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Environmental Says Blizzard Consistent with 'Global Warming' Trend
CNSNews.com ^ | Thursday, February 20, 2003 | Marc Morano

Posted on 02/20/2003 12:55:44 PM PST by 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


TOPICS: Activism/Chapters; Business/Economy; Constitution/Conservatism; Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Editorial; Extended News; Foreign Affairs; Free Republic; Front Page News; Government; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events; Philosophy; Unclassified
KEYWORDS: bizzaro; blackiswhite; envirolosers; enviromenalism; envirotwits; fud; globalwarming; globalwarminghoax; globlaloneygoons; goverment; greenieweenies; knewthiswascoming; kyoto; landgrabs; policyspecialist; scarycarey; whiteisblack
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To: richardtavor
Dick Cheney actually was in Texas hunting when the Columbia came down.
61 posted on 02/20/2003 5:00:19 PM PST by aristeides
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To: gg188
El Nino is glad to be off the hook for once :-)
62 posted on 02/20/2003 5:10:32 PM PST by Con X-Poser
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To: pghkevin
What ever happened to el nino?

He's being filibustered. It's "Global Warming" now.

-PJ

63 posted on 02/20/2003 5:15:21 PM PST by Political Junkie Too
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To: Cincinatus
Sort of like the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence...

Yeah, but they made a cool screen-saver.

-PJ

64 posted on 02/20/2003 5:17:51 PM PST by Political Junkie Too
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To: thetruckster
West Nile Virus- Bring Back DDT?


100 things you should know about DDT

65 posted on 02/20/2003 5:19:33 PM PST by backhoe (Do NOT Read this! Under penalty of Law!)
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To: Libertarianize the GOP; Stand Watch Listen; RightWhale; Free the USA; Carry_Okie; SierraWasp; ...
Thanks for indexing this:

I'll ping my list!

Global Warming Hoax :

To find all articles tagged or indexed using Global Warming Hoax , click below:
  click here >>> Global Warming Hoax <<< click here  
(To view all FR Bump Lists, click here)



66 posted on 02/20/2003 5:19:54 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
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To: countrydummy
I wonder if the fact that our Sun is a slightly-variable star has an impact on global warming?

Naahh... must be the SUVs and exploitative industrial countries.

-PJ

67 posted on 02/20/2003 5:38:28 PM PST by Political Junkie Too
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To: thetruckster
"Their first court case was to get DDT banned."

Was that a bad thing?
\
yes it was rachel carson did not know jack.

regards dozer
68 posted on 02/20/2003 5:55:46 PM PST by dozer7
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To: countrydummy
Environmental Says Blizzard Consistent with 'Global Warming' Trend

Then they would say that no Blizzards was also consistent.

Such is the doctrine of their religion.

69 posted on 02/20/2003 5:59:54 PM PST by Mike Darancette
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To: All

Tonight at 6pm on RadioFR! Interviews with Grover Norquist, John Hager and Michael Zak! Plus, Doug from Upland interviews Ted Hayes, homeless advocate and strong supporter of military action in Iraq!

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70 posted on 02/20/2003 6:00:11 PM PST by Bob J
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To: Smedley
not only that, it has been noted that weather for everybody gets worser that it is now, whatever that is.

Australia: Hot, dry, drought

England: Cold, wet, rain

Canada: cold Snow Ice

Bangala Desh: Floods

Florida: hurricanes

The mid-west: tornados

California: earthquakes (OK I made that one up)

71 posted on 02/20/2003 6:00:24 PM PST by Oztrich Boy
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To: countrydummy
Of course they did.

72 posted on 02/20/2003 6:02:55 PM PST by xzins (Babylon -- you have been weighed in the balance and been found wanting!)
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To: countrydummy
"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.

Hmmm, I thought that autos emitted carbon monoxide, ya know the kind that kills if inhaled for a couple of minutes, not carbon dioxide, the kind that ya drink in Pepsi. There's a whole lot of science speculation goin on here folks. Only problem is that these greenies are one ion off...

73 posted on 02/20/2003 6:15:57 PM PST by eeriegeno
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To: gg188
or to believe that Japan was the agressor in WWII,

They weren't?

74 posted on 02/20/2003 6:30:51 PM PST by Slewfoot
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To: countrydummy
I don't get how one blizzard equals an increase in extreme weather.
75 posted on 02/20/2003 6:44:33 PM PST by Conservative til I die
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To: countrydummy
LOL!

Be assured, that if another ice age were upon us, the environazis will try to convince the sheeple it was due to SUVs, fossil fuels, and humans in general.

And to top it off, algore predicted it all. After he invented the internet.

Why are liberals, democrats and other socialist so delusional?

5.56mm

76 posted on 02/20/2003 6:53:13 PM PST by M Kehoe
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To: finnman69
I love this global warming stuff. Understanding weather systems to the point where we can predict it a week, a month or a year and beyond is laughable. We can only more of less predict what is heading our way on doppler radar.
The study of the weather's underlying science is really the study of chaotic systems where the tiniest change to the initial starting system conditions can change the pattern and or outcome of an event to a large degree.
There are conditions that we know that WILL result in changing human behavior naturally by the weather if it were to become warmer. The main one is that we all would be burning less fuel to keep warmer. Winter use of energy to control temperature within a comfort range tend to be much dirtier than the electic-plant derived fuel to run air conditioners.
Warm conditions also kick in natural cooling systems that regulate our Earth. When it becomes warmer, more water evaporates forming more cloud which reflect more of the Sun's radiation into space. This is one of the obvious system that cycles our temeperature within a livable range.
According to these enviormentalists Global Warming is now causing our our freezing temperature extremes and it is causing snowstorms as well. OK... more heat reflection back into space as well. This is starting to look like a fudged cham lab report to make the numbers fit.
We also don't need some political treaty to do more that we here in the US are doing already. The rest of the world is far more carefree about cleaner burning systems. They should try to get up to to where we are now. That would reduce health risks. That is MY main concern of pollution, NOT the fiction of global warming dreamed up by anti-American, anti-capitaliste[socialists-communists] to give us some sort of PC guilt trip out bourne out of their proven failed doctrines. While you pay 8 bucks for a gallon, making our economy falter, they plan to "work the misery" as red-now-green democrats do so well to make the push for incremental socialism. After all "to make an omlet you have to break a few eggs" - I forget which commie said that, sorry. Have a nice standard-deviation day.
- Tony NYC

77 posted on 02/20/2003 8:13:40 PM PST by BadWsky (Global Warming -Have a nice standard-deviation day)
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To: countrydummy
!sigh!

"Silk Purse from a Sow's ear!"

"So It Mote Be!!"

Doc

78 posted on 02/20/2003 8:25:29 PM PST by Doc On The Bay
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To: countrydummy

Environmental Says Blizzard Consistent with 'Global Warming' Trend

Hey for once they got it right. Seeing as the long term Global Warming trend is down :O|

 

Ice Ages & Astronomical Causes
Brief Introduction to the History of Climate
by Richard A. Muller

Origin of the 100 kyr Glacial Cycle

Figure 1-2 Climate of the last 2400 years

 

Figure 1-3 Climate of the last 12,000 years


79 posted on 02/20/2003 9:42:40 PM PST by ancient_geezer
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To: M Kehoe
76 - "Why are liberals, democrats and other socialist so delusional?"

Because they are stoooooooopid !!
80 posted on 02/20/2003 9:43:26 PM PST by XBob
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