As you may have already read about, the EPA is set to declare CO2 as a “public endangerment”. While the EPA declaration indicates “An endangerment finding under one provision of the Clean Air Act would not by itself automatically trigger regulation under the entire Act.” it will in fact open the door for future action.
* The Administrator is proposing to find that the current and projected concentrations of the mix of six key greenhouse gases—carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6)—in the atmosphere threaten the public health and welfare of current and future generations. This is referred to as the endangerment finding.
* The Administrator is further proposing to find that the combined emissions of CO2, CH4, N2O, and HFCs from new motor vehicles and motor vehicle engines contribute to the atmospheric concentrations of these key greenhouse gases and hence to the threat of climate change. This is referred to as the cause or contribute finding.
This proposed action, as well as any final action in the future, would not itself impose any requirements on industry or other entities. An endangerment finding under one provision of the Clean Air Act would not by itself automatically trigger regulation under the entire Act.
It is curious that the EPA left off the most potent greenhouse gas, water vapor, yet included sulfur hexaflouride, which is so many times heavier than the other gases in our atmosphere one wonders how it would rise to heights to have any effect on longwave radiation return. Methane is 23 times more potent as a GHG than CO2, but like CO2 is also part of our natural cycle on earth. Yet even some science that should be cognizant of such facts portray’s CO2 as the worst offender:
As I read somewhere last week, “madness is afoot”.
While I think the EPA will probably ignore public comment in “expected amounts” they may in fact pay attention if the vast majority of comments are counter to the finding, and if they are well written, factual, and sans emotional diatribe.
Steve McIntyre of ClimateAudit has an excellent article on quality control issues with the EPA that is worth reading
I urge WUWT readers in the USA (no matter what side of the issue you are on) to exercise their right to a democratic process and to submit comments to the EPA, as well as to your state and federal representatives.
As a guide for doing this, WUWT reader Roger Sowell has some useful guidelines that I find helpful:
This is an excellent opportunity to be heard by the EPA.
I want to share some thoughts about making public comments, as I attend many public hearings on various issues before agencies and commissions, listen to the comments, observe the commenters, and read many of the written comments that are submitted. I also make comments from time to time. I meet with various commissioners and members of public agencies, and get their views and feedback on comments and those who make the comments.
One of my public comments on California’s Global Warming law is here:
http://www.arb.ca.gov/lists/scopingpln08/1554-arb_letter_sowell_12-9-08.pdf
Comments are made in all forms and styles. Some are more effective than others. For those who want to view some comments on other issues, for style and content, please have a look at the link below. Some comments are one or two sentences, and others extend for several pages. Length does not matter, but content does.
For the most effect, it is a good idea to consider the following format for a comment:
Use letterhead. When the letter is complete, scan it and attach the digital file to your comment.
Identify yourself and / or your organization, describe what you do or your experience. It is a good idea to thank the EPA for the opportunity to make comments. (They like reading this, even though they are required by law to accept comments). If you work for an employer who does not support your view, it is important to state that your views are your own and do not represent anyone else.
Organize your comments into paragraphs.
Use a form letter only if you must. It is far more effective to write a comment using your own words.
However, if someone else’s comment states what you wanted to say, it is fine to write and refer to the earlier comment, by name and date, and state your agreement with what was written. The agency appreciates that, as it reduces the number of words they must read.
It is important to know that the agency staff reads the comments, categorizes them, and keeps a total of how many comments were made in each category. So, the number of comments do count. Encourage your friends to make comments, too.
Make your statement/point in the paragraph, refer to actual data where possible, and give the citation or link. Tell them why you hold your view. Try to maintain a positive, reasonable tone, and if criticizing the EPA, tread gently. Point out the inconsistencies of their view compared to other respected publications, or to accepted methodologies.
It is a good idea to describe how you are affected, or will be affected, by this proposed rule.
Close by thanking the EPA for considering your view.
Sign your name (comments get much more serious consideration when signed).
The link to public comments on U.S. government issues:
I urge all readers to make teir opinions known to the EPA.
SF6 is used extensively in the electronics industry and its price has tripled in the last ten years. I use it my lab and a standard size cylinder now costs on the order of $1400. Watch the price of all our cheap electronics skyrocket.
Yes, they completely ignore dihydrogen monoxide; THE FOOLS!!
http://www.dhmo.org/
Listen to Obama’s climate change hysteria in his answer to a 7 year old
Anthony, once again, you do me a great honor. Thank you.
I wonder if someone can enlighten me. “Methane is 23 times more potent as a GHG than CO2, but like CO2 is also part of our natural cycle on earth.” By what measure is methane 23 times more potent? Is it the value of the radiative forcing? I suspect the figure comes from the global warming potential, which, IIRC, has nothing to do with greenhouse effectiveness, but is a function of how long the gas stays in the air. Does anyone know enough to give me a definitive reference?
In addition to the excellent observations and comments of Roger Sowell, Eric Anderson, Dane Skold, Ed Scott and ‘anonymous (again)’, I offer the following suggestions when making comments:
1. No rants. Stick to the facts and science. Be respectful. Otherwise, you risk having your comments ignored or readily dismissed.
2. Both general comments and specific comments should be made.
3. The more specific you can be when making a comment, the better, such as Steven Goddard’s excellent dissection of Steig, et al’s paper regarding temperatures on Antarctica.
4. Courts are a poor forum to resolve scientific questions but are much better at procedural and constitutional issues. On the procedural front, one line of attack is that the EPA’s proposed finding violates the PRESIDENTIAL MEMORANDUM ON SCIENTIFIC INTEGRITY. (See http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Fact-Sheet-on-Presidential-Memorandum-on-Scientific-Integrity/ ) I would encourage comments regarding how much of the cited science has not followed the scientific method including some of the many excellent posts I’ve read here about how science is not done by “consensus”. However, I will note that Courts like to “weigh” evidence and so could be swayed by the “weight of the evidence” and the so-called consensus that has developed. But a procedural attack would find a more willing audience. As for any kind of constitutional attack, I’ll have to give that some more thought.
5. Another potential line of attack is on the lack of specific public health effects and that such alleged effects are speculative at best.
6. Where possible, use studies prepared by a governmental agency or department that support your position. For instance, didn’t NOAA publish a study concluding that global warming does not contribute to greater intensity storms?
While submitting comments may not carry the day, I believe they can have an impact at least in two ways. You may actually be able to persuade someone of the merit of your thoughts. More importantly, each comment must be responded to as pointed out by one of the other commenters. That’s why the more specific you can be, the less likely it can be lumped in with another comment. And the more comments deserving of a response, the more time it takes to conclude the administrative process. The fact that the EPA took such great pains in its Proposed Endangerment Finding to point out that it will follow the ordinary administrative process tells me that they are not fully committed to a rulemaking under the Clean Air Act. Any such rulemaking requires at least the development and publication of a Proposed set of regulations with a notice and comment period (such as for the Proposed Endangerment Finding) and then a similar rulemaking procedure for a Final rule. Further, the Clean Air Act is unsuited for this type of a new regulatory approach and the Administration knows it. For this and other reasons, the Administration prefers Congress to act. Also, don’t discount the value of writing directly to Lisa Jackson, the EPA Administrator. As an environmental attorney working for a Fortune 200 company, I’ve met with her when she was with the New Jersey DEP and have found her intelligent, thoughtful and responsive to well articulated arguments. While I have no illusions that few, if any, of such correspondence would ever be read by her directly, she will be made aware of the more thought-provoking comments.
And once again, you’ve probabaly saved me and those I already alerted from really pissing off the minions assigned to read our missives. As much as I wanted to let them have it, I will follow the sage advice presented by Roger. Dammit. I have updated my recent post so my small band of followers may do likewise:
http://cbullitt.wordpress.com/2009/04/19/agw-action-alert-the-epa-wants-our-opinion-let-them-have-it/
“The Administrator is further proposing to find that the combined emissions of CO2, CH4, N2O, and HFCs from new motor vehicles and motor vehicle engines contribute to the atmospheric concentrations of these key greenhouse gases and hence to the threat of climate change. ”
Perhaps we should just remove the catalytic converters from our cars to keep them from emitting that harmful CO2.
I applaud the civic mindedness of this post.
Maybe it will set the stage for repealing this in a future administration.
CO2 is linear. H20 makes a triangle, but CO2 ends up with O on either side of the C. The skull is wrong.
Also, the CO2 in the image has an extra C. [snip]
This is but a sympthom of the most absolute insanity, madness, craziness, the most clear expression of “Hollywood’ s science”.
My most sincere condolences for having reached such a preposterous level of development.
So much to rant about. How on earth do I decide what the most important point or two to make is?
Aron… in the video, our scientific president says:
“Our planet… has gone up two or three degrees, and the polar ice caps have melted, and the oceans have gone up…”
-Barack Obama
Over 42 spotless days in a row.
10.7 cm Flux stuck between 69 and 70.
Meanwhile, active oil & gas drilling rigs in the US have fallen by 50% in a year, and we’re fixin’ to tax to death the carbon that the remaining ones are drilling for.
Is ANYBODY getting just a little bit nervous yet?
I hate to say it, but at the current rate of “carbon contraction” in the midst of a solar minimum, within a couple of years folks are going to be freezing in the dark.
Mike Monce (12:20:11) Says:
SF6 is used extensively in the electronics industry and its price has tripled in the last ten years. I use it my lab and a standard size cylinder now costs on the order of $1400. Watch the price of all our cheap electronics skyrocket.
No, watch the remaining vestiges of our electronics industry move to China and India where the politicians are semi-sane.
Wow, and I thought our government here in the UK was stupid!
Maybe OT but in the area I think being part of the case for promoting the above and similar actions in other countries. Those in the government pay certainly know how to sing the song. Now Stern in the UK is ramping up the rhetoric against those that do not fall into line and doing so in a book. For more rhetoric and amazing “scientific evidence”
Climate change sceptics likened to those who denied HIV Aids link by Lord Stern
Climate change sceptics have been compared to those who denied the link between smoking and cancer or HIV and Aids by Government environmental adviser Lord Stern.
For more rhetoric and amazing “scientific evidence”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/5188947/Climate-change-sceptics-likened-to-those-who-denied-HIV-Aids-link-by-Lord-Stern.html
The king is nude! but no one will tell it, as long as the “king” pays the bills.
You are making the ridicule as long as you don’t call the attention of your king about his nudity.
If the governmental site was really interested in receiving public comments, they would have made it more user friendly. I went to the link and could not register a comment. If any of you readers are more politically savvy and know how to leave comments to the EPA through a ready made link, I’d love the chance to be heard. Printing out a form and writing a comment and then mailing it seems a bit – low tech. Are there better options?
Dave
Anthony- Great logo! I’ll be sending in a love note to EPA. At least they are bound by law (I think) to read every submission.
Mike Monce-
Yep, SF6 was identified for the greenhouse gas (s) hit list since around 1995. Back then, I was using it as an insulating gas for high voltage equipment, for which it has spectacular properties. The prices at that time were about $200 per cylinder. In response to EPA rumors about regulating SF6, Allied Chemical discontinued production, creating a supply shortage. Prices went to well over $1000 by 2001 or 2002.
The funny thing about this gas being used by power utilities, primarily for Gas Insulated Bus and Switchgear like circuit breakers, is that the equipment is designed not to leak for at least 20 years. Utilities now recycle SF6 from breakers and buswork because of its cost. Claiming SF6 emissions into the atmosphere based on SF6 production would be an appalling error in book-keeping. Claiming it contributes non-trivially to mid troposphere warming is specious.
Also, SF6 is harmless as long as you don’t get trapped in an enclosed space. SF6 is so heavy that when it escapes from a port, it flows onto the floor. You can see this by watching the Schlieren patterns in the air next to the fill port. People have died from asphyxiation when working inside circuit breakers that were not properly vented of all SF6.
I don’t live in the US, but I often listen to NPR and today they were discussing the EPA’s proposal. I don’t remember who the guests were (was driving at the time), but they seemed directly or closely involved. Of course the usual reasons for capping CO2 emissions were: the sea-level is rising, ice-caps are melting, temperatures are rising, CO2 causes hurricanes, droughts and floods. Great.
Earlier today I watched a very informative CBC documentary called: Global Warming – Doomsday Called Off (available on youtube), which seemed to address a few of the AGW claims and provided clearly different opinions to the ones I heard on NPR. I especially liked the evidence that showed that the sea-level is not rising in the Maldives.
Here’s an article on a book called Heaven and Earth by one of Australia’s foremost Earth scientists
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/beware-the-climate-of-conformity-20090412-a3ya.html?page=-1
While I’m a creationist and don’t believe in the whole ‘millions of years’ thing it does seem to point out (which I will agree with) the tremendous benefit to plant life as a whole that high CO2 levels bring. Also I already said I’m a creationist, but I believe there has been periods of significantly higher global temperatures 1000’s of years ago than today and that we likely have a bit higher amount of ice today than during periods thousands of years ago.
Just google ‘Co2 levels in greenhouses’ and you’ll find pages talking about Co2 pumps and benefits to growers among the other AGW links it lists here and there.
Bill from Pittsburgh (12:37:58) :
Good idea. Do you have the specific address for Lisa Jackson, the EPA Administrator?
Re SF6, and why the EPA wants to regulate it:
California has already regulated SF6. The Air Resources Board on Feb 26, 2009, adopted two regulations as follows: The Board unanimously approved resolution 09-22, which adopted the staff proposal for semi-conductor use, and the Board also unanimously approved Resolution 09-23 for non-semi-conductor use with direction for staff to add an exemption for military tracer gas use and research.
From the ARB staff report:
“Why Regulate Sulfur Hexafluoride?
Sulfur hexafluoride is a potent greenhouse gas with a lifetime of 3,200 years and a one-hundred year global warming potential (GWP) of 23,900, the most potent greenhouse gas the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has evaluated (IPCC, 2007). In the last five years, atmospheric concentrations have been growing at a rate of 5% per year (NOAA, 2008). The growth rate could be the result of increasing emissions in any or all emission sectors.
Without intervention it is anticipated that the growth rate will continue at a similar rate for the next several years. Given these characteristics and the availability of alternatives, SF6 use warrants scrutiny, particularly in the emissive applications covered by this proposed regulation.”
More information on the California regulations is available here:
http://www.arb.ca.gov/regact/2009/nonsemi09/nonsemi09.htm
Scroll down to the Staff Report and Appendices.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123993344387627879.html
Related enough to be not off-topic. Sorry if this was already posted but, if it was, it’s probably worth another read anyway, just for the amusement value.
(For those with a wry sense of humor, that is).
[snip – “Flanagan”, since this is a USA issue, and since you are not a US Citizen, this is one post where I can confidently say that your opinion is not needed, not wanted, and not relevant. Sit this thread out. Anthony ]
This article, by Dr. Economides, should be required reading by the pseudo/slogan/sound-bite scientists populating the EPA.
Princess Nancy is understandable in that she has a vested interest in T. Boone’s methane/wind turbine enterprise.
————————————————————-
Obama Adminstration’s Energy Radicalism
By Dr. Michael J. Economides
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/ObamaEnergyRadicalism.pdf
The Obama Administration seems to be unmoved by the fact that according to almost all estimates, by the year 2030, while the world energy demand will increase by 50 percent, oil, gas and coal will still account for 87 percent of world energy. While international pressure is often cited for the recent government actions, in this era of American self-flagellation, one thing should be made abundantly clear: global warming rhetoric has always been largely a full frontal attack on the United States, its lifestyle and its apparent success compared to other countries, especially in Europe. It is clearly ironic that Pravda, the former official instrument of the Soviet communist party has implored the United States to stop “carbon communism”.
The EPA of course does not offer solutions to the 87 percent problem and it defers to Congress to do so. Surely Congress will find the right solution from a position of knowledge as demonstrated by the honorable Nancy Pelosi who on NBC’s Meet the Press said “I believe in natural gas as a clean, cheap alternative to fossil fuels,” and lest one thought she misspoke, she went on to say in the same interview that natural gas “is cheap, abundant and clean compared to fossil fuels.”
I’m not a US resident (I live in Sweden) but I’d like to contribute with my view on the total irrationality in the following which seems to be central in AGW science (the exact quote is from skepticalscience.com):
“The key point is that all the models fail to predict recent warming without taking rising CO2 levels into account. Noone has created a general circulation model that can explain climate’s behaviour over the past century without CO2 warming.”
This is a very clever statement, but it actually means nothing more than exactly what it says. That climate science can’t recreate historic climate without using CO2 as a factor in the computer models.
It does not in fact mean that the real world has the same limitation.
And, since NASA now is well on their way of explaining the infamous rise in temp. using aerosols in their models, there could very well come a day when all models can recreate past climate without CO2 as a major player.
The aerosols might not be it either, even if they constitute a much more easily handled problem than CO2.
The key point is in reality that the science is far from settled. Very important.
Vodoo: No, watch the remaining vestiges of our electronics industry move to China and India where the politicians are semi-sane.
No!. They are absolutely sane, they and the rest of world governments, as Peter Huber said: “It has proved only that with carbon, governments will say and sign anything—and then do less than nothing. The United States should steer well clear of such treaties because they are unenforceable, routinely ignored, and therefore worthless.
http://www.city-journal.org/2009/19_2_carbon.html
I hereby invite all US companies dealing with those chemicals, to come on this side of the boarder (Canada) and continu their business as usual.
Anthony,
This whole “why isn’t the EPA regulating water vapor” thing is rather silly, and detracts from the other points you are making. The fact that absolute humidity increases with temperature (while relative humidity stays constant) is not particularly complicated, since the saturation vapor pressure is a function of temperature. To put it in simple (though not quite technically correct terms), warmer air “holds” more water than cold air, so on balance a warmer atmosphere would have a greater volume of water vapor. If you want to critique climate feedbacks, your efforts are better focused on things like clouds where considerable uncertainty actually exists.
As far as the weight of hexaflouride goes, carbon dioxide is also heavier than most other gases in our atmosphere, yet somehow we do not all suffocate from a cloud of it hanging around the surface of the planet. See http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/1997/97JD00130.shtml for example.
REPLY: Zeke, I’m really not the least bit interested if you think it is silly or not. You are part of the CO2 regulation cheerleading team, so your bias precedes you.
You do have one point worth discussing though. Can you show me a measurement of SF6 in the stratosphere? Can you show that given its cost (and recycling efforts due to that cost) that significant amounts are making it into the atmosphere?
I should think that it would be useful to have a clearinghouse of submissions and/or talking points held centrally. I don’t know if any of the more popular climate blogs is up for holding that, but I’d be delighted to help.
My submission will probably focus on the following points: As global warming / climate change and anthropogenic contributions are global in both nature and effect, U.S. policy would be better served by foreign aid assisting the 2 billion people in the developing world to liberate themselves from burning wood and getting access to electricity. Counter-intuitive as it may sound, given the inefficiency of wood and the vast numbers of people dependent upon it for fuel, it would be more cost-effective to give them access to electricity even if the fuel source proved (as would most likely be the case) to be coal. I am developing this line of thought over at http://newsfan.typepad.co.uk/liberals_can_be_skeptics_/ and would welcome some help there.
REPLY: As a UK resident, your opinion to the USA EPA would be for naught. – Anthony
Dave D (13:19:21) :
“If the governmental site was really interested in receiving public comments, they would have made it more user friendly. I went to the link and could not register a comment. If any of you readers are more politically savvy and know how to leave comments to the EPA through a ready made link, I’d love the chance to be heard. Printing out a form and writing a comment and then mailing it seems a bit – low tech. Are there better options?
Dave”
The CO2 proposed finding is not yet open to comments. The proposed finding must first be published in the Federal Register, then there are 60 days for public comments. The publication should happen any day now.
However, you can make comments on other EPA issues shown on the link I gave above, just scroll down to an issue you like, click on the “Send a comment or Submission” link, and the comment form should pop up.
Am i the only one to notice that even if it says CO2 in the picture, the image is C2O2?
But i would think the atoms would bind more like O=C=C=O to make sense.
Zeke: perhaps you could explain why any increase in water vapor must come from temperature change, instead of, say, changes in transpiration? Would not such a change be a climate “forcing” not “feedback”? If the EPA wants to regulate human climate forcings, why not landuse or soot? The answer is because following the EPA’s logic to its proper conclusion results in asininity.
Hi Anthony,
Recently relocated back to SF, my old home town, so hopefully the EPA will have to find another reason to ignore my thinking…
Anthony,
Does http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~beckya/Stratospheric%20paper%20(GRL).pdf work as a reliable reference for SF6 in the stratosphere? In general, since halocarbons are “heavy” particles, there would never have been an ozone depletion problem if they were not present in the stratosphere in a meaningful quantity.
REPLY: As I read it: 3 parts per trillion of SF6 in the area of greatest concentration (and the coldest) on the planet. Gosh. How about the tropics where LW interaction is really ramped up? Any measurements there?
Sulfur Hexafluoride (SF6) has a GWP of 22,000 over 100 years but 15,100 over 20 years (IPCC TAR). The GWP value depends on how the gas concentration decays over time in the atmosphere. This is often not precisely known and hence the values should not be considered exact.
So where does 3 parts per trillion get us in warming impact? Not very far
– Anthony
[snip – I’m not getting into this water vapor issue with you, I haven’t time right now as I’m off for the rest of today. Maybe another day, but you are welcome to take it up with other commenters who have raised issue with you.- Anthony]
Canadian Maurice Strong*, aka Mao Stlong, is the evil genius Man Behind the Curtain.
Strong was last reported to be somewhere in China.
…-
“Key Obama Climate Change Exchange Being Swayed by Top U.N. Officials
Five members of the Chicago Climate Exchange advisory board are present or former top-ranking U.N. officials — including one who received $1 million from a convicted South Korean lobbyist in the Oil for Food scandal.
A greenhouse gases trading system funded with the support of then-Illinois State Sen. Barack Obama, which is likely to play a major role in his $650 million cap-and-trade initiative, lists five present or former top-ranking U.N. officials on its advisory board who’ve had enormous influence over climate change matters — including one who received $1 million from a convicted South Korean lobbyist.
The most controversial figure of the five, Maurice Strong, was one of former Secretary General Kofi Annan’s key aides at the U.N. for years until the Iraq Oil-for-Food scandal forced him to leave. Since then Strong has lived mostly in China. Calls to the exchange for comment about Strong’s role, and that of other U.N. figures, were not returned.”
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/04/20/key-obama-climate-change-exchange-swayed-officials/
*small dead animals: Maurice Strong Steps Down
Maurice Strong, a long-time Canadian businessman and currently the top UN envoy for North Korea, will suspend his work for the United …
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/archives/001739.html
People making comments should note that under current law, “cost=benefit analysis” is required for a gas like CO2 which is indispensable to all human activity. See http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/01/AR2009040103717.html
The “endangerment” finding should likewise specifically analyze the elements of endangerment of the proposed reductions in this necessary metabolic gas to the same extent as the supposed elements of endangerment from further increases.
Is our government really going to make breathing illegal. Maybe they’ll lets us inhale and not exhale. (The inverse Clinton rule?)
Has anyone but me seen Lord Moncktons letter to Congress? It is from March 30 and totally comprehensive. I am not a US citizen, but could someone in the US please send a copy to the EPA? Link is: http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/reprint/markey_and_barton_letter.pdf
Yep, that SF6 is scary stuff. Especially since it comes in at a Whopping 6.5 part per TRILLION. Yep, you heard it right. 6.5 ppt. The approx. equivalent of 140 parts per Billion of CO2. It seems to be increasing at about 60%/decade, so in 100 years it will be equivalent to approx 1 part per million of Co2.
Terrifyin it is. Yep
Maybe slightly off topic, but I second Jim Cripwell’s question:
“Methane is 23 times more potent as a GHG than CO2, but like CO2 is also part of our natural cycle on earth.” By what measure is methane 23 times more potent?
Or SF6, or N2O, or O3, for that matter? The most abundant of these ultratrace gases is CH4, somewhere around 1 or 2 ppm, the others are ppb or less. How can they possibly matter compared to H2O at percent levels, or CO2 in the hundredths of a percent? This chemist wants to know.
It probably should be pointed out that Zeke Hausfather is on the payroll of the Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment — and being a recipient of their financial largesse, he must dance to the tune they call. If Zeke honestly admitted that CO2 has a negligible effect on the climate, Grantham’s payola would go elsewhere.
The Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment has a very heavy pro-AGW agenda, as you can guess from their name. They pay organizations like Zeke’s to be a front for their alarmist agenda.
Since Zeke isn’t telling you this, I thought I would.
[snip -religion and prophesy is not relevant to this topic]
The new head of NOAA Jane Lubchenco is making up things.
“climate models are now sufficiently “robust” to help scientists start to do the same with climate, to help businesses, elected officials and regulators make good decisions on issues like where to put buildings or roads or wind farms. ”
http://www.thescienceforum.com/A-meaningful-consensus-on-global-warming-17612t.php
Dr. Lubchenco said, one of her goals at NOAA is to establish a climate information service modeled on the National Weather Service, which is part of the agency. The weather service provides “just a phenomenal service” in making information available in ways ordinary people can understand it and act on it, she said. Dr. Lubchenco believes climate models are now sufficiently “robust” to help scientists start to do the same with climate, to help businesses, elected officials and regulators make good decisions on issues like where to put buildings or roads or wind farms.
“It is no longer enough to know what the wind patterns were for the last hundred years,” she said. “You want to know what they will be for the next hundred years — and they undoubtedly won’t be the same. So there are huge opportunities to provide services to the country.”
The idea, which she said had been broached by the National Academy of Sciences, would have to be a joint effort with other agencies involved in the issue, like the Environmental Protection Agency, NASA or the United States Geological Survey, she said.”
Jane Lubchenco has a history of fabricating science.
As an OSU professor and researcher Jane fabricated a connection bewteeen ocean dead zones and AGW.
But her own research found NO Connection to AGW.
“””””Researchers at OSU said the erratic wind patterns of recent years are consistent with changes predicted in computer models that attempt to simulate the effects of global warming.
But they caution that at this point it is unclear what — if any — link the dead zone has to climate change.
“We can say that what we are seeing is totally consistent with the changes predicted by the models,” said Jane Lubchenco, OSU marine ecologist”””””””.
The sum total of here basis for spreading her farce is their characterizing wind patterns as erratic and therefore consistent with computer models.
Lubchencho perpetrated a farce even when her own research could NOT establish “what — if any — link the dead zone has to climate changes.”
She is now contributing to the fabricatiion that climate models are robust enough to predict where wind will be.
This is the technique that has ushered along much of the AGW movement.
It’s called fabrication. Or finding data where none exists. And it travels far and wide by accomplices, the willing media and foolish activists.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_zone_(ecology)
Chemical fertilizer is considered the prime cause of dead zones around the world.
Other natural oceanographic phenomena can cause deoxygenation of parts of the water column. For example, enclosed bodies of water such as fjords or the Black Sea have shallow sills at their entrances causing water to be stagnant there for a long time. The eastern tropical Pacific Ocean and Northern Indian Ocean have lowered oxygen concentrations which are thought to be in regions where there is minimal circulation to replace the oxygen that is consumed.
Oregon
Off the coast of Cape Perpetua, Oregon, there is also a dead zone with a 2006 reported size of 300 square miles.[2] This dead zone is unique in that it only exists during the summer, perhaps due to seasonal wind patterns.
Gulf of Mexico
Currently the most notorious dead zone is a 22,126 square kilometer (8,543 square mile) region in the Gulf of Mexico, where the Mississippi River dumps high-nutrient runoff from its vast drainage basin, which includes the heart of U.S. agribusiness, the Midwest, affecting important shrimp fishing grounds. This is equivalent to a dead zone the size of the State of New Jersey. A dead zone off the coast of Texas near Freeport was also discovered in July 2007.[3]
Reversal of dead zones
Dead zones are not irreversible The Black Sea dead zone, previously the largest dead zone in the world, largely disappeared between 1991 and 2001 after fertilizers became too costly to use following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the demise of centrally planned economies in Eastern and Central Europe. Fishing has again become a major economic activity in the region.[4]
While the Black Sea “cleanup” was largely unintentional and involved a drop in hard-to-control fertilizer usage, the U.N. has advocated other cleanups by reducing large industrial emissions.[4] From 1985-2000, the North Sea dead zone had nitrogen reduced by 37% when policy efforts by countries on the Rhine River reduced sewage and industrial emissions of nitrogen into the water.
The chemical Aluminium sulfate can be used to reduce phosphates in water.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2004182252_webdeadzone15m.html
Off the coast of Washington, the old numbers tell a different story, said University of Washington oceanographer Barbara Hickey. Zones of low-oxygen water have long been common in the summers.
“Definitely in the ’60s and ’70s we saw numerous examples of extremely low oxygen,” she said. For the past three years, Hickey and her colleagues have been collecting more detailed data from a research buoy off Kalaloch, on Washington’s coast. But it’s too early to say whether the dead zones are intensifying or spreading, Hickey said.
Hickey also cautioned against drawing conclusions about the role of global warming in Oregon’s dead zones. “It’s dangerous to project out too soon.”
[snip truly OT, let’s stick to the EPA here]
Who knows…Perhaps you were invaded by aliens who do not breath oxygen and consequently do not exhale CO2 and they need to change earth’ s atmosphere to a more friendly for them composition.
Link for my numbers on SF6
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulfur_hexafluoride
timetochooseagain,
A net increase in transpiration would be balanced by an increase in precipitation, all things being equal. There certainly could be local effects where increasing transpiration could increase the humidity without reaching the dew point, but on larger scales the water vapor content of the atmosphere is constrained by the temperature.
Smokey,
To be perfectly honest, I’d never even heard of the Grantham Foundation before someone brought it up here awhile back. Good digging though. I blog in my spare time (or to procrastinate working on the energy use mapping project I’m currently involved with), just like the rest of you, and my views are certainly not influenced by the alumni or foundations that support the Yale Forum. If you complain (and rightly so) about people unfairly accusing skeptics of being on the “payroll of big oil” the least you could do is reciprocate the favor. Regardless, given that this is a science blog, shouldn’t our arguments focus on the content of our ideas?
Fun stuff: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/01/090113-alien-earth-frozen.html
Zeke Hausfather (13:40:51) : “ The fact that absolute humidity increases with temperature (while relative humidity stays constant) is not particularly complicated, …”
AH is the mass of water vapor in a volume of air. (aka volumetric humidity) I don’t see temperature in this definition.
Did you mean Maximum absolute humidity in your statement?
RH is defined as the ratio of the partial pressure of water vapor in a gaseous mixture of air and water vapor to the saturated vapor pressure of water at a given temperature. During a day with rising temperature the RH decreases; evening brings cooling and RH increases.
What am I missing? This is so complicated.
Zeke-how can models possibly represent water vapor well when it is so tied up with cloud processes? And why do you make claims about water vapor being “constrainted” by temperature when, for feedback to be correct it needs to be ~determined~ by temperature, not merely “constrained”? But I notice you didn’t challenge my statement that regulation of something simply because it is a human climate forcing leads to asinine results. And I notice you still fail to understand that regional climate is way more important than global.
For non-US residents, I received this e-mail from the EPA:-
Thank you for your email to ghgendangerment@epa.gov. While it is not possible to submit evidence to the public hearings fromthe UK, you are welcome to submit written comments to the public Docket,docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2009-0171. Written statements and supportinginformation submitted during the comment period will be considered withthe same weight as any oral comments and supporting informationpresented at the public hearings. Although EPA’s proposed finding has not yet been published in theFederal Register, a pre-publication version is available atwww.epa.gov/climatechange/endangerment.html. Comments can be officiallysubmitted upon publication in the Federal Register, using instructionstherein. Again, thank you for your email.
So my comments will concentrate on the IPCC climate model. Dr. Syun Akasofu’s recent post seems like a good starting point.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/03/20/dr-syun-akasofu-on-ipccs-forecast-accuracy/
With some background on CO2 and greenhouse effect:-
http://brneurosci.org/co2.html
Something on feedbacks in the climate system:-
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/03/30/lindzen-on-negative-climate-feedback/#comment-107722
And CO2 over geological history:-
http://www.pnas.org/content/99/7/4167.full
The final point
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/04/16/consensus-climate-science-what-would-thomas-huxley-say/
Specifically
Extreme claims require extreme proof
.
It is a canon of common sense, to say nothing of science, that the more improbable a supposed occurrence, the more cogent ought to be the evidence in its favor.
-Science and the Christian Tradition, “An Episcopal Trilogy,” p. 135
I don’t see how they are going to enforce this at all.
Are they going to close coal-fired power plants (the new vehicles suggestion is just a red herring – you don’t declare something a danger and then only regulate one little part of the emissions).
How are they going to regulate N20? Almost all of it comes from the break-down of nitrogen fertilizer after it is used by farmers – are they going to regulate fertilizer usage?
How are they going to regulate Methane? We don’t even know where it is coming from right now (although the oil and gas industry was partly responsible for the run-up in Methane in the 1970s and 1980s when they just released Methane (natural gas) into the atmosphere). The latest increases in the Methane are somewhat of a mystery.
How do we stop the bureaucracy in this case when it starts finding how much power they have now.
What bothers me, aside from the massive transfer of power from individuals to bureaucrats and special interests, that this legislation will support, is the simplistic chemistry that is portrayed in these ‘Greenhouse effect’ diagrams.
I don’t know the actual numbers, but I believe the biomass of microbes and plant species is massive in comparison to atmospheric CO2, and all those plants and microbes produce small organic molecules which have significant vapor pressure and will be released into the atmosphere — a plethora of short chain alcohols, aldehydes, acetylenes, hydrocarbons etc are products of life on the planet. These compounds individually don’t account for much and probably have a short lifetime in the atmosphere, but they are strong infrared absorbers and taken as a whole are probably more significant in their impacts than the amounts of ‘bad’ man-made chemicals (mainly man-made CO2) that are constantly being blamed for every(negative)thing under the sun.
I don’t believe any models take them into account.
Incidentally, I believe we should be putting as much CO2 (and H2O) into the atmosphere as we can and should be developing the lowest cost most efficient sources of energy we can. I don’t find living a primitive lifestyle particularly appealing — I also don’t look forward to longer colder winters which appears to be the goal of the AGW crowd. I also don’t think governments should be imposing secular evironmental religions — which is what AGW is — on the populace.
Slightly OT but I heard today on the, infamous, BBC that the “botty burps” of insects are estimated to account for 20% of all methane produced on the planet.
What action do the AGWers intend to take to correct that?
Enjoy.
At 6.5 part per Trillion I’d say that the industry has a good control over the emission of SF6. But controlling naturally occuring molecules like those of CO2, N2O and CH4, which human contribution is relatively insignificant… good luck to us all!
Don’t you remember somebody with this kind of voice?
Yeah, but I quit hanging out at those places. 🙂
Zeke said (14:39:37) :
‘To be perfectly honest‘?? I advise you to stop digging that particular hole, Zeke.
The home page of your own blog states quite clearly:
I guess I don’t blame you for trying to hide the fact that you’re on Grantham’s payroll. It’s very embarrassing when it’s discovered that you’re shilling for a pro-AGW climate alarmist foundation [they fund treehugger.com, and many similar blogs, too]. But trying to cover it up here was a mistake.
Just a thought…. is it not possible that the concentrations of some of the major gases such as Nitogen or water vapour may have decreased slightly in the atmosphere, which would increase the concentrations in percentage terms or ppm as a whole of some of the smaller gases such as CO2?
Whenever anyone says “to be perfectly honest” or “to tell the truth”, it’s a good bet that there will be more than a little prevarication that follows… At least that’s what my Dad said.
Ouch for Zeke
Might it be wiser to NOT warn the EPA of the stupidity of what they’re considering? If we let the EPA make complete asses of themselves, then when the whole AGW bubble bursts, the end result will be all the more useful.
If we make good points now, they will be cool their inflammatory rhetoric (avoid calling us “flat Earthers” and the like.) Then when the arctic sea ice has fully recovered and it is undeniable that the whole thing was misguided, they can wiggle out. They could claim they were just trying to be cautious and didn’t really plan to screw up the whole economy to limit an essential gas.
This thread is going to be more tightly moderated than others. The topic is addressing the EPA. OT posts, troll posts, or posts not deemed appropriate for the thread will be snipped or deleted wholesale.
Murray Carpenter (15:23:30) :
The percentage of “gases” in the atmosphere is a relative one. Nitrogen and oxygen are the most abundant gases in the atmosphere and is not affected significantly by changes of temperature. However, water vapor is affected by temperature. The air at the poles is quite dry and of course if in fact the amount of CO2 is somewhat homogenous in the atmosphere, it’s concentration will be higher in the atmosphere at the pole than at the equator.
Bill Illis (14:59:18) :
“I don’t see how they are going to enforce this at all.”
As I have been writing for months, California via AB 32 has already begun regulating GHGs. There is a measurement and reporting requirement, even down to the type and quantity of fuel burned in furnaces and boilers (a minimum size applies to that). Several enforcement regulations are on the books, with emission reports being verified by independent third-party auditors.
“Are they going to close coal-fired power plants (the new vehicles suggestion is just a red herring – you don’t declare something a danger and then only regulate one little part of the emissions).”
They cannot close all the coal-fired plants right away, as that would lead to an electric power crisis. They can, though, require carbon capture with sequestration (CCS) modifications. CCS will increase the cost of electric power by 50 percent or more, depending on the age of the coal-fired plant.
California (as usual! ) took a novel approach: legislated that no coal-fired plants are allowed in this state. Further, no imported power produced by coal is allowed, after current contracts expire. Then, California added a renewable energy requirement, so the effect is that wind and solar and geothermal will replace coal power within 15 to 20 years or so.
“How are they going to regulate N20? Almost all of it comes from the break-down of nitrogen fertilizer after it is used by farmers – are they going to regulate fertilizer usage?”
The regulations can first regulate non-fertilizer sources, and could conceivably require a change to alternate fertilizers, that emit less or none at all — I am no fertilizer expert but that is their usual line of attack.
“How are they going to regulate Methane? We don’t even know where it is coming from right now (although the oil and gas industry was partly responsible for the run-up in Methane in the 1970s and 1980s when they just released Methane (natural gas) into the atmosphere). The latest increases in the Methane are somewhat of a mystery.”
Again, they regulate known emission sources, such as natural gas producers, pipelines, natural gas users, and refineries. They also require bio-gas collection systems for areas that spontaneously generate methane such as from dairy cattle manure.
“How do we stop the bureaucracy in this case when it starts finding how much power they have now.”
The bureaucracy can be stopped only by legal challenges, IMHO. As others have written before, the threshold is so low in agency regulations that it is virtually impossible to stop once they have some science (no matter how bad) to point to that supports their regulation.
There are many, many, avenues for legal challenges, though. Some are procedural, and a few are substantive.
In fact, the EPA gets sued rather regularly. A google search on the keywords “lawsuits against EPA” turned up more than 1,500,000 entries. A search on “sued” AND “EPA” turned up 560,000 entries. (It keeps a substantial number of lawyers busy…)
Methane has almost no effect because it’s spectral lines are either swamped by H2O (same for CO2!) or are at shorter wavelengths where it’s irrelevant since there is no thermal flux there. I don’t know where the hysteria about it comes from.
Anthony, email me and I’ll send you a nice Modtran 5 PowerPoint slide with the atmospheric absorbance of all the infrared absorbing gases on it. SF6 doesn’t rate.
Can the EPA be sued to provide proof that these gases are pollutants and provide a danger to humans or has the government created an environmental dictatorship called the EPA?
Excuse me for being dense here, according to information I copied earlier, this e-mailaddress: “ghgendangerment@epa.gov.” has this qualifier: ” Please use this contact information for general questions only. ” Although it is noted in comment(s) above as being used to send comments. Is this the correct email?: “GHG-Endangerment-Docket@epa.gov“
Thank you
The Ethanol Bubble Pops in Iowa
More evidence the fuel makes little economic sense.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124000832377530477.html
The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration noted in July 2007 that the ethanol boom rapidly increased the amount of fertilizer polluting the Mississippi River. And this week, University of Minnesota researchers Yi-Wen Chiu, Sangwon Suh and Brian Walseth released a study showing that in California — a state with a water shortage — it can take more than 1,000 gallons of water to make one gallon of ethanol. They warned that “energy security is being secured at the expense of water security.”
For all the pain ethanol has caused, it displaced a mere 3% of our oil usage last year. Even if we plowed under all other crops and dedicated the country’s 300 million acres of cropland to ethanol, James Jordan and James Powell of the Polytechnic University of New York estimate we would displace just 15% of our oil demand with biofuels.
But President Barack Obama, an ethanol fan, is leaving current policy in place and has set $6 billion aside in his stimulus package for federal loan guarantees for companies developing innovative energy technologies, including biofuels. It’s part of his push to create “green jobs.” Archer Daniels Midland and oil refiner Valero are already scavenging the husks of shuttered ethanol plants, looking for facilities on the cheap. One such facility may be the plant in Dyersville, which is for sale. Before we’re through, we’ll likely see another ethanol bubble.
Smokey,
In the interests of honoring the wishes of the moderator to limit off topic discussion, I’ll be brief. You may not believe me, but I didn’t even notice that little disclaimer on the Yale Forum until a commenter here at WUWT mentioned it a few months back. I certainly don’t run the place, I just contribute an occasional article, so I know next to nothing about who pays for website development and hosting. I know nothing of good nor bad about the Grantham Foundation, and they certainly have no sway over editorial content. Regardless, in scientific arguments people should be judged on the merits of their argument rather than the institutions or foundations that support their work, and that applies equally to folks be they at Yale, Cato, the Discovery Institute, or anywhere else.
Reply: Enough of this. Do not respond Smokey. The topic is responding to the EPA ~ charles the moderator
The ethanol bubble may have popped but the same EPA that finds CO2 a danger and has blinders for the environmental impact of corn to ethanol production is seriously considering increasing the ethanol from corn content from 10% to 15% to try and re-inflate this bubble. I have not seen a clearer example of lobbying money trumping science AND the environment than I have in the last few weeks.
“The Administrator is proposing to find that the current and projected concentrations of the mix of six key greenhouse gases—carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6)—in the atmosphere threaten the public health and welfare of current and future generations. This is referred to as the endangerment finding. ”
I thought that the basis for the Western legal system was that it was better that a guilty man walks free than an innocent man be found guilty. So why, and under what democratic, legalistic or scientific process, have the EPA created this “Dirty Half-Dozen” of trace atmospheric-gases that “threaten the public health and welfare of current and future generations”.
Is this the findings of a trial, held in camera, in which a careful selection of witnesses guarantees a guilty verdict?
Is the calling for public comment a genuine attempt to seek the truth or a cynical ploy to add a veneer of legitimacy to the findings!
Is this really the US in the 21st Century?
The deliberate linking of familiar chemicals such as carbon dioxide and methane with more sinister sounding substances such as nitrous oxide (N2O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulfur hexafluoride is an age old propaganda technique that seeks to demonize by association.
Once Stalin, Hitler, Mother Theresa and Pol Pot have been grouped together in the public perception then the planned process can proceed.
Carbon Dioxide is the primary target here. Like it or not, it is a chemical by-product of our ever-increasing need for energy to enrich and prolong our lives, and those of our children. The motive to target is taxation.
Forget the fact that mankind contributes only about 5% of global CO2 production while ‘natural’ processes make up the rest. Yup, we are merely tiny fleas on the back of a rather large elephant.
Ignore the overwhelmingly, greater role of water vapor in the ‘greenhouse’ gas mix when compared with oxidizes carbon. Motives anyone?
Rewrite history, so that inconvenient climatic changes of the past are peer-proven to be but mere legend. Ask those who offer evidence to the contrary, when was it when they stopped beating their wives.
Stifle debate by the repetitious chanting of defensive and offensive mantras. Peer-reviewed, everyone agrees, overwhelming evidence, denialist, flat-earthers, worse than predicted and so on. If the facts supported my side of any argument then debate would be the most powerful weapon in my arsenal. Respect to Mr Romm for doing just this recently with Mr Morano – Many say he came off second best but I’d say he’s a hero to his cause. He tried and that’s singularly heroic, unlike the chief protagonists of his point of view!
Change the goal-posts. When warming fails to materialize it becomes climate change. When people associate climate change with natural sources than turn it into climate chaos. If the words don’t work- re-work the words but keep hammering the message. If the data doesn’t support the models – change the data.
Carbon Dioxide is our treasure and, without it, life on this planet would be, not just poorer but non-existent. Turning it into the arch-villain is like hating your mother because she grounded you once.
Once we burned witches – how many would now support those actions? Yes, the peer-viewpoint, at that time supported those actions- and, yes, contrarians unless confident enough to voice dissent without retribution, would remain quiet.
How will the future judge us? Yes, I’m using the ‘precautionary principle’ here but maybe not as some would know it. What if we are wrong about the incompletely-understood, computer-projected dangers posed by increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations and take actions that, however, well-intentioned, consign our children to a lifetime of poverty and a reversal of the expectation that successor generations will have it better?
Perhaps, this attempt to regulate CO2 is just a ploy to increase tax revenues dressed up as a noble cause? It may not be. It may indeed be the best thing we have ever embarked on. I don’t know – Yes, I suspect it is not, but that’s where I’m at just now.
Two years ago I really believed that AGW was killing the planet but then doubts started to creep in. These doubts first emerged when I visited pro-AGW sites – they just seemed so ill-mannered, intolerant and bad-tempered to posters who posited alternative viewpoints.
Anyway to cut a long story short – thank you gavin, tamino et al for guiding me to where I now find myself!
People produce CO2. I for one applaud the EPA taking on the out of control population explosions in developing nations.
Seriously, no proposal that ignores dHmO is credible. Heck I’d rather die peacefully of CO2 poisoning than violently drowning.
re: The Ethanol Bubble Pops in Iowa
Well, that’s certainly ON TOPIC.
Briefly, that 1,000 gal number comes from the fact that Ca corn is, mostly, irrigated. What’s NOT mentioned is that the irrigation is from surface, and ground water, NOT from aquifer water. Also, not taken into consideration is that an acre of corn “transpires” IIRC 4,000 Gallons of water, daily, which means a goodly amount of it ends up right back in the system.
And, the 3% number is just wrong. Ethanol, after allowing for the DDGS co-product, utilized 12.8 Million acres in 08′, which is approx 14.8% of corn acreage, and replace 7% of our gasoline supply.
Yields are increasing at such a rate that 10% ethanol will probably require no more than 16% of our corn acreage in 2016 (assuming we plant the same amount of corn as at present, approx. 86 million acres.)
By the way, we’re using Less Fertilizer than we did 10 years, ago. And, plowing a Lot less.
The scary part is that now, our mouths are now found to be modeled exactly the same as the exhaust pipe of our car.
If they can eliminate CO2, theoretically then they can eliminate us humans.
Just saying…………..
[chemtrail = snip]
[chemtrail x 2 = delete]
~ charles the moderator
And, Sean, you’re misunderstanding the 15% proposition. The mandated max for “Corn” ethanol remains 15 Billion Gallons (approx 10%.) However, some areas will have a hard time complying (think Alaska, for ex.) Also, “Cellulosic” is coming on. Also, we import a sizable amount from Brazil.
The EPA is considering raising the arbitrary 10% limit for any particular blend, in any particular area. Ex. If Valero wanted to sell an E15 blend in Iowa, and an E5 blend in Wy, and Idaho it would be acceptable.
Today, in my kneck of the woods, Eastern Ottawa and Ontario, we had a massive electricity supply failure. I live and work in the same locale, so I walked to work and said, aloud, in stentorian voice, to a score of employees:
“Welcome to your low-carbon future. No electricity; no lighting; no heating; no refrigeration; no work”
“Welcome to the world powered by windmills and solar panels”
I think I made rhetorical game, set and match. For those who “don’t believe” it is necessary to speak out, as I did.
(Note to Ed: I really did do this).
After my previous O/T post, I avow to make a serious submission the the Evil PA, and will publish it here. However, I have 60 days for my blood to cool and ideas precipitate, so please be patient.
Reply: It was borderline, but I allowed it. ~ charles the moderator.
I know this is off topic [snip–so post in another thread] ~ charles the moderator
“Robert Coté (16:27:51) :
People produce CO2. I for one applaud the EPA taking on the out of control population explosions in developing nations.
Seriously, no proposal that ignores dHmO is credible. Heck I’d rather die peacefully of CO2 poisoning than violently drowning.”
Seriously, Robert I’d rather die quietly in my sleep like my grandfather, than screaming hysterically like the people in his car.
But really seriously, industry has become a very bad thing just as CO2 has.
Odd since industry, which means:
1: diligence in an employment or pursuit ; especially : steady or habitual effort
2 a: systematic labor especially for some useful purpose or the creation of something of value b: a department or branch of a craft, art, business, or manufacture ; especially : one that employs a large personnel and capital especially in manufacturing c: a distinct group of productive or profit-making enterprises d: manufacturing activity as a whole
all of which are good and admirable things. Industry has brought America, you and me, a wealth of goods, possibilities and learning beyond the dreams of all the potentates of history.
The motorcar or automobile has brought freedom along with that wealth. We have the freedom to travel that, again, no one in history has enjoyed. The internet, whoever invented it, has brought the libraries of the earth into our homes. Knowledge is available to this generation that, again, is unprecedented in all of history.
Industry brought the world wealth, freedom and knowledge. But it has come too easily since there are so many who imagine that a step bacwards into the past would be preferable to the riches we enjoy. I hope not too many of our travelers here will forget where we have come from and what we have wrought. There will be no hospitals, no automobiles, no videogames, no heat or light or air conditioning, no longevity, no knowledge, no wealth or freedom in the collective paradise we are heading toward.
CO2 is a marker of freedom and wealth on this earth, it makes the earth thrive just as it does her people. When that marker is despised and removed, wealth and freedom will take their leave just as early death and disease reappear. Where CO2 is embraced humanity will thrive.
Only our diligence and our industry will save us from the coming bad times.
I don’t think the EPA would listen even if there was a Noah’s flood of emails sent to them. There is too much political momentum behind global warming.
Look at what Steven Chu, a powerful figure on President Obama’s cabinet, has said :
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/first100days/2009/04/19/energy-secretary-offers-dire-global-warming-prediction/
Pray for the Chu Effect.
Dear EPA:
As it turns out that fat people are guilty of producing much more CO2 due to their huge annual caloric intakes, I hope you will consider a tax on poundage per annum per fat person !!!!
“Stay slim to save the planet ”
LONDON (Reuters) – Overweight people eat more than thin people and are more likely to travel by car, making excess body weight doubly bad for the environment, according to a study from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.
“When it comes to food consumption, moving about in a heavy body is like driving around in a gas guzzler,” and food production is a major source of greenhouse gases, researchers Phil Edwards and Ian Roberts wrote in their study, published in the International Journal of Epidemiology.
http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSTRE53I2RG20090419?feedType=RSS&feedName=healthNews&rpc=22&sp=true
(For all you legal heads) Is the EPA complying with the DATA QUALITY ACT?
Dear EPA:
As it turns out, people who breathe fast are guilty of producing much more CO2 due to their huge annual breath intakes, I hope you will consider a tax on breaths per annum for fast breathers !!!!
“Breathe slow to save the planet ”
LONDON (Reuters) – Fast breathers are usually thin people and are more likely to travel by bike, making excess CO2 which is doubly bad for the environment, according to a study from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.
“When it comes to oxygen consumption, moving about quickly in a skinny body is like driving around in a gas guzzler,” and CO2 production is, of course, a major source of greenhouse gases, researchers Ed Phillips and Robert Ian wrote in their study, published in the International Journal of Stupidemiology.
Get Fat… Breathe Slow
There is but one thing I can knowingly and confidently say to the EPA:
I cannot for the life of me after 50 years see any rise in the ocean.
None whatsoever.
The tides drown out whatever meager change there might be (a few inches ??).
I have written Lisa Jackson, as someone gave the link to her email.
I did also listen to the interview with her on NPR, and my heart sank.
I will keep trying.
Pieter F (13:30:02) :
Bill from Pittsburgh (12:37:58) :
Good idea. Do you have the specific address for Lisa Jackson, the EPA Administrator?
Pieter. sorry about the delay but here is Lisa Jackson’s address:
USEPA Headquarters
Ariel Rios Building
1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, N. W.
Mail Code: 1101A
Washington, DC 20460
Again, my limited experience with Ms. Jackson is that she will listen to well reasoned, intelligent and well articulated viewpoints.
Also, Anthony, may I suggest that it actually would be useful to have citizens of other nations submit comments? The Obama Adminsitration is rather enamored of European viewpoints and the EPA, I believe, will accept written comments from non-citizens.
Please help me e-mail the EPA as I would like to sent my thoughts on the EPA’s regulation of C02, however once I get the this site, I do not know what to do next:
http://www.regulations.gov/search/search_results.jsp?css=0&&Ntk=All&Ntx=mode+matchall&N=8099&Ne=2+8+11+8053+8054+8098+8074+8066+8084+8055&Ntt=comments&sid=120B596A7935\
Does anybody know where on this site to send your opinion?
Paul Linsay (15:46:08) : Modtran
I’d like a basic Modtran 101 thread. Can you, Anthony, and others do that here. It is probably something the EPA ought to know about, Charles, so if you snip this, pass it on first.
REPLY: I’ll think about it – Anthony
An alarming scientist speaks out on the coming catastrophe. Fore warned is fore armed.
————————————————————-Energy Secretary Offers Dire Global Warming Prediction
Speaking at the Summit of the Americas in the Caribbean nation of Trinidad and Tobago, Steven Chu says some islands could disappear if water levels rise as a result of greenhouse-gas induced climate change.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/first100days/2009/04/19/energy-secretary-offers-dire-global-warming-prediction/
“very, very scary”
“there’s a reasonable probability we can go above 4 degrees Centigrade to 5 and 6 more.”
“So imagine a world 6 degrees warmer. It’s not going to recognize geographical boundaries. It’s not going to recognize anything. So agriculture regions today will be wiped out,”
“I think the Caribbean countries face rising oceans and they face increase in the severity of hurricanes. This is something that is very, very scary to all of us. The island states in the world represent — I remember this number — one-half of 1 percent of the carbon emissions in the world. And they will — some of them will disappear,”
“Let me state what the official IPCC (the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) prediction is: It (sea levels) could go up as much as three-quarters of a meter in this century, but there is a reasonable probability it could be much higher than that,”
“Lots of area in Florida will go under. New Orleans at three-meter height is in great peril. If you look at, you know, the Bay Area, where I came from, all three airports would be under water. So this is — this is serious stuff. The impacts could be enormous,”
Gary Alperin, please see my (13:46:37) comment above.
Juat want truth posted
Look at what Steven Chu, a powerful figure on President Obama’s cabinet, has said :
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/first100days/2009/04/19/energy-secretary-offers-dire-global-warming-prediction/”
“I think the Caribbean countries face rising oceans and they face increase in the severity of hurricanes. This is something that is very, very scary to all of us”
I guess he never read the IPCC reports or talked to any IPCC hurricane experts?
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/science_policy_general/000318chris_landsea_leaves.html
“The IPCC assessments in 1995 and 2001 also concluded that there was no global warming signal found in the hurricane record.”
Will you folks lay of the “humans produce CO2” song. They may ban all the products of fermentation, such as booze, beer, and wine. Cheese. Yogurt. Ok, I don’t care about yogurt but I’ll stand up for it anyway.
Go to Roy Spencer’s page and read his latest Q & A paper. He’s got a section on human CO2 inputs. It is the second question after the pictures of the polar bear chasing the guy around his truck. Read it and realize the futility of trying to play CO2-god. Tell the EPA, congress, and the president that if they see a problem – work directly on that problem. It might do some good.
Here is an analogy. Suppose your neighbor lost her job and she and two kids are short of food. Strategy A: Send $50 to the UN-IPCC and expect their efforts to save Earth, improve agriculture, and lower the cost of food. Strategy B: Buy $50 of staple food items and give them to her. Send a note to the UN and tell them you are sorry they couldn’t help your neighbor, so you did.
With cabinet choices like these it looks like the EPA will have the full backing of the White House—or— maybe these type of moves in the EPA originate in the White House.
Video of President Obama’s choices :
http://www.viddler.com/explore/ceivideo/videos/24/
Bill Illis (14:59:18) :
I don’t see how they are going to enforce this at all.
————————————————————-
Bill the answer is this, they are going to use a computer model to regulate emissions, it is not feasible to “measure the emissions” directly as emitted by Industries such as cement and ranching.
The model takes the input fuel/source and applies an emission level based upon the averages as tested in labs as to the measure of emissions produced via processing. So you supply the EPA with the documented levels of fossil fuel and other inputs such as gravel and talc, any distillates and any trapped carbon sources such as wood as inputs and they run a simulation and tell you what amount of permits you need to have based on the computer model.
If they determine you do not have enough allowances available you pay a fine… Sorry you Purchase a Carbon Credit Offset, or they take them from the first purchase of the following auction.
This is why heavy Industry and Refining are the first targets as they are usually low number of inputs and high volume consumers of fossil fuels, all industry and assemblers will be hit with heating and transportation excise tax on the base fuel calculated as a price per weighted GHG GWP (global warming potential), there is no other way to do it.
So for example you will need to provide all the propane consumed by forklifts, diesel from trucks, gas from fleet vehicles as well as manufacturing inputs.
Methane will be on a per head of livestock based on type (cow, sheep, chicken,hog,etc).
Any changes in procedues or equipment to mitigate emissions will need to be inspected and audited by the EPA and new factors entered for your reporting.
These models are completed and ready to go at the EPA and the base factors have been kindly supplied by the DOE and various environmental agencies, and bodies such as the IPCC and NAS.
Now here is the really cool part, the EPA will calculate you a per unit Emission number, you will have to pass this on to any sub assembler or industry using your output as an input including electricity from fossil fuels, They will calculate their per unit number and add in yours, and so on and so on until the packager adds the EPA Total Emissions Regulated to the labeling showing the total emissions generated for GHGs in question for the product.
Products without this label will be subject to tariffs and taxes depending on the State Level of Regulation.
Simple easy and completely fabricated via computer model, that is how the system will be regulated and enforced. Which is fitting because computer models started the insanity in the first place.
I didn’t read all the comments, but I hope someone noted that the stupid diagram shows C2O2, instead of CO2. LOL.
Some resources below, from CCNet, for your letters to the EPA.
Spring may have finally arrived, after a long, freezing cold winter.
It is a time for optimism, despite your current travails.
You will ultimately win this war, because you are speaking the truth.
But in the meantime, how many more trillions of dollars will be wasted, how many more lives diminished, and how many more opportunities lost – squandered on this fraud of global warming?
Good luck and best wishes, my American friends.
Your neighbour,
Allan MacRae
Canada
IAN PLIMER’S SHORT COURSE ON CLIMATE SCIENCE
Hello Benny
In case you had not seen Ian Plimer’s 5 short videos on climate science:
The scaremongering, and over the top rhetoric about how soon we will fry ourselves off the surface of the Earth if we do not control our carbon emissions is distracting the attention of voters and policy makers away from issues such as immigration and overshoot of carrying capacity that we can actually influence. We will have to learn to adapt to the gradual natural climate change that is taking place and get on with modifying behaviours and philosophies that cause real damage to our supporting ecosystems.
Adelaide Geology Professor, Dr. Ian Plimer, has just published a well-received book ‘Heaven and Earth’.
I have pasted (below) Plimer’s short course in five videos (totalling ~48 minutes ) on Climate Change.
Human Induced Climate Change – Ian Plimer (part 1 of 5)
Human Induced Climate Change – Ian Plimer (part 2 of 5)
Human Induced Climate Change – Ian Plimer (part 3 of 5)
Human Induced Climate Change – Ian Plimer (part 4 of 5)
Human Induced Climate Change – Ian Plimer (part 5 of 5)
Peter Salonius
*********************************
Regarding our ability to challenge the bureaucracy: we need to create positive incentives to do so. A “whistleblower” statute that rewarded those who called the scientific illiterates to task. What if somebody could get a check for winning a suit against EPA or CARB or similar, and the amount of the check was based on the delta in the GDP from the avoided regulation? Not thoroughly worked out yet of course; but we need heavier artillery than comments to the EPA. We need to mobilize human imagination and fact-finding, based on the prospect of financial gain. As the converse, we need to force the bureaucracy to put some skin in the game. If the EPA knew that its next-year budget might be forfeit if its “science” was de-pantsed in a courtroom, it might be just a tad more circumspect. Discuss amongst yourselves…
John H.- 55 says:
Landsea’s statement may have been true at the time he said it as far as it goes (which is a statement about what had currently been detected, not what was predicted for the future). However, this field has been rapidly evolving in the last several years, and here are the statements regarding hurricanes from the IPCC AR4 Working Group 1 Summary for Policymakers (http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/ar4-wg1.htm) issued in 2007:
This area of research remains very active and it is likely that our understanding will continue to evolve. However, while Chu’s statement about hurricanes would have been more accurate had it contained some caveats, I don’t think the gist of it is in contradiction with the IPCC’s latest conclusions.
Reply: Joel, you get this one post, everyone else do not respond. Further hurricane posts will be deleted. Back on topic please–Making your opinion on CO2 and climate change known to the EPA ~ charles the moderator
Ask Dr Meier how he feels about changing our entire economy based on a computer model. Does he feel that his work justifies a completely new system of taxes that are game changers. Are we really in that much danger from a gas that man contributes only about 5% of the total emitted each year. If we reduce our output by 20% then we will go down to what 4.9%? Come on you’re kidding me aren’t you? This is not about saving the planet it’s about politics and control and grant money.
oMan (19:36:45) :
ya, sounds good–but who’s got the money and time?
I knew this day would come … it’s time to ban marathons and the Tour de France.
jae (19:31:08) :
I didn’t read all the comments, but I hope someone noted that the stupid diagram shows C2O2, instead of CO2. LOL.
I wish the AGW movement were something to laugh at.
And if it were limited to some stupid erros it would be.
Oh well. The skull face works.
Now back to the backlash!
We have the head of NOAA, Jane Lubchenco claiming ocean dead zones are caused by AGW and that climate models are now sufficiently “robust” to help scientists forecast where wind patterns will be 100 years from now.
Energy Secretary Steven Chu claiming AGW is bringing more intense hurricanes.
EPA declaring CO2 is a pollutant.
jae (19:31:08),
I noticed that too. This is what they should have shown: click
That evil carbon sure gets around!
Should we only be writing the EPA, or should we also consider efforts to write our Congressmen and have them write the EPA?
I would think the Congressman (or Congresswoman) would carry the greater effect with 10,000 voters behind them.
Robert Bateman (19:53:06),
Excellent suggestion! click
Anthony,
I sent my letter. It was polite and cited sources.
But what is EPA going to do? Their political masters have already dictated the course that they will take. Who in EPA is going to stand up to the president and volunteer for career suicide?
Unless the Senate can put the brakes on, this president will have his way. He will damage the economy even further and weaken America in the eyes of her enemies. In four years, his replacement will come in with a mandate to reverse this nonsense; assuming that the Republican party can find a leader.
Cynical I know. But in my heart of hearts, this is how I see this unfolding.
–Mike Ramsey
The link provided in the article does not point me to the right page.
If you can’t provide the right link – can you at least provide the search terms I should use in order to comment on the specific proposal.
Even using the search term “Carbon Dioxide” the search results say, “21,896 Documents found”
I can’t wade through all this to make a comment.
The ever-expanding general welfare clause has now become a hang-man’s noose. We are going to be turn into serfs by the very government our distant relatives instituted to “secure the blessings of liberty” for us.
John F. Hultquist (19:16:44) :
Here is an analogy. Suppose your neighbor lost her job and she and two kids are short of food. Strategy A: Send $50 to the UN-IPCC and expect their efforts to save Earth, improve agriculture, and lower the cost of food. Strategy B: Buy $50 of staple food items and give them to her. Send a note to the UN and tell them you are sorry they couldn’t help your neighbor, so you did.
________________________________________
Here’s what I think is a better analogy John, better because it’s real. I lost my house in the 1991 Oakland Hills fire, so I know that of which I speak:
In the Berkeley/Oakland Hills, regulations are that we cut back trees and scrub at least 90 feet away from our houses. This is mandated. Now remember, Berkeley is generally considered to be a relatively left wing, liberal kinda place. Eucalyptus trees are a no no (exploding, burning oil is not good for fire control), so they are becoming a dying breed in this area.
In Australia, I gather from reading about their fires that the clown science went along the following lines:
You can’t cut down the trees around your house because they take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide causes global warming. Global warming causes a greater risk of fire. Therefore, cutting trees down around your house causes a greater risk of fire.
I think the Berkeley/Oakland method is best. It almost certainly involves less time spent identifying the charred bodies of relatives, which I happen to believe is a good thing.
The only two in the Senate I know of who can put the brakes on this are Mitch McConnell and Lindsay Graham. Such a working could also be costly.
I too have my doubts about personal letters to the EPA, but I tried anyways.
Should the EPA not listen, there might be a Plan B.
Just thinking ahead here.
Hoping that Lisa Jackson has a change of heart.
Today on the Diane Rheam show on NPR featured “experts” on the issue of the EPA proposing to include CO2 as a hazardous substance.
The “experts” consisted of two attorneys, and a couple of journalists. No major controversy was raised…as they ALL were of the consensus that we “have to do something about “climate change.”
It was a really disappointing discussion about an EPA decision that could send modern civilization back to the stone age.
Here is the email that I typed out to the show hoping that it would be read on the show. Of course it wasn’t…
“Dear Diane,
I am a fan of your show but your panel today is ill-equipped to speak on the issues of the new proposed EPA addition of CO2 to the blacklist, or “climate change”…
Also….what the audience needs to know here is that we are talking about TWO separate arguments here: 1) The NATURAL cycles of weather. 2) HUMAN-induced pollution of the planet [the latter on which we can all agree on drastic measures need to be taken in some cases, especially in regards to our oceans].
This panel today should consist of SCIENTISTS on both sides of the controversial AGW issue…NOT attorneys and journalists [sorry guys].
Speaking of attorneys, the one remark about that the “science on global warming has been crystal clear for a number of years now” is either a) an uninformed comment, b) a misrepresentation, or c) a boldface lie. Let’s hope that his comment was under the “a” category…as the other two categories are inexcusable for a juris doctorate.
A HANDFUL of dissenting scientists, Margaret??? A “fringe”, David??? http://www.petitionproject.org
Show the hard evidence [HARD evidence] that AGW is occurring [but you can not, can you?]
In turn, I will show you the hard evidence of tens of thousands of meteorologists, physicists, climatologists, paleoclimatologists, engineers, solar scientists, oceanographers, et al….who, like Gallileo before the Inquisition, are saying “HELL NO”.
TWO Separate arguments here: 1) Should we clean up our grossly polluted planet and stop raping the environment and the oceans??? YES, by all means.
2) Can humans influence NATURAL cycles that have been occurring for BILLIONS of years? NO. That is ludicrous.
Please do a show with REAL scientists debating the issue and I will tune back in.”
It was unfortunate because a debate whether CO2 should be blacklisted by the EPA….was hijacked and turned into a yes-men “well the AGW-deniers are a “fringe” or a “handful”….argument.
No one there to hold their feet to the fire for their inaccuracies. So much for “public” radio.
Chris
Norfolk, VA
Robert I am all ears about your Plan B.
Writing government bureaucrats who are entrenched in their positions (and their tenure and their salaries) may not be the most effective.
Hopefully something will work before the EPA bites the CO2 that feeds us!
Chris
Norfolk, VA
Thank you Bill from Pittsburgh. Your suggestions are directly on point and well-taken.
May I suggest a wiki collaboration for comments on this proposed rule-making?
Clearly numerous informed persons intend to comment, and a collaboration may result in a more comprehensive, well-supported comment. Of course, no one would be precluded from submitting an individual comment. I don’t know how to start such a wiki, nor am I inclined to learn how. Perhaps someone with experience could take the lead.
May I further suggest that comments be narrowly tailored to refute EPA’s specifically proposed action. A general opining on the lack of merit of AGW would be counter-productive and disregarded. EPA will not feel compelled to respond to a general rant but will be compelled to respond to peer-reviewed papers supported by hard data. Identifying specific science that refutes the proposed action is most helpful.
Hard copy comments are perhaps best if a comment relies on an obscure paper. Attach a copy of the reference if you can; otherwise, you rely on EPA tasking someone to track down and read your reference. If it is difficult to procure and seldom cited in other references, how much weight should it be given anyway?
A final note. If someone truly has the means and inclination to go litigating after the fact, that someone must submit a comment that includes the specific point and science to be litigated. If not, that someone will lack legal standing to challenge the EPA rule-making.
It runs counter to my optimistic nature to think of this rule making as fait accompli. Nevertheless, given the regulatory climate, anticipating the end while something can still be done is necessary. The proposed wiki collaboration should be intended to persuade EPA completely away from its proposal.
Public comments are not restricted to U.S. citizens. International comments will not be excluded.
O/T
I’ve only recently discovered Wattsupwiththat, and the numerous, well-informed comments are heartening indeed. I am awed at the professional and amateur expertise on climate expressed on this site. Thanks to Anthony, moderators, and commentors all.
That so many wish to influence government based on science is a welcome affirmation of the good and honest in humanity.
DS
Thomas Donlon (20:37:08), please see my (13:46:37) comment above.
Has anyone noticed advertisements on TV and in magazines from “Supreme Master Ching Hai”, the subject at this point being “Go Green, Go Veg, Save the Planet” ?
In Australia the SBS TV channel is carrying this advert. at least twice a night in prime time, pushing the message of going vegetarian to reduce methane and livestock levels.
The material eminates from “Supreme Master TV”, which is broadcast from multi satellite sources and Internet TV. The internet site can very easily be found by Googling – “Supreme Master”, where you will find amongst a lot of myth information, Dr James Hansen on Man Made Global Warming and all the tipping points. Dr Barry Brook from the University of Adelaide on the dangers of methane, as the result of ruminant animals being farmed as a food source. You also have all the Carbon Dioxide is “pollution” rhetoric presented.
Also an interview with Dr Pachauri of the UN on reducing meat consumption, for the above reasons, methane, greenhouse gases, Climate Change.
If you look at the format of presentation on the Supreme Master website, you will find it disturbing, not only with it’s content but the method of presentation, with rapidly changing scenes, including disasters (calving glaciers, raging forest fires).
Wikipedia also has a good examination of ‘Supreme Master – Ching Hai’, the cult and it’s following.
If it looks like propaganda, and smells like propaganda, it probably is propaganda.
This law is simply a tool to instigate ‘carbon rationing’ this in effect will allow central government to set up and control a ‘central planning/command economy’ similar to the USSR model.
The fact that no state controlled economy has ever worked seems to have escaped those who have worked for years to build this system.
We hear much talk by the supporters and instigators of the soviet command economy model Mk11 they tell us of the post democratic age and that capitalism has failed and is dead, now we know why.
Imagine a future where a central government controls industrial output,economic activity,consumer demand and where a central beaurocracy dictates what a person can buy,when they can buy it and if they need it at all… hey, havent we seen this before somewhere? Oooh yes, we saw what happened to the empire that tried it and it was not a pretty sight was it?
The goal is complete control of economic activity and the central control of the harmless by product of using fossil fuels gives the instigators complete control of the entire industrial/economic cycle.
A beaurocrat can decide whether you need a fridge/car/washing machine/computer/telecoms etc, he can decide how long you wait, what you pay and if you are entitled in the first place, food production can be controlled from a central beaurocracy, where has this been tried before? it didnt work out too well then did it?
If there was ever a single mechanism that could be seen as essential to building this soviet style command economy it is the above law, the goal has always been to recreate and build a post democratic Marxian state where the dominant force is the all powerful state monolith, did you ever wonder where all the marxist/leftist/socialist/communist cheerleaders for the USSR went when it collapsed?
The fact is that most changed their clothes from red to green, all those students who were in love with the USSR are now in positions of power and they are using that power to subvert and destroy democracy using the disguise of enviromental concern.
The legions who have pushed and struggled for this end result have no real love for humanity, they have a burning desire to control and rule its destiny with a rod of iron, once they have control they will use their power with all the hard and fanatical fury any of historys despots.
The so called enviromentalists will be hard task masters, they will treat the masses very harshly indeed, human rights mean nothing to them if they stand in the way of their new peoples paradise, they are chomping at the bit to criminalise deniers and given the chance thats exactly what what they would do, they actually state it openly, a fanatical desire to rule and control coupled with a deep seated and violent hatred of their idological enemies and an absolute belief in the rightness of their cause makes them very dangerous to humanity indeed.
JeffT (21:36:57) :
Has anyone noticed advertisements on TV and in magazines from “Supreme Master Ching Hai”, the subject at this point being “Go Green, Go Veg, Save the Planet” ?
In Australia the SBS TV channel is carrying this advert. at least twice a night in prime time, pushing the message of going vegetarian to reduce methane and livestock levels.
…
If it looks like propaganda, and smells like propaganda, it probably is propaganda.
Such propaganda only inspires my contrarian delight in eating meat.
I will never accept serfdom.
Remember folks, you have a constitutional right to a trial by jury. If the epa prosecutes you, but the jury aquits you, you win.
It technically only takes 1 out of 12 jurors to get a mistrial. What if 12 jurors started aqiuiting en masse those charged with dubious environmental crimes?
The laws would become moot and irrelevant.
In fact, beware that the whole legal system would collapse if everyone demanded a jury trial.
Let em pass all the laws they want. Just quit convicting anyone for violating such laws.
Dane Skold (21:18:10):
I unfortunately do not share your optimism about influencing the EPA in this finding. I truly wish I did.
As you will know, the evidentiary standard for such a finding is very low, and EPA will rely on published articles that support their finding. EPA can ignore publications that do not support their finding.
My experience over the years with EPA findings and rulings has been that EPA makes essentially any rule it likes, provided there is some science as support. Their findings and rulings are consistent with the President’s views (whoever that might be at the time).
Where the affected industries take their shots is over implementation timing issues, or difficulty in compliance, or adjusting the maximum emission levels, and sometimes in procedural issues.
I refer to the many EPA rulings that impacted the manufacturing and continuous process industries, such as steel, chemicals, petrochemicals, oil refineries, and natural gas plants. Just a few of these include lead phase-out from gasoline, benzene and toluene in gasoline, sulfur in diesel, SOx and NOx. There were many others under the MACT rules (maximum achievable control technology).
Even so, I believe there is value in sending carefully-reasoned and well-documented comments to EPA, not least of which, as you wrote, is to establish standing to sue.
For a list and quick summary of some of the MACT issues, click here:
http://www.epa.gov/air/toxicair/takingtoxics/p2.html
A key difference between MACT rules, and this proposed GHG rule, is that MACT is based on the lowest emissions from a facility that uses the latest control technology to reduce emissions. In contrast, this CO2-GHG rule (whatever its final form) will likely require a shift to completely new technologies, such as electric heaters rather than gas-fired furnaces, and electric cars rather than gasoline or diesel cars. The electricity will then be mandated to be derived from non-fossil sources, such as wind, solar, and waves.
What is the penalty for those unable to pay their breathing tax?
WOC – This is all about the green’s “WAR ON COMBUSTION”.
Dear Anthony and all,
it is not completly on topic – yet somehow reated.
You probalby remember me for my posts doubting the pure anthropogenic fault for the rise of the CO2 amount in the atmosphere.
I found another way to express one of my concerns:
Let’s assume a ballon full of air with a whole bunch of holes and different people blowing air into it. Everything is nice and stable until a little boy somehow mamages to blow some extra amount of air into it and increases the preasure in that ballon by 30%.
What would happen with the leak rate (as long the preasure of the atmosphere is more or less constant)?
What they say happens with the reservoirs for CO2 in real world?
“The oceans take less and less CO2, because the sinks get saturated” or so!?
And yet the amount of CO2 in the sea has not changed significantly due to human influence.
Can someone point an error in my little model?
I would conclude, if I increase the air preasure in a ballon by 30% and yet the leak rate is decreasing, well the preasure of the atmosphere must have changed . . . not bad for that little boy, is it!?
__
All the best regards,
LoN
I’m not a US citizen, but, having been struck by:-
Barry Foster (13:10:35) :
Wow, and I thought our government here in the UK was stupid!
I am very fearful that, unless you guys succeed in putting a stop to this nonsense, our government (which IS stupid in at least as many ways as yours) will blindly follow suit as our prime minister looks for even more ludicrous ways to stave off a heavy electoral defeat next year.
You have my support as that’s the only thing I can offer just now.
Dear US friends,
Do please respond in droves to this request. If only 34% believe in AGW this leaves 66% of you against King Canute laws.
Maybe the gods will be kind to us and this summer will be cool and the next winter will be even colder than the past. I think that is the only wake up call for the emperor to realize he is wearing no clothes.
My grandfather told me as a child…if the Democrats could figure out a way to tax the air we breath, they would do it. They figured out how…
This is great to let us know how to provide commentary. Please let everyone know when the comments may begin.
Craig (19:44:49) : “I knew this day would come … it’s time to ban marathons and the Tour de France.”
Why stop there, how about banning all those football stadiums full of screaming fans every Saturday and Sunday? Don’t forget about all the tailgating before each game (“charcoal burning everywhere”). How about all those arenas full of screaming fans several times a week for basketball and hockey? How about banning political conventions …. OK I’ll go along with that one!
Jack Green says:
Jack, far be it for me to suggest what arguments you might use if you were to write the EPA to express your opinion, but I will just warn you that if you send them points like this your letter will not be taken at all seriously because it will just show them that you do not understand the science. Yes, there are large exchanges that occur between the oceans and the atmosphere and the biosphere and the atmosphere. However, these are very closely balanced exchanges back-and-forth involving carbon that is readily available to the atmosphere. The CO2 that we are releasing into the atmosphere by contrast is from a store of carbon (fossil fuels) that has long been locked away from the atmosphere and represents a new source. Hence, the rise in CO2 in the atmosphere since the industrial revolution is entirely…or nearly entirely…due to humans.
An analogy is too a fountain where all of the water that goes down the drain is pumped backed up and squirted out the fountain again. If the basin of the fountain is filled to the brim, it will not overflow from this process because the water is just being recycled. However, now if you come along and turn on a water spicket and attach a hose to it going into the basin, you will cause it to start to overflow. And, the overflow will be due entirely to you even if the rate at which water comes out of the hose is considerably less than the rate at which the fountain shoots out the water.
Law of Nature says:
I think you are confused here. Scientists already understand that, all else being equal, as one increases the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, more goes into the oceans. And indeed, that is what is being observed. In fact, only about half of the CO2 that we have been putting into the atmosphere through the burning of fossil fuels has remained there; much of the other half, is going into the oceans (although some is also going into the biosphere).
So, scientists indeed understand that as you increase the partial pressure of CO2 gas in the atmosphere, some of it goes into the oceans. The argument about sinks involves the extent to which this will continue to occur at the same rate that it does now. I.e., scientists are not saying that the oceans won’t continue to be a sink for CO2, but what they are saying is that they may not continue doing so at the same rate. I think part of this effect is due to the fact that as the ocean waters warm they do tend to release some CO2 and part is due to other effects involving the mixing of surface waters down to deeper levels and such.
I had some difficulty finding the site–the links provided above take the reader to the government website, but not the specific EPA proposal at issue.
Opening the link, I used the column on the left side to narrow mt search. I selected EPA, and then I selected Proposed Rule under document type.
9 entries down on this search is “Mandatory Reporting of Green House Gases; Proposed Rule”. If it helps your search, the docket ID is EPA-HQ-OAR-2008-0508. The entry has a link to a pdf of the proposed rule. It also has the link to the on line form where you may submit comments.
I will read and see if there is a specific point of contact in the event you also want to send your comment as hard copies.
I believe that this is the rule about which we are talking. If it is not, please advise me so I do not spread inaccurate information.
Thanks
Tim
Joel Shore,
Your major blunder is to assume that carbon dioxide is harmful, when it is in fact beneficial.
Even politicians are starting to question AGW globaloney: click.
It is the CO2=AGW gang’s position that the climate never changed until the SUV came along. Skeptics know the climate always fluctuates within its normal and natural historical parameters. Cognitive dissonance is required to assume otherwise.
All the commenting about water vapor, a tax on breathing, cow farts, and soot and emissions from third world dung fires is counterproductive. Warmists will point here to say “see, the willfully ignorant denialists don’t even know the difference between fossil fuel and biofuel emissions, no wonder they get the science wrong”. Or, “so-called AGW skeptics can’t tell the difference between CONTROLLABLE human CO2 emissions by excess fossil fuel consumption and NATURAL water vapor emissions on a planet whose surface is 71% oceans; they’re not true skeptics, they’re just plain ignorant”.
I agree with Dane Skold, “EPA will not feel compelled to respond to a general rant but will be compelled to respond to peer-reviewed papers supported by hard data.” I suggest googling the following scientists and organizations for some peer reviewed science to support comments about GHG regulation to the EPA; Lindzen, Soon, Baliunas, Balling, Singer, Seitz, Christy, Monckton, Heartland Institute, OISM, and Science & Environmental Policy Project.
The EPA is being advised by “Influential Sources” who provide Influential scientific and statistical information about the “public endangerment” that in their opinion CO2 presents, namely unprecedented global warming. It would appear from the IPCC reports, that this endangerment was determined by the extension of the temperatures and conditions that existed from 1976-2008 into the future plus the adding the impact of more CO2. Since global warming was only possible because AMO and PDO were both peaking on warm, all this translates to extending the past positive AMO and PDO conditions [which no longer exist ] into the future for the next 100 years. Here is a comparison of what happened in the past when PDO and AMO were positive and what happened when they were both negative . The latter is what most skeptics are now predicting for the next 30 years on this blog.The former is what AGW scientists predict.
UNITED STATES
. At least 52% of all the droughts in the US are attributable to PDO and AMO effects. Another 22% are attributable to a complex spatial pattern of positive and negative trends. So 74% of all droughts in United States seem to have nothing to with global warming.
PDO and AMO both positive or warm [like 1925-1945] and [1994 -2008]
Record warm and rising temperatures and significant droughts in 2/3 of northern and central high plains US, California, and Southeast
The very hot spell and dust bowl of the 1930’s
Explains the so called rapid global warming period of 1976-2008
More El Nino events
PDO and AMO both negative or cool [like 1964 -1976] and again [1915-1925]
We are in a similar period since Sept ember 2007[PDO] and January 2009[AMO]
Record Cold temperatures especially in the Northern states
Lot of snow and precipitation
More spring floods especially northern states
Lesser droughts and restricted to central or mid plains, southern California, central US east coast and Maine, southern Florida
More strong –to –violent tornadoes [F3-F5] [see1973]
More La Nina events occur in parallel with negative PDO’S
Of 20 most significant Red River floods in terms of discharge or flow rates [1950m3/sec or more], 14-15 happened during NEGATIVE PDO.
It would appear to me that the real “public endangerment” is telling people to prepare for the wrong future and all the risks that this entails. Instead of warning and advising people to prepare for different [and possibly sometime hazardous] weather conditions and the need for better flood controls, more disaster relief, farming changes, etc [that cool AMO and PDO may bring ]they are telling the people the opposite and spending our borrowed money for the wrong things for the wrong reasons.Its like being told to go out and wear Bremuda shorts , only to find a blizzard outside.
“The word spigot for an indoor faucet spreads southward and westward out of Pennsylvania, where it yields to the New England term faucet in the northernmost counties. To the west, faucet and tap are usual in the Inland North. In the Upper Midwest and Western states, the form spicket reflects Midland and Southern influence.”
If we can’t agree on this how will we ever agree on AGW?
I most definitely will write to the EPA and I am going to write a well thought out letter to the editor of my local newspapers urging people to do the same.
There are many people out there that question AGW.From what I have read in the original interviews such as Waxman’s ‘North Pole Evaporating’ and exposing the tundra, and then The Honorable Nancy Pelosi saying “natural gas is an alternative to fossil fuels”, a toolmaker, carpenter, highschool gym teacher or electroplater whose hobby is weather and/or gardening just might know more about what is going on with the climate than our elected officials and he should be encouraged to voice his opinion. After all, he’s going to be paying for this.
C2O2? I remember the day when in high school study hall a French teacher would point out that error as he passed your desk! That site seems to have something for global warming but just how accurate is that site to learn Chemistry judging from that error.
EPA has a related rule out for public comment so now is a good time to practice!
Docket ID: EPA-HQ-OAR-2008-0508
Docket Title: Greenhouse Gas Mandatory Reporting
Document ID: EPA-HQ-OAR-2008-0508-0139
Document Title: Mandatory Reporting of Greenhouse Gases; Proposed Rule
http://www.regulations.gov/fdmspublic/component/main?main=DocumentDetail&o=090000648094dac4
This is the link to the detail page for the rule document as published in the federal register.
Click the PDF icon next to the “Views” label to see the pdf of the rule as published in the federal register.
Click the yellow bubble icon next to the “Add Comments” label to go to the page where you can type or upload your comments on the rule.
Click on the Docket link at the top “EPA-HQ-OAR-2008-0508” to see the details of the Docket. This is where you will find the supporting materials that EPA has posted (100+) and the posted public submissions (comments) to date. This pages has filtering on the list of documents and may not return anything until you hit the “Go” button by the filtering.
“Show Me All” and “Posted within the Past” are the filtering options.
You will notice that supporting materials only have the pdf icon for viewing, but “public submissions” also have the yellow comment bubble icon. This is where you can comment on a comment.
This rule only has about 100 comments to date. This is may favorite one so far:
“You people are depending on the ignorance and stupidity of regular people, who
are the mainstream masses, to believe this out and out LIE, about mankind
controling the temerature of the earth. I know you know, how stupid you sound,
but when you try to scare people who do not know any better, or have no facts, or
knowledge of all of this, they just say, hey, there has to be something to this, or
why would the whole world come up with this? BECAUSE ALL OF YOU GREEDY
PIGS WANT, IS MORE AND MORE, OF ALL THE PEOPLES MONEY, IN THE
FORM OF TAXES, FOR YOUR SO CALLED CARBON CREDITS. ANOTHER
FAKE THING, WHERE MONEY ONLY GOES TO YOUR DUMD ASS,
ORGINIZATION AND THE DUMB ASS, THAT IS, FAT ASS, AL GORE. WE ARE,
BUT, A SPECK ON THIS PLANET. AND WE DO NOT CHANGE THE
TEMURATURE OF THE EARTH. WE DO NOT NEED, OR , CAN WE AFFORD,
YOUR COSTLY PLAN, TO RAISE UTILITY RATES, IN THE LEAST. YOU ARE
DANGEROUS TO MANKIND. WE ALL HAVE TO LIVE ON THIS PLANET. SO,
WHEN YOU PLAN TO RAPE US ALL, FINANCIALLY AND DESTROY ALL OUR
LIVES AND THERE IS NO POINT IN TRYING TO MAKE A LIVING, BECAUSE,
ALL YOUR GREEDY CAUSES, GET ALL OUR MONEY and there is nothing left
here to take, who will you rape next? China is not that stupid, so, forget them.
You cannot fool mother nature. It is NOT US raising the tempurature of the earth.
She knows better. YOU ARE LYING DIRTY PIGS.”
To Ray (13:40:46) and Allan M R MacRae (19:34:10), I am uncertain of your optimism concerning the Canadian situation. I think President Obama expects Canada and Mexico to go along with any EPA ruling or face renegotiation of NAFTA, which brings me to a question. Will the EPA consider foreign submissions?
have you seen this site? Sounds to me its all settled … http://www.epa.gov/captrade/index.html
Just out of curiosity, has anyone ever estimated the CO2 concentration during any part of the Carboniferous period? For the profundity of coal we can tap today, it must have been very high to support so much vegetation.
Joel Shore (07:03:19) :
‘scientists are not saying that the oceans won’t continue to be a sink for CO2, but what they are saying is that they may not continue doing so at the same rate. ‘
I bet you got that from a computer model.
Very very offtopic, but a more nice CO2-image than that skull in this post. I made it in Paintbrush… 😉
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3011/3037794375_3a46f721c9_o.jpg
Superb testimony here from William Happer of Princeton. This is an elegant framing of the situation.
http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=3382
Humans should stop exhaling CO2 and we should put a cap on all 362 Volcanoes and forbid all mammals from farting, then, we impend lightning from causing fires,then and only then we will REDUCE somewhat CO2.
We must recognize the dynamics of nature and adapt,not CONTROL.
,
Joel Shore (07:03:19) :
Hi Joel,
thanks for your answer
> I think you are confused here.
Maybe, but your answer does not help not much, sorry!
> Scientists already understand that, all else being equal, as one increases
> the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, more goes into the oceans.
Okay, that’s what I said plus I added as long as the ocean’s CO2 amount is mostly constant and paramters in the water do not change an increase of CO2 in the atmosphere cannot result in a reduction of the sinks.
You say to that:
> [..] In fact, only about half of the CO2 that we have been putting into the
> atmosphere through the burning of fossil fuels has remained there;
Well, that is very nice, but completly unrelated. If if the sinks would not reduce, but getting slightly bigger every year (which they should, if the oceans are unchanged in the last decades), you would observe the same behavior with a slightly different time constant: some of the anthropogenic CO2 would dissolve in the oceans every year and some would stay there for a while. This has nothing to do with my point:
A change of the sink rate means the oceans change, which means they are a (big?) part of the rise of CO2 in the Atmosphere.
The change of the sink rate is contadictonary to the standard assumption of a pure anthropogenic cause.
> I think part of this effect is due to the fact that as the ocean waters warm
> they do tend to release some CO2 and part is due to other effects
> involving the mixing of surface waters down to deeper levels and such.
Aha, now you spit my question back at me . .
But yes, you seem to see it my way (but without understanding what you are saying). A warming of the oceans for example tends to release additional CO2. (so does in a much stronger dependence the change of the pH-value lets say due to sulphoric acid) , so how big is this amount compared to the human CO2 production?
All the best,
LoN
Anyone here catch the Frontline special on Chesapeake Bay? It’s amazing to me that the EPA seems to think it has nothing better to do than chase far-flung theories based on the dangers of exhalation while an irreplaceable ecosystem and national treasure are being destroyed by industrial pollution.
The Federal Register published EPA’s proposed finding that CO2 endangers public health and welfare on Friday, May 24, 2009. The clock has started for comments.
http://sowellslawblog.blogspot.com/2009/04/co2-endangerment-finding-published-in.html
Dear Mr. Watts et al:
I discovered this site today…great information. I have been developing and implementing clean technology employing CO2 for the past 25 years. I (and my customers) have witnessed first-hand the many green benefits of using CO2 as an alternative manufacturing agent. I am really concerned that the hysteria and non-sense promulgated by the politicos will damage this great green manufacturing opportunity for industry.
BTW…I read a blog entry about CO2 (in the EPA-CO2 picture) being a linear molecule. This is not always the case. The CO2 structure will bend when it complexes with various organic molecules. Perhaps CO2 is “bent” when combined with the mindset of the EPA? David Jackson.
I will comment on the deplorable lack of Software Quality Assurance in regards the GCM codes and other software used in the IPCC process.
http://danhughes.auditblogs.com/2009/04/26/epa-docket-id-no-epa-hq-oar-2008-0508/
Here is the page for submitting comments:
This Link
Click on “Send a Comment or Submission” to make your comments.
You may also click on “Notification,” fill out the form, and check the box for “Public Submissions” to receive automatic notices of comments.
Section 202 of the Clean Air Act, that EPA’s proposed finding is to modify, requires EPA to consider “the availability and costs of the technology, and noise, energy, and safety factors…”
With all due respect to Dr. Roy Spencer’s arguments, found here, costs must be considered.
Also, the safety factors requirement could be used to argue that capturing and sequestering CO2 creates more danger than allowing the gas to mix into the atmosphere. Concentrated CO2 can leak, displacing oxygen from an area, and cause death to people and animals. People and animals require oxygen to breathe, and will die if breathing high concentrations of CO2.
Further, reducing CO2 will increase energy consumption, so this could be used as an argument against, especially for capturing CO2 from coal-fired power plants.
Anthony,
Please keep those daily updates on WUWT.com as it is enjoyable to read and learn about the current issues facing us today. Recently, you informed us on the desire for the EPA to include CO2 into the Clean Air Act at:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/04/20/making-your-opinion-on-co2-and-climate-change-known-to-the-epa/
However, at the time of you sent it to us, some important details were missing such as a) the exact e-mail address to send our public comments, and, b) the exact science on why the EPA believes this law is needed. After a long search, I have found both of these documents.
a) Docket ID: EPA-HQ-OAR-2009-0171, Docket Title: Proposed Endangerment Finding for Greenhouse Gases under the Clean Air Act (CAA), Document ID: EPA-HQ-OAR-2009-0171-0377
Send public comments to this e-mail address:
http://www.regulations.gov/fdmspublic/component/main?main=SubmitComment&o=0900006480968e17
b) The EPA Science Fact Sheet on why CO2 needs to be included in this law:
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/endangerment/downloads/ScienceFactSheet.pdf
Please share this with your readers so that their opinions can be heard on this important change. Here are the key points on the EPA science “facts” on CO2 according to this document:
Key Points About Climate Change:
1) Heat-trapping greenhouse gases are now at record-high levels in the atmosphere compared to the recent and distant past.
2) These high atmospheric levels are the clear result of human emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
3) Warming of the climate system is now well documented, as is evident from increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global average sea level. Eight of the 10 warmest years on record have occurred since 2001.
4) The buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is very likely the cause of the observed increase in average temperatures and other climatic changes. Most of the warming cannot be explained by natural variability such as variations in solar activity.
5) Future warming over the course of the 21st century, even when assuming emissions growth will be low, is very likely to be greater than observed warming over the past century.
6) The effects of climate change observed to date and/or projected to occur in the future include, but are not limited to: more frequent and intense heat waves, more wildfires, degraded air quality, more heavy downpours and flooding, increased drought, greater sea level rise, more intense storms, harm to water resources, harm to agriculture, and harm to wildlife and ecosystems.
7) The changes to our climate may increase the likelihood of extreme and high-impact events such as more intense hurricanes.
Health Effects Associated With Elevated Greenhouse Gas Concentrations in the United States Temperature Effects:
1) There is evidence that extremely hot days are already increasing. Severe heat waves are projected to intensify, which can increase heat-related mortality and sickness. A possible benefit of moderate temperature increases includes fewer deaths from exposure to extreme cold.
Air Quality Changes:
2) Climate change is expected to worsen regional ozone pollution, with associated risks in respiratory infection, aggravation of asthma, and premature death. The impact on particulate matter remains less certain.
Extreme Events:
3) Storm impacts are likely to be more severe, especially along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts. Heavy rainfall events are expected to increase, increasing the risk of flooding, greater runoff and erosion, and thus the potential for adverse water quality effects. These projected trends can increase the number of people at risk from suffering disease and injury due to floods,
storms, droughts and fires.
Climate-Sensitive Diseases:
4) Potential ranges of certain diseases affected by temperature and precipitation changes, including tick-borne diseases, are expected to increase.
Welfare Effects Associated With Elevated Greenhouse Gas Concentrations in the United States Under the Clean Air Act, “welfare” includes impacts such as effects on soils, water, crops, vegetation, man-made materials, animals, wildlife, weather, visibility, and climate; damage to and deterioration of property and hazards to transportation; as well as effects on economic
values and on personal comfort and well-being.
1) The global sea level gradually rose in the 20th century and is currently rising at an increased rate, exacerbating storm-surge flooding and shoreline erosion.
2) Rising temperatures will diminish snowpack in the Western U.S., affecting seasonal availability of water.
3) Climate change will likely further constrain already over-allocated water resources in some areas of the U.S., increasing competition amongagricultural, municipal, industrial, and ecological uses.
4) Modest climate change, plus elevated CO2, may bring agricultural yield increases in the near term. But, as temperatures continue to rise, these crops will increasingly begin to experience failure. Increases in regional ozone levels will also adversely impact certain crops.
5) Climate change has very likely already increased the size and number of forest fires, insect outbreaks, and tree mortality in the interior West, the Southwest, and Alaska, and will continue to do so.
6) Changes in climate will cause species to shift north and to higher elevations and fundamentally rearrange U.S. ecosystems.
7) Ocean acidification is projected to continue, which can affect the productivity of marine life such as corals.
8) Climate change impacts in certain regions of the world may exacerbate problems that raise humanitarian, trade, and national security issues for the United States.
Thanks for the heads up, Anthony!
The deadline for getting comments in is June 23, 2009, 60 days after the publication of the proposed regs in the Federal Register 4/24/09.
The best link for information on commenting is http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/endangerment.html. This has the 26 page full proposal, a convenient 2-page “Summary of the Science…”, and detailed (3 page typescript) instructions for submitting comments.
The earlier your comment is in, the more attention it will get. Over 600 comments are already in, and are accessible via http://www.regulations.gov, with search for docket EPA-HQ-OAR-2009-0171. Otherwise the http://www.regulations.gov site is hard to navigate.
Touching on specific points in the 2-page “Summary of the Science…” is probably the most effective and concise way to comment.
I’ve finally posted my 5-page comments on the proposed regulations. They haven’t been logged yet, but meanwhile are available via my site at http://www.econ.ohio-state.edu/jhm/AGW/.
As I mentioned above, the best link for information on the regs is http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/endangerment.html . The deadline for comments is June 23, 2009.
As Roger Sowell notes in the original post, although it’s ideal to write your own comment, its still very effective just to agree with an earlier comment.
Although the EPA regs do not relate to the pending Cap and Trade legislation, the flow of opinions on the regs may indirectly affect the legislation.
This thread looks pretty dead, but FWIW, my comment finally showed up on http://www.regulations.gov on June 1, about a week after I sent it to the EPA e-mail address provided. The document ID is EPA-HQ-OAR-2009-0171-1616.1.
Remember comments are due by June 23!
OMG! FUCK YOU GUYS! All of the evidence points toward AGW! You guys are idiots! You selfish pigs will burn in hell! Stupid motherfucking SUV drivers, stupid retards that mar beautiful landscapes with oil drilling and destroy the arctic with unprecedented rapid warming! Almost every year, temperature records are tied-and you retards only pay attention to the few cold months or years that occur! GO FUCK YOURSELVES YOU PATHETIC, SELF-OBSESSED, REPUBLICAN, HOMOPHOBIC LOSERS!
REPLY: Such a nice young man. click I wondered about the “homophobic” comment, since that topic doesn’t get discussed here. With a little searching it is clear why now. click
Unfortunately for you, sometime in the future a potential employer will probably Google your name and find this comment and the foul language you uttered. Such is the risk of ranting on a public forum. – A