A Republican Case for Climate Action

NY Times ^ | August 1, 2013 | WILLIAM D. RUCKELSHAUS, LEE M. THOMAS, WILLIAM K. REILLY and CHRISTINE TODD WHITMAN

[iowamark]

EACH of us took turns over the past 43 years running the Environmental Protection Agency. We served Republican presidents, but we have a message that transcends political affiliation: the United States must move now on substantive steps to curb climate change, at home and internationally.

There is no longer any credible scientific debate about the basic facts: our world continues to warm, with the last decade the hottest in modern records, and the deep ocean warming faster than the earth’s atmosphere. Sea level is rising. Arctic Sea ice is melting years faster than projected.

The costs of inaction are undeniable. The lines of scientific evidence grow only stronger and more numerous. And the window of time remaining to act is growing smaller: delay could mean that warming becomes “locked in.”

A market-based approach, like a carbon tax, would be the best path to reducing greenhouse-gas emissions, but that is unachievable in the current political gridlock in Washington. Dealing with this political reality, President Obama’s June climate action plan lays out achievable actions that would deliver real progress. He will use his executive powers to require reductions in the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by the nation’s power plants and spur increased investment in clean energy technology, which is inarguably the path we must follow to ensure a strong economy along with a livable climate.

The president also plans to use his regulatory power to limit the powerful warming chemicals known as hydrofluorocarbons and encourage the United States to join with other nations to amend the Montreal Protocol to phase out these chemicals. The landmark international treaty, which took effect in 1989, already has been hugely successful in solving the ozone problem.

Rather than argue against his proposals, our leaders in Congress should endorse them...

[abclily]

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 ball of fire that controls our climates.

3. The earth is a rock.

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?

[Amagi]

The writers may title this "A Republican Case for Climate Action" but it is a smokescreen for liberal activism.

William D. Ruckelshaus is a liberal Republican with a history of wacko environmentalist activism.

Mark Levin, in a segment I like to call "Rachel Carson, DDT, and the Environmentalists" from his 17Dec09 radio show described William D. Ruckelshaus as a liberal Republican when he cited William D. Ruckelshaus' contribution to the banning of DDT:

Mark: Rachel Carson wrote this book and she makes all these claims and she misuses statistics. It was seized upon by the Sierra Club and other nascent left-wing environmental groups. They had gotten their birth earlier but this was their big moment. An administrative law judge at the new EPA at this time in the early 1970s read all the evidence and listened to all the arguments for months, and he concluded unequivocally that DDT was not the cause of death of birds, or mammals or the thinning of egg shells, and that DDT posed no danger to children when used in the way that it had been regulated - and as a matter of fact the reason we don't have DDT in the United States, is, as an example. in some of our cities the schools at recess when the kids were outside playing DDT was sprayed from helicopter. There used to be malaria in the US and Canada but there isn't anymore. The same thing in other countries that used DDT.

Our GIs during WWII fighting in the jungles would slather their bodies and uniforms with DDT.

What happened was that the political appointee at the head of the EPA, the administrator William D. Ruckelshaus (a liberal Republican as a matter of fact) over-ruled the administrative law judge, without hearing any of the evidence, so that in the US DDT was made so expensive as to essentially ban the production of it.

European countries followed suit. This meant that the poorest of poor countries in Africa and Southeast Asia which have huge problems with malaria and other mosquito and insect borne diseases did not benefit from DDT as the developed countries had, but instead were given nets, etc., which weren't effective in any significant way and as a result literally millions and millions of poor kids in Africa and Southeast Asia and other parts of the world have died from malaria because we stopped producing and shipping DDT. Only in recent years has it been realized what a disaster this is.

The Sierra Club, however still won't admit it, and the Sierra Club is still treated as a magnificent organization whose members are sought for "expert" testimony on TV and all the rest.

Do you think these environmentalist groups give a damn about the consequences of imposing these outrageous cap-and-trade rules on this nation when they didn't give a damn what they did to those little kids in Africa and Southeast Asia? Do you think they give a damn if they destroy our economy, putting tens of millions out of work, that people are cold in winter and hot in the summer because they can't get the energy they need because of a cap and trade. These same people and their offspring are right now in Copenhagen, in the EPA, some are members of congress, some in the White House trying to impose these crazy ideas on us which do what? --- spread death and misery and poverty.

See Liberty and Tyranny chapter "On Enviro-Statism".

[Third Person]

Republican scum, bought and paid for.

[palmer]

“the deep oceans are warming faster than the atmosphere.” IF that is truly happening, it MUST be coming from increased volcanic activity on the ocean floor, which would be caused by plate techtonics.....continental drift

The entire heat flux from the core of the earth is about 10,000 times less than the heat captured from the sun. It is trivial. Their wording gives them away, they say the "deep oceans are warming faster than the atmosphere". There is certainly some measurement evidence that the deep oceans (below 700m) are warming, however there is insufficient data for the rate of warming. Not only that, but the measurement system is very new and may be measuring a natural cycle (lots of La Nina in the last decade).

When they make statements like that they have been infected with a particular piece of propaganda that I am very familiar with, namely a single alarmist model that "shows" that the deep oceans are warming. The bottom line with this climate model is that it starts with the assumption that deep oceans are warming. It is circular.

[palmer]

arctic it’s shortest summer on record

Not the shortest, since it is not over (I addressed that on that thread). However it is one of the coldest summers on record, mainly in the ocean areas, mainly due to increased clouds. The theory of Arctic warming amplification says that there should be fewer clouds (high pressure rather than low pressure). But this summer reality trumps theory. In the long run reality (weather) will trump theory (minor warming from CO2).

[olezip]

EACH of us took turns over the past 43 years running the Environmental Protection Agency. We served Republican presidents, but we have a message that transcends political affiliation: the United States must move now on substantive steps to curb climate change, at home and internationally.

There is no longer any credible scientific debate about the basic facts: our world continues to warm, with the last decade the hottest in modern records, and the deep ocean warming faster than the earth’s atmosphere. Sea level is rising. Arctic Sea ice is melting years faster than projected.

Heads of agencies are political appointees, with or without a little actual expertise in the subject matter. So, when a political hack claims that there is no longer any credible scientific debate, they are making a pretty strong assertion without an iota of supporting evidence.

The EPA has served its purpose and needs to be reduced in size by about 90%, with or without political hacks of either party in place.

There is climate change of course, but mankind has nothing to do with it. The Earth has been experiencing a cooling trend since 1998. The North Pole just experienced the coldest summer on record.

[palmer]

It is obvious that none of these people wrote the article.

It is a list of the usual alarmist propaganda that originates from a well funded machine including about a dozen large organizations designed specifically to propagandize children, idiots and politicians.

[palmer]

The Earth has been experiencing a cooling trend since 1998

Warming about 0.1C per decade since that timeframe, see http://www.drroyspencer.com/latest-global-temperatures/ To start exactly at 1998 to derive a trend is pretty much the definition of cherry picking.

[olezip]

Warming about 0.1C per decade since that timeframe, see http://www.drroyspencer.com/latest-global-temperatures/ To start exactly at 1998 to derive a trend is pretty much the definition of cherry picking.

Good link! I stand corrected. But is has been pretty cool outside this week.

[palmer]

Well if you are in the middle or eastern US we have been blessed with a cool low pressure system up in eastern Canada that has been more powerful than the Bermuda high. See the 10 day forecast loop here: http://weather.unisys.com/gfs/gfs.php?inv=0&plot=850&region=us&t=l Whenever the 90's air makes a run for us here in VIrginia, another batch of cool air comes to the rescue.

[Izzy Dunne]

the deep ocean warming faster than the earth’s atmosphere.

So.... seeing as how most humans are on the surface and destroying the atmosphere, how is this possible?

[Vision]

What a surprise. Government is saying that more government is needed in order to control the weather.

[spokeshave]

Welcome King Barack "Canute" Obama the Great.....

...Obama issues an Executive Order to the Sun...

....to increase it's magnetic field....

and make a good crop of sunspots before elections in 2016....

(PhysOrg.com) -- Sunspot formation is triggered by a magnetic field, which scientists say is steadily declining. They predict that by 2016 there may be no remaining sunspots, and the sun may stay spotless for several decades.

The last time the sunspots disappeared altogether was in the 17th and 18th century, and coincided with a lengthy cool period on the planet known as the Little Ice Age....and lasted 400 years.

Good luck surviving with no electricity and GE modified seeds.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news203746768.html#jCp

[Paladin2]

RINOs needing to act like 'Rats immediately.

It's a reflex.

[jimfree]

There is not now nor has there ever been a case for climate action.

[Reeses]

the urban heat island phenomenon

Urban living uses more energy and creates more pollution than country living. The proof is urbanites have to spend much more money to live their lifestyle. Price is one of the most honest indicators of how much total energy something uses.

Urbanites build their power plants in the countryside, so they enjoy the benefits of them but not the pollution. Half their waste heat is dissipated in rural areas, so the urban heat island effect is actually twice as bad as observed.

It would be easy to implement carbon taxes on urbanites. 85% of them are leftists so would vote for these taxes with gusto. They should just ignore fly over country and move on with their communist agenda. The country folks might also want to vote for a carbon tax on the power plants that pollute their areas but send power into the cities. It's a winning approach to this political opportunity. Make city slickers pay for their more energy intensive lifestyle.

One side effect to ponder is urban carbon taxes will contribute to the browning of our cities as the remaining whites flee to a more peaceful and lower carbon footprint lifestyle. That will increasingly concentrate crime and welfare hotspots away from the suburbs. Minorities will also increasingly bear the brunt of terrorist attacks, virus and bacteria outbreaks, nuclear bombings, and Democrat politicians kissing their babies.

[Rummyfan]

They were EPA administrators? The same EPA that banned DDT, which has led to deaths in the millions? They can all go f*ck off!

[maddog55]

OMG the sun will eventually burn out?

If we stop global warming on earth, the sun won’t have to heat us up as much so that will save the suns fuel and make it last longer.

Just waiting for that argument to show up somewhere....

[Rummyfan]

I just re-read "State of Fear" and it occurred to me: Michael Crichton was assassinated. He died too young.

Michael Crichton's voice is missed. He had crossover reach, being successful in the mass entertainment world of television, movies, and books with the real academic achievement and intellect to give credence to his opinions. See if you can dig up his essay Aliens Caused Global Warming. The title is deliberately tongue-in-cheek.

[Excellence]

Comments are closed. I always post my favorite:
Three billion years is enough! Stop cyclical global climate change now!