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Sending America Backward ... to 1830?
Townhall.com ^ | December 12, 2015 | Paul Driessen

Posted on 12/12/2015 6:54:44 AM PST by Kaslin

Paul Driessen and Roger Bezdek

Paris climate talks this week descended into madcap all-night negotiations, as delegates desperately tried to salvage some kind of agreement beyond mere pledges to do something sometime (soon) about what President Obama insists is the gravest threat to our planet, national security and future generations.

He gets far more energized about slashing energy use than about Islamist terrorism, even after the Paris and San Bernardino butchery. Determined for once to lead from upfront, he took a 500-person greenhouse gas-spewing entourage to the City of Light, and personally called Prime Minister Modi to discuss India's and America's shared responsibility for preventing increasingly severe droughts, floods, storms, island-swallowing rising acidic ocean levels and other disasters conjured up by alarmist computer models.

Legally binding carbon dioxide emission targets were too contentious to pursue. So was modifying the concept of differentiated responsibilities, which holds that countries that historically caused most of the carbon dioxide build-up in the atmosphere must lead in cutting their emissions, while helping developing countries eventually do likewise, by giving them trillions of dollars in cash and free technology.

Although China now emits far more CO2 and other greenhouse gases (GHG) than the USA or EU, it refused to fast-track reducing those emissions. It will only agree to do its best to begin the process around 2030. China and wealthy petro-states also oppose suggestions that they should pay into the $100-billion-per-year Green Climate Fund for supposed adaptation, mitigation and compensation.

That left three major bones of contention, and who knows what meaningful agreement can be reached on any of them. (1) Actually getting rich nations to contribute more than spare change to the Climate Fund. (2) Persuading developing nations to allow transparent reviews of their progress in meeting their voluntary emission targets. (3) Revising those targets on a regular basis, presumably always tightening them, even if real-world evidence further demonstrates that CO2 is not actually causing climate chaos.

Of course, the entire climate cataclysm mantra is based on the claim that carbon dioxide has replaced the solar and other powerful natural forces that have driven climate change throughout Earth and human history. Now, merely tweaking CO2 emissions will supposedly stabilize climate and weather systems.

President Obama fervently believes this. He is determined to sign whatever is devised in Paris, call it morally binding, and implement still more emission reduction mandates in the United States, even though a majority in Congress and the states oppose his anti-fossil fuel programs, because of their adverse effects on jobs and living standards, especially for poor, working class and minority families.

The impacts would be far worse than many news stories and White House press releases suggest. Those sources often say the proposed climate treaty and other actions seek GHG reductions of 80% below predicted 2050 emission levels. The real original Paris treaty target is 80% below actual 1990 levels.

That means the world would have to eliminate 96% of the greenhouse gases that all humanity would likely release if we reach world population levels, economic growth and living standards predicted for 2050. The United States would likewise have to make drastic additional CO2 and GHG reductions.

Moreover, current 2050 forecasts already assume and incorporate significant energy efficiency, de-carbonization and de-industrialization over the next 35 years. They are not business-as-usual numbers or extrapolations of past trends. Further CO2 reductions beyond those already incorporated into the forecasts would thus be increasingly difficult, expensive, and indeed impossible to achieve.

As we explain in a MasterResource.org analysis, there is a strong positive relationship between GDP and carbon-based energy consumption. Slashing fossil energy use that far would thus require decimating economic growth, job creation and preservation, and average per-person incomes. In fact, average world per capita GDP would plummet from a projected $30,600 in 2050 to a miserly $1,200 per year.

Average per capita GDP in 2050 would be less than what Americans had in 1830! Many futuristic technologies would still exist, but only wealthy families and ruling elites could afford them.

That would be catastrophic for jobs, health and welfare in developed countries and lethal to millions in poor nations, who would be denied the blessings of electricity and fossil fuels for decades to come. That is indefensible, inhumane and immoral. And for what?

Mr. Obama and the alarmists in Paris insist that drastic GHG reductions will hold global temperature increases to 2 degrees Celsius (3.5 F) and prevent climate and weather disasters. Some even claim now that the upper safety limit is actually 1.5 degrees C (2.7 F), which would require even more draconian energy and emission cutbacks. Otherwise, Earth could become uninhabitable, they claim. Nonsense.

EPA's own analyses suggest that its fully implemented Clean Power Plan would bring an undetectable, irrelevant reduction of perhaps 0.05 degrees F in average global temperatures 85 years from now – assuming carbon dioxide actually does drive climate change.

In the Real World, climate changes regularly, and recent climate and weather trends and events are in line with historic experience. In fact, average global temperatures haven't risen in nearly two decades; no category 3-5 hurricane has struck the USA in a record ten years; Greenland and Antarctic ice are at record levels; and still firmly alkaline sea levels (8.1 pH) are rising at barely seven inches per century.

Many scientists believe the sun and other powerful natural forces may soon usher in a new era of colder temperatures, regardless of whether atmospheric CO2 rises above 0.40% (400 ppm). That would pose much greater threats to human health, agriculture and prosperity (and wildlife) than global warming.

We must never forget: Fossil fuels facilitated successive industrial revolutions and enabled billions to live better than royalty did a century ago, helped average incomes to increase eleven-fold, and helped average global life expectancy to soar from less than 30 in 1870 to 71 today.

Carbon-based energy still provides 81% of world energy, and supports $70 trillion per year in world GDP. It will supply 75-80% of global energy for decades to come, Energy Information Administration, International Energy Agency and other studies forecast. Carbon-based energy is essential if we are to bring electricity to the 1.3 billion people who still do not have it, and end the rampant poverty and lung, intestinal and other diseases that kill millions of people in poor countries every year.

Furthermore, thousands of coal-fired power plants are built, under construction or in planning around the world. China and India will not consider reducing GHG emissions until 2030, and even then it will be voluntary and dependent on how their economies are doing. That means atmospheric carbon dioxide levels will continue to climb, greening the planet and spurring faster crop, forest and grassland growth.

President Obama and the 40,000 climate alarmists gathered in Paris largely ignore these inconvenient realities, and whitewash the adverse consequences of anti-hydrocarbon policies. What's being discussed in Paris, the White House and EPA would have minimal health, climate or environmental benefits.

Instead, it would have horrendous adverse effects on human health and environmental quality, while doing nothing to prevent climate change or extreme weather events. It would let unelected, unaccountable activists and bureaucrats decide which industries, companies, workers, families, states and countries win the Climate Hustle game, and which ones lose.

And it's not just President Obama. He wants to slash America's carbon dioxide emissions by 26-28% below 2005 levels by 2025 and 80% below 1990 levels by 2050! Every Democrat presidential candidate demands similar actions: Hillary Clinton wants one-third of all US electricity to come from wind and solar by 2027; Bernie Sanders wants 80% by 2050; Martin O'Malley wants 100% by 2050.

Obligating the United States to slash its fossil fuel use, and send billions of taxpayer dollars annually to dictators, bureaucrats and crony industrialists in poor countries would be disastrous. It must not happen.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: agw; climatechange; co2emissions; epa; globalwarming; paris
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1 posted on 12/12/2015 6:54:45 AM PST by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

1830? We’re gonna need our fieldhands back.


2 posted on 12/12/2015 6:58:59 AM PST by Bryanw92 (Sic semper tyrannis)
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To: Bryanw92

Don’t worry, the Tranzis are planning on bringing serfdom back.


3 posted on 12/12/2015 7:02:31 AM PST by Little Ray (How did I end up in this hand basket, and why is it getting so hot?)
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To: Kaslin

What was the population in 1830?I’m sure the Marxists would love to kill us down to that number.


4 posted on 12/12/2015 7:02:55 AM PST by Farmer Dean (stop worrying about what they want to do to you,start thinking about what you want to do to them)
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To: Bryanw92

A real leader would ponder this ...

Study Shows U.S. Mosques Are Repositories of Muslim Brotherhood Literature and Preachers

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3371633/posts

Of the 100 mosques surveyed,

51% had texts on site rated as severely advocating violence;

30% had texts rated as moderately advocating violence;

19% had no violent texts at all.

[Other new info added above.]

[If you trust a FRiend to be a patriot, I would like to add more to the ping list.]


5 posted on 12/12/2015 7:07:01 AM PST by Arthur Wildfire! March (The DNC 2012 Convention actually booed God three times)
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To: Arthur Wildfire! March

Dangit man — don’t add the too bottom brackets to your sloppy-copy-paste!


6 posted on 12/12/2015 7:08:03 AM PST by Arthur Wildfire! March (The DNC 2012 Convention actually booed God three times)
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To: Little Ray

Serfdom was a massive improvement from slavery.

They are looking to bring slavery back.


7 posted on 12/12/2015 7:10:48 AM PST by redgolum
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To: Little Ray
Don’t worry, the Tranzis are planning on bringing serfdom back.

Donald has got them globally laying their cards on the table out before they were ready. Everything they have worked for is crumbling rapidly

8 posted on 12/12/2015 7:11:58 AM PST by Despot of the Delta (It's time for Trump to become Vlad the Impaler. I want Progressive/Globalist/Establishment heads)
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To: Little Ray

>>Don’t worry, the Tranzis are planning on bringing serfdom back.

I know. We need to enslave them before they enslave us. We’ll treat our slaves a lot better than they will.

(Good job on the use of the term “Tranzi”!! Most people don’t understand it. John Ringo fan?)


9 posted on 12/12/2015 7:12:50 AM PST by Bryanw92 (Sic semper tyrannis)
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To: Kaslin

We need more deniers. Or as I call it recruiting allies.

How about getting the warmists to go after the beer and soda companies? Heck, they are manufacturing carbon dioxide and distributing it all over the world.


10 posted on 12/12/2015 7:13:52 AM PST by joshua c (Please dont feed the liberals)
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To: Kaslin

When they show smoke stacks you always see clear blue skies


11 posted on 12/12/2015 7:26:32 AM PST by butlerweave
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To: redgolum

Not until we are lower than Turkey will the new world order be happy.


12 posted on 12/12/2015 7:28:17 AM PST by x_plus_one (The hammer of heretics, the light of Spain, the savior of his country, the honor of his order..)
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To: redgolum

Not really.

Slaves were property independent of the land they worked.

Serfs were, for all intents and purposes, part of the land they worked and were transferred with the land. They were property, too, but had no existence independent of the land they worked for their Lord.


13 posted on 12/12/2015 7:44:48 AM PST by Little Ray (How did I end up in this hand basket, and why is it getting so hot?)
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To: Kaslin

Back to the 1830s? One really good EMP should do it


14 posted on 12/12/2015 7:45:37 AM PST by goodnesswins (hey..Wussie Americans....ISIS is coming. Are you ready?)
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To: Bryanw92

Tom Kratman. He makes Ringo look sorta wishy-washy.


15 posted on 12/12/2015 7:45:49 AM PST by Little Ray (How did I end up in this hand basket, and why is it getting so hot?)
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To: Little Ray

>>Tom Kratman. He makes Ringo look sorta wishy-washy.

Yeah. I’m a big fan of both. But Ringo was the one who put the Tranzi essay in the back of one of his novels, IIRC.


16 posted on 12/12/2015 7:47:46 AM PST by Bryanw92 (Sic semper tyrannis)
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To: Despot of the Delta

Not so that I have noticed.
They own the governments, academia, and the media, with the excpeption of the Internet, which they are working on.
They are not really impressed by the threat of the ballot box. For instance the GOP-E plans to cheat if Trump manages to win the Primaries.
And and they working on taking away the ammo box.


17 posted on 12/12/2015 7:48:44 AM PST by Little Ray (How did I end up in this hand basket, and why is it getting so hot?)
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To: Kaslin

It’ll be worse. People who lived back then knew how to live. A fair amount of people nowadays...won’t survive two hours.

Of course, I’m of the opinion that if the time comes, people won’t shut their brains all the way off and essentially freeze to death or go without fresh water just because far removed politicians (who I bet will not be suffering such hardships) belch and fart about the environment.


18 posted on 12/12/2015 7:51:39 AM PST by RWB Patriot ("My ability is a value that must be earned and I don't recognize anyone's need as a claim on me.")
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To: Bryanw92

True, but Kratman wrote the Carerra series where the war against the Tranzis of Earth was a lot more blatanty


19 posted on 12/12/2015 7:58:21 AM PST by Little Ray (How did I end up in this hand basket, and why is it getting so hot?)
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To: Kaslin

They don’t intend to take us back to 1830. They just want the power to do it. With that power, they can take us anywhere they want.

Its about power, not carbon, not climate, not warming or cooling, its raw unobstructed power.


20 posted on 12/12/2015 8:01:42 AM PST by marron
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