For the debate on Boxer-Liebermann-Warner, Daniel J. Weiss, Director of Climate Strategy at the Center for American Progress, has written a debunking of standard attack lines on climate action (here). Here are the myths he takes on:
- Binding emissions reductions before 2020 are too swift, and should not be imposed until the technology to remove carbon dioxide from coal-fired power plants is commercially available.
- Global warming reductions will drive oil and gasoline prices even higher.
- Global warming reductions will decimate families’ budgets.
- Global warming reductions will send American jobs overseas to countries that do not reduce their emissions.
- The Climate Security Act will wreck the economy.
- Clean energy jobs will cost workers in fossil fuel industries their jobs.
- Global warming solutions will hurt the poor.
- The Climate Security Act will bankrupt American industry unless we hand out lots of free pollution permits.
- Steep reductions in greenhouse gases cannot occur without a significant increase in subsidies for nuclear power.
- Economic analyses by industry groups show that the Climate Security Act is unaffordable, will lead to huge electricity rate hikes, and cost jobs.
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Given the recent (often justified) disinformation deletions, I was struck by this in the Weiss article, “Severe swings in regional climates are already causing natural disasters to sweep the globe.” Really? Name them.
Extended drought, extended heat waves, wildfires, intense rain events, regional flooding — these would be the biggest in my mind. The Australians, Chinese, British, French, Brazilians pretty much take this statement for granted now. Not sure why Americans don’t.
Greenhouse intensive industries in Australia have been practicing these tactics for a while now. The most popular seem to be to exaggerate the cost of climate change abatement and to engage in scaremongering about industries relocating overseas. Some of the key lobbyists would even refer to themselves as the ‘greenhouse mafia’.
Paul K.
Joe’s list should be sufficient, but just in case you’re not convinced, there’s one more that should do it — the wholesale destruction of the Boreal forests — the largest terrestial carbon sink on earth — by pine bark beatles.
They’re moving north, overwintering and the trees are stressed. As a result, vast continental-sized stretches of forest are dying or in danger of dying.
And for the record, the amount of area lost to forest fires in the US in the past two years has been double the average amount lost per year in the decade preceding 2006.
And so far, there have been 8 class V hurricanes this decade — more than any other decade, and there are three seasons left.
These are observed facts, not projections. Denying them isn’t an option. They simply are — whether you deny them or not.
Joe refers to professional skeptics like you as delayers 1000; I prefer to think of you as the ostrich 1000, myself.
There’s a lot at stake here, Paul. Why continue to deny reality? Even if there’s only a 1% risk that the scientists are right about AGW, any rational risk reduction strategy would argue for immediate action to prevent it.
Your position is irrational.
john,
For reasons other than global warming, I am all for replacing fossil fuel with alternatives and efficiencies which happily is the best way to reduce the CO2 emissions that so concern you. I don’t think hyperbole and disaster mongering are effective or ethical methods of persuasion.
Joe’s list – extended drought, extended heat waves, wildfires, intense rain events, regional flooding – is not sufficient. None can be correctly attributed to the current 1C warming which the Weiss article does. Nor does the historical record indicate any of these are outside normal variability.
Perhaps you are not up to date with current science which has pretty much broken the connection between AGW and hurricanes. Alarmists should jump off that shark.
You may be right about the pine bark beetles. Is there an entomologist in the house?
Hey Joe!
Forget all that phony balony! Here is empirical data for the coming Big Chill.
Data is from the Quatsino BC weather station for Sept 21 for the intervals 1990-2000 and 2001-07. For 1990-2000, mean Tmax, 20 deg C. For 2001-07, mean Tmax, 14.5 deg C. That is a decline of 5.5 deg. For the lightstation, the decrease is 4.9 deg. The drop was quite abrupt: 2000 Tmax, 19.5; 2001 Tmax, 14.5.
The records at this very remote station near the nothern tip of Vancouver Island start at 1895, and the monthly means for Sept 2006 and 2007 are now the same as they were for 1900-09. I have data for other times of the year that show the same.
The Pacific ocean has turned over, and the climate is now a shifting into a cool phase that could last for another 100 years.
There is a ominous chill in the air coming out the northwest that I have never felt here in Metro Vasncouver. There is something happening out there in ocean. And it not good.
Harold, if it were true, it would be great news. We needed counterbalance to anthropogenic global warming.
Alas, we are headed steadily upward and outward and temperature this century.
“National Climate Data Center’s recent announcement of the coldest April in more than a decade and the 29th coolest since record keeping began 114 years ago. The average temperature was 1 degree cooler than the average April temperature of the entire 20th century.
A few weeks ago, as North America was emerging from one of its coldest and snowiest winters in decades, the climate center issued a statement saying that snow cover on the Eurasian land mass had been the most extensive ever recorded, and that this March had been only the 63rd warmest since 1895.
On April 24, the World Wildlife Fund published a study, based on September’s 2007 data, showing that Arctic ice had shrunk from 13 million square kilometres to just 3 million. What the WWF omitted was that by March the Arctic ice had recovered to 14 million square kilometres and that the ice cover around the Bering Strait and Alaska was at the highest level ever recorded…” —Investor’s Business Daily
It’s the sun; the sun is 12 years into an 11 year cycle. Look up.
Ron:
No one has broken the link between AGW and hurricanes. Indeed, it gets stronger the more data we have, particularly when you look at cyclone data as well as the Atlantic hurricanes. They are the same.
Assertions without fact do not equal fact.
And it’s small comfort that you are for cutting fossil fuel use for “other reasons.”
Suppose, for example, that we come up with domestic alternatives that aggravate AGW. You would support such an approach. I would not. More importantly, the planet would not.
Hey Joe!
I have evidence for new Pacific Oscillation with a period of 60 years. It went into a warm cycle at 1940 while the PDO was going into a cool cycle at that date. Now both of these two cylces are going into cool phases, and it is going to get darn cold. I’d start stocking up on earmuffs and wool socks.
john,
Your last comment was to me not Ron. Apparently you do not agree with the eminent Emmanuel et al.
I certainly agree that assertions without fact do not equal fact. Nor do misquotes. I do not favor merely reducing fossil fuels. I favor replacing them. Big difference. It should greatly comfort you that we share a common goal if for different reasons.
I can’t think of any alternative that could possibly aggravate AGW. There are at present three five deployable alternatives: Hydro, Wind, Solar, Nuclear and Geothermal. Those are the ones I support. If you’ve read any of my climateprogress comments other than on this thread, you know that I am in full agreement with Joe that there is absolutely no reason to wait for any more.
ATTN: Paul K!
As a matter of fact, I’ m such an expert. I worked in the pheromone research group at Simon Fraser Univ for 30 years. The PI was Prof. John H. Borden, the world’s expert on mountian pine beetle.
Briefly, AGW had nothing to with the recent beetle out break. The real reason is Smokey the Bear! About 1900 much of the lodgepole pine burned down, and a new forest started to grow. Vigorous fire began in the Smokey the Bear era.
Maybe better to keep an open and inquiring mind, and not accept ready made answers provided by politicians. The politicians don’t have a good record with the truth. They do have a record creating fear, creating programs, taking our money and accomplishing nothing.
The sad thing about these lines of attack is that manufacturers could mitigate greenhouse emissions while CUTTING energy costs if they changed their thinking a little. I’m associated with Recycled Energy Development, a company that converts manufacturers’ excess heat into electricity and steam. That means more efficiency, which in turn means lower pollution and costs. EPA and DoE estimates suggest such energy recycling measures could produce 40% of our nation’s electricity, slashing greenhouse gases by about 20%. Unfortunately, regulations give monopoly protection to utilities and make it exceedingly difficult for more efficient options to emerge. Smart manufacturers should be lobbying Congress to ease these utility protections to slash power costs.