People for the West -Tucson
Newsletter, May, 2020
PO Box 86868, Tucson, AZ 85754-6868
pfw-tucson@cox.net
Real environmentalism can go hand in hand with natural resource production, private property rights, and access to public lands
Is the “cure” worse than the disease?
By Jonathan DuHamel
We are currently engaged in a fight against a disease and a fight with government edicts in response to the disease. Below are several articles which call for rethinking current policy of “social distancing” and closing down businesses. Is this constitutional?
The data is in — stop the panic and end the total isolation
by Dr. Scott W. Atlas, MD, is the David and Joan Traitel Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and the former chief of neuroradiology at Stanford University Medical Center.
Leaders must examine accumulated data to see what has actually happened, rather than keep emphasizing hypothetical projections; combine that empirical evidence with fundamental principles of biology established for decades; and then thoughtfully restore the country to function.
Five key facts are being ignored by those calling for continuing the near-total lockdown.
Fact 1: The overwhelming majority of people do not have any significant risk of dying from COVID-19.
Fact 2: Protecting older, at-risk people eliminates hospital overcrowding.
Fact 3: Vital population immunity is prevented by total isolation policies, prolonging the problem.
Fact 4: People are dying because other medical care is not getting done due to hypothetical projections.
Fact 5: We have a clearly defined population at risk who can be protected with targeted measures.
The Truth (and Lies) about Coronavirus
Primary Author: David Williams, MD
Note: This is a long article by a team of doctors, specialists in infectious diseases.
You can read the whole article at:
https://600wrec.iheart.com/content/2020-04-23-coronavirus-truths-and-lies/
Here are some of the section headings:
LIE: COVID-19 is more infectious than influenza.
LIE: COVID-19 is more dangerous than influenza.
LIE: The fact one doesn’t know he or she has COVID-19 makes it more dangerous.
TRUTH: COVID-19 is more dangerous to the elderly and immunocompromised.
TRUTH: That doesn’t really mean anything in and of itself because everything is more dangerous to those unfortunate individuals.
TRUTH: It is now almost impossible for anyone in the general public or general medical community to know the actual number of deaths from COVID-19.
TRUTH: The current policies instituted by our local, state, and national governments are causing greater health problems than the virus ever will.
TRUTH: The media as a whole has grossly misrepresented this disease.
OPINION: The way in which the media has pushed fear nonstop amounts to psychological warfare against this country.
TRUTH: The media will continue to fight reopening of this country by stating “experts” predict a spike in deaths if we do so.
TRUTH: Not every country has shut down their economy, and none of those countries have suffered higher rates of death because they have kept their economy going.
TRUTH: China is involved, but not how you think.
TRUTH: COVID-19 has been treated like a world-ender; it’s not even remotely close.
TRUTH: This is not a medical crisis, but a political crisis.
TRUTH: If you love your children, enjoy sports, or know anyone who owns or is employed by a small business you should be angry.
TRUTH: Nothing will change unless it is demanded. ☼
What Is The Proof That This Covid-19 Thing Really Is A “Crisis,” Or That Economic Suppression Is The Solution?
By Francis Menton
A prominent Israeli mathematician, analyst, and former general claims simple statistical analysis demonstrates that the spread of COVID-19 peaks after about 40 days and declines to almost zero after 70 days — no matter where it strikes, and no matter what measures governments impose to try to thwart it.
This study is based not on a theoretical model, but rather on analysis of available data to date. The author is Isaac Ben-Israel, identified as head of the Security Studies program in Tel Aviv University and the chairman of Israel’s National Council for Research and Development.
While [Ben-Israel] said he supports social distancing, the widespread shuttering of economies worldwide constitutes a demonstrable error in light of those statistics.
Nothing I can find in data available to date shows any superiority of the business-suppression-will-save-us hypothesis over Ben-Israel’s hypothesis.
In a situation where accurate data are desperately needed, we find our public policy in the grip of doctors, supposedly experts, who think they understand what is going on because they have created what they think are sophisticated models. (Read more) Note, a rebuttal to the Israeli mathematician’s hypothesis ☼
Barney Brenner, a Tucson resident and member of PFW has two articles published a Townhall:
Non-Essential Workers? Most Are in Government
by Barney Brenner
There’s a stark contrast in suffering between the private and public sectors in this era of unprecedented government intrusion into American life and business. Millions of mom-and-pop shops are shut and their income is decimated and large-company employees are furloughed. But we hear virtually nothing about government workers being laid off – or even taking a pay cut.
Judging from the discontent and pushback nationwide, it’s time to end the shutdown before it descends into civil disobedience. (Read more)
Post-Corona Positives and Paybacks
by Barney Brenner
Not since World War II has the US sustained a hit to its wealth and wellbeing to the extent currently occurring. We all hope this year’s death toll is many multiples smaller than the 400,000+ from the war, and the economic comparison is as yet hard to correlate. But it’s not too early to say that there are a number of bad actors who perpetrated, exacerbated or exploited this tragedy – and when it’s all over, there should be hell to pay. There’s certainly enough hell being experienced.
The top perp? Of course, the Chi-coms, by at least an order of magnitude. The more we learn, the clearer it becomes that the CCP knew months in advance they had a horror on their hands. But to save face, they hid it. Pandemic researchers estimate earlier notice could have reduced the international spread of this killer by 95%. But instead of coming clean, China even kicked out the US journalists who were accurately reporting on the COVID-19 virus. China must pay and pay big. More on that in a moment.
Next level of nefariousness, the domestic Left, in office and in the press.
Now, the positives, starting with payback: first, charge China for financial losses. Debt owed them can be repudiated by each country calculating costs incurred by COVID, both national and personal. Second, scale back our purchasing of Chinese products, especially pharmaceuticals. Third, we should resurrect our strategic mineral mining. (Read more) ☼
Are You Enjoying Your First Test Drive of Socialist America?
By Wayne Allyn Root
Are you enjoying your first taste of socialism? Life in America today is a sneak preview of life in Cuba or Venezuela. Democrats love it. This is the future they plan for you. The current economic catastrophe is exactly what America will look like if we institute the Green New Deal.
The goal is to defeat climate change by killing your job, taking away your car, closing your business and turning America into Cuba or Venezuela. It’s a progressive Democrat’s rainy dream.
And isn’t it great? You don’t need to go to work. Money magically appears in your bank account. Hopefully, you can live on $1,200 every six weeks for the rest of your life. (Read more) ¤
Socialist Gulag in Arizona
by Dan Stringham (a Tucson resident and PFW member)
Most citizens of Arizona do not know about the Federal Government’s GULAG right under our nose here in Arizona. We don’t need to compare our future under a socialist regime; a dream about what might have been under President Bernie Sanders, just look north. There is a place right here that has the following:
– Single Source Government Health Care (State of the Art)
– First Rate Staffed Hospitals (NOT)
– Luxury Housing (NOT)
– State of the art water distribution systems (NOT)
– Exemplary Education System (NOT)
– Guaranteed Minimum Income – all for your Welfare (Ya)
– Booming Government Controlled Businesses (NOT)
– Controlled by a Beneficent Federal Government in Washington (Ya Ya)
– Centralized Planning
– Token Local Government Representation
This is not a National Socialist Camp in Germany in the 1940’s or a Gulag currently in Russia or China, we lovingly call it: The Navajo Reservation. Take a drive through north east Arizona and marvel at the Proletarian Paradise. ☼
If you would like to tell Arizona governor Ducey to let us get back to work, contact him
here: https://azgovernor.gov/engage/form/contact-governor-ducey
An online comment form – send an email ☼
CLIMATE AND ENERGY
Claims of Southwestern USA ‘Megadrought’ Are All Wet
By Anthony Watts
The media [last month] were hyping a new study claiming global warming is causing a new megadrought in the American Southwest. In reality, the recent drought in the American Southwest is nothing new when you look at historical data.
The new study, published in Science, is titled “Anthropogenic megadrought.” The title alone suggests this is more of an opinion piece than a work of science.
Using a tree-ring-based drought record from the years 1000 to 2005 and modern records, scientists from NASA and Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory found the 1934 drought was 30 percent more severe than the runner-up drought (in 1580) and extended across 71.6 percent of western North America.
Another study suggests that the 1934 dust-bowl drought didn’t even make the top 10 in terms of severity, and another found a “megadrought” in the Southwest USA during the time of the Roman Empire.
With that historical data, it is impossible to claim our use of fossil fuels in the last century is leading to a new megadrought.
Here’s the punch line; the notion that the Anthropogenic megadrought paper published by Stahle is flawed is perfectly illustrated by a single chart also using tree ring data from the Western USA.
(Read full post) See also: Tony Heller, who operates the website RealClimateScience.com, has posted a powerful four-minute video absolutely destroying claims that the western United States is currently experiencing a nearly unprecedented megadrought. Video: https://youtu.be/W9xCWDZmUT4 ☼
EarthDay EPIC! Michael Moore’s new film trashes ‘planet saving’ renewable energy
by Anthony Watts
Wow, the renewable light bulb of “great idea” over Michael Moore’s head just burned out. He’s trashing renewables in this new film Planet of the Humans.
On the 50th anniversary of EarthDay, the irony meter is pegged. It’s an epic take-down of the left’s love-affair with renewables by one of the left’s most known public figures.
Over the last 10 years, everyone from celebrity influencers including Elon Musk, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Al Gore, to major technology brands including Apple, have repeatedly claimed that renewables like solar panels and wind farms are less polluting than fossil fuels.
But a new documentary, “Planet of the Humans,” being released free to the public on YouTube reveals that industrial wind farms, solar farms, biomass, and biofuels are wrecking natural environments.
(Read more) Full video available free (1hour, 40 minutes): https://youtu.be/Zk11vI-7czE ☼
Related:
How The Green New Deal’s Renewable Energy Mining Would Harm Humans And The Environment
By Paul Driessen
As this paper shows, expanding mining on the scale needed to meet the renewable energy requirements contained in the Green New Deal and other proposed renewable energy mandates would cause unimaginable harm to the environment, wildlife, and humans.
Executive Summary
The Green New Deal, promoted by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), and several other prominent elected officials, aims to replace all fossil fuels and nuclear energy with so-called “renewable” energy sources, primarily wind and solar.
The justification for this extreme policy proposal is based primarily on the fear that carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from oil, natural gas, and coal will cause catastrophic global warming, as well as concerns about the alleged dangers of nuclear power sources.
The scientific case that manmade global warming poses an “existential threat” to humanity is highly questionable, according to many scientists, and the safety record for nuclear power in this country thoroughly belies the claims against it.
However, what is beyond dispute is that eliminating fossil fuels and nuclear power would require literally millions of wind turbines, billions of solar panels, and several billion batteries like the half-ton power sources used in Tesla vehicles. This, in turn, would require a massive worldwide increase in mining for lithium, cobalt, copper, iron, aluminum, and numerous other raw materials.
Current mining operations to supply materials for today’s comparatively small amount of renewable power technology—plus batteries for laptop computers, smartphones, and electric cars—are already causing supply difficulties and serious problems for the environment. These mining operations are also imposing substantial harm on the men, women, and children who work in battery- and renewable energy-related mines, processing plants and factories in other countries.
As this paper shows, expanding mining on the scale needed to meet the renewable energy requirements contained in the Green New Deal and other proposed renewable energy mandates would cause unimaginable harm to the environment, wildlife, and humans. (Source) Paul Driessen is a senior policy advisor with the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) and the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise.
Read this as a PDF here: https://www.heartland.org/_template-assets/documents/publications/PBdriessenmining2Apr20.pdf ☼
Reuters Invents Fake Seaweed Crisis as Harvests More than Double
By Tiffany Taylor
Reuters published a March 30 article claiming climate change is causing a crisis in seaweed growth and harvesting. However, the facts say just the opposite. According to a 2018 United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization report, the global seaweed harvest more than doubled between 2005 and 2015. Reuters is inventing a fake climate crisis and hoping people will simply believe the claim without bothering to check the facts. (Read more) ☼
Purdue Study Destroys ‘Permafrost Methane Bomb’ Climate Myth
By Tiffany Taylor
Scientists at Purdue University have destroyed a key component of alarmist warming predictions, publishing a study showing thawing permafrost will cause far less methane to enter the atmosphere than conventional “settled science” models have predicted.
UN climate models are programmed to assume large amounts of methane will enter the atmosphere under even modest warming scenarios. However, the Purdue University study, published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Climate Change, shows much of the methane released by thawing soils and wetlands will quickly be absorbed by microbes in previously thawed and newly thawed Arctic soil, particularly in upland soils away from Arctic marshes. (Read more) ☼
Points to Ponder:
So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is…fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt – First Inaugural Address (March 4, 1933)
“One of the reasons our children do not measure up academically to children in other countries is that so much time is spent in American classrooms twisting our history for ideological purposes.” – Thomas Sowell
Stimulus Package – How it works, in perspective
It is a slow day in the small Saskatchewan town of Pumphandle, and streets are deserted.
Times are tough, everybody is in debt, and everybody is living on credit.
A tourist visiting the area drives through town, stops at the motel, and lays a $100 bill on the desk saying he wants to inspect the rooms upstairs to pick one for the night.
As soon as he walks upstairs, the motel owner grabs the bill and runs next door to pay his debt to the butcher.
The butcher takes the $100 and runs down the street to retire his debt to the pig farmer.
The pig farmer takes the $100 and heads off to pay his bill to his supplier, the Co-op.
The guy at the Co-op takes the $100 and runs to pay his debt to the local prostitute, who has also been facing hard times and has had to offer her “services” on credit.
The hooker rushes to the hotel and pays off her room bill with the hotel owner.
The hotel proprietor then places the $100 back on the counter so the traveler will not suspect anything.
At that moment the traveler comes down the stairs, states that the rooms are not satisfactory, picks up the $100 bill and leaves.
No one produced anything. No one earned anything. However, the whole town is now out of debt and now looks to the future with a lot more optimism.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how a Stimulus package works.
“This gave me occasion to observe, that when Men are employed they are best contented. For on the Days they worked they were good-natured and chearful; and with the consciousness of having done a good Days work they spent the Evenings jollily; but on the idle Days they were mutinous and quarrelsome, finding fault with their Pork, the Bread, and in continual ill-humour.” —Benjamin Franklin (1771)
“Modern men and women have substituted ‘experts’ for prophets and priests. Science is the secular religion, and ‘experts’ are its prophets and priests.” —Dennis Prager
“In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual.” – Galileo
“The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.” —Thomas Jefferson (1816)
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Our Mission
1) Support private property rights.
2) Support multiple use management of federal lands for agriculture, livestock grazing, mining, oil and gas production, recreation, timber harvesting and water development activities.
3) Support a balance of environmental responsibility and economic benefit for all Americans by urging that environmental policy be based on good science and sound economic principles.
Newsletters can be viewed online on Jonathan’s Wryheat Blog:
https://wryheat.wordpress.com/
See my essay on climate change:
https://wryheat.wordpress.com/climate-in-perspective/
The Constitution is the real contract with America.
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People for the West – Tucson, Inc.
PO Box 86868
Tucson, AZ 85754-6868
Jonathan DuHamel, President & Editor
Dr. John Forrester, Vice President
Lonni Lees, Associate Editor
People for the West – Tucson, Inc. is an Arizona tax-exempt, 501(c)(3) corporation. Newsletter subscriptions are free.
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, any copyrighted material herein is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only.
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