The call "Save Our Planet" was heard in the halls of Congress on the occasion of President Barack H. Obama's first speech to a joint session of Congress on February 5. Fulfilling a campaign promise, President Obama topped the agenda of his new Administration with a call on Congress.
In his speech the President declared that truly to transform our economy, to protect our security and to save our planet from the ravages of climate change (formerly known as global warming) we need to make clean renewable energy the profitable kind of energy. President Obama went on to suggest a "cap-and-trade" bill that would address climate change and energy initiatives.
A cap-and-trade bill is fully described by defining each part separately. The Center for American Progress, a think tank led by John D. Podesta, former Chief of Staff to President William J. Clinton and co-chairman of the Obama-Biden Transition Project, explains:
1. The cap is the limit a large-scale emitter, U.S. Steel for example, is allowed to emit in greenhouse gases. The company must have an "emissions permit" designating the amount of greenhouse gas pollution it is permitted. Over time, the limits are ratcheted down, allowing less pollution until a set goal is met. The Clean Air Act of 1990, which brought under control sulfur emissions that caused acid rain, met a goal at much lower cost than estimated and lower pollution than government predicted.
2. The trade: Some companies will find it cheaper and faster to lower emissions and will accumulate a surplus. This surplus of permits can be traded for future emission permits or may be sold to companies who are unable to make reductions as easily.
3. The profits: In the event the government auctioned the pollution permits to the companies in the first instance, a revenue stream would flow to other critical public policy objectives.
The goal of a successful cap-and-trade program, according to the Center, is “to limit the rise in global temperature to approximately 2.0 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels by 2050 by reducing carbon dioxide and other emissions from companies as part of a larger plan for curbing global warming."
To achieve this goal, the Center suggests, "The U.S. Government should steadily tighten the cap on greenhouse gases until emissions are reduced to 80% below 1990 levels by 2050."
The rise in global temperature during the past century (1900-2000) was about one degree Celsius (1ºC). The warmest year in the last century was 1934. Temperatures in the first part of this century are about even to slightly cooler.
Climate-change believers have identified carbon dioxide as the principal cause, among all greenhouse gases, of global warming. There is no scientific evidence that proves such a claim is valid or that there is any man-made cause of global warming.
"It is a blatant lie put forth in the media that makes it seem there is only a fringe of scientists who don't buy into anthropogenic global warming," according to U.S. Government Atmospheric Scientist Stanley B. Goldenberg of the Hurricane Research Division of NOAA. Dr. Goldenberg is one of over 650 international scientists who dissented over man-made global warming claims in a U.S. Senate Minority Report in 2008.
Former Vice President Albert A. (Al) Gore's claim that global warming science is settled was rejected by a canvass of more than 51,000 Canadian scientists which revealed that 68% disagree that global warming science is "settled." The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change of 1995 (IPCC), reportedly endorsed by some 2,000 or more scientists, has come under increasing attack.
The Senate Minority Report states: Russian scientists “rejected the very idea that carbon dioxide may be responsible for global warming…. Vice President Al Gore's claim that the 'science is settled' and there is a 'consensus' on man-made global warming collapsed in 2008."
An international team of scientists has countered the UN IPCC report in a “Report of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change,” with Dr. S. Fred Singer declaring, “Nature, not human activity, rules the climate.”
The Senate Minority Report continues: "Even the mainstream media has begun to take notice of the expanding number of scientists serving as 'consensus busters.'"
On November 25, 2008, Politico noted a "glowing accumulation of global cooling science” is challenging warming fears, and added that “the science behind global warming may still be too shaky to warrant cap-and-trade legislation." On October 20, 2008, Canada's National Post: "The number of climate change skeptics is growing rapidly."
Washington Post staff writer Juliet Eilperin writing in 2007: "Climate skeptics appear to be expanding rather than shrinking."
With no intention of throwing a chill on President Obama's global warming plan for Congress, a report out of California on Fox News Thursday, February 28, suggests a possible change in global temperatures on the downside. Fox Anchor Brit Hume reported that all four major global temperature tracking outlets have revealed data showing that temperatures have dropped significantly over the last year and several areas around the planet are experiencing record cold and snowpacks.
California meteorologist Anthony Watts says the amount of cooling ranges from 65 hundredths of a degree Centigrade to 75 hundredths of a degree. Watts reckons this to be a value large enough to erase all global warming over the past 100 years.
President Obama may wish to reconsider the flagship issue of his new administration.
E. Ralph Hostetter, a prominent businessman and publisher, also is an award-winning columnist and Vice Chairman of the Free Congress Foundation Board of Directors.
