THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume X, Issue # 169, July 11, 2008
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION WON'T RESOLVE
GAS PRICES OR GLOBAL WARMING
By Dennis T. Avery
THE U.S. PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 2008 & THE RIVAL CANDIDATES' POSITIONS ON ISSUES RELATING TO U.S. ENERGY &
ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY: DEMOCRAT BARACK OBAMA & REPUBLICAN JOHN MCCAIN IN AGREEMENT ON THE
NEED FOR ENERGY PRICES TO TRIPLE YET AGAIN TO PREVENT HUMAN-INDUCED GLOBAL "WARMING" -- THE REALITY OF
THE SITUATION: BOTH PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES ADVOCATING HIGH FUEL PRICES IN A TIME OF GLOBAL
COOLING -- WHAT OBAMA & MCCAIN FAIL TO SEE, DUE TO THEIR SWALLOWING THE PROPAGANDA DISSEMINATED BY
ENVIRONMENTALISTS, GLOBAL WARMING ALARMISTS, & LIBERAL LEFTISTS -- THE LIKELY POLITICAL REPERCUSSIONS,
SHOULD CONGRESS & THE NEXT PRESIDENT GIVE AMERICANS EXTREMELY EXPENSIVE CAP-&-TRADE LEGISLATION & A
WHOLE SERIES OF PUNITIVE FOSSIL-FUEL TAXES
FULL STORY:
On most U.S. political issues, Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain take sharply different positions and
represent real choice for the voters. However, on the biggest issue of all — $4 per gallon gasoline and global warming
strategy — Obama and McCain seem to agree. They both think energy prices need to triple yet again to prevent
man-made global warming.
Since the presidential primaries finished, however, we’ve found that global temperatures have turned downward. Global
temperatures have dropped sharply — 0.7 degree since the beginning of 2006. This puts our thermometers back about
where they were a century ago. This has happened despite a continuing increase in global greenhouse gas emissions.
In Europe and Australia, blue-collar truckers, fishermen, miners, and power-industry workers are in open rebellion over
high fuel prices in a time of global cooling. They clearly see the prospects of their own economic ruin in Europe’s $11 per
gallon diesel fuel. The global qarming alarmist Prime Ministers of Britain and Australia may well be forced from office by
the lack of warming.
NASA recently admitted “the oceans stopped warming 4 to 5 years ago,” based on highly accurate data from 3,000 new
Argo high-tech buoys recently spread around the oceans. In recent weeks, NASA’s Jason satellite confirmed that the
northern Pacific Ocean has entered a cooling phase that is likely to last 25 to 30 years.
This is crucial because Pacific Rim tree rings confirm that whole earth’s temperatures have mirrored the shifts in the
60-year Pacific Decadal Oscillation since 1600. None of the computer models predicted this, but the sunspots have been
predicting it since 2000. The sunspots have had a strong 79 percent correlation with earth’s thermometers since 1860
(with a ten-year lag). There is virtually no correlation between our thermometer record and CO2 — which by itself is
strong enough evidence to discredit the Greenhouse Theory.
It’s unlikely that Barack Obama can escape the Liberal Left’s nearly religious commitment to eliminating use of fossil fuels.
The political Left’s goal is to get anti-fossil legislation on the books before any more cooling can unsettle the faithful.
Even Obama’s recent modest attempts to move to the political Center have met with threats of “alternative choices” by
the far Left.
Almost any Republican except McCain could say:
“We hadn’t seen convincing proof of man-made global
warming, and the earth’s temperatures have been cycling
up and down for millions of years. There’s time to do the
science before we discard 88 percent of America’s energy
system.”
Gasoline prices would begin to drop immediately, as expectations based on drilling bans and coal-burning cutbacks were
put on hold.
Both McCain and his daughter, however, say he believes deeply in existence of a Greenhouse warming threat, even
though our net warming over the 70 years between 1940 and 1998 totaled a miniscule 0.2 degree Celsius. Can McCain be
believable if he pointed to the temperature decline and the failure of the computer models? It would certainly take some
fancy footwork.
Fortunately, what man has done can mostly be undone. The momentum built up by the political Left, the United Nations,
the environmentalist movement, and Liberal columnists will probably give us hugely expensive cap-and-trade legislation,
and perhaps a whole series of punitive fossil energy taxes. However, if global temperatures continue to trend down over
the next President’s four-year term, most such anti-fossil laws would quickly be repealed. Embarrassed federal judges
would revisit their recent anti-fossil decisions.
In the meantime, unfortunately, the First World risks rolling blackouts that could shut down every hospital, school, and
business that relies on electric lights and computers. Our electrical demand is rising and our generating capacity is
declining. When those curves intersect, people will lose control over their lives. Some will die needlessly. That cannot be
undone.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
American Politics & Political Competition:
Elections, PACs, & Political Parties
American Government & the U.S. Presidency:
Presidential Politics & National Leadership
The American Political System:
Politics & Government in the U.S.A.
The American Political & Cultural Left:
Liberals, Statists, Socialists, & Other Leftists
Political Environmentalism Versus Human Progress & Prosperity:
Policy Issues Relating to Energy, Environment,
& Natural Resources
The Earth's Natural History, Global Climate Changes,
& the Future of Human Life & Civilization on the Planet:
Science, Ideology, & Public Policy
Political Economy -- Philosophies, Systems, & Public Policies:
Government, the Economy, & Economic Prosperity
Dennis T. Avery is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C., and is the Director of the Institute's Center for
Global Food Issues (www.cgfi.org). Formerly he was a senior policy analyst for the United
States Department of State, where he won the National Intelligence Medal of Achievement. He is the co-author, with
atmospheric physicist Fred Singer, of the book, Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1500 Years (Blue Ridge Summit,
Pennsylvania: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006). Avery's book, Saving the Planet With Pesticides and Plastic: The Environmental
Triumph of High-Yield Farming (Washington, D.C.: Hudson Institute, 1995), continues to be popular as a readable overview
of realistic agriculture for the future and for today. Readers may write Avery at Post Office Box 202, Churchville, Virginia, 24421.
Email: cgfi@hughes.net
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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Conservative Government Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity