Climate Change Debate New Twists

Well, well, well. I first commented on this new information under the DeMint blog entry to which I saw someone responded with:

No, things haven't changed since 1995. But, even if they had, you're taking UNVERIFIED information from conversations FIFTEEN YEARS AGO and using that to support your argument. Do you really not see an issue with that??

How about doing your own research and not using things that you hear in conversation as a basis to support your argument. A lot of what you have here, as people have pointed out, seem to be you picking and choosing small facts out of an issue and attacking that instead of the issue as a whole.

 

Now I understand I am neither a scientist nor an expert on climate change but I did finally get a moment to read the article that prompted my earlier comment. The article, which is not just a random conversation, discussed that the group, the IPCC, has provided data to support man-made climate change is reversing course. Professor Phil Jones stated that no "statistically significant" rise in temperature since 1995 (http://www.dailyexpress.co.uk/posts/view/158214). To cast more doubt on the data, researchers are releasing the fact that many of the weather stations were influenced by local factors instead of global changes. Ross McKitrick, a professor of economics that was invited by the IPCC's panel to review the last report, stated, "We concluded, with overwhelming statistical significance, that the IPCC's climate data are contaminated with surface effects from industrialization and data quality problems. These add up to large warming bias: (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7026317.ece).

Some of the examples the second article illustrated were:

• A weather station located next to a waste incinerator
  
• Weather station at Rome airport catches hot exhaust fumes emitted by taxing jets
  
• Weather Station at Manchester airport was built when land was mainly fields but is now surrounded by heat-generating buildings
  

 

So, I ask the Anon that posted the above comment, how am I using unverified information or information from 15 years ago? The new data expands skeptic's assertions that climate change is not man-made as progressives want the world to believe. Take this new round of information and combine them with the "climategate" emails and the false belief that Himalayan glaciers would be gone by 2035 and a good case can be made for a Ponzi scheme. Former lead author on the IPCC, John Christy, said, "The apparent temperature rise was actually caused by local factors affecting the weather stations, such as land development." Now, does this new information eliminate the effects humans have on the climate; I am not sure. What it does say, at least to me, is we need to look further into real effects of climate change before we infuse our society with higher taxes, increased fuel costs, and the elimination of our freedoms.

Okay, perhaps I am over stating the issue. So I pose these questions: When will progressives open up their minds to the thought that climate change may just be that? Or is this new information just another aberration in conservative thought that man's effect on the climate has been over exaggerated?

Senate Health Care Debate Gets Good News/Bad News from the CBO

"In the greatest country on Earth, no American should die simply because they don't have health insurance. We have a historic opportunity to enact meaningful health care reform that will work to stabilize the economy, provide quality for millions of Americans," stated Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) on the Senate floor Monday (http://prescriptions.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/30/senate-debate-begins-with-baitsmanship/). While one is hard pressed to locate a single America that does not feel reform is needed to control escalating insurance premiums and cost of health care. The trouble is that Congress is off the mark with either bill being discussed. The central tenet of the House bill is a public option while the Senate version has one with an opt-out clause. For the majority of the year thus far, Congress members have touted their take and pimped their vote all under the guise of health care reform.

I still, as of this post, not heard one signal argument that unequivocally demonstrates how adding only one option to the pool of options for health care is going to drive down costs and premiums so all can afford health care. In order for reform to have the desired affects – affordable choices and lower costs – Congress needs to scrap the public option and replace it with legislation that will open state borders for the purchase of health care insurance and remove the anti-trust exemption that health insurance companies currently enjoy. Open up competition will lead to lower premiums. The Congressional Budget Office(CBO) estimates that in the best-case scenario that premiums would go down for most Americans by 2016 due to government subsidies while a worst-case scenario results in a little more than 10 percent of policyholders will experience a decrease even after the subsidies. In fact the CBO estimates that, under the worst-case scenario, the majority of Americans will see no effect or an increase up to 13 percent. The assessment can be seen at http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/107xx/doc10781/11-30-Premiums.pdf.

Again, why are we allowing Congress to pass a bill that does not achieve the goals in all scenarios? Why not allow market forces to work through increase competition? Some may argue that free market forces are not enough. To that I agree slightly. To assist free market forces the government will need to repeal the anti-trust exemption. Let's demand true reform from Congress. If the CBO is correct and the best-case scenario does take place, we will be looking at higher taxes in order to fund government rule health care. It is the greatest Ponzi scheme every done if we allow our Congress to pass "reform" in its present state. Neither bill will start for at least three years after passage. In the meantime our "reform" does nothing but collect taxes; taxes that will have to be raised to cover the costs.

That being said, it is time for Congress to pass true reform that takes effect immediately and does not raise our taxes. As Jonathan Gruber, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, states" This is not delivering huge premiums savings to the insured. But the flip side is that here's a bill that reduces the deficit, covers 30 million people and has the promise of lowering premiums in the long run" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/30/AR2009113004391_2.html?hpid=topnews). I don't know about the rest of you but Government said that Social Security was going to be there for me when I retire and we all know that it will be insolvent in the near future. If the bill does nothing but establish more government in our lives then why are we sitting idly by and allow Congress to pass "reform" that reforms nothing and will raise our taxes?

Cap and Trade: Ponzi Scheme

While President Obama is in Italy, one of his goals was to build upon the Cap and Trade notion to curb emissions. Major push back came from India, China, and other developing countries that see high-carbon emission energy sources as a requirement to assist in creating economic development in their countries. Dr. James Hansen, Director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, wrote in his article G-8 Failure Reflects U.S. Failure on Climate Change on the The Huffington Post:

“For all its "green" aura, Waxman-Markey locks in fossil fuel business-as-usual and garlands it with a Ponzi-like "cap-and-trade" scheme. Here are a few of the bill's egregious flaws:

• It guts the Clean Air Act, removing EPA's ability to regulate CO2 emissions from power plants.
• It sets meager targets -- 2020 emissions are to be a paltry 13% less than this year's level -- and sabotages even these by permitting fictitious "offsets," by which other nations are paid to preserve forests - while logging and food production will simply move elsewhere to meet market demand.
• Its cap-and-trade system, reports former U.S. Undersecretary of Commerce for Economic Affairs Robert Shapiro, "has no provisions to prevent insider trading by utilities and energy companies or a financial meltdown from speculators trading frantically in the permits and their derivatives."
• It fails to set predictable prices for carbon, without which, Shapiro notes, "businesses and households won't be able to calculate whether developing and using less carbon-intensive energy and technologies makes economic sense," thus ensuring that millions of carbon-critical decisions fall short.”

I agree with Dr. Hansen that “Cap and Trade” is a Ponzi scheme being played out in Congress. The day that the House of Representatives discussed the bill it was comical to watch the wheeling and dealing being done on the House floor to gain the votes needed to pass. Also, there were about 300 pages of change that passed the Rules Committee at the wee hours of the morning on the day the bill came to the House floor. Representatives on the House floor all but admitted that they had not seen nor read the 300 pages. An official copy wasn’t even put together until the debate was nearly done.

If Congress and Obama’s administration are serious about reducing “Green House” gasses than scrap the Cap and Trade notion. There will need to be a transition period from fossil fuel to renewable energy. So let’s plan for that. Phase out coal, natural gas, and oil over the next 15 years.

Over the next 15 years as the fossil fuels are phased out, America opens up our country for oil exploration and place tariffs on foreign oil and natural gas. Wind and solar are not the only uses of power that needs to be explored. During the 15 year phase out, America can build nuclear power plants and remove the executive order put in place by President Carter that prohibits the re-using of spent rods in nuclear power plants.

Nuclear power is reliable and safer than 20 years ago. Nuclear power creates jobs and builds communities. As I wrote in Obama short sighted on summer job program posted June 8th, nuclear power plants creates between 1,400 and 1,800 jobs while establishing between 400 to 700 permanent jobs which are “36 percent more than average salaries in the local area (per NEI).” The Cap and Trade bill does not account for nuclear power in the 1500 pages of legislation. President Obama and Congress scrap the bill and replace with a program that includes and pushes nuclear power. As we phase out the coal plant, we can build nuclear power plants across the street.