And California wonders why business is leaving the state?
Published Sunday, September 20, 2009, by the San Francisco Chronicle
California plans to levy greenhouse gas fees
By Kelly Zito Chronicle Staff Writer
More than a year after Bay Area air pollution regulators became the first in the nation to charge businesses for pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, the program has raked in close to $1.7 million. And as early as this week, the state may follow suit by imposing similar fees on large California polluters as part of an ongoing effort to cut greenhouse gases 20 percent by 2020.
The proposed program from the California Air Resources Board and the fledgling regional effort are designed to use the fees to pay for measuring, monitoring and studying the emissions blamed for global climate change.
While health and environmental advocates say tracking greenhouse gases is an important step in the state's plan to battle climate change, big emitters say there is a risk of creating an unfair hodgepodge of regulations and fees.
"We continue to have a lot of problems with (the program)," said Dennis Bolt, manager of the regional office for the Western States Petroleum Association, which represents many of the Bay Area's largest oil refineries. "If every district, county, city in the nation does this ... when you roll that up, it's pretty punitive."
Last year the Bay Area Air Quality Management District voted to charge about 2,500 businesses for emitting greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide. The fee, which currently amounts to 4.5 cents per metric ton of greenhouse gases, is widely seen as too small in most cases to deter the discharge of carbon dioxide and other gases. Instead, the fees were set to generate money for further study.
The largest emitters -- refineries, power plants and cement factories, for example -- must pay hundreds of thousands of dollars each year. Other businesses -- including auto shops, coffee roasters and restaurants -- pay $1 or $2 per year.
A bigger role
The district already regulates smog-forming volatile organic compounds and nitrous oxide, as well as particulates that come from wood-burning fireplaces, diesel generators and construction equipment. Though the majority of the Bay Area's air emissions come from cars and trucks, the local air district does not have the authority to regulate those sources.
Yet in expanding their purview to include greenhouse gas emissions from stationary sources, such as smokestacks at major refineries, the 16-member district leap-frogged state and federal regulators.
"The air district sees itself as being in a leadership position on air pollution areas," said Brian Bateman, director of engineering at the Bay Area air district.
The state, however, is finally closing the gap.
This week, the California Air Resources Board is expected to approve a new rule that would levy a fee of 12 cents per metric ton of carbon dioxide on the state's largest polluters beginning in late 2010 or early 2011, according to agency spokesman Stanley Young. The fee would decrease to 9 cents per ton over three years.
Like the Bay Area measure, the state fee would cover the administrative costs of implementing the greenhouse gas-reduction goals detailed in AB32. The 2006 law requires California to cut its overall greenhouse gas emissions by about 174 million metric tons over the next decade, bringing the state's emissions to 1990 levels.
For a company such as Chevron, whose Richmond refinery is the largest in the Bay Area, the local district fees come to about $200,000 per year -- about 9 percent of the total fees paid to the air district each year.
If the California fee goes into effect as planned, the refinery would have to pay more than $700,000 total to both state and local regulators.
Broader goal
While the companies say the two sets of fees create a duplicative, patchwork effect, environmental and health advocates say the programs are a necessary interim step toward creating a more comprehensive statewide system that puts a price on carbon. That could mean an outright carbon tax or a cap-and-trade system that would set an emissions limit and require companies to buy credits to pollute above that level.
Eventually, argues Shankar Prasad, a fellow with the Coalition for Clean Air and former deputy secretary of science at the California Environmental Protection Agency, the cost of carbon will be built into just about everything producers and consumers create and use.
"The end goal is that we have to reduce carbon and that means we have to put a price on it," he said. "It's not a question of one business or industry or person paying for it. There's a societal cost. All of these costs will eventually be passed on."
On sfgate.com: Search a database of the Bay Area's largest carbon dioxide emitters and recent fees paid to the Bay Area Air Quality Management District.
Myron Ebell, Financial Post Published: Wednesday, September 23, 2009
President Barack Obama's speech on global warming to the United Nations yesterday was based on fantasy. Here are some quotes from the speech followed by the reality.
Obama "...[T]he threat from climate change is serious, it is urgent, and it is growing."
Reality Global mean temperatures increased slightly from 1977 to 2000. Temperatures have been flat since then.
Obama "Rising sea levels threaten every coastline."
Reality Sea levels have been rising on and off since the end of the last ice age 13,000 years ago. The rate of sea level rise has not increased in recent decades over the 19th and 20th century average.
Obama "More powerful storms and floods threaten every continent."
Reality There is no upward global trend in storms or floods.
Obama "More frequent drought and crop failures breed hunger and conflict in places where hunger and conflict already thrive."
Reality There is no upward global trend in major droughts. Reversals in large-scale cycles have meant that the southward march of the Sahara Desert into the Sahel has been reversed in recent years and the Sahara is now shrinking.
Obama "On shrinking islands, families are already being forced to flee their homes as climate refugees."
Reality Some Pacific islanders may want to emigrate to New Zealand or Australia and are claiming that their islands are disappearing as the reason, but shrinkage has been minimal in recent decades because sea level rise has been minimal.
President Obama's policy prescriptions are energy rationing and energy poverty disguised as growth and prosperity. The emissions reductions that he promises the United States will make through cap-and-trade legislation are dead in the water in the U.S. Senate and would not survive a second vote in the U.S. House. If enacted, cap-and-trade would consign the economy to perpetual stagnation and make the U.S. into a second-rate economic power.
His policy prescription for poor countries is to promise them massive "financial and technical assistance". The track record of paying off poor countries is that it has lined the pockets of corrupt leaders and bureaucracies with billions and tens of billions of dollars, but has done nothing to help those countries become prosperous. What these countries need is free markets and abolishing barriers to trade. The global warming policies advocated by the Obama Administration and the Democratic-controlled Congress would raise trade barriers and foster energy poverty throughout the world. Energy rationing is not the way forward and is not a message of hope for the poorest people in the world, who lack access to electricity and modern transportation. - Myron Ebell, Director of Energy and Global Warming Policy at Competitive Enterprise Institute, blogs at Open- Market.org.
The Treasury Department has been sitting on some data that gives the lie to the administration claim that the cap and trade bill will not substantially affect the average American taxpayer.
From a New York Post editorial:
Look at the Treasury report. The report shows that the cap and-trade bill the White House is pushing in Congress - in which companies have to buy "allowances" for carbon emissions - is far more expensive for Americans than advertised. Sure, everyone knew the firms would pass these costs along to customers. But supporters of the bill claimed that consumers would face only "nominal" increases - barely $200 a year. Wrong. The Treasury analysis puts the actual nationwide cost of cap-and-trade at some $200 billion a year - or $1,761 per household. That figure is very close to the $1,870 amount estimated by the Heritage Foundation prior to the vote in the House. Families will be hit with a steep climate-change tax, after all. And that will certainly include working- and middle-class folks who make less than $250,000 a year. Second, the analysis was kept secret and only recently leaked. That directly violates President Obama's vows of transparency. Even so, the bill barely passed in the House, 219-212, with 40 Democrats voting against it. It's facing difficulty in the Senate, too: Ten Dems there urged that it be dumped in favor of a carbon tariff. (This is called compromise, Democratic-style: Instead of a job-killing cap-and-trade tax, they settle for a job-killing import tax.)
John Kerry is leading the charge to bring the cap and trade bill to the floor of the senate before year's end. I would be very surprised if this news didn't kill the House bill for good. That doesn't mean that some kind of energy bill won't make it through the senate, but it will almost certainly not contain the carbon credits and other schemes to tax the American people into paupery. Meanwhile, what of all those Blue Dog House members from coal producing states who voted for cap and trade? I'm sure their GOP opponents are licking their chops at the prospect of running a few ads based on this Treasury report.
global warming is crap, it is just a way to make money for the goverment The real reason is the approch of the planet of nibiru. it does have people/ living organisims living on it that do know what is really happening. the magnetic fields of nibiru is influencing the earths magnetic field and there fore changing the way of live and the weather here on earth. Nibiru will either pass us inbetween the moon and earth of hit the planet earth some where around december 2012 . Thus the world will then enter a new order and a new life. this will be influenced by the life from nibiru as it happened before. the past times nibiru was here was the reptile life on earth ended. the past times nibiru was the the land called atlantus was ended. What will end this time nibiru comes to earth? if you don't think this is true, feel free to look it up
My thoughts is that the goverment knows about this and it distracting the people of the world so not to cause alarm and panic. So we are told is heating up of the world. WHEN ARE WE GOING TO BE TOLD THE TRUTH ?
A draft of the Copenhagen Climate Change Treaty dated September 15th is currently available for inspection here. (H/T Watts Up With That). Some of the draft language is best described as a communist manifesto dressed up in UN leotards. Some notable quotes:
"17. [[Developed [and developing] countries] [Developed and developing country Parties] [All Parties] [shall] [should]:]
(a) Compensate for damage to the LDCs' economy and also compensate for lost opportunities, resources, lives, land anddignity, as many will become environmental refugees;
(b) Africa, in the context of environmental justice, should be equitably compensated for environmental, social and economic losses arising from the implementation of response measures."
When you see in vogue leftists phrases such as "environmental justice" embedded in a UN document, you can be sure that income redistribution is high on the authors mind. We see the mindset later in the document;
"7. The objective of the provision of financial resources is to promote equity and justice through further enhancement of the full, effective and sustained implementation of the Convention and the Bali Action Plan, so that the ultimate objective of the Convention can be achieved."
Exactly whose equity and justice is being promoted here and how can such equity be achieved and does the owner of the "financial resources" have a say in it's distribution? Such broad terms, and vague financial responabilities always raise red flags in the business world when negotiating contracts. No one should sign such a document. The draft will put the US on the hook for monies it does not have to fill a promise it can not keep no matter how rich it is or isn't.
Another example;
"Alternative 6: Recognition of the urgency to address the adverse impacts of climate change on the vulnerable countries such as LDCs and small island developing states; In providing adaptation support, priority [shall][should] be given to developing country Parties that are the most vulnerable to climate change impacts and that are the least able to adapt:
(i) Supporting adaptation at local and national levels;
(ii) Particularly vulnerable developing country Parties, especially:
- Poor developing country Parties;
- LDCs and SIDS, and countries in Africa affected by drought, desertification and flood;"
Considering that Africa has a history of drought, desertification and flood going back to biblical time, exactly how are the signers to ascertain which floods, droughts and desertification may be caused by Global Warming and which would have happened naturally?
The economic incentives have the potential to be so high that the truth matters little. We have seen this in the United States when Dow Corning was sued into bankruptcy over silicone breast implants. The entire document sets up a framework that would reward charlatans and pseudo science and create a huge economic incentive to suppress dissenting opinions on Anthropogenic Global Warming Theory (AGW). It creates a give away to African despots eager to blame their own failure son anyone else but themselves. Why is the US wasting it's time, money, and resources even entertaining this rubbish?
To all the global warmest...instead of blaming us humans for this 'global warming' - maybe you should be blaming the dinosaurs, after all if they didn't die, there would be no fossil fuels for us to burn.
This headline may come as a bit of a surprise, so too might that fact that the warmest year recorded globally was not in 2008 or 2007, but in 1998. But it is true. For the last 11 years we have not observed any increase in global temperatures. And our climate models did not forecast it, even though man-made carbon dioxide, the gas thought to be responsible for warming our planet, has continued to rise. So what on Earth is going on? Climate change sceptics, who passionately and consistently argue that man's influence on our climate is overstated, say they saw it coming. They argue that there are natural cycles, over which we have no control, that dictate how warm the planet is. But what is the evidence for this? During the last few decades of the 20th Century, our planet did warm quickly.
Recent research has ruled out solar influences on temperature increases Sceptics argue that the warming we observed was down to the energy from the Sun increasing. After all 98% of the Earth's warmth comes from the Sun. But research conducted two years ago, and published by the Royal Society, seemed to rule out solar influences. The scientists' main approach was simple: to look at solar output and cosmic ray intensity over the last 30-40 years, and compare those trends with the graph for global average surface temperature. And the results were clear. "Warming in the last 20 to 40 years can't have been caused by solar activity," said Dr Piers Forster from Leeds University, a leading contributor to this year's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). But one solar scientist Piers Corbyn from Weatheraction, a company specialising in long range weather forecasting, disagrees. He claims that solar charged particles impact us far more than is currently accepted, so much so he says that they are almost entirely responsible for what happens to global temperatures. He is so excited by what he has discovered that he plans to tell the international scientific community at a conference in London at the end of the month. If proved correct, this could revolutionise the whole subject. Ocean cycles What is really interesting at the moment is what is happening to our oceans. They are the Earth's great heat stores.
In the last few years [the Pacific Ocean] has been losing its warmth and has recently started to cool down According to research conducted by Professor Don Easterbrook from Western Washington University last November, the oceans and global temperatures are correlated. The oceans, he says, have a cycle in which they warm and cool cyclically. The most important one is the Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO). For much of the 1980s and 1990s, it was in a positive cycle, that means warmer than average. And observations have revealed that global temperatures were warm too. But in the last few years it has been losing its warmth and has recently started to cool down. These cycles in the past have lasted for nearly 30 years. So could global temperatures follow? The global cooling from 1945 to 1977 coincided with one of these cold Pacific cycles. Professor Easterbrook says: "The PDO cool mode has replaced the warm mode in the Pacific Ocean, virtually assuring us of about 30 years of global cooling." So what does it all mean? Climate change sceptics argue that this is evidence that they have been right all along. They say there are so many other natural causes for warming and cooling, that even if man is warming the planet, it is a small part compared with nature. But those scientists who are equally passionate about man's influence on global warming argue that their science is solid. The UK Met Office's Hadley Centre, responsible for future climate predictions, says it incorporates solar variation and ocean cycles into its climate models, and that they are nothing new. In fact, the centre says they are just two of the whole host of known factors that influence global temperatures - all of which are accounted for by its models. In addition, say Met Office scientists, temperatures have never increased in a straight line, and there will always be periods of slower warming, or even temporary cooling. What is crucial, they say, is the long-term trend in global temperatures. And that, according to the Met office data, is clearly up. To confuse the issue even further, last month Mojib Latif, a member of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) says that we may indeed be in a period of cooling worldwide temperatures that could last another 10-20 years.
The UK Met Office says that warming is set to resume
Professor Latif is based at the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences at Kiel University in Germany and is one of the world's top climate modellers. But he makes it clear that he has not become a sceptic; he believes that this cooling will be temporary, before the overwhelming force of man-made global warming reasserts itself. So what can we expect in the next few years? Both sides have very different forecasts. The Met Office says that warming is set to resume quickly and strongly. It predicts that from 2010 to 2015 at least half the years will be hotter than the current hottest year on record (1998). Sceptics disagree. They insist it is unlikely that temperatures will reach the dizzy heights of 1998 until 2030 at the earliest. It is possible, they say, that because of ocean and solar cycles a period of global cooling is more likely. One thing is for sure. It seems the debate about what is causing global warming is far from over. Indeed some would say it is hotting up.
Update - 1300, Tuesday 13 October 2009: Paul Hudson has written a blog entry about his article here: Paul Hudson's blog http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/paulhudson/
Thanks for all your comments. To answer some of the points raised directly:
1) Which was the hottest year?
From this table the Met Office clearly show 1998 as the warmest year on record. Temperatures have levelled out and fallen since then. In fact last year, as you can see, was much cooler than 1998.
Should we 'strip' 1998 of El Nino? I didn't think so for my article, because we have always have had El Ninos and La Ninas. Also - where would you stop? Would you get rid of PDOs and ADOs, too?
2) Did the models predict that temperatures would level off?
None of the climate models suggested that global temperatures would not rise any further for at least another 10 years, which is what we have observed. The Hadley Centre model does incorporate ocean cycles. But that doesn't alter the fact that the models did not predict this. So the question must be, will it/has it captured the negative PDO that some scientists say will last for the next 20 odd years - and if it hasn't, why hasn't it? I also know that the Met Office are currently conducting research into why temperatures have levelled off/fallen from their peak.
Mine is by no means the only recent contribution to the argument on the BBC site. Many other reports by a number of correspondents have been published. For example, as Richard Black explains here, knowing how our climate and C02 emissions have changed in the past is just as important as predicting what it's going to do in the future.
Marc Sheppard Today, the director of the Congressional Budget Office warned the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee that proposed climate change legislation would impose "significant costs" on America's GDP and employment. That’s not exactly what proponents had promised.
According to CBO chief Douglas Elmendorf, the Waxman-Markey bill passed in the House last June would reduce GDP by between one and three quarters of a percent by 2020, and between 1 and 3.5% by 2050. To the average household that might equate annually to $160 by 2020 and $925 by 2050 – hardly the “cost of a postage stamp” promised by the White House.
And the CBO director admitted that even those figures may be severely understated: "The uncertainties are very large, even for 2020, and they get larger over time” He identified one of the uncertainties of “the cost of reducing carbon emissions” as just “how readily the economy can move" in response, admitting that the CBO is only "guessing the rate."
The highest accounting authority in the land is only guessing the rate used in its cost analysis of the proposed largest tax-hike in history? Wow hardly covers it.
On a somewhat more certain note, Elmendorf debunked the “green jobs will save us” canard, predicting that such technologies will never keep up with the massive job loss brought on by a coerced transition from fossil fuels, adding that: "The fact that jobs turn up somewhere else for some people does not mean there aren't substantial costs borne by people, communities, firms and affected industries.”
Indeed it doesn’t. In Spain – once Obama’s shining example of his energy policy goals – there has been only one green job created for every two “old” jobs lost. The result has been a green-policy-induced 18% national unemployment level.
And for every hundred, thousand, or even million jobs lost, the impact on the climate will amount to that many times zero, as there has been no relationship whatsoever established between CO2 emissions and global temperatures.
But I digress ……
One week ago today, the CBO gave Obamacare a shot in the arm by estimating (or guessing I suppose) it would reduce federal deficits by $81 billion over the next decade.
In response, the White House was quick to praise the CBO for "confirm[ing] that we can provide stability and security for Americans with insurance and affordable options for uninsured Americans without adding a dime to the deficit and saving money over the long term."
And for days to follow, MSM headlines loudly praised both the CBO‘s announcement and its non-partisan integrity.
Given its disagreement with the administration’s relentless promises that cap-and-trade will boost employment and revive the economy, expect both the White House and the MSM to offer a slightly different assessment of last week’s hero.
And an increasing number of citizens to recognize the varying levels of deception spouting from all three.
Was this man, Maurice Strong, the father of global warming and the effort at global government? Here is an article from 1997 that sheds light on this person, and some of the information is quite prophetic:
The "conventions" that Spiro was talking about emerged from the Earth Summit chaired by Maurice Strong. They deal with two of the alleged global environmental crises -- global warming and species extinction.
At the time of the Earth Summit, some scientists predicted on the basis of climate computer models that the earth's average temperature would increase by 4 to 9 degrees Fahrenheit over the next century because of the "greenhouse effect." These predictions are controversial among scientists. And as the computer models are refined, they show that the atmosphere will warm far less than originally predicted. Furthermore, more accurate satellite measurements show no increase in the average global temperature over the last two decades. Finally, an important study published in Nature concluded that even if the warming predictions are right, it could well be less costly to allow greenhouse gas emissions to continue to rise for a decade or more because technological innovations and judicious capital investment will make it possible to reduce them far more cheaply at some point before they become a significant problem. In other words, we needn't take drastic and costly action now.
The process forges ahead anyway. The Framework Convention on Global Climate Change signed by President George Bush at the Rio Earth Summit is already beginning to harden. Initially, countries were supposed voluntarily to reduce by the year 2000 the "greenhouse gases" to the level emitted in 1990. Then, a year ago, at a UN climate-change meeting in Geneva, the Clinton Administration offered to set legally binding limits on the greenhouse gases the United States can emit. In June of this year, at the UN's Earth Summit +5 session, President Clinton reaffirmed this commitment. And mandatory limits on carbon emissions are to be finalized at a global meeting of Convention signatories in Kyoto this December.
Estimates of the costs to the United States of cutting emissions range from $90 billion to $400 billion annually in lost Gross Domestic Product and a loss of between 600,000 and 3.5 million jobs. Global costs would be proportionately higher.
Yet while the U.S. may be committing itself to limits, 130 developing nations, including China and India, are excluded under the Framework Convention from having to reduce their emissions, which, on present trends, will outstrip those of the industrialized world early in the next century. If the U.S. and other industrial countries have to limit energy use while the Third World is exempt, many industries will simply decamp to where energy prices are significantly lower.
If they are permitted to do so. For, as Sen. Chuck Hagel (R., Neb.) asked at a conference on "The Costs of Kyoto" held by the Competitive Enterprise Institute: "Who will administer a global climate treaty? . . . Will we have an international agency capable of inspecting, fining, and possibly shutting down American companies?" Sen. Hagel is not alone is his concern. In July the U.S. Senate passed 95 to 0 a resolution urging the Clinton Administration not to make binding concessions at the Kyoto conference.
But the climate-change treaty is not the only threat to U.S. interests. Though Mr. Bush refused to sign the Bio-diversity Convention at the Rio Earth Summit -- chaired, remember, by GOP contributor Strong -- that only delayed things. The Clinton Administration signed shortly after its inauguration. Since the treaty obliges signatories to protect plant and animal species through habitat preservation, its implementation could make the World Heritage Committee's activities on U.S. land use seem penny-ante by comparison.
A well-accepted aphorism about science, in the context of difference of opinion between two points of view, is “Madam, you are entitled to your own interpretation, but not to your own facts”.
The world stoker of the fires of global warming alarmism, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), cleverly suborns this dictum in two ways.
First, the IPCC accepts advice from influential groups of scientists who treat the data that underpins their published climate interpretations (collected, of course, using public research funds) as their own private property, and refuse to release it to other scientists.
Thus, confronted in 1996 with a request that he provide a U.S. peer-review referee with a copy of the data that underpinned a research paper that he had submitted, U.K. Hadley Climate Research Centre scientist Tom Wigley responded:
First, it is entirely unnecessary to have original “raw” data in order to review a scientific document. I know of no case at all in which such data were required by or provided to a referee ….. Second, while the data in question [model output from the U.K. Hadley Centre’s climate model] were generated using taxpayer money, this was U.K. taxpayer money. U.S. scientists therefore have no a priori right to such data. Furthermore, these data belong to individual scientists who produced them, not to the IPCC, and it is up to those scientists to decide who they give their data to.
In the face of such attitudes, which treat the established mores of scientific trust and method with contempt, it is scarcely surprising that it took Canadian statistics expert Steve McIntyre many years to get the primary data released that was used by another Hadley Centre scientist, Keith Briffa, in his published tree-ring reconstructions of past temperature from the Urals region, northern hemisphere. When he finally forced the release of the relevant data, McIntyre quickly proceeded to slay a second climate hockey-stick dragon which – like the first such beast fashioned by U.S. scientist Michael Mann, and widely promulgated by the IPCC – turned out to be based on faulty statistical methodology (see summary by Ross McKitrick here).
A variant on this, along “the dog ate my homework” path, also involves the Hadley Centre – which is the primary science provider of global temperature statistics to the IPCC. Faced with requests from outside scientists for the provision of the raw temperature data so that scientific audit checks could be undertaken, Hadley’s Phil Jones recently asserted that parts of the raw data used to reconstruct their global temperature curve for the period before about 1980 cannot be provided to outsiders because it has been lost or destroyed. In other words, it is now impossible to conduct an independent audit of the Hadley temperature curve for 1860-2008, on which the IPCC has based an important part of its alarmist global warming advice.
So much for data perversions. The second type of common distortion of normal scientific practice by the IPCC and its supporters concerns not data but hypotheses – which IPCC likes to define in its own way to suit its own ends. This attitude often manifests itself in the fashion expressed in a recent letter sent to me, viz:
Proponents of AGW claim that their theory is supported by peer reviewed literature whilst the case against it is not. This is a very effective argument and, although Solomon’s book The Deniers goes some way to counter it, I am not aware of an equally effective refutation. If there is one I would be most grateful if you could point me to it.
In an Australian variation of this, Greg Combet, assistant to climate Minister Penny Wong, earlier this year asserted with blatant inaccuracy that “we use only peer reviewed science and our opposition doesn’t”. Other IPCC sycophants phrase it slightly differently, such as: “if you climate sceptics had a scientific point of view it would have been published in reputable, peer-reviewed journals“.
Statements such as these all reflect a fundamental lack of understanding about the way that science works. They also exemplify the way in which climate alarmists always seek to frame the debate in ways that delivers them control, especially by clever choice of language (clean energy; climate change instead of global warming; carbon dioxide is a pollutant instead of a beneficial trace gas, etc.), or, in this case, by framing a hypothesis for testing that suits their political ends rather than Science’s ends.
If you accept at face value questions and comments like the ones enumerated above, you fall into a carefully laid climate alarmist trap. For the question “why are there no papers in peer-reviewed journals that disprove the hypothesis of dangerous human-caused global warming” is predicated, as is all related IPCC writing, on faulty science logic; specifically, it erects a wrong null hypothesis.
Scientists erect hypotheses to test based upon the fundamental science assumption of parsimony, or simplicity, sometimes grandly referred to as Occam’s Razor. That is to say, in seeking to explain matters of observation or experiment, a primary underlying principle is that the simplest explanation be sought; extraneous or complicating factors of interpretation, such as “extraterrestrials did it”, are only invoked when substantive evidence exists for such a complication.
Concerning the climate change that we observe around us today – which, importantly, is occurring at similar rates and magnitudes to that known to have occurred throughout the historical and geological past – the simplest (and therefore null) hypothesis, is that “the climate change observed today is natural unless and until evidence accrues otherwise”.
In regard to which, first, no such evidence has emerged. And, second, like any null hypothesis, that about modern climate change is there to be tested, as it has been. There are literally tens of thousands of peer-reviewed papers in major scientific journals that contain observations, data, experiments and theoretical reasoning that are consistent with the null hypothesis, which has therefore yet to be falsified (but, of course, one day might be).
The onus is therefore on Penny Wong and her scientists to provide some “evidence otherwise”. To give a clue how hard that task is, note that since 1988 (when the IPCC was created) western nations have spent more than $100 billion, and employed thousands of scientists, in attempts to measure the human signal in the global temperature record. The search has failed. Though no scientist doubts that humans influence climate at local level – causing both warmings (urban heat island effect) and coolings (land-use changes) – no definitive evidence has yet been discovered that a human influence is measurable, let alone dangerous, at global level. Rather, the human signal is lost in the noise of natural climate variation.
That the correct null hypothesis is the simplest hypothesis is, of course, no reason why other more complex hypotheses cannot be erected for testing. For instance, should you wish to test (as the IPCC should) the idea that “human carbon dioxide emissions are causing dangerous global warming”, then there are several ways that that can be done.
The result, long ago, has been the falsification of the dangerous human-caused warming hypothesis. Failed tests include: that global cooling has occurred since 1998 despite an increase in carbon dioxide of 5%; the lack of detailed correlation between the carbon dioxide and temperature records over the last 100 years; consideration of cause and effect timing of past carbon dioxide and temperature levels in ice core records; the absence of the model-predicted temperature hotspot high in the tropical troposphere; the low sensitivity of climate to carbon dioxide forcing as judged against empirical tests; and the demonstrable failure of computer GCMs to predict future climate.
These matters, and that the dangerous warming hypothesis fails numerous empirical tests, have been described in many places. Such writings, whether in refereed journals or not, are simply disparaged or ignored by those who wish to pursue the alarmist IPCC line.
It bears repeating that the onus is on Minister Wong, or her advisory IPCC scientists, to provide any evidence that the null hypothesis regarding modern climate change is false. Because she cannot do so, the clever trick is used of inverting the null hypothesis to demand that climate rationalist scientists demonstrate that human-cased global warming is not occurring.
Perhaps none of this would matter particularly were we dealing only with a squabble amongst scientists. But when ministers in our governments write, as did the Queensland Minister for Climate Change recently, that “The Queensland Government, along with the Australian Government and governments around the world, supports the findings of the IPCC”, it becomes a critical matter of necessity to understand that, in addition to being political in the first place, IPCC advice is also based upon faulty, indeed manipulative, science practice.
As independent scientific advisors to Senator Fielding have shown, the IPCC-derived science advice that the Australian Government is using as the basis for its carbon dioxide tax legislation is utterly flawed. This finding has yet to be rebutted.
Senators who vote for the second version of the misbegotten and misnamed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme bill will be supporting strongly harmful legislation that is based upon faulty science. Thereby, they will be abandoning their duty of care for the welfare of the Australian people.
DISCLOSURE: Bob Carter is one of the four independent climate scientists who, at Senator Fielding’s request, undertook a due diligence audit of the global warming advice being provided to Climate Minister Penny Wong by her Department. The three other scientists were David Evans, Stewart Franks and Bill Kininmonth.
"DENVER - With more than a foot of snow already on the ground in many parts of metropolitan Denver, the snow just kept falling Thursday morning. It promised to be the biggest October system to hit Colorado in 12 years."
"DENVER - With more than a foot of snow already on the ground in many parts of metropolitan Denver, the snow just kept falling Thursday morning. It promised to be the biggest October system to hit Colorado in 12 years."
Hmmm...and temperatures are flat (or cooling) for the last 11 years. How interesting.
“…ERBE data appear to demonstrate a climate sensitivity of about 0.5°C which is easily distinguished from sensitivities given by models.”
On the determination of climate feedbacks from ERBE data
Richard S. Lindzen and Yong-Sang Choi Revised on July 14, 2009 for publication to Geophysical Research Letters
Abstract Climate feedbacks are estimated from fluctuations in the outgoing radiation budget from the latest version of Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) nonscanner data. It appears, for the entire tropics, the observed outgoing radiation fluxes increase with the increase in sea surface temperatures (SSTs). The observed behavior of radiation fluxes implies negative feedback processes associated with relatively low climate sensitivity. This is the opposite of the behavior of 11 atmospheric models forced by the same SSTs. Therefore, the models display much higher climate sensitivity than is inferred from ERBE, though it is difficult to pin down such high sensitivities with any precision. Results also show, the feedback in ERBE is mostly from shortwave radiation while the feedback in the models is mostly from longwave radiation. Although such a test does not distinguish the mechanisms, this is important since the inconsistency of climate feedbacks constitutes a very fundamental problem in climate prediction.
Introduction The purpose of the present note is to inquire whether observations of the earth’s radiation imbalance can be used to infer feedbacks and climate sensitivity. Such an approach has, as we will see, some difficulties, but it appears that they can be overcome. This is important since most current estimates of climate sensitivity are based on global climate model (GCM) results, and these obviously need observational testing.
To see what one particular difficulty is, consider the following conceptual situation:
We instantaneously double CO2. This will cause the characteristic emission level to rise to a colder level with an associated diminution of outgoing longwave radiation (OLR). The resulting radiative imbalance is what is generally referred to as radiative forcing. However, the resulting warming will eventually eliminate the radiative imbalance as the system approaches equilibrium. The actual amount of warming associated with equilibration as well as the response time will depend on the climate feedbacks in the system. These feedbacks arise from the dependence of radiatively important substances like water vapor (which is a powerful greenhouse gas) and clouds (which are important for both infrared and visible radiation) on the temperature. If the feedbacks are positive, then both the equilibrium warming and the response time will increase; if they are negative, both will decrease. Simple calculations as well as GCM results suggest response times on the order of decades for positive feedbacks and years or less for negative feedbacks [Lindzen and Giannitsis, 1998, and references therein].
The main point of this example is to illustrate that the climate system tends to eliminate radiative imbalances with characteristic response times.
Now, in 2002–2004 several papers noted that there was interdecadal change in the top-of-atmosphere (TOA) radiative balance associated with a warming between the 1980’s and 1990’s [Chen et al., 2002; Wang et al., 2002; Wielicki et al., 2002a, b; Cess and Udelhofen, 2003; Hatzidimitriou et al., 2004; Lin et al., 2004]. Chou and Lindzen [2005] inferred from the interdecadal changes in OLR and temperature that there was a strong negative feedback. However, this result was internally inconsistent since the persistence of the imbalance over a decade implied a positive feedback. A subsequent correction to the satellite data eliminated much of the decadal variation in the radiative balance [Wong et al., 2006]. However, it also made clear that one could not readily use decadal variability in surface temperature to infer feedbacks from ERBE data. Rather one needs to look at temperature variations that are long compared to the time scales associated with the feedback processes, but short compared to the response time over which the system equilibrates. This is also important so as to unambiguously observe changes in the radiative budget that are responses to fluctuations in SST as opposed to changes in SST resulting from changes in the radiative budget; the latter will occur on the response time of the system. The primary feedbacks involving water vapor and clouds occur on time scales of days [Lindzen et al., 2001; Rodwell and Palmer, 2007], while response times for relatively strong negative feedbacks remain on the order of a year [Lindzen and Giannitsis, 1998, and references therein]. That said, it is evident that, because the system attempts to restore equilibrium, there will be a tendency to underestimate negative feedbacks relative to positive feedbacks that are associated with longer response times.
Concluding Remarks
In Figure 3, we show 3 panels. We see that ERBE and model results differ substantially. In panels a and b, we evaluate Equation (3) using ΔFlux for only OLR and only SWR. The curves are for the condition assuming no SW feedback and assuming no LW feedback in panels a and b, respectively. In panel a, model results fall on the curve given by Equation (3), because the model average of SW feedbacks is almost zero. In panel b, models with smaller LW feedbacks are closer to the curve for no LW feedback; the model results would lie on the curve assuming positive LW feedback. When in panel c we consider the total flux (i.e., LW + SW), model results do lie on the theoretically expected curve.
Looking at Figure 3, we note several important features:
1) The models display much higher climate sensitivity than is inferred from ERBE.
2) The (negative) feedback in ERBE is mostly from SW while the (positive) feedback in the models is mostly from OLR.
3) The theoretical relation between ΔF/ΔT and sensitivity is very flat for sensitivities greater than 2°C. Thus, the data does not readily pin down such sensitivities. This was the basis for the assertion by Roe and Baker [2007] that determination of climate sensitivity was almost impossible [Allen and Frame, 2007]. However, this assertion assumes a large positive feedback.
Indeed, Fig. 3c suggests that models should have a range of sensitivities extending from about 1.5°C to infinite sensitivity (rather than 5°C as commonly asserted), given the presence of spurious positive feedback. However, response time increases with increasing sensitivity [Lindzen and Giannitsis,1998], and models were probably not run sufficiently long to realize their full sensitivity. For sensitivities less than 2°C, the data readily distinguish different sensitivities, and ERBE data appear to demonstrate a climate sensitivity of about 0.5°C which is easily distinguished from sensitivities given by models.
Note that while TOA flux data from ERBE are sufficient to determine feedback factors, this data do not specifically identify mechanisms. Thus, the small OLR feedback from ERBE might represent the absence of any OLR feedback; it might also result from the cancellation of a possible positive water vapor feedback due to increased water vapor in the upper troposphere [Soden et al., 2005] and a possible negative iris cloud feedback involving reduced upper level cirrus clouds [Lindzen et al., 2001]. With respect to SW feedbacks, it is currently claimed that model SW feedbacks are largely associated with the behavior of low level clouds [Bony et al., 2006, and references therein]. Whether this is the case in nature cannot be determined from ERBE TOA observations.
However,more recent data from CALIOP do offer height resolution, and we are currently studying such data to resolve the issue of what, in fact, is determining SW feedbacks. Finally, it should be noted that our analysis has only considered the tropics. Following Lindzen et al. [2001], allowing for sharing this tropical feedback with neutral higher latitudes could reduce the negative feedback factor by about a factor of two. This would lead to an equilibrium sensitivity that is 2/3 rather than 1/2 of the non-feedback value. This, of course, is still a small sensitivity.
MIT climate scientists Richard Lindzen and collaborator Yong-Sang Choi soon-to-be published paper (Geophysical Research Letters, American Geophysical Union) pegs the earth’s “climate sensitivity”—the degree the earth’s temperature responds to various forces of change—at a value that is about six times less than the “best estimate” put forth by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The smaller the climate sensitivity, the less the impact that rising carbon dioxide levels will have on the earth’s climate. The less the impact that CO2 emissions will have on the earth’s climate, the less the “problem” and ability to reverse the “problem.”
Lindzen and Choi’s findings should come as a solace to those folks who are alarmed about future climate and as a bulwark to those folks fighting to limit Congresses negative impact on U.S. energy supplies and our economy. Indeed, climate sensitivity to GHGs is the multi-billion dollar question in climate science. If climate sensitivity is low, then the earth’s temperature doesn’t react very much to variations in processes which impact it—such things as solar variations, volcanic eruptions, cloudcover fluctuations or changes in the concentration of greenhouse gases.
If, on the other hand, the climate sensitivity is high, then changes in the climate drivers can lead to large changes of the earth’s average temperatures. Another way to think of it is that the lower the climate sensitivity, the more stable the earth’s climate.
Climate sensitivity is hotly debated because we have don’t have a good enough handle on the magnitude of the earth’s past temperature changes and an even worse understanding on the magnitude of the variation of climate drivers. So while theoretically evaluating the climate sensitivity is as easy as dividing the temperature change by the forcing change, in practice, a poor understanding of both the numerator and the denominator have made it virtually impossible to pin down.
IPCC Estimatation and the ‘Wild Card’ of Clouds
In its 2007 Fourth Assessment Report (AR4), the IPCC claims that the climate sensitivity to a doubling of atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations likely falls in the range of 2.0°C to 4.5°C. This is based on a combination of studies, some making determinations based on historical data, others basing their results on climate model output.
But again, the problem with the former is an observational record that is not accurate enough to make a reliable calculation; the problem with the latter is that the physical processes simulated by climate models are limited both by our less-than-perfect understanding of these processes as well as by modern-day computation power (which limits the temporal and spatial resolution of the climate simulation).
One area where climate models are particularly weak is in their ability to accurately simulate clouds and cloud variations. And, as you probably could have guessed, clouds and cloud variations play a pivotal role in establishing the earth’s average temperature.
There is a fast-growing evidence base that clouds respond to changes in greenhouse gas concentrations quite differently than the climate models predict that they should. Instead of acting to enhance the warming produced by increases in the earth’s greenhouse gas concentrations, it seems as if clouds may, in fact, act to suppress the rate of greenhouse gas-induced temperature rise.
New Findings
The latest findings to this effect by Lindzen and Choi add to the work that Roy Spencer and several other researchers have been doing for years in this arena. Instead of a climate sensitivity lying within the IPCC’s range of 2.0° to 4.5°C, Lindzen and Choi report it to be about 0.5°C—six times less than the IPCC’s “best estimate” of 3.0°C.
Lindzen and Choi make their determination by examining radiation data measured by instruments carried by satellites orbiting above the earth’s atmosphere and comparing the variation of incoming and outgoing radiation with the variations in the earth’s tropical ocean temperatures. Climate models seem to predict that when the ocean temperature increases, less radiation leaves the earth to space, which leads to additional warming—a positive feedback.
However, actual observations seem to show that warmer oceans results in more radiation lost to space, which acts to reverse the warming—in other words, a negative feedback. Changes in cloudcover are one possible mechanism involved. The data presented by Lindzen and Choi are shown in Figure 1. The red box surrounds the data from the observations and shows a positive relationship between sea surface temperature changes and the amount of radiation lost to space, while the climate models (the other 11 boxes in Figure 1) show the opposite—radiation lost to space declines as ocean temperatures rise.
Figure 1. The observed relationship between ocean temperature changes (x-axis) and radiation flux to space (y-axis) is contained in the graph with the red box around it. The other graphs depict the relationship as predicted by 11 different climate models (adapted from Lindzen and Choi, 2009).
This is a major paper. And as with most findings with serious repercussions to our scientific understanding, it will doubtlessly be gone over with a fine-toothed comb and subject to various challenges. It is too early to tell whether Lindzen and Choi’s findings will prove to be the end-all be-all in this debate. There are a few issues concerning the quality of the satellite data, how well the results from tropics represent the entire world, the impact that the eruption of Mt Pinatubo may have imparted on the results, and perhaps a couple of other details. But, even if the resolution of these issues bumps up Lindzen and Choi’s original determination of the climate sensitivity a bit, there is still a long way to go before it comes close to the IPCC’s “best estimate” of 3.0°C.
Unsettled Science … and ‘Skeptic’ Momentum
Lindzen and Choi findings could fundamentally shift the climate debate, especially when they are considered along side of the growing number of scientific publications (see references below) that have reached the same general conclusion—that the climate model determinations of the earth’s climate sensitivity are too large.
No longer can low sensitivity estimates be brushed away as some silly notion dreamed up by climate change naysayers; instead, they must be taken seriously, especially in light of the earth’s recent recalcitrance to warm at the rate projected by climate models for the early 21st century.
These results should factor prominently in any discussions aimed at trying to limit projected future warming by reducing greenhouse gas emissions as they make a strong case that such actions would be a waste of time and effort.
References:
Chylek, P., and U. Lohmann (2008), Aerosol radiative forcing and climate sensitivity deduced from the Last Glacial Maximum to Holocene transition. Geophysical Research Letters, 35, L04804, doi:10.1029/2007GL032759.
Chylek, P., U. Lohmann, M. Dubey, M. Mishchenko, R. Kahn, and A. Ohmura (2007), Limits on climate sensitivity derived from recent satellite and surface observations, Journal of Geophysical Research, 112, D24S04, doi:10.1029/2007JD008740.
Douglass, D. H., and R. S. Knox (2005), Climate forcing by the volcanic eruption of Mount Pinatubo, Geophysical Research Letters, 32, L05710, doi:10.1029/2004GL022119.
Idso, S. B., (1998) CO2-induced global warming: a skeptic’s view of potential climate change, Climate Research, 10, 69-82.
Lindzen, R. S., and Y-S. (2009) On the determination of climate feedbacks from ERBE data, Geophysical Research Letters, in press.
Scafetta, N., and B. J. West (2007), Phenomenological reconstructions of the solar signature in the Northern Hemisphere surface temperature records since 1600, Journal of Geophysical Research, 112, D24S03, doi:10.1029/2007JD008437.
Schwartz, S. E., (2007) Heat capacity, time constant, and sensitivity of Earth’s climate system. Journal of Geophysical Research, 112, D24S05, doi:10.1029/2007JD008746
Schwartz, S. E., (2008) Reply to comments by G. Foster et al., R. Knutti et al., and N. Scafetta on “Heat capacity, time constant, and sensitivity of Earth’s climate system”. Schwartz S. E. Journal of Geophysical Research, 113, D15105 (2008), doi:10.1029/2008JD009872.
Spencer, R. W., and W. D. Braswell (2008), Potential biases in feedback diagnosis from observations data: a simple model demonstration, Journal of Climate, 21, 5624-5628.
Wyant, M. C., M., Khairoutdinov, and C. S. Bretherton (2006), Climate sensitivity and cloud response of a GCM with a superparameterization. Geophysical Research Letters, 33, L06714
Marc Sheppard In an unprecedented show of partisan arrogance, the Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee just sent S. 1733 (the Kerry-Boxer climate bill) to the floor of the Senate with not a single Republican member present.
As EPW procedural rules prohibit modifications or amendments to bills short the attendance of at least 2 minority members, the bill was reported out as written, with no amendments considered or debated. And, while many Democrats lamented that limitation during their speeches, they all voted to nonetheless move the bill ahead.
Republicans have refused to attend the markup proceedings over the past few days, demanding that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) provide an updated cost analysis prior to markup. But Committee chair Barbara Boxer (D-CA) has repeatedly insisted that the cost differences between the Senate bill and the House bill -- already analyzed by the EPA -- would be proven to be nominal, and that EPA remodeling would be a waste of taxpayer’s dollars.
Democrats worried about wasting taxpayer dollars? Nonsense.
This is about a ticking alarm clock.
The number of Americans now buying into the politically-tainted junk science on which this bill is based has dropped from 47% to 36% in the past year alone. And that waning number will make it increasingly difficult to pass what amounts to an enormous and needless exercise in national (and finally international) wealth destruction and redistribution. Particularly if the voting spills over to next year – an election year.
And it was no coincidence that Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA) mentioned Copenhagen in his speech this morning. While the treaty is all but dead, Liberals know that no international treaty stands a chance short the American legislation needed to flush China and India from cover.
It’ll be interesting to see how the so-called moderates in both parties react to this unprecedented declaration of ideological war.
Americans concerned about the cost of impending environmental legislation should look across the pond.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown gave a stellar performance in the art of scare-mongering last week when he warned in a speech to the Major Economies Forum in London that the global community had fifty days to avoid a "climate catastrophe." What Brown failed to mention is the effect his proposed green legislation would have on energy prices, which have risen dramatically in the U.K. since he became Prime Minister.
The reason for this is Cap and Trade legislation, which recently brought fresh misery to British consumers. Britain's leading energy companies announced that energy costs are likely to increase next year despite a fall in the price of wholesale energy. While the mainstream media typically used the news to condemn big business and big oil, the reality is that rising energy costs are certain in an economy constricted by a Carbon Emissions Trading Scheme (Cap and Trade).
Unlike in the United States, where a vigorous grassroots movement has held up Washington's move toward Cap and Trade, the British Climate Change Act sailed through the U.K. parliament last year. Only three Members of Parliament voted against the bill despite the fact that it was easily the most expensive ever passed in the history of Britain's parliamentary democracy. Government bureaucrats estimated the bill would cost around £404 billion ($662 billion) over four decades. That translates to each U.K. household paying an extra £30,400 ($49,000) in energy costs over 40 years, a staggeringly wasteful sum.
In capping the amount of CO2 businesses and households are allowed to emit, the government created a phony market in carbon. Already, British energy providers are passing on the costs of trading in this market to ordinary consumers, hitting struggling businesses especially hard. Worse still, energy providers are compelled by government diktat to source a proportion of their energy from renewable sources, like wind farms, which are fabulously inefficient and are already dependent on government handouts to remain viable. Matthew Sinclair, an analyst with the London-based Taxpayers' Alliance, estimates that 14% of energy costs are directly attributable to climate change legislation. In recessionary times, this figure represents capital that could otherwise be spent stimulating private investment and household savings.
The situation looks set to only get worse. Earlier this year, details contained in the British government's deceptively titled Low Carbon Transition Plan revealed that ministers anticipate blackouts in Britain as early as 2017. With Britain's coal-fired power stations restricted in the number of hours they can run so as to comply with the European Union's draconian Large Combustible Plants directive, British consumers face an energy shortfall of 3000 megawatt-hours per year -- that's the equivalent of an area the size of Memphis being without power for a day. As a result, ministers are now conceding that Britain will be forced to import more of its energy supplies from volatile parts of the world, like Russia, thus threatening national security.
Thankfully, American consumers have launched an effective campaign to prevent a similar system being launched in the U.S. In response, UN bureaucrats and others have tried to smear ordinary Americans as part of an ugly campaign to terrify voters into backing a huge national energy tax. John Bruton, the EU Ambassador to the United States, vented his frustration when he told the Financial Times that the "the world cannot wait on the Senate's timetable." Michigan Senator Debbie Stebenow warned climate skeptics that Americans "... are paying the price in more hurricanes and tornadoes," while the Energy Secretary chided the nation last month when he compared the American public to teenage children. "(They) aren't acting in a way that they should act," he said.
American consumers should look carefully at the impending crisis in Britain and its causes, as the Democrats in Washington seek to lead the nation down a similar path. The European Cap and Trade system is criminally wasteful, forcing hard-working taxpayers to fork over ever-increasing sums of cash in the name of unproven science. Unless Cap and Trade is defeated, American tax-payers will be throwing Tea Parties with the lights off.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has sent its final proposal on whether carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions pose a danger to human health and welfare to the White House for review, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson told Reuters on Monday.
The EPA's final finding, if it follows the agency's earlier assessment and is approved by the Office of Management and Budget, would allow the EPA to issue rules later to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, even if Congress fails to pass legislation to cut U.S. emissions of the heat-trapping gases that contribute to global warming.
"We sent the final proposal over to OMB on Friday," Jackson said in an interview at her EPA headquarters' office.
She said the OMB has up to 90 days to review the proposal, but the EPA would like a quicker timetable.
"We've briefed them a couple of times. So we're hoping for an expedited review," Jackson said.
Along with its final endangerment finding, the EPA also sent to OMB the agency's final finding on whether cars and trucks "cause or contribute to that pollution," Jackson said.
Such a finding would allow the federal government to regulate tailpipe emissions by increasing vehicle mileage requirement.
Jackson said the government is facing a "hard deadline" of next March to let automakers know of any required increases in fuel economy standards that would affect vehicles built for the 2012 model year.
She said the EPA received more than 300,000 comments on its initial proposed public health endangerment and vehicle pollution findings that were issued last April.
Well, folks, the cap and tax bill contains an ominous provision which would allow the President broad powers to reign in CO2 emissions. Might that include the sudden takeover of industry?
All the talk in Washington is surrounding a government health insurance plan, but there’s a little discussed insurance plan in the Boxer-Kerry cap and trade bill that’s worth some attention. The Senate version of the cap and trade bill includes a section that grants the President the authority to “direct relevant federal agencies” to impose additional greenhouse gas regulations. Senators David Vitter (R-LA) and John Barrasso (R-WY) have been working assiduously to uncover the true costs of cap and trade legislation.
Greenhouse gas concentrations are measured in parts per million (ppm). Many global warming alarmists believe that upper limit on carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions in order to prevent catastrophic harm is 450 parts per million (ppm). Once we reach that threshold, water will rise to the torch of the Statue of Liberty, California will be an island, the polar ice caps will cease to exist and island nations will no longer be nations but submerged pieces of land. To put the numbers in some perspective, Sharon Begley notes in her Newsweek column that the carbon dioxide concentration is currently at 386 ppm; we were at 280ppm before the Industrial Revolution. If you include the carbon dioxide equivalent greenhouse gases, we’ve arguably reached the 450 ppm threshold. The Boxer-Kerry legislation says that if global greenhouse gas concentrations exceed 450 parts per million of carbon dioxide equivalent:
Sec. 707 Not later than July 1, 2015, and every 4 years thereafter– `(1) the President shall direct relevant Federal agencies to use existing statutory authority to take appropriate actions identified in the reports submitted under sections 705 and 706 and to address any shortfalls identified in such reports.
The passed House version, Waxman-Markey, also contains language that grant the administration similar authority. So, for those who thought cap and trade legislation would preempt costly regulations, think again. This is more or less an insurance policy that would allow EPA officials regulate just about every aspect of the market and guarantees there will be economic pain. Even EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said, “We get further faster without top-down regulation.” Added regulations on top of cap and trade would be a bureaucratic nightmare that could delay economic projects and tie them up in litigation and result in hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars in compliance costs.
If we’ve learned anything from the health care debate, it’s that companies shouldn’t trust government promises that their bottom lines will not be affected. Proponents of a government-run option made repeated claims that private businesses would remain competitive but Karen Ignagni, president of America’s Health Insurance Plans, recently sent a letter to the White House and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi saying the plan “would bankrupt hospitals, dismantle employer coverage. The same can be said for cap and trade. In order to garner business support, Members promised generous allowance revenue handouts for various industries and special interests. President Obama originally called for an auction of the emission allowances, forcing companies to bid on the right to emit. Businesses, knowing very well this would impose a severe cost on their bottom line, sent their lobbyists to Washington to protect them. And it worked – at least they thought it did. Sections 705-707 of the Boxer-Kerry cap and trade bill would pile costly regulations on these allegedly protected companies. And these costs would be passed onto the consumer, making the bill all that more painful.
Even if we are only at 386 ppm, the way China and other developing countries are growing and refusing to cap greenhouse gas emissions, global greenhouse gas concentrations could reach 450 ppm in no time. George Will writes, “On Oct. 21, China, the world’s leading emitter of greenhouse gases, and India, which ranks fourth — together they account for 26 percent of emissions — jointly agreed: They, with their combined one-third of the world’s population, will not play in what increasingly resembles a global game of climate-change charades. Neither nation is interested in jeopardizing its economic growth with emissions caps of a sort that never impeded the growth of the developed nations that now praise them.”
With the rate of growth of global greenhouse gas emissions, cap and trade paired with top down regulation assures economic pain for every part of the economy, especially the American energy consumer, with nothing to show for it.
We are really screwed if this crap passes. Energy sources will be shut down, jobs will be lost, fuel costs will skyrocket. We will have a real crisis on our hands. It's time to consider going off the grid, it will cost less to do so in the end, and look for alternate transportation, as we won't be able to afford driving our own cars.
[This message has been edited by avengador1 (edited 11-13-2009).]
Tell me this stuff is not designed to bring us to our knees as a country. Does anyone believe it isn't?
Add this to the healthcare bill and what it will do to our country, add it to increasing the debt many times over by simply pumping money we don't have into the system as a band aid that will fall off soon, if experts came up with this stuff, I don't know what they are experts in.
