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Newsletter (October 23, 2009)
Above the FoldNot Evil Just Wrong is the film Al Gore and Hollywood are working hard to make sure you can’t and don’t see.
Too late. On Sunday, Oct. 18, more than 400,000 Americans helped make the launch of Not Evil Just Wrong the largest simultaneous film premiere party in U.S. history, airing on more than 7,000 screens in all 50 states. . . .
Read the rest.
Read reviews of Not Evil Just Wrong by Chuck Colson, Bob Carter, Alicia M. Cohn, and Mark S. Lawson.
Get your own copy today!
In this issue
Featured- Time for Inaction on Global Warming
- Will Sen. Graham Snatch Defeat From the Jaws of Victory?
- Climate Bill Aids Authors' States
- Is Obama Poised to Cede US Sovereignty?
Debate- Survey: Americans Not Worried About Global Warming
- None Dare Call It Fraud
- Hansen Still Embarrassing NASA After Two Decades
Science- Video: Human Contribution
Economics- Major Economic Model for Carbon Emission Reductions Comes Under Fire
- Congressional Budget Chief: Climate Bill Would Cost Jobs
Meet the Critics: Joanne Simpson & Paul J. Berenson
Briefly Noted
Featuredby Pete du Pont
Wall Street Journal, October 20, 2009
"Global" and "warming" are perhaps the two most important words used to justify the approaching governmental control of our economy. In reality, global warming is barely occurring: In the 30 years starting in 1977, warming amounted to 0.32 degree Fahrenheit per decade, and in the next hundred years it is estimated to be about half a degree per decade.
So global warming looks like neither the alarmists' serious threat, nor an immediate crisis that requires governmental control of America's economy to reduce it. Nevertheless the government solution to these increases--the Waxman-Markey bill, which passed the House earlier this year--is estimated to lower global temperatures only about 0.18 degree Fahrenheit in the next 90 years.
And now comes the new Boxer-Kerry Senate bill, which would require a 20% reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions by 2020.
As a practical matter, what would such a reduction mean to us and our economy? Steven Hayward of the American Enterprise Institute calculates that a 20% reduction would mean cutting America's greenhouse gas emissions to our 1977 levels, and that would radically change both the U.S. economy and our personal lives. . . .
Read the rest.Back to top by Marlo Lewis
Senior Fellow, Competitive Enterprise Institute
MasterResource, October 15, 2009
Last weekend, Sens. John Kerry (D-MA) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) co-authored an op-ed in the New York Times titled, “Yes We Can (Pass Climate Change Legislation).”
Kerry and Graham want to pass a Senate companion bill to H.R. 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES), also known as Waxman-Markey, for its chief sponsors, Reps. Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Ed Markey (D-MA). Waxman-Markey narrowly passed in the House by a vote of 219 to 212. Only eight Republicans — under 5% of those voting – supported the bill.
The overtly partisan character of Waxman-Markey is one of the reasons some observers conclude that Congress will not pass a cap-and-trade bill this year. Cap-and-trade “works” by raising consumer energy prices, and Democrats are loathe to increase household utility bills and pain at the pump unless they can snooker Republicans into giving them bipartisan cover.
Republicans can pry Blue Dogs apart from their more “progressive” brethren and protect the economy from Kyotoism by simply refusing to jump on the cap-and-trade bandwagon.
Republicans, however, are continually tempted to “Me-Too” it, because breaking a legislative stalemate can win ephemeral plaudits from Democrat colleagues and the liberal media. . . .
Read the rest.Back to top by Edward Felker
Energy Reporter, Washington Times
October 20, 2009
A little noticed Environmental Protection Agency analysis shows that the pending climate-change bill in Congress would particularly benefit the states represented by its primary authors.
The analysis, obtained by The Washington Times, shows that the states that would benefit most from the climate legislation that passed the House in June include California and Massachusetts. The bill was co-authored by Rep. Henry A. Waxman, California Democrat, and Rep. Edward J. Markey, Massachusetts Democrat. . . .
The EPA estimates provided to Mr. Feingold showed that utilities in coastal states would get the most free allowances handed out to comply with the House bill. California and New York would, under the House bill, be in line to get more than they needed, the EPA estimated. Massachusetts would get nearly all it needs.
The losers under the House-backed bill would be those states whose senators are leery of backing a similar bill by Sen. John Kerry, Massachusetts Democrat, and Sen. Barbara Boxer, California Democrat, based on fears that the bill will mean higher electricity prices to their constituents. . . .
Read the rest.Back to top by Christopher Monckton
Viscount of Brenchley; Chief Policy Adviser, Science & Public Policy Institute
On October 14, Lord Christopher Monckton gave a presentation in St. Paul, MN on the subject of global warming. In this 4-minute excerpt from his speech, he issues a dire warning to all Americans regarding the United Nations Climate Change Treaty that is scheduled to be signed in Copenhagen in December 2009.
Back to top Debateby Stephen Power
Writer, Wall Street Journal
October 22, 2009
A new poll out today on Americans’ attitudes about climate change presents sobering findings for those that favor aggressive action to curb U.S. emissions of greenhouse gases.
The survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press finds a sharp decline over the past year in the percentage of Americans who see solid evidence that global temperatures are rising. According to the survey, conducted between Sept. 30 and Oct. 4 among 1,500 adults reached on cell phones and landlines, fewer respondents also see global warming as a very serious problem; 35% say that today, down from 44% in April 2008.
The survey also points to a decline in the proportion of Americans who say global temperatures are rising as a result of human activity. Just 36% say that currently, down from 47% last year. . . .
Read the rest.Back to top by Paul K. Driessen
Columnist, Townhall; Senior Fellow, Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise, and Congress of Racial Equality; Author, Eco-Imperialism.com
October 15, 2009
Imagine the reaction if investment companies provided only rosy stock and economic data to prospective investors; manufacturers withheld chemical spill statistics from government regulators; or medical device and pharmaceutical companies doctored data on patients injured by their products.
Media frenzies, congressional hearings, regulatory investigations, fines and jail sentences would come faster than you can say Henry Waxman. If those same standards were applied to global warming alarmists, many of them would be fined, dismissed and imprisoned; sanity might prevail, and the House-Senate cap-and-tax freight train would come to a screeching halt.
Fortunately for alarmists, corporate standards do not apply – even though sloppiness, ineptitude, cherry-picking, exaggeration, deception, falsification, concealed or lost data, flawed studies and virtual fraud have become systemic and epidemic. Instead of being investigated and incarcerated, the perpetrators are revered and rewarded, receiving billions in research grants, mandates, subsidies and other profit-making opportunities.
On this bogus foundation Congress, EPA and the White House propose to legislate and regulate our nation’s energy and economic future. Understanding the scams is essential. Here are just a few of them. . . .
Read the rest.Back to top by Michael Goldfarb
Editor, Weekly Standard; Fellow, Phillips Foundation
Heartland Institute, November, 2009
It’s been more than 20 years since James Hansen first warned America of impending doom. On a hot summer day in June 1988, Hansen, head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, announced before a Senate committee that “the greenhouse effect has been detected and it is changing our climate now.” . . .
Hansen has been a star ever since. On the twentieth anniversary of his testimony to Congress, and still serving in the same role at NASA, Hansen was invited back for an encore performance where he warned that time was running out. . . .
Hansen, by his own count, has conducted more than 1,400 interviews in recent years. Yet Hansen also would insist, in a speech just days before the 2004 presidential election, that the Bush administration had “muzzled” him because of his global warming activism.
When asked about this contradiction in 2007, Hansen told Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), “for the sake of the taxpayers, they should be availed of my expertise. I shouldn’t be required to parrot some company line.”
But Hansen has never parroted the company line. As the head of NASA’s Weather and Climate Research Program from 1982 to 1994, John Theon was James Hansen’s supervisor. Theon says Hansen’s testimony in 1988 was “a huge embarrassment” to NASA, and he remains skeptical of Hansen’s predictions. . . .
Read the rest.Back to top SciencePosted by Paul Chesser
Director, Climate Strategies Watch; Scholar, John Locke Foundation; Correspondent, Heartland Institute
American Spectator, October 20, 2009
For an illustration of what governments want to regulate with cap-and-trade (which President Obama said during the campaign would cause electricity rates to "necessarily skyrocket"), watch this short video about our contribution of CO2 to the atmosphere (Hat tip: Climaterealists.com):
Back to top Economicsby E. Calvin Beisner
National Spokesman, Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation
October 22, 2009
We at the Cornwall Alliance are convinced that both carbon cap and trade and a carbon tax are bad ideas, because their costs will exceed their benefits.
However, if politicians are determined to seek to force reductions in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, they would be wiser to use straightforward carbon taxes instead of cap and trade as the means. Carbon taxes are transparent so that citizens can recognize them, flexible so they can be adjusted as needed (e.g., tied to average global temperatures), and can be applied widely (including across countries). Their revenues can be used to reduce other taxes, thereby possibly providing a double dividend (reduced CO2 emissions and economic growth due to removal of other taxes). In contrast, cap and trade leaves room for unjustified credits because of government and business corruption and dubious activities such as forest conservation and tree planting; gives large emitters huge windfalls in the form of free permits early in the regime (unless all emission permits are auctioned by the government); and yields no double dividend. Both large industrial emitters and financial institutions, unsurprisingly, lobby hard for cap and trade—the former benefiting from the windfall at the start, the latter from transaction fees in a commodity market that could be worth $3 trillion annually. Their support for the policies must not be taken as conviction either that dangerous manmade warming is real or that the policies are the best way to respond. It is rent seeking: lobbying for legislation to gain competitive advantage.
If they’re going to tax it, policy makers also need to address how much. To date the most respected economic model for calculating the costs and benefits of carbon dioxide emission reductions intended to reduce global warming has been the "Dynamic Integrated Model of Climate and the Economy," developed by economist William Nordhaus and partners and used as the basis for Nordhaus's influential text A Question of Balance: Weighing the Options on Global Warming Policy. Although on the basis of that model Nordhaus is quite critical of aggressive schemes to reduce CO2 emissions, he still favors attempting to reduce them less drastically.
Now, however, Robert P. Murphy, an economist with the Institute for Energy Research, has published a major critique of Nordhaus's model that concludes that it overstates the case in favor of carbon emission reductions. Relying heavily on findings in the 2007 Assessment Report of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Murphy points out that the model
- assumes future greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations that are probably too high;
- assumes climate sensitivity to increased GHG concentrations that is too high;
- assumes high net positive feedbacks to warming from increased GHG when real feedbacks are probably either low positive or even negative; and
- assumes too high damages from increased temperatures.
The result of adjusting the model accordingly is to reduce what Nordhaus dubs an "optimal carbon tax" by about 77%: e.g., from $41.90 to $9.46 per ton in 2015; from $81.31 to $18.23 in 2045; and from $137.82 to $30.62 in 2075.
Murphy's findings are based on the assumption that doubled CO2 would result in about 2.5 degrees C of warming instead of the 3.0 degrees the IPCC offers as its midrange estimate--a reduction of about 17%. If, as other studies have found, it is more likely to be about 0.5 degree (a reduction of about 83%), then the so-called “optimal carbon tax” rates would fall drastically even from those Murphy calculates.
If a 17% reduction in climate sensitivity warranted a 77% reduction in carbon price, an 83% reduction in climate sensitivity would warrant reducing the price even more. A simple calculation would suggest that since 0.5 degree sensitivity is only 1/5 the 2.5 degrees Murphy assumed, we could reduce optimal price by at least another 80%: to $1.89 per ton in 2015, rising only to $6.12 per ton in 2075. But since the price reduction Murphy calculated was 77% from only a 17% reduction in climate sensitivity, it is clear that the additional reduction in price to reflect an 83% reduction in climate sensitivity should be enough to conclude there should be no carbon tax at all.
In short, there is no justification for putting a price on CO2 emissions. The harm they will cause, if any, is small to vanishing. But the benefits of the energy produced in the process, and of the enhanced plant growth caused by rising CO2 (about 35% increase in plant growth efficiency for every doubling of CO2) are enormous. It makes no sense to tax CO2 emissions.
Murphy's study deserves careful consideration.Back to top by Ian Talley
Reporter, Dow Jones
Wall Street Journal, October 14, 2009
. . . CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf warned a Senate energy panel that there would be "significant shifts" from emissions-intense sectors such as oil and refining firms to low-carbon businesses such as wind and solar power.
"The net effect of that we think would likely be some decline in employment during the transition because labor markets don't move that fluidly," Mr. Elmendorf said, testifying before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
"The fact that jobs turn up somewhere else for some people does not mean there aren't substantial costs borne by people, communities, firms and affected industries," he said. . . .
Read the rest.
Related item:
Cap-and-Trade Would Slow Economy, CBO Chief Says
by Juliet Eilperin
Staff Writer, Washington Post
October 15, 2009Back to top Meet the CriticsHave you ever been at a loss for words when challenged by the alarmist's claim of scientific "consensus," or that dissenting scientists are unqualified? Not only does consensus prove nothing, but the very idea of "consensus" among scientists on catastrophic manmade climate change is simply unfounded. A 2008 Senate Environment and Public Works Minority Report documents dissension around the world:More Than 700 International Scientists Dissent
Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims Two notable critics are:
Joanne Simpson, Ph.D.
Recipient of the Carl-Gustaf Rossby Award and the first woman ever to receive a Ph.D. in meteorology, Joanne Simpson has served as NASA's chief meteorologist, the American Meteorological Society's president, a teacher at the University of Chicago, and a member of the National Academy of Engineering. "There is no doubt that atmospheric greenhouse gases are rising rapidly and little doubt that some warming and bad ecological events are occurring. However, the main basis of the claim that man’s release of greenhouse gases is the cause of the warming is based almost entirely upon climate models. We all know the frailty of models concerning the air-surface system," said Simpson, author of close to 200 studies. "As a scientist, I remain skeptical."
Paul J. Berenson, Ph.D.
Physicist Paul Berenson, educated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has been the Defense Science Board's executive secretary for the U.S. Department of Defense, scientific advisor to NATO and to a U.S. Army commanding general, and has published about a dozen peer-reviewed scientific studies. "Earth is in the final stages of a typical 10,000 year plus interglacial when both atmospheric temperature and CO2 content tend to increase long term from natural causes, as they have after every ice age," said Berenson, explaining the climate's natural cycle. "The analytical models used to predict higher atmospheric CO2 content and temperature have not been validated, and do not predict the measured values from the last 200 years; e.g., the cooling of roughly 1 degree C from about 1940 to 1975. Thus they are not valid and should not be used. They are not valid because they do not include major effects on the climate such as clouds, rain, electric currents, cosmic rays, sun spots, etc."Back to top Briefly NotedClimate Change Dominoes Fall
A Big Chill on Global Warming
CNBC, Reuters Fall for Climate Hoax
E. Calvin Beisner, Ph.D., National Spokesman
Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation, http://www.cornwallalliance.org/
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