Indulgences

Robert Zubrin in Roll Call:

On June 25, the House passed the Waxman-Markey climate stabilization act, which would institute a cap-and-trade system to restrict Americans’ carbon emissions. While proponents of the bill have sought to argue that the costs of such a system would be negligible, nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, the bill proposes a massive and highly regressive tax on the U.S. economy, and could potentially cause not only extensive business failures, unemployment and privation within our borders, but starvation among poorer populations elsewhere.

To understand this, it is only necessary to look at the numbers. According to a report issued by the Environmental Protection Agency in April, by 2015 the price of carbon emission indulgences required by the bill for industries to operate could be expected to run between $13 and $17 per ton of CO2 emitted. It may be noted that this estimate was made by an Obama administration agency highly favorable to the bill and that it did not take into account the very real possibility that speculators might act aggressively to buy up all the available indulgences and then, acting like ticket scalpers, force industrial users to purchase them at greatly inflated prices. So these EPA figures for carbon emission costs should be viewed as minimal. That said, let’s stipulate the $15/ton midrange of the EPA estimate, and see what it implies.

The United States emits about 9 billion tons of CO2 per year. Therefore, at a rate of $15/ton fee for emission indulgences, the bill would impose a tax of $135 billion per year on the nation. Divided by the U.S. population of 300 million, that works out to a cost of $450 per year levied on every American man, woman or child, or $1,800 for a family of four. While for wealthy individuals like Al Gore such an impost might represent a mere pittance, for working families struggling hard to make ends meet it would be a very significant burden.

The whole scheme of the Marxman-Wacky bill hinges upon the sale of what Zubrin calls, repeatedly, “indulgences”. This is quite apt, since that is exactly what the carbon warrants - or whatever they term these fictitious instruments - are.

This is nothing more than a handout to “green” speculators to make money by trading “green” credits to rake in lots and lots of green “dead presidents” for themselves. And to pass the high costs of the trading in indulgences on to the people of this nation. We will all pay the price for the buying, selling and trading of these indulgences. Some will pay more - those who can least afford it.

Everything will cost more - and more and more - to pump money into the pockets of the “green” speculators. The numbers don’t add up to anything more than an opportunity for well-connected speculators to make money off the poorest, weakest members of this society. This is a brutally regressive taxation scheme, passed by Democrats who portray themselves as champions of the poor and weak.

It is the sale of indulgences, nothing more. To make money for Democrat-allied speculators. 

Someone had a few things to say about the sale of indulgences quite a few years ago:

The assurance of salvation by letters of pardon is vain, even though the commissary, nay, even though the pope himself, were to stake his soul upon it. - Martin Luther, Thesis 52

Those words were written almost 500 years ago now. They are no less true today.

Go read the whole thing to see how bad this bill is. It is very, very bad. I am calling it Marxman-Wacky for good reason.

Via Memeorandum.

Target: Scientists Unwilling To Support AGW

The world’s left wing has a slightly different agenda focus than the US left:

Dr Mitchell Taylor has been researching the status and management of polar bears in Canada and around the Arctic Circle for 30 years, as both an academic and a government employee. More than once since 2006 he has made headlines by insisting that polar bear numbers, far from decreasing, are much higher than they were 30 years ago. Of the 19 different bear populations, almost all are increasing or at optimum levels, only two have for local reasons modestly declined.

Dr Taylor agrees that the Arctic has been warming over the last 30 years. But he ascribes this not to rising levels of CO2 - as is dictated by the computer models of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and believed by his PBSG colleagues - but to currents bringing warm water into the Arctic from the Pacific and the effect of winds blowing in from the Bering Sea.

He has also observed, however, how the melting of Arctic ice, supposedly threatening the survival of the bears, has rocketed to the top of the warmists’ agenda as their most iconic single cause. The famous photograph of two bears standing forlornly on a melting iceberg was produced thousands of times by Al Gore, the WWF and others as an emblem of how the bears faced extinction - until last year the photographer, Amanda Byrd, revealed that the bears, just off the Alaska coast, were in no danger. Her picture had nothing to do with global warming and was only taken because the wind-sculpted ice they were standing on made such a striking image.

Dr Taylor had obtained funding to attend this week’s meeting of the PBSG, but this was voted down by its members because of his views on global warming. The chairman, Dr Andy Derocher, a former university pupil of Dr Taylor’s, frankly explained in an email (which I was not sent by Dr Taylor) that his rejection had nothing to do with his undoubted expertise on polar bears: “it was the position you’ve taken on global warming that brought opposition”.

Please go over and read it all. It speaks volumes that the people pushing AGW are trying to shut down any dissent. People secure in their science have no need to do so.

The “science” of the AGW true believers, however, does not actually constitute science.

For example, there is, indeed, a loss of ice cover at the North Pole right now. But it is completely negated by the addition of ice at the South Pole. Net result for the planet: zero. 

Not that you’d read that in the MSM.

Via Memeorandum.

Unsettled Science

The Wall Street Journal:

Among the many reasons President Barack Obama and the Democratic majority are so intent on quickly jamming a cap-and-trade system through Congress is because the global warming tide is again shifting. It turns out Al Gore and the United Nations (with an assist from the media), did a little too vociferous a job smearing anyone who disagreed with them as “deniers.” The backlash has brought the scientific debate roaring back to life in Australia, Europe, Japan and even, if less reported, the U.S.

In April, the Polish Academy of Sciences published a document challenging man-made global warming. In the Czech Republic, where President Vaclav Klaus remains a leading skeptic, today only 11% of the population believes humans play a role. In France, President Nicolas Sarkozy wants to tap Claude Allegre to lead the country’s new ministry of industry and innovation. Twenty years ago Mr. Allegre was among the first to trill about man-made global warming, but the geochemist has since recanted. New Zealand last year elected a new government, which immediately suspended the country’s weeks-old cap-and-trade program.

The number of skeptics, far from shrinking, is swelling. Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe now counts more than 700 scientists who disagree with the U.N. — 13 times the number who authored the U.N.’s 2007 climate summary for policymakers. Joanne Simpson, the world’s first woman to receive a Ph.D. in meteorology, expressed relief upon her retirement last year that she was finally free to speak “frankly” of her nonbelief…..

The cult managed a seven vote victory in the lower chamber of the US Congress. Now is the time to start pushing back on the science - hard. Because these are, again, unsettled times.

UPDATE: For example, one might want to read this little gem that punctures the “science” of global warming. (Via QandO, found on Memeorandum)

Seven Votes

The House has passed the Crap and Tax bill by a whopping margin of 7 votes. 44 Democrats declined to support the bill. Roll call is here.

This Is Negotiating?

ne?go?ti?ate?- verb (used without object)
1. to deal or bargain with another or others, as in the preparation of a treaty or contract or in preliminaries to a business deal.sub?mit?-verb (used without object)
5. to yield oneself to the power or authority of another: to submit to a conqueror.

 (Dictionary.com)

You read the words spoken by Barack Obama’s official “negotiator” at the “climate talks” and figure out which verb applies:

The head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has rejected suggestions that the United States has adopted too soft a stance on climate change negotiations with China.IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri has told CNN that the U.S. is right to absolve China from setting firm caps for national cuts in carbon emissions.

His comments came after U.S. climate change negotiator Todd Stern was quoted in China Daily as saying, “We don’t expect China to take a national cap at this stage.”

“I feel that’s a very pragmatic view,” Pachauri told CNN. “I don’t think you’d expect any of the emerging markets to take an actual cut or even a commitment to reduce the rate of growth.”

China just told the world ”bite me” on any carbon controls. The US just submitted to that stance.

That is not negotiating. This is committing economic suicide. Welcome to Hopenchange.

China On Carbon Emissions: Bite Me

That is the short version of what China told the true believers at a UN conference. Long version: they have no intention - whatsoever - of crippling their economy to please the Western left’s obsessions.

China will not make a binding commitment to reduce carbon emissions, putting in jeopardy the prospects for a global pact on climate change.

Officials from Beijing told a UN conference in Bonn yesterday that China would increase its emissions to develop its economy rather than sign up to mandatory cuts.

The refusal is a setback for President Obama’s efforts to drum up support for an agreement at Copenhagen in December on a successor treaty to the Kyoto Protocol. As argument erupted between rich and poor nations at the Bonn talks, Yvo de Boer, the UN climate change chief, said that a worldwide pact to prevent global warming was “physically impossible”.

Which will, of course, not deter Henry Waxman and his cronies from slitting the throat of the US economy. They will still push their crap and tax bill as  a means of “salvation” for the world - even though the emission cuts will do nothing to solve their fictional hobbyhorse absent the same destructive, anti-growth suicide pill being swallowed by the rest of the world. The West is lining up to swallow the cyanide. The rest of the world, including the world’s largest carbon emitter, not so much.

Or, really, not at all.

Crappy suicide pact, Henry.

Any politician who votes for crap and tax - of, excuse me, cap and trade, better be ready to answer to the voters when this economy collapses under the weight of a completely meaningless gesture.

Global Warming - An Anecdote

When I first got my Father’s Day gift a few years back, I knew *sigh * that it would mean a lot of work for me. So it has proved. I did not post about the opening of the pool last year - but I did check when we did it then. It was about three weeks later than the first opening.

This year, we just opened the pool this past weekend. The water is cold - very, very cold. As in you would do a handstand across the water cold if you dived in.

It snowed in North Dakota this weekend. First time in 60 years.

Draw your own conclusions.

The Fraud Continues, Only More Stupidly

The loose patchwork of carefully selected data, non-testable hypotheses, and non-verifiable computer models known as “Anthropogenic Global Warming” has been coming apart at the seems for awhile now. The ever increasing (near hysterical) attempts to stitch it back together are looking truly pathetic. Being a true believer, the USA Today publishes every last apology for this ideology masquerading as science. The latest:

As our legions of dedicated USA TODAY commenters enjoy pointing out, every year since 1998 — when the Earth’s temperature peaked at a record high — has been cooler than that year. 2008, for example, was the planet’s coolest year since 2000. Could this be evidence against global warming?

No, say two scientists in this week’s issue of Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union. The scientists, David Easterling of the National Climatic Data Center and Michael Wehner of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, say that up-and-down temperatures year-to-year don’t undermine the overwhelming evidence for global warming.

“The reality of the climate system is that, due to natural climate variability, it is entirely possible to have a period as long as a decade or two of ‘cooling’ superimposed on the longer-term warming trend due to anthropogenic [human-caused] greenhouse gas forcing,” write the authors.

This would make some sense if we had hundreds of years worth of data showing Anthropogenic Global Warming. We don’t. In fact, AGW was only supposed to have started in the late 1970’s or early 1980’s.

Think about that. Cooling that goes on for up to two decades, so these masters of logic tell us, would not be evidence that could counter an argument based upon warming that lasted at most the two decades up to 1998.

What? No one could be that stupid. They must have said something different.

“Climate scientists pay little attention to these short-term fluctuations as the short term ‘cooling trends’ mentioned above are statistically insignificant and fitting trends to such short periods is not very meaningful in the context of long-term climate change….

“Claims that global warming is not occurring that are derived from a cooling observed over such short time periods ignore this natural variability and are misleading,” Easterling and Wehner conclude.

So, cooling observed over two decades would be statistically invalid, but warming over a similar period is a lead pipe certainty?

Yep, they are that stupid.

Its amazing what people will sign their names to when their research money is at stake.

Cross-posted at The Iconic Midwest

Irony

Green activists rescued from the Atlantic Ocean by one of those evil - gasp - oil tankers the environmentalists so loathe.

An expedition team which set sail from Plymouth on a 5,000-mile carbon emission-free trip to Greenland have been rescued by an oil tanker.

Raoul Surcouf, Richard Spink and skipper Ben Stoddart sent a mayday because they feared for their safety amid winds of 68mph (109km/h).

All three are reportedly exhausted but safe on board the Overseas Yellowstone.

The rescued did thank, without any reservations, the captain and crew of the Overseas Yellowstone.  

It is, however, ironic as all heck, isn’t it?

These were, apparently, their plans for the trip. Adn, unfortunately, these are the actual conditions of the ice around Greenland as of today.

It looks like they got rescued soon enough to avoid a complete debacle. Or possible fatalities.

Green Smoke

MasterResource runs the numbers - and exposes the outright fraud of the Waxman-Markey climate change legislation. It simply does nothing but burden Americans with huge expenses for energy - the “climate Change” it will avert is noise on the system, not any real savings.

By the year 2050, the Waxman-Markey Climate Bill would result in a global temperature “savings” of about 0.05ºC regardless of the IPCC scenario used-this is equivalent to about 2 years’ worth of warming. By the year 2100, the emissions pathways become clearly distinguishable, and so to do the impacts of Waxman-Markey. Assuming the IPCC mid-range scenario (A1B) Waxman-Markey would result in a projected temperature rise of 2.847ºC, instead of 2.959ºC rise- a mere 0.112ºC temperature “savings.” Under the IPCC’s high-emissions scenario, instead of a projected rise of 4.414ºC, Waxman-Markey limits the rise to 4.219ºC-a “savings” of 0.195ºC. In either case, this works out to about 5 years’ worth of warming. In other words, a full implementation and adherence to the emissions restrictions provisions described by the Waxman-Markey Climate Bill would result only in setting back the projected rise in global temperatures by a few years-a scientifically meaningless prospect. (Note: I present the results to three significant digits, not that they are that precise when it comes to the real world, but just so that you can tell the results apart).

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

As regular readers know, I work in the energy field and have for many years. I know what kind of green smoke is being blown by the advocates of renewables. I know how much damage is being done in the name of “green” energy.

There are real solutions to energy, using time-proven methods available with today’s technology. It is called a closed cycle nuclear program.

It is not wind power that is available only 30% of the time. It is not solar energy which is generally available even less. It is most certainly not rapacious government programs designed to drive energy costs into the stratosphere. (And line government pockets and the pockets of “green” investors like Al Gore.)

America got where it is today primarily because of cheap energy that allowed it to develop even better technologies.  

A meaningless carbon reduction program with ridiculous “savings” in carbon emissions at brutally high cost to America is not the answer.

Reasonable People…

…Can disagree over many things. But they should not disagree over facts.

Fact one.

Fact two.

Fact one shows Northern Hemisphere sea ice at about 1/2 million square Km below “average”.

Fact two shows Southern Hemisphere sea ice at about 1 million square Km above “average”.

That is a net increase in global sea ice. Period.

In Search Of A Leftist Iconic Moment

Time Magazine reveals more about its political bent than it intends in this piece, I suspect.

Every successful social movement has its defining images. Think of the civil rights movement, and the photos of protesters being attacked by police dogs and pummeled by high-pressure fire hoses. Or the Vietnam anti-war movement, and the video of body bags being beamed back to America’s living rooms. Even environmentalism has its iconic images, like Cleveland’s heavily polluted Cuyahoga River catching fire in the 1960s, smog wreathing Los Angeles’s skyline during the next decade and even the stark hole in the ozone over Antarctica. To help galvanize public support - especially around a complex issue - the right picture really can be worth a thousand words.

Time is still rolling about in its “glory” over their reporting on the Cuyahoga River fire some 40 years on. (Although that fire is somewhat less than Time makes it out to be.)

 One should point out that it is really, really hard to get defining images - or any images at all - when it is dark.

At the moment, A strong storm is dumping snow and ice through a wide section of the Midwest. Many of the victims of that event wish they could turn their lights on.

Old Man Winter Just Won’t Die This Year

Oklahoma is bracing for a potentially life-threatening blizzard. The governor of the state is warning people to stay home.

“To all Oklahomans, I would urge you to not get out and travel. If you must, make sure you have provisions with you,” Henry said during a Friday afternoon news conference.

Henry said significant travel problems are expected, and forecasters agree. Chief meteorologist Rick Mitchell said during a 2 p.m. weather briefing that road conditions could be worse in the metro area than initially expected. However, the primary concern is west and north of the Oklahoma City metro area.

Snow has already started to fall in northwest Oklahoma with up to 6 inches already reported in the panhandle. KOCO meteorologists say sleet is possible for the drive home Friday in Oklahoma City.

A blizzard warning is in effect for far northwestern Oklahoma, including the panhandle, while much of central and north-central Oklahoma is under a winter storm warning. However, the National Weather Service updated its winter storm warning for west-central and north-central Oklahoma for the possibility of treacherously icy roads and widespread power outages.

The Red River has reached a record flood stage at Fargo, North Dakota - 40.57 feet. It has not yet crested. Flood stage is 18 feet. It is currently 18° F and snowing there. Just what they need, more water.  The sandbagging effort has essentially stopped at this point, as I understand it from the radio report I heard coming home. But they have not given up:

“We do not want to give up yet. We want to go down swinging if we go down,” Walaker said. “Does that put fear in everybody’s heart? I hope it doesn’t. We have to do everything possible to be successful. And I think that’s what everybody is committed to.”

Keep them in your thoughts.

Well, I guess the old saying is true about March: In like a lion, out like a rabid wolverine.

Yet Another Obama Nominee Withdraws

Via Memeorandum comes this item. It seems that the Obama nominee for deputy director of the EPA has withdrawn. The EPA itself questioned the use of some $25 million in taxpayer money that was mismanaged by a foundation that the nominee, Jon Cannon, once acted as a board member for.

Jon Cannon, nominated to be the deputy director of the Environmental Protection Agency, pulled his name from consideration today, citing questions over a non-profit where he once sat on the board — and which EPA auditors accused in 2007 of mismanaging $25 million in taxpayer funds.

Cannon sat on the board of America’s Clean Water Foundation, which won some $25 million in federal contracts to identify environmental risks at beef, poultry and pork plants, and to help states and tribes comply with the Clean Water Act. EPA auditors questioned the accounting on almost all that money, charging that the group could not support some costs, included duplicate transactions on others, and did not complete several required audits. The IG report, which does not mention Cannon, also alludes to allegations of embezzlement in the foundation, which dissolved in 2006.

Cannon was not accused directly of doing anything wrong. But this does, yet again, call into question the team Obama vetting process.

There is a huge amount of malfeasance by America’s Clean Water Foundation detailed in the report by the EPA. So much so that one wonders why some of it was not investigated for criminal behavior. Just skimming the report calls into question why some “environmentalists” appear to be so good at grabbing taxpayer money for themselves, not their causes.

“Thin” Ice

Arctic “explorer” surprised to find it’s cold.

With perfect timing, the setting out from Britain of the “Global Warming Three” last month was hampered by “an unusually heavy snowfall”. When they were airlifted to the start of their trek by a twin-engine Otter (one hopes a whole forest has been planted to offset its “carbon footprint”), they were startled to find how cold it was. The BBC dutifully reported how, in temperatures of minus 40 degrees, they were “battered by wind, bitten by frost and bruised by falls on the ice”.

Thanks to the ice constantly shifting, it was “disheartening”, reported Hadow, to find that “when you’ve slogged for a day”, you can wake up next morning to find you have “drifted back to where you started”. Last week, down to their last scraps of food, they were only saved in the nick of time by the faithful Otter. They were disconcerted to see one of those polar bears, threatened with extinction by global warming, wandering around, doubtless eyeing them for its dinner.

Good thing the Otter was handy or this story wouldn’t be particularly funny from their point of view. The most disturbing thing about this story is not this story but the other item included in the article:

Mr Nicholson had fallen out with his colleagues over his attempts to reduce the company’s “carbon footprint”. The tribunal chairman David Neath found the company guilty of discriminating against Mr Nicholson under the 2006 Equality (Religion and Belief) Regulations, because his faith in global warming was a “philosophical belief”

As the article points out, the true believers have been trying to demonize and criminalize “deniers” in their beliefs. So it is more than a bit disconcerting to hear that true believers are protected while it is open season on “deniers. 

Do read the whole thing, it is rather entertaining.