THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume IX, Issue # 57, April 3, 2007
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
THE U.S. SUPREME COURT'S BAD SCIENCE & BAD DECISION
By Alan Caruba
POLITICAL ENVIRONMENTALISM, GLOBAL WARMING THEORY, GREENHOUSE GASES, & THE UNITED STATES SUPREME
COURT: IN MASSACHUSETTS V. EPA, A 5-4 DECISION RENDERED ON APRIL 2, 2007, THE U.S. SUPREME COURT
RULED THAT GREENHOUSE GASES ARE POLLUTANTS & ORDERED THE ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY TO
RECONSIDER ITS REFUSAL TO LIMIT EMISSIONS FROM NEW CARS & TRUCKS -- THE SUPREME COURT'S BAD DECISION,
BASED ON POLITICAL PROPAGANDA & UNSOUND SCIENCE, GIVES THE POLITICAL ENVIRONMENTALISTS A VICTORY OVER
AMERICAN WORKERS & CONSUMERS -- UNLESS RESCINDED, THE DECISION WILL CAUSE AN ECONOMIC CATASTROPHE IN
THE U.S.A.
FULL STORY:
In March of 1857, in the famed Dred Scott decision, the United States Supreme Court declared that all blacks,
slaves as well as free, were not and could never become citizens of the United States of America. It also declared that
the 1820 Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional, thus permitting slavery in all U.S. territories and all future, new
member-states of the American federal union. By 1861, the United States of America had split into two rival unions --
the Southern Confederacy versus the states remaining in the U.S.A. -- and Americans were fighting the Civil War of
1861-1865, which was followed by the Reconstruction Era (1865-1877), a very messy period of ragged politics and
intense sectionalism that warped and distorted American political culture and partisan politics, its pernicious effects
lasting well over 100 years and sustaining an illogical alignment of America's two major political parties until the sharp
decline of that partisan alignment during the last quarter of the Twentieth Century, when there occured a revival of
both major parties as truly national parties -- one party more or less Conservative in orientation and the other party
quite Liberal and Leftist.
Sometimes, the U.S. Supreme Court makes spectacularly bad decisions, and this was manifest on April 2, 2007, when five
of its nine members yielded to the specious argument by twelve states and several environmentalist organizations that
the science of “global warming” was so conclusive that the Court could declare that carbon dioxide (CO2) should be
regulated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as “a pollutant.”
CO2 is not a pollutant. It exists in the earth’s atmosphere and every blade of grass, and every great tree is utterly
dependent upon it. In that regard, other than the oxygen on which all living creatures depend, CO2 is the second most
essential gas for its ability to harness the energy of the sun and, through photosynthesis, maintain every form of
vegetation on earth.
The Supreme Court’s ruling, however, insures that the cost of every automobile, truck, and tractor in America is likely
to increase for no good reason. The many mandated formulations of gasoline that are part of its cost might also increase.
As William O’Keefe, the Chief Executive Officer of the Marshall Institute, noted in December, 2006, “Given current
automotive technology,” the only way to further reduce CO2 emissions “would be via mandates for hybrid or diesel
vehicles costing $3,000 to $5,000 more than gasoline counterparts.” Consumers are not buying hybrid cars. Their sales
currently constitute just over one percent of the market.
Requiring the auto industry to manufacture hybrids and convert diesel engines would have, O’Keefe noted, “serious
economic effects.” That’s a nice way of saying it would be a disaster that any sane nation would avoid.
In March, 2007, the leaders of General Motors, Ford, Toyota and Chrysler, along with the head of the United Auto
Workers, made a rare joint appearance before a U.S. House subcommittee. According to an Associated Press report,
“They stressed that proposed increases in gas mileage standards would be extremely expensive and could have
calamitous results.”
The UAW leader, Ron Gettelfinger, noted that it could include the closing of additional facilities and the loss of tens of
thousands of automotive jobs.
It’s not like CO2 even constitutes a problem. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, CO2 represents a
concentration in the earth’s atmosphere of 368 parts per million or 0.0368 percent, i.e., three hundred sixty-eight
ten-thousandths of one percent! It used to be even less, but, in the past, there weren’t six billion humans exhaling two
and a half pounds of it every day.
For a long time environmentalists and political fear-mongers who have been attempting to foist the strictures of the
global warming theory on the world through the Kyoto Treaty were stymied by the legislative process. The U.S. Senate
totally rejected treaty. Now they have found five members of the Supreme Court who decided to ignore its own 1993
standard for scientific evidence.
At the time, the Court said that, “the trial judge must insure that … all scientific … evidence is not only relevant, but
reliable.” How reliable is the science of climate change when the U.S. government continues to spend billions of dollars
every year just to study it?
In the recent decision, however, Supreme Court Justice Stevens declared that CO2 is “the most important … greenhouse
gas.” There is no scientific proof of that. Moreover, there is no proof that human activity has anything to do with the
greenhouse effect.
What is the most significant greenhouse gas, accounting for an estimated 95% of the earth’s greenhouse effect? It is
water vapor. Its origin is 99.999% natural. If you wondered where the snow goes when it melts, it becomes, for a time,
water vapor. The vast percentage of the earth’s surface is water!
John A. Charles, Jr., President of the Cascade Policy Institute, notes that, “emissions of hydrocarbons from cars and
trucks in the U.S. have fallen 99.3% on a per-mile basis since 1968, and carbon monoxide emissions have declined by 96
percent.” We already have clean air, and this has occurred despite increased motor vehicle and energy use.
Contrast that with a U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization report that the global livestock sector is responsible for a
higher share of greenhouse gas emissions than transport. According to the report, livestock account for 9% of
anthropogenic CO2 emissions, 37% of methane emissions, 64% of ammonia emissions, and 65% of global nitrous oxide.
The Supreme Court decision suggests that a global warming of significant and dangerous proportions is actually
occurring, but that too is wrong. The earth has not warmed significantly since around 1850, when a century of “warming”
ended with an increase of just one degree Fahrenheit.
We are going to pay the price for this decision that empowers the Environmental Protection Agency to consider CO2 “a
pollutant” worthy of regulation. The Court had previously ruled that the EPA is forbidden to consider cost when setting
national ambient air quality standards.
The Court’s decision also impacts many of the nation’s power plants dependent on inexpensive coal. They are going to
have to increase their rates to customers to cover the cost of major renovations. Fully half of the all electricity generated
nationwide relies on coal-fired plants.
The twelve, mostly northeastern states that brought the case argued that their air quality was being adversely affected by
these plants. According to an Associated Press report,
“The states want to reduce the current limit by one or two micrograms
of soot allowed per cubic foot of air. The current maximum is 15
micrograms.”
A microgram is one millionth of anything, such as soot, being measured. Their idiotic lawsuit ignores the fact that
particulates from as far away as the Sahara desert routinely show up in the U.S.A. They might as well have sued several
African nations.
The 2007 Court has given its blessing to the environmentalist movement’s irrational hatred of all forms of energy that
improves our lives. It’s a nasty world in which the environmentalists want us to live.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Policy Issues Relating to Energy, Environment,
& Natural Resources
Government, the Economy, & Economic Prosperity
Alan Caruba is a veteran business and science writer, a Public Relations Counselor, and Founder of the National Anxiety Center, a
clearinghouse for information about media-driven scare campaigns. Caruba writes a weekly commentary, "Warning Signs," posted
on the Internet website of the National Anxiety Center, which is located at
www.anxietycenter.com.
Caruba’s new book, Right Answers: Separating Fact from Fantasy, has been published by Merril Press.
© Alan Caruba 2007
Published with Permission of Alan Caruba
ACaruba@AOL.Com
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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Conservative Government Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity