ENVIRONMENTAL LEGAL BLOGS

A CRITICAL LOOK AT THE LIEBERMAN-WARNER "CLIMATE CHANGE" BILL

     Sen. Inhofe (R.-Oka.) has an analysis that will make you think twice about this bill (S. 2191, "America's Climate Security Act of 2007"):

The issue of climate change is now at the forefront of American environmental policy.  While the science behind the causes of recent warming trends has been argued vigorously in the past, the debate over the economic costs of addressing this issue has been relatively quiet until now.  However, on this issue there is little to debate at all. Leaders from both sides of the aisle agree that curbing greenhouse gas emissions will be an expensive endeavor.

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Lieberman-Warner, if enacted, would likely devastate national and local economies in addition to putting a severe strain on the American family.  The bill would reduce the nation’s Gross Domestic Product by 2.3% by only 2015 as modeled by CRA International.... EPA finds that in 2030, GDP would be reduced by $983 billion and lowered even further by as much as $2.8 trillion in 2050.

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Under this legislation, America stands to lose millions of jobs.  Greenspan forecasts such a problem, announcing that “cap-and-trade systems or carbon taxes are likely to be popular only until real people lose real jobs as their consequence.”... Within only seven years of enactment, up to 1.2 million net jobs will be lost....Many of these will be going offshore, where restrictions on emissions are nonexistent, to countries such as China. 

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Kevin Book, an energy research analyst for FBR Capital Market Corporation testified to the Envuironment and Public Works Committee that not only will consumers be hurt, but the poorest of those will be hurt the worst.  Book stated in reference to S.2191 that “any effort to trigger conservation or environmental stewardship, even if price hikes are mediated through larger enterprises before they reach consumers, will affect the poorest Americans first.... Those who are struggling now to pay their heating bills will suffer under this legislation.    The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released a report last year stating that American households would bear the biggest costs of a cap-and-trade bill.

Sen. Inhofe's analysis can be found at this website.  As they say in poker, "read it and weep."

"Leaders told battle to stem global warming slowing"-AP story

     AP, on Yahoo!, reports today, in a dispatch entitled "Leaders told battle to stem global warming slowing":

"KOBE, Japan - The world is losing momentum in the battle against global warming, the U.N. climate chief warned on Saturday, urging environmental ministers from wealthy nations to revive the effort by setting clear targets for reducing greenhouse gases.

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"The officials from the Group of Eight countries, joined by representatives from other countries including China and other organizations, were to lay the foundations for the upcoming G8 summit in northern Japan in July.

U.N. climate chief Yvo de Boer told the Associated Press on the sidelines that he was concerned about stalling momentum behind international talks to forge a global warming pact by December 2009 to succeed the Kyoto Protocol. Its first phase ends in 2012."

     Stalling momentum?  What a surprise.  Perhaps people don't want to plan themselves into abject poverty by diminishing their lifestyles to appease an unproven science.

     By the way, look at the title of the article and compare the title to the URL-http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080524/ap_on_re_as/climate_change.  Detect any incoherence?  The story about "global warming" appears at an URL entitled "climate change".  "Global warming", of course, means warming; "climate change" could mean either warming or cooling.  Can the eco-alarmists at least get their fear-phrases straight?

WAS THIS CAUSED BY SUV'S, TOO?

        Astronomy magazine reports (re Jupiter):

"...a third red spot has appeared next to its cousins — the Great Red Spot and Red Spot, Jr. — in the turbulent jovian atmosphere.

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The Hubble and Keck images may support the idea that Jupiter is in the midst of global climate change, as first proposed in 2004 by Phil Marcus, a mechanical engineering professor at the University of California, Berkeley. The planet's temperatures may be changing by 15 to 20 degrees Fahrenheit, getting warmer near the equator and cooler near the south pole."

Back on September 28, 2005, I posted that Mars is getting warmer (excuse me, "undergoing climate change"--the new catch-all), too.  See right-hand side of this page, "Categories", "Global Warming".  Could it be that this has to do with a cycle of the Sun?

And, if these phenomenon on Mars and Jupiter are Sun-related, is Earth somehow magically immune from the phenomenon--or is "climate change" on our planet a function of Solar climate change and not the man-made activities?

No one, of course, knows.  Nonetheless, many want dramatically to alter our lifestyles and spend trillions of dollars because of our vanity in believing that we can control what may be a naturally ever-changing climate.  Liberals usually deride this type of approach faith as the product of religious fervor.