ATLANTA— The Copenhagen Climate Summit is now one week away. And in anticipation of this momentous occasion, we thought we would post a few missives over the coming days regarding our views on global climate change and Barack Obama’s plans to try and address it.
Put simply, I am not convinced of the anthropogenic view of global climate change and I believe Mr. Obama’s proposed remedy would be disastrous.
The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is one of the principle governmental bodies advocating the view that the globe is warming unabated and that human activity is the primary cause. Their involvement in the debate lends perceived credibility to Mr. Obama’s view that the United States should enact draconian energy regulations to reduce carbon emissions.
I’m no scientist. But from what I have read, the ”what-if” scenarios put forward by the IPCC on the impending calamity of global climate change failed to predict that global warming would plateau in 1998 and then fall off marginally throughout much of this decade, despite rapid increases in carbon emissions. This alone should call into question the credibility of their findings.
But the IPCC’s credibility has been further damaged by the scandalous trail of emails hackers unleashed onto the internet last week. It seems the scientists who form the intellectual backbone of the IPCC’s findings have been withholding data that runs contrary to their previously published reports on climate change.
I’m hoping these emails bust up this perception that there is a “global consensus” on anthropogenic global warming. The reality is that there are plenty of internationally renowned scientists who disagree with the “consensus” view that global climate change is primarily caused by human activity and will necessarily cause calamity.
There is no certainty human activity caused the warming and there is even less certainty that the legislation will substantively reduce warming in the future.
I think it will be much better for everyone if we don’t pass legislation as comprehensive as the cap-and-trade legislation that the Obama Administration is proposing. That legislation would invariably explode our energy costs and reduce our collective standards of living.
TennesseePaul
Stephen VanNuys
Brooklyn Daniel
The Freedom Thinker
It is a certain fact that there are members of the “global warming” crowd who have profited immensely from their gloom and doom predictions (Al Gore comes to mind immediately).
The cap and trade fiasco would also mean huge profits for certain segments of our society, while significantly expanding energy costs for the general public and increasing government control for innumerable federal and state agencies.
Sounds to me like a multiple “lose” situation for Joe and Jane citizen …….. so, what else is new?
I agree on Al Gore. He’s made a boat-load of money scaring the world into a frenzy. All of these scientists who have been doing studies on AGW are getting lots of money from government grants, etc. as well- they definitely have a financial incentive to keep up the madness.
I suppose on some level there is pride involved for them. They would like to change the course of history by getting people to actually go through with cap-and-trade, etc. And they probably reckon that even if it does nothing to the global climate, it will at least lead to a more environmentally friendly economy.
On the latter point, they are probably right. I don’t think many people disagree that fossil fuels damage the environment. It’s the extent to which they are damaging the environment that we disagree over.
And I agree with you. Cap-and-trade would be a lose-lose situation for the average American. It’s hard to explain to someone who has lost their job or who is now struggling financially under the weight of higher energy costs that at least they are being more environmentally friendly, particularly when those benefits will likely be impercetible.
Improving the environment is indeed a good thing – and the U.S. arguably has made more strides in that direction than any other industrial country. Europe, for instance, has not even come close to their expressed goals and of course India and China are trying feverishly to improve their economies without regard to environmental impacts.
Energy options other than fossil fuels are pretty slim. Sun, wind and water can supply only a very limited amount of energy even by the most optimistic projections due to their expense and frequent unavailability due to natural restrictions such as poor weather conditions.
Europe and Asian countries (including Japan) are turning more and more toward the nuclear option, but the hysterics here in the U.S. have pretty much precluded increases in that area.
Still, there are means to negate fossil fuel impact on the environment other than empowering charlatans and other greedy individuals (and governments).
I agree with you Maine. And your assessment over the nuclear option is very accurate. That should be a much bigger part of our plans, but sadly is not.
I have tended to think the move towards more “environmentally friendly” forms of energy will occur over time, irrespective of these meetings in Copenhagen, etc. Eventually, we will run out of many of these fossil fuels and as that time draws nearer, prices will go up on their own accord. It will make researching and improving alternative energy forms more cost-efficient. I think that gradual process, which I think will occur over the coming several decades, is a much better alternative to trying to wean us off fossil fuels all at once.
You are right, the alternative energy forms are not anywhere close to being as efficient as fossil fuels currently. If we significantly increased our dependence on them over the coming couple of years, we’d be subjected to brown-outs, black-outs, etc. It would be highly expensive and inefficient. And especially foolish, given our greatest economic competitors likely would not be subjecting themselves to the same restrictions…
Stephen, your concept of gradual adaptation of alternative energy sources, rather than a headlong rush guaranteed to create far more problems than it solves, is most sensible.
Therefore, you will probably never be a successful politician. Sorry.
>Therefore, you will probably never be a successful politician. Sorry.
Ha – indeed.
A campaign slogan of “If elected, I will do nothing” just doesn’t win many hearts and minds.
The days of Calvin Coolidge are long gone….
Hey, I recently found this blog – thanks for writing. As an FYI that it’s not displaying properly on the BlackBerry Browser (I have a Pearl). Anyway, I’m now subscribed to your RSS feed on my PC, so thanks!
Thanks for the visit glad to have you reading the site. Tennessee Paul is our admin I’ll let him know about the BlackBerry Browser issues.