Thursday, October 21, 2004; Page A28
Congress has never given the executive branch the authority in the Clean Air Act or anywhere else to regulate carbon dioxide emissions.
Mercury emissions have not been regulated under the Clean Air Act, so the administration cannot loosen its regulation.
And it is up to Congress to designate what federal lands are wilderness areas.
MYRON EBELL
Director
Global Warming and
International Environmental Policy
Competitive Enterprise Institute
This unanimous vote included Sen. John Kerry, and Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., who are currently advocating just such restrictions. But the resolution was right. A treaty obligating developed nations but not China, India, Brazil and Mexico would produce huge U.S. job losses as industries moved overseas.
However, because of the initiative of then-vice president Al Gore, the U.S. signed just such a treaty, the protocol negotiated in Kyoto, Japan, in December 1997. But President Clinton never submitted it for Senate ratification. And President Bush has consistently declared Kyoto “fatally flawed.”
Neither Bush nor the Senate has pointed out, however, that Kyoto is not only costly and unfair to the U.S., but it is also ineffective in averting a feared global warming. Scientists all agree that at best it would reduce the calculated temperature rise in 2050 by an insignificant one-tenth of a degree.
Russia has been more outspoken. The Russian Academy of Sciences, in a May 2004 report, questioned the reality of substantial future warming, concluding that Kyoto lacks any scientific base. President Vladimir Putin declared Kyoto “scientifically flawed” and intimated that Russia would not ratify it.
Yet, ironically, Russia’s parliament will likely ratify it before the year’s end, making Kyoto binding on all ratifiers. Why? The reason may be short-term economic gain, as the protocol permits selling Russia’s unused emission rights to Europeans anxious to ease the economic penalties of Kyoto’s restrictions.
Russia’s economic collapse after 1990 nearly halved its emissions and the base year chosen for Kyoto is 1990. This arbitrary choice also favors Germany, which took over a faltering East German economy, and Great Britain, which switched its electric generation from coal to natural gas at about that time. We would lose out, and maybe that’s why our economic competitors are so anxious to get us to ratify Kyoto.
S. Fred Singer is professor emeritus of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia and the author of Hot Talk Cold Science: Global Warming’s Unfinished Debate (Independent Institute, Oakland, 1999).
As determined by NOAA Satellite-mounted MSUs
Information from Global Hydrology and Climate Center,
University of Alabama – Huntsville, USA
The data from which the graph is derived can be downloaded here
Global Mean Temperature Variance From Average,
Lower Troposphere, September 2004: +0.118C
(Northern Hemisphere: +0.191C , Southern Hemisphere: +0.046C )
Peak recorded: +0.746C April 1998.
Current change relative to peak recorded: -0. 628 C
GISTEMP Anomaly September 2004 +0.49C .
Peak recorded: +0.97C February 1998.
Current change relative to peak recorded: -0.48C
Discrepancy between GHCC MSU & GISTEMP September 2004: 0.372C
Best estimate for absolute global mean for 1951-1980 is 14C (57.2F)
Estimated absolute global mean September 2004 14.49C (58.08F)
On the same day Vice President Cheney reminded us of the jobs saved by the Administration’s brave stance in rejecting artificial restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions, another administration official yesterday pulled the rug from under his feet by suggesting such restrictions are inevitable. Those remarks by Jeff Holmstead are a slap in the face for coal miners and auto workers across the nation. Greenhouse gas restrictions will mean seniors pay more for their heat in the winter, families pay more for transportation and business owners pay more in energy costs. Not only that, but they will do virtually nothing to abate a rise in temperature which may prove beneficial anyway.
Rather than waving a white flag to the energy suppression lobby (whose former standard bearer was Enron, we should not forget), Holmstead should have focused on ways to strengthen the world economy. That way, if global warming does prove to be a problem, we will have little to worry about. We’ve seen how resilient America has been to four hurricanes this year. We should be trying to make the rest of the world as strong as America rather than weakening America by engaging in futile attempts to change the weather.
Holmstead’s remarks are simply incompatible with the correct approach the current Administration has taken on this issue. The American economy doesn’t need the poison pill he’s prescribed. For the sake of American jobs, human wealth and global prosperity, Holmstead should be fired. He can no doubt look forward to a high-paying job with one of the companies that hopes to profit from impoverishing Americans through energy rationing.
Readers may remember the controversy over the mistake made in a recent paper by Ross McKitrick and Patrick Michaels, which hinged on an error in calculation of the cosine of latitudes. In this context, they may be interested to see this comment from the paper by Von Storch et al. (see last issue) that shattered any remaining credibility held by Michael Manns hockey stick:
Monthly nearsurface temperature anomalies were standardized and subjected to an Empirical Orthogonal Function Analysis, in which each grid point was weighted by (cos f)^1/2, where f is the latitude (Mann et al. 1998 erroneously use a cos f weighting).
The British weather forecaster Metcheck, which has a better record than the UK Meteorological Office in forecasting the weather recently, has predicted a very cold winter for the United Kingdom this year.
According to The Times of London (Oct. 13), Starting next week, a series of cold snaps and plummeting temperatures will bring to an end all speculation of a late blooming Indian summer. Instead, bitterly cold winds in the South and even snowfall in the North will quash the hopes of the thousands who banked on global warming to get them through the year without central heating. Although this winter is not expected to be as cold as the winters of 1947 and 1963, which almost brought the country to a standstill, Metcheck is predicting at least four cold snaps, the first beginning next Monday, then one a month in November, December, and January.
Senior Forecaster Andrew Bond told the Times, The UK has been relatively fortunate over the past few years with mild or very mild winters.
Paleoclimatologists have warned that the American West could be in for a long period of severe drought, but in doing so have had to accept the existence of the Medieval Warm Period.
Edward Cook of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in New York and colleagues wrote in the October 8 issue of Science magazine, The western United States is experiencing a severe multiyear drought that is unprecedented in some hydroclimatic records. Using gridded drought reconstructions that cover most of the western United States over the past 1,200 years, we show that this drought pales in comparison to an earlier period of elevated aridity and epic drought in AD 900-1300, an interval broadly consistent with the ‘Medieval Warm Period’. If elevated aridity in the western United States is a natural response to climate warming, then any trend toward warmer temperatures in the future could lead to a serious long-term increase in aridity over western North America.
The researchers say that the key to the drought lies in the weather pattern called La Nina, which is characterized by the upwelling of cold water from the bottom of the Pacific in eastern tropical waters. Climate models show this reduces rainfall in the West (Reuters, Oct. 7).
The current drought, however, may not be as severe as currently depicted. In an article accepted for publication in a forthcoming issue of the journal Pure and Applied Geophysics, Roger Pielke, Sr. and colleagues find that, The consequences of the most recent drought have been exceptional for some uses (e.g. suburban watering; wells, cattle grazing), but the precipitation deficit for most areas in Colorado was not exceptional (although quite dry). The reason for the heightened consequences (and awareness in the media) is that there is more competition for the available water, due to population growth. This is a human caused shortage due to the population requirements and competition with agricultural uses, not an unprecedented precipitation shortage.
A pair of British economists has revealed the true extent of the effort needed to meet the current governments alternative energy commitments.
Prof Andrew Oswald, an economist at Warwick University, and Jim Oswald, an energy consultant, told the Daily Telegraph (Oct. 7) that the governments plans would require 100,000 new wind turbines or 100 new nuclear power plants. That many wind turbines would cover an area the size of Wales – or a six mile-wide strip around the entire coast of Britain.
The enormity of the green challenge is not understood, said Mr Oswald. Many people think that hydrogen is a simple alternative to oil, but in fact it will require a huge investment in either wind farms or nuclear plants.
Ford Motor Company appears to be making plans to join companies that look forward to increasing constraints on hydrocarbon energy use as a business opportunity.
According to the New York Times (Oct. 4), Ford’s goal, according to its own internal projections, would require an improvement of about 80 percent in the fuel economy of its cars and trucks by 2030, according to people who have been informed of the plan. The goal was laid out by the company’s chairman, William Clay Ford Jr., and other executives at a meeting on August 3 at their headquarters in Dearborn, Mich.
The Times suggests that Ford has based its strategy on computer models of carbon emissions. The company is studying long-range product-development strategies to reach its goal, the report says, and has not yet established shorter-range targets. Among those strategies could be more reliance on hybrid technology or other advances, like cleaner diesel engines and hydrogen fuel cells.
Fords strategy has already won plaudits from its usual foes in the environmentalist movement. Daniel Becker of the Sierra Club told the Times, This is a stunning change of direction for Ford, whose emissions are greater than all of Mexico. This really is a better idea. We will continue to work with them to ensure that they implement this commitment.
There are signs that the new direction was the result of alarmist pressure. In May, commenting on the release of the scientifically absurd The Day After Tomorrow, Mr. Ford said, If you look at where society is headed, whether it’s the Kyoto compact, whether it’s the Hollywood movie that’s coming out this summer on global warming, all of those things will truly have an impact on the debate. I don’t want Ford to be caught unaware or for us to be always saying, No, we can’t do something.
Jeff Holmstead, assistant administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agencys Office of Air and Radiation, gave a boost to those who stress the inevitability of carbon restrictions at a conference in Lexington, Ky., on October 12. According to Greenwire (Oct. 13), he said, Unless there’s some changes in the way the scientific community is going, there in some point in the future will be a carbon-constrained world.
Greenwire went on, Asked later to expound on his comments, Holmstead said he was providing an observation on the decisions that U.S. industries must face in the future. With natural gas prices trending upward, Holmstead said the nation will have to maintain reliance on coal as a primary fuel. As such, new coal-fired plants will likely face some constraints on GHG emissions over their 50- to 75-year lifespans, he said.
Holmstead noted that uncertainty about the government’s direction on GHGs has got to be frustrating for business people who are trying to anticipate how their status will change in the future.
In response, CEI Senior Fellow Iain Murray issued the following statement:
On the same day Vice President Cheney reminded us of the jobs saved by the Administration’s brave stance in rejecting artificial restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions, another administration official yesterday pulled the rug from under his feet by suggesting such restrictions are inevitable.
Those remarks by Jeff Holmstead are a slap in the face for coal miners and auto workers across the nation. Greenhouse gas restrictions will mean seniors pay more for their heat in the winter, families pay more for transportation, and business owners pay more in energy costs. Not only that, but they will do virtually nothing to abate a rise in temperature which may prove beneficial anyway.
Rather than waving a white flag to the energy suppression lobby (whose former standard bearer was Enron, we should not forget), Holmstead should have focused on ways to strengthen the world economy. That way, if global warming does prove to be a problem, we will have little to worry about. We’ve seen how resilient America has been to four hurricanes this year. We should be trying to make the rest of the world as strong as America rather than weakening America by engaging in futile attempts to change the weather.
Holmstead’s remarks are simply incompatible with the correct approach the current Administration has taken on this issue. The American economy doesn’t need the poison pill he’s prescribed. For the sake of American jobs, human wealth and global prosperity, Holmstead should be fired. He can no doubt look forward to a high-paying job with one of the companies that hopes to profit from impoverishing Americans through energy rationing.
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