Tonight on WRKO’s Pundit Review Radio at 8pm, author Chris Horner discusses his new book, Red Hot Lies: How Global Warming Alarmists Use Threats, Fraud, and Deception to Keep You Misinformed
If global warming climate change is indeed the most important crisis we’ve ever faced, as Al Gore said, then this global recession is about the best thing to happen since, since, since, well, I’m just not sure. Can I get an amen?
Bruce McQuain over at QandO nailed it when he said this is a headline only an environmental wacko could love,
Eastern Bloc collapse boosts climate outlook
The world is on track to meet its Kyoto protocol target, according to very preliminary data released for the first time today, but not solely through a global willingness to regulate greenhouse gases.
The efforts of some countries to rein back emissions have been bolstered by an economic downturn in others, says the UN…This means the encouraging news could be reversed if governments do not put policies in place to slow and eventually reverse the trend.
Once again, Bruce McQuain,
Yes indeed, let’s clamp down those economy busting mandates so we can make the downturn permanent. Limiting a trace gas for which man-made activity is but a minor contributor is worth the hardship such mandates would impose, isn’t it?
Meanwhile in Asia, more realization that the need for economic growth trumps fears about global warming climate change,
Climate change momentum fading: Asia-Pacific survey
Climate change is fading as a priority in the Pacific Rim as the gloomy state of the global economy takes precedence, a survey of opinion leaders showed Wednesday.
Within the U.S. economy, similar problems are evident,
WSJ: Clean Energy Confronts Messy Reality
Hobbled by the financial crisis, power companies across the U.S. are slashing capital budgets and canceling projects for clean electricity. Financing for new nuclear power plants appears shaky. And some energy companies are even having trouble satisfying their short-term needs for cash.
Forging a new energy future by creating vast amounts of wind, solar and, possibly, nuclear energy is one of Mr. Obama’s highest priorities. But enacting that policy depends to a large degree on the ability of energy companies and utilities to finance the massive new investments that would be needed. With many of those companies cutting spending, a lot of those investments are being pared back or eliminated.
Too bad our politicians won’t be listening. Having been parolled from the political minority after a 14-year stint in Irrelevencyville, Democrats are frothing at the mouth to make all of their policy dreams a reality. Unfortunately, for the American worker, there is no greater liberal fetish than Global Warming Climate Crisis Fanaticism.
The first sign of bad news was when centrist Democrat John Dingell was replaced as head of the Energy Committee in the House by leftist Henry Waxman. Waxman, along with the president elect, are pushing a so-called “cap and trade” system that would cripple the economy. Waxman, breaking with House tradition, challenged the 27-term congresman for this leadership post. There is a very simple reason why, Waxman has big plans to regulate the economy in the name of global warming climate change.
Waxman has an ally in the president elect. Watch the first three minutes of the video below. Obama makes it clear, a cap and trade system is on its way. He also follows the lead of Al Gore in trying to marginalize skeptics by saying, “the science is beyond dispute.”
In Red, Hot Lies, Chris Horner points to a Financial Times column by John Kay, that knocks down this deeply held belief among the left about “scientific consensus”,
Consensus is a political concept, not a scientific one.
Consensus finds a way through conflicting opinions and interests. Consensus is achieved when the outcome of discussion leaves everyone feeling they have been given enough of what they want. The processes of proper science could hardly be more different. The accomplished politician is a negotiator, a conciliator, finding agreement where none seemed to exist. The accomplished scientist is an original, an extremist, disrupting established patterns of thought. Good science involves perpetual, open debate, in which every objection is aired and dissents are sharpened and clarified, not smoothed over.
Another inconvenient truth for the Global Warming Climate Change Fanatics, like our president elect,
The impact that this would have is simply staggering. So, while Europe and Asia are realizing that economic growth trumps the desire for climate change regulation, in the U.S. we are heading in the opposite direction. Here is a Heritage evaluation of what cap and trade would mean for the economy and environment,
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.
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.
Lost Jobs
The net job losses from (cap and trade) are estimated by Charles River Associates to be 1.2 million to 2.3 million by 2015. 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.
Little Environmental Gain
While the costs of aggressive cap and trade proposals are substantial, the environmental benefits are suspect.
What makes this all so tragic is that while the political and chattering classes talk with absolute conviction about global warming the climate crisis and the direction of weather for the next 100 years, they haven’t noticed that we are, indeed, in a period of global cooling.
So, while Al Gore says the debate is over and Obama says “the science is beyond dispute”, some pesky scientists have actually decided to keep working instead of switching careers. Here’s what some of the heretics have found recently,
New satellite predicts at least 23 years of global cooling
The new Jason oceanographic satellite shows a much larger than normal persistent Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO). Cooler PDO phases usually last 21 to 25 years, so we should be quite chilly as a planet until at least 2030, maybe longer.
These alternating natural climatic cycles defy the so-called “climate consensus†that human-emitted carbon dioxide was responsible totally for the recent cycle of global warming that began in the late 1970s and peaked in 1998.
The Earth’s previous warming phase from 1915 through 1939, which peaked in 1936 during the infamous Dust Bowl Days, was almost as warm as the recent cycle of global warming.
The last cooler cycle of global temperatures occurred from late 1939 to early 1976, peaking (or bottoming) in 1973.
In the past 10 years, especially the past couple of years, the Earth’s climate has begun to cool, even though CO2 emissions have soared on a worldwide scale. How many years of declining temperatures will it take to finally break up Al Gore’s ‘global warming consensus’? Only time will tell — probably when all the money runs out.