New Mexico’s Climate Follies by Peter Burrows 11/24/19 elburropete@gmail.com – silvercityburro.com

Ten months ago, Governor Lujan Grisham created a “Climate Change Task Force” to come up with proposals to reduce New Mexico’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.  The initial recommendations were released last week in a 28-page report you can find at www.climateaction.state.nm.us/

When I read the report, I quickly came to the conclusion that the whole thing was a huge waste of time. The authors simply hadn’t done their homework and their recommendations, if implemented, will be a disaster for New Mexico as well as a huge waste of money.  This is true even if adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere is as harmful as the climate alarmists claim.

Some of you are thinking, “Carbon dioxide IS the problem, Burro, you climate denier troglodyte, and New Mexico has a moral obligation to join the climate battle to save humanity!”

That’s just what New Mexico is poised to do, but before manning the ramparts, don’t you think it would be wise to survey the battlefield?  The task force report says that New Mexico produced about 66.7 million metric tons of greenhouse gas in 2018, a little over 1% of total U.S. GHG emissions.  Let’s repeat that: New Mexico produces ONE PERCENT of total U.S. GHG emissions.

On a global scale, 2018 GHG emissions were estimated at 37.1 billion metric tons, which puts New Mexico’s global contribution at about one-fifth of one percent.  Furthermore, the Energy Information Administration estimates that by 2040 global GHG emissions will grow 6 billion tons to about 43 billion tons. This means that even if New Mexico eliminated 100% of its GHG emissions by then, we will have reduced the total amount of ADDITIONAL GHG emissions by only about 1%.

That’ll save the world. Right. And at what cost? Ah, there’s the rub, Hamlet.  The task force doesn’t give any cost estimates! It talks about modernizing the grid, adding electricity storage, creating lots of electric vehicle recharging stations, encouraging public transit in cities (they never learn), monitoring methane emissions, passing cap-and-trade, imposing emission standards for cars and changing building codes, BUT THE REPORT NEVER MENTIONS WHAT ALL THIS IS GOING TO COST! 

I suspect they don’t care. They have a world to save, and if our electricity bills necessarily skyrocket, so be it.  That’s what President Obama said would happen, and now his prescient forecast is coming true, right here in The Land of Enchantment.

Proof that ideology trumps cost is the fact that the report never mentions adding nuclear power to the grid.  Nuclear power is the only way to reduce GHG emissions economically. Wind, solar, and storage can’t do it.  In fact, adding wind and solar to the electric grid has increased electricity costs all over the world, from Germany to California.  Those who claim otherwise haven’t looked at the evidence.

Similarly, the environmentalists who claim wind and/or solar are cheaper than coal or nuclear haven’t done the math.  Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, did the math many years ago and has long been critical of wind and solar, advocating for nuclear power instead.

A recent convert to Gates’ point of view is the environmentalist Michael Shellenberger. He says wind and solar aren’t going to save the environment, and in fact we must save the environment FROM wind and solar. Both Gates and Shellenberger can be found making their case on numerous You Tube videos.

On one, Shellenberger is joined by James Hansen, the NASA scientist who testified before Congress in 1988 on the dangers of adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Hansen is often called “The father of global warming,” and he gives the argument against wind and solar huge credibility.

Can Gates, Shellenberger, Hansen and a growing army of people who actually understand renewable energy save New Mexico from itself? I doubt it. The Climate Crisis agenda is not driven by facts, it’s driven by emotion.  To a certain extent, it is also driven by a desire to tear down an ‘evil’ economic and social system that has created so much earth-destroying prosperity and in the process an unacceptable amount of inequality, too.

That’s why our salvation may come at the unlikely hands of Michael Moore. The old social justice warrior has produced a new documentary, Planet of the Humans, in which he documents Shellenberger’s claim: wind and solar do more harm than good, and  — GASP! — some evil-dirty bastard capitalists are making a PROFIT on those solar panels and wind mills.

I hope Moore’s documentary sparks enough fact-based emotionalism to counter the push for wind and solar. Lord knows, FACTS ALONE won’t do the job.

Unless sanity prevails, New Mexico is about to embark on a feel-good crusade to lower GHG emissions that will wreck our economy, be hugely expensive and have no effect on global temperatures.  This will occur just as the false promise of renewable energy is starting to be recognized around the world.

Unfortunately, if New Mexico’ recent history is any indication, e.g. The Rail Runner and the Spaceport, sanity has no chance to prevail.

FYI You Tube videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1EB1zsxW0k   Note what Gates says 11:20 to 11:45. I think he means the “renewables are the answer crowd” is more of a block to effective CO2 reduction then folks like moi.

Here’s a short one, well worth the time. Shellenberger’s conclusion is noteworthy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-yALPEpV4w&t=17s

 

Humpty Dumpty was a Democrat, Part Three, by Peter Burrows 11/5/19 – elburropete@gmail.com – silvercityburro.com 

“When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.’ – ‘The question is,’ said Alice, whether you can make words mean so many different things.’ – ‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master, that’s all.”  (From ‘Alice Through the Looking Glass’ by Lewis Carroll.)

In part Two, I wrote about the Humpy Dumpty world of gender identity, a surreal world of so many genders that an old guy like myself is reminded of tennis great John McEnroe, who would look at the line judge and scream, “You can not be serious!”   

Five years ago, Facebook identified 58 different genders and somebody recently upped the number to 72.  Gee, 70 more than I thought there were. Shows how “unwoke” I am.  Furthermore, this nonsense is becoming a problem in the real world.    

I had no idea how big a problem until I read an article from the Connecticut Mirror: “Transgender sports polarizes women’s advocates,” by Kathleen Megan, 7/22/19. It was about the controversy surrounding the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference’s policy that allows high school boys to compete in girls’ athletic events.    

All the boys have to do is declare they are girls and they become transgenders, eligible to compete against real girls. (Tsk, tsk. How un-PC of me. KMA.) Adding to the surreal drama, one of the real girls, a high school junior who filed a complaint with the U.S. Dept. of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, thinks it is unfair that the athletic conference allows transgender girls who haven’t had hormone treatments to compete in girls’ sports.   

Pardon me, young lady, but there is no scientific proof that hormone treatments eliminate the physical advantage post-pubescent boys have over girls.  Reduce, maybe, but not eliminate.  The hormone argument is really quite silly. Do you think, for example, that women who want to be men, “transgender men,” could undergo hormone treatments and then be able to dominate in men’s shotput, weightlifting, or pole vault events, to name just a few? Of course not.   

Yet the NCAA and Olympic Committee try to pretend such domination won’t exist for men by requiring transgender women to receive hormone treatments for at least a year, and then be tested for testosterone levels, before they can compete at the college or international level against the ladies. Puts everybody on a level playing field, right?  Right.  

No matter, in Connecticut the boys can compete against the girls, sans hormones, with predictable results.  A transgender girl has been “smashing state records” and won the Hartford Courant’s girls’ indoor track and field “athlete of the year” award in 2019.  ‘She’, along with another transgender girl, also won the state’s sportswriters’ “courage award.”   

“Courage award?” Courage for what?  There should be a “Cowards’ Award” for all the fathers who stood by as their daughters were defeated by the make-believe girls.   As long as I’m passing out awards, the Hartford Courant and the Connecticut sportswriters can share the 2019 “Stupidest PC” award. They should be proud of that one. LOTS of competition.    

For example, in second place is the group of 16 Connecticut women’s rights/gender justice groups who signed a statement supporting “the full inclusion of transgender people in athletics.” That should incense every father with daughters, especially if their daughters are involved in sports. Have you ever seen a young lady cry because she came in second? I have, and my heart went out to her.  If she had come in second to a young man, my reaction would not have been sympathy, but OUTRAGE!        

The statement also said, “Transgender girls are girls and transgender women are women. They are not and should not be referred to as boys or men, biological or otherwise. We speak from experience when we say that nondiscrimination protections for transgender people, including women and girls who are transgender, advance women’s equality and well-being.”    

That utterly absurd Humpty Dumpty statement should outrage everybody, especially feminists.  Really ladies, how in Hell does getting your asses kicked in athletics by transgenders advance women’s equality?   

Having said that, I have no objection to transgenders competing against OTHER TRANSGENDERS, including separate competitions for those with hormone treatment and those without. That’s only fair.   

What isn’t fair is when special interest groups demand privileges that take away the rights of others. That’s the case with transgender girls in athletics, who take home the trophies that rightfully belong to the biological girls. This transgender PC bullshit will destroy women’s sports. I think the majority of feminists would agree with me, as well as the majority of transgender adults.  I know damn well you men with daughters agree.   

Finally, proof that Humpty was a Democrat came last June when the House of Representatives voted 243 to 183 to allow transgenders to serve openly in the military.  Only nine Republicans voted with the majority, and only one Democrat with the minority. (Colin Peterson, MN. Unsurprisingly, a 75 –year-old army vet.) Since 2016 the military has spent $8 million treating 1,100 service members diagnosed with gender dysphoria, including 161 sex change operations.  That’s with our money, folks.   

Even though I would have voted with the minority, I’m OK with transgenders serving at the invitation of the military, e.g. where special skills are needed.  For transgenders to serve at their discretion? Absolutely not. Military service is an obligation, not a right.  I would make the same argument for homosexuals.    

It’s time to stop this madness.  It’s time to tell Humpty who is ‘master’ and push him off the wall.  

 

Humpty Dumpty was a Democrat, Part Two, by Peter Burrows 11/3/19 – elburropete@gmail.com – silvercityburro.com 

“When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’  From ‘Alice Through the Looking Glass,’ by Lewis Carroll  

If a boy wants to be a girl and then declares he is a girl, does that make him a girl? Conversely, if a girl says she is henceforth a boy, does that make her a boy? 

Some of you are thinking, “Stupid questions! Burro is off his meds again.”   

If only. Those are questions being answered in the affirmative all too often today, and it’s time for the adults to put a stop to this Humpty Dumpty nonsense.  For those of you who are not yet “woke” to what I’m referring to, it’s the push to grant transgenders privileges that deny cisgenders their rights.  

O.K., what is a transgender and what is a cisgender?   

A transgender is a person who identifies with the opposite sex and wants to be the opposite sex.  This is not the same as being attracted to people of the same sex, which the dictionary defines as homosexuality. Sexual orientation is about who you’re attracted to, regardless of your sex.  

Cisgender is the antonym to transgender. A cisgender identifies with the gender they were born with. Both cisgenders and transgenders can be homosexuals.  Are you confused?  Me, too, and it gets worse. For example, a transgender man can get pregnant. You’re thinking, “A MAN can get pregnant?” Yup. You see, a “transgender man” is physically a woman and a “transgender woman” is physically a man.  

Political correctness requires that we address transgenders with the pronoun appropriate to whichever sex they are identifying with. Bruce Jenner, for example, now calls HERSELF Caitlyn Jenner.  I’m OK with that because it’s a harmless social courtesy, but prior to Jenner’s sex-change surgery, if Caitlyn had wanted to go to the ladies’ room with my daughter, HE would have been asked to wait outside.     

Ol’ Humpty is must be really yuking it up these days, and rather scornfully, too.  After all, those who worship at the altar of Political Correctness make such damn fools of themselves.  Why doesn’t society tell Humpty, “NO. A word does NOT mean what you choose it to mean. A boy is not a girl simply because he says he is. Truth is not subjective.” 

The whole thing reminds me of a story about Abraham Lincoln, probably apocryphal, but wonderfully appropriate.  Reputedly, someone asked Lincoln how many legs a dog would have if you called the tail a leg. He answered, “Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it a leg.” 

Today, Abe would be called a “transphobe,” which is the word the Left uses to intimidate anyone who opposes any part of the transgender agenda.  It goes on the same list as “homophobe” and “Islamophobe.”  

In part Three, we’ll look at what the transgender crowd is doing to athletics. Till then, you might enjoy Lucy and Linus, especially Linus:  

https://images.app.goo.gl/1kjqFpty6vsxpByC8