ON ASTEROIDS, CLIMATE CHANGE AND U.S. ACTION
With These Odds, Cheney Should Step Up To Plate
By Todd Wilkinson, 2-26-07
Cosmic forces of the universe—chalk it up to God, the work of Tricksters, or simply random chance if you’re an atheist—are again assuming the role of a major league baseball pitcher, hurling a brush back fastball that is expected to arrive in a close trajectory with Earth on April 13, 2036.
If the asteroid, nicknamed Apophis, beans the planet, the 460-foot chunk of rock could take out an entire city, kick up enough dust to wreak global havoc, or worse.
Some of the brightest human minds, which are capable to seeing into the dark cold spaces of our galaxy, have been tracking the flight path and they’re concerned enough that they want to alter fate.
Apophis, they say, has about a 1 in 45,000 chance of making a direct collision and there is talk of spending at least $300 million on a special mission to intercept the incoming missile and steer it from our orbit.
The scientists involved, who include former astronauts, intend to deliver a more detailed strategy to the United Nations in 2009. Meantime, a report is being submitted this month to (no I am not making this up) the UN’s Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space.
With little controversy, the idea of a cataclysm caused by a flying object—and the necessity of confronting it to avoid disaster— can be accepted as fact, with spare resistance from right-wing think tanks, their denialist toadies at Fox News, and some of the most powerful people on Earth, including one individual who happens to have a residence near the fairways of the Teton Pines golf course in Jackson Hole.
Yet when it comes to dealing with something that has far more extensive scientific understanding and likelihood of occurrence associated with it, to say nothing of the eminent scientific minds being applied to the challenge, the Teton Pines resident, yes, the Vice President of the United States of America (the man who is helping to orchestrate a new plan for decisive military action in Iraq), reportedly blanches at the thought of doing something real and substantive about climate change.
Compared to the odds of a meteor hit, experts say the certainty of dramatic negative fallout for civilization, and economic costs, from rapidly rising temperatures is nine in ten.
Even Dick Cheney’s financial advisor in recent weeks came out with a statement, saying he believes the Bush Administration’s stubborn refusal to sincerely engage on addressing human-caused carbon dioxide emissions, in addition to investing real R & D resources in alternative energy, is the stuff of folly and wrongheaded as a pro-business strategy.
We don’t know everything, but we know enough that we must change course with the fossil fuel economy by plotting an exit strategy that will take decades.
“Successive U.S. administrations have taken little interest in either oil substitution or climate change, and the current one has even seemed to have a vested interest in the idea that the science of climate change is uncertain,” penned Jeremy Grantham who, at least until recently, oversaw Mr. Cheney’s investment portfolio.
A conservative investor himself, Grantham says “there is now nearly universal scientific agreement that fossil fuel use is causing a rise in global temperatures. The U.S. is the only country in which environmental data is steadily attacked in a well-funded campaign of disinformation (funded mainly by one large oil company).”
Can you guess which company that is?
Mr. Cheney is smart, crafty and partisan, but this isn’t a partisan issue. As Grantham notes, this is an issue born of successive administrations but it is the present one that must act.
If Mr. Cheney has the President’s ear, as has been widely suggested, he could whisper a single recommendation that has the power to alter fate as surely as a space mission to deflect an asteroid does.
Whether or not Apophis scores a direct hit in 2036 is, in relative terms compared to climate change, speculative. By then many of us reading this will already be gone, but our kids and grandkids and their children won’t be. They WILL be coping with the effects of a dramatically-warmed climate that will make today’s luxury recreation economy in the Rockies—whose greatest logistical challenge today is deciding how to spend our leisure time—the least of their worries.
If the snow pack is gone or profoundly diminished, who’ll care about catching the first Tram at the local ski resort? If one is small minded enough to believe that hard times in Mexico have created a local refugee problem, what happens when millions of coastal dwellers, yes, U.S. citizens, have to flee rising seas or seek out safe water in an arid West that is markedly hotter and drier?
If our bee populations, and that of other pollinators, are devastated because their environment has changed faster than they can adapt, affecting their role in producing crops and other necessities, it won’t matter that warmer temps enable tomatoes to grow an extra 12 weeks in the mountains.
Stubbornness doesn’t build legacies that last. Foresight does.
A troubling future for Mr. Cheney own grandkids is hurling forward fast. Will this Vice President step up to the plate and heroically try to make their world better or have them take one for him?
Cheney—and perhaps, Cheney alone— holds the influence to set this Administration on a new course that could produce the greatest era of technological innovation, ever.
The Lovenstein Institute of Scranton, Pennsylvania has just released it's IQ data for the last 50 years of US presidents. You can boo their sight to see all, but who were the lowest? Well, oh my gosh, Bushy senior was pegged at 98. And the boy? Well he got a hot 91. This puts him marginally on the low end of average. Actually, I think they may have left out the decimal point for junior's as an act of kindness. This does have a bearing on the administrations treatment of climatic apocalypse.
It has been scientifically demonstrated that the human does not respond very well to future catastrophy. We need to see action. We are haqrd wired to respond to a fist coming at us or a visible tornade heading towards us. We cannot deal with the posibility, that in the near future the San Andreas Fault under the school we just built, may actually move and swallow up the whole school complete with students. The california grape growers cannot foresee that climate will not cause them to have to change varieties but actually have to quit growing grapes. A lady interviewed on the CBC boob tube news responded to the question about banning the use if incandescent light bulb "We should have a choice" She didn't see that the choice was to kill, or not to kill, our kids.
Alarmist? While backing my dump truck up to the gorge and watching in the mirror to see how close I was to the edge, I forgot that the mirror makes things look farther away than they actually are. So this idiot comes running towards me yelling at the top of his lungs, "STOP! YOUR GOING TO GO OVER THE EDGE!" I yelled back, "YOUR JUST A BLOODY ALARMIST!
Damn right I'm an alarmist! The climate changes will accelerate very rapidly and Flannery, Suzuki, and others are screaming at us to shut down the pollution generators. So why is Bushy not responding? Simple. He's too damn stupid! I've emailed him and told him so too, but of course I wouldn't expect him to understand what stupid means.
Now why would some canuck, like me, feel that he has the right to criticise the president of the US? Just because, as Canadians, we live next to the elephant, and when the elephant rolls we get pinched. Our government is no better, and hopefully we will get it going, but it's no use for any government to change without the US. The US is the pollution leader of the world and needs to be the cleanup leader. We need to shut down the Alberta oil sands, but the premeir of Alberta is another Bushy. Besides we sell the
US 20% of your oil requirements and if we cut them off Bushy would probably invade us just as he's done with Iraq.
Todd, why did this article spend so little time on the front page?
Comment By pete geddes, 2-27-07Al G says GW is a moral issue. OK, then what?
Armed with Gore's utility bills for the last two years, the Tennessee Center for Policy Research charged Monday that the gas and electric bills for the former vice president's 20-room home and pool house devoured nearly 221,000 kilowatt-hours in 2006, more than 20 times the national average of 10,656 kilowatt-hours.
"If this were any other person with $30,000-a-year in utility bills, I wouldn't care," says the Center's 27-year-old president, Drew Johnson. "But he tells other people how to live and he's not following his own rules."
Pete: Nice try. With all due respect, that's a specious argument.
It'd be a bit like taking FREE to task—and delegitimizing its existence— by saying if it really believes in the free market, then why are you registered as a tax-exempt non profit? or saying if you truly are compassionate and caring about poor people on Earth, as you say, you should immediately stop buying cheap government subsidized products made abroad by people who are exploited and who are exposed to unbelievable pollution caused by the manufucturers hiring them (and the consumer demand for those products). This isn't an Al Gore issue. If he never existed, the arguments he makes would perhaps be even more compelling.
I have a rubber wrist band like the yellow Lance Armstrong one. It reads: "I buy goods from poorer countries."
Exactly how will poor people beneift if I stop buying their goods?
Global trade has brought countries with about 3 billion people from subhuman conditions of life into modern standards of living with adequate food, basic shelter, modern clothing rather than rags, and life spans that are over 60 rather than under 45. (In the early 1950s China's life expectancy was 41 years, in 2005 it was 72.7 years. This is the greatest reduction of inequality that has happened in human history.
In East Asia, this reduction of inequality has resulted from a wave of economic growth that has swept through Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, and much of Indonesia. It is rapidly spreading across China, is well on the way in India and Vietnam and is coming to other countries around the world.
Pete: You write of China from your office in Bozeman and the research you've done over the internet: "This is the greatest reduction of inequality that has happened in human history."
Once again, if you are so confident and feel so strongly about our gift as American consumers to elevating the quality of life in China, I would say: Move there, go there yourself, raise your kids there, let them breath in the air and drink the water (the most polluted and health harming in the world) and sip from the cup of prosperity you tout.
The health officials I've spoken with in China when I visited there last year say it's only a matter of time before the life expectancy gains made recently begin to fall because of environmental degradation caused by largely unregulated industry and conditions that are not getting better because of Americans buying more Chinese goods; they are getting worse.
If China is anything, it is an example of the free market run amok. It's true: the average wages are up; so, too, for the moment, is life expectancy, but what good are those gain if you live in a bleak hell hole?
Anyone who doubts the power of humans to negatively alter the environment in the name of prosperty (or who doubts that we are sending stuff into our atmosphere and affecting climate) should spend a single day in an industrialized Chinese city. See it with your own eyes. Then come back here and tell us how generous we're being for buying products from China.
And the alternative is....?
Comment By Todd Wilkinson, 2-27-07Do it right.
Stop pretending that we as consumers live in isolation from the rest of the world. In one form or another, although we in the U.S. live upstream in holding a large percentage of the wealth that's been created, we are downstreamers and downwinders when it comes to dealing with the impacts of our own consumption.
If we want cheap products from China there is going to be a cost we have to pay, particularly if it's the pollution in China, caused by the power plants fueling the factories making our cheap goods, that is contributing significantly to climate change and air pollution that has negative impacts for us.
Let's stop pretending that we are going to consume our way out of a problem that's caused by our own inefficient and unstainable consumption. To get back to the point of the piece, if Cheney and Bush went before the American people tomorrow and in a sincere expression of cooperation said they wanted to aggressively work with industry and other nations and channel monies into R and D aimed at transitioning away from aniquated coal; low fuel efficiency in cars; mobilizing and coordinating, as IBM calls it, "an intellgient power grid", and rewriting the tax codes to induce, entice, persuade consumers to support the products that serve as a bridge to a destination that will take decades to reach, that would be a start. And it wouldn't have to be any more traumatic—indeed it would lead to a new techno boom—than the one leading from horse and buggies to autos. The livery people of the 19th century were screaming bloody murder about horseless carriages being too costly, being unreliable, and having no staying power. There are enough brilliant minds in this country and the world to do it right.
I love it!
"Not every wealthy politician lives in a vast private mansion, and TreeHugger.com reports on one who lives more simply:
Is it possible that George Bush is a secret Green? Evidently his Crawford Winter White House has 25,000 gallons of rainwater storage, gray water collection from sinks and showers for irrigation, passive solar, geothermal heating and cooling. "By marketplace standards, the house is startlingly small," says David Heymann, the architect of the 4,000-square-foot home. "Clients of similar ilk are building 16-to-20,000-square-foot houses." Furthermore for thermal mass the walls are clad in "discards of a local stone called Leuders limestone, which is quarried in the area. The 12-to-18-inch-thick stone has a mix of colors on the top and bottom, with a cream- colored center that most people want. "They cut the top and bottom of it off because nobody really wants it," Heymann says. "So we bought all this throwaway stone. It's fabulous. It's got great color and it is relatively inexpensive."
Of course we don't begrudge Gore his life of luxury--only his sanctimonious insistence that the rest of us sacrifice our comforts to the dubious god of global warming. And there's no reason he couldn't live in a smaller house and throw his money at solar power."
Come on. Gore makes for a great scapegoat for anyone who has a rational self interest (money), partisan reason, or other to deny that the science of global warming is compelling. Hey, that's your right. But if Gore were to suggest that the young players on the hockey team you coach should drink more water to avoid dehydration, you would concoct some Gorewellian conspiracy. You can rant about Al Gore all you want—and it makes for a clever distraction— but you wouldn't listen to him even if you didn't believe climate change was some kind of hoax.
So let's get back to the point. You write of "the dubious god of global warming." What exactly do you mean by that?
PS: Go for it, George W.
By the way, Pete, your "dubious god of global warming" has a spectacularly heroic ring to it. You haven't been writing any speeches for Sen. James Inhofe have you?!
Uhh, boys, please note were the quotes begin and end...
Comment By TW, 2-27-07Sorry. I couldn't tell if it was your commentary. Since you posted it, I assumed you may have written and agreed with it.
One thing that you and other climate change skeptics in northern Rockies should be aware of is that Tim Flannery, who wrote a recent critically acclaimed and best-selling book on climate change, The Weather Makers, will be in Bozeman Monday, March 5th, appearing at Montana State University's Strand Union ballroom at 7:30 pm.
Flannery (who isn't Al Gore but who has lectured around the world) knows the science and can speak to the effects of rising CO2 levels. Pete, since you have often raised doubts about the science and the causes of warming and have made assertions that we know too little to take any significant action—out of fear the cost of investment would be high—these might indeed be topics to present to Flannery before the audience on Monday night.
Todd:
As you well know I have never "raised doubts about the science and the causes of warming."
I stand by the IPCC as the authority re: the science of climate change.
But that is not where the action is....
Twinkle twinkle little star
What a climate changing monster you are
A new theory emerges: http://www.spacecenter.dk/research/sun-climate/a-new-theory-of-climate-change
Pete: Let's have some fun.
Sorry if I've misinterpreted your position. You write that you have never raised doubts about the science and the causes of warming."
You wrote the following in a piece of yours published here at New West and in a column that appeared in the Bozeman newspaper:
"We know the climate is warming. From that empirical assertion we move onto much shakier ground. Despite assurances to the contrary from Al Gore, there are large uncertainties regarding the physical processes driving climate change. (Google “uncertainty + climate change” for a sample.)"
So, do you attribute warming to natural or human causes? You say there are large uncertainties.
Moreover, you are listed as a policy expect on a website operated by the National Center for Policy and Analysis. In addition to the site featuring Fred Singer, one of the best known climate change skeptics in the world, who says it is unclear that humans are causing climate change, the NCPA site says this of global warming:
"While the earth has warmed between 0.3 and 0.6 degrees Celsius and carbon dioxide (CO2), has increased more than 30 percent over the last 150 years, scientists still debate the extent to which human activity is the cause of global warming. NCPA scholars believe that while the causes and consequences of the earth’s current warming trend is still unknown, the cost of actions to substantially reduce CO2 emissions would be quite high and result in economic decline, accelerated environmental destruction, and do little or nothing to prevent global warming regardless of its cause."
Reading this, it says that "NPCA scholars believe that while the causes and consequences of the earth's current warming trend is unknown...."
Does this mean you disagree with the NPCA scholars? What percentage of them, do you believe, concur with the findings of the IPCC?
Regarding Dr. Nir Shaviv referenced in the Danish Space Center work above see his comment regarding cosmic radiation versus CO2. http://www.sciencebits.com/ice-ages
Comment By pete geddes, 2-27-07Here’s an excerpt from my most recent piece on climate change in the BDC:
In the Bozeman Daily Chronicle, February 14, 2007
Montana’s Climate Change Caucus_by Pete Geddes
Montana is experiencing shorter, warmer winters and drier summers. This change impacts our ecosystems. For example, rivers peak weeks earlier than in the past stressing fish habitat and exacerbating the potential for large summer wildfires. These changes are consistent with climate models predicting the greatest warming over the higher latitudes during winter. The latest UN report indicates this warming is “very likely” due to human activity.
That there is still uncertainty is uncontested, but not an excuse for inaction.
It should be obvious that because I wrote a piece for NCPA it does not follow that I fall into the Fred Singer camp.
Pete, Welcome to the camp of those who believe in the scientific underpinnings of human-caused climate change. I would certainly not want to identify you as a member of Singer's camp if you aren't one.
Moreover, welcome Craig Moore. Any discussion of climate change here at New West wouldn't be the same without your reliable dissent. To help the group understand your position better, please share with us whether you agree or disagree with the findings of the latest IPCC report that humans are causing climate change or does your mentioning of Dr. Nir Shaviv and the Danish Space Center mean that you are still of the conviction that climate change is being caused naturally by cosmic radiation?
Rather than posting a zillion other sites, Craig, please tell us where YOU stand.
Pete writes on the conclusions of the IPCC: "That there is still uncertainty is uncontested, but not an excuse for inaction." Tell us, Pete, what action would you take?
I'd start somewhere around here:
From the UK's Select Committee on Economic Affairs
Memorandum by Professor Robert Mendelsohn, Yale University
" Current estimates suggest that there will be benefits to warming for mid to high latitude countries over the first half of this century, which may turn to small damages by the end of the century. There will also be net damages to low latitude countries that will start immediately and will get only worse over time as warming progresses. Adding these effects together, the global impacts from greenhouse gases will be small for the first half of the century and only gradually become larger by the end of the century.
These results suggest that another ton of carbon will cause between 0-$5 of damage this decade. This marginal damage will rise over time as the stock of greenhouse gases accumulate. Projected estimates of the future marginal damage of carbon emissions lie between $50-$100 per ton by 2100. These marginal damage estimates provide important guidance for how much to spend on mitigation costs. At the moment, one might only want to spend up to $5 per ton. In the future, one would be willing to spend far more."
Great. So let's cut to the chase and get beyond the gobbledygook: You're having a conversation with the President, the Vice President, the heads of major companies, hundreds of mayors, people like California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and other governors, and other prominent people who say something needs to be done relatively quickly. Stop hiding behind free-market platitudes and say something here, Pete, in plain English that readers at New West can understand. You're looking at a crisis that is only going to grow as climate changes, making hot places hotter, drying alot of places up, causing water shortages, refugees, disruptions in such ecosystem services as pollinators (bees) that play a vital role in growing a huge percentage of our food, etc. etc. etc. This is not the time to talk about taking a cruise ship from Anchorage across the North Pole to the country formerly known as Iceland. So you've got the president's and vice president's ear: Now say something constructive and not evasive or obtuse. What would you tell the President? Would you say his policies have been brilliant, foresighted, stupid, what? Come on, Pete, be brave and take a stand.
Comment By Craig Moore, 2-27-07Since you asked here is the best I can do.
Back on 6-14-06 I wrote in response to one of your columns:
“In my opinion, Galileo's finger points the way towards true science, challenging the conventional, consensus wisdom. Always pointing to the "yeah buts" of inconvenient facts that undermine the agenda driven arguments of consensus claimed by the orthodoxy of true believers. Science is apolitical. Democracy describes a political process and political institutions by humankind to make decisions, which may be grounded on valid or faulty science. I believe we have a choice to make as to how we spend our public funds regarding climate. Either develop plans and build infrastructure that works in harmony with Mother Earth's cycles or throw it away in the fruitless attempt to challenge or alter the cyclical pattern of cooling and warming. In my opinion an example of such waste is the rebuilding of New Orleans. All of the floodgates and walls will not hold back rising sea levels when disaster strikes again. We should adapt and work in harmony with our changing environment.”
Similarly on 7-06-06 I wrote:
“Tim, in my opinion, growing worldwide populations, the 300,000,000 we now have in the US and likely doubling in 15 years, the fact that the Asian tigers were left out of the Kyoto requirements, any Kyoto rollback to 1990 levels is a useless teacup dip in Flathead Lake, and Europe is reassessing it's CO2 emission levels because it can't hit the already useless target levels tells me that CO2 will continue to go up. The genie is out of the bottle and won't return. The growing populations will require carbon-based fuels. The only good news is that the 1500-year climate cycle seems oblivious to CO2 and completely dependent on solar radiation cycles. "We" may affect the amplitude and frequency of the warming and cooling cycles but we can't flatten them out. Keep this in mind, the Earth's climate has always been in flux passing from one state to another, as that is how the cycles reoccur and refresh the planet. Whether man participates or not Mother Earth will dance to her cycles. We need to learn how to survive and prosper with her dance steps or become the next source for carbon- based fuel.”
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As you know, Dr. Pielke et al. recently published a paper in Nature regarding adaptation. The upshot is that we need a realistic approach to climate change that balances adaptation strategies with mitigation efforts. I agree.
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Back on 6-15-06 I wrote:
“Pete, I think there is a third question. Is there anything we can do that actually will make a difference to the problem identified? We could spend a trillion dollars worldwide to build a teacup to take one scoop from Flathead Lake. The result is that we did lower the lake level, but the gain is hardly worth the pain. Asia is building more and more factories while continuing to devour growing quantities of coal and dino fuel. Trying to revert to 1990 carbon emission levels is not only not going to happen, that rate won't even begin to drain the carbon pond.”
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Having Al Gore stand up at the Golden Calf awards and lecture the rest of us that global warming is a “moral” issue is absurd. Guess what? That makes it personal for all of us in our daily lives. As to your remarks about Al Gore not being the issue, his rhetoric makes his own lifestyle an issue of personal morality as he points the finger of morality at the rest of us. He can’t make the issue a moral stand and not be subject to question on his own display of immorality as measured by his own standards. Al Gore had a large moral issue facing him when he averted his eyes as VP. Over 3 million people died in the Congo and surrounding countries while he said and did nothing. By this measuring stick we know where his morality and conscious begins. He could have resigned!!!!
Dr. Shaviv pegs the % of C02 at between a third and one-half human caused to the current climate change condition. That sounds about right to me. Now what is the human contribution to the present total atmospheric level given that in ancient times the earth had much higher levels even without humankind? Let’s just assume at least 25% of the total. So if we totally eliminate this 25% from the C02 forcing level, we are running on almost 6 cylinders rather than 8. We just may go a little slower but the direction and the destination are without dispute, until the cycle reverses again as it always has. Realistically, we, the world We, can’t even reduce to 7 cylinders. That is not a wish, but recognition of fact.
My conscience would not let this go. Above I meant to write "conscience" not conscious. Second, I know my math on the cylinders is erroneous. I state the reduction from 8 to 6 cylinders for illustration purposes. We would have .25 x .5 (50% of the problem being C02 contribution at a worst case scenario) = .125 or 12.5% of the total C02 volume. A 12.5% reduction of 8 cylinders is 1, not 2 as I indicated. Much easier to work with 8,6,and 7 for illustration of point.
Comment By pete geddes, 2-27-07Brave and take a stand....all in plain English?....hmmm....As my last post suggests, I'm in favor of a carbon tax, Mr. President, phased in over time. Let's start at $5 per ton and move to $30 in ten years. Let's take the revenue and give it to the NAS for a competetive grants program to fund promising R&D;. How's that?
Comment By Charles Malen, 2-28-07Let us for a minute take humans and their industrial activity out of the equation. The temperature profile of earth would be flat, increasing, or decreasing. If I am not mistaken calculations that model climate forcing assume the flat scenario since this is the most likely over a short time period, geologically speaking. The models seem to be fairly accurate. However, what if this increase is added to a situation where the temperature would be naturally decreasing, than the actual changes occurring due to human influence are larger and along with the large amount of positive feedbacks that accompany climate change would result in particularly rapid change in temperature. In this case Craig Moore's argument that nothing could be done is accurate; Dr. Pilke's argument of adaptation would be moot. In the case of a natural temperature increase than Pete Geddes' idea of a carbon tax would be particularly effective. The case of nearly neutral changes would mean that Pete’s carbon tax would have to be coupled with strong population control over the entire earth.
The amount of warming that is occurring now can be represented by a small Christmas light over every square meter of the earth’s surface. In all discussions of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the more potent gases of methane (tripled) and nitrous oxide (doubled) are often neglected when compared to carbon dioxide (approx. 40%). The number in parentheses represents the change since the start of the industrial age.
People often say that the IPCC document could be too dire, but it is just as likely to be too optimistic.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117253508123319917.html
Carbon Curbs Gain Backers
Energy Groups Shift Stance,
Possibly Giving Campaign New Fuel
By JOHN J. FIALKA
February 27, 2007; Page A8
"Estimates of the cost the various bills would impose on the nation's economy haven't been fully worked out. One environmental group, Resources for the Future, estimates that the Bingaman measure would increase electricity prices by 3.5% while the more-aggressive McCain bill could hike prices by as much as 35%."
Pete, not everyone is jumping on the carbon tax, carbon cap and trade shell game.
http://news.mongabay.com/2007/0220-carbon_neutral.html
Carbon offset schemes damage environment says report
mongabay.com
February 21, 2007
>>>>>>>
Existing carbon offset schemes are confusing and may be damaging the environment rather than helping fight climate change says a new report by the Transnational Institute, a Dutch pressure group that runs carbontradewatch.org.
The report, titled "The Carbon Neutral Myth", compares existing carbon offsets to indulgences granted by the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages.
"There are new indulgences on the market in the form of carbon offsets," states the report. "These wholesale emissions reductions can then be profitably sold back at retail prices to modern-day sinners who have money, but not necessarily the time or inclination to take responsibility for their emissions, and can afford to buy the surplus ‘good deeds’ from the offset companies."
The report argues that most carbon offset programs don't actually reduce emissions, they just create money-making opportunities for "self styled eco-capitalists" while generating complacency among consumers who are not pressed to change their consumption patterns.
"The Carbon Neutral Myth" examines how much money collected by offset companies actually goes into mitigation efforts and notes that the use of "Enron style accounting" practices by counting carbon savings expected to be made in the future as savings made in the present. It says that offset companies are making dubious claims about how fast emissions are offset, which can take hundreds of years, and that mechanisms used by such firms (like establishing tree plantations) may not actually neutralize carbon dioxide emissions.
<<<<<<<<<<
When gluttonous sinners self-baptize in the limited fount of available green energy holy water, there is less for others and it does not curb behavior. In my opinion a far more effective step is to replace carbon based power generation with nuclear as the French have been doing. Such a step is both adaptive and mitigates carbon production in a truly meaningful amount.
Is it time we rethink opposition to nuclear power? James Lovelock, promoter of the Gaia hypothesis, believes so. He writes: “Opposition to nuclear energy is based on irrational fear fed by Hollywood-style fiction, the Green lobbies and the media.… [N]uclear energy… has proved to be the safest of all energy sources. We must stop fretting over the minute statistical risks of cancer from chemicals or radiation. I entreat my friends… to drop their wrongheaded objection to nuclear energy.”
France generates 79 percent of its electricity from nuclear power; Belgium, 60 percent; Sweden, 42 percent; Switzerland, 39 percent; Spain, 37 percent; Japan, 34 percent; the United Kingdom, 21 percent; and the United States, 20 percent. With 434 operating reactors worldwide, nuclear power meets the annual electrical needs of more than a billion people.
Pete, do you have the numbers for China, India, Indonesia, and Australia?
Comment By pete geddes, 2-28-07The gift that keeps on giving.....
MORE: Don Surber comments on the coverage:
After reading the Editorialist’s coverage at the Washington Post of Al Gore’s overuse of electricity, I don’t want to hear about Republican hypocrisy ever again.
If Al Gore were a Republican, the story of his consuming 20 times the national average while lecturing the rest of us on cutting back on our energy use would be front page news from coast-to-coast. Late-nite comedians would have a field day. The editorial pages would puff up about Republican hypocrisy.
Instead we get excuses, excuses, excuses. . . .
As a proud member of the mainstream media, let me suggest that this double-standard — this refusal to hold Al Gore accountable for his actions which are contradictory to his words — only feeds the belief that the media is biased in favor of liberals — particularly born-to-the-manor, overfed, limousine liberals who consume 22,000 kilowatts of electricity each year in just one of his three homes.
Hi Craig:
Not at my fingertips.
Pete, stirring the pot a bit? Might as well throw in the yellow streak about AG not having the courage of his convictions or the command of the facts to discuss his 'moral issue' de jure with Bjorn Lomborg.
Comment By Craig Moore, 3-01-07The rhetorical dance is also quick stepping across the Pond over energy policy and nuclear power.
http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/viewarticle.aspx?articleid=2084546§ionid=97
>>>>>>>>>>>
Another waste of money, time and energy
By Bernard Ingham
…Yorkshire Forward's repetitive document is the shoddiest, most pretentious, politically correct twaddle I have read for a long time. Rather like Al Gore's Oscar-winning film.
The first question to be asked is why on earth it has been produced now, when we are waiting for a new White Paper on energy policy, currently expected to be delayed until May, after a judge ruled in favour of Greenpeace that the Government's consultation had been "seriously flawed"?
No doubt this came as much as a surprise to Greenpeace as to the Government, since the DTI received 5,000 representations, including mine and Greenpeace's, before the appearance of a review of energy policy last July, and has had more since. But that is by the way.
What it means is that Yorkshire Forward's strategy was out of date even before it was published. As such, it was a waste of time, money and effort. It becomes an even more outrageous abuse of resources when you delve into it.
Its first two lines demonstrate that it is irrelevant. Energy policy is a national, not a regional matter. Yorkshire's economy depends on national economic health because, for example, it generates nearly 20 per cent of the nation's electricity, of which at least half is "exported" through the National Grid.
For this it is highly dependent on three coal-fired power stations – Drax, Eggborough and Ferrybridge – ranging in age from 20 to 40 years. The majority of their generating units have had a good innings but we get no idea of how long they will last or what, if any, plans there are to replace them.
You would never imagine that we shall, as a nation, lose about a third of our generating capacity over the next 10-15 years through age-enforced coal and nuclear power station closures.
Instead, the future of coal-fired generation in Yorkshire – as the most carbon-intensive fuel, apart from peat – seems to rest on the development of entirely unproven and certainly uncosted carbon capture and its sequestration in the strata under the North Sea.
As for natural gas, we are told the region handles "an increasing proportion of the UK's gas landings" but "relatively little is known regarding the infrastructure today and the plans for the future".
They might have tried to find out more since Tony Blair is belatedly worried about the nation becoming reliant for 80-90 per cent of its energy imported in the form of gas from unstable countries.
Nuclear is largely ignored, even though last July's Government statement saw it making a "significant" contribution to carbon-free UK energy supplies.
This is not surprising since the region does not generate electricity with uranium, and Yorkshire Forward is not going give the "Greens" a collective seizure by suggesting it should.
So what is the purpose of this consultative document?
Essentially, it is to act as cheerleader for marginal, unreliable, expensive, unproven or positively daft but politically correct "Green" concepts of electricity supply such as wind, other renewables, bio-energy, or so-called micro-generation, which means encouraging people to convert their homes into mini-power stations, regardless of cost or benefit.
Cheerleading is necessary because regional (and sub-regional) targets for renewables have arbitrarily and entirely undemocratically been imposed on Yorkshire, and currently have East Yorkshire under siege from wind-subsidy farmers. But these targets are utterly irrelevant to the twin aims of affordable security of electricity supply and combating global warming.
If Gordon Brown had anything about him, he would order the immediate incineration of Yorkshire Forward and other make-work bureaucracies of its ilk in the interests of economy and, yes, global cooling.
Last Updated: 28 February 2007
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All of the informed voices in the discussion of climate change/energy whom I've interviewed—and I've spoken with more than a hundred people ranging from government officials in the U.S. and China, CEOs of major corporations (including the auto, energy, and high-tech industries), governors, mayors, think tankers (on the right and left), national environmental leaders etc.—say that all options need to be on the table in order to consider the best, most effective, most efficient, and swiftest course of action. Those options are (and presented in no-specific order):
Nuclear
Cleaner Coal
Biofuels
Wind
Solar
Hydro/Tidal
Geothermal
Conservation (More efficient cars, more efficient power transmission, smarter use of energy at home and in the office, recycling and better use of materials, self reflection and a willingness to compromise our lives now so that our kids aren't stuck bearing the full burden and costs of action later)
Frankly, I find much of this "discussion" to be silly because those in the know, and those leaders ultimately involved in making any progress, are the ones who believe in the all-option strategy that will take decades to implement.
Trying to create the perception of divisiveness and factions, elites vs. non elites, Republicans vs. Democrats, U.S. vs. the rest of the world—and, my favorite, de-railing the discussion because of your hatred for Al Gore—is misleading and I believe a deliberate attempt to fool readers here into believing that significant progress isn't already being made.
Grow up and get past Gore. You wouldn't listen to anything he said and if you believe that he's a hypocrite, fine; label him a hypocrite, vow to never vote for him if he runs for President; gather together and burn copies of An Inconvenient Truth along with your disco and Beatles albums; but Al Gore is not the issue.
Go to other web sites where climate change and alternative energy are being discussed and the focus is light years ahead of the kind of fool's rhetoric that some New West bloggers are making in their myopic comments.
Sadly, the world, and the discussion about climate and energy, has passed you by.
Like the picture that many Americans have of the Old West, in which they believe the auto was slow to arrive to the rural hinters in replacing horses and buggies, there is a perception, too, in reading the comments of some climate change denialists and alternative energy cynics, that you are stuck in a former, long-gone century.
Open your eyes. Get outside. Do your research. Drop the partisan rubbish as most of the visionary thinkers (including CEOs of major corporations) have. And if you refuse to explore what's happening on climate change in the rest of the world beyond your simple computer screen, then use the internet to do some serious examination. Start with California and Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Go to the Energy Future Coalition website. And search out the website address for the discussion being chaperoned by Andrew Revkin, reporter for the New York Times that we at New West highlighted more than a month ago.
Mr. Wilkinson, the partisan rubbish you refer to regularly emanates from your own pen and keyboard. Look there to start. I seem to recall repeated attacks by you on others regarding funding sources and organizational affiliation that had NOTHING to do with the issues at hand. Before you chide anyone else over what you consider cheap shots, please look in the mirror.
Regarding Al Gore the man regardless of his politics, he is part of the debate. He trades on the currency of his VP political position.
--He preaches austerity, sacrifice, and morality for others while he sins and buys carbon indulgences. If he doesn't believe his own message, why should anyone else?
--He avoids ANY recognition of nuclear power as the most realistic alternative to carbon based electrical generation.
--He regularly over hypes his alarmist message.
--He distorts the debate by pushing mitigation efforts for C02 while avoiding conversation about the other GHC's and dismissing adaptation discussion as suggested by Dr. Pielke.
Complain all you want, but until you raise the level of your own game beyond being a fawning sycophant don't expect others to take you that seriously.
I apologise for the harshness of my comment, but that's how I see it. Let's all do better, shall we?
Craig Moore: I rarely respond directly to you for the same reasons that others do not. I honestly could care less who and what you take seriously. New West has demonstrated an exceeding level of tolerance to you as you repeatedly attempt to dominate discussions and bully others with whom you disagree. My posting above was to point out that the discussion about climate change has moved well beyond the limited picture painted here and the obsession that some have with wanting to narrow the substance of the issue to personal feelings they have about Al Gore. Gore is irrelevent in the same way that George W. Bush is irrelevent now to whether the U.S. prevails or fails in Iraq. As for your repeated attacks on others which rage here on an hourly, daily, weekly, monthly basis—on all subjects—you are in no position to lecture to anyone about civility and manners. Your rant above is typical. New West has made repeated offers for you to channel your negative energies more constructively into a regular column yet you decline. You make a fuss, vowing to never return, but then you come back more negative than before. I have heard from many readers who no longer wish to comment because of the personal attacks you make. As for climate change, you continually invoke Pielke as if beating readers over the head with your opinions and those of a fringe scientist will somehow sway readers who do not buy into your theory that climate change is some conspiracy foisted on the world. I have examined what Pielke has to say in depth and his assertions have been roundly dismissed by the larger scientific community. Whether you want to accept Pielke's lack of credibility or not is your call but it's a fact. (Finally, you have no idea what my political afiliation is, though if one would ask I would say it is across the board. I would call myself an independent who votes for candidates and their ideas rather than for parties).
Comment By Craig Moore, 3-01-07I fully expected the tone and personal nature of your reply. I don't take it personally this time. I returned because I was requested.
Now let's move on to issues rather than having a slap fight.
Gosh, Todd, I guess I have to admit that I feel your pain. While Craig and the legendary Pete have been correcting you, I've been getting pretty extensively slapped around by R. T Fanning, Jr. who, apparently armed with the advice of his esteemed counsel, Mrs. Budd-Falen, says that we have lost, that the entire wolf reintroduction program is going to be reversed and undone, and that the ESA itself is soon to follow. In my case, I'll just have to slink back home to nurse a goblet of 1921 and watch the moon on the snow. In your case, I'm hoping that another article is already on the way.
Comment By Pete Geddes, 3-02-07O.K. Let's have some more fun. Here's a question for weekend consideration. Following Al Gore, how about if the US purchases carbon credits for all our carbon emissions?
Here's a blogger who calculates the cost at about $10 billion. http://proteinwisdom.com/index.php?/weblog/entry/22540/
How do folks feel about this? Is it a license to pollute? Is it unfair because the US can afford it but other perhaps can't?
Enjoy the weekend.
Pete, I have concerns on multiple levels with any scheme that pushes the bubble around without actually reducing the size of the bubble. With certain countries exempted from carbon reduction all I see is business moving offshore to the carbon havens and losing jobs here. The labor cost differential has already caused this result in many US manufacturing sectors. Second, where would the carbon credit tariffs go and who would administer them, and what would the rules be? I see another UN fiasco like the Oil for Food program. As an aside we presently have Iran thumbing its nose at the UN over nukes because Iran's sponsors have given the wink. What we do know is vast amounts of money leads to all sorts of corruption without adequately addressing the underlying problem that those moneys or restrictions on behavior were intended to alleviate. The carbon problem would remain and we would have another mess. At present I believe Asia has surpassed North America on carbon emmissions. Why not start with them first for the test tube exercise proof of concept.
Comment By Pete Geddes, 3-02-07Some more food for thought:
The Economist argues that building clean power capacity does not solve the problem, because energy is tradeable:
It is not as if there is some fixed demand for energy, so that by using less carbon-emitting energy, you actually decrease the amount of carbon emitted.
This is, of course, ridiculous. When you donate money to build a new windfarm, you don't take any of the old, polluting power offline; you increase the supply of power, reducing the price until others are encouraged to buy more carbon-emitting power.
On the margin, it may make some difference, since demand for electricity is not perfectly elastic, but nowhere near the one-for-one equivalence that carbon offsets would seem to suggest. Especially since the worst offenders, big coal-fired plants, are not the ones that renewables will substitute for; solar and wind power are not good replacements for baseload power.
Instead, renewables are likely to take relatively clean (and expensive) natural gas plants offline, since those are the ones that provide "extra" power to the system. Similarly, by giving villagers in Goa energy-saving CFL bulbs, you do not lessen the amount of electricity consumed; rather, you make it possible for other people to purchase the extra energy freed up by more efficient lightbulbs.
This may be excellent poverty policy, but it does not lessen the carbon footprint of your international flight.
See Investors Business Daily. http://www.investors.com/editorial/editorialcontent.asp?secid=1501&status=article&id=257557448235867
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Under The Weather
INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Posted 2/28/2007
Climate: A group of scientists recommends to the United Nations a worldwide carbon tax and a ceiling on increases in the Earth's temperature. The first is bad economics. The second is bad science.
Two years and 166 pages after they began their research, 18 scientists presented their findings Tuesday before the U.N. They offered a host of recommendations, but none was quite so foolish as their plans for creating a worldwide carbon tax regime and establishing a ceiling for global temperature.
The report was, of course, laced with scary scenarios of vicious storms, catastrophic sea-level increases, drought, disease and a flood of environmental refugees. The scientists quite naturally pleaded for billions in research dollars for developing fuels that burn cleaner, because, after all, they need something to do, having just completed their latest U.N.-funded project.
To finance their little war on global warming, the scientists suggest a carbon tax.
But outside of the minds of these scientists and the environmental lobby, has it been clearly shown that a carbon tax is necessary to protect the planet? Not to our satisfaction, nor to the satisfaction of many scientists and policymakers. Al Gore brashly claims the debate is over, but Al Gore isn't telling the truth.
And what of the economic costs of a carbon tax? Taxes always exact an economic toll, and the effects of a carbon tax would be no different. Raising energy prices so that the lower emissions goals prescribed by the Kyoto protocol can be met could cost as much as 3.5% of the U.S. GDP. The costs are higher in Europe's developed nations. Job losses in almost inconceivably large numbers would plague economies across the world. Millions of jobs would be lost...
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Perhaps Mr. Wilkinson would be so kind to respond to the argument on the issues.
Craig: With respect to you and no maliciousness subtly implied or overtly suggested, you are very good at postulating and using other people's work to assert economic doomsday claims associated with any serious action taken to address CO2, an irony since you have roundly dismissed the arguments that climate change will have grave consequences for the global economy, the environment, and society. In the future, I will respond to your postings when I believe they warrant a response from me. Your prolific blogging on climate has established clearly where you stand. You obviously are entitled to your opinion. It's a free country.
This article was printed from www.newwest.net at the following URL: http://www.newwest.net/city/article/with_these_odds_cheney_should_step_up_to_plate/C396/L396/