By Christopher Horner

Barack Obama, on his first foreign trip as President to Canada, will then lecture the United States’ largest trading partner and source of energy imports on the need for a renewed commitment to reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. Both governments claim to be forging ahead with what’s known as a cap-and-trade system, domestically and internationally, through a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, expected to be signed later this year.

In a cap-and-trade system, the government creates a top emissions level - the cap - and assigns quotas to individual sources of emissions, like utilities and factories, dictating emissions levels for each facility. A facility then must either reduce emissions to meet its quota or buy “hot air credits” from facilities that emit less than their quota. This system rations greenhouse gases (GHGs).The European experience provides a cautionary tale. There, cap-and-trade applied to GHGs was far pricier than its proponents presumed, and didn’t bring the promised emission reductions. It was all pain, no gain. Excuses for all of this are plenty, though it is inarguable that cap-and-trade is not well-suited for ubiquitous GHGs like carbon dioxide, which are not “pollutants” in any traditional sense.

The attraction of adopting such a scheme is difficult to spot. Except for politicians, who like cap-and-trade because it is an indirect and non-transparent tax - they claim businesses pay for GHG reductions instead of taxpayers. Of course, people pay taxes, not businesses. As a result, voters in Europe, and even their usually timid industry, are rebelling. Cap-and-trade, the key component in the Kyoto policy mix, has demonstrably increased not only energy costs and economic uncertainty but has already sent manufacturing jobs, e.g., steel, and related construction jobs, to the United States

Europe’s failure has exposed Kyoto-style cap-and-trade as ill-suited for a problem that evidence suggests does not exist, as some people believe. Mr. Obama, eager to cast himself as the “anti-Bush,” clearly seeks to lead Prime Minister Stephen Harper toward a new, selectively “global” agreement rationing GHG emissions in, and transferring wealth away from, developed nations. Not coincidentally, this is the same thing our economic competitors both rich (Europe) and otherwise (China, India, Mexico, etc.) would like to see, too.

In addition to rejecting such a rationing and wealth-transfer scheme domestically, Obama and Harper should also reject any continuance of the Kyoto process. Kyoto expressly exempts most of the world now, and, as proposed, for the future as well. It also includes certain provisions, such as a 1990 “baseline” year and the collectivizing of emissions, designed to ensure no meaningful obligations rest with any country from the Iberian Peninsula east through Russia. Instead, it transparently targets the United States, Canada and Japan to bear this cross of green.

Further, our leaders might acknowledge that people are cooling to global warming. Polls show that Americans and Canadians place the issue at or very near the bottom of their list of policy priorities. Leadership can mean ignoring polls but ignoring the consequences of such policies is foolhardy and poses threats vastly greater than the theoretical results of man-made global warming. Yet Western politicians, generally, remain in thrall to the claim they are saving Mother Earth while slaking the policy thirst of a noisy, if small, mob of green campaigners. Not to mention the demands for “rents” from businesses hoping to cash in on “global warming.” That mob will increase its pressure this year as a post-Kyoto treaty is tabled. Global warming alarmists fear the process will lose momentum, meaning that, without a false imperative of a deadline, the issue will fade away to its rightful, lower place in the policy hierarchy. This is particularly true should the planet continue cooling, a projection even some warming hawks now admit to.

Of course, it is also possible that Harper and Obama will recognize that this once plausible theory, grounded solely in computer models, has suffered badly under the past decade of observations. As such, in addition to the tremendous uncertainty of the climate science used to justify the enormous taxpayer subsidization of the global warming industry, they might also grasp the tremendous costs of “acting” while lacking evidence of climatic benefit.

A consideration of the evidence is not too much to ask, particularly in these uncertain economic times. If our leaders continue to refuse to face facts we must hold them accountable - people no longer buy into the global warming state of fear. Economic realities and scientific observations have pushed global warming off the agenda, and so should Harper and Obama. See article in the National Post here. See also Chris’s post on Planet Gore here.

Christopher Horner is Senior Fellow with Competitive Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C., and author of Red Hot Lies: How Global Warming Alarmists Use Threats, Fraud, and Deception to Keep You Misinformed.

By Dr. Ed Blick

United Nations politicians, while admitting their lack of evidence, gave birth and nurtured the fraud of Anthropogenic Global Warming (APG). Their Malthusian purpose is to frighten people into accepting the UN as the “centerpiece of democratic global governance” and let the UN, ration our fossil fuel. World temperature records show no evidence of AGW.

See larger table here.

Solar activity in the 20th century was extremely high.

See larger graph here.

Atmospheric CO2 levels rose as the sea surface warmed. Henry’s Solubility Law, coupled with mass balances of carbon and its isotopes, prove the total increase in atmospheric CO2 from pre-industrial times is less than 4%. Burning all our remaining fossil fuels, cannot double the CO2, but only increase it by 20%. Beck (2007 cataloged 90,000 chemical measurements of CO2 in the 1800s, some as high as 470 ppm. (Greater than the current Mauna Loa value of 385 ppm). These data exposed as false, the UN IPCC’s 280 ppm ice core values, supposedly measured during the 1800s. IPCC’s ice core measurements of CO2 were incorrect due to their inability to correct for problems with gas solubility and the extreme pressures in glaciers.  Not man, but nature rules the climate.

See larger graph here.

Introduction

The recent American Physical Society (APS) debate on anthropogenic global warming was welcomed by many like myself, who believe it be a hoax and the political agenda for the Democratic Party and their environmental extremist supporters. I’ve never seen any convincing evidence for it. The paper by Hafemeister and Schwartz was a side show, in that it just repeated some of the basic IPCC dogma. The considerable evidence presented by Viscount Christopher Monckton of Brenchley in his APS article “Climate Sensitivity Reconsidered” was convincing. The rebuttal by Dr. Smith was not.

An important part of the APS global warming debate that should be covered is; 1) The credibility of the UN politicians who started this hoax, and 2) The truth about the minimal increase in the amount of anthropogenic atmospheric CO2 .

Hopefully this full paper/rant (here) will address these issues and assist in convincing readers that AGW is a hoax, religion, or junk science, and is worthless in its predictions of global warming.

Ed Blick has 54 years experience. He is a former Prof. of Engineering, Univ. Of Oklahoma, 1959-2007. Author of 150 publications in engineering, meteorology & medicine (cardiology), and two engineering textbooks. He is a co-developer of a medical blood pressure patent. He is the inventor of the Strouhal Strummer windmill.

By Rebecca English

Prince Charles was accused of hypocrisy last night for using a private jet on an ‘environmental’ tour of South America. The prince will travel to the region next month in a visit costing an estimated 300,000 pounds (about 485,000 US$) as part of his crusade against global warming. He will use a luxury airliner to transport himself, the Duchess of Cornwall and a 14-strong entourage to Chile, Brazil and Ecuador on a 16,400-mile round trip.

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Aides insist it is impossible for the prince to complete the ten-day official visit using scheduled flights as he will undertake almost 40 engagements. They also stress that he will offset his carbon emissions. But last night critics seized on his choice of transport. Labour MP Ian Davidson, a member of the Commons Public Accounts Committee, said: ‘It would be hard to make this up’. ‘To hear that the Prince of Wales is flying to South America to save the environment and taking 14 staff on his jet at hideous cost just for this trip is the height of the absurd.

‘At a time when the greed of bankers is causing much adverse comment I would have thought that Prince Charles would have had more sense than to be so financially and ecologically wasteful.’ The prince’s determination to bring environmental issues to the forefront of public policymaking has been regularly praised but has also left him open to accusations of hypocrisy. He was roundly criticised for flying first class to the U.S. with a 20-strong entourage to collect an environmental award in 2007. Read more here.