You must know by now that the Cap & Trade legislation that I wrote about in a previous posting (3/11/09) has passed the House of Representatives by a slim seven vote margin. The fact that the Democrats, who command such a large margin, needed seven Republicans to get this through should be ample evidence to you that this is bad legislation and nothing more than the largest tax increase to the American public in history. It will prolong this recession, result in the loss of millions of jobs in the petroleum or petroleum-related industries and massive increases in the cost of energy.
All of this is predicated on a lie that has been perpetrated on the America public about the role of greenhouse gas (CO2) on the world’s climate. I’m old enough to remember a similar lie under a similar type of Administration in the 70’s (Jimmy Carter’s), at that time the planet was cooling and fossil fuels were the likely culprit and we all would freeze to death unless we developed alternative energy sources. Also, we were running out of oil reserves and government needed to intervene with massive taxpayer subsidies for other uneconomic forms of energy because we couldn’t leave it to the markets. Now, 35 years later, we’re running out of time, the planet is now getting hotter, people are to blame, and we are doomed if we don’t stop using fossil fuels.
Well, over the past 40 years we have consumed more oil than the reserves we had in 1970 and the proven oil reserves have nearly doubled from that period. The 30 year cooling trend ended in the late 70’s and has been replaced by a 20-year warming trend that peaked in 1998 and is now actually declining, regardless of what Al Gore says. The average global temperature has increased by about one degree per century since the end of the Little Ice Age 250 years ago and CO2 levels have increased by a mere 100 parts per million (ppm). It is a trace gas comprising just 4 out of every 10,000 molecules in the atmosphere. Without CO2 in the atmosphere there would be no life on this planet! The sun and water vapor are by far the biggest drivers of our climate and if CO2 is now called a “pollutant”, then we ought to call water vapor a “pollutant” also. This conclusion is preposterous.
If we do the math we also come to the conclusion that this legislation is not credible. Mr. Obama’s goal is “80 by 50” – an 80% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2050. Worldwide demand for energy will grow by 30-50% over the next 20 years and fossil fuels will supply about 85% of that demand, no matter what President Obama does. In fact, taken together, wind and solar power account for just one-sixth of 1% of U.S. energy usage; even though we have pumped in roughly $20 billion in taxpayer subsidies in the past 30 years. President Obama proposes to double wind and solar consumption by the end of his first term. It actually doubled over the last 3 years of the Bush Administration and if he doubles it again, it will grow from 1/6 of 1% to 1/3 of 1% of the total energy usage. That assumes the U.S. consumption is flat over the period which is not likely.
Thank you Mr. President! You have set an unrealistic goal; it will cost consumers $2 trillion or more over the next decade and who knows how much by 2050. In addition, you are asking the American people to reduce their carbon footprint from about 20 tons per person per year, to about 2 tons per person per year in 2050. The last time our footprint was that low John Smith was courting Pocahontas!
Let’s hope you only hang around in this job till 2012.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Global Warming and Bad Science
It’s been awhile since my last post as I moved to my northern residence for the summer months. Like millions of others I am seeking a buyer so that I can live permanently in southwest Florida. During this time I have had a chance to view the rather dynamic political scene, Obama’s trip to the mid-East and Europe, continuing negative developments in the economy, and the slowly eroding public approval of the President’s policies, although he personally retains high popularity ratings.
In the coming months we will have a lot to say about this administration’s attempt to pass national healthcare legislation, a Cap and Trade environmental tax, and at the same time run our auto industry; all this with the back drop of rising unemployment, a failed stimulus program, and rising deficits. I believe we would have a lot more unrest right now had the stock market not recovered all of its 2009 losses at this point.
To make matters worse, I read about another ridiculous global warming report issued by the global Humanitarian Forum, which is based in Geneva, and headed by former U.N. Secretary General, Kofi Annan. The report warns that unless countries agree to “the most ambitious international agreement ever negotiated” at a meeting this year in Copenhagen, droughts and floods and natural disasters induced by climate change will kill 315,000 each year and cost $125 billion and it gets worse into the future. Actually, these numbers are not very ominous when one considers that malaria and AIDS kill an estimated 3 million people a year. It would seem that a focused worldwide effort using known technology to eradicate those dread diseases, would be far more cost-effective than trying to affect a multi-trillion dollar program to change the climate, which is controlled by God or other natural phenomena (depending on your religious beliefs).
The real questionable credibility of this report is its methodology, which assumes that global warming is the direct cause of climate change when no credible evidence exists other than theories and the political rhetoric of overzealous environmentalists. There is absolutely no evidence that can point to a relationship of greenhouse gas emissions and disasters. This report actually attributes Hurricane Katrina and suggests that the fighting in Somalia are products of climate change. Since the effects of climate change are long-term, it is disingenuous to attribute these recent events to change caused by global warming.
We have gotten to the point where claims such as those made in this report need to be scrutinized more carefully by credible scientists and their assessment needs to be published in the news media or otherwise we will continue to be flooded with this kind of self-serving phony science that dresses itself up when promoted by political advocates who see the money train of the green movement.
I’m afraid the Obama administration is falling into that trap as we continue to sit on the sidelines with known technology while we claim the goal of energy independence.
In the coming months we will have a lot to say about this administration’s attempt to pass national healthcare legislation, a Cap and Trade environmental tax, and at the same time run our auto industry; all this with the back drop of rising unemployment, a failed stimulus program, and rising deficits. I believe we would have a lot more unrest right now had the stock market not recovered all of its 2009 losses at this point.
To make matters worse, I read about another ridiculous global warming report issued by the global Humanitarian Forum, which is based in Geneva, and headed by former U.N. Secretary General, Kofi Annan. The report warns that unless countries agree to “the most ambitious international agreement ever negotiated” at a meeting this year in Copenhagen, droughts and floods and natural disasters induced by climate change will kill 315,000 each year and cost $125 billion and it gets worse into the future. Actually, these numbers are not very ominous when one considers that malaria and AIDS kill an estimated 3 million people a year. It would seem that a focused worldwide effort using known technology to eradicate those dread diseases, would be far more cost-effective than trying to affect a multi-trillion dollar program to change the climate, which is controlled by God or other natural phenomena (depending on your religious beliefs).
The real questionable credibility of this report is its methodology, which assumes that global warming is the direct cause of climate change when no credible evidence exists other than theories and the political rhetoric of overzealous environmentalists. There is absolutely no evidence that can point to a relationship of greenhouse gas emissions and disasters. This report actually attributes Hurricane Katrina and suggests that the fighting in Somalia are products of climate change. Since the effects of climate change are long-term, it is disingenuous to attribute these recent events to change caused by global warming.
We have gotten to the point where claims such as those made in this report need to be scrutinized more carefully by credible scientists and their assessment needs to be published in the news media or otherwise we will continue to be flooded with this kind of self-serving phony science that dresses itself up when promoted by political advocates who see the money train of the green movement.
I’m afraid the Obama administration is falling into that trap as we continue to sit on the sidelines with known technology while we claim the goal of energy independence.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
