By Christine Hall, CEI

Tactics Doom Cap and Trade in Senate

Washington, D.C., November 5, 2009 - Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) today rammed a major energy-rationing bill through the committee, without the presence of any Republicans on her committee. (See news story ). Under Senate committee rules and precedent, two members of the minority are customarily required to make a quorum for marking up a bill. But Republicans balked at Democratic efforts to pass the energy tax-and-ration bill before a complete analysis of its economic impacts had been done by EPA.  The bill, S. 1733, the Clean Energy Jobs and American Security Act, was introduced by Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.).  The chief co-sponsor is Chairman Boxer.

“We congratulate Chairman Boxer and the committee’s Democrats for their methods.  They have so poisoned the atmosphere in the Senate that the terrible Kerry-Boxer bill is now dead,” said Myron Ebell, CEI Director of Energy and Global Warming Policy.  “We also congratulate Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.) and the committee’s other Republicans for their steadfast opposition.  They have made clear that the Democrats cannot move this catastrophic bill without violating the Senate’s rules.”

“This transparent end-run around agreed Senate rules not only is an admission that the bill’s floor chances are non-existent, but it further dooms them,” said Christopher Horner, CEI Senior Fellow and energy policy expert, in an earlier statement.  “What we see now is the acting out of the global warming industry’s frustration over politicians valuing their own jobs, even if they recklessly flirt with threatening the jobs of others.

“The aim now is to wave around a committee-passed bill at the December ‘Kyoto’ talks in Copenhagen, as the ultimate ‘offset’ for the lack of political will to impose energy rationing on America, even through this back door,” said Horner. “But, as one key senator recently said, there’s no bill so bad that it can’t be voted out of the Senate Environment Committee.”

In related news, CEI yesterday criticized the U. S. Chamber of Commerce and called on small business members to withdraw their membership in the U. S. Chamber and join with CEI in continuing to fight against all energy-rationing legislation.  Ebell offered further comment.  “It is unfortunate that the U. S. Chamber of Commerce has decided to give new life to this dead horse by announcing that they want to work with Senators John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) on some other version of the legislation,” he said.  “Today’s committee action as well as the result in Virginia’s gubernatorial election show that it can be defeated if major groups like the U. S. Chamber can refrain from snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.”

See release here.

Read on-going commentary on global warming at Globalwarming.org

See Senator EPW Chair Barbara Boxer on CSPAN suggest unemployment is good for the environment here.

View a video on global warming at CEIondemand.org: Policy Peril

By Christine Hall

CEI Invites Small Businesses to Join With CEI to Fight Kerry-Graham

Washington, D.C., November 4, 2009 - The Competitive Enterprise Institute responded today to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s announcement that it will now support energy-rationing legislation by calling on small businesses to drop their Chamber membership and join CEI in fighting this catastrophic legislation.

In a November 3 letter to Senators Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and James Inhofe (R-Okla.), the Chairman and Ranking Member, respectively, of the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, the Chamber announced that it would now support legislation based on a recent New York Times op-ed by Senators John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).

“It appears that the Chamber has caved under enormous pressure from some of its biggest member companies. They have reluctantly enlisted in the effort to reward these big special interests with gigantic windfall profits at the expense of consumers and small businesses,” said Myron Ebell, CEI Director of Energy and Global Warming Policy. 

“We invite small businesses whose interests are no longer being well-represented by the Chamber on this critical issue to drop their membership in the U.S. Chamber and join us at CEI in fighting against all energy-rationing legislation, even so-called compromises that only partly wreck the economy. We welcome their support. We will not capitulate,” said Ebell.

“In its letter, the Chamber repeatedly cites the Oct. 14 Kerry-Graham op­-ed in The New York Times as the reason for cuddling up to cap-and-trade,” noted CEI Senior Fellow Marlo Lewis. “But the Kerry-Graham column was a hopelessly confused muddle.” (Dr. Lewis explains why it is a muddle here.) See this release here.

To support CEI’s efforts to defend consumers from needless energy taxes, visit CEI.org/support, or contact Al Canata. Read more on energy policy and global warming at Globalwarming.org

By Timothy Ball, Canada Free Press

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon says, “Unless we fight climate change, unless we stop this trend, we’ll have devastating consequences for humanity.” Other leaders make similar silly statements. Obama claims the “threat from climate change is serious, it is urgent, and it is growing.” But which way is it growing? Which trend are they going to stop? The one predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) or the one Mother Nature is providing? They’ve chosen the IPCC even though all their predictions (scenarios) are wrong. But it is worse. Global temperatures of the last few years are impossible according to the ‘science’ of the (IPCC).

What’s Actually Happening? Temperatures were predicted to increase but are declining (Figure 1). Even their lowest scenario says the world should be at least 0.3C warmer. Doesn’t sound like much but it equals half the warming they claim occurred in the preceding 130 years.

Figure 1: Global average temperature 2002 to 2009 and IPCC scenarios. Enlarged here.

As physicist David Douglass said, “If the facts are contrary to any predictions, then the hypothesis is wrong no matter how appealing.”

Many people pointed to facts contradicting the “appealing” hypothesis but were ignored or marginalized for several reasons. These included; apparent support from rising global temperatures between 1980 and 1998; evidence too technical for most people; effective personal attacks on skeptics; Gore’s slick propaganda movie An Inconvenient Truth despite 35 scientific errors; and the mainstream media was ignorant of the science and biased.

A plethora of evidence has not brought the hypothesis down. For example,

•The Medieval Warm Period 1000 years ago was warmer than today.
•The Holocene Optimum from 3000 to 8000 years ago was warmer than today.
•The last three Interglacial periods were warmer than the current one.
•The claim of 0.6 degrees C rise during industrial times was unverifiable because the scientist refused to disclose the evidence and then the government ‘lost’ the data.
•Four of the warmest years on record in the US were in the 1930s not the 1990s as claimed.
•1934 was the warmest in the US not 1998 as claimed.
•The Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS) adjusted historic data down to make the modern record relatively warmer.
•Temperature increases before CO2 in all records.
•CO2 levels currently at 388 ppm are the lowest in 300 million years.
•There’s a limit of at most 1.4 degrees C to the amount of temperature can increase even if CO2 doubles or triples.
•In the 20th century human production of CO2 didn’t fit the temperature record. From 1900 to 1940 human CO2 production levels were low but temperatures increased the most. From 1940 to 1980 human production levels increased the most but temperature declined.
•The models predicted the atmosphere would warm faster than the surface but the opposite is happening.

These are more than enough facts to show the hypothesis is wrong. Polls indicate the public is learning, but AGW proponents and politicians are not and continue to push their political agendas.

But Nature Is Not Playing By The Rules! Now they face facts everyone can grasp. The Earth is cooling with record low temperatures everywhere, a contradiction with the IPCC hypothesis anyone can grasp without scientific understanding. Figure 2 shows 1998 was an unusually warm year attributed to El Nino. 1999 was cooler and AGW proponents correctly said the drop from 1998 was not evidence of a trend.

Figure 2: Global temperatures 1985 to 2009 and atmospheric CO2 levels. Enlarged here.

Temperatures increased slightly again in 2000 (Figure 2) seeming to support the AGW contention. However, since 2002 temperatures declined gradually, making a trend that began in the Southern Hemisphere 10 years earlier global. AGW proponents are now trying to prove the trend doesn’t exist.

They play statistical games by pre-determining the trend by the starting point chosen. Choosing 2002 as a starting point appears to play the same game, however, there’s a major difference. The decline can’t happen according to the IPCC hypothesis. Their report says, “Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic GHG concentrations.” “Very likely” is defined as greater than 90 percent likelihood. They reinforce the point; “During the past 50 years, the sum of solar and volcanic forcings would likely have produced cooling. Observed patterns of warming and their changes are simulated only by models that include anthropogenic forcings.” But according to their Reports CO2 levels have continued to increase due to human additions. “Global GHG emissions due to human activities have grown since pre-industrial times, with an increase of 70% between 1970 and 2004.”

The second statement is also false because they don’t include two of the three known mechanisms of solar causes of temperature change in their models. They did acknowledge, “Difficulties remain in simulating and attributing observed temperature changes at smaller than continental scales”. They must say this because they report, “It is likely that there has been significant anthropogenic warming over the past 50 years averaged over each continent (except Antarctica).” If CO2 was causing temperature increase it should be global. So what is happening cannot happen. The hypothesis and the models built on it are wrong. Temperature declining while CO2 increased did force one change; they switched focus from global warming to climate change.

What Happens When Nature Disobeys Government? Political leaders say they are going to stop climate change. It is an arrogant, ignorant claim adopted because they accepted IPCC claims and then chose to ignore scientific evidence showing they were wrong. Now they’re ignoring nature, which doesn’t listen as the evidence shows. As Douglass says, “One finds the truth by making a hypothesis and comparing observations with the hypothesis.” The observations don’t support the hypothesis but that doesn’t matter because it fits the political objective. British MP Jeremy Thorpe said “Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his friends for his political life.” Our leaders are laying the people down for their political lives. Sadly none of them will ever be held accountable, but the people will pay the price. See more here.