GW, C&T, Is this for Real?

If you asked me to name the three scariest threats facing the human race, I would give the same answer that most people would: nuclear war, global warming and Windows

Dave Barry

Before we have Cap & Trade imposed on us, I thought you might want a rational summary.  If you have no interest in whether Global Warming is real or not, skip to the bottom.  I would still Recommend reading http://joannenova.com.au/

The following is a scam summary from KUSI.

Today we have the continued claim that carbon dioxide is the culprit of an uncontrollable, runaway man-made global warming. We are told that when we burn fossil fuels we are leaving a dastardly carbon footprint. And, we are told we must pay Al Gore or the environmentalists for this sinful footprint. Our governments on all levels are considering taxing the use of fossil fuels. The Federal Environmental Protection Agency is on the verge of naming CO2 as a pollutant and strictly regulating its use to protect our climate. The new President and the US Congress are on board. Many state governments are moving on the same course.

We are already suffering from this CO2 silliness in many ways. Our energy policy has been strictly hobbled by the prohibiting of new refineries and of drilling for decades. We pay for the shortage this has created every time we buy gas. On top of that, the whole issue of corn based ethanol costs us millions of tax dollars in subsidies, which also has driven up food prices. All of this is a long way from over.

Yet I am totally convinced there is no scientific basis for any of it.

Global Warming: It is a hoax. It is bad science. It is high-jacking public policy. It is the greatest scam in history.

KUSI

Now the technical stuff…This is a technical and rational discussion from a balanced viewpoint.  The summary from the discussion is below.  Go to the site to get the complete details.

What are the take-home messages:

• The temperature effect of atmospheric carbon dioxide is logarithmic, not exponential.
• The potential planetary warming from a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide from pre-Industrial Revolution levels of ~280ppmv to 560ppmv (possible some time later this century - perhaps) is generally estimated at around 1 °C.
• The guesses of significantly larger warming are dependent on "feedback" (supplementary) mechanisms programmed into climate models. The existence of these "feedback" mechanisms is uncertain and the cumulative sign of which is unknown (they may add to warming from increased atmospheric carbon dioxide or, equally likely, might suppress it).
• The total warming since measurements have been attempted is thought to be about 0.6 degrees Centigrade. At least half of the estimated temperature increment occurred before 1950, prior to significant change in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. Assuming the unlikely case that all the natural drivers of planetary temperature change ceased to operate at the time of measured atmospheric change then a 30% increment in atmospheric carbon dioxide caused about one-third of one degree temperature increment since and thus provides empirical support for less than one degree increment due to a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide.
• There is no linear relationship between atmospheric carbon dioxide change and global mean temperature or global mean temperature trend -- global mean temperature has both risen and fallen during the period atmospheric carbon dioxide has been rising.
• The natural world has tolerated greater than one-degree fluctuations in mean temperature during the relatively recent past and thus current changes are within the range of natural variation. (See, for example, ice core and sea surface temperature reconstructions.)
• Other anthropogenic effects are vastly more important, at least on local and regional scales.
• Fixation on atmospheric carbon dioxide is a distraction from these more important anthropogenic effects.
• Despite attempts to label atmospheric carbon dioxide a "pollutant" it is, in fact, an essential trace gas, the increasing abundance of which is a bonus for the bulk of the biosphere.
• There is no reason to believe that slightly lower temperatures are somehow preferable to slightly higher temperatures - there is no known "optimal" nor any known means of knowingly and predictably adjusting some sort of planetary thermostat.
• Fluctuations in atmospheric carbon dioxide are of little relevance in the short to medium term (although should levels fall too low it could prove problematic in the longer-term).
• Activists and zealots constantly shrilling over atmospheric carbon dioxide are misdirecting attention and effort from real and potentially addressable local, regional and planetary problems.

So, now you know.

Junk Science

If you want to calculate the real impact of your carbon footprint, check out Junk Science:

Greenhouse Offset

Joanne Nova has the, yes the best short, common language, treatise on Global Warming around.  Make sure you look at the short ~20 page, explanation. 

http://joannenova.com.au/

What’s the most embarrassing thing that could happen to a skeptic? Could it be worse than being exposed for believing anything and everything a government committee tells them?  Do the following statements sound familiar?

• “The debate is over”,
• “The time to act is now, we can’t wait for proof”,
• “Look around you, ice caps are melting, forests are dying”
• “There is a consensus among mainstream scientists”

The usual GW non-science:  These are religious answers,  based on faith, and feeling; not science. When a well qualified person uses a statement like one of the above, it tells us nothing about carbon in the atmosphere but everything about how poor our universities are. All scientists should be trained to spot-the-difference, “faith or fact?”.

They rarely are.

What Will Cap & Trade Cost?

A carbon cap and trade scheme, functions the same as an energy tax.  The Heritage Org website has an interesting piece on what this would cost us:

In 2007, MIT did a study on the costs of cap and trade and found that cap and trade proposals that would reduce carbon emission by 50% to 80% below 1990 levels by 2050 would cost the American household $800 a year in economic losses and $3,100 a year in taxes collected by the federal government. That’s a total $3,900 cost for the average American household! How does this cost compare to other household expenses?

Tuesday’s Investor’s Business Daily editorial on Cap & Trade replicates the argument that this is a regressive tax:

Douglas Elmendorf, director of the Congressional Budget Office, told members of the Senate Finance Committee Thursday that "Under a cap-and-trade program, consumers" — not demonized corporations, we might add — "would ultimately bear most of the costs of emission reductions."

Cutting carbon emissions by 15% through this method would cost each American household an average of $1,600 a year, the CBO found. In a worst-case scenario, the cost is $2,200 per household.  Current House legislation would carry even heavier economic penalties than the CBO's model suggests.

Should it become law, it would require that CO2, the greenhouse gas some (but far from all) scientists believe is warming the planet, be cut 20% from 2005 levels by 2020. By 2050, the emissions would have to be 83% below 2005 levels. In light of this, $1,600 a year seems like a bargain.

But Rep. Henry Waxman, the California Democrat who chairs the Energy and Commerce Committee that is looking at a cap-and-trade bill, won't. Neither will the White House, which is putting pressure on House Democrats to pass legislation quickly.  "The president says he wants legislation, he wants us to move as quickly as possible," Waxman said.

IBD Editorial

Zogby, Rasmussen, and Gallup demonstrate that a minority support cap and trade.  To bad a recent Rasmussen poll showed that most people don’t know what Cap & Trade is:

Given a choice of three options, just 24% of voters can correctly identify the cap-and-trade proposal as something that deals with environmental issues. A slightly higher number (29%) believe the proposal has something to do with regulating Wall Street while 17% think the term applies to health care reform. A plurality (30%) have no idea.

www.rasmussenreports.com

This is serious stuff, led by a pseudo-religious group think*, that is more about power and telling people what to do (note: the preachers of tolerance are often the least tolerant similarity).  Under the veil of science, this is politics at it’s best.  Stay tuned.

OK, now we're convinced. The country does need cap-and-trade — preferably a cap placed on the many poor ideas flowing out of Washington and a large-scale trade of the existing political leadership for a fresh class of elected officials who can think straight.  IBD 5/11/09

There may be some sanity.  In an article regarding the EPA’s classification of CO2 as a hazard to humans (do they realize that we produce CO2 with every breath?),  The Obama administration is coming to realize the impact on the economy over a pseudo science:

"The bottom line is that OMB would have not concluded review, which allows the finding to move forward, if we had concerns about whether EPA's finding was consistent with either the law or the underlying science," Mr. Orszag said.

Mr. Barraso called the document a "smoking gun" that shows the endangerment findings "were political, not scientific."

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R., Ohio) said the disclosure of this document "suggests that a political decision was made to put special interests ahead of middle-class families and small businesses struggling in this recession."

Frank O'Donnell, head of the environmental group, Clean Air Watch, called the document "nothing short of a direct attack on the EPA's proposed finding.

"It is very clear from this that the Obama administration contains people who are trying to sabotage the administration's climate strategy...(and) there are a lot of knives within the bowels of the bureaucracy," he said.

online.wsj.com/

How did this get so out of control?

*  Groupthink is a type of thought exhibited by group members who try to minimize conflict and reach consensus without critically testing, analyzing, and evaluating ideas. Individual creativity, uniqueness, and independent thinking are lost in the pursuit of group cohesiveness, as are the advantages of reasonable balance in choice and thought that might normally be obtained by making decisions as a group. During groupthink, members of the group avoid promoting viewpoints outside the comfort zone of consensus thinking. A variety of motives for this may exist such as a desire to avoid being seen as foolish, or a desire to avoid embarrassing or angering other members of the group. Groupthink may cause groups to make hasty, irrational decisions, where individual doubts are set aside, for fear of upsetting the group’s balance.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupthink