THE TENSION: The Decline and Fall of Western Civ for 27 Apr.

The Decline and Fall of Western Civ.: Barbarians have Crashed the Gate

It's the end of the world as we know it...

We are asked to accept without question the notion that the United States, the most powerful nation on the planet, is overwhelmingly responsible for the coming apocalypse of climate change and therefore must bear the brunt of effort needed to combat global warming. However, the proponents of climate change theory usually hold to the notion that the United States, the most powerful nation on the planet, has lost a war and must abandon the effort because the country is not strong enough to combat terrorists and overwhelm those few who prey upon innocents in Iraq. I call it backwards logic.

Companies and individuals rushing to go green have been spending millions on “carbon credit” projects that yield few if any environmental benefits. Some are even calling sales of carbon credits fraudulent.

A Financial Times investigation has uncovered widespread failings in the new markets for greenhouse gases, suggesting some organisations are paying for emissions reductions that do not take place.

Some companies are benefiting by asking “green” consumers to pay them for cleaning up their own pollution. For instance, DuPont, the chemicals company, invites consumers to pay $4 to eliminate a tonne of carbon dioxide from its plant in Kentucky that produces a potent greenhouse gas called HFC-23. But the equipment required to reduce such gases is relatively cheap. DuPont refused to comment and declined to specify its earnings from the project, saying it was at too early a stage to discuss.

The current debate about global warming is "completely irrational," and people need to start taking a different approach, say two Ottawa scientists.

The Standard-Freeholder reports Carleton University science professor Tim Patterson said global warming will not bring about the downfall of life on the planet.

"I think the proof in the pudding, based on what (media and governments) are saying, (is) we're about three quarters of the way (to disaster) with the doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere," said Patterson. "The world should be heating up like crazy by now, and it's not. The temperatures match very closely with the solar cycles."
Patterson explained CO2 is not a pollutant, but an essential plant food.

Billions of taxpayers' dollars are spent to control the emissions of this benign gas, in the mistaken belief that they can stop climate change, he said.

Newsday.com reports a flock of small jets took flight from Washington Thursday, each carrying a Democratic presidential candidate to South Carolina for the first debate of the political season.

No one jet pooled, no one took commercial flights to save money, fuel or emissions.

The Senate approved a $124 billion Iraq war spending bill yesterday that would force troop withdrawals to begin as early as July 1. Reuters reports Iraqis are glad U.S. soldiers could soon depart but fearful of what they might leave behind, after the U.S. Congress approved a bill linking troop withdrawals to war funding.

"U.S. forces have to leave Iraq but not now," said Abu Ali, a 47-year-old trader from the southern city of Basra, on Friday.

"The Iraqi government and its security forces are unable to control security, especially in Baghdad and its neighborhoods."

Calling Sheryl Crow "a high profile proponent of the destruction of innocent lives," Reuters reports the Roman Catholic archbishop of St. Louis resigned as head of a children's medical charity that featured the singer for a benefit concert.

Archbishop Raymond Burke resigned as chairman of the Cardinal Glennon Children's Foundation after its board of governors refused to pull the plug on Crow's Saturday concert in St. Louis.

She is "well-known as an abortion activist" and proponent of stem cell research, he said in a statement on Wednesday, and her appearance is "an affront to the identity and mission of the medical center, dedicated as it is to the service of life and Christ's healing mission."

A man was held Wednesday on charges that he performed dental work on customers without a license in his "filthy" garage, authorities said. Roger Bean, 60, was arrested Tuesday and held on $6,000 bond, according to The Associated Press.

Chicago police Thursday released portions of an essay used to charge a Cary-Grove High School student with disorderly conduct, leaving several experts puzzled at an arrest based on such schoolwork.

The Chicago Sun-Times reports: Asked to write about whatever he wanted in a creative writing class, would-be Marine and honors student Allen Lee, 18, described a violent dream in which he shot people and then "had sex with the dead bodies."