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Leonard Letter Articles
on the Environment
– 2004-2007
The media coverage of that once again assumed the greenhouse effect on global warming without even examining the data. Steve Frank calls the media “gullible” about science issues and refers skeptics to this site:
Here you can find documentation about the cyclical nature of global temperatures that should cause you to question the media’s assumption media’s assumption about a permanent temperature change. Why should you question this? First, consider the disasters that have resulted from previous environmental hysteria. Frank cites the banning of the pesticide DDT, in which the media ignored evidence that it was not carcinogenic, mutagenic or teratogenic. The absence of DDT lead to a malaria outbreak in Africa that killed millions. Their deaths were preventable, but our acceptance of junk science stood in the way of reason. Second, you are no doubt concerned about how much more of your hard-earned money is going toward gasoline these days. Did you know that last December the California Climate Action Team recommended a “public goods service change” (that’s just another way to say “tax”) on all oil products? Unless you do not mind paying even more for gasoline, go read about junk science.
The people of the Gulf Coast are strong, resilient, hard working, faithful and grateful. Those who have remained or returned are doing everything they can to rebuild their lives there, and they are helped by private organizations and faith-based groups. The municipal governments in the region are rebuilding, too, but they struggle with loss of residents and tax bases that have been destroyed. In one city hall hit hard by storm surge, tax records still lay on the floor, soaked through and molded over. There was so much destruction and there are now so many things to do that salvaging those most basic of government records has not made it to the top of the priority list yet. People often turn to government in times of need, but life post-Katrina teaches us that government is not magic. When disaster strikes, preparedness only goes so far. In the immediate aftermath and recovery of a disaster of this magnitude, people must rely on themselves, turn to extended family and welcome the help of organizations like Rotary, the Red Cross, churches and the generosity of private companies. If you are feeling generous this summer, send more help to the people of the Gulf; it is much needed still.
Take the catalytic converter that is now on every car. It successfully captures and neutralizes the poisonous elements of air pollution. How does it work? It works by using heat. The hotter the converter, the better is works. Now, according to the scare tactics of those against global warming we are all now to be against heat. We have come too far in our battle against air pollution to now even discuss removing these controls in the name of global warming.
In many ways, air quality and greenhouse gases are opposites. Today's environmentalists have forgotten this inconvenient fact. We have dramatically reduced man-made air pollution. Retreat is not an option.
http://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/report/R_207JLR.pdf
One of those solutions goes by the name Peripheral Canal. Although voted down in a 1982 referendum it remains the most scientifically viable way of preserving the environment of the Delta where the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers meet, as well as sharing northern California's surplus of fresh water with central and southern California. I was elected to the San Bernardino Valley Municipal Water District in 1974, which was, and is, a state water contractor. That is, the property owners of the San Bernardino valley pay property taxes that are part of the bond repayments that built the State Water Project.
To get up to speed on water issues I spent days in the District library reading about water law and water projects. One of the most interesting I read was the 1972 Environmental Impact Report on the Peripheral Canal project. It is a model for such reports. It lays out the environmental degradation of the do-nothing option and explains the trade offs if the canal is built -- both the benefits and the liabilities. It convinced me then, and my opinion has not changed, that the canal should be built, if for no other reason than to protect the delicate brackish water conditions of the Delta. Too much fresh water and too much salt water are dangers to this area. The levees built mostly by Chinese slave labor are too old and not maintained for the crucial water handling work that they are now required to do each year.
So the new study confirms what responsible environmentalists have known for 40 years. Mankind made the mess when they built the levees. Mankind has the solution to fix the mess. It should be the end of the discussion and the start of action. Hopefully this new report will light that fire for action.
It was fun to watch the Tour of California bicycle race speed by under my window on Capitol Mall. A colorful and quick passing of the racers was followed by several minutes of chase cars, passenger vans, cargo vans, ambulances, CHP patrol cars, city police, and many motorcycles plus 5 helicopters circling overhead. The racers themselves may be environmentally correct but their support teams are burning fossil fuels at a rapid rate.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=070404203258.5klhwqs4&show_article=1
[EXTREME SARCASM WARNING]: Clearly, something needs to
be done to mitigate Mars’ warming because environmentalists are certain that
warm is not good. As Al Gore and the mainstream media tell us, "The debate
on global warming is over." They assure us that there is no doubt that it
is caused by human activity and that human solutions are the key to
mitigating the problem.
The California Air Resources Board has for its entire existence been a single purpose agency. Its mandate is to make the air quality healthy. Some of their mandates have improved air quality and others have simply followed technological changes. But today the air in California is healthier than when the Board was created. I pushed for clean fuels and fought the oil companies on this and was an ally of the ARB at the time. However, now its single purpose has been diluted. AB 32, the anti-global warming bill, has been assigned to the ARB to implement. This creates an unresolvable conflict within the Board. A mandate to clean up the air, like more industrial catalytic converters, would necessarily release more heat and carbon dioxide gases which are not poisonous but which do contribute to global warming. How does the Board resolve this? Who gets the blame when it is not resolved?
For example, Seattle has one of the strictest mandatory recycling programs in the country. Residents of that city can actually be fined if they put recyclable materials in their regular garbage. But what apparently has not occurred to those folks is this mandatory program requires twice the number of polluting vehicles to pick up the extra materials than otherwise would be needed if recycling was voluntary.
Bozeman Montana-based Property and Environment Research Center has more to say about this and other “Eight Great Myths about Waste Disposal.” Myth #1 on the list is that we are running out of landfill area to put garbage. PERC answers:
“In fact, the United States today has more landfill capacity than ever before. In 2001, the nation's landfills could accommodate 18 years' worth of rubbish, an amount 25 percent greater than a decade before. To be sure, there are a few places where capacity has shrunk. But the uneven distribution of available landfill space is no more important than is the uneven distribution of auto manufacturing: Trash is an interstate business, with 47 states exporting the stuff and 45 importing it. Indeed, the total land area needed to hold all of America's garbage for the next century would be only about 10 miles square.”
Read the whole thing: http://www.perc.org/perc.php?id=224
My mom's house burned down when she was only seven years old. She has no photos, toys, or mementoes from before that fire. My niece's house burned in the 2003 disaster in San Bernardino. She and her husband escaped with their kids, their cars, their laptops, and the clothes on their back. Thank goodness. We “saved” some remodeled silverware and a crumbing tea cup, but everything else was gone, and I mean melted or combusted back to the molecular level. Much of their house and furnishings were unrecognizable. Their boat, including sections of the engine block, melted inside the garage.
Good fire insurance will give you the means to re-build if such a disaster strikes your home, so before Labor Day weekend arrives be sure to double check your fire insurance coverage. However, fire insurance will not bring back memories and fire insurance will not erase the horror of looking back and seeing your home consumed by fire. Certain homes do not catch fire as easily as others. Every fire department will advise you about defensible space, building techniques and property management that can minimize your risk. I urge you to take advantage of these resources before even more of California catches fire in the coming weeks and months.
There was another terrific article, this time by
Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore, in the Vancouver Sun last Wednesday.
Moore whacks his old organization and Leonardo DiCaprio
for bad science in their film, “The 11th Hour.” Moore points out
that if DiCaprio and other climate alarmists
were really serious about combating global warming they would not be
advocating leaving forests to their own, unmanaged end. Moore agrees with
the Hollywood crowd that trees are great carbon consumers, and are thus a
terrific weapon to combat whatever global warming is caused by carbon
dioxide. But Moore says DiCaprio’s call not to
cut trees is based on bad science. The reason is simple. Turns out that
the older and larger trees get, their capacity for taking carbon out of the
air decreases.
“Water Bonds” – October 15, 2007 My first elected office was as a Board Member of the
San Bernardino Valley Municipal Water District. What I learned as a director
then is still useful today. The State Water Project was not paid for by the
state of California. The bulk of the Project’s reservoirs, canals, and pumps
were paid for by the 29 local water districts like my SBVMWD. These
districts in turn passed along the costs to their constituents. Not every
Californian paid for the State Water Project, just the beneficiaries of the
new water. The political deal was that the Sacramento Valley would get flood
protection that would be paid for by others and in return they would permit
excess water to flow to central and Southern California as well as the Bay
Area. It was still controversial in 1960, but a majority of Californians
agreed that everybody has some benefit from the project and those who had
the most benefit paid the most money to build and operate it.
“Examples of Green Gangsters” – October 22, 2007 A few weeks ago I wrote about a new model for politics
in California and identified several groups that dominate the policy and
political arena at this time. I labeled one of those groups as the Green
Gangsters and explained that they are a small part of the environmental
community who advocate extreme actions and tactics and do not care about the
consequences of their beliefs. I said I was not talking about people who
believe in recycling or drive hybrids or even want me to use new
lightbulbs, but those people who, for example,
oppose new energy sources, without offering alternatives. I was criticized
for that description, as I knew I would be, by environmentally conscientious
people who just do not want to believe that about fellow environmentalists.
Yet, just this week I was reviewing some data about nuclear power and came
across these quotes that I find representative of the Green Gangster
mentality:
“A Good Read: Michaels’s Meltdown: The Predictable Distortion of Global Warming by Scientists, Politicians, and the Media” – November 6, 2007 The article in the Wall Street Journal this week that I quote at the beginning of this newsletter got me thinking about the need for a more rational conversation about the climate change issue. As the topic permeates even corporate advertising these days, it would do us well to understand how we came to this point in communicating about the topic when the science is anything but resolved. “Meltdown: The Predictable Distortion of Global Warming by Scientists, Politicians and the Media” by Patrick J. Michaels debunks the hysteria that is associated with the earth’s temperature, including that generated by politicians claiming that “climate change [is] a far worse threat than to the world than terrorism.” Michaels is a climatologist, which gives him great credibility on this topic, but what is most compelling about his work is how he links the distortions to the imperative of federal funding, as well as his observations about the piling on of the media. You will find this book to be very informative, as well as entertaining, true to the reviewers who have praised his wit.
“Taking on Mr. Gore’s Folly” – November 12, 2007 In last week’s issue I included a quote and book recommendation aimed at restoring facts to the discussion about global warming. If you do not have time to read a book on this topic, I encourage you to take a few minutes to read this essay, which presents the facts needed to combat Al Gore’s propaganda. You may find Mark M. Alexander’s “Global Warming: Fact, Fiction and Political Endgame” at this link:
Alexander explains clearly the distinctions between global warming trends and the greenhouse gas effect. He then walks through several bits of scientific fact that you most likely have not heard from the media or even many elected officials. My favorite example was the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Mauna Loa Observatory’s records of worldwide CO2 levels in the atmosphere. He notes that in 2002 and 2003, NOAA showed increases in atmospheric CO2 of 2.43 and 2.30 parts per million. That was a 55 percent increase over the prior annual average, but then in 2004 the measurement returned to 1.5 ppm per year. Alexander asks, “Did human industrial output somehow increase 55 percent during those two years, and then decline by that amount in 2004? Of course not. For the record, NOAA concluded that the fluctuation was caused by the natural processes that contribute and remove CO2 from the atmosphere.”
Yet, Mr. Gore and his fans choose to ignore such natural processes and demand draconian CO2 reduction efforts by you and me. Why? Alexander’s take on the political motivations are fascinating. For example, he writes, “Clearly, some U.S. politicians understand the implications of Gore's folly. Don't expect that to stop Democrats from milking every last drop of political capital from this debate. Talk of carbon credits and other nonsense is really all about campaign coffers -- holding out the threat of regulation as a means of financing campaigns and perpetuating office tenures.”
Take a look at the entire essay. It is not long, but it is packed with information you will find useful as you combat the irrationality that not characterizes even water cooler discussion about climate change.
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Copyright © Bill Leonard Officeholder Committee - Board of Equalization 2006 Committee ID No.1297464 2150 River Plaza Dr. #150 Sacramento, CA 95833-4131 Phone: (916) 441-1043 ext. 2 Fax (916) 441-1043 |