Democratic-controlled Washington might loosen decades-old restrictions on the drug have given way to a market glut and plummeting prices that have put scores of businesses at risk of collapse.

In Colorado, prices have dropped by 51 percent over the last two years, according to BDSA, a cannabis analytics firm. The price of a pound of weed has plunged by 36 percent in Massachusetts and 46 percent in Missouri in just the last year, according to LeafLink, which tracks wholesale transactions.

The price drop is even more extreme in Michigan. Over the last two years, the price of weed in the recreational market has plummeted about 75 percent — from nearly $400 an ounce to less than $100.

Wait, how much? Now, I haven’t bought any in decades, but, even accounting for inflation, $400 an ounce sounds rather extreme. I could be wrong, like I said, it’s been a while. Anyhow, what did they think would happen when they just license a ton of people to grow, and there’s a whole bunch of “illegal” growers who skip the whole government regulated system and then sell it? Seriously, how many people did the government expect would be smoking it, having brownies, gummies, or whatever way? Again, I’m not against legalization. I’m not planning on having any, I don’t enjoy it anymore. But, they’re learning that the market does what the market does.

The slump is messy enough in Michigan that some industry officials are calling for a moratorium on cultivation licenses three years after the state launched a recreational market.

“With the glut of supply, and with so many licenses, it’s setting up businesses for failure,” said Beau Whitney, an economist who focuses on the cannabis industry, speaking of the Michigan market. “Nationally, very few people are making a profit in this industry.”

Those growing illegally are. It just goes to show that no one really thought about what would happen once it was made legal.

Companies face sky-high taxes because they’re treated like illegal narcotics traffickers. And the failure of a bipartisan effort in Congress this month to make it easier for marijuana businesses to access basic banking services means they’ll continue to face exorbitant rates to raise cash to run their operations. As Republicans retake the House, that dynamic is unlikely to change anytime soon.

Oops.

But by all accounts, the state (Michigan) has also struggled to crack down on the still-vibrant illicit market. Just 30 percent of cannabis sales came through licensed retail establishments — whether medical or recreational — in 2020, according to a study by Anderson Economic Group that was commissioned by the Michigan Cannabis Manufacturers Association. The rest of the transactions were either conducted through illicit channels or the state’s “caregiver” market that developed to serve medical patients prior to recreational legalization.

Heck, if it’s legal, why not grow your own for personal use? A little greenhouse would do the trick. And then you need to pay high taxes. Michigan’s system is vastly over-regulated, hence, illegal growers, and illegal importation from other states, will proliferate. Why pay $400 when you can get for a whole lot less? Law of supply and demand mixed with too much government.

Read: Unexpected: Nationwide Marijuana Glut Dropping Prices, Harming Businesses »

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There’s A Paradox Between Climate Apocalypse And Massive Snowstorms

By William Teach December 26, 2022 – 7:15 am

They’ll never let this go

Paradox between warming climate and intense snowstorms, say scientists

There is a complex, counterintuitive relationship between rising global temperatures and the likelihood of increasingly intense snowstorms across Canada.

Winters are becoming on average milder and warmer than they used to be, but there has also been a noted rise across the country in extreme weather events, such as intense snowstorms, said John Clague, a professor of geosciences at Simon Fraser University, in Burnaby, B.C.

People might think it illogical that parts of the country are seeing more snowstorms as the climate warms, he said. “What climate modelers are finding is that climate change involves more frequent extremes.”

“That means during summer, you can have extreme high temperatures, kind of life-threatening high temperatures, such as they’ve experienced in India and Pakistan in recent years. And you also can have, during winter, these extreme cold conditions.”

Yeah, yeah, polar vortex, blah blah blah. Does this mean that winters aren’t as snowy during cold periods? No matter what, the Cult of Climastrology will blame it on mankind’s release of greenhouse gases.

Feltmate said the symphony of winter storms from Vancouver to Toronto and the Maritimes can be attributed to climate change. He used a baseball analogy to illustrate the link between climate change and recent severe weather events — the heat dome, atmospheric rivers, post-tropical storm Fiona, and “mammoth” snowstorms.

“It’s a little bit like saying you have a baseball player who’s gone on steroids. And all of a sudden that baseball player starts to hit five times as many home runs,” Feltmate said.

“You can’t say that any single home run is due to the steroids. But if he or she is hitting five times as many home runs, then you can pretty much say cause and effect is going on between taking the steroids and hitting home runs. With climate change, we have extreme weather on steroids — and the steroids are here to stay.”

Read: There’s A Paradox Between Climate Apocalypse And Massive Snowstorms »

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Hot Take: The Electoral College Is A Threat To Democracy

By William Teach December 26, 2022 – 7:00 am

In Liberal World, everything that thwarts Democrats is A Threat To Democracy. Anything other than one party rule and dominant government is a threat to democracy

The Electoral College is hazardous to democracy, Raskin says

Rep. Jamie Raskin said Sunday the Electoral College “has become a danger” to American democracy.

Speaking on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” the Maryland Democrat said: “I think that the Electoral College now, which has given us five popular vote losers as president in our history — twice in this century alone — has become a danger.”

Raskin said it is about time that Americans elect presidents the same way they elect other public officials, through the popular vote.

“It was a danger on January 6th,” said Raskin, who served on the House select committee that investigated the Jan. 6 Capitol riots, “There are so many curving by-ways and nooks and crannies in the Electoral College that there are opportunities for a lot of strategic mischief.”

Good grief. Will Dems be whining about J6 decades from now, like the do Bush winning, or, as they say, stealing, the 2000 election?

The Electoral College was created by the Founding Fathers in the U.S. Constitution; the Electoral Count Act of 1887 has guided practical aspects of how it functions for well over a century. Proponents of the existing system argue that it gives individual states an important role in national elections.

Yes, the Framers did include it, so, apparently they are A Threat To Democracy, right? Except, as anyone who’s not a lunatic Democrat knows, we are not a democracy. The system was designed to stop large states from running roughshod over small states. They all have a say. But, Democrats think it’s unfair that they can lose per the rules of the game.

Raskin said the Electoral College is one aspect of the American system that has little appeal internationally.

“We spend hundreds of millions of dollars every year exporting American democracy to other countries,” he said to host Margaret Brennan, “and the one thing they never come back to us with is the idea that, oh, that Electoral College thing you have that’s so great. We think we’ll adopt that, too.”

Name one country of our size that was set up as our Constitution did, with 13 states…that’s another word for nation, because each of the former colonies had their own needs and wants and governance, and were supposed to run on their own, with the federal government only given certain duties, like raising a military and controlling the monetary system….joining together. It was a beautiful system established, and would work better if the 17th Amendment was repealed, which would have Senators represent the wishes of the state general assemblies, rather than special interests on the other side of the country.

The system is set up to make it very, very hard to do anything big, and getting rid of the electoral college would require a Constitutional convention. It won’t happen. And Democrats will keep whining.

Read: Hot Take: The Electoral College Is A Threat To Democracy »

Posted in Barking Moonbats, Constitution, Democrats | 22 Comments | Trackback URL
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