Energy & the Environment: Myths & Facts

At least since the energy crisis of the early 1970s, the United States has wrestled with the difficult question of how best to ensure an adequate energy supply while protecting the environment. Today, this question continues to play a role in our political debates. Whether and how public policy might reduce reliance on imported oil, encourage lower-emission vehicles, and spur the development of new or cleaner sources of power are all regular matters of public discussion and concern.

Believing that prudent policies require a well-informed citizenry—one well versed in the facts—we sought, with the help of survey research conducted by Zogby Associates, to determine what Americans believe about energy and environmental issues and the extent of their knowledge. Building on similar research from 2006, we report here on the January 2009 responses of 1,000 Americans, chosen to be representative of public opinion generally, on matters such as the sources of U.S. energy, the extent of the oil supply, the rate of global warming, the safety of nuclear power, and the promise of renewable energy sources.

The survey found that the views that many Americans hold about a wide range of these issues remain, in key ways, inaccurate. For example:

There have been some notable changes since our 2006 survey. Americans are more likely to believe that spent nuclear fuel can be stored safely and that offshore oil drilling can be conducted in an environmentally sensitive manner. Half of those surveyed feel spent nuclear fuel can be safely stored, while 64% of respondents favor expanded offshore drilling. As policymakers call for increased energy independence, it is noteworthy that a large portion of the public is favorable toward abundant domestic energy sources that could lessen our reliance on foreign oil.

Additionally, considering the momentum behind renewable energies and carbon-emission regulation, it is noteworthy that almost half of respondents believe renewable-energy sources will not replace fossil fuels and uranium any time soon—91% of our electricity is generated by fossil fuels and uranium and the EIA projects that 85% of our electricity in 2030 will be generated by such fuels—and that a plurality (49%) do not think reducing carbon emissions will be simple or inexpensive. Given the significant push for greater use of renewable energies and alternative fuels and repeated warnings about mankind’s impact on the global climate, policymakers must be guided by, and Americans deserve to know, the realities of meeting energy demand and the true costs of “going green.”

Energy & the Environment: Myths & Facts is intended as a primer for educators, journalists, and public officials—for concerned citizens generally—as we seek twin goals: an energy supply sufficient to fuel continued economic growth and environmental policies that will protect public health and the quality of our lives.

Former U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson (D-WI), Earth Day's co-founder, said he modeled Earth Day on anti-Vietnam War demonstrations called "teach-ins" that then were common on college campuses:

"I visited Santa Barbara in the summer of 1969 to speak at a water conference, and then flew north to Berkeley to speak at a conservation conference. On the plane I read an article about the use of campus anti-war teach-ins to educate students about the Vietnam War. Suddenly the idea occurred to me: Why not devote a day to a nationwide teach-in on the environment?

Thus was born Earth Day. Eight months later, on April 22, 1970, 20 million people, 2,000 colleges and universities, 10,000 grammar and high schools and 1,000 communities mobilized for the first nationwide demonstrations on environmental problems. Congress adjourned for the day so members could attend Earth Day events in their districts. The response was nothing short of remarkable, and the modern American environmental movement took off.

My major objective in planning Earth Day 1970 was to organize a nationwide public demonstration so large it would, finally, get the attention of the politicians and force the environmental issue into the political dialogue of the nation. It worked. By the sheer force of its collective action on that one day, the American public forever changed the political landscape respecting environmental issues."1

There is a widespread misconception that environmental progress in the United States began only at the time of the first Earth Day. This coincided with much of the extensive federalization of environmental policy, which took place during the Nixon Administration, due to the creation of the federal Environmental Protection Agency (1970) and passage of such laws as the Clean Air Act (1970), Clean Water Act (1972) and the Endangered Species Act (1973). In fact, as Joel M. Schwartz and Steven F. Hayward report in their book “Air Quality in America: A Dose of Reality on Air Pollution Levels, Trends, and Health Risks” (AEI Press, 2007), environmental achievements substantially pre-dated the federalization of anti-pollution policy. Among the many examples cited by the authors: Total airborne particulate matter in Pittsburgh dropped about 50 percent between the late 1950s and 1970; ozone levels in Los Angeles began to decline by 1956; sulfur dioxide levels in New York City declined by 58 percent from 1963-1970.

Source

Early in the book, Crichton has one of his characters define global warming as “the heating up of the earth from burning fossil fuels.” (p. 80) Not so, says another character, who defines global warming as follows:

... global warming is the theory that increased levels of carbon dioxide and certain other gases are causing an increase in the average temperature of the earth’s atmosphere because of the so-called ‘greenhouse effect.’ (p. 81, italics in the original)

The second definition is correct. “Global warming” really is only a theory, not a fact, and the words Crichton chose to italicize are all key terms in the scientific debate over whether the theory is correct or not. Over the course of the book, other characters document the following flaws in the theory of global warming:

most of the warming in the past century occurred before 1940, before CO2 emissions could have been a major factor (p. 84);

temperatures fell between 1940 and 1970 even as CO2 levels increased (p. 86);

temperature readings from reporting stations outside the U.S. are poorly maintained and staffed and probably inaccurate; those in the U.S., which are probably more accurate, show little or no warming trend (pp. 88-89);

“full professors from MIT, Harvard, Columbia, Duke, Virginia, Colorado, UC Berkeley, and other prestigious schools ... the former president of the National Academy of Sciences ... will argue that global warming is at best unproven, and at worst pure fantasy" (p. 90);

temperature sensors on satellites report much less warming in the upper atmosphere (which the theory of global warming predicts should warm first) than is reported by temperature sensors on the ground (p. 99);

data from weather balloons agree with the satellites (p. 100);

“No one can say for sure if global warming will result in more clouds, or fewer clouds,” yet cloud cover plays a major role in global temperatures (p. 187);

Antarctica “as a whole is getting colder, and the ice is getting thicker” (p. 193, sources listed on p. 194);

The Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica has been melting for the past 6,000 years (p. 195, p. 200-201); “Greenland might lose its ice pack in the next thousand years” (p. 363);

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is “a huge group of bureaucrats and scientists under the thumb of bureaucrats,” and its 1995 report was revised “after the scientists themselves had gone home” (p. 245-246);

James Hansen’s predictions of global warming during a Congressional committee hearing in 1988, which launched the global warming scare, were wrong by 200 percent (.35 degrees Celsius over the next 10 years versus the actual increase of .11 degrees); in 1998, Hansen said long-term predictions of climate are impossible (pp. 246-247);

there has been no increase in extreme weather events (.e.g., floods, tornadoes, drought) over the past century or in the past 15 years; computer models used to forecast climate change do not predict more extreme weather (p. 362, 425-426);

temperature readings taken by terrestrial reporting stations are rising because they are increasingly surrounded by roads and buildings which hold heat, the “urban heat island” effect (p. 368-369); methods used to control for this effect fail to reduce temperatures enough to offset it (p. 369-376);

changes in land use and urbanization may contribute more to changes in the average ground temperature than “global warming” caused by human emissions (p. 383, 388);

temperature data are suspect because they have been adjusted and manipulated by scientists who expect to find a warming trend (p. 385-386);

carbon dioxide has increased a mere 60 parts per million since 1957, a tiny change in the composition of the atmosphere (p. 387);

increased levels of CO2 act a fertilizer, promoting plant growth and contributing to the shrinking of the Sahara desert (p. 421);

the spread of malaria is unaffected by global warming (pp. 421-422, footnotes on 422);

sufficient data exist to measure changes in mass for only 79 of the 160,000 glaciers in the world (p. 423);

the icecap on Kilimanjaro has been melting since the 1800s, long before human emissions could have influenced the global climate, and satellites do not detect a warming trend in the region (p. 423); deforestation at the foot of the mountain is the likely explanation for the melting trend (p. 424);

sea levels have been rising at the rate of 10 to 20 centimeters (four to eight inches) per hundred years for the past 6,000 years (p. 424);

El Niños are global weather patterns unrelated to global warming and on balance tend to be beneficial by extending growing seasons and reducing the use of heating fuels (p. 426);

the Kyoto Protocol would reduce temperatures by only 0.04 degrees Celsius in the year 2100 (p. 478);

a report by scientists published in Science concludes “there is no known technology capable of reducing [global] carbon emissions ... totally new and undiscovered technology is required” (p. 479);

change, not stability, is the defining characteristic of the global climate, with naturally occurring events (e.g., volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, tsunamis) much more likely to affect climate than anything humans do (p. 563); and

computer simulations are not real-world data and cannot be relied on to produce reliable forecasts (p. 566).

Source

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

FReepmail me to get on or off