On My Nightstand: Green Gone Wrong

Carbon credits? Micro solar projects? Biofuels? Organic farming and eco-footprints? Those are just three of many ideas that seem to be good on paper, but the execution turns out to be something quite different.

Heather Rogers has written an interesting critique of the environmental movement in Green Gone Wrong.

It starts with the presumption that global warming is true and then winds through the many problems resulting from so-called solutions.

In the case of biofuels, it turns out that the solution might be worse than the problem. Biofuel production has resulted in the loss of even more sensitive habitats - rain forests - as farmers try to eke out existences.

Osama's Global Warming Rant

The disembodied voice of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has once again been made public in airing his grievances against the US for causing global warming and destroying the environment.

In the tape, broadcast in part on Al-Jazeera television, bin Laden warned of the dangers of climate change and says that the way to stop it is to bring "the wheels of the American economy" to a halt.

He blamed Western industrialized nations for hunger, desertification and floods across the globe, and called for "drastic solutions" to global warming, and "not solutions that partially reduce the effect of climate change."

Bin Laden has mentioned climate change and global warning in past messages, but the latest tape was his first dedicated to the topic. The speech, which included almost no religious rhetoric, could be an attempt by the terror leader to give his message an appeal beyond Islamic militants.

The al-Qaida leader also targeted the U.S. economy in the recording, calling for a boycott of American products and an end to the dollar's domination as a world currency.

Well, where to start with this? I know, how about shifting to nuclear power which would eliminate emissions and reliance on many of the very regimes that support and export terrorists like Osama bin Laden's coreligionists. Saudi Arabia, Iran, and other oil-rich states used the money from the oil industry to export jihadis and to pay for madrassas that teach and indoctrinate a new generation of Muslims to engage in jihad.

Cut the flow of money into those regimes by reducing reliance on oil, and you reduce their influence.

Again, this goes to economic arguments that bin Laden has made in the past, and he's hoping to engage in war against the US by all the means at his disposal; the 9/11 attacks were as much about creating physical devastation and symbolism as they were about disrupting the US economy.

The Toothless Copenhagen Deal

Go ahead and tout this all you want. It will do absolutely nothing to curb emissions one iota. There is no enforcement protocol and even if the nations of the world agree to it, President Obama still needs Congress to ratify any deal.

That's not a certainty, especially if the economics of Copenhagen are little different than that of Kyoto - a serious hit to the economy and GNP. That wont go over well with the constituents back home, especially in a recessionary environment.

Moreover, even with the cuts in emissions in the US, China will still be pouring carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in far greater rates.

Then, there's the $100 billion a year slush fund that rich nations will pay to poorer ones. It will result in little more than redistribution of wealth and allow thugs and despots to roll in dough while global emissions continue rising.

This "deal" makes it look like the various nations are doing something to stop global warming, but in reality, it only makes it appear that way.

Why Copenhagen Will Not Matter

For all of the talk about how Copenhagen will result in reductions in global emissions of carbon dioxide, the sad truth is that emissions will continue to rise globally, particularly because of China. In fact, while China has embarked on the most vigorous expansion of nuclear power in its history, and hopes to quadruple its reliance on nuclear power to generate electricity (and which generates its own concerns over safety), emissions from China are set to increase 72-88% by 2020.

Electrical demand is growing so rapidly in China that even if the industry manages to meet the ambitious 2020 target, nuclear stations will still generate only 9.7 percent of the country’s power, by the government’s projections.

Bringing so much nuclear power online over the next decade would reduce the country’s energy-related emissions of global warming gases by about 5 percent, compared with the emissions that would be produced by burning coal to generate the power.

“For anyone concerned about carbon dioxide emissions, it’s heartening, but it’s only a piece of the puzzle,” said Jonathan Sinton, a China specialist at the International Energy Agency in Paris.

China, which by most estimates overtook the United States in 2006 to become the largest emitter of greenhouse gases, is seeking sharp improvements in the energy efficiency of its economy.

But the economy is growing so fast that even if the country can meet its goals, total emissions will rise 72 to 88 percent by 2020, Mr. Sinton said.

That's right folks. Even with all the hoopla surrounding Copenhagen and all the dire warnings about global warming and the need to engage in reductions in emissions, China's output is set to dwarf the emissions to date.

And China isn't forsaking coal powered plants either. It needs to build a whole lot of those as well, in addition to the nuclear power facilities to generate the power it needs.

The Copenhagen Climate Talks Commence

Here's the thing about the Copenhagen summit and Kyoto. The deadline for action isn't because the science says that we must act immediately, but because the Kyoto Accord expires in 2012, so the real timeframe is political, not science related. The political will is "there" to get something done.

The Times of India had an interesting comment to that effect:

"Time is up," de Boer said. "Over the next two weeks nations have to deliver".

The first week of the conference will focus on the text of a draft treaty. Major decisions may await arrival of the environment ministers next week and the heads of state in the final days of the meet, which ends on December 18.

As the first commitment period for greenhouse gas emissions reductions, regulated by the Kyoto Protocol, would expire in 2012, the international community would endeavour to map out a plan for binding emissions cuts for the second commitment period from 2012 to 2020 at Copenhagen.

Delegates must craft a blueprint for tackling manmade "greenhouse" gases and put together a funding mechanism for helping poor nations fight climate change.

Now, what exactly did Kyoto accomplish? Emissions grew at an astounding clip. Here's what actually happened:

Country Change in greenhouse gas
Emissions (1992-2007)
India +103%
China +150%
United States +20%
Russian Federation -20%
Japan +11%
Worldwide Total +38%

That includes the period covered by Kyoto. Europe fell well short of the targets, and even then, their economic growth (lack thereof) contributed to the declines. Strongly growing economies, like China and India, saw tremendous growth in emissions. Far from controlling or limiting emissions, the emissions surged.

That precedent bodes poorly on any kind of deal in Copenhagen, which is primarily political in nature. The science is actually besides the point here; just as surely as it was in the Kyoto talks. This is about the politics of wealth and the distribution (redistribution) of wealth.

The Dollars and Sense of Emission Reductions

There are lots of promises and proposals being made to reduce emissions by x percent in order to combat global warming. Let's set aside the science on this and talk dollars and sense.

World leaders and experts are meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark to discuss proposals to reduce carbon emissions. In particular, President Obama is looking to reduce emissions by 17% by 2020 and 83% by 2050.

At the international climate meetings in Copenhagen next month, Mr. Obama will tell the delegates that the United States intends to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions “in the range of” 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020 and 83 percent by 2050, officials said.

The figures reflect targets specified by legislation that passed the House in June but is stalled in the Senate. Congress has never enacted legislation that includes firm emissions limits or ratified an international global warming agreement with binding targets.

Mr. Obama will travel to the United Nations talks to deliver the promise in hopes of spurring significant progress there. He will appear Dec. 9, near the beginning of the 12-day session, on his way to accept the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo on Dec. 10, officials said.

By making the pledge in an international forum, Mr. Obama is laying a bet that Congress will complete action on a climate bill next year and will be prepared to ratify an international agreement based on the commitment.

This graph shows visually what the President proposes doing, all while China and India continue growing. Moreover, the total increase in emissions (which that graph doesn't show), continues rising particularly if China and/or India do not sign on to any agreement.

The massive economic slowdown and recession have reduced carbon emissions significantly, but with the eventual end of the recession, economic growth will resume, and so will the demand for energy and production of goods and services that can and do produce carbon dioxide and other emissions.

This graph shows carbon emissions since the 1700s, and an 80% reduction in current US emissions would require a sea-change in how the nation produces power and transports goods, or else we'd be talking about a radical reduction in the quality of life. Since so much of what we take for granted in our current standard of living owes itself to power generation (which is primarily from fossil fuels) to power our economy, it would require a massive switch to nuclear power and alternative energy sources to reduce carbon emissions by the levels suggested by the President.

Moreover, it would require a massive change in how people view nuclear power and allow for the construction of dozens of new nuclear power plants in the country. Such efforts are not likely given the NIMBY attitudes across the country and the high start-up costs for a nuclear power plant as compared to coal or gas fired plants.

So, until we dedicate ourselves to building nuclear power plants, we should not expect any action towards the reduction of emissions either domestically or worldwide.

Hackers Expose Global Warming Chicanery?

Overnight, reports indicated that hackers managed to access tons of email and other data from a premier British climate research group, the Hadley Climate Research Group University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit, and exposes issues relating to fudging the data.

This morning the Hadley group has confirmed that the emails that were published as a result of the hacking appears to be genuine, as based on this report.

There is speculation that this wasn't necessarily the work of a hacker, but an insider blowing the whistle, claiming that Hadley cancelled all existing passwords. That could simply be a precaution to institute stronger password protection, such as requiring longer passwords and requiring multiple numbers and case-sensitivity, and not necessarily the result of leaning towards an inside job.

If these emails are indeed genuine, they throw into question analysis and data collection techniques used at the center. The security breach was first uncovered by the folks at Real Climate, who passed on the information to the Hadley group.

Watts Up With That has some of the jucier tidbits, including emails purportedly claiming that they would hide declines in global temps by overlaying different data.

Data collection and analysis is at the heart of the global warming theory. If someone is fudging data and/or clearly trying to massage the data to fit a theory, it's grounds for serious repercussions seeing how nations all over the world are looking to spend and/or tax carbon emissions into the ground (literally and figuratively). It's literally a trillion dollar question, and if the data was indeed fudged, it throws into question the accuracy of the data.

UPDATE:
University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit is the name of the entity involved, not Hadley. I've corrected above.

Stirring the Ice Cap Controversy

A MSNBC report cites new observations of the Greenland and Antarctic ice caps shows significant degradation and loss of thickness that increased over the past decade:

"Dynamic thinning of Greenland and Antarctic ice-sheet ocean margins is more sensitive, pervasive, enduring and important than previously realized," researchers wrote in the paper published online Wednesday in the peer-reviewed journal Nature.

Using 50 million laser readings from a NASA satellite, scientists for the first time calculated changes in the height of the vulnerable but massive ice sheets and found them especially worse at their edges. That's where warmer water eats away from below. In some parts of Antarctica, ice sheets have been losing 30 feet a year in thickness since 2003, according to the study.

Some of those areas are about a mile thick, so they've still got plenty of ice to burn through. But the drop in thickness is speeding up. In parts of Antarctica, the yearly rate of thinning from 2003 to 2007 is 50 percent higher than it was from 1995 to 2003.

That may be trouble, or not. If you only have a few years worth of data, is it truly possible to extrapolate trends to the future? The new laser data is great at providing a snapshot of information for the past few years, but can we know what kinds of variations in the ice caps were 100 years ago? 200 years ago, particularly when we've only been exploring the polar regions for just over 100 years?

It seems that the models may have issues with another ice cap - the Arctic. As National Geographic reports this month:

This year's cooler-than-expected summer means the Arctic probably won't experience ice-free summers until 2030 or 2040, scientists say.

Some models had previously predicted that the Arctic could be ice free in summer by as soon as 2013, due to rising temperatures from global warming.

However, that scenario required Arctic sea ice to shrink at the record-setting pace of summer 2007, when sea ice coverage dropped to 1.6 million square miles (4.13 million square kilometers), said Walter Meier, a scientist at the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado.

This summer Arctic sea ice shrank to only 1.97 [ed: NatGeo left out million] square miles (5.1 million square kilometers). The 2009 drop is still the third largest on record, but it's not as big as some scientists had feared. (Explore a vanishing sea-ice interactive.)

The National Geographic report omits some key information. How large were the Arctic cap before they shrank. There is a seasonal variation, and if you provide only the summer data (when it's at its smallest), you can't exactly tell what the winter data is - when the caps are at their largest. That compares with last year's National Geographic report, which predicted that the ice caps might disappear altogether as soon as next year. This year's report shows that scientists are pushing back the complete melting of the cap to as far as 2040, compared with 2030 in the range provided last year. The scientists provide ranges for their models, and while global warming proponents push the earliest dates and the anti-global warming proponents holding to the latter dates, I see a continued lack of data on which to mount a massive overhaul of global enterprises to restrain emissions, particularly when the effects aren't exactly known and that the costs to reduce global temperatures a fraction of a degree are in the trillions of dollars.

Hypocrisy Abounds At UN General Assembly

The United Nations is making a big deal about its attempt to offset carbon emissions of its attendees by paying for a program in India to produce cleaner electricity.

Under a new and expanding program for offsetting emissions, United Nations administrators calculated that the meeting would generate the equivalent of 461 tons of carbon dioxide, with air travel being the single largest component. They offset those emissions by directing money to a power project in rural Andhra Pradesh, India, through which agricultural leftovers like rice husks and sunflower stalks are turned into electricity for the local grid.

The offsets are intended to cancel out the carbon dioxide emissions created by airline travel or driving by financing green projects that will eliminate as much CO2 as the polluting activities create.

Since most of India’s power is currently produced by burning fossils fuels, like coal, producing energy instead at the Andhra Pradesh biomass plant reduces India’s overall carbon emissions.

The United Nations first tried its hand at large-scale offsets two years ago, shortly after Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who called Tuesday’s conference, took office and declared that climate issues would be a central theme of his tenure.

“The secretary general started talking about greening the U.N. and that we needed to lead by example,” said Dan Shepard, a United Nations spokesman in New York.

Earlier efforts at offsetting emissions, Mr. Shepard said, were less systematic, and over time, they have become more sophisticated and rigorous. The United Nations hopes eventually to apply the offset system to all meetings, “as well as individual travel,” he said.

What efforts were made to actually reduce the output of emissions for this gathering? Very little from the looks of the multitude of SUVs and other caravans of vehicles transporting diplomats and dignitaries all over the City, to say nothing of the aircraft flown in from around the world for the meeting or the gridlock caused by all those diplomats traveling around the city and street closures and detours that render driving in the City a nightmare.

But back to the key claim - that the UN is actually reducing emissions. The UN isn't reducing its own emissions or even offsetting its emissions, but hoping that some other emitter reduces its emissions going forward. It's shifting the burden around.

Even the plant that the UN touts isn't reducing emissions. It's a new emitter of CO2, but at lesser amounts than a comparable coal-fired plant. That means that CO2 levels will continue rising, but at a fractionally lower level, and the UN can claim it did something to combat CO2 levels without doing anything substantive to reduce its own emissions.

The CO2 from the UN confab has already made it into the atmosphere, and unless carbon sequestration technologies can be made workable (and not cause earthquakes as some pilot programs have found), the only way to curtail emissions is to actually reduce them - not to pay off someone else or plant trees to offset emissions.

That means using less energy - more teleconferencing and fewer vehicles or using more hybrid vehicles to get diplomats around town. It means using more efficient aircraft to ferry diplomats to the UN meeting. But don't expect that to happen overnight or anytime soon as diplomats or the President of the United States rely on those SUVs because they provide a measure of security from a wide range of threats that a smaller car can't.

Bad NJ Allergy Season Due to Global Warming

You've heard it here first folks. The bad ragweed allergy season in New Jersey is the result of global warming (and wasn't that term dropped in favor of climate change).

Never mind that this summer has been much cooler than usual, with fewer 90 degree days than past years, or that June and July were much wetter than usual.

All this is proof of global warming according to the Star Ledger.

Blame it on ragweed, which -- along with cockroaches and poison ivy -- thrives on the combination of global warming, heavy rainfall and high carbon dioxide levels that have defined the Jersey Summer of '09.

Ragweed season is now in its full, malignant glory and "no outdoor place is ragwood-free," said Leonard Bielory, director of the Asthma and Allergy Research Center at the UMDNJ-New Jersey Medical School in Newark.

Not only is there more ragweed pollen this year, but the season that used to peak around Labor Day now starts earlier and lasts until the first frost, added Bielory, who warned sufferers to expect a "bumper crop" of pollen.

Even frost is only of limited relief because it heralds the start of the mold allergy season.

Recent studies linked climate change to 60 to 90 percent increases in pollen production during the past 20 years. Add in double the amount of rainfall in New Jersey this summer, and ragweed plants are seven-feet tall and still growing.

A single ragweed plant can produce 1 billion pollen grains that can travel up to 400 miles, propelled by a single breeze. An estimated 36 million Americans suffer from ragweed allergy.

Is there anything that global warming can't do?

My wife and I both suffer from allergies, and hers is in overdrive right now since she's more affected by ragweed. I take it on the chin with mold, but in both cases it appears this season is worse than usual because of the high amounts of rain the area got in June and July, allowing the weeds to grow much more than usual.

Running the AC is a partial help as is taking various allergy medications, but there's little more than can be done to stop the seasonal allergies.

As far as high carbon dioxide levels are concerned, what exactly is the percentage of carbon dioxide in the air right now, and how much of an increase is it year over year? The article doesn't say, but wiki provides the following:

As of November 2007, the CO2 concentration in Earth's atmosphere was about 0.0384% by volume, or 384 parts per million by volume (ppmv). This is 100 ppmv (35%) above the 1832 ice core levels of 284 ppmv.[1][2] There is an annual fluctuation of about 3–9 ppmv which roughly follows the Northern Hemisphere's growing season.

So, we're talking a percentage point of concentration and carbon dioxide isn't even the largest greenhouse gas; that title belongs to water vapor, which is present in far higher concentrations.

Much as those who think CO2 is the cause of climate change, the causal relationship remains an open question, to say nothing of the fact that other studies seem to show that there are other influences on global climate that may play a far greater role; the sun, for example.

An international team of scientists led by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) used more than a century of weather observations and three powerful computer models to tackle one of the more difficult questions in meteorology: if the total energy that reaches Earth from the Sun varies by only 0.1 percent across the approximately 11-year solar cycle, how can such a small variation drive major changes in weather patterns on Earth?

The answer, according to the new study, has to do with the Sun's impact on two seemingly unrelated regions. Chemicals in the stratosphere and sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean respond during solar maximum in a way that amplifies the Sun's influence on some aspects of air movement. This can intensify winds and rainfall, change sea surface temperatures and cloud cover over certain tropical and subtropical regions, and ultimately influence global weather.

"The Sun, the stratosphere, and the oceans are connected in ways that can influence events such as winter rainfall in North America," says NCAR scientist Gerald Meehl, the lead author. "Understanding the role of the solar cycle can provide added insight as scientists work toward predicting regional weather patterns for the next couple of decades."

The study was funded by the National Science Foundation, NCAR's sponsor, and by the Department of Energy. It builds on several recent papers by Meehl and colleagues exploring the link between the peaks in the solar cycle and events on Earth that resemble some aspects of La Nina events, but are distinct from them. The larger amplitude La Nina and El Nino patterns are associated with changes in surface pressure that together are known as the Southern Oscillation.

We know that La Nina and El Nino are regularly repeating cycles that operate every 3-8 years on average, and the current solar sunspot cycle has been unusually low.

Scientists are still trying to figure out all the influences on global climate, and to suggest that CO2 is the end-all of climate change is absurd, particularly when the models used by these same scientists have consistently been shown not to correctly predict climate - particularly because if CO2 is the driving force, the temperatures should be increasing steadily as the percentage of CO2 increases despite any effort to contain CO2 emissions. That means that there are other factors that are not being taken into account for driving global climate, which may be far more significant (but far less amenable to taxation via schemes like cap and trade or carbon trading).

Environmental Talking Points

Apparently, global warming is out. Climate change is in. Cap and trade is now cap and cash later (as in never, but never mind the complexities involved).

Environmental issues consistently rate near the bottom of public worry, according to many public opinion polls. A Pew Research Center poll released in January found global warming last among 20 voter concerns; it trailed issues like addressing moral decline and decreasing the influence of lobbyists. “We know why it’s lowest,” said Mr. Perkowitz, a marketer of outdoor clothing and home furnishings before he started ecoAmerica, whose activities are financed by corporations, foundations and individuals. “When someone thinks of global warming, they think of a politicized, polarized argument. When you say ‘global warming,’ a certain group of Americans think that’s a code word for progressive liberals, gay marriage and other such issues.”

The answer, Mr. Perkowitz said in his presentation at the briefing, is to reframe the issue using different language. “Energy efficiency” makes people think of shivering in the dark. Instead, it is more effective to speak of “saving money for a more prosperous future.” In fact, the group’s surveys and focus groups found, it is time to drop the term “the environment” and talk about “the air we breathe, the water our children drink.”

“Another key finding: remember to speak in TALKING POINTS aspirational language about shared American ideals, like freedom, prosperity, independence and self-sufficiency while avoiding jargon and details about policy, science, economics or technology,” said the e-mail account of the group’s study.

Mr. Perkowitz and allies in the environmental movement have been briefing officials in Congress and the administration in the hope of using the findings to change the terms of the debate now under way in Washington.

Opponents of legislation to combat global warming are engaged in a similar effort. Trying to head off a cap-and-trade system, in which government would cap the amount of heat-trapping emissions allowed and let industry trade permits to emit those gases, they are coaching Republicans to refer to any such system as a giant tax that would kill jobs. Coal companies are taking out full-page advertisements promising “clean, green coal.” The natural gas industry refers to its product as “clean fuel green fuel.” Oil companies advertise their investments in alternative energy.

It's all about what will sell with the public, not even what the science is.

The science is anything but settled, but the environmentalists and politicians are busy trying to figure out the best way to take your money and make you feel privileged to do so.

A Perfectly Futile Act

Earth Day has been going on for more than 30 years, and if you're not familiar with the concept that the eco-left is pushing that man is behind global warming and that if we don't act now, the Earth's climate will change, then you have had your head in the sand for far too long.

Tonight, cities around the globe will be holding Earth Hour, where key landmarks will turn off the lights for an hour to raise awareness. In the NYC metro area, that means that the billboards of Times Square, the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building will all go dark for an hour.

It's all part of a symbolic effort to highlight global climate change. In nearly 4,000 cities in 84 countries, millions of light switches will be flipped off at 8:30 p.m. local time to observe the second worldwide "Earth Hour."

More than 2,000 New Jersey residents have signed up to participate, along with dozens of schools, organizations, businesses and municipalities. Lights will go down on local landmarks like Montclair's war memorial in Edgemont Park. The West Orange mayor will flip the switch on replicas of Edison's original light bulb at his former laboratory.

"How symbolic is that?" Mayor John McKeon said today. "It's an ongoing message that we have to focus on the release of greenhouse gases and global warming, we need to conserve."

Edison, he said, would be glad energy-savers have made his invention obsolete, and "would marvel at the genius of the compressed fluorescent bulb."

Since it was started in 2007, "Earth Hour" has been promoted on YouTube, by global corporations, nonprofit groups, schools, scientists and celebrities -- including Oscar-winning actress Cate Blanchett and the Archbishop Desmond Tutu. It was originally launched by the World Wildlife Fund in Sydney, Australia.

Last year, the lights-out movement went global, with about 400 cities in 30 countries participating, said WWF spokesman Steve Ertel. The search engine Yahoo! reported a 344 percent increase in "Earth Hour" searches this February and March compared with last year, he said.

This is a feel good measure by people who aren't going to change their lifestyles - or worse that demand others change theirs while continuing their own.

Gee, do you feel better "spreading awareness of global warming" even as Al Gore continues his jet setting ways and spewing more COx than any regular Joe will do in a lifetime? Hasn't Al Gore ever heard of telecommuting or teleconferencing in order to spread his message via the Internet he claimed to develop?

What all this fails to take into account is that there's a big ball of fire 90+ million miles from Earth that pumps out more energy in a few moments than all of mankind could put out in a year. Seemingly minor changes in the output can have drastic changes throughout the Solar System. COx may not even be a cause of warming seen (and which hasn't occurred over the last decade as temperatures have dropped off to their levels seen a decade earlier).

The science is far from settled, and yet the eco-left is treating it not only as fact, but as a crisis that must be addressed in the most severe and dire ways, including imposition of massive tax and spend programs to redistribute wealth from places like the US to others. That's what the UN has in mind, and the junk science is being used to justify a massive wealth transfer the likes of which have never been seen or attempted before (and should never be attempted for the damage it will do to the wellbeing of all people around the globe).

UPDATE 3/28/09:
I just came across last year's posting on the event, and I think it did a far better job skewering the subject matter.

Taxing All Americans Through Cap and Trade

President Obama and his eco-nuts would rather you didn't pay attention to what they have in store for your wallets and pocketbooks.

They're fully intent on imposing a massive new and unneeded taxing scheme called cap and trade.

What will that mean? You know those vaunted claims that Obama will not raise taxes on 95% of all Americans? It's utter nonsense. I'd use stronger language than that, but this is a PG blog.

Hit hardest would be the "95% of working families" Mr. Obama keeps mentioning, usually omitting that his no-new-taxes pledge comes with the caveat "unless you use energy." Putting a price on carbon is regressive by definition because poor and middle-income households spend more of their paychecks on things like gas to drive to work, groceries or home heating.

The Congressional Budget Office -- Mr. Orszag's former roost -- estimates that the price hikes from a 15% cut in emissions would cost the average household in the bottom-income quintile about 3.3% of its after-tax income every year. That's about $680, not including the costs of reduced employment and output. The three middle quintiles would see their paychecks cut between $880 and $1,500, or 2.9% to 2.7% of income. The rich would pay 1.7%. Cap and trade is the ideal policy for every Beltway analyst who thinks the tax code is too progressive (all five of them).

But the greatest inequities are geographic and would be imposed on the parts of the U.S. that rely most on manufacturing or fossil fuels -- particularly coal, which generates most power in the Midwest, Southern and Plains states. It's no coincidence that the liberals most invested in cap and trade -- Barbara Boxer, Henry Waxman, Ed Markey -- come from California or the Northeast.

Coal provides more than half of U.S. electricity, and 25 states get more than 50% of their electricity from conventional coal-fired generation. In Ohio, it totals 86%, according to the Energy Information Administration. Ratepayers in Indiana (94%), Missouri (85%), New Mexico (80%), Pennsylvania (56%), West Virginia (98%) and Wyoming (95%) are going to get soaked.

Another way to think about it is in terms of per capita greenhouse-gas emissions. California is the No. 2 carbon emitter in the country but also has a large economy and population. So the average Californian only had a carbon footprint of about 12 tons of CO2-equivalent in 2005, according to the World Resource Institute's Climate Analysis Indicators, which integrates all government data. The situation is very different in Wyoming and North Dakota -- paging Senators Mike Enzi and Kent Conrad -- where every person was responsible for 154 and 95 tons, respectively. See the nearby chart for cap and trade's biggest state winners and losers.

Any tax on a producer will be passed on to the end consumer. It's basic economics, and yet the Administration and an incurious media either ignore this, or choose to omit this salient fact when discussing their grandiose plans for reworking the economy.

Never mind that raising taxes into the teeth of a recession is destructive and slows any recovery, but this plan will also hit people in the lowest income tax brackets hardest. You read that right too. Those in the lowest brackets will use a larger percentage of their income to cover the higher costs imposed by cap and trade than those in higher tax brackets.

This is voodoo economics, and the intent to fundamentally alter the US economy will have disastrous results. And yet, that appears to be the Administration's goal.

UPDATE:
Hot Air has much more. Ameripundit also weighs in.

Travel Hypocrisy Watch

CNN writes with all earnestness that people should travel to see the following five destinations before they disappear as a result of global warming: Great Barrier Reef, Australia, New Orleans, Louisiana, Rocky Mountain National Park, Estes Park, Colorado, Alpine Glaciers, Switzerland, and Amazon rain forest, Brazil.

How exactly does one get to these destinations without expending the very gasses that the eco-leftist believe causes global warming (COx)? Carbon trading schemes don't cut it either. Isn't it destructive to contemplate visiting such locales (eco-footprint)? Shouldn't one avoid extraneous travel if they want to save the planet?

Seriously, there are plenty of reasons to go visit these locations because of their stunning beauty, but the global warming rationale is wearing thin. Reports suggest that rain forests are rebounding nicely because more people are giving up subsistence living by slash and burn farming, which is allowing jungles to retake the former farmlands. Reefs and glaciers are transient in nature, and bug infestations are likewise natural phenomenon.

After all, it wasn't all that long ago in the Earth's history that New York City (and most of North America) was buried beneath a huge glacier. Glacial deposits can be found all over New York. And that followed a period when much of what is now North America was a shallow sea teeming with all manner of sea life, including reefs.

Part of the beauty of the world is that it is always changing. It's why going to many of these places is worthwhile - they never appear the same way twice. These kinds of reports play on the notion that there was some ideal temperature profile for the planet and that we're heading towards disaster, even though the history of the planet shows that it is forever changing - swinging like a pendulum between periods of cold and warmth.

Weather Hysteria Watch

What's shocking about subzero temperatures in winter? Apparently someone at the AP thinks that subzero temperatures in January in the upper Midwest is something "shocking."

Shocking cold wave drops temps to 40 below zero

Temperatures crashed to Arctic levels Tuesday as a severe cold wave rolled across the upper Midwest on the heels of yet another snowstorm, closing schools and making most people think twice before going outside. Early Wednesday, the cold front swept into New York, sending temperatures falling from the 30s a day before to single digits or below zero. It hit 8 below in Massena, on the St. Lawrence River in northern New York, with the wind chill making it feel like minus 25 degrees.

In Michigan, temperatures Wednesday morning ranged from minus 17 at Ironwood in the western Upper Peninsula to 10 degrees in the southwestern Lower Peninsula and 12 on Beaver Island. Ironwood earlier recorded a temperature of minus 23.

Thermometers read single digits early in the day as far south as Kansas and Missouri, where some areas warmed only into the teens by midday.

The ice and snow that glazed pavement was blamed for numerous traffic accidents from Minnesota to Indiana, where police said a truck overturned and spilled 43,000 pounds of cheese, closing a busy highway ramp during the night in the Gary area.

Really? You mean to tell me that historical temperatures in Minneapolis don't get below 0F for extended periods? It happens pretty much every year. Some years get extended periods, while others get shorter periods. It depends on the Jet Stream and how the Arctic air gets pushed down from Canada into the United States.

Perhaps the only shocking thing about this is that it once again deflates the notion that manmade global warming has ended winters as we know them.

They Will Control the Vertical and the Horizontal

There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission. If we wish to make it louder, we will bring up the volume. If we wish to make it softer, we will tune it to a whisper. We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical. We can roll the image, make it flutter. We can change the focus to a soft blur or sharpen it to crystal clarity. For the next hour, sit quietly and we will control all that you see and hear. We repeat, there is nothing wrong with your television set. You are about to participate in a great adventure. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to... The Outer Limits.

That's a most appropriate quote given the way governments around the world are looking to invade your personal space and tell you what to do, what to buy, what to eat, and that's even as governments can't do basic things like balancing their checkbooks.

European governments are contemplating banning plasma televisions. Well, they're already looking to ban incandescent light bulbs, and the claim is that they're looking to slow electricity consumption. The real motivations are something else entirely.

Energy-guzzling flatscreen plasma televisions will soon be banned as part of the battle against climate change, ministers have told The Independent on Sunday.

"Minimum energy performance standards" for televisions are expected to be agreed across Europe this spring, they say, and this should lead to "phasing out the most inefficient TVs". At the same time, a compulsory labelling system will be drawn up to identify the best and worst devices.

The moves, which follow last week's withdrawal of the 100W incandescent lightbulb, are part of a drive to slow the rapid growth of electricity consumption in homes by phasing out wasteful devices and introducing more efficient ones. Giant plasma televisions – dubbed "the 4x4s of the living room" – can consume four times as much energy as traditional TVs that used cathode ray tubes (CRTs).

First, they come for your televisions, because they say you aren't being green enough. Next, they'll tell you what you can or can't watch. I wish that weren't true, except that there are constant rumblings about the Fairness Doctrine and the Europeans are ever more into censorship than American politicians are.

Global warming hysteria is only part of the problem here. The eco-leftists have made it difficult, if not impossible to build new energy facilities, not only in the US, but around the world. That means that new power sources to drive technologies that everyone takes for granted are failing to keep up with demand.

The governments need to do something to slow the increase, and conservation isn't going to get the job done. Taxing is the one thing that governments know how to do. Besides, all this demand will pale in comparison with the next innovation to cure global warming - the need to power up all those plug in cars we keep hearing about (such as the rumblings from Ford). Where is all the power for all those cars going to come from? Talk about demand for electricity? Plasma televisions are going to be the least of your concerns when you have millions of cars plugging into the grid and demanding megawatts of power so you can get to your jobs and sit in front of your computers.

If you're a global warming nutter who thinks all this government control and intervention is a good idea, I have a much better solution. Sell your television. Sell your computer. Downsize from your McMansion to something more appropriate (a studio perhaps?) All that energy consumption is doing incalculable harm (according to you). Also, hold your breath to save the rest of us from your carbon emissions. After all, its in our interests that you reduce your carbon footprint.

Mine is just fine as it is.

But here's the kicker - the manufacturers are already moving faster than the governments can act. Technologies are making plasma televisions obsolete, and will soon enter the market - LED and OLED televisions promise better contrast and color, and will require a fraction of power now required by either LCD or plasma televisions.

Something similar is happening with light bulbs - governments have tried to mandate CFLs, despite the issues with mercury, and that LED and other technologies have significant advantages, although they are more costly than the ubiquitous incandescent bulb.

Don Surber suggests that the Europeans are trying to regulate this particular market because they can't stand up against the Russians who are threatening to cut off natural gas supplies.

Energy efficiency is a good thing, but government mandates actually have unintended consequences that can be far more damaging than the intended solution. Consider that the ubiquitous SUV became the vehicle of choice because of CAFE standards forcing manufacturers to come up with puny economy cars. People didn't like those cars, and instead flocked to SUVs, which offered them the size, space and power they wanted. Millions rolled off showroom floors, and the fuel economy was never much of a concern. SUVs still outsell vehicles like the Prius by a significant margin. People wanted the room to carry their stuff, and SUVs were favored over the economy cars. That trend reversed for a few weeks here in the US when gas prices hovered near $4 per gallon, but that too reversed and soon SUVs were back rolling.

Some car manufacturers are embracing fuel efficiency more than others and many are providing new hybrid models in the hopes of attracting buyers. That includes a luxury model from Lexus. There are SUV hybrids like the Ford Escape and Saturn VUE hybrid, so if you want to pay the premium to get those hybrid models - go for it - just skip the moralizing.

If you want to go for more fuel efficiency, great.

I don't like being told what to do, especially by nanny state governments that are often clueless about what road to take and push unfunded mandates on people and taking control away from the individual and giving it to governments or utilities that work at their behest. Besides, the market operates far more efficiently than government ever can, and isn't busy taxing you to force you to change your ways.

Cleaning Up That Good Old Fashioned Global Warming

This afternoon, I had to spend the better part of two hours clearing my property of several inches of snow and ice that fell yesterday and last night. I wasn't alone in this, as much of the Midwest and Northeast is digging out of snow that fell over the past 24 hours.

It's winter. I expect it.

That's what happens during winter. There's snow, and I shovel it and clear it off my cars. Some years there is more snow and it's colder. Other years there's less snow and its warmer. Then there are years where there's lots of snow, but warm streaks or there are years where there's cold but not as much snow.

Yet, there are still people who make out singular weather events as a sign of global warming or that a warm weather streak is a sign that the Earth is heating up. It's all so much nonsense.

There are trends in the weather and climate to be sure, but not ones that tend to support manmade global warming.

We've now gone from Al Gore-inspired global warming hysteria to the other direction - scientists are now warning of an impending Ice Age (and Russian politicians may be counting on that to get Europe over the natural gas barrel). You can go back 30 years and find scientists warning of an ice age then too, right before the same scientists started warning of global warming. Nothing gets the study money flowing like making outrageous claims.

In the span of perhaps two years, we've gone from Al Gore warning that there's an absolute certainty that global warming is happening and that there is consensus to this undeniable fact that manmade global warming is the reason, to scientists now warning of an Ice Age. So much for the consensus.

Al Gore may have won an Oscar and a Nobel Prize for his junk science tripe, but that doesn't make it any more legitimate. His work is based on junk science and no matter how much he tries to put lipstick on that pig, it's still a pig.

They don't know what is going to happen. Computer models are only as good as the data being used, and much of the data is garbage. In fact, you could actually make the argument that global warming is the result of data manipulation, and not actually observed objective science. Scientists are routinely massaging the data to adjust it for various factors, including new equipment. Satellites provide better data than previously, but they provide only a limited timeframe from which to conclude that global climate changes predict warming or cooling - after all, satellites have only been providing the kind of global data for the past several decades, hardly sufficient to conclude on processes that take thousands of years.

Watts Up With That has been on the case of data stations around the world being placed in locations that can only result in inaccurate data being produced - siting temperature sensors too close to roads and HVAC units causing faulty readings, to say nothing of scientists like Hansen massaging the data to suit his political needs.

Global Warming Hysteria Watch: Ski Edition

So, who are we to believe? Global warming activists who claim that the ski industry as we know it will cease to exist because of global warming, or the fact that the ski resorts around the world have found themselves an abundance of snow at a time when the so-called experts claimed that they would face a rough season?

A lack of snow caused by global warming could be threatening the future of many ski resorts, according to scientists.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has warned of the eventual disappearance of some low-lying mountain resorts.

Here's the ski report from Colorado. Every resort is operating at or close to maximum open terrain. The same can be said for Vermont. And Maine. Utah.

And Washington and California and New York.

Maybe you prefer Canadian skiing? Resorts in British Columbia and Alberta are at or near full capacity.

For an industry that is supposedly on the brink as a result of global warming, there's plenty of that white stuff to go around and make for very good conditions for skiers and snowboarders.

Winter Puts Crimp In Green Energy Sources

It seems that going green doesn't exactly work out as planned during the winter. Wind, solar, and even tidal power sources don't work as well in the cold as they do the rest of the year. Snow thwarts solar power collection, unless you are out clearing off solar collectors regularly. Ice and wind can damage solar collectors and wind turbines and ice can prevent tidal systems from operating at peak capacity.

It gets worse. Biodiesel doesn't work in the cold, and if the percentage of biodiesel is high enough, it will congeal into a frozen mess that will bring an engine to a standstill.

But have no fear - if global warming is as bad as the New York Times thinks it will get (or at least their reporter thinks), the seasons will disappear:

So in regions where homeowners have long rolled their eyes at shoveling driveways, add another cold-weather chore: cleaning off the solar panels. “At least I can get to them with a long pole and a squeegee,” said Alan Stankevitz, a homeowner in southeast Minnesota.

As concern has grown about global warming, many utilities and homeowners have been trying to shrink their emissions of carbon dioxide — their carbon footprints — by installing solar panels, wind turbines and even generators powered by tides or rivers. But for the moment, at least, the planet is still cold enough to deal nasty winter blows to some of this green machinery.

In January 2007, a bus stalled in the middle of the night on Interstate 70 in the Colorado mountains. The culprit was a 20 percent biodiesel blend that congealed in the freezing weather, according to John Jones, the transit director for the bus line, Summit Stage. (Biodiesel is a diesel substitute, typically made from vegetable oil, that is used to displace some fossil fuels.)

The passengers got out of that situation intact, but Summit Stage, which serves ski resorts, now avoids biodiesel from November to March, and uses only a 5 percent blend in the summertime, when it can still get cold in the mountains. “We can’t have people sitting on buses freezing to death while we get out there trying to get them restarted,” Mr. Jones said.

Wind turbines may send chunks of ice hurling into nearby structures and fields, though designers say that doesn't happen because the systems shut off if they become unbalanced.

The thing of it is that the planet will be plenty cold to hamper green machinery for years to come. It just depends on where you are (and that still will include most of the US for the foreseeable future). For all the talk about climate change, temperatures are where they were 10 years ago.

If carbon emissions were truly the culprit, you would expect that the increase of carbon emissions would result in a constant uptick in temperatures, but it's overwhelming hubris to think that man can overcome global and solar events with puny carbon emissions. Indeed, studies of solar output suggest that we're heading for a cooling period, not a warming period.

Still, even if global warming isn't going to happen, choosing renewable energy sources makes sense and is a better alternative than trying to obtain petroleum based products from unstable parts of the world. It's also why hydro and nuclear should be pursued; they are more reliable than the "green" options over the long term. After all, clearing the air of particulates and other emissions does make sense as people can breath easier and are less likely to succumb to respiratory distress and diseases like asthma, but the obscene interest in taxing the heck out of carbon emissions makes no sense especially since carbon dioxide is a natural byproduct of human respiration.

Besides, water vapor is a much more efficient and prevalent greenhouse gas - the problem for the econuts is that they haven't quite figured out a way to demonize it just yet. But, as the climate doesn't exactly cooperate with the so-called models and warming doesn't exactly go as planned, you'll see the same folks pushing global warming saying that everything is the result of global warming, including cooling and cold weather. It's already happening as climate change has come to replace global warming as the term of art.

It's also a term of deception.

Al Gore Has Gone Off The Rails

Al Gore, champion of the zero-growth eco-leftists, now wants people to engage in civil disobedience to prevent the construction of coal plants.

"If you're a young person looking at the future of this planet and looking at what is being done right now, and not done, I believe we have reached the stage where it is time for civil disobedience to prevent the construction of new coal plants that do not have carbon capture and sequestration," Gore told the Clinton Global Initiative gathering to loud applause.

"I believe for a carbon company to spend money convincing the stock-buying public that the risk from the global climate crisis is not that great represents a form of stock fraud because they are misrepresenting a material fact," he said. "I hope these state attorney generals around the country will take some action on that."

The government says about 28 coal plants are under construction in the United States. Another 20 projects have permits or are near the start of construction.

Gore gave this speech in New York. Gore lives in Tennessee. How about saving the environment by stopping the jet-setting ways and teleconferencing instead. Think of all the emissions just to attend in person. If the environment is in as dire shape as he claims, start doing your part.

Instead, we hear about how Gore travels around the nation and the world claiming that global warming is inevitable unless people act and stop building power facilities that run the global economy. Of course, Gore's proselytizing means only one thing - increased costs for energy that will be passed on to rate payers? I know you can.

Tithing, or giving carbon credits, just shifts around a bunch of money, and doesn't actually reduce carbon emissions one iota.

Meanwhile, what exactly is a carbon company? Every company on the planet relies on carbon and carbon emissions. In fact, every person relies on carbon. We are carbon based life forms, and it's an integral part of every facet of the planet's ecosystem and habitat. I figure he's referring to oil, gas, and coal companies, who provide the backbone of the planet's energy and chemical, industrial, and manufacturing needs. Gore seeks nothing less than the monetization practically every transaction on the planet using junk science and bad law to push forward an extremist agenda that bears no rational relationship to what scientists are actually observing. Indeed, even as NASA was trying to minimize the role the sun plays in global climate change, they had to admit that they barely understand the various cycles that have been observed in solar output.

Meanwhile, where exactly is the nation supposed to get the power to run all those electric cars that are being touted to save the environment? Wind power is still years off in the future, if at all with the way some states are dragging their feet and demonstrably blocking any efforts to site wind power projects in the state.