Environmental Says Blizzard Consistent with 'Global Warming' Trend

CNSNews.com ^ | Thursday, February 20, 2003 | Marc Morano

[countrydummy]

Greens just can't make up their minds!

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCulture.asp?Page=\Culture\archive\200302\CUL20030220a.html

Environmental Says Blizzard Consistent with 'Global Warming' Trend By Marc Morano CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer February 20, 2003

(CNSNews.com) - The record-breaking blizzard of 2003, which left more than two feet of snow in some areas of the mid-Atlantic and Northeast, was "very much in line with the predictions of climate models" that predict human-caused "global warming," according to an environmentalist in Washington.

When asked whether predictions of "global warming" have been altered by the unusually cold and snowy winter, including the recent blizzard, Melissa Carey, a climate change policy specialist with the Environmental Defense Fund, said the climate change models actually predict this type of weather.

"It's very hard to link one event for sure, but certainly, increased extreme events like this are very, very much in line with the predictions of climate models, definitely," Carey told CNSNews.com.

"One thing climate change models predict is more increased precipitation and more extreme precipitation events like flooding or blizzards," she added.

Carey believes that the earth's climate is changing for the worse.

"Our system is becoming out of balance. That means we may have much, much hotter summers, and we may have much, much drier winters. We may have an increased frequency of extreme storms like hurricanes and tornados," she added.

Carey sees human activity as the cause of climate uncertainty. "It's not all about warming, it's really about the changes in our climate and our environment that go along with the increases of the concentration of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere," Carey explained.

The world is facing dire consequences if no policy action is taken, according to Carey.

"The CO2 (carbon dioxide) emissions generated by the very first automobile that rolled off the assembly line here in the U.S. are still in the atmosphere. They accumulate over time," Carey said.

But Chris Horner, a senior fellow at the free-market environmental think tank Competitive Enterprise Institute, accused Carey of "selling a lie" about "catastrophic man-made global warming" and the "myth of a stable climate."

Horner believes environmentalists will attribute any adverse weather event or patterns to man-made climate change in order to further their policy goals.

"It's always getting hotter or colder or wetter or drier. Whatever happens - and weather always happens - it's clearly evidence of global warming to them," Horner said.

"Climate is inherently unstable. It is always changing. This supposed 'balance' that man upsets is mythical," Horner explained.

"To insist otherwise is to view the entirety of man's presence not as part of the environment but as a pollutant," he added.

Horner believes the only consistent belief among environmentalists is that man is at the center of any weather-related changes.

"First, man caused cooling, then warming. The darned climate kept changing, but the insistence that man simply must be ruinous didn't," Horner said.

Greenhouse Gases Decline

This week's mammoth snowstorm coincided with the U.S. Energy Department's release of greenhouse gas emission figures for 2001 - showing that for the first time since 1991, the amount of emissions dropped. Greenhouse gas emissions are composed chiefly of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels.

The 1.2 percent decline was due to a 3.5 percent drop-off in economic growth, the mild winter and higher electricity costs, according to the Energy Information Administration, a statistical arm of the Energy Department.

But the concept that lower economic growth is the proven path to decreased emissions is a two-way street, illustrating the problems with international treaties like the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, according to Horner.

"The way to reduce CO2 emissions or greenhouse gas emissions is a poor economy and high electricity costs," Horner said.

The Kyoto Protocol calls for steep reductions in the amount of greenhouse gas emissions, which some scientists believe could lead to global warming.

"We reduced [greenhouse gases] 1.2 percent, but we'd have to reduce them 17 percent under the 'first step' agreement that is Kyoto," Horner said.

Horner sees this latest government-released data as a warning to avoid what he sees as economically damaging climate change treaties.

"If you want to comply with Kyoto, you need to reduce economic growth and jack up electricity costs," Horner said.

"We need 15 times higher energy costs and an economic slowdown that is 15 times worse [than 2001's], and then, we will get down to the Kyoto prescribed emission levels. This is all you need to know," he added.

'Market-Based Mechanisms'

But Carey, who praised the Kyoto Protocol as "the best international framework that we have to deal with [emissions]," maintains economic growth and emission controls can coincide.

"When our economy is really growing, emissions tend to go up. When it's not growing so fast, emissions tend to lag accordingly," said Carey.

Carey believes the U.S. can achieve both economic growth and reductions in greenhouse gases with "market-based mechanisms."

"The solution would be for our Congress to enact a law, such as the McCain/Lieberman Cap-and-Trade plan, that's an economy-wide cap-and-trade system to reduce greenhouse gas emissions," Carey said.

A "cap-and-trade" concept enables the government to set mandatory limits on total industry greenhouse gas output and lets companies earn and trade "pollution" credits.

But Horner dismissed the McCain/Lieberman cap-and-trade program.

"The Congressional Budget Office reports that a cap-and-trade program is the equivalent of an energy tax, raising the costs of energy to consumers and producers alike," Horner said. The McCain/Lieberman proposal would be five times as costly as an energy tax due to its inefficiencies, according to Horner.

"So let's be less mean to the seniors and the poor and just propose the energy tax," he said sarcastically.

E-mail a news tip to Marc Morano.

Send a Letter to the Editor about this article.

Rose Correira President Alliance for America www.allianceforamerica.org

[PeaceBeWithYou]

Of course it does.

The computer models assume warming will occur.

Any input = warming. They rigged the game.

Bump/bookmark/ping

[irish_links]

... and all the chemicals that are combinations of those elements, have been here on this earth for billions of years. Nature continually moves them, breaks them down, and recombines them over and over again through the eons....

I agree with the spirit of your post, Katana, but it contains a key logical fallacy. Although the carbon being emitted into the atmosphere has existed on earth for billions of years, it was not in recent eons in the gaseous form of carbon dioxide. Changing the character of the element may have very significant effects, possibly adverse to human and environmental health.

But that is just a quibble. The unassailable fact is that the cost of reducing the temporary increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is many times higher than the cost of suffering the mild climate changes that may be occuring because of it.

We should be exploring alternatives to fossil fuels. We will need an alternative when fossil fuels become relatively scare in 50 years or so. In the mean time, we need to stop spending so much research time and money supporting bogus climate change theories and get on to the real business of perfecting fossil fuel alternatives.

Regards, Irish_links

[tom paine 2]

The idea that the CO2 created by the first automobile is still up there in the atmosphere is totally preposterous. Carbon, Oxygen, Hydrogen, and Nitrogen in the atmosphere are in a constant state of flux.

[thetruckster]

"DDT should be hailed as one of the greatest achievements in public health."

I've found that deodorized garlic and brewer's yeast supplements work pretty well to keep away mosquitoes and fleas from both humans and animals. And in Southeast Texas, we have more biting bugs than you can imagine. Maybe eating right could be an even better achievement than DDT. It certainly could help out with the Fattest City in the Nation. And it doesn't destroy eagle eggs.

[meadsjn]

Melissa Carey, a climate change policy specialist with the Environmental Defense Fund,

The article doesn't clearly identify Ms. Carey's field of study or her academic credentials other than her association with a the above questionable "Environmental Defense Fund".

She may very well have majored in "Multi-cultural Diversity" or "Women's Studies". Even if she has degrees in "Environmental Science", her credentials are still suspect. The only expertise provided by these areas of study are "getting funding" and "people control".

[jonascord]

"it doesn't destroy eagle eggs."

Please offer an independent scientific study that PROVES DDT in the enviroment is a direct cause of thinning egg shells.

At the same time, please offer a method to control Malaria, Yellow Fever, and West Nile Virus with deoderized garlic and Brewer's yeast.

Careful, this is a trick question. The only study I've ever seen also recommends that garbage cans in Sealy control the Austin county elephant population.

[countrydummy]

I agree with you. I think she is just a rabid radical and can't produce a degree of any sort of expertise! She is a flake! Nothing more or nothing less! Course that is my opinion! LOL

[countrydummy]

ohh, please ping me the reply! I am dying to her the response! I don't want to miss it!

[Iconoclast2]

The "eagle eggs" charge is a myth. See http://www.junkscience.com/ddtfaq.htm

[thetruckster]

"independent scientific study"

Are you kidding? Everyone has an agenda and skews facts to their own end and for their grantor's desired results. The facts don't change. The presentation does. The left and the right are two sides of the same coin. Integrity will someday sort out the chaff from the wheat, but it hasn't happened yet. Not tricky at all.

[Taxman]

LOL!

There is about 3/4" an hour of "global warming snow" falling on us right now!

[thetruckster]

Here ya go . . .

"independent scientific study"

Are you kidding? Everyone has an agenda and skews facts to their own end and for their grantor's desired results. The facts don't change. The presentation does. The left and the right are two sides of the same coin. Integrity will someday sort out the chaff from the wheat, but it hasn't happened yet. Not tricky at all.

[PeaceBeWithYou]

The article doesn't clearly identify Ms. Carey's field of study or her academic credentials other than her association with a the above questionable "Environmental Defense Fund".

Policy Specialist Melissa Carey has a Masters Degree in Public Affairs from The University of Texas, according to EDF's 2002 Annual Report.(found it buried in a PDF file)

[Risa]

I don't seek out the opinion of any people who are heavily invested in the turnout of this extremely complex issue, not from the Environmental Defense Fund, or the Competitive Enterprise Institute (whose representative obviously never took a physics or meteorology course, or he'd know that climate changes don't occur as a simple increase in heat everywhere, all at once. The weather system is too complex for that, and extremes of cold and hot, rain and dry, blizzards and storms would occurr in very unpredictable if the climate is growing unstable (for human beings--the earth will survive!)

I find it frustrating when people on both sides of the issue spout off stupidly about it. All I care about is finding the truth, and these people make it extremely hard to ferret it out.

risa

[Risa]

>>Policy Specialist Melissa Carey has a Masters Degree in Public Affairs from The University of Texas, according to EDF's 2002 Annual Report.(found it buried in a PDF file)<<

Thanks for enlightening me. She didn't seem to have any science knowledge ( meteorology, specifically, an intensely mathematical, physics-oriented science) than the Competitive Enterprise Institute guy, although she seemed to know a little bit more about effects of climate.

The issue is extemely complex, and we can't get the truth from most of the people who take a side.

risa

[MEGoody]

If it's hot, it's because of global warming.

If it's cold, it's because of global warming.

If it's dry, it's because of global warming.

If it's rainy, it's because of global warming.

If it's snowy, it's because of global warming.

These people are just nuts.

[Risa]

>>Integrity will someday sort out the chaff from the wheat, but it hasn't happened yet.<<

I agree with your sentiments. We don't know the truth, and it's useless to listen to the majority of people representing either side of the issue, because they are INVESTED in it, and unfortunately, see only the facts which support their self-interest, whether they're energy-funded groups, or environmental groups, they all behave the same way.

risa

[Risa]

>>The "eagle eggs" charge is a myth. See http://www.junkscience.com/ddtfaq.htm<<

You know, as a scientist who seeks out the truth, I was enthused to encounter 'junk science.'

But I grew disappointed as I began to read the articles. Even though they point to some helpful research journals,and show an alternate side to many issues, they obviously have an agenda, too, either that or they simply don't know how to systematically debunk an idea or claim.

They make many statements that are outrageous. You have to pick through a lot of trash to get the facts. To me 'junk science' is what the guy who operates this Web site is selling.

It would be wonderful if someone could pull off a project like junk-science using reason, though.

risa

[Risa]

>>to stop spending so much research time and money supporting bogus climate change theories and get on to the real business of perfecting fossil fuel alternatives. <<

A very good point, and I agree. Yet some people seem not to want to face the fossil fuel limitation. Some say limited fossil fuel resources are a bogus claim, too.

risa

[Iconoclast2]

Everyone seems to have an axe to grind. I was most impressed by the fact that EPA's hearing examiner, who heard months of testimony on DDT effects, ultimately sided with the industry, only to be overruled by a political hack appointed by Richard Nixon, who incidentally continues to wreak havoc even today.