October 2007

As the Bush Administration spends more and more time creating its legacy, the worst collection of initiatives are those that whittle away at American sovereignty.  President Bush is many things to many people but he is most clearly a multinationalist.  He is playing too nice with UN-types and Europeans eager to diminish our sovereignty in the name of supranational authority.  This clearest example is the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST), conceived back when socialism was considered the future.  It now serves as the proxy for other, failed efforts, such as the Kyoto Protocol on “global warming.”

The Cape Cod Commission in Massachusetts Thursday denied Cape Wind's application to bury electric cables needed to connect its proposed 420-megawatt offshore wind farm in the Nantucket Sound to the state power grid.

If the popular press is your source for climate science, you are probably terrified the end is near—moving as far inland as possible and staying inside to avoid heat stroke. You might be altering your lifestyle to combat the effects of carbon dioxide emissions. But if you look at the facts about “global warming,” the picture is not as bleak as it may seem.

The administration of Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius has blocked a new power plant from being built, despite looming energy shortages, because, like virtually all power plants, it will emit carbon dioxide(CO2). GOP legislators are upset about this.

This action sets a dangerous precedent for Kansas farmers and the state’s economy. That’s because agriculture creates greenhouse gases, such as methane from cows, that are far more powerful than the CO2 emitted by power plants or motor vehicles. As The Los Angeles Times notes, livestock alone “are responsible” for more greenhouse gas emissions “than all the planes, trains, and automobiles on the planet.”

Unless you are willing to give up the omnivorous diet that humans have enjoyed even during the Stone Age, and limit your diet to a narrow range of grains and vegetables, you can’t live without giving off substantial amounts of carbon dioxide. As the Times observes, “cutting out red meat would do more to reduce greenhouse gas emissions than trading in a gas guzzler for a hybrid car.” While adults can get by on a meatless diet, it is often a recipe for stunted child growth and inadequate child nutrition. Humans are bioengineered to eat meat.

Nuclear power plants, by contrast, don’t emit much carbon dioxide, but rather than being happy with that fact, environmentalists have done everything they can to block such plants, which are rare in the U.S. but common in other Western countries like France. They oppose non-nuclear plants like the one blocked in Kansas based on their carbon dioxide emissions, and oppose nuclear plants based on exaggerated fears about small amounts of radioactive material. To them, the only good power plant is a power plant that’s been shut down. Left unanswered is how the world is supposed to generate enough power to meet growing power demands without building any new power plants.

If the U.S. does not build new power plants, and lacks reliable sources of power as a result, industries that rely on such power may respond by moving to countries like China, which show less concern for the environment, countries where industrial pollution does not involve just odorless CO2, but also classically stinky, toxic pollutants that foul the air and cause cancer and serious respiratory ailments. The net result will be increased mortality and reduced economic growth.

In “Housing Construction Plunges” (Examiner, October 18, 2007), the author, Martin Crutsinger, correctly identifies the reasons for the current problems in the ever-important housing industry: “Consumer prices, meanwhile, rose at the fastest pace in four months, reflecting higher energy and food costs.” He backs this up with the fact that “the Labor Department reported that consumer prices rose by 0.3 percent in September, slightly more that the 0.2 percent that analysts had been expecting as energy prices rose after three straight declines and food costs shot up at the fastest pace since June. Core inflation, excluding energy and food, remained tame, however rising by 0.2 percent.”

This current Congress’s short-sighted ethanol and energy-restricting policies will not only lead to these recessionary pressures, but will work to increase greenhouse gases, as thriving companies are the ones who have the luxury to invest in expensive energy efficient measures.

Global warming is quickly becoming the one-stop shop for almost every variety of social engineer and closet authoritarian who hankers to boss the rest of us around. Those who want to dictate where Americans live, including the size of their houses and lots, what they drive or whether they drive, and even what they eat, need only link their goal to the campaign against global warming to infuse it with moral force.

Senators Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and John Warner (R-Va.) have introduced their version of an energy rationing bill to address global warming, S. 2191. The Climate Security Act would set mandatory targets on greenhouse gas emissions and set up a cap-and-trade scheme covering about three-quarters of the economy’s emissions to enforce the targets. The goal is to reduce total U. S. emissions to 63 per cent below 2005 levels by 2050.

The bill is important because Lieberman is chairman and Warner is ranking Republican of the subcommittee of the Environment and Public Works Committee that has primary jurisdiction over the issue. Their bill is likely to be the starting point for the committee’s efforts to pass energy rationing legislation.

The one-page fact sheet on the bill released by Lieberman’s office states that the purpose of reducing greenhouse gas emissions is “to avert catastrophic global warming.” The fact sheet further claims that the Climate Security Act “will accomplish that purpose without harming America’s economy or imposing hardship on its citizens.” This statement should be read back to the good Senators every few minutes as the bill is considered in committee

Greenwire reported that environmental pressure groups were divided on whether to support the bill. Two other members of the subcommittee, Senators Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), issued a statement of principles for climate legislation that the Lieberman-Warner bill appears not to meet.

Did Al Gore deserve to win the Nobel Peace Prize? That should depend on whether Gore’s agenda enhances or diminishes the prospects for peace.

When explaining their reasons for awarding him the prize, the Nobel Committee said not a word about peace. Instead, the Committee described Gore as “probably the single individual who has done most to create greater worldwide understanding of the measures that need to be adopted” to combat global warming.

Chief among those “measures” are the Kyoto Protocol, a ban on new coal-fired power plants, bio-fuel mandates, and carbon taxes on gasoline and other fossil fuels.

Such policies will make energy scarcer and less affordable, limit economic growth, divert vast quantities of grain from food to auto fuel, and further politicize natural resource management and economic development. I can’t think of another agenda better suited to foment conflict and strife within and among nations.

About 1.6 billion people in developing countries have never flipped a light switch, and some 2.4 billion still rely on primitive biomass—wood chips, crop waste, and dung—to cook their food and heat their homes. Millions of these same people suffer from hunger and malnutrition. Global warming policies that make energy and food scarcer and less affordable are immoral and destructive of peace.

MONDAY'S tax cut announcement by the Coalition [in Australia] means the election campaign is off to a good start. Economic policy has been moved to the top of the political agenda, as it should be.