Greenhouse Gas Cuts Proving Illusory

by H. Sterling Burnett

Recent greenhouse gas emissions cuts reported by developed nations are illusory, a new peer-reviewed study has found, as many of the cuts have occurred simply as a result of industries relocating to developing nations such as China and India.

Migrating Emissions
As analysts and some politicians recognized when debating the Kyoto protocol, rapid economic growth in developing nations has offset the emissions cuts in industrialized economies. Much of that growth has occurred in China and India as a result of lower wages for workers and less stringent pollution controls and environmental standards.

Ironically, industries that have recently moved overseas merely export the same goods back to developed nations, such that global greenhouse gas emissions are unaffected or actually increase.

A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences examines the extent of “outsourced” carbon emissions. Conducted by the Centre for International Climate and Environmental Research in Oslo, Norway, the study finds emissions from increased production of internationally traded products have more than offset the emissions reductions achieved under the Kyoto Protocol.

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Ethanol Subsidy Finally Eliminated

by Lurita Doan

A stubborn Washington has taken a long time to finally come to its senses and kill ethanol subsides. Once heralded as a great "green" initiative, studies soon proved that diverting huge amounts of American farmland to the production of expensive corn-based ethanol actually increased green house gases. America's best scientists warned stubborn senators that the nation’s ethanol policy was not achieving the desired results, even as it consumed massive amounts of taxpayer money.

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New EPA Rules Will Increase Cost of Energy

by IBD Editorials

Overregulation: The Environmental Protection Agency has two new rules it wants to impose on utilities that use coal. But the rules make sense only if you want less energy, higher prices and fewer jobs.

Remember then-candidate Barack Obama's comment in January 2008 that the price of electricity would "necessarily skyrocket" once his policies went into effect?

It's now coming to pass — just as OPEC has decided it doesn't want to pump more oil. Get the picture? We're being systematically starved of energy, and our economy is suffering. Just don't ask the White House to help.

Broadly, the new EPA rules seek to clean up the air. Everyone's for that, of course. But at what cost?

According to a study the economic consulting firm National Economic Research Associates conducted for the coal industry, the two new rules mentioned above will by themselves cost electric utilities $184 billion by 2030 and kill 1.4 million jobs.

So why do it? Coal, our nation's No. 1 energy source for making electricity, is "dirty." And granted, coal isn't the cleanest available energy. But clean-coal technologies make it cleaner than ever.

It's also the least expensive and most easily available energy we have. For a pittance, it provides fully half the power we need to heat and cool our homes and run our TVs and computers.

But if these EPA rules go into effect, the cost of energy will shoot up 11% to 23% in just a few years.

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Electric cars may not be so green after all...

by Ben Webster

ELECTRIC cars could produce higher emissions over their lifetimes than petrol equivalents because of the energy consumed in making their batteries, a study has found.

An electric car owner would have to drive at least 129,000km before producing a net saving in CO2. Many electric cars will not travel that far in their lifetime because they typically have a range of less than 145km on a single charge and are unsuitable for long trips. Even those driven 160,000km would save only about a tonne of CO2 over their lifetimes.

The British study, which is the first analysis of the full lifetime emissions of electric cars covering manufacturing, driving and disposal, undermines the case for tackling climate change by the rapid introduction of electric cars.

The Committee on Climate Change, the UK government watchdog, has called for the number of electric cars on Britain's roads to increase from a few hundred now to 1.7 million by 2020.

Britain's Department for Transport is spending $66 million over the next year giving up to 8,600 buyers of electric cars a grant of $7700 towards the purchase price. Ministers are considering extending the scheme.

The study was commissioned by the Low Carbon Vehicle Partnership, which is jointly funded by the British government and the car industry. It found that a mid-size electric car would produce 23.1 tonnes of CO2 over its lifetime, compared with 24 tonnes for a similar petrol car. Emissions from manufacturing electric cars are at least 50 per cent higher because batteries are made from materials such as lithium, copper and refined silicon, which require much energy to be processed.

Many electric cars are expected to need a replacement battery after a few years. Once the emissions from producing the second battery are added in, the total CO2 from producing an electric car rises to 12.6 tonnes, compared with 5.6 tonnes for a petrol car. Disposal also produces double the emissions because of the energy consumed in recovering and recycling metals in the battery. The study also took into account carbon emitted to generate the grid electricity consumed.

Greg Archer, director of Low CVP, said the industry should state the full lifecycle emissions of cars rather than just tailpipe emissions, to avoid misleading consumers. He said that drivers wanting to minimise emissions could be better off buying a small, efficient petrol or diesel car. “People have to match the technology to their particular needs,” he said.

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Global Warming Charlatans Feel the Heat

by Alan Caruba

The University of Virginia, after vigorously resisting a Freedom of Information Act (FOI) request for data related to the emails of Michael Mann, was the subject of a court order to make them available. While global warming is known worldwide for its claim that manmade warming would doom the Earth, the names and machinations behind the fraud are far less well known.

Mann, a climatologist, was part of a relatively small clique of charlatans who, working for the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), conjured up all manner of “proof” that the Earth was on dangerous trajectory, heating up. Mann invented the “hockey stick” graph that demonstrated this bit of climate magic.

With Al Gore as the most famous face of global warming, Mann and others lent credibility to the IPCC that called for massive reductions in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions resulting from energy use of fossil fuels, primarily oil and coal.

Mann’s problem began when the “hockey stick” graph was debunked and demolished as bogus. All this occurred while Mann was on the faculty of the University of Virginia and while large amounts of research grant money were being received by the University to support Mann and others.

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Rising forest density offsets climate change

by Alister Doyle

(Reuters) - Rising forest density in many countries is helping to offset climate change caused by deforestation from the Amazon basin to Indonesia, a study showed on Sunday.

The report indicated that the size of trees in a forest -- rather than just the area covered -- needed to be taken into account more in U.N.-led efforts to put a price on forests as part of a nascent market to slow global warming.

"Higher density means world forests are capturing more carbon," experts in Finland and the United States said...

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EU to ban cars from cities by 2050

Cars will be banned from London and all other cities across Europe under a draconian EU masterplan to cut CO2 emissions by 60 per cent over the next 40 years.

by Bruno Waterfield

The European Commission on Monday unveiled a "single European transport area" aimed at enforcing "a profound shift in transport patterns for passengers" by 2050.

The plan also envisages an end to cheap holiday flights from Britain to southern Europe with a target that over 50 per cent of all journeys above 186 miles should be by rail.

Top of the EU's list to cut climate change emissions is a target of "zero" for the number of petrol and diesel-driven cars and lorries in the EU's future cities.

Siim Kallas, the EU transport commission, insisted that Brussels directives and new taxation of fuel would be used to force people out of their cars and onto "alternative" means of transport.

"That means no more conventionally fuelled cars in our city centres," he said. "Action will follow, legislation, real action to change behaviour."

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Greenpeace Founder Questions Man-Made Global Warming

States of Fear: Science or Politics?

At one time, both the pseudoscientific geocentric notion of the universe (that the Earth lies at the center of the solar system) and eugenics (the racial theory to “purify” the human race) were widely accepted by leaders in science, politics, journalism, and business. Such theories were pushed by powerful interest groups that possessed highly politicized agendas driving government policies and public opinion, until ultimately both theories were disproved. Is environmental debate today, including global warming, bio-technology, and other issues, based on science or politics? Are popular accounts of such issues rooted in science or phantom risks? Are government policies focusing on the trivial while ignoring the real, and in the process wasting limited resources, crippling human innovation to address true dangers, and inviting tyranny? In discussing not just environmental issues but the increasing politicization of science itself, best-selling author Michael Crichton examines the intersection of media, politics, and science, inspiring viewers to challenge old assumptions and to search beneath the surface of issues as they seek to discover the truth.

Climate Catastrophe Cancelled: What You're Not Being Told

Global Warming Is Responsible For Extra Snowfall

Congress Should Rein in the EPA

by William F. Shughart II

Despite the Obama administration’s recent decision to delay new rules regarding smog and emissions from industrial boilers, EPA is preparing to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse-gas emissions from power plants and industrial users that consume oil, natural gas and coal beginning in January. The potential cost: cutting back on carbon emissions will force many smaller, coal-fired power-generating plants to shut down, almost certainly raise electricity rates around the country, undermine the international competitiveness of U.S. businesses and send more American jobs overseas.

It is proposing a reduction in the national ambient-air-quality standard for ground-level ozone, a precursor of smog, which would require industries and many small businesses to adopt new, costly emission controls. (Public opposition has prompted the EPA to delay the rule’s issue until July.) The potential fallout: according the Manufacturers Alliance, an organization that for 75 years has conducted economic research, estimates 7.3 million jobs lost beginning in 2020.

It just raised the amount of corn-based ethanol that must be blended with gasoline from 10 percent to 15 percent for 2007 and newer vehicles. Projected cost: around $5 billion a year in federal subsidies.

It is reviewing federal legislation proposing to regulate so-called hydraulic fracturing in natural-gas production, a drilling technique that state agencies already oversee and which has been used in more than one million wells in the United States since 1950. The potential cost: in Appalachia’s Marcellus Shale zone alone, EPA regulation would destroy 280,000 potential jobs and reduce tax revenues by $6 billion over the next decade, according to a study by Natural Resource Economics.

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New Climate Model: 25% Less Warming

by Patrick J. Michaels

Bet you haven’t seen this one on TV: A newer, more sophisticated climate model has lost more than 25% of its predicted warming! You can bet that if it had predicted that much more warming it would have made the local paper.

The change resulted from a more realistic simulation of the way clouds work, resulting in a major reduction in the model’s “climate sensitivity,” which is the amount of warming predicted for a doubling of the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide over what it was prior to the industrial revolution.

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John Coleman Debunks the Myth of Global Warming

Unstoppable Solar Cycles

Glenn Beck Climate of Fear

The Global Warming CO2 Scam

Say 'Global Warming Is Man-Made' OR ELSE!!

About those global sea level predictions? Never mind

by Howard Richman and Raymond Richman

This is the third tough winter in a row. Is it really true that no one saw this coming?

Actually, they did. Allow me to introduce Piers Corbyn. Mr Corbyn works in an undistinguished office in Borough High Street. He has no telescope or supercomputer. Armed only with a laptop, huge quantities of publicly available data and a first-class degree in astrophysics, he gets it right again and again.

Corbyn, like many other astrophysicists, has figured out that climate change is mainly due to extraterrestrial forces, including solar activity and cosmic rays, not carbon dioxide.  If you still believe in the theory that carbon dioxide causes climate change, click here to watch an excellent lecture by Jasper Kirkby at the Cern, one of Europe's most highly respected centers for scientific research.  Astrophysicists have discovered that changes in the rate of cosmic ray inflow cause climate change and that solar activity shields the earth from cosmic rays.  They haven't completely worked out the mechanism yet, but they think it has to do with cosmic rays causing cloud formation and clouds reflecting sunlight back into space.

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How The EPA Could Destroy 7.3 Million Jobs

by William F. Shughart II

Environmental Protection Agency officials Wednesday provided power companies and states with new guidance on EPA’s plans to regulate greenhouse gases.

A D.C. lobbyist for two major power companies told Bloomberg News that “the energy and manufacturing sectors will essentially be in a construction moratorium” as a consequence.

Here we are, with 15 million Americans unemployed and millions more underemployed, and the EPA is moving blindly ahead with new regulations that will increase dramatically the energy costs of U.S. industries, reducing their competitiveness and profitability, and making it less likely they will hire.

EPA’s action amounts to rewriting the Clean Air Act to suit its own bureaucratic and ideological objectives. At a time when the Obama administration should be focused on job creation and the nation’s economic recovery, promulgating stringent new environmental rules should be its last priority.

Hundreds of U.S. cities and counties already don’t meet the current standard. If the EPA tightens the rules, these counties will fall permanently into noncompliance, even with costly investments in new pollution controls.

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