Posted on 07/20/2019 4:47:40 AM PDT by Kaslin
Editor's note: This column was co-authored by Tom Harris.
There has been a barrage of attacks against the Trump administration for replacing the previous administration’s Clean Power Plan (CPP) with the Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) rule. Last week, for example, the American Public Health Association and the American Lung Association announced that attorneys representing them from the Clean Air Task Force are filing a lawsuit challenging the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for repealing the CPP and bringing in ACE in its place. The three organizations issued a press release in which they asserted, “EPA’s decision to repeal the Clean Power Plan and replace it with the ACE rule continues to disregard the vast health consequences of climate change and puts more lives at risk.”
That is nonsense, of course. But that didn’t stop other groups from taking a similar stance. Carter Roberts, President & CEO of the World Wildlife Fund, said, “This rule [ACE] enables dirty power plants to keep polluting – grounding federal energy policy firmly in past and saddling future generations with the costs of unchecked climate change.” Michael Brune, head of the Sierra Club said, “This is an immoral and an illegal attack on clean air, clean energy, and the health of the public, and it shows just how heartless the Trump administration is when it comes to appeasing its polluter allies.”
Environmentalists, Democrats and some state attorneys general dubbed the regulation the “Dirty Power Plan.” U.S. Democratic Senator Tom Carper complained that the “Dirty Power Plan is a failure of vision and leadership.” They are losing the war on coal begun by Obama and cannot tolerate what now appears to be a defeat.
If Trump administration advisors thought they could appease their opponents by bringing in a rule focused on the useless, and ultimately dangerous goal of limiting carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, they were sorely mistaken. But, as long as they did not contest the scientifically flawed idea that CO2 is a dangerous pollutant that must be controlled, they really had no choice but to bring in some form of CO2 reduction regulation.
Dr. Sterling Burnett explained on the internet “Think Radio” program, “Exploratory Journeys, “It [ACE] was forced on the Trump administration because they didn’t, at the same time, say we are going to re-examine the Endangerment Finding [the EPA’s 2009 finding that CO2and other ‘greenhouse gases’ (GHG) endanger the health and welfare of Americans].”
“As long as the Endangerment Finding [EF] exists,” said Burnett, “any administration, no matter how skeptical of the claims that humans are causing catastrophic climate change,…the courts will order them to come up with plans to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. So, to some extent, the administration’s hands were tied because the Endangerment Finding existed and they decided not to question that.”
“So, it's time to go back and examine that [the EF],” concluded Burnett. “And they [would] find there is copious evidence … hundreds of studies out there every year that question one aspect or another of the claim that humans are causing catastrophic climate change. All they have to do is cite that data and say, ‘higher carbon dioxide levels are not going to poison you.’ And, to the degree they are driving a modest temperature rise, [it] is not catastrophic. Human societies have thrived during warmer periods in the past and they have done less well during colder periods.”
It is hard to believe that the attacks that would ensue against the Trump administration for opening the GHG EF to re-examination would be any more severe than what they are already being subjected to for enabling the ACE rule. So, what was the advantage of bringing in a weaker version of Obama’s misguided CPP? If you are going to infuriate your opponents to the extent that they will take out lawsuits against you and publicly label you “the worst president in U.S. history for protecting the air and our climate,"as Brune did after Trump’s environment speech on July 8, you might as well do what you really wanted to instead of taking half measures.
Burnett explained that ACE has another serious downside that will limit the Trump EPA going forward.
“ACE is dangerous because it cements for a second time, this time by a Republican, supposedly skeptical administration, the idea carbon dioxide is a pollutant that needs to be regulated,” said Burnet in a Heartland Press release. “This gives the Endangerment Finding the Trump administration’s stamp of public approval, which environmentalists will cite when they fight this in court saying, ‘even the Trump administration acknowledges carbon dioxide is damaging the U.S. but they are unwilling to take the steps necessary to truly fight carbon pollution.’” The ACE rule is unfortunate but faced with the amazing lies from the opposition, for better or worse, the administration decided on it.
ACE is also problematic because it sets the stage for yet more CO2 controls to come from the EPA that will apply to new power stations, standards that fall under ‘New Source Review’ (NSR) standards. Indeed, Reuters reported on June 19 that, “Wheeler told reporters after signing the ACE rule that EPA will address NSR reform in a separate rulemaking that will be finalized separate in the coming months.”
It’s time for the Trump administration to call a spade a spade. They should clearly explain that CO2 endangers no one and order that the EF be reopened. And, when the re-examination inevitably reveals that effectively classifying CO2 as a pollutant was a mistake, they should not be quiet about it. Instead they must follow Winston Churchill’s advice. “If you have an important point to make, don’t try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time—a tremendous whack.”
OK!! Everybody pay attention!
Lesson for today:
1. The sun is 1,300,000 times as big as the earth.
2. The sun is a giant nuclear furnace that controls the climates of all its planets.
3. The earth is one of the sun’s planets.
4. The earth is a speck in comparison to the size of the sun.
5. Inhabitants of the earth are less than specks.
Study Question: How do less-than-specks in congress plan to control the sun?
We get it. Is that spam all you have to offer?
Carbon dioxide comprises .04 percent by VOLUME of the Earths atmosphere. That’s 4 one hundredths or ONE percent. Got that you climate justice warriors? You complete useful idiots of the watermelon operatives who are the creepy commie subversives who should be sucking on a pulled pin grenade.
Spam. I like Spam. Especially when camping and you fry it up with eggs drowned in coffee.
Now I am hungry, but not for repetitiveness. Give me spam I can sink my teeth in, any day.
Just read that to some in the clean energy movement, hydro power isn’t clean energy unless it comes from “free flowing streams.” Thus Hydro Quebec’s power that NY wants to use isn’t clean energy because it comes from water that has been dammed up. Totally insane!
You have a better syllogism to share?
They are insane and there is no stopping them with the ballot box.
I think that humans can breathe CO2 up to concentrations of 1% without any discomfort. That is not the case with many forms of energy that we used prior to the industrial age, for example, wood fires used to cook and heat homes. In areas where people still depend on those old technologies, lung diseases from breathing concentrated smoke are a major health issue.
Furthermore, CO2 is essential to ALL life. Trying to limit it poses an existential threat to all living things.
Sure. After you post yours another thousand times, I will release it to the world.
95% of CO2 in the atmosphere is natural, only 5% is man made.......
The endangerment finding was basically all modeling from the UN IPCC reports. Totally made up nonsense predictions going out 100 years.
Do you have a reference for that? I'm an AGW denier in general, but they say CO2 concentrations have risen from about 270 PPM to 410 PPM over the past century. If most of the CO2 is not manmade, what accounts for the rise, and why isn't it better publicized?
Wild fires, and especially volcanoes.......
About two weeks ago there was a huge wildfire in Alberta Canada and the smoke carried all the way to S.E. Michigan and in sufficient amount to make the totally cloudless sky hazy.......
Me too !! and have you seen the number of alternative flavors SPAM now comes in? I just noticed this a few days ago. I thought that SPAM only came in regular and smoked ... some look yummy.
Everyone who believes CO2 is a dangerous pollutant should stop exhaling it.
Problem solved.
I like it.
Not everyone has seen it.
Keep posting it.
I’m halfway through the paper. It’s easy reading for a first take. If what he says is true, the IPCC model is incredibly flawed. I can understand “compartmentalization” of different parts of the CO2, such as in the ocean, or in shellfish, or minerals, versus that in the atmosphere. But, along with the author, I can’t see any justification for treating CO2 differently depending on whether it was “naturally” or “anthromorphically” generated. That’s like a chemical bill of attainder.
Also, its very interesting that a simple exponential model (what he calls “e-time” engineers call “time constant”) accounts better for 14CO2 decay from nuclear weapons tests better than the IPCC model.
If what he says is true, how can the IPCC model creators have been so dumb? Overfitting a model violates Occam’s Razor, and usually doesn’t work out well.
Finally, to your second comment, about wild fires and volcanoes... is there any reason to believe they’re worse over the past century than they were before? Or was there a dip in CO2 due to a fire/volcano quiet period in the late 18th century?
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