President Bush's new plan to rein in greenhouse gases came under fire at a meeting of the world's largest polluting countries, with some participants criticizing the plan as a step backward in the fight against climate change.
World business chiefs gathered here Thursday to discuss ways to tackle global warming as trans-Atlantic tensions emerged over how far industry should go to reduce emissions.
Greenhouse gas curbs on industries such as power generation and steel could provide a basis for a renewed U.N.-led drive to fight global warming, Akio Mimura, Chairman of Nippon Steel Corp said on Thursday
Paul Chesser, Climate Strategies Watch
A "Statement on Climate Change" released in October by the Oklahoma Climatological Survey — the research unit of the College of Atmospheric & Geographic Sciences at the University of Oklahoma — spouts the IPCC line on likely dire consequences absent greenhouse gas mitigation:
The continued warming of the climate averaged across the globe will create a cascade of climatic shifts which could impact Oklahoma’s climate….Across the globe, a warming climate will be beneficial to some and detrimental to others. Anticipating how this climatic shift will impact Oklahoma is of vital importance to state decision-makers. One of the greatest impacts will be the exposure of Oklahoma’s growing population and economy to water stress.
Motivating OCS to make strong recommendations for action:
OCS recommends that Oklahoma aggressively pursue four initiatives to address the risks of both climate variability and climate change. First, the state should undertake a comprehensive assessment of Oklahoma’s social and economic vulnerability to climate variability as well as climate change…Second, OCS recommends immediate funding of the Oklahoma Water Resources Board’s Comprehensive Water Plan study to identify existing as well as projected needs for water. Third, OCS encourages efficiency programs to reduce our growing demand for energy. Fourth, OCS recommends investment in renewable energy technology and production.
So much for sticking to your expertise…which by the end of their statement seem to hedge on their certainty:
Even if climate does not evolve as expected, these steps will yield long-term benefits to Oklahoma’s society and economy through reduced losses to existing climate and weather threats and cost-savings through reduced energy use. If climate does evolve as expected, Oklahoma will be better positioned to adapt to those changes without rapid social upheaval.
Just ask the experts!
What’s true in athletics is also true with energy production: You can’t get good results if you don’t do the drills.
Paul Chesser, Climate Strategies Watch
In Durham, N.C. our state Blue Cross and Blue Shield is boasting about the groundbreaking of a new "100,000-square-foot building that will use 65 percent less energy and half the water per square foot of typical office space." Good for them, if it improves their bottom line, efficiency, service to customers, whatever.
But the director of our State Energy Office, Larry Shirley, was excited as well, although for different reasons:
"If North Carolina were a country, it would be the 24th biggest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world," he said. "If we just have a one-foot level rise in sea level, it would devastate eastern North Carolina. We're very vulnerable. The only state more vulnerable is Florida."
It's not clear whether Shirley was even asked about global warming, but as we often see, in many instances it doesn't matter what the question is, because the answer will always be global warming.
I'm always amused by the alarmists' "if (insert state name) were a country…" argument and the computer-modelized "if we have (insert disastrous measurement)" argument. Why can't we ask the reverse questions, like "what if the EU countries, or even China and India, were states?" Where would North Carolina rank then?
What if Spartacus had a Piper Cub? What if Superman grew up in Germany?
Hat tip to my colleague Paul Messino.
In the past few months, France, Italy, and the 27-nation European Union have separately threatened a trade war against the U.S. to stem ongoing damage to Europe’s competitiveness. This came amid cries for an end to the economic hemorrhaging from the European Confederation of Iron and Steel Industries, automakers, aluminum producers, and others.
The First Commandment of climate-change politics is that you can never be green enough – as President Bush learns anew every time he even attempts to address the issue. Critics were quick to claim a victory of sorts after his Rose Garden speech yesterday, while at the same time carrying on about half-measures and delay on "the planetary emergency."
Today’s announcement by President Bush on strategies to limit global warming has yet to come, but unless he is ready to unveil a new and miraculous source of energy that produces no carbon dioxide, one can only assume that he will simply be adding his voice to the many other lemmings who are calling for a mass migration to the nearest cliff from which we can all jump. The fact is that there is simply nothing we can do — short of shutting down the global economy — that will substantially reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
We are all global-warming alarmists now. President Bush's speech yesterday outlining the goal of halting the growth of greenhouse-gas emissions in the United States by 2025 runs the unusual gauntlet of promising something the private sector will probably deliver on its own — witness the spontaneous rise of "carbon offsets" and green investing — while also kicking the intellectual legs out from under a defensible conservative position on climate change.
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