Guest post By Alan Caruba
The Environmental Protection Agency is using its power to advance the objective of the environmental movement to deny Americans access to the energy that sustains the nation’s economy and is using the greatest hoax ever perpetrated, global warming—now called “climate change”—to achieve that goal.
“This standard isn’t the once-and-for-all solution to our environmental challenge,” said Lisa Jackson, the EPA administrator, “but it is an important commonsense step toward tackling the ongoing and very real threat of climate change and protecting the future for generations to come. It will enhance the lives of our children and our children’s children.”
This is a boldfaced lie. Its newest rule is based on the debasement of science that is characterized and embodied in the global warming hoax. It will deprive America of the energy it requires to function.
Since the 1980s the Greens have been telling everyone that carbon dioxide was causing global warming—now called climate change—and warning that CO2 emissions were going to kill everyone in the world if they weren’t dramatically reduced. The ball was put in motion with the United Nations 1997 Kyoto Protocols when many nations agreed to this absurd idea and carried forward by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ever since.
The Environmental Protection Agency was created to clean the nation’s air and water where it was deemed that a hazard existed. Like most noble ideas and most Congressional mandates, the initial language was vague enough to be interpreted to mean anything those in charge wanted it to mean. Add in the global warming hoax and you have the means to destroy the nation.
Now it means that the source of fifty percent of all the electricity generated in the United States is being systematically put out of business and please do not act surprised; that’s exactly what Barack Obama said he intended to do if elected President.
This is evil writ large.
Shutting down utilities that use coal, an energy source the U.S. has in such abundance that it could provide electricity for the next hundreds of years, and ensuring that no new ones are built fits in perfectly with all the Green pipedreams about “renewable” energy. Solar and wind presently provide about two percent of the nation’s electricity and, without government subsidies and mandates requiring their use, they would not exist at all.
How stupid is it to not build more nuclear power plants when this form of power doesn’t emit anything but energy?
How stupid is it not to use coal when the U.S. is the Saudi Arabia of coal?
How stupid is it to begin to find reasons to regulate and thwart fracking, the technology to access trillions of cubic feet of natural gas that has been in use for decades?
How stupid is it to cover miles of land, far from any urban center, with hundreds of solar panels or huge, ugly wind turbines that kill thousands of birds every year?
The sun does not shine all the time, nor does the wind blow all the time. In the event of overcast skies or a day without wind, traditional plants—those using coal, gas, nuclear or generating hydroelectric power—have to be maintained as a backup. Take away the coal-fired plants and there were be huge gap in the national grid.
Darkness will descend and Americans will begin to live with blackouts and brownouts that will undermine every aspect of our lives. It’s bad enough when a town or even a city briefly loses power because of a storm, but imagine that occurring on a regular basis because there just aren’t enough utilities generating power!
What kind of people stand by idly while its own government conspires to take away the primary source of energy that everything else depends upon? The answer? You. The answer is the many elected politicians that have done little to rein in a rogue government agency intent on undermining the nation by denying it the ability to generate power with the least expensive source of electricity, coal.
The EPA, an unelected bureaucracy, has just ensured that all Americans, industries, small businesses, and individuals will begin pay far more for electrical power.
Richard J. Trzupek, the author of “Regulators Run Wild” and an environment policy advisor for The Heartland Institute, said of the new rule, “With around 50,000 megawatts of coal-fired power set to be forcibly retired in the next few years—thanks to the draconian policies of Obama’s EPA—this rule ensures that no new modern, efficient coal fired power plants will be built to fill the gap.”
In a triumph of crony capitalism, Trzupek notes that “The big winner will be Obama’s good friend, GE Chairman Jeff Immelt. Since solar and wind cannot fill a 50,000 megawatt baseload gap, the only way to ensure continued reliability of the grid is to build a lot of natural gas-fired plants quickly. And who is the biggest supplier of natural gas-fired combustion engines? GE of course.”
If you think that environmental organizations like the Sierra Club and Friends of the Earth, among many others, are seeking to “protect” the Earth, you are seriously mistaken. They have been among the leading opponents of coal and they have had allies in Congress such as the Majority Leader of the Senate, Harry Reid, (D-NV) who has said “Coal makes us sick. Oil makes us sick.”
NO! Coal provides the engine of our nation’s electrical power and oil provides the energy that fuels our transportation and is the basis for countless products that enhance and improve our lives every day.
We are witnessing the destruction of the nation by the environmental movement and the EPA has just provided you with the most dramatic example of that plan.
Rise up! The Democrats are poisoned with the nanny-state mentality and the Republicans are slaves to the social conservatives. Is there another way?
Agreed. We need some small government advocates.
Stopping Global Warming is just part of the statists’ program to remake the USA. Their bigger program is the UN Agenda 21, on sustainable development, drafted by the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI). Statists now have managed to get many US cities paying money to the ICLEI and implementing its ideas. Groups are forming across the country now to defund ICLEI and fight Agenda 21. Learn more about Agenda 21 at http://www.sustainabledevelopment.com ,see if the ICLEI is active in your community, and prepare to fight back. For our non-US readers, the ICLEI, being a UN organization is also pushing its Agenda 21 in places like Australia and the UK.
Bernd Felsche says:
March 28, 2012 at 8:02 pm
The EPA does what it does because it’s the EPA. The Seven Rules of Bureaucracy explain most of it.
And the EPA is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Department of Justice (presently being run by people who feel no compelling need to obey *any* law), which explains the rest of it.
Not saying anything.
But, politics is a whole other thing.
Alan is wrong about only one important detail. This did not start with the Kyoto Protocol in 1997. This started with Our Common Future, the report of the Brundtland Commission in 1987 that formalized the concept of sustainable development. It was the principal philosophical input into UNCED, the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. That conference and its infamous Agenda 21 created the entire international political impetus that led to the creation of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and its offspring, the Kyoto Protocol..
I know who was on the Canadian delegation to Brundtland, and I wouldn’t have trusted them to negotiate the price of seeds with a cage full of gerbils.
This train has been thundering down the track for a very long time.
of course, China is bulding these power plants, but US, Australia are NOT ALLOWED to do the same!
1 July 2010: Climate Change and National Security: A field map and analysis of funding opportunities
Prepared on behalf of the Planet Heritage Foundation
by Christine Sherry
(page 57) If these precautions are not taken, China will continue to build the estimated 600 new coal fired power plants by 2030, which will add about 60 gigatonnes of carbon to the atmosphere
(about a third of the world total amount added since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution)…
http://www.sherryconsulting.com/Final%20Climate%20Report.pdf
persons from Pew, Soros, Rockefeller, Energy Foundation, Chatham House, EastWest Institute, etc. were interviewed for the above report.
as for GE, they are thrilled with Australia’s highly-unpopular carbon dioxide tax, ABC only mentions “wind turbines”, but GE are mixed up in every aspect of Australia’s energy markets:
25 March: ABC: GE chairman praises ‘gutsy’ carbon tax
GE’s vice-chairman John Rice says there needs to be a cost associated with producing carbon, whether it is through a tax or a type of trading mechanism.
GE makes a range of products, including wind turbines…
“I think that will help companies like ours shift more resources to the carbon-reducing technology.”
Mr Rice says it is important that countries such as Australia take the lead on carbon emission reduction.
“If you wait for the world to act in unison, it will never happen. Look at the leadership that the Europeans provided in the nineties that basically resulted in today’s wind turbine market,” he said.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-03-25/ge-chairman-praises-carbon-tax/3910974
GE don’t mind providing equipment for China and India to import coal!
23 March: BusinessWeek: David Fickling: GE’s Rice Sees Activist Governments as Free Markets Fail
General Electric Co. Vice Chairman John Rice said he expects governments worldwide to become more activist and increase regulation because they fear discontent from populations who believe free markets have failed them…
In Australia, GE expects to double its business in the four years ending 2014 because of demand for equipment to support Chinese and Indian purchases of coal, iron ore and natural gas, with sales expected to rise by as much as 30 percent this year alone.
The country is now GE’s third-largest market by sales and is only behind the U.S. and China, Rice said…
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-03-23/ge-s-rice-sees-activist-governments-as-free-markets-fail
Why should I pay any attention to an op ed from Alan Caruba? He has no scientific credentials — he is a PR guy with an axe to grind.
I’m not sure how many have read or heard of the new report from the IPCC put out yesterday (Australian time) in which the relationship between climate change and extreme weather events is presented as the new danger. This is presumably because, as is stated by Professor Will Steffen Australia’s climate commissioner:
“The rather modest changes in average temperature and average rainfall that we’ve seen so far really manifest themselves in terms of things that matter for people in terms of these extreme events,”.
It appears that even if the prognostications of an inexorable increase in global temperatures may be incorrect then there is always something else to prove the points made by the pro CAGW lobby.
Other extreme weather events blamed on climate change include “killer heatwaves in central Europe in 2003 and southern Australia in 2009 “that led to more deaths in Melbourne than the Black Saturday bushfires”.
There was also “little doubt” that recent flooding in southeastern Australia was made worse by sea temperature warming and higher evaporation rates”
In 2007 Professor Tim Flannery (another government appointed climate change commissioner) during a long drought in South Eastern Australia stated the dams would never be full again. Now that South Eastern Australia has been very wet for the last two and a half years and dams are full to overflowing this is due to climate change. So no matter what happens it is all due to climate change
isn’t this reassuring?
29 March: ABC: Mark DeBono: CSIRO backs carbon capture technology
The CSIRO has released a report saying carbon capture technology can work in Australian coal-fired power stations…
CSIRO spokesman Dr Paul Feron says the system works but it reduces the efficiency of power stations by about 30 per cent.
“That’s something that the power generators are very anxious about,” he said.
But he is confident they can improve upon that…
He says the technology could be in use in Australia within 20 years.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-03-29/csiro-backs-carbon-capture-technology/3920174
In my opinion this article is far to shrill to hold WUWT standards. It is disheartening to see the usual bromides of Obama as a lying socialist, and pretending that the Obama Administration will “deprive America of the energy it requires to function.” No such thing will happen. That is borne out by surveys done among American energy companies. What it does do is to move energy production towards natural gas, which has less environmental impact than coal. The pollution rules apply to future energy plants, excempt existing ones, and even those that see construction begin in the next year.
It is a disservice to the political discourse to use this alarmist language that we disparage when used on the other side. This Administration is working hard to solve the nation’s energy problems, and to do it in a responsible fashion. If you disagree with how it is doing it, great. Let’s discuss that.
Look around you and you see a nation that is using plenty of energy in various forms. To even suggest that the political institutions of the country are working to shut down energy use is hyperbolic and hysterical.
I am not saying for a second that no one can disagree with the rules the Administration has proposed, but let’s discuss the facts. That is what this site excels in, not partisan attacks.
Sounds as though GE has been doing some successful lobbying, with billions of dollars now heading their way, thanks to the EPA.
Just a note: The photo at the top is misleading. I don’t know if it is enhancement or a peculiarity of the imaging technology, but as someone who has flown high and low altitude for 30 or so years, the vast majority of North America is either desolate or sparsely populated.
Woods, trees, grassland, rocks. Not this image of cheek-to-jowl urbanization blanketing the continent.
Study google earth in detail to understand what I’m Sayin’.
Mr Lynn above says “Excellent rant”. How true and how sad — it is a rant. Why do we have to degenerate into rants? For just one example, the article states “Shutting down utilities that use coal, an energy source the U.S. has in such abundance that it could provide electricity for the next hundreds of years, and ensuring that no new ones are built … ” Massive exaggeration. The legislation does not shut down utilities that use coal … existing ones can continue as per usual. Neither does the legislation prevent new ones being built.
My plea is this: argue against (or for) the legislation, but please, please at least do so in a coherent and rational manner without hyperbole.
GE allegedly crippled the Intermountain Power Project, one of the largest coal fired plants in the US, through negligence during routine maintenance. A generator in one of the two units burned up last December, cutting the plant’s generating capacity of 1,900 MW in half. Conspiracy theoreticians, make of it what you will. I, for now, attribute it to incompetence.
A third unit, to have generated an additional 900 to 950 MW, was scheduled to go online this year, but the City of LA (No Coal by 2020!) pulled out of the deal.
Caruba-lies says:
March 28, 2012 at 9:44 pm
“Why should I pay any attention to an op ed from Alan Caruba? He has no scientific credentials — he is a PR guy with an axe to grind.”
So, what are your scientific credentials??
Why can people not just accept that the CAGW debate is over and Al Gore is right. The carbon dioxide that we pump out does terrible things to our lives and the lives of others. Did you know it causes Mondays? There were no Mondays prior to the burning of fossil fuels. It does terrible things in other areas too, like causing plants to grow and stimulating the need to breathe, which of course just releases more carbon dioxide – catastrophic positive feedback if ever I saw it. Any more of this and we’ll be on perpetual Mondays. It’s not that I haven’t read skeptical articles; I read a paper blaming the sun during Earth hour last year. Okay, all my lights were off and it was pitch dark, so perhaps “read” is not the right word, but I just instinctively knew that it was totally wrong, so there was no real need to read it properly.
@ur momisugly Ian of Fremantle
“The rather modest changes in average temperature and average rainfall that we’ve seen so far really manifest themselves in terms of things that matter for people in terms of these extreme events,”
What the heck does that even mean??!!
How can a man contradict himself in the space of one sentence?
Oh, I forgot, warmista talk. It doesn’t have to make sense or be true. We’re just expected to believe it ’cause there’s a consensus, doncha’ know!
Bahhh!
And Maurice Strong hides out in China where he can’t be sued. I expect Algore will join him soon.
Curaba has a point. Just look here;
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/originals/lisa_p_jackson_epa_administrator_fulfilling_the_un_mission.html
They are trying to enforce a global green governance. Controlled by the green morons, who just demand that “someone else” fix it.
Basically it is the feminine brain demanding that the masculine brain fixes a 100% risk-free society.
Interesting article, and the parallels with Australia are quite amazing, no doubt there are similarities with Canada as well (except they are lucky enough in the political cycle to have the Left out of power). Ian from Freo has pointed out some of the madness of the prevailing Left in Oz, (Gidday Ian). But I thought our Yankee cousins had managed to avoid much of the Carbon Dioxide alarmism, and putting a so called ‘carbon price’ or Tax on our comparative economic advantage. The Left have some kind of Poverty Envy, but they want the Power, and if their enemies are in poverty, its easier for them to control. Just like Lenin/Stalin, Mao, Castro. It gets weirder when the Greens start broadcasting to other planets and pagan gods like Gaia.
BTW, WUWT is really excellent place, read it all the time, but very rarely feel qualified to comment.
I is time that the truth comes out and stays out about all this ‘Global Warming’ BS! We have a similar problem in South Africa, obviously not on such a large scale as in the US. However we were told this week by the ‘authorities’ that Johannesburg would run out of fresh water in the next couple of years. I have been hearing these stories since I was old enough to listen! As far a solar goes, I know the efficiencies are not where they should be and it is expensive, but it is a way for individuals to slowly cut the dependency on the grid and in turn these crazy schemes.
How sad, a leftist, incompetent president supported by leftist,incompetent Democrats in the Senate and both propped up by a far left media are leading us down the road to destruction, all in the name of saving our environment. There is a solution if the voters are smart enough to see it. Vote straight Republican in every race nationwide. I am sure that the worst Republican elected will be far better that the best Democrat now serving or seeking election. That is the only solution. It is time for the Republicans to stop squablling and join to defeat the far worse enemy. This may be the voters’ last chance.
@ur momisugly policyguy re natural gas. If you believe in the greenhouse effect and greenhouse gases (which include water vapor) then the combustion of natural gas or methane has a greater effect than the combustion of coal.for the same net energy use. The value judgement that natural gas is better than coal is one lie put out by the IPCC and the EPA. A second lie concerns the loss of methane from appliances, pipes and coal mining. The absorption wavelength band of methane is very much less than, CO2. It does not burn in the atmosphere because there is no source of ignition, the concentration is too low, and its temperature is too low. Methane maybe oxidised by ozone (from lightning etc) to methanol which is highly soluble in water (clouds, rain, sea etc). The level of CH4 in the atmosphere is am insignificant about 1.5ppm and has remained steady for some years. It has zero effect on temperatures in the atmosphere or at ground level.
See my post my clicking my name.
The only hope you lot in the US had was Ron Paul. I’m really surprised no one mentions him (here or in the media). It’s like a ‘conspiracy’… I’d love to know what his views on BS AGW are. I know he hates Big Government, war mongering, 9/11 and all the other crap Obomber, SanGritRom (are they actually different people?) and every other ‘contender’ is trying to sell.
There’s an election coming up. Choose carefully.
What I can’t figure out is why these people want to live in a country they’re about to destroy. Do they like being homeless? Do they like scrounging through the garbage for something to eat? Have they even endured a week of camping out in the forest somewhere just to get a taste of how difficult it would be to live like Indians did 300 years ago–because that’s where we’re heading if they have their way.
Don’t these people have any appreciation for the origin of things–their homes (and all the raw materials that are in them), their food, their clothing, and their modes of transportation. Are they all that gung-ho on reverting back to the days of riding horse-drawn carriages and plowing their fields behind oxen? Are they that willing to work wicked hard from dawn to sundown everyday just to stay alive?
It simply boggles the mind; it simply makes no sense. These people are so absolutely clueless about the world around them and how it all works there are no words to describe it.