Chinese politicians and indutsry are likely to "game" any emissions trading system set up in the nation, leading to no genuine emissions reductions, says the deputy chief of the State Environmental Protection Administration.
September 2007
The chief polar bear biologist for the Government of Nunavut in Canada tells the local newspaper that fears that two-thirds of polar bears will die off in the next fifty years is overblown, and that the photograph of a straving bear that accompanied the reports is of an elderly male likely to die soon rather than of a young female, as it had been labeled.
Last week, The Guardian newspaper ran a story that claimed that melting ice on Greenland was triggering earthquakes "faster than ever anticipated." A climatologist who works on the subject corrects the record, calling the report "misleading and alarmist."
In a major defeat for global warming alarmists, a California judge yesterday dismissed a law suit by the State of California that sought to blame the world's six largest automakers for damages it purported had been caused by global warming.
The judge (opinion here) held that the Court could not decide to what extent the automakers themselves were responsible for the problems the State alleged they caused:
"The court is left without guidance in determining what is an unreasonable contribution to the sum of carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere, or in determining who should bear the costs associated with global climate change that admittedly result from multiple sources around the globe"
The judge declared that it was for lawmakers, not the Court, to decide to what extent automakers were liable for any costs associated with global warming. He also found that ruling for the State would jeopardize the Administration's foreign policy negotiations.
Who recently made the following statement?
"In fact, the life of all mankind is in danger because of global warming resulting to a large degree from the emissions of the factories of the major corporations; yet despite that, the representative of these corporations in the White House insists on not observing the Kyoto accord, with the knowledge that the statistics speak of the death and displacement of millions of human beings because of global warming, especially in Africa."
No, this quote is not from Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth. It’s from Osama bin Laden’s latest rant from the cave, where reportedly his carbon footprint is very small. Certainly, Osama is producing a lot less carbon dioxide than Al Gore. Sean Hannity on Fox News recently showed video footage of Gore’s frequent flights on private jets. Earlier this year, the Tennessee Center for Policy Research reported that Gore’s house in Tennessee has a carbon footprint twenty times that of the average American’s house — and Gore owns a house in suburban Virginia as well. It’s sad to have to say it, but Al doesn’t live by his own advice. He preaches global warming salvation, but apparently he isn’t going to make it to the promised land himself.
On the other hand, Osama appears to have taken Gore’s advice to heart. He’s cut way down on his air travel, and he’s telecommuting from home. And even better than owning a Toyota Prius hybrid, it appears that he currently doesn’t own a car at all. Those are three of the big recommendations in An Inconvenient Truth. Osama appears to have adopted the ideal radical environmentalist lifestyle down to the very last detail—it really is back to the cave.
This is not to say that Osama is not just as hypocritical as Gore. While Gore plays the phony egalitarian card as expertly as the founder of his political party, Thomas Jefferson, Osama’s considerable wealth would not exist without Saudi Arabia’s enormous oil production. In the end, they are both elitists (by which I don’t mean to suggest that they are similar in all respects—Osama is an evil mass murderer) who claim to lead populist movements that will require, in Gore’s words, “a wrenching transformation of society.”
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is on a snake oil sales tour. To much fanfare, the Governator is traveling the country promoting his "California model" for fighting global warming. But he is an emperor without clothes, his vaunted California model an illusion.
Ten years ago today the U.S. Senate did something that at the time seemed significant and now seems remarkably foresightful. By a vote of 95 to 0, the Senate voted in favor of the Byrd-Hagel resolution, which expressed the Sense of the Senate on the upcoming global warming negotiations in Kyoto, Japan.
The Prius is, I think, a parable for the broader politics of global warming. Prius politics is mostly about showing off, not curbing greenhouse gas emissions. Politicians pander to "green" constituents who want to feel good about themselves. Grandiose goals are declared. But measures to achieve them are deferred — or don't exist.
Former Vice President Al Gore’s crusade against carbon dioxide emissions could make him millions of dollars. With help from friends at Goldman Sachs, Gore has established a network of organizations to promote the “climate crisis”—and keep himself in the spotlight. Gore’s crusade already has had an enormous impact on corporate decision-making and government policies. But how will it affect his personal and political fortunes?
The great danger of confronting peak oil and global warming isn't that we will sit on our collective asses and do nothing while civilization collapses, but that we will plunge after "solutions" that will make our problems even worse. Like believing we can replace gasoline with ethanol, the much-hyped biofuel that we make from corn.
RSS Updates 
RSS E-Mail Updates 
CEI.org