Posted on 01/20/2007 8:56:49 AM PST by Mount Athos
Climate Change: In Congress, business and the media, those who urge "doing something" about global warming are moving ahead with an agenda that seeks to stifle free speech and scientific inquiry, and kill the economy.
The announcement that, as part of her "first 100 hours," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record) intends to create a special committee to create new laws for global warming shouldn't be a surprise. Pelosi is among a large group of global warming advocates who believe November's election was their big chance to slash our use of greenhouse gases.
In addition to Pelosi's panel, at least four bills are already making their way through Congress to address warming. And as if that weren't enough, a coalition of 10 major companies -- including Alcoa, GE, DuPont and Duke Energy -- have joined with environmental groups to help shape coming legislation.
No doubt, action is on the way. But once here, it won't do much -- other than serious damage to the global economy.
The lack of discussion about what Kyoto would cost is really shocking. It's a lot, yet the focus has been on the bad science and scare tactics of leftist propaganda like Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth."
Let's start with one stunning "inconvenient truth" -- that no one really knows how to "cut back" greenhouse gases without significantly damaging the economy. That's right: Lowering our output of greenhouse gases would mean a lowering of our GDP.
The annual loss for the U.S. alone, according to the U.N., could be as much as 1.96% of GDP. Today's economy, about $13.3 trillion, would thus shrivel by about $260 billion a year, or more than $11 trillion by 2050. Other estimates go as high as 5% a year of GDP, or $670 billion. That's a total U.S. cost of nearly $30 trillion by 2050.
No matter what you've heard, global warming remains a theory. Yet Kyoto proponents treat it as fact, thus beyond dispute. They want to close off debate, as if we lived in some kind of totalitarian dictatorship.
Sorry, but this is science. And in science, debate ends only when there's no longer convincing evidence to the contrary. And we're a long way from that when it comes to warming.
Yet, some observers, like the Weather Channel's Heidi Cullen, advocate revoking the credentials of those who refuse to toe the ideological line. "If a meteorologist can't speak to the fundamental science of climate change," she said, "then maybe the AMS (American Meteorological Service) shouldn't give them a Seal Of Approval."
Cullen would have been right at home in the 17th century, when the Church threatened Galileo with sanctions for backing Copernicus' theory of the sun's being at the center of the solar system.
Cullen is one of a growing number who want to halt scientific debate. By demonizing those who speak out about the bad science and even worse economics behind Kyoto, they hope to sway public opinion. And it looks like they're succeeding.
Take the sad case of Exxon Mobil. Not surprisingly, the oil giant has long opposed global warming as bad science and helped fund groups that did research challenging the theory. But a while back, green groups threatened to boycott the company's products. Then Democrats regained control of Congress, promising to make life hell for those who didn't go along.
Now Exxon has changed its tune: Global warming is a threat, it says, while cutting off funding of those who disagree. Is it sincere in its new belief? We doubt it. It's a conversion of convenience, like Paul Newman emerging from the ditch in "Cool Hand Luke" to tell the sadistic captain of the chain gang: "I got my mind right, boss." Exxon and others are getting their minds right.
As we keep saying, the science on warming remains very murky. But even if we take Kyoto proponents at their word, the expected 1- to 2-degree rise in temperature by 2100 would be cut by just 0.04 degrees if we accepted their terms. Major polluters such as China, India and Russia remain exempt. So even that 0.04 is in doubt.
Is such a tiny improvement, costing trillions of dollars and thousands of lives, really worth it? We don't think so.
In coming weeks, the new Congress will no doubt try to shore up its environmental credentials by passing something, anything, to make members seem like they're acting on a warming threat. Even President Bush will get in on the act, using warming as a talking point in his State of the Union address.
But politics isn't science, and Americans should beware of confusing the two.
I would think if there were global shifts in climate over a relatively short period, we should look outside the Earth's ecosystem for the cause- say to the Sun.
Don't know if the infrastructure was there, but there were communities in the region that were suffering from the lack of water at the time.
There was a substantial drought, and the dam wasn't allowed to be opened even for the fish downstream. Instead of adding a little more for a while, they made a foot and a half wall of water roll downriver for several hours.
Count me as a scientist who believes that global warming is caused by hot air in Congress and overheated printing presses at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing.
-- Posted by a reader on TV weatherman James Spann's blog.
"But in this dystopian future we see what would happen if it is taken to it's ultimate end, such as the PETA or ELF folks would have it. For in this future no one farms or raises food, in fact eating or drinking anything is forbidden and punishable under the law. To subsist everyone consumes a liquid e-diet provided by the government. The e-diet is a chemically constructed nutrient rich fluid that the body can consume completely and produces no waste products at all, it is also loaded with narcotics to keep the people docile. Pollution of all forms has also been outlawed, even noise pollution - people are forbidden to listen to music, watch movies, or speak. In fact all communication is by a type of finger-speech or reading lips, and anyone making noise or speaking aloud, even in surprise, can be punished under the law. No competition is allowed either, playing games with others or competing against one's fellow man is a sign of anti-social behaviour and punishable under the law.
"There are more such laws that Mano introduces us to, and he does so in an interesting way. He has Priest, the main protagonist for much of the book, a newly released convict travel from Yankee Stadium (where he was imprisoned for speaking in anger) back to his home in New Loch to be with his wife and new born child. The government has released Priest because their latest policy decree is that the very act of human breathing is offensive to nature (because of the germs and virii killed in the process) and therefore everyone must die. Priest now has seven days to get home before the decreed day of death is final. In those seven days we explore this world and discover that it is a study of opposites, at once verdant and yet bereft life, and that Priest is at once both a hero for wanting to live and choosing life over a senseless death, and at the same time an ugly savage and anti-hero for his actions and behavior. With the sparing use of other characters such as Paul Xavier, the aged Catholic priest who befriends Priest on his trip home, Mano does an excellent job of showing us the logical result of the faux intellectualism and arrogance of the nannystate that a green/socialist government ultimately leads to; a society of death and nihilism, that values even microbial life more than human life, and in the end sows the seeds of it's own destruction."
Review of The Bridge by D. Keith Mano. It didn't do well when it was released in 1973. It puts people like Heidi Cullen and Scott Pelley in perspective. Amazon has a bunch of used copies, less one because I haven't read it in a long time.
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