By Chelsea Schilling, World Net Daily

An act sponsored by 25 representatives asking the government to reconsider its ban on incandescent light bulbs has been stalled in committee – and the leading sponsor is faulting Democratic leadership. The Light Bulb Freedom of Choice Act highlights growing concerns over the safety and environmental impact of compact fluorescent bulbs, or CFLs. Before the sale of incandescent bulbs is banned, the representatives are asking the comptroller general to prove replacement with CFLs will be cost-effective, reduce overall carbon dioxide emissions by 20 percent in the United States by 2025 and that the bulbs will not pose a health risk to the general public. However, the act has been delayed in the Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality since March 14 – more than six months. U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., leading sponsor of the legislation, told WND Democrats are not concerned about pushing the act through.

“The Light Bulb Freedom of Choice Act, H.R. 5616, is currently collecting dust in the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, held up by Democrat leadership that refuses to make this legislation a priority,” Bachmann said. “The Democrat leadership fills the congressional schedule with naming post offices and ends the work week early rather than do the people’s business.” She continued, “They don’t want to take up the real issues that make a difference in people’s lives because those issues require them to make tough choices.”

As WND reported, the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 was signed into law in December, phasing out the use of traditional, incandescent light bulbs in favor of CFLs beginning in 2012 and culminating in a ban on incandescent bulbs in 2014. Concerns about mercury in the bulbs and mercury vapor released when a CFL is broken led Bachmann and a group of legislators in the House to second-guess the government’s choice.

“Each light bulb contains between 3-6 milligrams of mercury,” Bachmann said earlier in an MSNBC interview. “There’s a question about how that mercury will fill up our landfills, and also if you break one in your home, you’ll have mercury that instantaneously vaporizes in your home. That poses a very real threat to children, disabled people, pets, senior citizens. And I just think it’s very important that Americans have the choice to decide, would they like an incandescent or a (CFL)?” Read more here.

Al Gore’s carbon trading business GIM was banked with Lehman Bros. It will be interesting to see how this will play in the future but I suspect that this increases the risk of participating in Carbon Trading. Merrill Lynch was also deeply involved in this business.

Last year Lehman Brothers released a long and highly publicized report about climate change in which they preached about decarbonization, trying to make their investors in an attempt to insure high profitability from the Kyoto carbon trade scheme and the support of huge public subventions. All that, of course, with the applause of the usual choir of politicians, the entire media and the Greens.

At the time the report was released, Lehman’s bankruptcy was approximately one year into the future.  Of course they didn’t predict it.  So, imagine the folly of trying to forecast the weather one hundred years into the future and shifts in societal trends. Thousands of green militants have been using the Lehman report as a proof of global warming and impending chaos. Lehman Bros said it! Sacred words! Its scientific advisor is James Hansen! The report is the basis for policies on climate change in Spain, Argentina and several other countries playing the progress game; it is used by economy professors playing the climatologists; by newspapers editorials, and even by a State Secretary: Lehman Bros, said it!

Lehman Brothers spoke in his report about the climate in 2100 and its economic and financial projections, about climate change costs several decades away. They dared to recommend their investors what they considered a central value of the carbon ton in 50 years from now. Their sources and support references were taken from the IPCC AR4, AR3, and so on. Really impressive.

But even with their high ability to peek into the future, they couldn’t predict their demise one year ahead though there were many people that had been warning about the current fiasco on Wall Street for years. But Lehman Bros were recommending investments 30, 50, 100 years ahead. Some days, reality imitates fiction. Who was Lehman Bros’ ‘scientific’ adviser on climate? You guessed it, James Hansen, the same guy that wants to drive the world to bankruptcy as he did with Lehman’s Bros.

But the story has some connections with Hansen being the ‘scientific’ adviser to Al Gore, who’s the Chairman of the Board of the Alliance for Climate Protection. As seen in Alliance’s website, the managing Director is none less than: Theodore Roosevelt IV. Managing Director, Lehman Brothers, Chair of the Pew Center for Global Climate Change.

Theodore Roosevelt IV is Managing Director at Lehman Brothers and a member of the Firm’s senior client coverage group, which oversees the Firms client and customer relationships. Mr. Roosevelt is an active conservationist. He is Chair of the Pew Center for Global Climate Change, Vice Chair of the Wilderness Society, and a Trustee for the American Museum of Natural History, The World Resources Institute, the Institute for Environment and Natural Resources at the University of Wyoming, and a Trustee of Trout Unlimited.

The Lehman reports in two parts can be found on this site ‘Intellectual Capital’.  In “The Business of Climate Change ll”, the following acknowledgement is made: “On the scientific side, we are grateful to Dr. James Hansen, Director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, who, at the end of a particularly informative dinner hosted by Ben Cotton of the Man Group, gave generously of his time to clear up a number of scientific questions that had been niggling us. Dr. Peter Collins and Richard Heap of the Royal Society provided valuable input and brought us up to date on the more controversial areas of scientific developments in the domain of global climate change.”

Lehman’s failure provides a preview of our future if more companies bank their future on the speculative advice of these advocacy scientists, politicians and environmental groups, while ignoring short term realities.

Thanks to Eduardo Ferreyra who originally posted some of the original thoughts on the Climate Sceptics Internet discussion group. 

Reuter’s Berlin

Germany must push for change in how European countries share the financial burdens of tighter carbon trading rules after 2012, or face prohibitive rises in carbon avoidance costs, energy users’ group VIK said on Monday.

“Germany’s carbon trading position has to become top of the political agenda as we get closer to elections in 2009, the ball is in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s court to avert disaster,” said Alfred Richmann, managing director of the Essen-based group. “The EU plans in their current shape will not lead to any more CO2 emissions savings, as those are capped, but bring sky-high new carbon taxes,” he said at a conference in Berlin.

“On top of that, there will be a tsunami of power price hikes as a consequence, which could threaten investment plans, our industry’s competitiveness, and jobs.” Richmann’s remarks came days after the European Parliament’s industry committee endorsed plans for CO2 emitters to buy permits for their greenhouse gas emissions from 2013 at auction, while ignoring German pleas for a raft of exemptions.

VIK has calculated that the auctions will bring the government 15 billion euros ($21 billion) of additional annual income which would have to be borne by consumers in the sectors it represents, including steel, paper, aluminum and cement.

Power prices would increase by 50 percent after 2012.