The Paddock

The "free market" solution would have been cap and trade. By putting a price tag on carbon, much the same way a landfill charges you for disposing your garbage, the market will seek more efficient, less polluting and more economical alternatives to fossil fuels, as substitutes. The Republicans who always advocate free trade effectively nixed cap and trade even though the cost to the consumer which was estimated at about 50 cents a day was vastly overstated by the opponents of cap and trade.

Now we have what RBS is talking about above, an energy policy by bureaucracy. I don't doubt the EPAs sincerity of wanting to do it's job, but a government agency trying to create an energy policy is just not an efficient, or goal structure way to go about solving this problem.

Maybe President Huntsman will put cap and trade back on the table again and an energy policy for the 21st Century with it. :)

cap and trade? NO thanks...

I argued this a few years ago and people thought I was crazy. As the Glaciers ice melts the land under it rebounds slowly. Thus, the melting water should already be accounted for in the buyouncy of the land because as the land rises with the melting water the net effect is minimal.

Steve Nerem, the director of the widely relied-upon research center, told FoxNews.com that his group added the 0.3 millimeters per year to the actual sea level measurements because land masses, still rebounding from the ice age, are rising and increasing the amount of water that oceans can hold.

"We have to account for the fact that the ocean basins are actually getting slightly bigger... water volume is expanding," he said, a phenomenon they call glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA).

Taylor calls it tomfoolery.

"There really is no reason to do this other than to advance a political agenda," he said.

Climate scientist John Christy, a professor at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, said that the amount of water in the ocean and sea level were two different things.

"To me… sea level rise is what's measured against the actual coast," he told FoxNews.com. "That's what tells us the impact of rising oceans."

Taylor agreed.

"Many global warming alarmists say that vast stretches of coastline are going to be swallowed up by the sea. Well, that means we should be talking about sea level, not about global water volume."

In e-mails with FoxNews.com, Nerem indicated that he considered "sea level rise" to be the same thing as the amount of water in the ocean.

"If we correct our data to remove [the effect of rising land], it actually does cause the rate of sea level (a.k.a. ocean water volume change) rise to be bigger," Nerem wrote. The adjustment is trivial, and not worth public attention, he added.

"For the layperson, this correction is a non-issue and certainly not newsworthy… [The] effect is tiny -- only 1 inch over 100 years, whereas we expect sea level to rise 2-4 feet."

But Taylor said that the correction seemed bigger when compared with actual sea level increases.

"We’ve seen only 7 inches of sea level rise in the past century and it hasn’t sped up this century. Compared to that, this would add nearly 20 percent to the sea level rise. That's not insignificant," he told FoxNews.com.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/06/17/research-center-under-fire-for-adjusted-sea-level-data/#ixzz1PbiJ0orf

Easterbrook spoke before a group of about 700 scientists and government officials at the fourth International Conference on Climate Change. The conference is presented annually in Chicago by the Heartland Institute, a conservative nonprofit think tank that actively questions the theory of man's role in global warming. Last year the Institute published Climate Change Reconsidered, a comprehensive reply to the United Nations' latest report on climate change.

"Global warming is over -- at least for a few decades," Easterbrook told conference attendees. "However, the bad news is that global cooling is even more harmful to humans than global warming, and a cause for even greater concern."

Easterbrook made several stunning claims about the effects of the coming cold. There will be twice as many people killed by extreme cold than by extreme heat, he predicted, and global food production will suffer because of the shorter, cooler growing seasons and bad weather during harvest seasons.

But not everyone is breaking out the overcoat and mittens.

“It's absurd to talk of global cooling when global heating is with us now and accelerating," said Dan Miller, managing director of the Roda Group, and an expert on climate change. "According to NASA, this past April was the hottest since temperature measurements began. And 2010 is on track to be the hottest year since temperature records began.

“North America was relatively cool last year, but the Earth as a whole was much warmer than average,” he said.

Data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA) also points to a warming trend. The agency recently reported that global land and ocean surface temperatures for the first four months of 2010 were the warmest it had on record.

Easterbrook, one of 75 climate and policy experts presenting at the conference, uncovered sudden climate fluctuations of warming and cooling -- all of which occurred before 1945, when carbon dioxide levels began to rise sharply -- through geologic evidence.

Ten big climate changes occurred over the past 15,000 years, and another 60 smaller changes occurred in the past 5,000 years.

Based on new analysis of ice cores from Greenland to Antarctica, Easterbrook said global temperatures rose and fell from 9 to 15 degrees in a century or less -- swings that he said were "astonishing."

In addition, he explained that energy consumption will rise -- and consumer prices will rise along with it -- and political and social instability could result as the world population grows 50 percent in the next 40 years while food and energy demand soars.

Another presenter at the conference, James M. Taylor, an environmental policy expert and a fellow at the Heartland Institute, said that global cooling is already happening. Based on figures provided by the Rutgers University Global Snow Lab, he noted that snow records from the last 10 years exceeded the records set in the 1960s and 1970s.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/05/19/global-cooling-scientists-warming/#ixzz1PbolCjrn

There is an overestimation of the environment’s sensitivity to CO2,” said Dr. Patrick Michaels, senior fellow in environmental studies at the CATO Institute and a past president of the American Association of State Climatologists.

Michaels spoke before a group of about 700 scientists and government officials at the fourth International Conference on Climate Change. The conference is presented annually in Chicago by the Heartland Institute, a conservative nonprofit think tank that actively questions the theory of man's role in global warming. Last year the Institute published Climate Change Reconsidered, a comprehensive reply to the United Nations' latest report on climate change.

Michaels described how the U.N. gathers weather information for its computer models, on which the EPA based its ruling. He said data gathering at weather stations in some parts of the world is spotty, and U.N. scientists add new figures to compensate. But in doing so, he said, they also add errors to the final research product.

“There is a systemic bias in the computer models,” said Michaels, whose research suggests that the U.N.’s adjusted computer modeling data, rather than actual observed data, is what connects the rise in temperatures to manmade causes. When one takes away the computerized modeling enhancements, he said, mankind’s contribution to global warming is virtually nil, approximately .03 degrees, rather than .07 degrees, over the last 50 years.

Thus, he said, most of the planet's warming is not from manmade sources. “This idea that most of the warming is due to greenhouse gases caused by man just isn’t right,” he said.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/05/18/epa-carbon-dioxide-threat-human-welfare/#ixzz1PbqeKq7r

Great stuff Cobby!

Patrick Michaels is a slut turning tricks for the fossil fuel industry. He's paid hundreds of thousands of dollars per year by big oil, big coal, utilities etc. to keep the water muddied on GCC.
He has no credibility:

"Michaels is the Chief Editor for the "World Climate Review," a newsletter on global warming funded by the Western Fuels Association. Dr. Michaels has acknowledged that 20% of his funding comes from fossil fuel sources: (http://www.mtn.org/~nescncl/complaints/determinations/det_118.html) Known funding includes $49,000 from German Coal Mining Association, $15,000 from Edison Electric Institute and $40,000 from Cyprus Minerals Company, an early supporter of People for the West, a "wise use" group. He received $63,000 for research on global climate change from Western Fuels Association, above and beyond the undisclosed amount he is paid for the World Climate Report/Review. According to Harper's magazine, Michaels has recieved over $115,000 over the past four years from coal and oil interests. Michaels wrote "Sound and Fury" and "The Satanic Gases" which were published by Cato Institute. Dr. Michaels signed the 1995 Leipzig Declaration. In July of 2006, it was revealed that the Intermountain Rural Electric Association "contributed $100,000 to Dr. Michaels." (http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/GlobalWarming/story?id=2242565&page=1) ALEC advisor. http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=11310 and http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=3558 "

No conflict of interest or anything here.

First, grants normally go to universities to conduct research not to an individual professor to buy an new yacht or winter home in Boca.

Second, the federal government is not a special interest. Government agencies are tasked with fact finding, not making a profit. So please explain how the government providing a grant to a university to conduct research on anything - cancer, immigration, global climate change, somehow taints the research. And don't forget that much of this research was ongoing with a Republican president and congress.

Third it isn't just the US, there is a broad consensus of climatologist around the world that GCC is a man made problem with potentially catastrophic results. Many of those countries don't even know what a grant is.

Can you provide a link of an example of what you are talking about or is this just more parroting of what you heard some industry spokesman, or their paid stooge recite on Hannity's show?

I saw the exact same thing happen in the 60s with he tobacco industry. Researchers had proven that cigarette smoking causes cancer but the tobacco industry was able to pay a few scientists like this guy to say that the evidence is "questionable" they knew they could not disprove it but if they could muddy the water enough to confuse enough people they would keep legislation from passing that would be harmful to the tobacco industry's profits. They succeeded for over a decade to keep people puffing and dying.

The same thing is going on now with GCC

great post and summation of why we are in big trouble as a nation

more...

Rev 11:18 The nations were angry, and Your wrath has come, And the time of the dead, that they should be judged,
And that You should reward Your servants the prophets and the saints, And those who fear Your name, small and great,
And should destroy those who destroy the earth.”

If mankind is incapable of affecting the Earth what does this verse mean then? Man has the capability to destroy the Earth with nuclear weapons, what makes you think they can't destroy it with pollution?

I've answered this one before, but I will do it again...

Man can do things to alter the air we rely on for oxygen. Man can cause catastrophic events with the use of nuclear power and yes, man can go to the moon (not the heavens).... BUT MAN CANNOT MANIFEST GLOBAL WARMING OR ALTER THE EARTHS TEMPERATURE. WE DON'T HAVE THAT KIND OF POWER. ONLY LIBERALS DO. (So they think).

Just because we have nuclear powers, does not mean we can control the climate or weather. Alot of people want to think they are Gods or have such power... but they aren't (and don't).