Posted on 04/04/2006 7:56:39 PM PDT by FairOpinion
On April 4, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will hold a hearing to discuss a white paper that Senators Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) and Pete Domenici (R-NM) released on a mandatory cap and trade program for carbon dioxide emissions. The majority of panelists that will provide testimony in the hearing are for a cap-and-trade program, suggesting the Committee views global warming to be a serious problem and that a cap-and-trade approach is the preferred mechanism for fighting it.
The hearing's timing couldn't be better, as it coincides with an intense global warming propaganda campaign by the media that is currently underway. The latest issue of Time magazine has a cover story on global warming entitled "Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid". (I wonder if this is meant to provide some balance for stories about the coming ice age that Time published as recently as 1994?)
One of the new Public Service Commission's TV ads uses a freight train about to hit a little girl as a metaphor for the horrible impact of global warming on our children's future in just thirty years. (Even if the recent warming trend, since the 1970's, continues for another thirty years, global temperatures will only rise another 1 degree F.)
For those of us who are visual learners, Al Gore has a new global warming movie coming out in May entitled "An Inconvenient Truth" which no doubt will be met by critical acclaim, Oscar nominations (probably not for best actor, though), and a possible Nobel Prize.
Science magazine recently stuffed as many articles as it could find on the world's melting ice sheets, even though the bulk of the published temperature evidence shows no warming over Greenland or most of Antarctica in recent decades.
One wonders, what in the world is going on here?
It seems an undercurrent of anti-technology, anti-progress, anti-humanity sentiment is beginning to grip our culture. Al Gore has been giving very effective, impassioned speeches on the ecological destruction that mankind is unleashing upon Mother Earth. With a mixture of science half-truths and religious zeal, Gore is very successfully rallying thousands of people to his cause.
In an age where many of us believe that science has all the answers, while others believe that religion has all the answers, a clever mixture of science and religion can be very powerful. Even some of our scientists are joining in the chorus: NASA's Jim Hansen thinks we might have only ten years left before irreversible harm is done.
For any of these fears to have an objective basis in fact, one has to believe that the climate system is very sensitive to the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. I have read recent statements, even from the World Meteorological Organization, that CO2 is the "most important greenhouse gas in the atmosphere," which is blatantly false. The warming effect of Earth's most abundant greenhouse gas, water vapor, is about ten times that of carbon dioxide. Water vapor amounts, even globally averaged, go through large fluctuations, with particularly large upward excursions during warm El Niño events. Yet, the climate system never spins out of control. Why is this?
The answer might reside in the fact that about 75 percent of the warming potential of greenhouse gases is never allowed to occur. Weather processes, in the form of clouds and precipitation, cool the climate to temperatures well below what they would otherwise be from Earth's natural greenhouse effect. To believe in catastrophic warming, one would need good knowledge of how clouds, and especially precipitation processes (which is how water vapor is continuously removed from the atmosphere), change with warming. I do not believe we yet have this knowledge.
Yet, the feeling persists that "we need to do something," even if the science isn't settled yet (indeed, the science might never be 'settled'). I would agree whole-heartedly with the sentiment if it were easy to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. It is not. Until major technological advances are made, or people start embracing nuclear power again, carbon dioxide emissions will continue to rise, especially in India and China.
The Bingaman and Domenici hearing on April 4 is a distraction from the real debate this country (indeed, the world) needs to have about how to (or whether it is even advisable to) reduce carbon dioxide emissions now.
And more scientists who don't believe in predictions of climate catastrophe need to rise above their fears of losing funding and speak out. Otherwise, this growing storm of global warming hysteria could do some real damage.
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Dr. Roy Spencer is a principal research scientist for the University of Alabama in Huntsville and the U.S. Science Team Leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (AMSR-E) on NASA's Aqua satellite. He is also a member of the TCS Science Roundtable.
These people want to wreck the world economy, same goal as Bin Laden's, they are just using a more effective technique. I bet Bin Laden is kicking himself in a cave, why didn't he just become an environmentalist, he could have achieved his goal more easily.
Someone remind me why we worked so hard to establish a Republican majority in the Congress.
US Senate panel takes baby steps on climate change
http://today.reuters.com/investing/financeArticle.aspx?type=bondsNews&storyID=2006-04-04T173622Z_01_N04403907_RTRIDST_0_ENERGY-CONGRESS-CLIMATE.XML
WASHINGTON, April 4 (Reuters) - A U.S. Senate panel on Tuesday heard diverging views from electric utilities on whether Congress should slap mandatory caps on U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, and who should foot the bill.
Some utilities told the Senate Energy Committee they are eager for Congress to pass mandatory caps on emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses so they can plan how to meet those goals. Others, especially those that rely heavily on coal, oppose mandatory caps on greenhouse gas emissions.
Lawmakers also are divided. Committee chairman Pete Domenici has warned it would be "impossible" to pass legislation to cut heat-trapping gas emissions in 2006 because of election-year gridlock. But he said an all-day panel conference on climate change options was a "starting point" for possible legislation in 2007.
"Designing and implementing a mandatory system (will) be very difficult both politically and economically," Domenici said at the outset of the conference. "We can start somewhere and this conference is our starting point."
Most lawmakers predict Congress ultimately will pass a law with an emissions trading scheme called a "cap-and-trade" system. Companies that reduce emissions could sell credits to companies that have a harder time reducing pollution.
Environmentalists have warned that any "cap and trade" credits should not be sold too cheaply.
The United States is the biggest emitter of carbon dioxide, one of several greenhouse gases blamed for melting glaciers and rising sea levels. Efforts to put mandatory caps on U.S. carbon emissions have repeatedly failed in the Senate.
Some of the biggest U.S. utilities -- including Chicago-based Exelon Corp. (EXC.N: Quote, Profile, Research) and Charlotte, North Carolina-based Duke Energy Corp. (DUK.N: Quote, Profile, Research) -- told lawmakers Congress needs to clarify its plans on about carbon dioxide cuts before they can build a new generation of low-emission power plants to meet growing U.S. electricity demand.
"It is critical that we start now," said Elizabeth Moler, an executive vice president at Exelon, pointing out that Congress held the first hearings on global warming in 1978.
"We need the economic and regulatory certainty to invest in a low-carbon energy future," Moler said.
But Atlanta-based Southern Co. (SO.N: Quote, Profile, Research), which operates a large fleet of coal-fired power plants, said mandatory caps are not needed because U.S. industry is moving forward with high-tech ways to cut emissions on its own.
For example, Southern is looking to build futuristic coal plants that would strip out carbon emissions before they enter the atmosphere, as well as a new fleet of nuclear plants, which emit no greenhouse gases.
"A mandatory program in our view is not necessary to make that happen," said Chris Hobson, a senior vice president at Southern.
And Wal-Mart (WMT.N: Quote, Profile, Research), the world's largest retailer, said it could accept mandatory carbon caps. It also said it is moving forward on its own with boosting efficiency and reducing emissions from its stores and giant delivery truck fleet.
Democrat Sen. Jeff Bingaman exacted a pledge from Domenici in last year's energy bill debate to pursue legislation that would eventually lead to mandatory cuts. But many Republicans say such cuts could stunt U.S. economic growth.
Congressional staff members expect Energy Committee staff to draft a "white paper" calling for a mandatory cap-and-trade system starting in 2010.
Lawmakers must negotiate several questions before they can decide upon caps on industry. This will likely include how to hand out allowances to emit greehouse gases, which could be valued in the tens of billions of dollars.
"This valuable currency must not be given away for free" to utilities and industry, said David Doniger at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group.
At least half the revenues generated by allocation sales should be earmarked to help U.S. consumers invest in energy efficiency, with the rest going to research new technology like hybrid cars and low-emission coal plants, the NRDC said.
It's whether it's natural or created by humans is the question. Historically this all seems natural, so while I don't support legislation...I do think there's general enviromental standards that have been adopted by America....unlike many places in China...which I support.
China is one of the biggest poluters, what on earth are you talking about?!
So, the real question is, who profits from them, and then, who is getting paide to create BILLIONS in wealth out of thin air?
Follow the money.
The rest is hype.
Companies can trade carbon credits all they want to, but not one dime or credit to another nation. Of course if it becomes too expensive to create carbon in the USA the companies will go to a country not within Kyoto,
"Arrived"?
Heck, it's been here like for, you know man, like for,... a long, long, time. Since like, you know man,.......the 60's. Like WOW, dude. Get with it!
It's not about the precious "environment" or "Mother Earth",.....It's about the usual lefty, useful idiot, anti-American cant and "I hate George Bush", PC baloney and pseudo "multi-culturalism", etc., etc., etc.
It is like so,... you know,...PRE-DICK-TABLE.
China, Brazil and India are the largest polluters on earth.
Try and tell that to the lefty "liberals" and see if you can get them to believe THAT!
Faageddaboudit.
"China is one of the biggest poluters, what on earth are you talking about?!"
That's what I was saying.
Panic arises when one feels helpless. Better to feel that we can do something about controlling global warning. But perhaps we can no more do that than could the people of the 14th century when the "little ice age" began. It is less than 400 years since the barometer was invented. It is little more than 30 years since we put satellites into orbit and to use computers to study the weather seriously. We know a lot, but probably not enough.
The time cover story was entitled "Be Worried, Be Very Worried"...just goes to show that even sensible scientists often don't bother to get the facts right.
IF these flippin idiots insist on drinking Al Gore's Koolaid, then they better write this legislative piece of crap in Spanish. We'll be a Mexican State by 2010.
That was our topic of conversation just this afternoon ... and we decided that it had all been a terrific waste of time and energy. We might as well have stayed home from the polls .... It has all been terribly disappointing to us.
Sure, we can wreck the economy and go back to the stone age, and still won't prevent it, if it's really coming.
Opponents warn global warming legislation will hurt economy
http://www.orovillemr.com/news/bayarea/ci_3672547
Opponents of a Senate move toward regulating greenhouse gases warned Tuesday of economic ruin - jobs and manufacturing base lost overseas - as the U.S. economy struggles under a self-imposed ``carbon penalty.''
Yet Sacramento is rushing where Washington fears to tread, and one reason could be that California in many ways already looks like where the rest of the nation is destined: Californians on average use 40 percent less electricity than their countrymen, and the state's economy isn't as reliant on heavy manufacturing powered by fossil fuels.
``We are more intensive in high technology and services and less dependent on old-fashioned industry,'' said environmental economist Michael Hanemann, director of the California Climate Change Center at the University of California, Berkeley. ``We make steel but we make movies a lot more.''
Berkeley analysts say plans by Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Democratic state legislators to cut greenhouse gases here probably will keep the economy growing, albeit at only 2.4 percent by 2020, with a net gain of about 20,000 jobs.
But the majority of electric power, mining and manufacturing interests cast a different picture Tuesday in Washington, telling senators that capping greenhouse-gas emissions will raise energy prices, lower returns on investment in U.S. industry and create a drag on the U.S. economy that will be a competitive boon to foreign businesses.
``It puts us in a very bad fix in the United States for electricity,'' the National Mining Association's Craig Montesano told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
The committee's chairman, New Mexico Republican Pete Domenici, and vice chairman, New Mexico Democrat Jeff Bingaman, are weighing proposals for a so-called cap-and-trade program, in essence setting up a multi-billion dollar market trading in a gradually shrinking number of permits to release greenhouse gases. In theory, carbon markets steer money to industries using less carbon-rich energy and create an incentives for using alternative energy or cleaner technologies.
Critics such as Michael Morris of the Edison Electric Institute, an association of 185 electric-power firms, caution that cutting greenhouse-gases emissions while industry in China and India are unfettered ``takes the American economy and puts a huge damper on it. They have to step up and be part of the game or we're going to be behind the economic eight ball.''
As Washington fretted and California moved ahead on global warming legislation, the contrasts hardly could be have been more stark between the world's largest economy and the sixth largest, between the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases and the 12th largest.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., is pushing one of the two more ambitious ideas for federal greenhouse-gas regulations. She cited the Berkeley study Tuesday saying, ``The fear has been economic disadvantage by moving in this direction.
Everything I see is economic advantage because sooner or later global warming is going to impact every economic entity as well as every living being on the planet.''
One of the reasons that California might handle greenhouse-gas cuts without as much economic pain is vehicles _ the stuff of traffic and other sorts of pain. Unlike for the nation as a whole, transportation is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in California, about 42 percent. Forcing car and truck manufacturers to make cars that emit less carbon dioxide, as state law now requires, will save Californians more in fuel costs than the added cost of more fuel efficient vehicles, economists say.
If Californians' spending patterns stay more or less the same, most of that savings will remain in the state, buying California-produced services and goods, like electronic gadgetry, according to Michael Hanemann, an environmental economist and director of the California Climate Change Center at Berkeley.
``We would switch some spending from out-of-state commodities to in-state services and products,'' he said. ``We would be hurt less and in fact benefit by the changes of climate change legislation.''
Richard Richels, head of climate-change research at the Palo Alto-based Electric Power Research Institute, a nonprofit research center for the electric industry, isn't so sure.
``What you're talking about is what economists call a free lunch,'' he told the Senate committee Tuesday. ``It could be the best lunch we ever paid for, but I think we would be doing consumers a disservice by telling them we can do this at no cost.''
California is no different, he said, and EPRI has hired Charles River Associates, an economic consulting firm that has forecast major economic costs for federal greenhouse-gas regulations, to look at the prospects in California.
``Typically we find that when a state goes it alone, there a cost to that state,'' Richels said. ``Jobs migrate out of that state, and there's a costs to that state's income.''
Margo Thorning, vice president and chief economist for the American Council for Capital Formation, questioned the assumptions in the Berkeley study.
``We found significant costs to California in terms of jobs and the economic environment,'' she said.
But the potential economic costs of controlling greenhouse-gas emissions no longer is unifying U.S. corporations in opposition to laws to address global warming.
WalMart, Dupont and at least six major electricity producers and distributors, including PG&E and Sempra Energy in California, broke ranks with their industrial associations in the Senate Tuesday to endorse mandatory greenhouse curbs. WalMart corporate strategist Andrew Ruben said the retail giant intends to be powered entirely by renewable energy and views global warming as a threat not only to its own business but to its suppliers and shoppers.
``Let me be clear: We believe this is good business,'' Rubin told the senators. ``We see climate as a critical social issue and believe greenhouse gases can be reduced economically.''
Jason Grumet, executive director of the nonpartisan National Commission for Energy Policy, acknowledged that regulation will have costs.
``There are some who are saying this is easy and some who are saying this is economically ruinous. Neither of these is the case,'' he told the Senate committee. The question, Grumet said, is how to spread the costs fairly across the economy while fostering the technologies to keep greenhouse gases down.
The economic costs will be steeper if Congress waits, and so will the costs of global warming, said David Doniger, climate-change policy director for the Natural Resources Defense Council.
``We're facing very real dangers that require real action. These emissions cuts must come within the next 10 years,'' he said. ``Delay makes the job much harder. A slow start means a crash finish.''
Will Al Gore ever explain why the last ice age ended? Global warming I presume. What kind of ancient SUV's caused that to happen?
This is just like the overreaction 30 years ago when scientist were saying we were moving toward an ice age.
CF1957
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