Dec/090
Population Control
Save the Planet Kill Yourself
It is hard to put into words how perverse and disgusting it is to have a country with a law like Population Control. The fact that they are so “Matter of Fact” about it makes it even worse, taking a human life in the name of the government is said to be okay. China has a large population and lots of pollution, and they use this to justify their “one baby per family” rule.
Laws like this devalue the tremendous value that life caries. It is so hard for us to understand because we value life of others more than our own in many cases. Or do we? There is a growing number of Western Nations that would be subdued to the devaluation of life, in the name of government. Look at health care, we and other countries are already putting a value on life in the name of cost cutting. And we are getting articles from journalist like this one from the China Daily that are agreeing and promoting with China’s laws in the name of Global Warming and Global Population Control. It’s sickening to me.
[source: ChinaDaily]
Sep/090
Obama For Action Despite Facts:
Obama
Only a week after top scientist make a u-turn on global warming, our president faces major nations of the world to announce what America is doing to combat “man-made climate change”
By JOSH GERSTEIN | 9/22/09 10:28 AM EDT
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0909/27430.html#ixzz0RtI5FCcr
President Barack Obama’s closely watched climate change speech at the United Nations got a mixed reaction Tuesday: Some world leaders saluted his rhetoric, but environmental activists expressed disappointment that he didn’t commit to a timeline to pass cap-and-trade legislation in the Senate.
“After too many years of inaction and denial, there is finally widespread recognition of the urgency of the challenge before us. We know what needs to be done,” Obama told fellow heads of state gathered for a climate change summit called by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
“The House of Representatives passed an energy and climate bill in June that would finally make clean energy the profitable kind of energy for American businesses and dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” Obama said. “One committee has already acted on this bill in the Senate, and I look forward to engaging with others as we move forward.”
Many diplomats and environmentalists were hoping that Obama would detail his strategy to move House-approved carbon-emissions-trading legislation through the Senate and onto his desk to be signed into law ahead of a key climate change conference this December in Copenhagen. But the president made only a vague pledge to continue pushing for the measure.
“The Obama speech was a missed opportunity,” said Annie Petsonk, international counsel for Environmental Defense Fund. “Leaders want him to lay out a game plan to get a bill through the Senate, to give some timeline, some commitment to do it on a timely basis. … They didn’t get it.”
Environmental activists are particularly concerned that U.S. influence and leadership in the climate issue are dwindling ahead of Copenhagen, with the issue of global warming getting pushed further and further down the presidential agenda by other pressing concerns, such as health care reform, the recession and Afghanistan.
Former Vice President Al Gore gave a warm, but not effusive, reception to Obama’s remarks.
“I thought that he was simply recognizing the reality of the situation that this legislation is still pending,” Gore said at a U.N. press briefing. “I welcome his promise to get personally engaged in the work of the Senate committees.”
Gore said it would be “far better” for the climate change treaty talks set for Copenhagen in December if the U.S. Senate acted by then.
“I would encourage the Senate to take up the climate and energy legislation immediately upon conclusion of the pending health care debate, if not before,” Gore said. “I interpret President Obama’s statement about getting involved in that process to mean that he will urge them to do exactly that.”
Asked about the decision not to set a timeline, White House climate czar Carol Browner said the Senate’s pace was not under Obama’s control. “The Senate is hard at work,” Browner said. “Health care has obviously taken up more time than was originally anticipated. … At the end of the day, [Senate Majority Leader] Harry Reid does set the schedule for the Senate, and we have to be mindful of that.”
Obama said little about the resistance in the Senate but indicated the recent economic slump has left some lawmakers reluctant to impose emissions changes that could affect a weakened economy.
“We seek sweeping but necessary change in the midst of a global recession, where every nation’s most immediate priority is reviving their economy and putting their people back to work. And so all of us will face doubts and difficulties in our own capitals as we try to reach a lasting solution to the climate challenge,” Obama said. “But I’m here today to say that difficulty is no excuse for complacency. Unease is no excuse for inaction.”
The president insisted his administration has taken a series of important, groundbreaking actions to fight global warming, such as increasing fuel economy standards and directing stimulus funds and tax credits to energy efficiency.
“These steps represent an historic recognition on behalf of the American people and their government,” he said. “We understand the gravity of the climate threat. We are determined to act. We will meet our responsibility to future generations.”
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0909/27430.html#ixzz0RtICWibT
Sep/093
Scientists pull an about face on global warming
I think not...
Imagine if Pope Benedict gave a speech saying the Catholic Church has had it wrong all these centuries; there is no reason priests shouldn’t marry. That might generate the odd headline, no?
Or if Don Cherry claimed suddenly to like European hockey players who wear visors and float around the ice, never bodychecking opponents.
Or Jack Layton insisted that unions are ruining the economy by distorting wages and protecting unproductive workers.
Or Stephen Harper began arguing that it makes good economic sense for Ottawa to own a car company. (Oh, wait, that one happened.) But at least, the Tories-buy-GM aberration made all the papers and newscasts.
When a leading proponent for one point of view suddenly starts batting for the other side, it’s usually newsworthy.
So why was a speech last week by Prof. Mojib Latif of Germany’s Leibniz Institute not given more prominence?
Latif is one of the leading climate modellers in the world. He is the recipient of several international climate-study prizes and a lead author for the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). He has contributed significantly to the IPCC’s last two five-year reports that have stated unequivocally that man-made greenhouse emissions are causing the planet to warm dangerously.
Yet last week in Geneva, at the UN’s World Climate Conference–an annual gathering of the so-called “scientific consensus” on man-made climate change –Latif conceded the Earth has not warmed for nearly a decade and that we are likely entering “one or even two decades during which temperatures cool.”
The global warming theory has been based all along on the idea that the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans would absorb much of the greenhouse warming caused by a rise in man-made carbon dioxide, then they would let off that heat and warm the atmosphere and the land.
But as Latif pointed out, the Atlantic, and particularly the North Atlantic, has been cooling instead. And it looks set to continue a cooling phase for 10 to 20 more years.
“How much?” he wondered before the assembled delegates. “The jury is still out.”
But it is increasingly clear that global warming is on hiatus for the time being. And that is not what the UN, the alarmist scientists or environmentalists predicted. For the past dozen years, since the Kyoto accords were signed in 1997, it has been beaten into our heads with the force and repetition of the rowing drum on a slave galley that the Earth is warming and will continue to warm rapidly through this century until we reach deadly temperatures around 2100.
While they deny it now, the facts to the contrary are staring them in the face: None of the alarmist drummers ever predicted anything like a 30-year pause in their apocalyptic scenario.
Latif says he expects warming to resume in 2020 or 2030.
In the past year, two other groups of scientists–one in Germany, the second in the United States–have come to the same conclusion: Warming is on hold, likely because of a cooling of the Earth’s upper oceans, but it will resume.
But how is that knowable? How can Latif and the others state with certainty that after this long and unforeseen cooling, dangerous man-made heating will resume? They failed to observe the current cooling for years after it had begun, how then can their predictions for the resumption of dangerous warming be trusted?
My point is they cannot. It’s true the supercomputer models Latif and other modellers rely on for their dire predictions are becoming more accurate. But getting the future correct is far trickier. Chances are some unforeseen future changes will throw the current predictions out of whack long before the forecast resumption of warming.
Lorne Gunter is a columnist with the Edmonton Journal and National Post.
Sep/090
Smoking Papers On Global Warming
Smoke Stacks
By INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Wednesday, September 16, 2009 4:20 PM PT
http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=337991812954735
Climate Change: A Treasury Department analysis says a cap-and-trade law could cost American families more than $1,700 a year. No wonder administrators tried to keep the study secret.
The House narrowly approved — by seven votes — the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill in June over complaints that it would be an undue financial burden to American families. It passed after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi strode to the chamber floor and claimed that “this legislation means jobs, jobs, jobs and jobs. Let’s vote for jobs.”
Even some of the bill’s supporters had to roll their eyes at the assertion. It was a talking point intended to convince those who have not been paying attention to the legislation’s severe shortcomings, not wise and experienced lawmakers who know better.
Throughout the debate, the bill’s defenders said Waxman-Markey would cost “less than the price of a postage stamp per day,” a small price to pay, they declared, for saving the Earth from global warming. Their evidence: a Congressional Budget Office report that estimated the cost would be $175 per household a year.
But, as is often the case in Washington, it’s what they didn’t say that was more important.
While the House debated and eventually voted, filed away within the walls of the Treasury Department was an internal estimate that projected a cap-and-trade law would cost Americans up to $200 billion a year in new taxes. These taxes won’t be levied directly but will be paid when power providers and other carbon dioxide producers buy CO2 emission allowances from the federal government and then pass the costs on to customers — as will inevitably happen.
Overall, the costs would be “the equivalent of hiking personal income taxes by about 15%,” Declan McCullagh reports on his “Taking Liberties” blog on CBSnews.com.
“At the upper end of the administration’s estimate, the cost per American household would be an extra $1,761 a year,” McCullagh wrote.
Had it not been for the efforts of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the analysis would have likely remained a guarded secret.
A handful of Treasury documents related to cap-and-trade, carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases were made public Tuesday, but only after CEI’s Christopher Horner used the Freedom of Information Act to force its disclosure.
“In short,” Horner wrote on National Review’s “Planet Gore” blog, the Treasury documents are “a candid snapshot of what they’re admitting to each other, while telling you a, ah, different story — to your face.”
But the government is allowing only so much candor.
The estimated cost of a cap-and-trade program in terms of higher energy prices has been, unsurprisingly, edited out of one of the Treasury documents. A thick black line follows the sentence that opens with “While such a program can yield environmental benefits that justify its costs, it will raise energy prices and impose annual costs on the order . . . .”
In two other documents, passages explaining the “significant costs and potential revenues” generated by “domestic policies to address climate change” were covered by black ink.
The only logical conclusion is that the figures are so staggeringly large that bureaucrats, and possibly elected officials, feel that they have to hide them from the public.
Treasury’s censors weren’t able to expunge everything, though.
A separate administration transition memo drafted two days after the election notes that the “Economic costs will likely be on the order of 1% of GDP, making them equal in scale to all existing environmental regulation.”
In other words, under cap-and-trade, the economic costs of environmental regulation would double overnight.
Horner has said he’ll ask the courts to force the government to release the redacted references to increases in energy costs as well as other parts that have been blacked out.
We wish him the best. The country needs more people like him and fewer government officials who, for political purposes, conceal information that the public has a right to know.
Dec/070
Don’t fight, adapt
We should give up futile attempts to combat climate change
Published: Wednesday, December 12, 2007
http://www.nationalpost.com/story-printer.html?id=164002
Open Letter to the Secretary-General of the United Nations
Dec. 13, 2007
His Excellency Ban Ki-Moon
Secretary-General, United Nations
New York, N.Y.
Dear Mr. Secretary-General,
Re: UN climate conference taking the World in entirely the wrong direction
It is not possible to stop climate change, a natural phenomenon that has affected humanity through the ages. Geological, archaeological, oral and written histories all attest to the dramatic challenges posed to past societies from unanticipated changes in temperature, precipitation, winds and other climatic variables. We therefore need to equip nations to become resilient to the full range of these natural phenomena by promoting economic growth and wealth generation.
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has issued increasingly alarming conclusions about the climatic influences of human-produced carbon dioxide (CO2), a non-polluting gas that is essential to plant photosynthesis. While we understand the evidence that has led them to view CO2 emissions as harmful, the IPCC’s conclusions are quite inadequate as justification for implementing policies that will markedly diminish future prosperity. In particular, it is not established that it is possible to significantly alter global climate through cuts in human greenhouse gas emissions. On top of which, because attempts to cut emissions will slow development, the current UN approach of CO2 reduction is likely to increase human suffering from future climate change rather than to decrease it.
The IPCC Summaries for Policy Makers are the most widely read IPCC reports amongst politicians and non-scientists and are the basis for most climate change policy formulation. Yet these Summaries are prepared by a relatively small core writing team with the final drafts approved line-by-line
by government representatives. The great majority of IPCC contributors and reviewers, and the tens of thousands of other scientists who are qualified to comment on these matters, are not involved in the preparation of these documents. The summaries therefore cannot properly be represented as a consensus view among experts.
Contrary to the impression left by the IPCC Summary reports:
z Recent observations of phenomena such as glacial retreats, sea-level rise and the migration of temperature-sensitive species are not evidence for abnormal climate change, for none of these changes has been shown to lie outside the bounds of known natural variability.
z The average rate of warming of 0.1 to 0. 2 degrees Celsius per decade recorded by satellites during the late 20th century falls within known natural rates of warming and cooling over the last 10,000 years.
z Leading scientists, including some senior IPCC representatives, acknowledge that today’s computer models cannot predict climate. Consistent with this, and despite computer projections of temperature rises, there has been no net global warming since 1998. That the current temperature plateau follows a late 20th-century period of warming is consistent with the continuation today of natural multi-decadal or millennial climate cycling.
In stark contrast to the often repeated assertion that the science of climate change is “settled,” significant new peer-reviewed research has cast even more doubt on the hypothesis of dangerous human-caused global warming. But because IPCC working groups were generally instructed (see http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/docs/wg1_timetable_2006-08-14.pdf) to consider work published only through May, 2005, these important findings are not included in their reports; i.e., the IPCC assessment reports are already materially outdated.
The UN climate conference in Bali has been planned to take the world along a path of severe CO2 restrictions, ignoring the lessons apparent from the failure of the Kyoto Protocol, the chaotic nature of the European CO2 trading market, and the ineffectiveness of other costly initiatives to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Balanced cost/benefit analyses provide no support for the introduction of global measures to cap and reduce energy consumption for the purpose of restricting CO2 emissions. Furthermore, it is irrational to apply the “precautionary principle” because many scientists recognize that both climatic coolings and warmings are realistic possibilities over the medium-term future.
The current UN focus on “fighting climate change,” as illustrated in the Nov. 27 UN Development Programme’s Human Development Report, is distracting governments from adapting to the threat of inevitable natural climate changes, whatever forms they may take. National and international planning for such changes is needed, with a focus on helping our most vulnerable citizens adapt to conditions that lie ahead. Attempts to prevent global climate change from occurring are ultimately futile, and constitute a tragic misallocation of resources that would be better spent on humanity’s real and pressing problems.
Yours faithfully,
Dec/070
Beware of Cap and Trade Climate Bills
December 6, 2007
by Ben Lieberman
WebMemo #1723
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Economy/wm1723.cfm
America’s Climate Security Act of 2007 (S. 2191), sponsored by Senators Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) and John Warner (R-VA), is the latest and fastest-moving “cap and trade” bill introduced in Congress this year. All such climate change measures warrant careful scrutiny, as they would likely increase energy costs and do considerably more economic harm than environmental good.
A Costly Proposition
These measures would set a limit, or cap, on carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel use. The effect of such a cap would be to impose rationing of coal, oil, and natural gas on the American economy. Each covered utility, oil company, and manufacturing facility would be given allowances based on past emissions or some other formula. Those companies that emit less carbon dioxide than permitted by their allowances could sell the excess to those that do not; this is the trade part of cap and trade. Over time, the cap would be ratcheted down, requiring greater cuts in emissions.
Each proposal differs from the others on specifics: the stringency of the cap, the number and type of companies covered, the ground rules for allocating and trading allowances, and other details. S. 2191 is, in several respects, more stringent than other cap and trade bills. Its requirement that emissions decline to 15 percent below 2005 levels by 2020–even in the face of a growing population and rising energy demand–sets a very difficult target.[1]
Measures like S. 2191 that target carbon emissions aggressively will be costlier than those that give the economy more time to adjust to the energy constraints. For example, over the long term, energy companies may find ways to capture and store carbon dioxide emissions underground, rather than emit them into the air, or switch to lower-emitting alternative energy sources as they are developed. But most experts see these advances as taking decades–much longer than the initial targets in S. 2191 allow. In fact, these targets may actually complicate the development of longer-term innovations, as they will divert resources to near-term fixes.
Carbon dioxide is the unavoidable byproduct of fossil fuel combustion, which currently provides 85 percent of America’s energy. Thus, it will be very costly to move away from this preferred energy source, and especially doing so as expeditiously as S. 2191 requires. A study by Charles River Associates puts the cost (in terms of reduced household spending per year) of S. 2191 at $800 to $1,300 per household by 2015, rising to $1,500 to $2,500 by 2050.[2] Electricity prices could jump by 36 to 65 percent by 2015 and 80 to 125 percent by 2050.[3] No analysis has been done on the impact of S. 2191 on gasoline prices, but an Environmental Protection Agency study of a less stringent cap and trade bill estimates impacts of 26 cents per gallon by 2030 and 68 cents by 2050.[4]
Even these cost projections may underestimate the true costs, because they assume no unpleasant surprises. But the world has already witnessed many unpleasant surprises with Europe’s ongoing efforts to impose a cap and trade program under the Kyoto Protocol, the international climate treaty to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
In fact, European efforts have racked up significant costs while failing to reduce emissions.[5] Nearly every European country participating has higher emissions today than when the treaty was first signed in 1997. Further, despite ongoing criticism of the United States from Kyoto parties for failing to ratify the treaty, emissions in many of these nations are actually rising faster than in the United States.
The European experience also shows the problem of cap and trade fraud.[6] None other than Enron’s Ken Lay was a strong supporter of carbon cap and trade when the idea was first floated in the 1990s, saying that it could “do more to promote Enron’s business than almost any other regulatory initiative.” These carbon allowances that will be bought and sold have a value estimated at $50 billion to $300 billion annually, and the trade in them would be a huge new business.[7] Enron may be gone, but others ready to take advantage of cap and trade–often at public expense–are not.
The actual cost of S. 2191 is difficult to estimate–as America has never had to deal with such severe energy constraints–but would likely be very high.
A Regressive Tax
By limiting the supply of fossil fuels, S. 2191 would raise the cost of energy. For consumers, cap and trade means more expensive gasoline and electricity as well as net job losses in energy-dependent sectors. Senator Lieberman himself concedes costs into the hundreds of billions of dollars. And as the Congressional Budget Office has noted, such energy cost increases act as a regressive tax on the poor.[8]
Lost Jobs
The net job losses from S. 2191 are estimated by Charles River Associates to be 1.2 million to 2.3 million by 2015.[9] Some of these jobs will be lost for good, due to the impact of higher energy costs on economic activity. Others, chiefly in the manufacturing sector, will be sent overseas. In the very likely event that S. 2191 significantly raises domestic manufacturing costs and that developing nations refuse to impose similar restrictions, the American economy could experience a substantial outsourcing of manufacturing jobs to those nations with lower energy costs.
Little Environmental Gain
While the costs of aggressive cap and trade proposals are substantial, the environmental benefits are suspect. This is true even if one fully accepts the claim of man-made global warming. The most ambitious measure to date is the Kyoto Protocol, but even if the U.S. were a party to this treaty and the European nations and other signatories were in full compliance (most are unlikely to meet their targets), the treaty would reduce the Earth’s future temperature by an estimated 0.07 degrees Celsius by 2050–an amount too small even to verify.[10] S. 2191 would at best do only a little more.
Indeed, a number of economists, including many who are far from global warming skeptics, warn of overly aggressive cap and trade measures imposing costs exceeding the benefits.[11] In other words, the costs of implementing such measures would be higher than the value of the global warming damage that they would prevent.
The Slippery Slope
It is a near certainty that the first climate bill enacted will not be the last one. In fact, most major environmental organizations have already criticized S. 2191 and other pending global warming bills as inadequate, or as at best “a good first step.” The economic impacts of S. 2191, though substantial in their own right, could be a mere down payment toward costlier subsequent measures.
Conclusion
Cap and trade bills are nothing short of a government re-engineering of the American economy. And S. 2191, with its aggressive targets to reduce emissions from fossil fuel use, would put the nation on a path of serious economic harm not justified by any benefits.
Ben Lieberman is Senior Policy Analyst for Energy and the Environment in the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation.
Nov/070
Weather Channel Founder: Global Warming ‘Greatest Scam in History’
By Noel Sheppard | November 7, 2007 – 17:58 ET
If the founder of The Weather Channel spoke out strongly against the manmade global warming myth, might media members notice?
We’re going to find out the answer to that question soon, for John Coleman wrote an article published at ICECAP Wednesday that should certainly garner attention from press members — assuming journalism hasn’t been completely replaced by propagandist activism, that is.
Coleman marvelously began (emphasis added, h/t NB reader coffee250):
It is the greatest scam in history. I am amazed, appalled and highly offended by it. Global Warming; It is a SCAM. Some dastardly scientists with environmental and political motives manipulated long term scientific data to create in [sic] allusion of rapid global warming. Other scientists of the same environmental whacko type jumped into the circle to support and broaden the “research” to further enhance the totally slanted, bogus global warming claims. Their friends in government steered huge research grants their way to keep the movement going. Soon they claimed to be a consensus.
Environmental extremists, notable politicians among them, then teamed up with movie, media and other liberal, environmentalist journalists to create this wild “scientific” scenario of the civilization threatening environmental consequences from Global Warming unless we adhere to their radical agenda. Now their ridiculous manipulated science has been accepted as fact and become a cornerstone issue for CNN, CBS, NBC, the Democratic Political Party, the Governor of California, school teachers and, in many cases, well informed but very gullible environmental conscientious citizens. Only one reporter at ABC has been allowed to counter the Global Warming frenzy with one 15 minutes documentary segment.
I have read dozens of scientific papers. I have talked with numerous scientists. I have studied. I have thought about it. I know I am correct. There is no run away climate change. The impact of humans on climate is not catastrophic. Our planet is not in peril. I am incensed by the incredible media glamour, the politically correct silliness and rude dismissal of counter arguments by the high priest of Global Warming.
In time, a decade or two, the outrageous scam will be obvious.
Let’s hope so, John; let’s hope so.
Oct/070
Gore gets a cold shoulder
Steve Lytte
October 14, 2007
http://www.smh.com.au/news/environment/gore-gets-a-cold-shoulder/2007/10/13/1191696238792.html
ONE of the world’s foremost meteorologists has called the theory that helped Al Gore share the Nobel Peace Prize “ridiculous” and the product of “people who don’t understand how the atmosphere works”.
Dr William Gray, a pioneer in the science of seasonal hurricane forecasts, told a packed lecture hall at the University of North Carolina that humans were not responsible for the warming of the earth.
His comments came on the same day that the Nobel committee honoured Mr Gore for his work in support of the link between humans and global warming.
“We’re brainwashing our children,” said Dr Gray, 78, a long-time professor at Colorado State University. “They’re going to the Gore movie [An Inconvenient Truth] and being fed all this. It’s ridiculous.”
At his first appearance since the award was announced in Oslo, Mr Gore said: “We have to quickly find a way to change the world’s consciousness about exactly what we’re facing.”
Mr Gore shared the Nobel prize with the United Nations climate panel for their work in helping to galvanise international action against global warming.
But Dr Gray, whose annual forecasts of the number of tropical storms and hurricanes are widely publicised, said a natural cycle of ocean water temperatures – related to the amount of salt in ocean water – was responsible for the global warming that he acknowledges has taken place.
However, he said, that same cycle meant a period of cooling would begin soon and last for several years.
“We’ll look back on all of this in 10 or 15 years and realise how foolish it was,” Dr Gray said.
During his speech to a crowd of about 300 that included meteorology students and a host of professional meteorologists, Dr Gray also said those who had linked global warming to the increased number of hurricanes in recent years were in error.
He cited statistics showing there were 101 hurricanes from 1900 to 1949, in a period of cooler global temperatures, compared to 83 from 1957 to 2006 when the earth warmed.
“The human impact on the atmosphere is simply too small to have a major effect on global temperatures,” Dr Gray said.
He said his beliefs had made him an outsider in popular science.
“It bothers me that my fellow scientists are not speaking out against something they know is wrong,” he said. “But they also know that they’d never get any grants if they spoke out. I don’t care about grants.”