John Holdren,
Climate
Posted on 12/28/2008 9:44:04 AM PST by AZLiberty
I had an OMG experience when I clicked on this. The Obama administration really intends to act in a big way on this climate change bull stuff. Don't miss Obama's video (you'll have to click through to the article.) Obama's caveat about there being only one president seem hollow here.-- AZLiberty
We need strong U.S. leadership on climate change, especially as we head into next year's COP-15 talks. President-elect Obama has already spoken more boldly (by far) on climate change than almost any other American elected official:
There is often, however, a large gap between words and deeds in Washington, D.C., and some of Obama's initial cabinet selections have been discouraging, to say the least, so I was extremely glad to see the President-elect's climate team come together.
Simply put, these guys are like the Justice League of American climate policy, scientific superheroes who will be (we hope) leading a transformed scientific and policy debate in a nation that's spent eight years being lead by an overtly corrupt administration and its Lysenkoist hacks. These people have been nominated for extremely important jobs, and they are up to the task.
Steven Chu -- a Nobel prize-winning physicist, who is a leading voice on climate change and renewable energy -- as Secretary of Energy:
At Berkeley, colleagues say, Chu has aggressively promoted research on advanced biofuels, solar power, and energy efficiency. He has successfully, and often shrewdly, fought for funding from the federal government as well as from private industry, most notably in his wooing, last year, of a $500 million partnership with oil giant BP for alternative energy research. As Chu sees it, a handful of hard-won breakthroughs—with photovoltaic cells for solar power, for instance—could be game-changers for the country's energy portfolio.
I've met and spoken with Steve Chu, and he is not only brilliant, he gets it: he understands the magnitude of the problem, the urgency of finding solutions, and the complexities that make progress difficult. But don't take my word for it; here's what he has to say for himself:
Carol Browner -- a well-respected former EPA administrator known for political savvy, who's been vocal on "the costs of inaction on climate change"-- to be Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change. Here's her recent testimony on Capitol Hill:
Harvard's John Holdren -- a leading scientist who has been a strong voice on climate change, renewable energy and emerging sciences -- as the President's Science Advisor.
Most of the people I respect think Holdren is an outstanding selection, a brilliant man who gets science politics. Climate Progress' Joseph Romm bluntly says Holdren has "more combined expertise on both climate science and clean energy technology than any other person who could plausibly have been named science adviser." But don't take Romm's word for it, listen to Holdren describe the political realities of global climate agreements in his own words:
In applying the costlier solutions, the industrialized nations must lead – going first, paying more of the up-front costs, offering assistance to developing countries. This is a matter of historical responsibility, capacity, equity, and international law (the UNFCCC). ... The best basis for such an agreement in the short term is probably reductions in emission intensity (GHG/GDP); in the longer run, the only politically acceptable basis will be equal per-capita emissions rights.
Or check out this article. (And, of course, as we've noted before, John Holdren is an outspoken opponent of geoengineering.)
Jane Lubchenco -- a leader on climate change and a strong advocate for marine reserves -- to head NOAA:
Lubchenco has actively encouraged fellow scientists to better communicate their research to the public and has urged controls on greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming. She helped lead a panel created by Gov. Ted Kulongoski to develop an Oregon strategy on climate change.
...A former president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and Ecological Society of America, Lubchenco has won many of the top awards in her field, including a so-called genius MacArthur Fellowship.
Lubchenco is a strong proponent of scientific clarity in politics; in her own words (from this excellent video on scientists as public citizens):
If decisions are to be informed by science, decision-makers should have access to information that they can understand, use and believe is credible. As all of you know, and especially in areas like the environmental sciences, the science is in fact very complex, nuanced, and difficult to communicate simply. The uncertainties are real. We don’t know everything. On the other hand, scientists often focus on those areas of uncertainty because that’s what we get excited about, those are the research frontiers, and we forget to communicate to the public at large or the policymakers, all the areas where there actually is a lot of agreement. We oftentimes lose perspective when we’re communicating and we need to regain that perspective.
Vested interests, then, often spin, cherry-pick and distort information. The result is what we have seen play out over the last decade in many different arenas. Decisions are made without good science, or science is seen as a weapon, not as useful knowledge. Now, this doesn’t serve anyone well. Changing this requires a number of things. One, clarifying the role of science - scientists don’t think they should be dictating - they should be informing, they should be helpful. Training and empowering scientists to communicate more effectively is a critical element of changing this situation. Organizing our data and information to make them more accessible and useable to others, having more scientific assessments like IPCC, like the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (the MA was a one-off - it needs to be done on a routine basis like the IPCC) and increasing openness in the conduct of science and opportunities for citizens to participate.
I'll write again about what's wrong with the Obama team and approach as it's being laid out, but for now, let me just end this piece by saying that this team is good news. Now, we're not out of the woods yet. You can't even see the edge of the woods from here. But I am heartened by a core U.S. climate team that is lead by four brilliant, hard-fighting, deeply committed scientific leaders.
After Browners lies about MTBE, I amazed that anyone thinks she has any value at all!
It is almost as if God has a sense of humor. And if he doesn't, he at least has a sense of irony.
Crackpots pushing crackpot science. What could go wrong with the economy with a small brained chimp at the helm.
Europe Puts Hurdles in Obama’s Climate Path
By Gregor Peter Schmitz in Washington D.C.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,595644,00.html
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231-Page Report Now Available
Scientists Continue to Debunk “Consensus” in 2008 Only 52 Scientists Participated in UN IPCC Summary
Proponents of man-made global warming like to note how the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and the American Meteorological Society (AMS) have issued statements endorsing the so-called “consensus” view that man is driving global warming. But both the NAS and AMS never allowed member scientists to directly vote on these climate statements. Essentially, only two dozen or so members on the governing boards of these institutions produced the “consensus” statements. This report gives a voice to the rank-and-file scientists who were shut out of the process.
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=2674e64f-802a-23ad-490b-bd9faf4dcdb7
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Steven Chu, In an interview with The Post last year, said that the cost of electricity was “anomalously low” in the United States, that a cap-and-trade approach to limiting greenhouse gases “is an absolutely non-partisan issue,”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/11/AR2008121103380.html
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James Hansen wants Obama to just come out and admit that it is an energy tax that he wants to impose on Americans and stop beating around the bushes by calling it “cap and trade”. He says that Americans will “understand”: Some on Left Join Fight to Expose the Lie that is Cap and Trade
http://blog.heritage.org/2008/12/05/some-on-left-join-fight-to-expose-the-lie-that-is-cap-and-trade/
Some on Left Join Fight to Expose the Lie that is Cap and Trade
http://blog.heritage.org/2008/12/05/some-on-left-join-fight-to-expose-the-lie-that-is-cap-and-trade/
Posted December 5th, 2008 at 1.08pm in Energy and Environment.
This past summer when the Senate debated the Lieberman-Warner cap and trade plan, conservatives (and libertarians) were alone in fighting to expose the lie that cap and trade is anything other than a massive energy tax that can only harm our economy. Now, more and more on the left are wising up and taking a more honest approach. Yesterday in the Wall Street Journal, Ralph Nader and Toby Heaps wrote:
Cap-and-traders assume, without much justification, that one country can put a price on carbon emissions while another doesn’t without affecting trade or investment decisions. This is a bad assumption, given false comfort by the Montreal Protocol treaty, which took this approach to successfully rein in ozone-depleting gases. Chlorofluorocarbons are not pervasive like greenhouse gases (GHGs); nor was the economy of 1987 hyperglobalized like ours today.
Good intentions to limit big polluters in some countries but not others will turn any meaningful cap into Swiss cheese. It can be avoided by relocating existing and new production of various kinds of CO2-emitting industries to jurisdictions with no or virtually no limits. This is known as carbon leakage, and it leads to trade anarchy.
How? The most advanced piece of climate legislation at the moment, the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act, contains provisions for retaliatory action to be taken against imports from carbon free-riding nations. Married with the current economic malaise, the temptation to slide into a righteous but runaway environmental protectionism which Washington’s K Street lobbyists would be only too happy to grease would almost certainly lead to a collapse of the multilateral trading system.
Even global warming icon James Hansen has joined the cap and trade truth bandwagon. In his letter to Obama, Hansen writes:
A tax should be called a tax. The public can understand this and will accept a tax if it is clearly explained and if 100 percent of the money is returned to the public. Not one dime should go to Washington for politicians to pick winners. No lobbyists need be employed.
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Beware of alternative approaches, such as ‘percent emission reduction goals’ and ‘cap and trade’. These are subterfuges designed to allow business-as-usual to continue, under a pretense of action, a greenwashing. Hordes of lobbyists will argue for these approaches, which assure their continued employment. The ineffectiveness of ‘goals’ and ‘caps’ is made blatantly obvious by the fact that the countries promoting them are planning to build more coal-fired power plants.
http://www.townhall.com/blog/g/428a64a8-de1d-4c94-9b11-cd977cd653b4
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Cap and Trade Bill Hits MN the Hardest
Posted by: Michele Bachmann at 11:55 AM
During the first week of June, the U.S. Senate is scheduled to consider Cap and Trade legislation - more aptly called Tax and Trade legislation. Here are some pretty depressing stats to consider should this bill become law. Be sure to click on the links for details. The bottom line: this is bad news for Minnesota.
According to The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis Report on the Cap and Trade bill (S. 2191), http://www.heritage.org/Research/EnergyandEnvironment/cda08-02.cfm Minnesota would lead the nation in per-capita job loss should this legislation become law. Across the country, the already hard hit manufacturing sector of our economy would lose millions more jobs. Household energy costs would rise dramatically, and household income would decline.
What is cap and trade? In this case, the federal government would impose arbitrary limits on six emission gases, with the primary emphasis on carbon dioxide. In order to cap these emissions, the government would sell permits to power plants, refineries, and natural gas producers, which will be passed along in the form of increased energy costs to consumers (much like an energy tax). It will lead to large transfers of income from people in Minnesota to special interests in Washington.
How much will it cost you? When S. 2191 is fully implemented in Minnesota, the average household would see energy costs rise by $823 more per year in 2025 because of this legislation. The increase in the average electric bill would be at least 80% more than under current law, and the average natural gas bill increase would be at least 37% over current projections if S. 2191 becomes law.
Moreover, according to the Heritage analysis, the trade-off for the damage this Tax and Trade bill would do to the economy is “...very little change in global temperature...perhaps even smaller than the .07 of a degree Celsius drop in temperature that many scientisits expected from worldwide compliance with the Kyoto climate change accords.”
Only a total moron would believe that they can actually control the natural weather patterns. The “media” likes to tell us how bright the Kenyan guy is. He doesn’t seem that bright to me.
Agreed! Harvard Law School, my foot. If he scored 180 on the LSAT, I’ll eat my hat!
This statement from Jane Lubchenco is quite frightening... especially considering that the IPCC is mostly a political body.
This guy obviously is naive about how Washington works, or cynically gives lip service to an idealistic scenario but knows the real SOP.
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