Interesting points on the climate change file..

[Obvious Li]

Our real man-made climate crisis



By Paul Driessen

web posted March 11, 2013



In his first address as Secretary of State, John Kerry said we must safeguard "the most sacred trust" we owe to our children and grandchildren: "an environment not ravaged by rising seas, deadly superstorms, devastating droughts, and the other hallmarks of a dramatically changing climate."



Even the IPCC and British Meteorological Office now recognize that average global temperatures haven't budged in almost 17 years. Little evidence suggests that sea level rise, storms, droughts, polar ice or other weather and climate events and trends display any statistically significant difference from what Earth and mankind have experienced over the last 100-plus years.



However, we do face imminent manmade climate disasters. Global warming is the greatest moral issue of our time. We must do all we can to prevent looming climate catastrophes.



But those cataclysms have nothing to do with alleged human contributions to planetary climate systems that have always been chaotic, unpredictable and often disastrous: ice ages, little ice ages, dust bowls, droughts and monster storms that ravaged and sometimes even toppled cities and civilizations.



Our real climate crisis is our responses to Mr. Kerry's illusory crises. It takes four closely related forms.



Influence peddling. Over the past three years, the Tides Foundation and Tides Center alone poured $335 million into environmentalist climate campaigns, and $1 billion into green lobbies at large, notes Undue Influence author Ron Arnold. Major US donors gave $199 million to Canadian environmental groups just for anti-oil sands and Keystone pipeline battles during the last twelve years, analysts Vivian Krause and Brian Seasholes estimate; the Tides Foundation poured $10 million into these battles during 2009-2012.



All told, US foundations alone have "invested" over $797 million in environmentalist climate campaigns since 2000! And over $19.3 billion in "environmental" efforts since 1995, Arnold calculates! Add to that the tens of billions that environmental activist groups, universities and other organizations have received from individual donors, corporations and government agencies to promote "manmade climate disaster" theories – and pretty soon you're talking real money.



Moreover, that's just US cash. It doesn't include EU, UN and other climate cataclysm contributions. Nor does it include US or global spending on wind, solar, biofuel and other "renewable" energy schemes. That this money has caused widespread pernicious and corrupting effects should surprise no one.



Politicized science, markets and ethics. The corrupting cash has feathered careers, supported entire departments, companies and industries, and sullied our political, economic and ethical systems. It has taken countless billions out of productive sectors of our economy, and given it to politically connected, politically correct institutions that promote climate alarmism and renewable energy (and which use some of this crony capitalist taxpayer and consumer cash to help reelect their political sponsors).



Toe the line – pocket the cash, bask in the limelight. Question the dogma – get vilified, harassed and even dismissed from university or state climatologist positions for threatening the grants pipeline.



The system has replaced honest, robust, evidence-based, peer-reviewed science with pseudo-science based on activism, computer models, doctored data, "pal reviews," press releases and other chicanery that resulted in Climategate, IPCC exposés, and growing outrage. Practitioners of these dark sciences almost never debate climate disaster deniers or skeptics; climate millionaire Al Gore won't even take questions that he has not preapproved; and colleges have become centers for "socially responsible investing" campaigns  based on climate chaos, "sustainable development" and anti-hydrocarbon ideologies.  



Increasingly powerful, well-funded, unelected and unaccountable activist groups and bureaucracies use manmade global warming claims to impose regulations that bypass legislatures and ignore job and economic considerations. They employ sweetheart lawsuits that let activists and agencies agree to legally binding agreements that leave out the parties who will actually be impacted by the court decisions.



The green behemoth wields increasing power over nearly every aspect of our lives and liberties, with no accountability for screw-ups or even deliberate harm to large segments of our population. All in the name of controlling Earth's temperature and preventing climate change



Climate eco-imperialism impoverishes and kills. Climate alarmism and pseudo science have justified all manner of regulations, carbon trading, carbon taxes, renewable energy programs and other initiatives that increase the cost of everything we make, grow, ship, eat, heat, cool, wear and do – and thus impair job creation, economic growth, living standards, health, welfare and ecological values.



Excessive EPA rules have closed numerous coal-fired power plants, and the agency plans to regulate most of the US hydrocarbon-based economy by restricting carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles, generating plants, cement kilns, factories, malls, hospitals and other "significant" sources. Were it not for the hydraulic fracturing revolution that has made natural gas and gas-fired generation abundant and cheap, US electricity prices would be skyrocketing – just as they have in Britain and Germany.



EU papers carry almost daily articles about fuel poverty, potential blackouts, outsourcing, job losses, economic malaise and despair, and deforestation for fire wood in those and other European countries, due to their focus on climate alarmism and "green" energy. California electricity prices are already highest in USA, thanks to its EU-style programs. The alarms are misplaced, the programs do nothing to reduce Chinese, Indian or global emissions, and renewable energy is hardly eco-friendly or sustainable.



Wind energy requires perpetual subsidies and "backup" fossil fuel power plants that actually produce 80% of the electricity attributed to wind, and blankets wildlife habitats with turbines and transmission lines that kill millions of birds and bats every year. In fact, industrial wind facilities remain viable only because they are exempted from many environmental review, wildlife and bird protection laws that are enforced with heavy penalties for all other industries. Solar smothers habitats with glossy panels, and biofuels divert crops and cropland to replace fuels that we have in abundance but refuse to develop.



Now climate activists and EPA want to regulate fracking for gas that was once their preferred option.



By far the worst climate crisis, however, is eco-imperialism perpetrated against African and other poor nations. When their country was building a new power plant that would burn natural gas that previously was wasted through "flaring," President Obama told Ghanaians they should use their "bountiful" wind, solar, geothermal and biofuels energy, instead of fossil fuels that threaten us with dangerous global warming. Meanwhile, his Administration refused to support loans for South Africa's critically needed, state-of-the-art Medupi coal-fired power plant, which the Center for American Progress, Friends of the Earth, Sierra Club and other radical groups stridently opposed.



The actions ignored both the livelihoods and living standards that electricity has brought the world, and the millions of deaths from lung infections and intestinal diseases that these power plants would prevent.



Ready-made excuse for incompetence. Hurricane / Superstorm Sandy proved how "dangerous manmade climate change" can give politicians a handy excuse for ill-considered development decisions that increase storm and flood risk, failure to prepare their communities for inevitable severe weather events, misleading storm warnings, and slow or incompetent responses in their aftermath. Blaming carbon dioxide emissions and rising seas is always easier than manning up and shouldering the blame for Bloombergian failures. Citing IPCC computer forecasts of nastier storms and flooded coastlines likewise gives insurers a convenient excuse for hiking insurance rates.



When the conversation next turns to climate change, discussing the real climate crisis – and the true meaning of environmental justice – could open a few eyes. ESR



Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power - Black death.

[Anonymous]

It is interesting Obvious Li...thank you for posting it.

 :)

[Anonymous]

I believe in global warming and I believe man has contributed to it as well. I don't believe it is all or even mostly caused by man this time around. I also know how foolish it would be to think curtailing carbon emissions will stop global warming. There will never global compliance with arbitrary targets, so it's a moot point anyway. I live in Ontario and I have seen what an unnecessary expense to the average citizen our provincial government's green policies have been.



Market based intitiatives are what I would pursue. If wind and solar cannot stand on their own then we should not be propping them up with taxpayer dollars.

[Anonymous]

http://thebiggreenlie.wordpress.com/2013/02/18/carbon-credits-scam-is-a-license-to-steal/">http://thebiggreenlie.wordpress.com/201 ... -to-steal/">http://thebiggreenlie.wordpress.com/2013/02/18/carbon-credits-scam-is-a-license-to-steal/

Carbon Credits Scam" is a license to steal!

B.C. has adopted it, many European countries have adopted it and John Kerry in the U.S. is pushing for it to happen. Trading carbon credits so that fake Global Warming can be fixed and to allow fake Green Governments to actually "control the weather"!

 

Can anyone even fathom that type of thinking?...............................these idiots actually think that by controlling carbon dioxide levels from fossil fuels that there won't be any more hurricanes, floods, snowmageddon's let alone heat waves or what's next?...............rain?

 

British Columbia is now being investigated why they have valued carbon credits at $25.00 per ton when the average price world wide is now around 10 dollars!

 

It's not so much that this carbon trading business is an environmental attempt to save the planet but is more likely another huge scam to bilk tax payers out of their money like Wind and Solar plants!

 

Of course McGuinty here in Ontario would have forced a carbon trading system on us in a heart beat but he has blown so much money on scammy deals that anything as destructive as a Carbon Trading agenda would have immediately bankrupted Ontario instead of the way it is now with a slow lingering death of debt for decades to come.

 

Ontario's legacy will be very real for many many decades..................rusting decrepit hulks of Wind Turbines will become known as McGuinty's phallic symbols of greed and will keep the Green Lie alive for a very long time.

 

Meanwhile the carbon trading scam is falling apart world-wide faster than the next Great Depression which is coming pretty damn fast!



Trading in carbon credits is a case of the cure being worse than the disease.

[Anonymous]

My understanding is that those refineries around the Gulf of Mexico are going to continue to need a supply of heavy crude. They are not going be decommissioned just because the Keystone project gets kiboshed. I fail to see how bringing it in by super tankers from places like Venezuela will have less impact on global warming than by pipeline from Canada. Opponents of Keystone either forget or don't know that very important point.



Yes there is a lot of false data coming from both sides of the global warming debate, but I believe man has contributed to the current changes in climate even if just a little bit. Will continual dependence on foreign supplies slow global warming? Do places like Venezuela have better environmental standards than Canada and the USA? These are the questions that need to be part of the debate if Keystone has a chance of being approved.