By Bob Ferguson, SPPI
On March 25th, Christopher Monckton gave testimony before the US House Committee on Energy and Commerce. That testimony gave rise to a letter to both Democrat Ed Markey and Republican Joe Barton, members of the committee. The letter has been formatted and posted at SPPI here.
As context, the Committee held a hearing on the desirability of, and opportunities for, adapting to anthropogenic “global warming”. Congressman Joe Barton introduced Monckton to the Committee as “the world’s most knowledgeable climate skeptic.” His opening statement concentrated on three scientific graphs and an economic graph. The scientific graphs (each featured in SPPI’s Monthly CO2 Report, showed that global temperature had been falling for seven years; that CO2 concentration had been rising at about half the UN’s central estimate, requiring its warming projections to be halved and rendering them harmless; and that 20 years of satellite observations of changes in outgoing long-wave radiation had demonstrated conclusively that the UN had exaggerated the effect of CO2 on temperature by a factor of 7-10. The economic graph showed the cost of adapting to “global warming” (if and when it resumed) as being many times cheaper than the cost of attempting to mitigate it.
These graphs aroused considerable interest. Provoked by Congressman Markey’s alarm at hearing real science, Mr. Tom Karl, the Director of the US National Climatic Data Center, a Democrat witness, disputed the temperature graph on the insubstantial ground that Monckton had compiled it by inappropriately combining two satellite and two surface temperature datasets; disputed the CO2 graph on the ground that carbon emissions were rising far faster than the UN had predicted; and disputed the satellite data on outgoing long-wave radiation on the ground that all satellites are prone to orbital degradation.
Monckton replied that each of the four temperature datasets individually demonstrated that global temperatures had been falling for fully seven years; that it is not CO2 emissions but CO2 concentrations remaining in the atmosphere that matter, and the concentrations, while rising, were doing so far more slowly than even the lowest of the UN’s projections; and that the analysis of the satellite data that he had displayed had been confirmed - precisely because the results were so surprising to those who believed the UN’s exaggerated estimates of climate sensitivity - by at least four further scientific papers.
Congressman Barton said it was essential that the Committee should know who was telling the truth, and he invited Mr. Karl and Lord Monckton to write to the committee, giving further and better particulars in support of what they each had said.
Icecap Note: This letter is Monckton’s reply. It is a remarkable work and you should take the time to read it. Hopefully it will influence some of the fence sitters in congress on this issue and help derail congressional action on cap-and-trade (tax-and-trade) and other similar efforts to drive up the cost of energy to benefit the government, NGOs, traders and corporations who care less about the environment but see profit in green efforts.
After a thorough scientific review ordered in 2007 by the U.S. Supreme Court, the Environmental Protection Agency issued a proposed finding Friday that greenhouse gases contribute to air pollution that may endanger public health or welfare.
The proposed finding, which now moves to a public comment period, identified six greenhouse gases that pose a potential threat.
“This finding confirms that greenhouse gas pollution is a serious problem now and for future generations. Fortunately, it follows President Obama’s call for a low carbon economy and strong leadership in Congress on clean energy and climate legislation,” said Administrator Lisa P. Jackson. “This pollution problem has a solution - one that will create millions of green jobs and end our country’s dependence on foreign oil.”
As the proposed endangerment finding states, “In both magnitude and probability, climate change is an enormous problem. The greenhouse gases that are responsible for it endanger public health and welfare within the meaning of the Clean Air Act.”
EPA’s proposed endangerment finding is based on rigorous, peer-reviewed scientific analysis of six gases - carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulfur hexafluoride - that have been the subject of intensive analysis by scientists around the world. The science clearly shows that concentrations of these gases are at unprecedented levels as a result of human emissions, and these high levels are very likely the cause of the increase in average temperatures and other changes in our climate.
The scientific analysis also confirms that climate change impacts human health in several ways. Findings from a recent EPA study titled “Assessment of the Impacts of Global Change on Regional U.S. Air Quality: A Synthesis of Climate Change Impacts on Ground-Level Ozone,” for example, suggest that climate change may lead to higher concentrations of ground-level ozone, a harmful pollutant. Additional impacts of climate change include, but are not limited to:
* increased drought;
* more heavy downpours and flooding;
* more frequent and intense heat waves and wildfires;
* greater sea level rise;
* more intense storms; and
* harm to water resources, agriculture, wildlife and ecosystems.
In proposing the finding, Administrator Jackson also took into account the disproportionate impact climate change has on the health of certain segments of the population, such as the poor, the very young, the elderly, those already in poor health, the disabled, those living alone and/or indigenous populations dependent on one or a few resources.
In addition to threatening human health, the analysis finds that climate change also has serious national security implications. Consistent with this proposed finding, in 2007, 11 retired U.S. generals and admirals signed a report from the Center for a New American Security stating that climate change “presents significant national security challenges for the United States.” Escalating violence in destabilized regions can be incited and fomented by an increasing scarcity of resources - including water. This lack of resources, driven by climate change patterns, then drives massive migration to more stabilized regions of the world.
The proposed endangerment finding now enters the public comment period, which is the next step in the deliberative process EPA must undertake before issuing final findings. Today’s proposed finding does not include any proposed regulations. Before taking any steps to reduce greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act, EPA would conduct an appropriate process and consider stakeholder input. Notwithstanding this required regulatory process, both President Obama and Administrator Jackson have repeatedly indicated their preference for comprehensive legislation to address this issue and create the framework for a clean energy economy. More information and instructions how to respond go here.
90% of the “millions of green jobs”, according to the experience of Spain, will be temporary jobs and for every green job created AT LEAST 2.2 real jobs will be lost. That doesn’t include the millions of other jobs that will be outsourced overseas as corporations are faced with carbon taxes or penalties that cause them to cut back or fail. Read more on the impact potential here. Read Alan Caruba’s Stop the EPA Before it Destroys America.
WHAT CAN YOU DO?
Write your congress or the President, write a letter or OP ED for your favorite newpaper or blog. Call in to talk radio and explain the dangers of these proposed actions and tax-and-trade if congress feels pressured to act. You can use the Search ICECAP feature to find supporting info to address each one of the findings which are wrong including the fact that temperatures are cooling, sea levels are not rising, global ice is not melting, there are fewer heat waves, less drought, fewer global hurricanes and that CO2 is not a dangerous pollutant but a life giving plant fertilizer that has greatly aided agriculture. The public is unaware that though not a direct tax, the costs of increased regulation and or cap-and-trade (really tax-and-trade) will run near $3000 per family per year according to an MIT study, with increased government control over your entire life, increased job losses and energy shortages.
Both scientists and citizens can both take the offical steps the EPA specifies including commenting officially on the EPA Endangerment Proposal:
See the EPA web site for how you can submit a comment here. Instructions for filing comments can be found here. The comment period will be 60 days. In May there will be public hearings. EPA requests those who wish to attend or give public comments, to register on-line in advance of the hearing. EPA will audio web stream both public hearings. The meeting information pages will be updated with this information as it becomes available. The hearings are scheduled at
May 18, 2009, at the EPA Potomac Yard Conference Center, Arlington, VA; and
May 21, 2009, at the Bell Harbor International Conference Center in Seattle, WA.
The Endangerment Finding will become the US version of the IPCC 2007 report...if left unchallenged, there is no tomorrow.
By Paul Driessen
Irresponsible federal spending, energy and climate change policies will bankrupt America! America is diving into a Marianas Trench of red ink. There is barely a digit of black anywhere on the balance sheet, and spendthrift lawmakers are closing off numerous sources of positive revenue. On the spending side of the ledger, the White House and Congress enacted a $700-billion financial bailout, followed by an earmark-laden $787-billion “stimulus” law and plans to ladle out $1.6 billion in federal government bonuses in 2009. Then came a $3.5 trillion “red sea” FY 2010 budget, and the prospect of $9.3 trillion in total indebtedness over the coming decade.
A March 31 Bloomberg study found that the Treasury Department, Federal Reserve, FDIC and HUD have thus far obligated generations of Americans to $12.8 TRILLION in debt. That’s 90% of our nation’s entire 2008 Gross Domestic Product, notes columnist Deroy Murdock! It’s more accrued debt than 43 previous administrations combined, and it doesn’t include the cost of servicing this debt - or the US share of the $1.1 trillion “global stimulus” devised by the Group of 20, to be administered by professional spenders at the International Monetary Fund. Taxes will soar, to pay off these debts - and cover new levies on everything we do.
As 2,600 delegates flew greenhouse-gas-spewing jetliners to Bonn for another five-star-hotel UN climate change confab, envoy Todd Stern announced that the White House is “seized with the urgency"” of tackling runaway global warming. Looming on the horizon is a hulking 648-page House climate change bill. Equally monstrous Senate and EPA versions wait in the wings.
President Obama wants energy prices to “skyrocket,” to coerce Americans to slash carbon dioxide emissions 80% below 1990 levels by 2050 - to levels last seen in 1905! He says cap-and-trade will “raise” $656 billion between 2012 and 2019, to fund green energy, green job and other government programs. The National Economic Council and other analysts put the tax bite at $1.3 to $3.0 trillion.
This is not monetary manna. It is a massive wealth transfer - extracted from every hydrocarbon-using business, motorist and family, and doled out by Congress and bureaucrats to politically favored constituencies. These all-intrusive energy taxes will hit poorest households hardest. Cap-and-tax will also clobber manufacturing and heavy-industry jobs. Twenty states get 60-98% of their electricity from coal. They form our manufacturing heartland, and every increase in electricity prices will result in more businesses laying off workers or closing their doors, more jobs sent overseas, more homes forced into foreclosure, more families into welfare, and more school districts, hospitals and churches into whirlpools of red ink.
Soaring gasoline and natural gas prices will do likewise. And for what? Hundreds of climate scientists say CO2 plays little or no substantive role in climate change. They point out that even total elimination of US carbon dioxide emissions would quickly be offset by emissions from China, India and other rapidly developing nations. Two-thirds of Americans want our petroleum and nuclear energy developed. They want jobs, security, economic recovery, power that works 24/7. They don’t want to see America file for bankruptcy.
But their rights are being trampled on, by partisan totalitarians whose decrees violate America’s sacred traditions of open, robust debate, sound science and economics, accountability, and majority opinion on critical issues. Whatever happened to the bipartisanship and responsible government that voters thought they were electing last fall? It’s time to say, enough! See full PDF here.