THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume X, Issue # 107, April 21, 2008
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
GLOBAL WARMING TAX HIKES HEADING YOUR WAY:
Defficient Computer Models Drive Public Policies
That Destroy Jobs, Profits, & Family Budgets
By Paul K. Driessen
ENVIRONMENTAL & ECONOMIC REGULATORY POLICIES THAT WILL DESTROY THE U.S. ECONOMY & AMERICAN LIVING
STANDARDS: COSTLY FEDERAL REGULATIONS & CONTROLS IN THE FORM OF CLIMATE CHANGE LEGISLATION,
DRACONIAN RULES RESTRICTING THE PRODUCTION & USE OF FOSSIL FUELS & NUCLEAR ENERGY, SUBSIDIZED &
MANDATED BIOFUELS, RESTRICTIONS ON GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS INTO THE EARTH'S ATMOSPHERE, & CAP-&-TRADE
TAXES -- THE
CONSEQUENCES OF ADOPTION & IMPLEMENTATION OF SUCH POLICIES, AS REGARDS ENERGY PRICES, PETROLEUM
IMPORTS, & COSTS FOR AMERICAN FAMILIES & BUSINESSES -- GLOBAL WARMING THEORY, COMPUTER MODELS, & THE
OTHER FAULTY ANALYSIS EMPLOYED TO JUSTIFY SUCH POLICIES
FULL STORY:
America is in the throes of a major housing and financial downturn, soaring food and energy costs, rising unemployment
and near recession. But legislators, bureaucrats, and presidential candidates are falling all over themselves to restrict
fossil fuel use, advance climate change legislation, and thereby increase energy prices, oil imports, and costs for families
and businesses.
Now, even President George W. Bush wants action on climate change. “Reasonable and responsible” legislation is
needed, the White House asserts, to avert a “regulatory nightmare” that would result from overlapping state and federal
rules. Are we supposed to think costly federal regulations, emission mandates, and hidden cap-and-trade taxes are
reasonable and responsible?
Earth warmed slightly over the last quarter century, as it emerged further from the Little Ice Age, and humans likely
played a role. However, literally hundreds of climate scientists say catastrophic climate changes and dominant human
influences are over-hyped myths.
Our planet has experienced numerous climate shifts, they point out, including prolonged ice ages, a 400-year Medieval
Warming Period, and a 500-year Little Ice Age. Climate scientists still don’t understand what caused these events.
Nor do they understand the cause or causes of the temperature roller coaster of the last century, as carbon dioxide
levels rose steadily, temperatures climbed from 1910 to 1945, fell between 1945 and 1975, and increased again from 1975
to 1998. So notes Syun-Ichi Akasofu, Founding Director of the International Arctic Research Center.
Five of the ten hottest years in U.S. history were in the 1920s and 1930s. Average global temperatures stabilized in 1998,
and then fell 1.1 degrees Fahrenheit during the past twelve months, satellite measurements show. Ice core data
demonstrate that, over thousands of years, rising temperatures preceded higher atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, by
hundreds of years – the exact opposite of climate chaos hypotheses. Interior Greenland and Antarctica appear to be
gaining ice mass; they’re certainly not melting.
These inconvenient facts have forced global warming alarmists to rely on computer models that generate Frankenclime
monsters realistic enough to scare people into believing climate Armageddon is nigh.
Climate models do help scientists evaluate possible consequences of changing economic growth, emission, cloud cover,
and other variables. But they can’t reproduce the actual climate of the past century. They cannot make accurate
predictions, even one year in the future, much less fifty. They do not represent reality, and should not be relied on to
guide public policy.
Models reflect the assumptions and hypotheses that go into them,as well as and our still limited understanding of
complex, turbulent climate processes that involve the sun, oceans, land masses, and atmosphere. Models do a poor job
of dealing with the effects of water vapor, precipitation and high cirrus clouds on temperatures and climate, because the
underlying physics isn’t well understood, notes MIT Meteorology Professor Richard Lindzen.
Like the UN’s politicized IPCC climate control panel, models also place too much emphasis on carbon dioxide. They pay
insufficient attention to extraterrestrial factors, like changes in the Earth’s irregular orbit around the sun, solar energy
levels and solar winds, all of which appear to influence the level of cosmic rays reaching Earth and thus the formation of
cloud cover and penetration of infrared radiation from the sun. They likewise fail to incorporate the profound effects that
periodic shifts in Pacific Ocean currents have on temperatures and sea ice in the Arctic.
When the U.S. National Assessment compared the results of two top-tier computer models for U.S. geographic regions,
the models frequently generated precisely opposite rainfall scenarios, University of Alabama at Huntsville Climatologist
John Christy points out. Depending on which model was used, the Dakotas and Rio Grande valley would supposedly
become complete deserts or huge swamps; the Southeastern U.S.A. would become a jungle or semi-arid grassland.
Activists, journalists, politicians, AlGoreans, and even scientists and corporate executives naturally select the scariest
scenarios, call them evidence, trumpet them with hysterical headlines, and insist on drastic cutbacks in CO2 emissions
and energy use. They’ll likely make millions, while other families and businesses suffer. Many are bullish on wind and
ethanol, but negative about nuclear power.
Fully 85 percent of all the energy Americans use comes from fossil fuels. Less than 0.5% is wind power, which generates
electricity only eight hours a day, on average. Over half of our electricity is produced by coal, because it is plentiful and
affordable, and modern power plants emit few pollutants, but do generate abundant plant food (the same carbon dioxide
we exhale when we breathe).
Any climate change regime would impose higher prices and new restrictions on coal-generated electricity, oil and natural gas
drilling, air and ground transportation, and on heating, air conditioning, agriculture and manufacturing. In fact, any facility
or activity that generates more than 250 tons of carbon dioxide per year could be heavily regulated: bakeries, breweries,
soft drink makers, factories, apartment and office buildings, dairy farms, and countless others. Permit, regulatory,
oversight, anti-fraud monitoring, and polar bear endangerment rules would cost billions in still more highly regressive,
hidden taxes.
Energy-killer activists want to slash U.S. carbon dioxide emissions some 80% below 1990 levels by 2050, to stabilize
global CO2 levels, even as China, India and other developing countries continue their economic and emissions boom. The
last time the United States emitted such low amounts of CO2 was 1905! Where and how will your family and business
achieve 80% emission reductions?
Welcome to the good old days – to Eco-Camelot, where “the climate must be perfect all year.” Poor minority and
blue-collar families will be in for some serious belt-tightening, millions of jobs will head overseas, and demand for
unemployment benefits, mortgage bailouts and energy welfare will soar, as state and federal coffers run dry.
Worst, in the end, all the cutbacks and sacrifices won’t make any difference, because our climate is not driven by carbon
dioxide, but, instead, by the same natural forces that have caused major and minor climate changes since the dawn of time,
say scientists like Roy Spencer, Robert Balling, and Fred Singer.
Climate change is no longer science. It’s politics – and Democrats would be thrilled if a Republican president took the lead
– and Republicans take the blame when the bills start rolling in.
Climate change is about power. Power to control – and curtail – the power we rely on: to build, heat and cool our homes;
produce raw materials, food, and consumer products; transport people and products; and support modern living
standards.
Climate change is about the selection, production, and taxation of energy, as well as about the prevention of energy
production and consumption. Climate change is about access to real energy versus mandates to use futuristic, mostly
illusory, and certainly insufficient “alternative” energy. Climate change is about who gets to decide: how much energy we
will have, where that energy will come from, what it will cost, and whether there will be enough energy to lift more families
out of poverty.
It’s about simulations, scenarios, and monsters conjured up by computer models that should never be used to chart
government policy, especially on matters that will profoundly affect our livelihoods, living standards, life spans, and
dreams of a better future.
So hold onto your wallets, and hope you can hold onto your jobs, homes, and cars. You’re about to be put on a wild
political roller coaster. And don’t expect much honesty, transparency, or accountability from climate Armageddonites.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Political Environmentalism Versus Human Progress & Prosperity:
Policy Issues Relating to Energy, Environment,
& Natural Resources
Political Economy -- Philosophies, Systems, & Public Policies:
Government, the Economy, & Economic Prosperity
Agriculture, the Economy, & Human Welfare:
Policy Issues Relating to Food Production
The Earth's Natural History, Global Climate Changes,
& the Future of Human Life & Civilization on the Planet:
Science, Ideology, & Public Policy
Paul K. Driessen is Senior Policy Advisor for the Congress of Racial Equality, the Committee for A Constructive Tomorrow, and the
Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise. Driessen is author of Eco-Imperialism: Green Power, Black Death, which can be
obtained at www.Eco-Imperialism.com.
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Conservative & Free-Market Analysis of Government, Politics & Public Policy, Covering Political, Legal, Constitutional, Economic,
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Conservative Government Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity