Bush Administration to Study Global Warming

Cato Daily Dispatch ^ | July 24, 2003

[bruinbirdman]

"The Bush administration will announce today final details of a 10-year plan to study global climate change to determine whether greenhouse gases and other human-generated pollutants have contributed to an unnatural warming of Earth's atmosphere," reports The Washington Post.

"The new initiatives marked the latest effort by President Bush to take the high ground in the climate change debate. Environmentalists roundly criticized him less than three months after taking office in 2001, when he dismissed the Kyoto agreement on global warming, saying it exempted developing countries and would harm the U.S. economy. Bush's critics say the preponderance of scientific opinion holds that emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping industrial and tailpipe gases are responsible for a trend that has the potential to alter global climate in profound and perhaps catastrophic ways."

In "Brave New Climate," Patrick Michaels, Cato Institute senior fellow in environmental studies, writes: "I sincerely doubt that a panel of the most esteemed ecologists would argue that we should bring planetary temperature down. Perhaps the most logical temperature would be the average since the last big ice age, 11,000 years ago, about a degree warmer than today. The flowering of human civilization and its co-evolution with Earth's biota are the hallmark of the post-ice age regime. Consequently, it's a pretty good argument that the mean temperature during this period is a salubrious one."

"One could hone it a bit more," he writes. "The actual dawn of civilization occurred in a period climatologists used to call the 'climatic optimum' (before the current era of 'climatic hysteria') when the mean surface temperature was 1-2ºC warmer than today."

[bruinbirdman]

More study, more bucks down a rathole.

[johniegrad]

Are there any sheep we can tax for the money?

[Satadru]

I don't know anything about meteorology, but does it really take ten years to study it? Don't we have sophisticated computers these days to simulate most of the scenarios.

[Maceman]

With Bush's recent penchant for sucking up to liberals on domestic policy, I am not very happy about this new study.

I fear his administration will get behind some Chicken-Little environmental whacko initiatives to "take the environmental issue away from the Democrats."

More triangulation.

[farmfriend]

Rights, farms, environment ping.

Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from this list.

[Cagey]

And now he's pandering to the Nader crowd? It never ends.

[what's up]

I would rather have a Bush administration study than a UN study, which has been the case up to this point.

Plus, a 10 year study is good. Global warming (if true which I doubt it is) would require huge policy changes. It requires a long, intensive study.

[balrog666]

Don't we have sophisticated computers these days to simulate most of the scenarios.

Yes. They're right about 50% of the time projecting only four days out. Forty years? Fuggeddaboutit.

[Phantom Lord]

I just hope that Dr. S. Fred Singer heads this up. And if he is not the head, I hope he is an important part of it.

[Reeses]

to determine whether greenhouse gases and other human-generated pollutants have contributed to an unnatural warming of Earth's atmosphere

Who cares if human or not? That's not important, shouldn't even be a consideration. What's important is what temperature will give optimum plant growth, rain fall, and save human lives, and what technologies can we use to get there?

[Phantom Lord]

Here is Dr. S. Fred Singer's site

www.sepp.org

[Maceman]

What's important is what temperature will give optimum plant growth, rain fall, and save human lives, and what technologies can we use to get there?

Please. If you don't mind, I'd rather not let government get into the business of trying to control the weather once it has the technological capability.

[LiteKeeper]

SPOTREP

[F16Fighter]

"I fear his administration will get behind some Chicken-Little environmental whacko initiatives to 'take the environmental issue away from the Democrats.'

More triangulation.

Soon to be the new logo for party affliation as in: President Bush(RD)

[ntnychik]

Ha, ha, ha! Study it to death for 10 years (thereby removing it as a political issue). Wonder if Bush will "study" any other irritating dem policy issues.

[E.G.C.]

BTTT!!!!!!!

[bruinbirdman]

"Study it to death for 10 years (thereby removing it as a political issue). "

I like your rationale.

"We have that whole question under study, let's wait for the results."

Answer to every whacko question about global warming and associated topics.

Of course, the next question is, "Isn't it too important to wait?" To which the answer is, "We have that whole question under study, let's wait for the results."

yitbos

[Wright is right!]

This effectively stalls the argument for 10 years until a time when it will either be totally discredited or will have lost its politically-chic status. Not a bad thing at all.

Michael

[berserker]

The reason for the study:

Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, right, accompanied by Commerce Secretary Donald Evans meets reporters at the Commerce Department in Washington Thursday, July 24, 2003 where they discussed a multi-agency strategic plan to answer some of the most complex questions around the climate variability and change issues. The chief goal of the new 10-year plan and $130 million to study global warming is learning more about natural causes of climate change, drawing criticism from environmentalists who say reducing industrial carbon emissions is the real problem.(AP Photo/Stephen J. Boitano)

[Consort]

A rectal thermometer placed in France can provide valuable preliminary data. The Solar System is just passing through a warm part of the Aether. No problem.