EPA’ s Lisa Jackson panders to Copenhagen on opening day. Planned for months of course, with public comment ignored. It is now the people -vs- the EPA, coming to a courtroom near you.
From the EPA press release:
EPA: Greenhouse Gases Threaten Public Health and the Environment
Science overwhelmingly shows greenhouse gas concentrations at unprecedented levels due to human activity
WASHINGTON – After a thorough examination of the scientific evidence and careful consideration of public comments, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced today that greenhouse gases (GHGs) threaten the public health and welfare of the American people. EPA also finds that GHG emissions from on-road vehicles contribute to that threat.
GHGs are the primary driver of climate change, which can lead to hotter, longer heat waves that threaten the health of the sick, poor or elderly; increases in ground-level ozone pollution linked to asthma and other respiratory illnesses; as well as other threats to the health and welfare of Americans.
“These long-overdue findings cement 2009’s place in history as the year when the United States Government began addressing the challenge of greenhouse-gas pollution and seizing the opportunity of clean-energy reform,” said EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson. “Business leaders, security experts, government officials, concerned citizens and the United States Supreme Court have called for enduring, pragmatic solutions to reduce the greenhouse gas pollution that is causing climate change. This continues our work towards clean energy reform that will cut GHGs and reduce the dependence on foreign oil that threatens our national security and our economy.”
EPA’s final findings respond to the 2007 U.S. Supreme Court decision that GHGs fit within the Clean Air Act definition of air pollutants. The findings do not in and of themselves impose any emission reduction requirements but rather allow EPA to finalize the GHG standards proposed earlier this year for new light-duty vehicles as part of the joint rulemaking with the Department of Transportation.
On-road vehicles contribute more than 23 percent of total U.S. GHG emissions. EPA’s proposed GHG standards for light-duty vehicles, a subset of on-road vehicles, would reduce GHG emissions by nearly 950 million metric tons and conserve 1.8 billion barrels of oil over the lifetime of model year 2012-2016 vehicles.
EPA’s endangerment finding covers emissions of six key greenhouse gases – carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulfur hexafluoride – that have been the subject of scrutiny and intense analysis for decades by scientists in the United States and around the world.
Scientific consensus shows that as a result of human activities, GHG concentrations in the atmosphere are at record high levels and data shows that the Earth has been warming over the past 100 years, with the steepest increase in warming in recent decades. The evidence of human-induced climate change goes beyond observed increases in average surface temperatures; it includes melting ice in the Arctic, melting glaciers around the world, increasing ocean temperatures, rising sea levels, acidification of the oceans due to excess carbon dioxide, changing precipitation patterns, and changing patterns of ecosystems and wildlife.
President Obama and Administrator Jackson have publicly stated that they support a legislative solution to the problem of climate change and Congress’ efforts to pass comprehensive climate legislation. However, climate change is threatening public health and welfare, and it is critical that EPA fulfill its obligation to respond to the 2007 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that determined that greenhouse gases fit within the Clean Air Act definition of air pollutants.
EPA issued the proposed findings in April 2009 and held a 60-day public comment period. The agency received more than 380,000 comments, which were carefully reviewed and considered during the development of the final findings.
Information on EPA’s findings: http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/endangerment.html
http://www.qualityresearch.org.uk/docs/samples/Effects_of_Urbanization_on_the_Environment.php
TH (21:26:51) :
The winter of 2009-2010 in Colorado is already legendary. The cold and snow is unprecedented. It looks and feels like Siberia around here.
The “big lie” has come to America.
There’s an Arctic blast coming this week.
Smokey (20:23:29) :
Roger Sowell (20:14:42),
Prepare yourself. This will be one of the expert witnesses against you: click
The cartoon could be improved by showing a bulk of third world children starving to death because Al bought the indulgences that allow him to burn like that.
“Andy_ (21:24:48) :
Wayne, yes indeed……Faraway…….hmmm, i figured i’d been down every road in Alberta by now……apparently not, where abouts is that?”
40 km north of Rocky. 40 km west of Rimbey – see http://www.canabian.com and come by for a visit in the area. Thinking of applying for carbon offsets on the farm … might be more money in that that actually farming it!
Wayne
These fascists need to be held in a C02-free environment. I mean, they say it is a pollutant, right?
Check out the website of the CTV in Canada:
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20091207/greenhouse_gasses_091207/20091207?hub=TopStoriesV2
I wrote a comment to the staff:
CO2 Mask???
“Has it occurred to anyone that CO2 is an odourless, invisible gas that cannot directly harm people in it’s current trace amounts. The argument goes it may potentially cause harm over long time frames through global warming and subsequent sea level rise. Posting a woman with a mask serves to misinform the public. Would you be this careless and show someone wearing a mask in fear of contracting aids or H1N1. I guess the point you are trying to make is she would kill herself by trapping her own exhaled CO2.”
He wouldn’t would he?
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/12/08/obama.gore/index.html
Democratic officials have said Obama is not looking to tap Gore for a Cabinet-level post or any other position in the administration.
But a Gore appointment would almost certainly be greeted with celebration from members of the party’s liberal wing, many of whom are still angry he lost the White House in 2000 despite winning the popular vote.
Andy – it was 38 below this morning. It is 30 below outside right now. I have burned about a half cord of wood today heating the house. All wood off my property that I grew. Does that make me carbon Neutral? Or if I lived in the US, I guess down the road I would be in trouble. (I also have a geothermal system for secondary heat and propane for back up hot water and a house with one foot thick walls to reduce heat loss.
Wander what Al Gore has in his waterfront Condo? Probably doesn’t care.
Wayne in Faraway
The silence of the main stream media in reporting on Climategate, except Fox, is the icing on the cake.
Just one of many posts here…
mkurbo (20:11:25) :
I am sickened by this development…
I agree… I am sickened, depressed, enraged, … I will do everything in my power to work against the tools in my state and district. I am pessimistic that our informed electorate will be able to offset the greed of the entitlement class, the guilt of the successful class, and the lunacy of the rest.
I fear this will grow out of hand. It will be on the heads of cynics like Obama, Gore, Mann, Jones, et al. (too many to list).
By the way, I resent the description of AGW as a religion. I happen to believe that religion in and of itself is not a bad thing. Perhaps cult is a more apt analog.
I assume the products of combustion from smokeless gunpowder are also considered GHGs.
It snowed in Sacramento California:
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/12/07/december-7-a-climate-date-that-will-live-in-infamy/
I find it poetic justice that we have I-5 to LA closed, New Hampshire has reduced the speed limit to 45 mph due to snow, and there is a blizzard warning for N. Arizona… The Gods are laughing, and we know at whom…
I just don’t think the Obama Administration is very bright.
The EPA press release belies an ignorance that is disheartening. What’s also disappointing is the discussion I see among pundits on the issue. Most wouldn’t know what science was if it hit them in the face. Only three of them, William Kristol, Charles Krauthammer, and Nina Easton have provided anything close to knowledgeable analysis on the science (Kristol), the corruption of science (Easton), and the political motivation (Krauthammer). Sen. James Inhofe is also knowledgeable and stands alone among his peers, because he’s actually spent some time studying the issue.
I just watched a disheartening debate tonight between Dr. Pat Michaels and Bill Nye on Anderson Cooper. Even Cooper was a bit incredulous at Nye’s response to the revelation that the researchers at CRU were trying to suppress FOI requests. Nye acted nonchalant about the whole thing. He even said he would’ve done the same thing as the CRU researchers had his institution come under a FOIA request, because “I wouldn’t want to deal with it.” Talk about institutional corruption! I lost whatever respect I had left for him!
Today feels like the inmates taking over the asylum–and the inmates are our leadership! One of many instances in our government institutions, I’m sure.
I second what TH said 4 posts above. It’s a balmy 8 degrees in Denver right now, and the wind chill factor will put us below zero over night. We didn’t even make it out of the single digits today (the daily high was 9), and the next several days will be more of the same.
On the larger issue of CO2 regulation by the EPA, I am utterly speechless. Several other commentors have mentioned that the announcement made them feel physically ill, and I entirely agree. This must have been what it felt like after the Munich Conference of 1938 – at least to the few remaining sensible and conservative minded Brits – when Neville Chamberlain triumphantly proclaimed, “Here is a piece of paper that bears [Hitler’s] name.” They watched in powerless silence, knowing that the world was about to convulse in one of its semi-centenerian paroxysms of black insanity. Gentlemen, this is the apex of the first hill of the roller coaster. The stomach-twisting plunge will happen any moment. Lord, I pray for my country. Please do not remove your lampstand from the United States of America. For the sake of the righteous, let these days be shortened!
I would be more than willing to support an effort to recall President Obama. I know there is no precedent for this, and I’m not sure about the constitutionality of recalling sitting presidents, but I think the effort still needs to be made. If nothing else, we will not let history go this way without a protest. We owe it to ourselves and our posterity to stand up once more and be champions of liberty and sanity. It’s time to start putting the word out, marshal the troops, gather the groundswell, and make a difference.
Lisa Jackson may be pandering to the greens, or to her boss, but from what I can gather the U.S. Chamber of Commerce led the way in kow-towing to warming crowd. Big companies were bought off when they saw the promise of profits, and others were scared to be left out. Recall the senate hearings (nearly a year ago) of big energy companies, including Duke, GE, etc, which were goaded into saying such things as “Our company will take the lead” in limiting our CO2…” and in calling for regulation whereby they would have to report their own emissions. Now they’ll have to report it.
Jackson did say one thing that left a glimmer of hope. On the Jim Lehrer News Hour tonight (interview with Gwen Iffil) she answered a soft question about how she answers skeptics (those old cranks) “who look at this (regulation) and still question the science behind it?” [If anyone still quesions the relative value of the paleo record after reading the recent e-mails, please see the recent thread here entitled, “American Thinker; Understanding the Decline”]. Jackson replied that recent skeptic criticisms are about a very narrow record of just a few scientists. The important implication here is that Obama’s Chief Environmental Protection Officer acknowledges the problem of the science, but deems it a minor distraction. Ironically, Mann has thus been “contained”.
The breadth and depth of Mann and Jones’s damning legacy can thus safely be ignored as far as CO2 policy is concerned because that work represents only a small fraction of the whole body of paleoclimatological study. In fact, since 2007, Steve McIntyre has repeatedly cited the pervasive misuse of data directly attributable to Mann.
The congressional testimony of Wegman and his important report on social connectedness of Mann http://www.probeinternational.org/old_drupal/UrbanNewSite/Wegman%5B2%5D.pdf
might provide a clear starting point for retracing this entire mess. It would be useful if someone had read the works concerned, but regardless, the citations and footnoting should be enough to indict authors who’ve incorporated Mann ’98, and this might allow one to put together a genealogy which clearly traces Mann’s bad data descending through successive “generations” of climatologists, identifying each and every work by paper title, author and journal. The disfigured graph which was reincarnated in each successive paper as a result is as damning as any test for parentage. I think it’s safe to assume that this bad DNA is going to be passed on until every scientist who partook of his research is ferreted out and identified in a graphical representation, just like a family tree, and called to account for the sins of their predecessor.
During one of Steve McIntyre’s exposes on CA, a newcomer innocently asked: Which proxies incorporated Mann’s corrupted data? The cursory reply came: “All of them”. I don’t think this is true, but if it is, perhaps all the better. A comprehensive list, with every work, author and journal included, showing the link to the now-discredited data-Mannipulations, proven by code and e-mails makes for quite a body of evidence. That’s the work that’s no good.
Unless she’s corrected authoritatively, Lisa Jackson will probably continue to marginalize the skeptic community with “The science leads you only to one conclusion. Nothing we have heard changes our views… from years of research… and the little that was bad was only “one set of data… out of dozens of sets of data… used by thousands of scientists…”
Assuming that the Mann / Jones data had become ubiquitous, this assumption on Jackson’s part is going to come back to haunt her.
new poetry from Al Gore (no, this isn’t a joke)
…….
One thin September soon
A floating continent disappears
In midnight sun
Vapors rise as
Fever settles on an acid sea
………..
Snow glides from the mountain
Ice fathers floods for a season
A hard rain comes quickly
Then dirt is parched
Kindling is placed in the forest
For the lightning’s celebration
……….
The shepherd cries
The hour of choosing has arrived
Here are your tools
………
Poetry prizes on the way for these. 😉
What a gumpy mind.
link to article about Al Gore poetry
http://www.vanityfair.com/online/politics/2009/12/al-gore-the-poet-laureate-of-climate-change.html
Wayne Delbeke (20:13:59) :
In the CNN interview, Markey says “whole villages” in Alaska are falling into the ocean due to the 6 degree rise in temperature …. Can anyone name a village in Alaska that has fallen into the ocean lately?
Yeah I caught that LOL. He is as big a DOOFUS as his co-author of the bill, who is concerned that the North Pole is evaporating.
Evaporating??? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
And these…..THESE bozos…..these morons are running our country????
Go figure.
Have a good laugh and watch this again:
http://vodpod.com/watch/1698240-waxman-north-pole-evaporating-we-must-save-santa
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
I wonder how long it will be until everyone gets a CO² rating? I guess everyone who posts here who be tagged ‘toxic exhalers’ while over at RealClimate Gavin would get to hand out ‘blessed exhaler’ badges to his followers. See you all in reeducation camp.
jmbnf
Tell them that a human body normally caries about a 56000ppm load of CO2! While the atmosphere has only about 380ppm = .038%.
pCO2 human body/atmospheric pressure = 40-44/760 = 5.6% = 56000ppm., approximately.
I am frankly of the opinion that this woman may be mentally challenged. And I am not kidding. She sounds as if she got her ‘degree’ from Dairy Queen.
The “Reds” are no longer under the bed America,
they ARE in the whitehouse, and
just about every other institution (and parts of the legal system) that needed infiltrating.
Your system has been stitched up, before your very eyes from “within”.
The “irony” is that their paymasters are the global companies / elites,
and the “communists” do not even realise it.
A facist dictatorship (when “they” decide who is in charge),
under the guise of “communism”.
Lets face it we know the world is nuts at the moment.
But this has got to take the biscuit, they say politicians would like to tax the air we breathe, well…………maybe they want to start with stopping us breathing first.
Cows farting, humans breathing, next evapo-transpiration?
What about a class action lawsuit against the EPA? If we could get, say 50,000,000 to contribute $1 each that would create quite a nightmare in the oval orifice.
How many years until we realize that Global Cooling is just on temporary hiatus by the normal, but short (17 years; 1980-1997) warm spell?
pat (22:42:01) : “I am frankly of the opinion that this woman may be mentally challenged. And I am not kidding. She sounds as if she got her ‘degree’ from Dairy Queen.”
Oh….I thought it was just me. Others see this too.
Some really, REALLY DIM people running world politics over the last number of years, no??
Different administration, different political agenda…..but one similarity:
Same lipstick….different pig.
Rise up…all you people of reason.
Stop their reign of stupidity….from one political polarization to another.
They all have one thing in common: dimness.
Dim people and admins should not be ruling the world.
Rise up.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA