THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XI, Issue # 132, May 27, 2009
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
CLIMATE CHANGE "MORALITY": THE DUPLICIOUS POLITICS
OF MONEY, POWER, CONTROL, & CORPORATE RENT-SEEKING
By Paul K. Driessen
WHAT IS AT STAKE ON THE ENERGY & CLIMATE-CHANGE BATTLE FRONT: LIBERAL DEMOCRATS, POLITICAL
ENVIRONMENTALISTS, & THEIR ENERGY RATIONING CRUSADE -- USING THE GLOBAL WARMING HOAX TO JUSTIFY
MAGLIGNANT ENERGY & ECONOMIC POLICIES THAT HAVE NO SCIENTIFIC OR RATIONAL BASIS -- THE WAXMAN-MARKEY
CLIMATE & ENERGY BILL & THE GOALS OF THOSE WHO ARE PUSHING FOR ENACTMENT OF THIS BILL -- IF THE BILL
BECOMES LAW, THE IMPACT IT IS LIKELY TO HAVE ON U.S. ENERGY SUPPLIES & ON THE OVERALL ECONOMY
FULL STORY:
The climate “crisis” is a “moral issue that requires serious debate,” Al Gore proclaimed in an April 27, 2009,
AlGore.com blog post.
His conversion to the Anglo-American tradition of robust debate came a mere three days after the ex-Vice President
of the U.S.A. refused to participate in a congressional hearing with Lord Christopher Monckton, former Science
Advisor to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Republicans had invited Monckton to counter Gore’s testimony
before the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee.
But Gore froze like a terrified deer in headlights, and Committee Chairman Henry Waxman told the U.K. climate expert
he was uninvited.
The Liberal Democrats' hypocritical cowardice simply reflects a recognition that their entire energy rationing crusade
would collapse if they ever allowed real debate.
Monckton would have focused on the science. But it is morality that truly requires serious debate. Climate
Armageddon claims are being used to justify malignant policies that have no rational basis.
Global average temperatures peaked in 1998 and, since that point in time, have cooled slightly, despite steadily rising
CO2 levels. Except in its Western Peninsula, Antarctica is gaining ice, and Antarctic sea ice reached an all-time high in
2007. Arctic ice is seasonably normal, and, in 2008, the Northern Hemisphere was covered by more snow than ever
before recorded.
Scientists are hard-pressed to point to longterm state or country climate trends that differ from historic experience and
can reasonably be linked to anthropogenic warming crises. Merely asserting that obesity causes warming or increased
malaria and house cat populations are due to warming does not make it so.
Even more devastating to alarmist claims, long-held assumptions about the deep Atlantic countercurrent or “conveyor
belt” below the Gulf Stream have been undermined by recent studies. Those assumptions underlie many climate models
and their scary worst-case scenarios about alleged planetary crises. The models and GIGO scenarios are now even more
questionable.
Yet, model results are constantly portrayed as “evidence” -- “proof” that immediate, drastic action is required to avert
disaster. Nonsense. Climate changes and their causes are complex, our knowledge is still limited, and the inputs and
assumptions are deficient.
Climate models are no more reliable than computer predictions of future Super Bowl winners and scores.
Their Frankenstein scenarios are no more valid as a basis for law and public policy than the special effects in The Day
After Tomorrow or Jurassic Park.
Worse, even the 942-page Waxman-Markey climate bill’s absurd target -- a 17% reduction in U.S. carbon dioxide
emissions by 2020 and 83% by 2050 -- would have no detectable benefits, even if CO2 does cause climate change.
Research climatologist Paul “Chip” Knappenberger calculates that even these draconian measures would result in
global temperatures rising a mere 0.1 degrees Fahrenheit less by 2050 than doing nothing, mostly because Chinese and
Indian emissions would quickly dwarf America’s job-killing reductions.
Meanwhile, China, and South Africa want developed nations to slash carbon emissions 40% by 2020, and give poor
countries $200 billion annually, to help them cope with global warming’s imagined disasters. Bolivia wants $700 billion
a year. Our children will get the bill for that, too.
None of this apparently matters to congressional leaders, Climate Action Partnership members or other professional
alarmists, and rent seekers. If anything, it has spurred them into even hastier action, to transform America’s energy and
economic system, regardless of the consequences. Waxman-Markey was approved by the House Energy and
Commerce Committee May 21, 2009, on a 95% party-line vote.
Above all, they want to replace vile hydrocarbons with wind power. That would require $$$ billions in taxpayer
subsidies; hundreds of thousands of turbines, across millions of acres of scenic land, habitats and sea lanes;
thousands of miles of new transmission lines and towers; and billions of tons of concrete, steel, copper and fiberglass
-- plus raw materials and natural gas for backup generators.
Spain’s experience should be cautionary, but probably won’t be. According to a study by Dr. Gabriel Calzada, Spanish
taxpayers spent $754,000 for each new job in the wind turbine industry (mostly installing towering turbines) -- and
destroyed 2.2 regular jobs for each “green” job, primarily because pricey “renewable” electricity forced companies to lay
off workers, to stay in business.
A recent Lauer Johnson Research poll found 78% of respondents saying even a $600 per year increase in utility bills
would be a “hardship.” They should be so lucky.
Compared to no cap-and-tax regime, the Waxman-Markey bill would cost the United States a cumulative $9.6 trillion in
real GDP losses by 2035, according to an updated study by the Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis. The
bill would also cost an additional 1.1 million jobs each year, raise electricity rates 90% after adjusting for inflation,
cause a 74% hike in inflation-adjusted gasoline prices, and add $1,500 to the average family’s annual energy bill, says
the Heritage Foundation.
The Congressional Budget Office says the poorest one-fifth of families could see annual energy costs rise $700, while
high income families could see their costs rise $2,200 a year. Harvard University economist Martin Feldstein estimates
that the average person could pay an extra $1,500 per year for energy. MIT says household energy costs could climb
$3,000 per year.
Where will families find that extra cash? “What do I tell a single mom, making $8 an hour?” asked North Carolina
Congressman (and Congressional Black Caucus member) G. K. Butterfield.
That was a few days before he and his Democrat colleagues voted against amendments to Waxman-Markey that would
have suspended the punitive law if electricity prices go up more than 10% after inflation, unemployment reaches 15%,
or gasoline prices hit $5. What will he tell that single mom?
Eco-activists -- i.e., political environmentalists -- gleefully predict that oil, gas and coal companies, utilities, vehicles,
and investors are destined for extinction. No wonder lobbyists have descended on Washington -- over 2,300 of them
just on climate change: 4.4 per member of Congress.
Some are getting $400-$850 an hour for their skill in promoting mandates, subsidies, legal measures to hobble
competitors, and cap-tax-and-trade versions of the mortgage derivatives market. Al Gore, alone, boasts of having
received $300 million (from unnamed sources) to trumpet alarmism and draconian legislation.
Colleges, scientists, activists, unions, and companies receive billions in taxpayer money, to hype climate chaos claims,
intimidate skeptics, and lobby Congress. African bureaucrats get millions from the United Nations (and thus U.S.
taxpayers) to hype climate disaster claims that keep millions of Africans impoverished and deprived of the
life-enhancing benefits of reliable, affordable electricity.
President Barack Hussein Obama says the Bush administration “made decisions based upon fear, rather than foresight,
and, all too often, trimmed facts and evidence to fit ideological predispositions.” As regards this critique of the Bush
administration, Obama and his Democratic Party allies in Congress should closely examine and take to heart their own
deceitful behavior, particularly the global warming propaganda they disseminate.
As it stands, this Congress is rapidly shaping up to be the most unethical, immoral, and dictatorial in history. When the
people finally rebel, it won’t be a pretty sight.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
American Politics, Political Competition, & the Control of
Public Policy: Elections, Political Parties, Political Factions,
Ideologies, & Special Interest Groups
American Government & the U.S. Presidency:
Presidential Politics & National Leadership
American Government & the U.S. Congress:
Congressional Legislative Politics & National Public Policy
Political Environmentalism Versus Human Progress & Prosperity:
Policy Issues Relating to Energy, Environment,
& Natural Resources
The Earth's Natural History, Global Climate Changes,
& the Future of Human Life & Civilization on the Planet:
Science, Ideology, & Public Policy
Political Economy -- Philosophies, Systems, & Public Policies:
Government, the Economy, & Economic Prosperity
Paul K. Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow and the Congress of Racial
Equality, and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green Power – Black Death.
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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Conservative Government Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity