William Yeatman

As today’s coverage of McCain’s cap-and-trade speech makes clear, one cannot underestimate the power of the press in sustaining the global-warming movement. The Republican candidate’s Oregon speech outlines the usual GW drivel, demanding, reports the Associated Press, that “the country return to 2005 emission levels by 2012; 1990 levels by 2020; and to a level 60 percent below that by 2050.”

Really, and how is the current Kyoto plan to reduce to 1990 levels by 2010 going? CO2 emissions in the EU were 26 percent over their 1990 targets as of 2005.

But, of course, the AP won’t report this failure, meaning that the average reader has no context by which to judge McCain’s fanciful rhetoric.

Consider, by contrast, how AP (that most liberal and most ubiquitous of establishment news sources) reports on a different, “controversial” McCain policy — Iraq. Here are the nut graphs:

KANSAS CITY, Mo., April 7, 2008 — . . . Addressing the Veterans of Foreign Wars, McCain criticized Obama and Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and insisted that last year’s U.S. troop buildup in Iraq brought a glimmer of ‘something approaching normal’ there, despite a recent outbreak of heavy fighting and a U.S. death toll that has surpassed 4,000. Clinton and Obama, still battling for the Democratic presidential nomination, dispute the claims of success, arguing the war has failed to make the United States safer.”

Note the qualifiers: “insisted” and “despite a recent outbreak of heavy fighting and a U.S. death toll that has surpassed 4,000” as well as the reference to McCain’s critics, all of which give the reader important context.

AP’s coverage of McCain’s climate speech, however, contained not a single qualifier, much less a critic. So let’s rewrite it to make the language consistent with AP’s Iraq form (my additions in italics):

PHOENIX, Ariz., May 12, 2008 — John McCain . . . argues (insisted) that global warming is undeniable despite the fact that temperature data indicates the earth has not warmed in ten years.

“In remarks prepared for delivery Monday at a Portland, Ore., wind turbine manufacturer, the presidential contender says expanded nuclear power must be considered to reduce carbon-fuel emissions. He also sets a goal that by 2050, the country will reduce carbon emissions to a level 60 percent below that emitted in 1990. But leading economists dispute McCain’s reduction targets, arguing that European nations have failed to meet more modest 2010 reduction targets under the Kyoto Protocol.”

Without journalistic malpractice, the global warming debate would be very different today.

Yet another pair in a series of climate non-aggression pacts have been inked between U.S. states and foreign governments. This time, according to Greenwire (password required), “Wisconsin and Michigan entered into separate agreements with the United Kingdom on Monday, vowing to work together toward solutions to climate change. Under the pacts, Britain and the states agree to share research and ideas about reducing greenhouse gas emissions, promoting low-carbon technologies and raising public awareness.”

Here’s a quick refresher. Article I, Section 10:

No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.

These two agreements appear to be arguably less “a cooperative effort…to reduce carbon dioxide emissions” as are the regional climate pacts such as RGGI or their counterparts with, e.g., Canadian provinces. But do they nonetheless still purport to supplant activities which the constitution vests exclusively with the federal government, barring express approval by Congress?

Their champions have long indicated that is their intent. Let’s turn to Environmental Defense’s Tony Kreindler, whose comments on the MI and WI agreements echo several years of explanations by activist governors: “The states are stepping up because of a lack of leadership at the federal level.”

It’s a good thing that, out of a sense of caution and zealous protection of the Constitution and Congress's prerogatives, there are all of those strict constructionists up on Capitol Hill introducing legislation setting forth the “wherefore” of the constitutional requirement and calling for a vote, to give the courts some guidance in the event one or more of these states’ citizens objects. Apparently holding up agreements with Indian tribes is one thing, but we're talking about the "imminent Danger" of a climate crisis here.

As reported by James Pethokoukis of the U. S. News and World Report Capital Commerce blog, “According to Stephen Hayward of the American Enterprise Institute in a recent Wall Street Journal opinion piece: Reducing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent (from 1990 levels) by 2050, would cut U.S. annual emissions from 6 billion metric tons a year, or 20 tons per person, to 1 billion metric tons. When you consider that the U.S. population will be over 400 million by 2050 with a much larger economy, per capita emissions would have to fall to 2.5 tons, or about what you would find in today's Haiti and Somalia.”

With those numbers in mind, consider the study released this week by a team of MIT researchers that quantifies a “floor” below which the individual carbon footprint of a person in the U.S. will not drop, regardless of income. The "floor" below which nobody in the U.S. can reach, no matter a person's energy choices, turned out to be 8.5 tons. That was the emissions calculated for a homeless person who ate in soup kitchens and slept in homeless shelters.