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Posted on 07/20/2009 3:22:23 PM PDT by neverdem
The U.S. effort to counteract climate change is poised to not only destroy the U.S. economy, but dramatically increase global carbon dioxide levels.
That was the message, on Thursday, from Tom Tripp, a magnesium specialist from Utah who gave a 45-minute keynote address in Provo at the Utah Farm Bureau Midyear Conference.
Beyond magnesium, Tripp has one other distinction to his name -- he is one of 2,000 members of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change who share half a Nobel Prize, the other half owned by former vice president Al Gore.
But though Tripp and Gore may share the same Nobel honor, Tripp's message on climate change is Gore's polar opposite.
The public, Tripp said, should be warned that the climate bill that just passed the House and is headed for the Senate could bring America to its knees.
Tripp started on Thursday by addressing his one-two thousandth share of half a Nobel Prize.
"It was pretty nice," he said. "It was split 2,000 ways. I got no money, and I got no medal. I did get this attractive certificate." On an overhead, he showed a picture of the document.
In his address, titled "Climate Change and What We Are Doing About It and Is It Worth It?", Tripp said ozone depletion used to be the big scary global crisis, "but that is largely solved and there is some question whether it ever existed. They don't talk about it anymore."
Now global warming is the world's existential crisis of the day, but even that has changed. Since 2002, data proves the world has actually been in a cooling phase, defying expert predictions.
To get around that, the moniker "global warming" has quietly been dropped in favor of "climate change," Tripp said. "Global cooling. When was the last time you heard that in the press?"
"Despite what you may have heard in the media, there is nothing like a consensus of scientific opinion that this is a problem," he said. "Because there is natural variability in the weather, you cannot statistically know for another 150 years. ... There are indications, there are options, but if you are looking for hard scientific facts, you are still a long ways away."
What most people focus on is data showing that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is increasing over time. Toward the end of his lecture, however, Tripp dismissed this, saying worrying about these statistics was akin to worrying that five people had been added to a group of 30,000 people -- the effect is negligible, in other words.
In addition, 700 years ago global warming halted Ancestral Pueblo corn growing, he said.
"Did man cause that change?" he said. "It does not seem very likely."
And if climate change does exist, "many models show improved agricultural output" in the U.S., he said.
Combined, all this "tells me there is not a great crash [of the global environment] about to happen in the near term," he said. "It is important to keep an open mind."
Congress "wisely rejected the Kyoto Protocol" because it was about politics and economics, not the environment, he said. But the new climate bill, called both the "Waxman-Markey Bill" and "The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009," passed the House almost without debate.
Should it pass the Senate in its current form, that bill will spell catastrophe for America's future, Tripp said.
The bill requires a 3 percent cut in carbon emissions by 2012, moving in increments to an 87 percent cut by 2050.
"At this point we do not have the technology to achieve this," he said.
A carbon emissions cap and trade program sponsored by the bill would make it impossible to start new business or grow existing business in America, and will force U.S. companies to move overseas, particularly to India and China, where those same companies will be allowed to pollute much more than they ever did before the cap and trade system.
In addition, consumers will be forced to pay huge increases for electricity. The audience gasped when Tripp told them that conservation programs will mean setting air conditioners to 85 degrees. Small privately held utilities will not be able to compete, and public utilities will add between $150 and $450 a month to consumer bills, a consequence of trying to purchase carbon emissions through the cap and trade program.
"It is very expensive," Tripp said.
And the price of gasoline and diesel will spike, as an incentive for people to purchase electric cars.
"I don't know how much of an electric tractor you can make," said Tripp to audience murmurs of concern.
Carbon sequestration programs will force existing coal-fired power plants to be moved to locations where it is possible to pump carbon into underground caverns.
"You will have to build a new plant and haul coal further," he said. "It will increase things quite a bit."
All of this will mean massive social upheaval for Americans.
"Job growth is going to be a challenge," he said. "Where are you going to live, and grow [crops]? Where are your kids going to work?"
Farmers can take mass transit to work, he said, seeming to mean it as a joke, but the audience response was one of alarm.
This process already has begun when it comes to magnesium production, he said. U.S. environmental requirements are so onerous that most magnesium is now produced in China, using a process that emits 10 times more pollution and uses 10 times more energy.
What the climate bill boils down to is this, he said. "We have some unintended consequences on the horizon. Jobs are going to leave us. They will go to developing countries. The bottom line is that it is pretty easy to argue that U.S. reductions are going to mean global [carbon] increases. Make you enthused to get involved in this, guys?"
The audience of about 150 people was vocal in its concern.
"In America, we may just have losers and big losers," Tripp continued. "There has been a rush to pass this [climate bill] and avoid meaningful conversation. This is really reckless considering how much is at stake."
He urged those listening to contact their representatives, and to begin informing their friends and neighbors about the climate bill. Action is needed now, he said.
I’m in. It’s useless to contact my CA senators, but I will anyway.
The key is for citizens in states with REPUBLICAN senators to contact them to kill the House bill in conference committee.
Traders and Industrials are driving the "Global Warming" farce....follow the money.
“Utilitie”=”Utilities”
Cause an increase in plant growth, thus allowing more food to the people of the world. Now just how is all this extra food supposed to support the eugenics population reduction plans laid out in the early 1900's?
Higher temps mean more evaporation then rain throughout the world. Another life saving unintended consequence for those "disposable types". More clouds will lower the temps, unfortunately, back to a stable lower degree. (Damnit!)
More plants means more O2 by photosynthesis and less CO2. Less CO2 (what plants require to "inhale") will cause a level off of plant reproduction to a stable lower degree. Another Earth check and balance.
Fill a glass with ice, then water to the brim. Let it melt. The water does not breach over the brim. Nor will the ocean beach lines reach the Rocky Mountains if the ice in the oceans melt. There goes my investment in Colorado ocean front property. (idiot, go back to 6th grade science class)
Here’s another link to the article with a picture of Mr. Tripp:
http://heraldextra.com/news/local/article_fccab79f-0d21-55e2-9dfd-1991fb43ba18.html
Well stated lecture. If only some of the fool libs around here would listen to this type of presentation, we might actually have a chance of educating Americans about science.
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