The Climate Cult Cannot Afford To Be Optimistic On Climate Emergency Doom Or Something

By William Teach July 6, 2021 – 3:00 pm

Other than being optimistic on enabling Government authoritarianism, are they optimistic on anything? Or, is it primarily doom and gloom?

Why the left cannot afford to be optimistic about climate change

Two reports released this month communicated in stark terms that whatever we may once have hoped about the future, even as recently as 18 months ago, it will not now live up to its promise. The Committee on Climate Change’s report on the accelerating impact of global heating laid out in exhaustive detail the range and extent of the threats to Britain’s economy and society from worsening climate change, already noting “billions in economic losses and thousands of heat-related deaths during events such as the 2018 heatwave”. It makes an urgent call to ramp up adaptation to the changing climate, and criticises the government for leaving adaptation “under-resourced, underfunded and often ignored”. (snip)

The environment we inhabit is changing more rapidly than humanity has experienced since the foundation of the first cities. Adaptation to those changes is becoming essential, and either that adaptation will be fair, building on principles of social and economic justice, or it will – by default – reproduce and exacerbate the worst features of capitalist society. The Covid pandemic, notoriously, has seen the super-rich become richer across the globe as millions have died. Socially just adaptation would start to address these vast inequalities.

So, capitalism bad. So are rich people. Except those rich people who pay homage to the Cult of Climastrology (and build vacation homes at the seashore)

But while a scheme like retrofitting homes seems win-win, much of what we need to do to adapt to climate change will involve changing how we live, and here there will be costs and trade-offs. Working from home, for example, is broadly popular with those who have the option to do it. But many jobs obviously can’t be performed remotely, and if our city centres are drained of office workers, the jobs needed to serve them will disappear. And with reports of companies attempting to expand workplace monitoring into their workers’ homes, there is an urgent need to put in place clear controls and regulations over the conditions of home-working, in the same way they apply in the workplace.

So, they just want you to stay home and work, like during COVID lockdown. Sure, that might cause problems for some other people’s jobs, but, it’s a small price to pay

These are all questions about adaptation, and Covid has made them unavoidable. But most versions of the Green New Deal proposed so far, including Labour’s in 2019, have severely underplayed the necessity of adaptation. More recently, calls for a Zero Covid strategy have tended to radically underestimate the immense costs of the kind of restrictions on society that, for example, strict border controls and regular lockdowns create, and minimise the extreme improbability of ever eliminating Covid globally. This is another version of avoiding the question of adaptation.

Who forces all this adaptation to the doomsday cult’s beliefs?

If the left tries to base itself on optimism, it will find it is grossly out of step with the times we live in. We can achieve near-miracles with science and technology: the spectacularly rapid introduction of highly effective Covid vaccines over the last year is evidence of that. But the social system we live in – global capitalism – means we cannot distribute the vaccine fairly and quickly worldwide, and so we are dooming ourselves to life with Covid as new variants emerge among unvaccinated populations.

Oh, please, these are miserable people who only think of the negative. That’s their world.

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If All You See…

By William Teach July 6, 2021 – 1:00 pm

…are horrible, evil, no good straws which are bad for climate, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is 357 Magnum, with a post on self defense in California.

Don’t forget to recycle and dispose of straws properly. You don’t have to be a Warmist to be environmentally responsible. Two different things.

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What’s Better Than $15 Minimum Wage? Voice Recognition Drive Thru’s

By William Teach July 6, 2021 – 10:30 am

We’ve seen workers replaced with self ordering screens. Companies are working on more and more automation to avoid paying workers in low skill positions more than the job is worth. Here’s a new one

A restaurant owner says raising wages to $15 would solve her labor shortage – but she’d have to hike menu prices. Instead, she’s turning to automated drive-thrus.

unintended consequencesA fast-food franchisee says she’s turning to automated drive-thrus to solve her labor shortage, rather than offering a $15 hourly wage to attract new staff.

Shana Gonzales, a Checkers franchisee who owns four restaurants in the Atlanta area, told The New York Times that she wanted to hire more workers, but that it wouldn’t be profitable. She said raising wages to $14 or $15 would allow her to fully staff her restaurants – but that she’d have to raise menu prices, which could deter customers.

Instead, she’s turning to automated technology, such as voice-recognition drive-thrus, to keep business booming, she said.

The US is suffering from a severe shortage of workers, and restaurants have been especially hard hit. The US Chamber of Commerce has called the shortage a “national economic emergency” and warned it could hold back the recovery from the pandemic.

A lot of low wage/low skill workers would rather stay on unemployment than get a job. We’re seeing them go back to work in the GOP states that have done away with paying out extra money from the COVID relief packages. The root cause, really, is demanding that they be paid too much. Overpay for the position, charge more for the menu, fewer customers, fewer profits, go out of business.

She turned to automation. In December, she started using technology from Valyant AI, a startup that makes voice-recognition systems for restaurants, to take orders at one of her drive-thru lanes. The technology takes orders, including noting modifications and suggesting add-ons, and feeds this directly to the kitchen and cashier.

Gonzales is planning to roll out Valyant’s technology at her three other restaurants, she said.

“We’ll look back and say why didn’t we do this sooner,” she told The Times.

And once again the Fight for $15 crowd is agitating to reduce the amount of jobs.

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“America’s leadership on climate change will define its global standing”

By William Teach July 6, 2021 – 8:07 am

You’d think that a retired Marine general would remember that America saved the world multiple time, from WWI to WWI to the Cold War, to providing protection for European and other nations, to spreading Freedom. But, no, Brigadier General Stephen Cheney, who has seemed to link himself to a hardcore leftist agenda and groups, has another idea

America’s leadership on climate change will define its global standing

As I celebrated this Fourth of July, I was grateful — grateful to spend time with my grandchildren, grateful to be moving on from an unprecedented year and a half of the pandemic, and grateful for normalcy. At the same time, our “new normal” will forever be changed. This year, more than any other time in recent history, showed us how vulnerable we are as a world to previously unknown threats.

In the military, we plan and plan again for contingencies. Weaknesses are unaccounted for vulnerabilities. In my time as the Commanding General of Parris Island, I worked with young Marines to prepare them for whatever the enemy threw at them. It was my job to protect our national security and protect our Marines by showing them the tools and tactics to prepare them for any scenario.

Looking ahead, we need to prepare ourselves for a different type of enemy. Natural disasters, forced migration, and regional instability all can be traced back to a single catalyst: climate change. Climate change acts as a threat multiplier, exacerbating ongoing conditions and spurring regional instability.

So, what, earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanoes are ‘climate change’? How about big snow storms and cold snaps? Hurricanes, tropical systems, and the equivalent in the Pacific Ocean have occurred well before anthropogenic climate change.

Studying climate change as a national security threat is not new. We at the American Security Project have dedicated the better part of a decade researching the nexus of climate change and national security. Climate change increasingly has acted as the impetus for conflicts throughout the world. The Syrian civil war in part stemmed from an ongoing drought that spurred poverty and food scarcity. Sporadic rainfall near the Lake Chad region in Africa led to regional instability that became the breeding ground for groups such as Boko Haram. Melting sea ice in the Arctic has led to increased tension over new maritime routes and resource access. In the U.S., rising sea levels threaten the readiness of our military installations. Climate change is the greatest national security challenge we have faced.

Drought happens. It has caused lots of problems with many civilizations, well before the industrial revolution, fossil fuels, and “carbon pollution.” What caused that? The general was certainly around for the Soviet Union. That wasn’t a threat?

America’s leadership on climate change will define its global standing for years to come. We have made commitments to developing clean energy at home and financing clean energy in developing countries. Following through is imperative, as is encouraging our partners to follow through on their promises.

I haven’t made a commitment. Those were made by climate cultists in government. The same ones who refuse to modify their own behavior to accord with their beliefs. Let them lead in their own lives.

We do best when American business can lead by example. Congress rightly has recognized that competing with China requires investing in innovation, but that innovation must be just the start of a deliberate effort for the planet and U.S. national security. If we are to put this crisis behind us before another decade of Independence Days has passed, we must have American leadership, American investment and American ingenuity now.

In other words, more Big Government authoritarianism. Government dictating how citizens live. Funny it always comes down to that.

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CNN: It’s Just So Terrible That Republican States Aren’t Following Sleepy Joe’s Agenda

By William Teach July 6, 2021 – 7:50 am

It is terrible, because Democratic Party run states totally listened to Donald Trump and followed his agenda, right?

America’s partisan fireworks will be hard for anyone to put out

While July Fourth is the holiday that most directly celebrates Americans’ common heritage, this year it comes as their extreme divides underscore how difficult it has become for any president to set a unified direction for the country.

From vaccination rates to voting rights, from immigration policy to racial equity, blue and red states are hurtling in antithetical directions at staggering speed, even amid President Joe Biden’s persistent calls for greater national unity and his attempts to foster more bipartisan agreement in Washington. Across all of these issues, and more, Republican-controlled states are pursuing policies that amount to a wholesale effort to counter Biden’s direction at the national level — even as they look to block some of his key initiatives with lawsuits.

Seriously, where is Joe being bipartisan? The so-called bi-partisan infrastructure deal barely involved the White House, and, remember, Joe went off the reservation and yammered about forcing all the left wing garbage back into it immediately after a press conference with Republican and Democrat senators. Other than Joe’s apparent love of ice cream, what is he pushing that is bipartisan? Is it the amnesty for illegals? Opening the borders? Destroying the military with sweeps for right wing “extremists”, allowing the gender confused, teaching critical race theory, focusing the mission on ‘climate change’, etc? Nominating left wing extremists for executive office positions? Insert your own

In some ways, the red state recoil from Biden’s agenda echoes the “resistance” that exploded in Democratic-controlled states to Donald Trump’s tumultuous presidency; in other ways, today’s actions in red states may constitute even greater evidence of the country pulling apart. Especially striking is that, as during last year’s lockdowns and mask mandates, the separation between red and blue America is occurring not only at the level of government policy, but also in individual behavior, with all studies showing Republicans are being vaccinated against the coronavirus at a much lower rate than Democrats.

See, blue states did this during Trump, but, it’s totally worse now. They don’t really say how, probably because it’s super mean to oppose Biden’s extremist agenda which he says is bipartisan. And, yeah, most Republican states avoided the authoritarianism of the COVID lockdowns.

Taken together, these centrifugal pressures call into question not only the ability of any president to unify the nation, but also his or her ability even to chart a common course for more than roughly half of the country — either red or blue America. This divergence, across a wide range of issues and personal choices, is rooted in the continuing political re-sorting that has divided the parties more sharply than ever along demographic and geographic lines and produced two political coalitions holding inimical views on the fundamental social and economic changes remaking America. And that destabilizing process shows no signs of slowing, much less reversing, even after Trump — who fomented division as a central component of his political strategy — has left the White House.

I distinctly remember CNN opposing everything Donald Trump. And George W. Bush. But, when Dementia Joe is in office (or Barack Obama), Republicans are suddenly supposed to follow the agenda.

“One of the most important reasons why Democrats and Republicans intensely dislike each other is that they intensely disagree on a wide range of issues including the size and scope of the welfare state, abortion, gay and transgender rights, race relations, climate change, gun control and immigration,” Abramowitz writes. “As long as the parties remain on the opposite sides of almost all of the major issues facing the country, feelings of mistrust and animosity are unlikely to diminish even if Donald Trump ceases to play a major role in the political process.”

Well, yeah. Let’s also not forget that a good chunk of Democrats loathe the United States and all her symbols. They want to change everything about the nation, rather than simply leaving. How is there possible agreement? Skipping to the end

The Declaration of Independence that Americans celebrated over the weekend begins with the confident assertion that it is “The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America.” Today, it is unclear what set of principles, if any, America’s fractious 50 states might agree on across the widening red-blue divide.

Not to get all Political Theory, but, there was a reason why the federal government was simply supposed to be a unifying government on very, very specific issues, like national defense, immigration, monetary policy, and cross border economics: every state was different, every state had different concerns, and every state was pretty much the size of the old European nations, each of which had their own concerns. It’s why there is a 10th Amendment. Why senators were appointed by state general assemblies, to specifically do the business of the states, not the people nor the national parties. The notion of a national split is moving from a conspiracy theory to reality.

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Climate Cult Thinks “Communities Of Color” Cannot Survive Without A Helping Hand

By William Teach July 5, 2021 – 3:00 pm

This sure seems a bit racist to me

Communities of color are the ‘first and worst’ hurt by climate change; urgent action needed to change course

climate change joke

Last week’s heat wave was a miserable, deadly, wake-up call.

While the details continue to emerge and the human cost is still being tallied, we know that hundreds of people lost their lives in the Northwest during the heat wave, one that climate scientists say is a manifestation of climate change. In Oregon alone, the early count of heat deaths — which are likely to rise — exceeded the total from the last 20 years combined.

We all felt the impacts of the scorching heat, but it was not felt equally.

According to research published in Nature Communications, people of color are disproportionately exposed to urban heat. Landlocked areas with high amounts of concrete and low numbers of trees and shade are known as “heat islands.” The researchers found that in nearly all urban areas, the average person of color — regardless of income — lived in an area with higher heat island intensity.

Local research on the same phenomenon done by the city of Seattle and King County found that the differences between the hottest and coolest parts of comparable Seattle areas measured at the same time can differ by up to a shocking 23 degrees, due to disparities such as tree canopy and location of industrial areas.

Unsurprisingly, the areas with the hottest heat islands are also the areas where people of color are concentrated. They also correlate to areas with the highest environmental health disparities as well. My Rainier Beach neighborhood, for example, has the highest possible health disparity score of 10.

It is simply great that climate cultists always think that “communities of color”, meaning blacks, primarily, are always in more dire circumstances than anyone else, and need Government to fix everything. Of course, these CoC always seem to be stuck in crummy parts of Democratic Party run cities, like Seattle. And the solution is always the same government that stuck these people in these supposedly bad situations.

The interesting part here is that what is being discussed is not “global warming/climate change’, but the Urban Heat Island effect (UHI), whereby areas will be artificially hotter than others. Get outside Seattle into the suburbs and rural areas and the temperatures will go way down. Get into the crap parts of town and the temperature skyrockets. UHI.

Many of these disparities can be traced back to the legacy of housing segregation, neighborhood redlining and environmental racism, such as placing polluting businesses in communities of color. One study found that formerly redlined neighborhoods in nearly every city were hotter than those that were not redlined, according to NPR. Consequently, Scientific American reported that extreme heat and air pollution are a leading cause of death for communities of color.

Which Party was doing this? Which Party runs these cities?

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If All You See…

By William Teach July 5, 2021 – 1:00 pm

…is an evil fossil fueled vehicle, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Weasel Zippers, with a post on who that armed standoff in Mass. was with.

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Say, Can Unhinged Pro-Crime Progressive Prosecutors Survive The Crime Wave They Helped Create?

By William Teach July 5, 2021 – 10:30 am

Usually, we just hear about things happening when it comes to crime. Rarely are faces put to it

Can progressive prosecutors survive America’s crime wave?

Two months after Sheria Musyoka was killed in San Francisco, his family buried him in the Kenyan village where he had been born and raised. Musyoka’s sisters “wept uncontrollably” during the ceremony, a local outlet reported. Some “fainted as they eulogised their brother.”

The 26-year-old Musyoka had come to the United States to study at Dartmouth College. After graduating at the very top of his class, he married an American woman and settled with her in Connecticut. In late 2020, after a year of pandemic lockdowns, they decided to move across the country, to San Francisco. They had a 3-year-old son named Theo.

On the morning of Feb. 4, 2021, Musyoka was jogging near San Francisco State University when a stolen 2003 Ford Explorer flew through a red light at Lake Merced Boulevard and Higuera Avenue, crashing into seven other cars. The crash killed Musyoka and injured three other people.

The Explorer had been stolen in San Jose by a man named Jerry Lyons, who had proceeded to drive north to San Francisco, where he lived.

Lyons had only recently left prison, only to fall back into the same patterns that had seen him cycle through the criminal justice system for years. In October 2020, he was arrested for allegedly stealing a car and possessing methamphetamine, but San Francisco’s district attorney, Chesa Boudin, decided not to bring new charges against him, even though Lyons was in violation of his supervised release from prison.

Lyons was arrested again in December for drunken driving, again in a stolen car. He spent the better part of that month in jail, but Boudin’s prosecutors — many of whom were, like him, former public defenders — did not move quickly to press new charges, effectively letting the case languish. Lyons was thus set free. The next time he would come to Boudin’s attention, it would be for killing Musyoka.

That puts a face to the pro-crime policies of people like Boudin. You hear about the massive wave of shoplifting due to declaring that theft under $1000 won’t be prosecuted, you see the stories about Walgreen’s and Target stores closing in San Francisco. You see the videos. What you don’t usually hear about are the people affected directly. Those who are robbed and the police go “meh” because they know the perps won’t be prosecuted. Those who close their businesses because of the crime.

Across the country, more and more prosecutors had run or were running on near-identical platforms. They were anti-prosecutors, in a way, steeped in social justice interpretations of policies like Rockefeller drug laws and stop-and-frisk. They saw traditional prosecutors as enablers and abettors of aggressive policing, which in turn they saw as enforcing systemic racism. The new prosecutors vowed to redress these injustices by serving in the very offices that had perpetuated some of them.

Those promises are increasingly imperiled by rising crime rates across the country, including in every major city. Boudin is facing two separate recalls, which on some days has him sounding like the very type of law-and-order prosecutor he promised he was never going to become.

But, really, don’t feel bad for a goodly chunk of the people affected, because they voted for this with their progressive beliefs. Progressives usually believe the Bad Things will affect Someone Else. They rarely stop to think what the policies will do in their own lives. And now that they’re seeing the results of their policies, they want to recall the folks doing what they were elected to do.

Philadelphia’s Larry Krasner, probably the nation’s most prominent progressive prosecutor, spent the spring fighting off a primary challenger. His rival was supported by the city’s Democratic establishment, which had refused to endorse Krasner, the incumbent. Speaking a few days before that election, Krasner told me the backlash was nothing more than “Trumpian bullshit.”

He went further, saying that far from being embattled, the progressive prosecutorial movement was just beginning, supported by a society that has become increasingly aware of racial inequalities. “You can see it in the music. You can see it in the movies,” Krasner said. “You can see it in the books. You can see it in popular culture. You can see it in the marches and the discussions that are going on. So there’s a tremendous cultural shift happening here, which is essential for any successful grassroots movement.”

Yeah, scroll through the First Street Journal, which provides plenty of Krasner’s results. Such as these ones. But, hey, the people of Philly re-elected Krasner, so, let them deal with the consequences of their votes.

It’s a very long article. Have at it.

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Hotcoldwetdry Take: Buildings Were Constructed For A Different Climate

By William Teach July 5, 2021 – 7:15 am

And this means Doom is coming

Most buildings were designed for an earlier climate – here’s what will happen as global warming accelerates

Climate change will affect every aspect of our lives – including the buildings we live and work in. Most people in the US, for example, spend about 90% of their time indoors. Climate change is fundamentally altering the environmental conditions in which these buildings are designed to function.

Architects and engineers design buildings and other structures, like bridges, to operate within the parameters of the local climate. They’re built using materials and following design standards that can withstand the range of temperatures, rainfall, snow and wind that are expected, plus any geological issues such as earthquakes, subsidence and ground water levels.

When any of those parameters are exceeded, chances are some aspect of the building will fail. If there are high winds, some roof tiles may be ripped off. If, after days of heavy rain, the water table rises, the basement might flood. This is normal, and these problems cannot be designed out entirely. After the event has passed, the damage can be repaired and additional measures can reduce the risk of it happening again.

But climate change will breed conditions where these parameters are exceeded more often and to a far greater degree. Some changes, like higher average air temperatures and humidity, will become permanent. What were previously considered once in a century floods may become a regular occurrence.

After many paragraphs of Doom, we see what this is all about (I bet you already guessed)

The tragic recent collapse of an apartment building in Miami in the US may be an early warning of this process gaining speed. While the exact cause of the collapse is still being investigated, some are suggesting it might be linked to climate change.

Suggesting is now science. You knew the Cult of Climastrology wasn’t going to give up on this narrative, even as more information comes to light showing improper construction and lax upkeep. But, see, it doesn’t matter if the Surfside building (someone explain to The Conversation that the building was not in Miami) collapse wasn’t climate change

Whether or not the link to climate change proves to be true, it is nevertheless a wake up call to the fragility of our buildings. It should also be seen as a clear demonstration of a critical point: wealth does not protect against the effects of climate change. Rich nations have the financial clout to adapt more rapidly and to mitigate these impacts, but they can’t stop them at the border. Climate change is indiscriminate. Buildings are vulnerable to these impacts no matter where in the world they are, and if anything, the modern buildings of developed countries have more things in them that can go wrong than simpler traditional structures.

Doom!

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Thank You President Trump: Sleepy Joe Says We’re Closer To Declaring Our Independence From COVID

By William Teach July 5, 2021 – 7:00 am

Thank you for spearheading Operation Warp Speed, President Donald Trump, which allows Dementia Joe to give a speech like this

‘A sacred day’: Biden’s July 4th party celebrates end of pandemic, recognize lives lost

Biden Brain SlugAs Americans gather to celebrate Independence Day across the country, President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden hosted their own party on the South Lawn of the White House.

“Today, we celebrate America. Our freedom, our liberty, our independence. The Fourth of July is a sacred day in our country. A day of history, of hope, remembrance and resolve, of promise and possibilities,” Biden said in remarks ahead of a fireworks display. (except at Mt. Rushmore, since Biden nixed them)

The president struck an optimistic tone, promising that the U.S. is “closer than ever to declaring our independence from a deadly virus” while cautioning that “COVID-19 has not been vanquished.”

He also highlighted several signs of a return to normalcy, including the reopening of schools, faster than expected economic recovery and resumption of many in-person activities.

Not sure about you, I declared my independence months ago. Joe’s economic recovery includes a spike in the cost of living. As for being sacred, perhaps Joe should talk to his progressive allies who used the day to poop all over America

Toure’ wrote “F*ck America”, and then it got worse. Marvel Comics has Captain America saying the American dream is a lie. Maxine Waters goes off on the Declaration of Independence, NPR calls it racist. The Nation says exceptionalism = racism. The Washington Post says the Statue Of Liberty a symbol of hypocrisy. Those are just a few of the hot takes, all of which forget that in a goodly chunk of countries that are not the USA they’d never be allowed to say and write stuff like this. Their freedom gives the the ability to be a-holes while sleeping under the very freedom the USA provides.

Biden further praised Americans for their individual roles in defeating the coronavirus, which he called “one of the most remarkable achievements in American history,” before urging people to get vaccinated and to see it as a patriotic act.

Thank you President Trump!

“The best defense against these variants is to get vaccinated. My fellow Americans, it’s the most patriotic thing you can do. So please, if you haven’t gotten vaccinated, do it now. For yourselves, for your loved ones, for your community,” he urged.

Oh, good grief, here we go with the patriotism thing. Sigh. From people who don’t seem to actually like America.

Read: Thank You President Trump: Sleepy Joe Says We’re Closer To Declaring Our Independence From COVID »

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