monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

Exactly what you'd expect from a "leading expert on climate change" working for the EPA , eh?

Quote:

Climate change expert sentenced to 32 months for fraud

The EPA’s highest-paid employee and a leading expert on climate change was sentenced to 32 months in federal prison Wednesday.

John C. Beale’s crimes were “inexplicable” and “unbelievably egregious," said Judge Ellen Huvelle in imposing the sentence in a Washington. D.C. federal court. Beale has also agreed to pay $1.3 million in restitution and forfeiture to the government.

Beale pled guilty in September to bilking the government out of nearly $1 million in salary and other benefits over a decade. “Why did I do this? Greed – simple greed – and I’m ashamed of that greed,” Beale told the court.

EPA inspector general Arthur Elkins, whose office investigated Beale’s case, said in a statement Wednesday that his office is “actively looking at the EPA’s sloppy internal controls and management actions that enabled Mr. Beale’s frauds to occur…Expect to see the results of more audits from us in the coming months.”

Until he retired in April after learning he was under federal investigation, Beale, an NYU grad with a masters from Princeton, was earning a salary and bonuses of $206,000 a year, making him the highest paid official at the EPA. He earned more money than the agency’s administrator, Gina McCarthy, according to agency documents.

John Kern, Beale’s lawyer, declined to comment to NBC News. In a pre-sentencing memo, he had acknowledged his client's guilt, but had asked for leniency and offered a psychological explanation for the climate expert’s bizarre tales.

“With the help of his therapist,” wrote Kern, “Mr. Beale has come to recognize that [he] was driven to manipulate those around him through the fabrication of grandiose narratives … that are fueled by his insecurities.”

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/other/climate-change-expert-sentenced-32-months-fraud-says-lying-was-f2D11768995

An insecure liar with a desire to manipulate others with grandiose fabrications, eh? Sounds like a government climatologist, sho nuff.

3 Replies

@MontereyJack,

2 Replies

@layman,

layman wrote:

Exactly what you'd expect from a "leading expert on climate change" ..

A "Senior Policy Advisor" is an expert on climate change?

1 Reply

@MontereyJack,

I admire your patience but you are presenting information to people who don't trust anyone, especially well educated and knowledgeable scientists, doctors, historians or other experts. Some people are extremely suspicious of anyone considered expert for fear it makes them stupid, and they will not let any smarty pants egghead be treated as smart because it means they are lacking . That's why the deniers will by vitamin powder from TV ads because the television tells them it will improve their sexual stamina, stupid women buy cremes from magazines that claim to increase the bust line.......they trust charlatans before they trust the educated.

What I find fascinating, is that I know older folks who grew up on hard scrabble farms where their family grew cotton or tobacco and lived on far less than a shoe string. They sacrificed and obtained student loans or used the GI bill to obtain a degree.....some of them pursued advanced degrees because they absolutely loved the subject matter, or yearned to learn everything their head could hold. Some of these folks grew up without indoor plumbing, without adequate nutrition and a whole slew of hardships, but if they dare to obtain a degree or advanced degree, they have become the eggheads subject to distain for actually being so uppity they pursue knowledge and become extremely expert in one field or another.

Welcome to the new America that worships sub par as excellent and hates excellent because it must be snooty and real Americans know that only the liberals are truly snooty.

Just to put a fine point on it, you don't have to have a degree or advanced degree to be extremely knowledgeable.....your college didn't have to be ivy league. Having a degree or advanced degree doesn't mean you are capable.....but you do have to be intellectually curious. Too many of our citizens prefer to be lazy, because thinking requires too much effort.

3 Replies

@layman,

They cooked the charts.

0 Replies

Quote:

North Korea has carried out another ballistic missile test, days after a new president took office in the South.

Japanese officials say the missile, which launched from north-western Kusong, reached an altitude of 2,000km.

South Korea's newly elected President Moon Jae-in, who campaigned on a platform of better engagement with the North, said it was a provocation.

US President Donald Trump has called for "stronger sanctions" against North Korea, while China is urging restraint.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-39911530<br />

1 Reply

@Walter Hinteler,

Walter Hinteler wrote:

layman wrote:
Exactly what you'd expect from a "leading expert on climate change" ..
A "Senior Policy Advisor" is an expert on climate change?

Take it up with NBC news if ya gotta problem, eh, Walt? Is there something that precludes a climatologist from being an advisor to the EPA, or vice versa, ya think?

I mean, if your point is that he has more expertise in perpetrating fraud than climatology, you may be right, but, then again, one is just the same as the other, aint it?

0 Replies

@izzythepush,

Trump can't make up his mind because his attention span is so short.

1 Reply

Whatever: the Trump administrationis trying to bury the science showing the dangerous impacts of climate change:
Trump is deleting climate change, one site at a time

2 Replies

@Walter Hinteler,

Walter Hinteler wrote:

Trump is deleting climate change, one site at a time

Yes!

1 Reply

@layman,

That's BS. The amount of water in the atmosphere is not being forced up, so it cannot explain the past century's warming trend.

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@layman,

layman wrote:

Walter Hinteler wrote:

Trump is deleting climate change, one site at a time

Yes!

Since you copied my quote as a response, you're now saying that indeed he is trying to bury the science showing the dangerous impacts of climate change. Interesting.

1 Reply

@Walter Hinteler,

Well, it could have been read as Trump was eliminating climate change. Not likely, but good news if it were so.

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@roger,

I got a different opinion after reading that report.

1 Reply

@Walter Hinteler,

Of course. You don't have the same sense of humor.

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https://scontent-dft4-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/18423991_1152977214808608_4230425321943131162_n.jpg?oh=82b191dd86e5274629ea1812e6e543da&oe=5977EF78

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@georgeob1,

Quote:

I don't know that anyone's ignoring it.

georgeob1, that was a response to a specific point in another discussion, not a general applicable statement.

Quote:

Some aspects of industrialization actually help.

Sure. And nearly all have unintended consequences. Which are in turn addressed by new technology. That's how humans progress.

Quote:

We are left with the inexplicable opposition of AGW zealots for Nuclear power and new forms of fossil fuel (mostly gas) energy production that together have already achieved far more GHG reduction that have all the forced & subsidized wind and photo voltaic solar production they so favor.

If the nuclear power industry and the politicians can solve the problem of nuclear waste and danger of proliferation of fissile material, I don't think you'd find nearly as much opposition. An a2k member has outlined a solution for the problem of nuclear waste, but I'm not qualified to review its potential effectiveness. For some reason this solution doesn't seem to be part of the discussion so I don't know if it's realistic. As far as security goes, it increase the cost of operating a nuclear plant. I remember talking to a guy who'd worked at nuclear power station in New England (since closed). He said there were about six times more people employed there than needed to run the plant because of security concerns. Having relatively insecure installations in politically unstable countries seems a recipe for some sort of mischief, if not disaster.

Natural gas, yes, it's cleaner than burning oil or coal but it still releases CO2, and wells can leak methane like the 112 day Aliso Canyon disaster in California, and hydrofracture is responsible for seismic events, pollution, and uses huge amounts of fresh water which it subsequently contaminates.

One doesn't have to be a Luddite to see these technological advances as two-edged and somewhat problematic.

0 Replies

@Finn dAbuzz,

Quote:

It's hippie science.

It's really easy to glean gems of stupidity from the extremes of the political spectrum. I could just as simplistically write off the right wing as supporting creationist science by only paying attention to the evangelicals or as nazis by limiting my information to the pages of StormFront.

Quote:

Organic food is wonderful.

Organic food is expensive.

Quote:

GMOs are horrible.

While the GMO products may be safe theoretically, the farming practices associated with it — like wide scale use of herbicides — raise legitimate concerns. Address those problems and opposition will decrease.

Quote:

Nuclear power is terrible.

I touched on this in my response to georgeob1. Address the problems and consequently diminish the objections. There are, I believe, new alternative nuclear technologies under development which may lessen the environmental concerns. But I don't know if they will lower the cost of energy — advanced technology can be expensive to run as well as develop. Nor do I know if they will lessen security concerns in unstable parts of the world.

Quote:

Solar power is fantastic.

Rooftop solar is a pretty good way to go for a lot of people, whether or not you connect it to the power grid. Any measure of energy independence enhances personal domestic security.

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@glitterbag,

He's like an overgrown toddler too used to getting his own way. He doesn't know what to do when his demands don't work. The North Koreans keep calling his bluff because they know he's out of his depth.

0 Replies

@glitterbag,

Quote:

That's why the deniers will by vitamin powder from TV ads because the television tells them it will improve their sexual stamina, stupid women buy cremes from magazines that claim to increase the bust line.......they trust charlatans before they trust the educated.

So true. I'm always amazed when listening to the snake oil advertisements on right wind talk radio.

Quote:

Too many of our citizens prefer to be lazy, because thinking requires too much effort.

The current educational atmosphere seems bent on removing intellectual curiosity from the equation; what we really need are high test scores!

0 Replies

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