Tag Archives: Carbon Emission

News

MUST-READ: The UK Daily Mail gives the best summary of Climategate

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This story at the UK Daily Mail has all the details in plain English, with graphs. (H/T Ace of Spades via ECM)

First, they got rid of the Medieval Warming Period by cherry-picking data:

Some tree-ring data eliminates the medieval warmth altogether, while others reflect it. In September 1999, Jones’s IPCC colleague Michael Mann of Penn State University in America – who is now also the subject of an official investigation –was working with Jones on the hockey stick. As they debated which data to use, they discussed a long tree-ring analysis carried out by Keith Briffa.

Briffa knew exactly why they wanted it, writing in an email on September 22: ‘I know there is pressure to present a nice tidy story as regards “apparent unprecedented warming in a thousand years or more”.’ But his conscience was troubled. ‘In reality the situation is not quite so simple – I believe that the recent warmth was probably matched about 1,000 years ago.’

[…]Finally, Briffa changed the way he computed his data and submitted a revised version. This brought his work into line for earlier centuries, and ‘cooled’ them significantly.

Then, they hid the decline in temperature after 1960:

According to his tree rings, the period since 1960 had not seen a steep rise in temperature, as actual temperature readings showed – but a large and steady decline, so calling into question the accuracy of the earlier data derived from tree rings.

This is the context in which, seven weeks later, Jones presented his ‘trick’ – as simple as it was deceptive.

All he had to do was cut off Briffa’s inconvenient data at the point where the decline started, in 1961, and replace it with actual temperature readings, which showed an increase.

On the hockey stick graph, his line is abruptly terminated – but the end of the line is obscured by the other lines.

Ace is calling this a must-read. I agree. Drop everything you are doing and go read it. If you have a blog, blog about it. Submit the Daily Mail post to Stumble Upon, Digg and Reddit.

Commentary

Charles Krauthammer on how global warming alarmism is socialism

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Editorial from the Washington Post. (H/T Muddling Towards Maturity)

Excerpt:

[…]On the day Copenhagen opened, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency claimed jurisdiction over the regulation of carbon emissions by declaring them an “endangerment” to human health.

Since we operate an overwhelmingly carbon-based economy, the EPA will be regulating practically everything. No institution that emits more than 250 tons of CO2 a year will fall outside EPA control. This means more than a million building complexes, hospitals, plants, schools, businesses and similar enterprises. (The EPA proposes regulating emissions only above 25,000 tons, but it has no such authority.) Not since the creation of the Internal Revenue Service has a federal agency been given more intrusive power over every aspect of economic life.

[…]Socialism having failed so spectacularly, the left was adrift until it struck upon a brilliant gambit: metamorphosis from red to green. The cultural elites went straight from the memorial service for socialism to the altar of the environment. The objective is the same: highly centralized power given to the best and the brightest, the new class of experts, managers and technocrats. This time, however, the alleged justification is not abolishing oppression and inequality but saving the planet.

The EPA decision basically passes control of the economy to Washington while bypassing the legislature. Krauthammer calls it a “coup d’etat”.

News

What will the Copenhagen conference mean to ordinary Americans?

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Article from Forbes magazine. (H/T Muddling Towards Maturity)

Excerpt:

Whatever the results of the Copenhagen conference on climate change, one thing is for sure: Draconian reductions on carbon emissions will be tacitly accepted by the most developed economies and sloughed off by many developing ones. In essence, emerging economies get to cut their “carbon” intensity–a natural product of their economic evolution–while we get to cut our throats.

[…]Our leaders will dutifully accept cuts in our carbon emissions–up to 80% by 2050–while developing countries increasetheirs, albeit at a lower rate. Oh, we also pledge to send billions in aid to help them achieve this goal.The media shills, scientists, bureaucrats and corporate rent-seekers gathered at Copenhagen won’t give much thought to what this means to the industrialized world’s middle and working class. For many of them the new carbon regime means a gradual decline in living standards. Huge increases in energy costs, taxes and a spate of regulatory mandates will restrict their access to everything from single-family housing and personal mobility to employment in carbon-intensive industries like construction, manufacturing, warehousing and agriculture.

You can get a glimpse of this future in high-unemployment California. Here a burgeoning regulatory regime tied to global warming threatens to turn the state into a total “no go” economic development zone. Not only do companies have to deal with high taxes, cascading energy prices and regulations, they now face audits of their impact on global warming. Far easier to move your project to Texas–or if necessary, China.

Now consider this Wall Street Journal article regarding the EPA decision to call carbon dioxide a threat to public health.

Excerpt:

An endangerment finding would allow the EPA to use the federal Clean Air Act to regulate carbon-dioxide emissions, which are produced whenever fossil fuel is burned. Under that law, the EPA could require emitters of as little as 250 tons of carbon dioxide per year to install new technology to curb their emissions starting as soon as 2012.

The EPA has said it will only require permits from big emitters — facilities that put out 25,000 tons of carbon dioxide a year. But that effort to tailor the regulations to avoid slamming small businesses with new costs is expected to be challenged in court.

Legislators are aware that polls show the public appetite for action that would raise energy prices to protect the environment has fallen precipitously amid the recession.

Congressional legislation also faces plenty of U.S. industry opposition. Under the legislation, which has been passed by the House but is now stuck in the Senate, the federal government would set a cap on the amount of greenhouse gas the economy could emit every year. The government would distribute a set number of emission permits to various industries. Companies that wanted to be able to emit more than their quota could buy extra permits from those that had figured out how to emit less.

Proponents of the cap-and-trade approach say emission-permit trading will encourage industries to find the least-expensive ways to curb greenhouse-gas output. But opponents say it will saddle key industries with high costs not borne by rivals in China or India, and potentially cost the U.S. jobs.

There will be an economic impact on ordinary Americans from the Democrats trying to “do something” about global warming. The economic impact will not be felt primarily by liberal elites in government.