Aggressive common sense, politics and whatever else - as I see it.
Washington DC, July 23, 2008 - The Free Enterprise Action Fund (Ticker: FEAOX) submitted the following letter to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) requesting the SEC to warn publicly-owned companies against making false and misleading statements concerning global warming:
Continue reading ‘Global Warming: SEC asked to warn companies against making false and misleading claims’
The myth of a worldwide consensus on Anthropogenic Global Warming takes another hit as the American Physical Society, an organization representing nearly 50,000 physicists, reverses its position on climate change and starts a public debate on the topic.[1][2][3]
There is a considerable presence within the scientific community of people who do not agree with the IPCC conclusion that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are very probably likely to be primarily responsible for the global warming that has occurred since the Industrial Revolution. Since the correctness or fallacy of that conclusion has immense implications for public policy and for the future of the biosphere, we thought it appropriate to present a debate within the pages of P&S concerning that conclusion.[1]
There isa also the recent petition signed by 31,000 scientists.
There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.[4]
Of course the United Nations & the media are still busy blaming Global Warming on hamburgers.[5] And trying to scare us with threats of global warming kidney stones.[6][7][8][9]
Insurance rates are now among the long list of things that we can blame on Global Warming.
Costs for homeowner insurance along the East and Gulf coasts have risen 20% to 100% since 2004, says the Insurance Information Institute, a trade group. In the three years through 2006, says the institute, property and casualty insurers registered record profits, topping out at $65.8 billion in 2006. (Despite severe U.S. weather that has caused about $8.9 billion in insured property losses to date this year, it’s too early to forecast 2008 profits.)
Helping to drive these developments is a little-known tool of the insurance world: Computerized catastrophe modeling. Crafted by several independent firms and used by most insurers, so-called cat models rely on complex data to estimate probable losses from hurricanes.
But regulators and other critics contend that the latest cat models — which include assumptions about various climate changes — are triggering higher insurance rates.
From WSJ, July 1, 2008; Page A1
BusinessWeek and others are reporting that the “First Ever” GHG fees I wrote about earlier today have been approved by Bay Area regulators.
Air pollution regulators in the San Francisco Bay area have voted overwhelmingly to approve new rules that impose fees on businesses for emitting greenhouse gasses.
A spokeswoman for the Bay Area Air Quality Management District says the agency’s board of directors voted 15-1 on Wednesday to charge companies 4.4 cents per ton of carbon dioxide they emit.
Experts say the fees, which cover nine counties in the Bay Area, are the first of their kind in the country.
This sets a very dangerous precedent. The regulation not only considers carbon dioxide to be “pollution”, but it also calculates fees based on CDE (carbon dioxide equivalent) and on GWP (Global Warming Potential). Continue reading ‘First ever GHG fees approved by Bay Area Regulators’
It looks like the Global Warming taxes are going to start soon…
San Francisco: The Bay Area Air Quality Management District will vote today on a proposal to impose a Greenhouse Gas Fee. The fee applies to carbon dioxide (CO2) equivalent emissions at the rate of 4.4¢(USD) per metric ton and is expected to initially produce an additional $1.1 million for the District.[1]
It’s all part of a plan that “would increase revenue to enable the District to address increasing regulatory program activity costs, and continue to move toward more complete cost recovery”[1]
The BAAQMD’s website describes “Environmental Justice” (emphasis mine)
The Bay Area Air Quality Management District is committed to environmental policymaking and enforcement practices that are fair and equitable to all residents regardless of age, culture, ethnicity, gender, race, socioeconomic status, or geographic location in order to protect against the health effects of air pollution. [2]
The way the proposal is set up it could effect a lot more than carbon dioxide and the other listed greenhouse gases. Consider that water vapor is the most powerful GHG. I’m not sure what the “carbon dioxide equivalent” or “global warming potential” of water vapor is but, imagine a “carbon tax” based on the steam from showers or cooking.
Interestingly the supporters of this measure seem to be concerned with the precedent it will set than with the actual impact it would have on the environment.
The modest fee — 4.4 cents per ton of carbon dioxide — probably won’t be enough to force companies to reduce their emissions, but backers say it sets an important precedent in combating climate change and could serve as a model for regional air districts nationwide.
“It doesn’t solve global warming, but it gets us thinking in the right terms,” said Daniel Kammen, a renewable energy expert at the University of California, Berkeley. “It’s not enough of a cost to change behavior, but it tells us where things are headed. You have to think not just in financial terms, but in carbon terms.” [3]
Gerard Wynn, over at Reuters asks “What happened to Global Warming?”
It’s not just that it’s disappeared from media headlines this year - shoved off by the credit crunch and natural disasters, for example. It can’t be ignored that 2007 came and went as another very warm year - the 7th hottest on record since 1850 according to the World Meteorological Organization.
But it wasn’t a record. In fact that was 1998, a full 10 years ago - the year of an exceptional El Nino, a Pacific weather pattern which heats the whole globe. So is global warming not living up to the hype?
Two weeks ago Leibniz Institute’s Noel Keenlyside stirred an academic hornet’s
nest by saying that we may have to wait longer - a decade or more - for another
peak year, because a natural weakening in ocean currents may be cooling sea
temperatures.Many scientists flatly rejected the idea, saying Keenlyside had over-estimated the effect. But some pointed out that a recent switch in a weather pattern called the North Atlantic Oscillation could indeed cool temperatures globally.
Along with the gratuitous photograph of floating ice, this author actually covered a little of the other side. Well one paragraph anyway.
Meanwhile one or two doubters are already saying the present lull in warming
casts doubt on just how far manmade greenhouse gases are influencing the climate. MIT’s Richard Lindzen reckoned that if it was as bad as all that temperatures would be rising faster.What do you think?
Well, what do you think? You could always comment here, there, or both.