Filed under: Politics
When your congressmen are home for their August break (assuming that they are actually coming home), you may want to tackle them with some questions about their health care ambitions and their climate change fantasies. The facts about our health care are available here and at the link to NCPA.
Drew Thornley has written a dandy list of questions about the Waxman-Markey Climate bill that passed the House voted upon by large numbers of Democrats who had no idea what was in the bill, but were persuaded by the infusion of plentiful money into their campaign chests.
The Waxman-Markey energy bill will have innumerable consequences, few of them favorable. It is unnecessary, will accomplish nothing and is a pointless exercise in environmental fantasy that will kill jobs, damage the economy and enrich favored Democrat supporters.
Mr. Thornley said:
As the Senate prepares to take up the bill, opposition is understandably focused on the bill’s content and the economic fallout that will result from the bill’s becoming law. But I’ve got some front-end questions that bill proponents have yet to answer sufficiently. Before it’s too late to put on the brakes, the public deserves some straight answers.
- What are the reasons this legislation is necessary in the first place? Can you offer anything beyond emotionalism and muddled platitudes? Anything beyond cookie-cutter messages about a better future for our grandchildren? Where are the facts, numbers, and hard data?
- If this is about saving our planet, where’s the evidence that we’re at risk of destroying it? Why no mention of U.S. environmental successes, particularly relative to other countries? Why not tell the public that we’re breathing cleaner air than we have in decades? How forest area is not in peril? How great of an environmental track record our nation’s oil-and-gas drillers have? As our population continues to grow and adapt, why is the news only grim?
- If this is about global warming, can you prove the existence of a major threat and that this bill will counter it? Theories alone are inadequate bases upon which to pass legislation, particularly legislation as broad as that before you. Computer models can spit out any projections we want, depending on the inputs. They predict climate doom, yet their drastic projections have yet to be realized or observed in nature.
- If this is about greenhouse-gas emissions, where is the proof that carbon dioxide and other GHGs are, on balance, bad for the earth and humanity? Any real-world evidence that GHG emissions will lead us to catastrophe?
- Moreover, assuming CO2 and the other GHGs are, on balance, negative, then why noo acknowledgment that the U.S. controls emissions more successfully than the developing world and that the future emissions from the developing world will dwarf those of the industrialized?
For the 8 remaining unanswered questions of 13, go here. If your congressman holds a Town Hall meeting, you may want to take the list with you.
None of them have read the bill. They didn’t have time.
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The Bill gives unnecessary business disruption and/or allowances expenses and/or allowance loopholes (avoiding dealing with emissions) and/or trade problems
Understanding why Waxman-Markey’s Cap and Trade suggestion is bad -from every perspective:
http://www.ceolas.net/#cce5x
Basic Idea — Offsets — Tree Planting — Manufacture Shift — Fair Trade — Surreal Market — Real Market — Allowances: Auctions + Hand-Outs — Allowance Trading — Companies: Business Stability + Business Cost — In Conclusion
The Way Forward
Comment by peter dublin August 6, 2009 @ 11:22 amhttp://www.ceolas.net/#cc10x
Introduction — Funding and Impact — Energy Efficiency — A New Electric America -
Electricity Generation — Distribution
Transport Power Generation — Regulation —Taxation
As the system is set up now, no change is happening, Acts and Regulations are to only way to make the changes. This is how it is all over the world, it is the human way.
Why change? unless it is law.
Comment by Scott MacKay August 8, 2009 @ 12:08 amSupposedly the climate bill will “reduce our dependence on foreign oil”, by building more wind turbines which only make electricity, and only when the wind actually blows. They will do nothing for foreign oil which powers our transportation, not our lighting. Global warming alarmism exists only in the climate computer models of the IPCC, and unfortunately they have been almost completely discredited as useless.
Comment by The Elephant's Child August 8, 2009 @ 1:20 amAgain where do you get this information?
Comment by Scott MacKay August 8, 2009 @ 3:59 pmOne should at least do some research before making statements.
The climate bill is not just for wind, but with the new electric cars now being developed this does make sense.
What about biomass to produce methane, ethanol and bio diesel.
They now can produce bio diesel from algae.
As for CO2 they have just developed a way to convert CO2 into methane
Seem to me that these will have a direct impact on transportation.
I get this information from ten or fifteen books, 20 or 30 scientific websites I visit each week, and at least ten years of closely following the “global warming” debate. If you investigated the potential for wind power, you would notice that it only creates power when the wind blows at the right speed, and requires constant backup from an ordinary coal-fired power plant The best electric vehicle we have so far is the Chevy Volt, which will go for 40 miles when fully charged, if you’re lucky. Electric cars are not ready for prime time, nor are the batteries.
Since the globe is cooling, rather than warming, (and there has been no net warming since 1998) and since we have had an unusually long period with little or no sunspot activity, we may be entering another Maunder minimum. I’m sure that you are aware that Canadian wheat and other crops are off by about 20%, as are crops throughout the world. We really can’t afford to put food crops into our gas tanks, for the world is going to need more food, not less. Algae, at present takes far too much land to be useful. The much ballyhooed “clean, alternate fuels” are largely wishful thinking. They only represent around 3 percent of our energy needs, and according to experts will not represent much more for 30 years or more, if then. Denmark has invested the most in wind, and pays the highest electricity costs in Europe. Spain has found that for every “green job” created (and they really went for it) two jobs were lost in the regular economy due to higher energy costs.
I’m sure you can do another 2 minutes of “research” or even less and find someone who disagrees, or even a donation from (gasp) ExxonMobil. But the facts are that the globe is always warming and cooling just as it has done for millions of years, as any number of highly respected scientists would tell you.
Comment by The Elephant's Child August 8, 2009 @ 8:13 pmI am not surprised at your response.
Comment by Scott MacKay August 8, 2009 @ 11:59 pmYou actually don’t have a clue about bio fuels. Your statements are part right and then you make statements that are just total BS.
Wind farms are in fact in operation around North America and they do reduce GHG at a profit.
You can use non food based biomass to produce renewable energy. If you had done any research you would know this.
You really believe the information you are posting?
What Scientist are these that are making claims against the beliefs of main stream academics? And who pays their wages?
Your statements are not based on credible data.
You State”
“Since the globe is cooling, rather than warming”
Where did you get this news from?
It is information that the main stream academics don’t know about and weather facts do not concur with.
And ExxonMobil donations make the data credible?
Surely you know that carbon dioxide is what you breathe out. It is not a pollutant, and is only a trace gas in the atmosphere. It is colorless, odorless, and plant food, and absolutely essential to life on earth. High school biology. 1980 figures: Wind is subsidized by the US government at $23.34 MWh. natural gas at 25 cents, coal at 44 cents, hydro at 67 cents and nuclear at $1.59 per MWh. If wind is not subsidized, all wind production stops. This is true all over the world. It simply is not economical. Wind only blows part of the time, and to produce electricity must blow at the right speed. Too high wind and they have to shut the turbines down. Intermittent power is of no use, so there must be a regular power plant to back up for the times when the wind is not blowing. Most places where there is significant wind are not conveniently located next to the urban area that requires power. The Obama budget does not include enough money for even a small portion of the power grid required. It doesn’t work economically and effectively anywhere.
That the globe is cooling has been widely reported. Since all the warming of the last century amounted to only about a degree, we’re not talking about huge variations here. The alarming rise in temperature, the rising seas, all the Al Gore stuff exists only in the computer climate programs of the IPCC. They have been pretty well discredited as useless, even by many scientists who have worked for the IPCC. There are dozens and dozens of websites where you can link to scientific papers, learn how the computer climate programs have been discredited, how James Hansen has been discredited, learn about the discoveries that have changed how we look at climate science. It’s really quite interesting. Anthony Watts even has a glossary to all the technical terms and abbreviations if you have trouble understanding the papers.
Go away and study up. If you are too lazy to read the many, many posts I have written here explaining the problems in a layman’s way, or following the links, go find information that fits better with your preconceptions. And a donation from ExxonMobil does not make anything either more or less credible. Science is not about donations, nor is it a matter of “consensus.” It’s a matter of what is right and provable. If you think “following the money” is important, then recognize that the average government grant to prove that global warming is a matter of concern runs in the $100,000-200,000 range, and prestige and advancement in academe depend on grants. There aren’t many grants available to those who are proving that warming is simply a natural process, and doesn’t require government intervention.
Comment by The Elephant's Child August 9, 2009 @ 2:45 amYou really don’t know who I am or what I do.
Again I say you don’t have a clue about this topic.
What you have said about “the globe is cooling has been widely reported”
Reported by who and when?
That is not true at all.
Go To:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Global_Warming_Map.jpg
As for wind power, run the numbers yourself. Systems work with gas generators as backups to provide steady power to the grid. They are profitable and provide a value add to the energy sector.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power
http://www.powergeneration.siemens.com/products-solutions-services/products-packages/wind-turbines/
Comment by Scott MacKay August 9, 2009 @ 8:27 amI am SO IMPRESSED! Where do you go for scientific information? Why to Wikipedia. How funny! You, having never heard of NCPA, condemn them because you think maybe they had a donation from an insurance company, and you find out that they are (gasp) a think tank. Siemens is heavily involved in the energy business, and is a member of the Climate Action Partnership,a group of corporations and enviro-groups who stand to profit hugely if the US passes cap-and-trade. You can research that at capitalresearch.org. Just enter Climate Action Partnership in the search bar. The economic term is “rent seeking” — that you can look up at Wikipedia.
The globe is cooling — try Dr. Roy Spencer, Richard Lindzen, Hendrick Svensmark, Ian Plimer, Anthony Watts, John Christie, Christopher Monckton, Roger Pielke Sr, Roger Pielke Jr, Steven McIntyre, Ross McKitrick, Syun Asufoku, for starters.
Read some of the papers at the Science and Public Policy Institute, Climate Depot, Wattsupwiththat, Climate Audit, JoNova, ClimateChange Fraud, Icecap, Climate Debate, Omni Climate, Climate Audit–any one of these websites have links to 40 or 50 more websites. Ian Plimer has a wonderful new book out: “Heaven + Earth: The Missing Science of Global Warming”, or you can find a YouTube interview with Dr. Plimer right on this very website. Just enter Ian Plimer in the search function just above Bob Hope.
But please don’t come back with your Wikipedia ignorance and keep telling me how clueless I am. It’s beginning to get really annoying.
Comment by The Elephant's Child August 9, 2009 @ 5:16 pm