The president decides to stick with 'climatism'

By STEVE GOREHAM

In President Obama’s remarks to the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, he stated, “… My plan will continue to reduce the carbon pollution that is heating our planet — because climate change is not a hoax. More droughts and floods and wildfires are not a joke. They’re a threat to our children’s future. And in this election you can do something about it.”

The president’s remarks support the ideology of climatism — the belief that manmade greenhouse gases are destroying Earth’s climate.

Today, the world is in the grip of the madness of climatism. Our president and 191 other world leaders of the United Nations continue to pursue futile policies to stop global warming. Universities preach “sustainable development.” Companies tout their “green” programs. Schools teach our children that if we change light bulbs, we can save polar bears. But an increasing body of science shows that the theory of catastrophic manmade warming is nonsense. Climate change is natural, and car emissions are insignificant.

The president did not mention the Keystone Pipeline in his speech. In January 2012, he halted the $7 billion Keystone project on recommendation by the State Department in order to assess potential environmental harm. During the last months of 2011, thousands of protesters gathered in front of the White House to protest the Keystone project. They claimed that the oil the pipeline would transport from Canadian tar sands would cause irreversible global warming. Dr. James Hansen of NASA was one of those arrested at the demonstrations. Media pundits speculated that the president halted the pipeline to strengthen his political support with environmental groups. But could it be that Mr. Obama believes that halting the pipeline was the right policy to save the planet?

Who can blame the president for sticking with the theory of man-made global warming? Most of his leading advisors, including Environmental Protection Agency head Lisa Jackson, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, science guru John Holdren and Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, warn that mankind is destroying the climate. The EPA campaign to halt CO2 emissions from power plants, new vehicle mileage standards, subsidies for wind turbines and electric cars, the Solyndra solar cell debacle, the banning of incandescent light bulbs, the looming California high-speed rail boondoggle and ethanol vehicle fuel mandates are all policies driven by climatism.

The president’s use of the term “carbon pollution” is disappointing. Environmentalists inaccurately use this phrase to conjure up images of billowing smoke stacks, and the president has picked this up. The theory of manmade global warming claims that carbon dioxide, not carbon, causes climate change. Carbon dioxide is an invisible gas, while carbon is a black solid. Referring to carbon dioxide as “carbon” is as foolish as calling water “hydrogen” or salt “chlorine.” Compounds have totally different properties than their composing elements. Neither is carbon dioxide pollution. It’s an odorless, harmless gas that green plants need for photosynthesis. Carbon dioxide is a foundation for life on Earth along with oxygen and water.

Carbon dioxide is a trace gas. Only four of every 10,000 air molecules are CO2. It’s estimated that the amount of carbon dioxide that mankind added in all of human history is only a fraction of one of these four molecules. The idea that mankind’s tiny contribution to a trace atmospheric gas can cause hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts, floods and wildfires is not a joke, it’s incredible.

Contrary to much of the recent press, a look at history shows that this summer’s drought was not unprecedented in these United States. The droughts of the 1930s and 1950s lasted longer and experienced higher temperatures. According to the State Climate Extremes Database of the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC), 37 of the 50 state high-temperature records dated prior to 1960, with 22 of these from the decade of the 1930s. Only one state high-temperature record was recorded during the last 16 years. Additional data on droughts and floods from the NCDC show no increasing trend over the last 100 years. Nature drives droughts and floods, not manmade emissions of carbon dioxide.

The president’s statement is remarkable in another way. He implies that we should vote for him because he can control droughts, floods and wildfires to safeguard “our children’s future.”

During a speech in June 2008, he implied that he could slow the rise of the seas. What’s next, regulation of snowfall? If Mr. Obama is re-elected and with bipartisan support in Congress and approval of the United Nations, look for the Snowfall Abatement Act of 2014.

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