ICECAP

Nov 10, 2009

Senators Vitter and Barrasso Warn Big Business Supporters of Energy Rationing

By Myron Ebell

Senators David Vitter (R-Louisiana) and John Barrasso (R-Wyoming) today called attention to a remarkably broad delegation of authority to the President in the Kerry-Boxer and Waxman-Markey energy-rationing bills that would require shutting down the U. S. economy beginning in 2015. Section 705 of Kerry-Boxer, S. 1733, requires that the EPA Administrator must submit a report to Congress every four years beginning in 2013 including a determination of whether the legislation and other policies in place are sufficient to avoid greenhouse gas concentrations above 450 parts per million of carbon dioxide equivalent (ppm CO2-e). Since concentrations are already at 430 ppm CO2-e and rising every year, there is no way that the policies in Waxman-Markey or Kerry-Boxer can keep them below 450. The U. S. economy could shut down completely, and emissions from other countries would soon push atmospheric levels past 450.

That’s where section 707 of Kerry-Boxer is triggered. Section 707 directs the President to use existing authority to keep atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases below 450 ppm CO2-e. Senators Vitter and Barrasso repeatedly asked EPA about this target beginning last summer. A few days ago they finally got answers to their questions from the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. PNNL’s modeling shows that 450 ppm CO-e will be reached in 2010. Therefore section 707 will inevitably be triggered on July 1, 2015 if these provisions in Kerry-Boxer and Waxman-Markey are enacted.

What does that mean? Well, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson was not willing to speculate when asked by the Senators. But it’s easy to see that the complex mechanisms of the cap-and-trade program in Kerry-Boxer and Waxman-Markey will have to be scrapped as of 2015. All those free ration coupons that big companies like Duke Energy and Exelon and P G and E are hoping to get won’t be worth anything because the President will be obligated to use whatever statutory authority exists to reduce emissions and get greenhouse gases back down to below 450 ppm CO2-e. All the command-and-control tools of the the Clean Air Act will have to be used to require emissions reductions.

The kicker is that Senator Vitter also sent letters today to the heads of the big corporations that support Kerry-Boxer warning them that: “beginning July 1, 2015, the President would be mandated to deny discretionary permit requests for any activity that results in greenhouse gas emissions if the global greenhouse gas concentration of 450 ppm has been reached. Under this mandate, environmental groups will seek to block all new economic activities that require discretionary permits. Any allocated carbon credits (that is, ration coupons) would be useless if discretionary permits are required.”

Then Senator Vitter’s letter plays the Sarbanes-Oxley card: “I wanted to ensure that you were aware of the impact sections 705 and 707 would have on your company’s operations and investments. Given your fiduciary duties, I know that you will advise your shareholders and others of the impairment of your financial condition and the value of any credit allocation that these sections’ enormous mandates and restrictions would create.” I hope James Rogers, CEO and Chairman of Duke Energy and the biggest corporate promoter of cap-and-trade legislation, has a hard time sleeping tonight. Ditto Peter Darbee of P G and E, John Rowe of Exelon, Jeff Sturba of PNM Resources, Andrew Liveris of Dow Chemical, Jeff Immelt of General Electric, and all the other members of the U. S. Climate Action Partnership. Read post here.

Don’t Buy Carbon Credits Yet
By David Freddoso, Washington Examiner

Democrats’ cap-and-trade climate change bill contains a provision that could suddenly render useless the carbon credits it creates, says Sen. David Vitter, R-La. Vitter will speak at a press conference later today on how the bill establishes emergency conditions requiring the president to step in and use all of his authority over relevant agencies to stop global warming. According to the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, which performs climate modeling analyses for the Department of Energy, the emergency conditions laid out in the bill would be triggered within months of its enactment.

The cap-and-trade bill—both the Senate version that passed the Environment and Public Works committee and the version that already passed the House—effectively declares a climate emergency if world greenhouse gas levels climb above 450 parts per million. (The number appears to have been chosen arbitrarily.) According to the Pacific Northwest National lab, which wrote in response to Vitter’s inquiries, the world’s air will hit that level of greenhouse gases next year, in 2010, if undeveloped nations do not accept carbon limits.

The result is a a scenario in which the law not only permits but in fact requires the president to “direct all Federal agencies to use existing statutory authority to take appropriate actions...to address shortfalls” in emissions cutbacks.

The bill’s language places an unusually broad mandate upon the president to act in the event of this “emergency” situation.” In a letter to Vitter, EPA administration Lisa Jackson wrote that she does not know what her agency would do. “It is premature to describe exactly what additional actions EPA may take until such an analysis is conducted,” she wrote.

But declaration of this “climate emergency” could result in federal agencies denying all discretionary permits for carbon-emitting industries, and EPA itself could impose non-attainment status upon the entire United States. “In that context, the carbon credits won’t matter,” Vitter told me yesterday.

If a future president tries to go easy on industry, environmental groups are sure to litigate based on the clear language in the law, forcing his hand.

“This provision was not focused on to any significant extent during the House debate,” said Vitter. The climate change bill passed the House this summer, hours after hundreds of pages of amendments were added to it. Vitter said he plans to write industry leaders who are supporting the climate bill to ask whether they understand what the bill’s language would do. Read more here.

Nov 09, 2009

Al Gore Encourages Civil Disobedience

By Oliver Burkeman, UK Guardian

Excerpts:
Gore’s new book, Our Choice: A Plan To Solve The Climate Crisis, gives global warming deniers short shrift, and shows little concern for displays of political bipartisanship: he likens the doubters to the “birthers” intent on proving that Obama is a Kenyan - not just mavericks, but fantasists who inhabit a different version of reality.

“It’s important to change lightbulbs,” he says, in a well-burnished soundbite, “but more important to change policies and laws.” Or perhaps to break laws instead: peaceful occupations of the kind witnessed recently in the UK, he predicts, are only going to become more widespread. “Civil disobedience has an honourable history, and when the urgency and moral clarity cross a certain threshold, then I think that civil disobedience is quite understandable, and it has a role to play. And I expect that it will increase, no question about it.” People sometimes express incredulity that Gore, who was groomed for the presidency almost since birth, seems so resolved that he’ll never return to electoral politics. But here’s a vivid example of the benefits of life on the outside: how many serving politicians would feel able to come so close to urging people to commit trespass?

Contrary to the general consensus among activists and journalists, Gore remains optimistic about the Copenhagen talks in December - optimistic that the US Senate will pass a bill to clarify Washington’s position, arming Obama with much-needed moral authority, and thus optimistic that a worthwhile agreement, which hinges on a US commitment, will emerge from the gathering itself. “I was in China two days ago, and the premier of China asked me, in essence, why I’m optimistic that the Senate will pass legislation when the conventional wisdom says otherwise. And the answer is that I have been a part of conversations between Democrats and Republicans that give me a very different view from what the consensus is in the journalistic community.” He refers to the op-ed by South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham and Massachusetts Democrat John Kerry in the New York Times, calling for legislation to pass. “There are other surprises like that in store.”

Of the potential Copenhagen deal, Gore says, “I expect it to be far weaker than the one I would like to see. However, the important achievement [will be] to put a price on carbon, and reset expectations among business, government, NGOs and others.” He likens the situation to the Montreal Protocol on the ozone layer. “The world acted fairly quickly, but the agreement they reached was criticised for being insufficient.” Yet, he points out, when the treaty was revised, “many of the businesses that had opposed [it] were there to argue in favour of toughening it significantly. Because once they began to comply… they realised that it was not as difficult as they had feared. And once they’d made the commitment to the change, they were eager to get on with it.” It made more sense, financially and in PR terms, to go all the way instead of halfway.

Is it important for Obama to go to Copenhagen himself? “Oh yes. And I expect that he will. He hasn’t told me that he will, and no one representing him has told me that he will. But I feel certain that he will.” Read full interview here.

Nov 06, 2009

Australian PM warns skeptics ‘are too ‘dangerous to ignore’ and are ‘holding the world to ransom’

By Marc Morano, Climate Depot Editorial

Update: See the Wall Street story on Rudd’s Climate Change Panic.

‘Yes, we plead guilty to promoting ‘inaction’—‘Skeptics will proudly celebrate the collapse of Copenhagen Treaty’. Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd spewed out a rhetorical barrage on climate skeptics worldwide. See: Australian PM warns skeptics ‘are too ‘dangerous to ignore’ and are ‘holding the world to ransom’ - November 6, 2009. Also see: here and here for more coverage of Rudd’s speech.

Climate Depot has undertaken a point by point rebuttal to Rudd’s claims. The full text of Rudd’s speech is available here.

Rudd Claim: Skeptics are “powerful enough to threaten a deal on global climate change both in Copenhagen and beyond.”
Climate Depot Response: Yes, skepticism, the foundation of science, is and always has been strong enough to derail lavishly funded and politically motivated science based on wildly speculative climate model “predictions” and distortions of past climate records. A “scientifically meaningless” domestic carbon trading or international treaties will not impact global climate in any detectable ways, but will have huge human impacts.

Rudd Claim: Skeptics “constitute a powerful global force for inaction.”
Climate Depot Response: On the contrary, skeptics constitute a powerful force for scientific truth and morality based vibrant energy expansion to the developing world’s poor. To the extent that we can prevent “scientifically meaningless” climate treaties and regulations from passing, then yes, we plead guilty to promoting “inaction.” As former Thatcher science advisor Lord Christopher Monckton has said: “Climate change is a non-problem. The right answer to a non-problem is to have the courage to do nothing.”

Rudd Claim: “Climate skeptics are quite literally holding the world to ransom.”
Climate Depot Response: Reality check Mr. Rudd. Science, economics and reality are holding man-made global warming fear promoters like Rudd to ransom. It must be frustrating Mr. Rudd to have once believed you could hoodwink the people of your nation and the world to believe in climate fears and your purely symbolic “solutions.” Polling data from the U.S., the UK, Canada and your Australia show the public growing more skeptical. (See: Polls: ‘More Americans believe in haunted houses than man-made global warming’ - 37% vs. 36% ) The only “ransom” involved in this debate is the financial demands placed on countries to redistribute money based on collapsing climate fears. See: Reparations: Africa seeks climate change cash...demands billions in compensation for ‘damage caused by global warming’ & Global Carbon Tax Urged at UN Climate Conference & ‘Controlling climate? More like controlling humans’: Beware of ‘unprecedented transfer of wealth, power and control to domestic and global governance’

Rudd Claim: Our “children’s fate - and our grandchildren’s fate - will lie entirely with [skeptics’ opposition].
Climate Depot Response: Nice maudlin touch, Mr. Rudd. The fact is children are probably the only ones left that you and your climate fear promoting friends can convince that a climate catastrophe is just around the corner and you and your colleagues are their saviors. You are in luck, Mr. Rudd. Climate Depot takes full responsibility for the fate of your children and grandchildren from any future man-made climate catastrophe. Climate Depot can and will gladly take public responsibility for the children and future grandchildren of our planet for “doing nothing” about climate. So there, problem solved.

Rudd Claim: “The legion of climate change skeptics are active across the world...”
Climate Depot Response: Yes, you are very correct on this point Mr. Rudd. Scientists dissenting from silly and baseless man-made global warming fears are literally standing up around the world - from New Zealand to Canada to Brazil to Mexico to Sweden to South Africa to Japan to Portugal and everywhere in between. See: 2009 U.S. Senate Report: 700 Plus Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Warming Claims and see: ‘Series of inconvenient developments for promoters of man-made global warming fears continue unabated’

The shock to you Mr. Rudd is that even the mainstream media is not abandoning man-made climate fears. See: Losing Their Religion: 2009 officially declared year the media lost their faith in man-made global warming fears.

Rudd Claim: “The clock is ticking for the planet, but the climate change skeptics simply do not care.”
Climate Depot Response: What clock is “ticking?” The one the UN warned of a ten year tipping point in 1989? See: U.N. Warning of 10-Year ‘Climate Tipping Point’ Began in 1989.

Rudd Claim: “The vested interests at work are simply too great.”
Climate Depot Response: What “vested interests?” You are not claiming that skeptics have some sort of funding that is in any way comparable to the tens of billions spent promoting climate fears, are you? See: Gore’s path to become the first ‘Carbon Billionaire’ and see: The Global Warming Science Machine: $79 Billion and Counting

Rudd Claim: Skeptics “are a political attempt to subvert what is now a longstanding scientific consensus...”
Climate Depot Response: “Longstanding scientific consensus?” Surely you jest. Man-made global warming fears did not come in widespread vogue until the late 1980’s. In case you missed it, many of today’s warmers were promoting global cooling as late as 1970’s. See: Climate Depot’s Factsheet on 1970s Coming ‘Ice Age’ Claims: ‘Fears of a coming ice age, showed up in peer-reviewed literature, at scientific conferences, by prominent scientists and throughout the media’ The man-made global warming hypothesis is now failing in the scientific community. See: UK Astrophysicist: ‘The notion that CO2 warms world has come to a dead end’: They are trying to ‘prop up a ‘scientific theory’ that has run out of so called facts’ and see: UN IPCC Scientist Declares ‘A Death Spiral for Climate Alarmism’ and see: New Report: UN Scientists Speak Out On Global Warming -- As Skeptics!

Rudd Claim: Skeptic “attempt to twist the agreed science in the direction of a predetermined political agenda to kill climate change action.”
Climate Depot Response: Very interesting choice of words - “agreed science”. The “science” of man-made global warming fears is literally the best science politics can manufacture. See New Report: UN Scientists Speak Out On Global Warming—As Skeptics! The problem, Mr. Rudd, is that your view of “agreed science” is collapsing in real world data, peer-reviewed studies and a growing number of dissenting scientists. See: ‘Series of inconvenient developments for promoters of man-made global warming fears continue unabated’

Rudd Claim: “What absolute political cowardice” [on the part of skeptics].
Climate Depot Response: Cowardice? Scientists have literally risked their careers to go against today’s politically motivated “consensus.” On the contrary, skeptics are courageous to wage a battle against the “agree science” you take as a matter of faith. See: EPA further muzzles global warming skeptic Dr. Alan Carlin - August 25, 2009 & Other climate fear promoters are using threats and intimidation to silence the climate debate. See: ‘Execute’ Skeptics! Shock Call To Action: ‘At what point do we jail or execute global warming deniers’—‘Shouldn’t we start punishing them now?’ - June 3, 2009

Rudd Claim: “What an absolute failure of logic [by skeptics].”
Climate Depot Response: Logic? Let’s review Mr. Rudd. You are lamenting the fact that skeptics are opposed to a “scientifically meaningless” climate “solution” process that could condemn the estimated 1.6 billion people in the developing world to a continued life of nasty brutish and short existence based on collapsing scientific claims. See: India: ‘It is morally wrong for us to reduce emissions when 40% of Indians do not have access to electricity’ Skeptics promote a vibrant energy policy that promotes development and expands energy around the globe. The only people “pitching a do-nothing approach to climate change” are the UN and the U.S. Congress. Why else would the Kyoto Protocol not even have a detectable impact on global temps (assuming they were correct on the science ) and it was fully enacted?

Rudd Claim: Skeptics “are too dangerous to be ignored”
Cimate Depot Response: Fully agree with you Mr. Rudd. Scientific truth, reality based economics are always “dangerous” to climate charlatans peddling their wares of a coming climate catastrophe. It used to be those who stood on street corners warning of the end times were thought of as nutcases, now those same views are held by world leaders. It is sad to see “climate astrology” replace actual science. See: Obama’s ‘Climate Astrologer’: Energy Sec. Chu claims he knows ‘what the future will be 100 years from now’: ‘Shouldn’t Chu be touting these scary predictions of the year 2100 on a boardwalk with a full deck of Tarot Cards? Sadly Mr. Rudd, it is you and your fellow climate alarm promoters that are touting faith based science.

Rudd Claim: “The danger skeptics pose is this - by collapsing political momentum towards national and global action on climate change, they collapse global political will to act at all. They are the stick that gets stuck in the wheel, that despite its size may yet bring the train to a complete stop.”
Climate Depot Response: We plead guilty Mr. Rudd! Our goal is simple: To bring the train to a complete stop. You did figure us out correctly on that point.

Rudd Claim: “Skeptics are well resourced and well represented by political conservatives in many, many countries.”
Climate Depot Response: Wrong again, Mr. Rudd. Politically left scientists and environmental activists are now dissenting from climate fears in growing numbers. See: Politically Left Scientists Now Rejecting Climate Fears – Jan. 2009

Rudd Claim: “This brigade of do-nothing climate change skeptics are dangerous because if they succeed, then it is all of us who will suffer.”
Climate Depot Response: Yes, scientific truth, economic reality and political realism are always “dangerous” to politically and ideologically motivated climate fear promoters. As for “suffering” from failure to “act”, please explain how UN treaties and carbon trading “save the planet?” Even the Washington Post understands climate reality. See: Wash. Post’s Moment of Clarity: ‘Carbon emissions will not be reduced by international bureaucrats sitting in a room and signing a piece of paper’ – July 14, 2009

Rudd Claim: “Their aim is not to convince every person on earth of the follies of acting on climate change. Their aim is to erode just enough of the political will that action becomes impossible.”
Climate Depot Response: Actually Mr. Rudd, the more messrs Gore, Kerry, Brown, Obama, and yourself speak, the more the public grows skeptical. So you and your colleagues have been a huge help in helping to spread skepticism and expand opposition to silly and economically destructive global climate treaties.

Rudd Claim: “If Copenhagen does not deliver the outcome we so urgently need, no individual climate change skeptic will be responsible, but each of them will have played their part.”
Climate Depot Response: Goody! Let us hope Copenhagen does not deliver! For the sake of the planet and its inhabitants. Skeptics will proudly celebrate the collapse of Copenhagen and do so knowing our children and grandchildren will be better off. Yes, our children and grandchildren will be much better off without a UN body that uses used-car salesman tactics dictating meaningless climate “action.” Read full post here.

By Marc Morano, Climate Depot Editorial

Climate Depot has undertaken a point by point rebuttal to Rudd’s claims. The full text of Rudd’s speech is available here.

In addition, NASA’s James Hansen and former Vice President Al Gore started their comical “tipping point” clocks a few years ago, while Prince Charles claimed a 96-month tipping point in July 2009! Even more absurd, the UN chief further shortened the “tipping point,” warning of ‘incalculable’ suffering without climate deal in December 2009! The question looms: Would you buy a used car from a salesman using such low-brow tactics, let alone, buy into man-made climate fear claims? Mr. Rudd, you must believe the public to be nothing more than a bunch of rubes if you want them to believe your climate tripe.

South African UN Scientist Dr. Will Alexander wrote in March 2009, “‘The whole climate change issue is about to fall apart...Heads will roll!” UK scientist Dr. David Bellamy once believed man-made climate fears, but has since reversed his views and become a skeptic. “The science has, quite simply, gone awry. In fact, it’s not even science any more, it’s anti-science, Bellamy said in November 2008.

Rudd Claim: The consensus is supported by “4,000 scientists appointed by governments from virtually every country in the world.”
Climate Depot Response: Why not make up higher numbers? Why not just claim 50,000 UN scientists support the “consensus?” What silliness.
Reality Check: 2009 U.S. Senate Minority Report of dissenting scientists has pushed the total to over 700 skeptical international scientists – a dramatic increase from the original 650 scientists featured in the initial December 11, 2008 release. The 59 additional scientists added to the 255-page Senate Minority report since the initial release 13 ½ weeks ago represents an average of over four skeptical scientists a week. The over 700 dissenting scientists are now more than 13 times the number of UN scientists (52) who authored the media-hyped IPCC 2007 Summary for Policymakers.
See: Team of Scientists’ Open Letter To U.S. Senators: ’Claim of consensus is fake’. Here is a very small sampling of what current and former UN scientists have to say about the UN and its scientific methods.

Warming fears are the “worst scientific scandal in the history...When people come to know what the truth is, they will feel deceived by science and scientists.” - UN IPCC Japanese Scientist Dr. Kiminori Itoh, an award-winning PhD environmental physical chemist.

“The IPCC has actually become a closed circuit; it doesn’t listen to others. It doesn’t have open minds… I am really amazed that the Nobel Peace Prize has been given on scientifically incorrect conclusions by people who are not geologists.” - Indian geologist Dr. Arun D. Ahluwalia at Punjab University and a board member of the UN-supported International Year of the Planet.

“Temperature measurements show that the [climate model-predicted mid-troposphere] hot zone is non-existent. This is more than sufficient to invalidate global climate models and projections made with them!"- UN IPCC Scientist Dr. Steven M. Japar, a PhD atmospheric chemist who was part of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Second (1995) and Third (2001) Assessment Reports, and has authored 83 peer-reviewed publications and in the areas of climate change, atmospheric chemistry, air pollutions and vehicle emissions.

“I was at the table with three Europeans, and we were having lunch. And they were talking about their role as lead authors. And they were talking about how they were trying to make the report so dramatic that the United States would just have to sign that Kyoto Protocol,” Christy told CNN on May 2, 2007. - Alabama State Climatologist Dr. John Christy of the University of Alabama in Huntsville, served as a UN IPCC lead author in 2001 for the 3rd assessment report and detailed how he personally witnessed UN scientists attempting to distort the science for political purposes.

“Gore prompted me to start delving into the science again and I quickly found myself solidly in the skeptic camp...Climate models can at best be useful for explaining climate changes after the fact.” - Meteorologist Hajo Smit of Holland, who reversed his belief in man-made warming to become a skeptic, is a former member of the Dutch UN IPCC committee.

“The quantity of CO2 we produce is insignificant in terms of the natural circulation between air, water and soil… I am doing a detailed assessment of the UN IPCC reports and the Summaries for Policy Makers, identifying the way in which the Summaries have distorted the science.” - South African Nuclear Physicist and Chemical Engineer Dr. Philip Lloyd, a UN IPCC co-coordinating lead author who has authored over 150 refereed publications.

“After reading [UN IPCC chairman] Pachauri’s asinine comment [comparing skeptics to] Flat Earthers, it’s hard to remain quiet.” - Climate statistician Dr. William M. Briggs, who specializes in the statistics of forecast evaluation, serves on the American Meteorological Society’s Probability and Statistics Committee and is an Associate Editor of Monthly Weather Review.

Rudd Claim: “It reminds me of the efforts of the smoking lobby decades ago as they tried for years to politically subvert by so-called scientific means that there was any link between smoking and lung cancer.”
Climate Depot Response: Great analogy Mr. Rudd! Climate Depot agrees, the smoking analogy is very apt. But alas, it is the promoters of man-made climate fears that are mimicking the tobacco lobbyists actions. See: Climate Fear Promoters mimic tobacco industry tactics. Excerpt: This [current climate fear promoting] strategy provides a positive “pro-science” public stance that masks the ignominious activity of institutional and professional persecution of numerous scientists whose honest work casts legitimate doubt upon the more alarmist projections of the supposed “consensus.” Like the tobacco industry, this campaign has: “Manufactured uncertainty and fear by stridently proclaiming certainty and consensus based on dubious and uncertain modeled results predicting disastrous consequences of a warmer climate.”

It is the U.S. Congress and the “scientifically meaningless” Waxman-Markey bill that even Obama’s EPA admits will not have a measurable impact on global Co2 levels, let alone a detectable impact on global temperatures. The man-made climate fear promoters have been “pitching a do-nothing approach to climate change...” since the movement’s launch in 1988 by consistently promoting purely symbolic “solutions” to global warming. Mr. Rudd, you claim that carbon trading and UN treaties are some sort of an “insurance” policy against global warming. But a simple question to ask is: Would you purchase fire insurance on your home that had a huge up front premium for virtually no payout if you home burned down? If you answered YES to such an “insurance” policy, then Congress and the UN has a deal for you with their cap-and-trade and climate legislation.

If we did actually face a man-made climate catastrophe and the “solutions” of the UN and Congress were our only hope, we would all be DOOMED!

See also Viv Forbes comments on Rudd’s hypocrisy here. And see this open letter from Dr. David Evans to Rudd here.

And see here where Mikhael Gorbachev is pushing the same environmental terrorism.

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