By Joel Pollak
The core problem with President Barack Obama’s speech on climate change is that it rejects environmental science in favor of the utopian idea that we can, acting collectively, control the weather. His beliefs on climate resemble his beliefs about the economy, in which he has repeatedly suggested that careful stewardship by the government will prevent the booms and busts of the past. He is committed, a priori, to statist management.
If George W. Bush could be accused of excluding scientific evidence that would imply the need for regulation, Obama must stand accused of trying to bend scientific evidence to his paradigm of the state. He referred, for example, to carbon dioxide as a “pollutant”–at best a legal fiction based on a flawed Supreme Court decision, not a fact about any direct harm the gas does to life on Earth, aside from warming it (an essential function).
“Ninety-seven percent of scientists,” he said, “including, by the way, some who originally disputed the data, have now put that to rest. They’ve acknowledged the planet is warming and human activity is contributing to it. So the question now is whether we will have the courage to act before it’s too late.” That is not, actually “the question.” The better questions are: can we do anything; what should we do; and what will the costs be?
There is no doubt that some warming has occurred and caused by humans, but it is not caused by CO2. That is hogwash. The increase in atmospheric CO2 has not led to unbridled runaway warming. The amount of sunlight directly drives the warming or cooling of the Earth’s oceans which in turn drives the majority of climate change. Simply put, CO2’s energy bands do not warm the ocean. So, all this carbon restriction is a scheme to tax folks into oblivion and monopolize the energy industry under the control of the climate facists. Rises in atmospheric CO2 lag the heating of the oceans by several months. If CO2 was causing it, the rise in CO2 would precede the warming. It doesn’t.
It seems to me that your POV is the prevailing one and there aren’t any new climate related taxes, anywhere in the US. Nor will any be likely, again given the prevailing attitude of most Americans. Politicians are wary when there’s a clear majority especially with regard to raising taxes for any reason.
Since the industrial revolution the rises and falls of CO2 levels have preceded temperature changes. It isn’t just CO2 alone that warms the atmosphere, there are many other contributing gases such as methane. When you say “CO2?s energy bands do not warm the ocean” you misunderstand the process. Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere retains more infrared radiation, a normal and important process to control climate. Excessive amounts of CO2 increase the amount of radiation kept in earths atmosphere, warming the earth, which is covered mostly by water.
If you look at scientists around the world, there are very few who still question if our climate is shifting. Why not let us find an alternative to fossil fuels? Will that hurt anyone or will it help them?
http://www.co2science.org/about/position/globalwarming.php
“A weak short-term correlation between CO2 and temperature proves nothing about causation. Proponents of the notion that increases in the air’s CO2 content lead to global warming point to the past century’s weak correlation between atmospheric CO2 concentration and global air temperature as proof of their contention. However, they typically gloss over the fact that correlation does not imply causation, and that a hundred years is not enough time to establish the validity of such a relationship when it comes to earth’s temperature history.
The observation that two things have risen together for a period of time says nothing about one trend being the cause of the other. To establish a causal relationship it must be demonstrated that the presumed cause precedes the presumed effect. Furthermore, this relationship should be demonstrable over several cycles of increases and decreases in both parameters. And even when these criteria are met, as in the case of solar/climate relationships, many people are unwilling to acknowledge that variations in the presumed cause truly produced the observed analogous variations in the presumed effect.
In thus considering the seven greatest temperature transitions of the past half-million years – three glacial terminations and four glacial inceptions – we note that increases and decreases in atmospheric CO2 concentration not only did not precede the changes in air temperature, they followed them, and by hundreds to thousands of years! There were also long periods of time when atmospheric CO2 remained unchanged, while air temperature dropped, as well as times when the air’s CO2 content dropped, while air temperature remained unchanged or actually rose. Hence, the climate history of the past half-million years provides absolutely no evidence to suggest that the ongoing rise in the air’s CO2 concentration will lead to significant global warming.”
Nobody is saying that the climate does not change. In fact, changing the name of the theory from “global warming” to “climate change” was actually brilliant! Because the climate is always changing. It always has, and it always will. So when the climate does change, as it always is, it can be blamed on CO2.
I am all for an alternative to fossil fuels. And when someone develops one that is cheap and reliable, which can’t be said about the current so called alternatives, I will back it 100%. Nuclear energy is great! But that was ruined by a Jane Fonda movie in the 70’s called The China Syndrome. Wind would be ok if the wind blew all of the time, and so would solar if we had 24 hours of clear skies every day.