THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XII, Issue # 74, May 15, 2010
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
IMPORTANT QUESTIONS FOR CLIMATE ALARMISTS
By Paul K. Driessen
FUNDAMENTAL QUESTIONS FOR MEMBERS OF CONGRESS & CHAMPIONS OF THE CLIMATE CRISIS MOVEMENT:
SENATOR JOHN KERRY, SENATOR JOSEPH LIEBERMAN, & OTHER CLIMATE ALARMISTS IN CONGRESS HAVE SOME TALL
EXPLAINING TO DO.
FULL STORY:
The new Kerry-Lieberman climate bill mandates a 17% reduction in U.S. carbon dioxide emissions by 2020. It first targets
power plants that provide reliable, affordable electricity for American homes, schools, hospitals, offices, and factories. Six
years later, it further hobbles the manufacturing sector of the U.S. economy.
Like the House-passed climate bill, the Kerry-Lieberman bill in the Senate requires an 80% reduction in CO2 emissions by
2050. Once population growth and transportation, communication, and electrification technologies are taken into account,
this translates into requiring U.S. emission levels last seen around 1870!
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says “every aspect of our lives must be subjected to an inventory,” to ensure that America
achieves these emission mandates. This means replacing what is left of our free market economy with an intrusive Green
Nanny State, compelling us to switch to unreliable wind and solar power, and imposing skyrocketing energy costs on
every company and citizen.
Meanwhile, the Environmental Protection Agency is implementing its own draconian energy restrictions, in case
Congress does not enact punitive legislation.
It’s time to ask these politicians some fundamental questions.
(1) Even slashing carbon dioxide emissions to 80% below 2005 levels would reduce projected global average
temperatures in 2050 by barely 0.2 degrees Farenheit, according to a study that used the UN’s own climate models.
That’s because China, India, and other developing countries are building new coal-fired power plants every week, even
as the United States and Europe shackle their economies and send more jobs overseas. How do you justify such
destructive, punitive, meaningless legislation?
(2) Reflecting agreement with thousands of scientists, most Americans now say climate change is natural, not manmade.
Fully 75% are unwilling to spend more than $100 per year in higher energy bills to “stabilize” Earth’s unpredictable
climate. What provision or aspect of the U.S. Constitution, your oath of office, or your duty to the overall health and
welfare of this nation permits you to ignore (a) the will of the people, (b) the mounting evidence that “climate disasters”
are the product of computer models, manipulated data and falsified UN reports, and (c) the job-killing impacts of the
laws and regulations you seek to impose?
(3) If carbon dioxide is causing “runaway global warming,” why have average global temperatures not risen since 1995,
and why have they been COOLING for the past five years -- even as atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have continued
to rise to levels unprecedented in the modern era?
(4) What properties does manmade carbon dioxide have that enable it to replace the complex natural forces that clearly
caused the Ice Ages, Medieval Warm Period, Little Ice Age, Dust Bowl, ice-free Arctic seas in 1822 and 1922, Alaska’s
100 degree Farenheit temperature record in 1915, and all the other climate and weather changes and anomalies,
blessings and disasters, that our planet has experienced during its long geologic and recorded history?
5) What physical or chemical properties does manmade carbon dioxide have that would enable it to overturn the laws
of thermodynamics – and cause temperatures in Antarctica to rise 85 degrees Farenheit, from an average of minus 50
Farenheit to plus 35 Farenheit year-round (or 48 degrees Celsius, from -46 Celsius to +2 Celsius), to melt that continent’s
vast ice masses, raise sea levels 20 feet or more, and flood coastal cities?
(6) Precisely what chemical, physical, and thermodynamic processes would drastic carbon dioxide reductions alter, and
how? Precisely what weather and climate improvements would those reductions achieve? Precisely how will CO2
reductions stabilize planetary temperature, climate, and weather systems that have been turbulent, unpredictable, and
anything but stable throughout Earth’s history?
(7) Is there ANY direct physical observation or evidence that would falsify your climate crisis thesis, and cause you to
admit human greenhouse gas emissions are not causing a planetary climate disaster? Or do you think everything that
happens confirms your climate disaster hypothesis: warmer or colder, wetter or drier, more snow and ice or less, more
hurricanes and tornadoes or cyclical periods with few such storms?
(8) Taking into consideration that replacing hydrocarbons with unreliable, subsidized “green” energy will require
millions of acres of land for wind turbines, solar panels, and transmission lines -- plus hundreds of millions of tons of
steel, copper, concrete, fiberglass, and rare earth minerals for all those facilities --
(a) Do you support delaying wind, solar, and transmission projects for years, in order to protect the rights and property
of local communities and private landowners? Or do you favor regulatory edicts and eminent domain actions, so that
government can seize people’s property and expedite construction of these projects?
(b) Do you support opening U.S. public lands for renewed exploration and development, so that we can produce these
raw materials and create American jobs? Or do you intend to keep U.S. lands off limits, and force us to depend on
imports for renewable energy, too?
(c) Do you support relaxing environmental study, endangered species and other laws, to fast-track approval of these
projects, despite their obvious impacts on wildlife and habitats? Or do you want them subjected to the same rules that
have stymied thousands of other energy projects, so that renewable energy projects cannot be built, either -- and we
have massive blackouts?
(9) Over 1.5 billion people in Africa, Asia, and Latin America still do not have electricity, for even a light bulb or tiny
refrigerator. Millions die every year from diseases that would be largely eradicated with electricity for refrigeration,
sanitation, modern hospitals, and industries that generate greater health and prosperity. How can you justify using
taxpayer money to finance UN and environmental activist programs that claim global warming is the biggest threat
they face, and they need to get by on wind and solar power, and give up their dreams of better lives, because YOU are
worried about global warming? Doesn’t that violate their most basic human rights to improved living standards, and
even life itself?
(10) If you’re so sure about your data and conclusions – and intend to use climate disaster claims to justify sending our
energy costs skyrocketing, killing millions of factory jobs, controlling our lives, and totally overhauling our energy,
economic, and social structure – why do you refuse to allow fair, open, and balanced congressional hearings and
debates on climate science and economics? Why do you refuse to debate skeptical experts in a public forum, or even
answer questions that challenge your alarmist thinking? Why do you refuse to require that scientists who get taxpayer
money for their research must share and discuss climate data, computer codes, methodologies, and analyses?
(11) How much money and campaign help have you gotten from companies and activist groups that benefit from
renewable energy mandates and subsidies, carbon offset and trading schemes, coal mining and oil leasing bans, and
other provisions of climate and energy legislation?
(12) What if you vote for these job-killing, anti-growth, anti-poor, anti-human-rights “climate disaster prevention” laws
– and it turns our you are WRONG on the science or economics? What will you do? Give up your congressional seat,
home, pension, and worldly wealth -- and pledge yourself and your children to an austere life of service to the people
you have harmed? Or just say, “Oh I’m so sorry,” and then pass more intrusive, oppressive laws, before retiring to
collect a nice government pension -- while millions freeze jobless in the dark?
(13) If you can’t or won’t answer these questions, then why do you think you have a right to tell anyone on this
planet that we have a “climate crisis,” and dictate how they must live their lives – especially when you’ve done so
little to slash your own taxpayer-funded air travel, staff, and home and office energy use?
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
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 Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow and author of
Eco-Imperialism: Green Power - Black Death (2004). Driessen has studied climate change for over 15 years.
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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