By Steve Goreham
Originally published in The Washington Times
In his speech at Georgetown University on Tuesday, President Obama announced, “So today…I’m directing the Environmental Protection Agency to put an end to the limitless dumping of carbon pollution from our power plants and complete new pollution standards for both new and existing power plants.” This is the first proposal in the President’s new climate initiative. The President also called for expanded efforts to use “clean energy” and for the US to lead the world in bold actions to “combat climate change.”
For the last decade, an obsession with global warming has dominated a wide array of US government policies. Climatism, the belief that man-made greenhouse gases are destroying Earth’s climate, skews federal automobile, transportation, energy, and infrastructure policies. Billions are spent in the ongoing effort to fight climate change.
Today, US policies toward the automobile industry are “driven” by Climatism. In his speech, the President praised new Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards that rise to 54.5 miles per gallon by year 2025 and that are designed to achieve reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Plug-in electric vehicles are promoted and subsidized as a solution to global warming.
Transportation is shaped by climate policy. Ethanol mandates result in the consumption of 40 percent of the US corn crop in vehicle fuel. Biodiesel is promoted as a way to reduce emissions. Even high-speed rail is proposed as a solution to move citizens from airplanes to trains to reduce emissions.
US energy policy is dominated by Climatism. Earlier this week, Dr. Daniel Schrag, an advisor to the president on climate, stated that “a war on coal is exactly what’s needed.” Despite the fact that more than 30 percent of US electricity is produced from coal today, regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency will make it impossible to build a new coal-fired plant. At the same time, the Obama administration provides loans and subsidies that promote wind, solar, and other forms of renewable energy.
At Georgetown, the President addressed the proposed Keystone Pipeline, which has been delayed for almost five years, stating, “…the pipeline’s impact on our climate will be absolutely critical to determine whether this project will be allowed to go forward.” When operating, the Keystone Pipeline can replace 45 percent of Persian Gulf oil imports with oil from Canada and the northern United States. But our President considers emissions to be a larger issue than reducing OPEC oil imports.
US infrastructure policies are heavily impacted by global warming fears. Reduction in greenhouse gas emissions is at the core of LEED building standards. Urban planning aims to reduce emissions by replacing private automobile transit with public transit. The current administration proposes tens of billions for a “smart electrical grid” to promote renewable energy and residential “smart meters” to promote energy efficiency, both pushed forward by the ideology of Climatism.
The bad news is that US citizens pay twice for the President’s war on climate. First, taxpayers subsidize green energy. The Production Tax Credit for wind energy will cost over $12 billion this year. Department of Energy loan guarantees to more than 20 bankrupt renewable energy companies, including Abound Solar, Beacon Power, Evergreen Solar, Solar Trust, and Solyndra have cost taxpayers billions. Taxpayers also pay for US military efforts to make biofuel out of algae at exorbitant prices.
Second, citizens pay higher costs for electricity, automobiles, and housing from green policies. The Department of Interior offshore wind program will deliver electricity to homeowners at three times the price of conventional power. Fuel economy mandates will raise the price of automobiles. Consumers must pay for smart meters that can curtail electricity usage.
The good news is that, despite fears, man-made emissions have very little effect on Earth’s climate. Water vapor, not carbon dioxide, is Earth’s dominant greenhouse gas. Emissions from human industry cause only about one percent of Earth’s greenhouse effect. And contrary to predictions by all 73 of the world’s top climate models, global temperatures have failed to rise over the last 15 years.
Someone needs to inform the president.
Steve Goreham is Executive Director of the Climate Science Coalition of America and author of the new book The Mad, Mad, Mad World of Climatism: Mankind and Climate Change Mania.
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This piece provides some economic perspective on the cost of governmental dogooderism.
http://www.aei-ideas.org/2013/06/federal-regulations-have-lowered-gdp-growth-by-2-per-year/
Federal regulations have lowered real GDP growth by 2% per year since 1949 and made America 72% poorer
…”But even without considering state-level regulations, the estimated adverse effect of increasing regulation on economic growth since 1949 has been staggering, here’s part of the conclusion:
Regulation’s overall effect on output’s growth rate is negative and substantial.
Federal regulations added over the past fifty years have reduced real output growth by about two percentage points on average [annually] over the period 1949-2005. That reduction in the growth rate has led to an accumulated reduction in GDP of about $38.8 trillion as of the end of 2011. That is, GDP at the end of 2011 would have been $53.9 trillion instead of $15.1 trillion if regulation had remained at its 1949 level (see chart above).
Ronald Bailey provides some excellent commentary on the study in a Reason article titled “Federal Regulations Have Made You 75 Percent Poorer,” where he makes an important calculation of how regulations affect us at the household level:
As a result [of the increase in federal regulations], the average American household receives about $277,000 less annually than it would have gotten in the absence of six decades of accumulated regulations—a median household income of $330,000 instead of the $53,000 we get now.
Finally, I think the burden of federal regulations on economic performance estimated by the authors might actually under-estimate the total drag on economic growth since they only include the cost of compliance and enforcement after the regulations are in place. The cost of federal regulations measured by the number of pages in the Code of Federal Regulations doesn’t include the burden of wasteful rent-seeking that private firms engage in before the regulations are in place, as they attempt to influence (support, oppose or change) federal regulations when they are first being proposed and considered by Congress or a federal agency. Adding in these costs of rent-seeking, and the costs of state regulations, paints a pretty depressing picture of how much poorer we all are due to the crushing burden of government regulations.”
Here is the paper that is the source for this
http://www4.ncsu.edu/~jjseater/regulationandgrowth.pdf
Federal Regulation and Aggregate Economic Growth
Obviously government regulations have accomplished some good over my lifetime, but the costs we have incurred to achieve those improvements have been well beyond estimates made when new rules are proposed. I don’t know that I consider an 85% reduction in median income a good price for even the most valuable of those improvements, especially since the actual reduction is probably much greater.
PS to the above
That cost study terminated in 2011. The last two years have seen the largest and most expensive growth in federal regulations in the history of the country. Add in the costs that The Bamster’s new plans would inflict and we will probably be close to doubling the damage inflicted over my lifetime in just two presidential terms.
Patrick says:
June 27, 2013 at 2:17 am
And in the, once, Great Britain…
If I had a pound for every time I heard that… I’d have £14.
Can I just take the opportunity to quash this fallacy among a few American people that the “Great” in “Great Britain” (Megale Brettania) means “awesome,” “wonderful,” “fantastic” or similar. It simply means “big” in reference to its status as the biggest of the British isles. The island of Ireland is “Little Britain” (Mikra Brettania).
Oh, and the United Kingdom is Great Britain + Northern Ireland.
Dave Wendt says:
June 27, 2013 at 2:00 pm
This piece provides some economic perspective on the cost of governmental dogooderism….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
THANKS! I knew regulations had an adverse effect but never found it quantified.
The biggest problem in quantifying the cost of regulations is determining how many businesses died stillborn because people simply give up after seeing the horrible maze of red tape or finding like I did a $5,000 dollar a year hobby business was going to cost at least $100,000 in upgrades to please the
Little Hitllerinspector. Or as another person in town found, the delays and changing of minds by the inspectors delayed opening the business for more than a year during which time he was have to pay rent on the commercial space. (He finally went to some friends high up in city government and had them give the inspectors a boot or he would still be waiting) Or as another friend found the improvements (costing $150,000) mandated by one inspector did not please the secon inspector and not only did he lose his business, he was fined and then tossed in jail because he had no more money to pay the fine. He lost his home too. To tell you the truth with the red tape maze and worse the fines on things you didn’t even know enough to look into, a person has to be flat out crazy to start a business today.USA Today had an October 2010 story on that aspect of the problem Small businesses losing out to red tape
Fox has a newer story Dell Survey: Red Tape Hurting SMBs but that article seems more geared toward IT type businesses.
David and others are saying:
“… true free market … true free market … true free market …”
(1) your “true free markets” cannot exist unless you replace real people with angels
(2) that’s what Communists use: they say: USSR failed NOT because it was communist, but because it wasn’t “true communism”.
The picture and cartoon are good, but I think I can one up that…..
Picture Obama taking his revenge on the evil ocean that “pollutes our air with carbon pollution” by charging into the ocean to fight the evil carbon pollution. He stabs the ocean and comforts the children telling them he has destroyed the wicked evil carbon pollution once and for all. Remember after all, that if carbon pollution is a serious threat, We must fight the evil carbon pollution where it is the worst. Since the oceans emit 10 times the carbon pollution that humans do, wouldn’t the logical thing be to attack the evil ocean? I wish I could claim credit for this inspiriation by myself, but Family Guy already did it:
I think the best thing our fearless leader could do is start a monty python style army complete with medieval box armor and a trusty “steed” who runs alongside him with those coconuts. I think a good steed for Obama would be Al Gore with the coconuts. You can picture him how you want but my vision should probably be snipped for the children’s sake. Don’t want to give em nightmares of a cute little bikini on a big man…(oops too late)
In any event, Obama charges fearlessly along with the warmists into the evil ocean that emits the evil carbon pollution. I tend to think he would be yelling something just a little ironic as he charged into the sea. Perhaps he would also attempt to find that missing heat while he is at it?
“David, UK says:
June 27, 2013 at 2:39 pm
It simply means “big” in reference to its status as the biggest of the British isles. The island of Ireland is “Little Britain” (Mikra Brettania).”
Well, technically you are correct from a geographical PoV however, politically, it has different meaning. Politically (And on the international stage given “Great Britain” once were rulers of the wealthiest empire on earth which was largely all bluster and bluff, eventually called out in India), the term “Great Britain”, refers to England, Scotland, Wales and a number of islands.
The multivariate question here is who bumped who’s head? MIS-1 will either “go-long”, like MIS-11 did. Or it won’t. Like MIS-19 (and MIS-17, 15, 13, 9, 7, and 5 didn’t).
Beyond that, there are very few things left open to question.
The Holocene might go into a cold climate funk, as MIS-11 did, between its two 1.5 – 2.0 precession cycle thermal peaks. Or AGW, at the presently half-precession old Holocene, will span at least another precession cycle (23kyrs minus 11,716 Holocene years so far)., or not, before decaying eventually into the next glacial.
Without GHGs, what are our chances of falling off into the next glacial, making it to yet another second MIS-11 style peak?
At best, 50:50. MIS-11 went long, MIS-19 didn’t. We are yet again at the 400kyr eccentricity minima.
What on earth could we possibly do to at least insure safe climate passage into the next insolation uptick? Like MIS-11 seems to have achieved?
The only thing proposed to be able to thermally offset natural cooling is anthropogenic warming via CO2.
Which makes for quite the conundrum.
If we strip the late Holocene climate security blanket, we either will, or will not, make it to what might be MIS-1’s, the Holocene’s, second thermal peak Like MIS-11 did, and MIS-19 didn’t.
It is literally a roll of the climate dice. Fail to remove the heathen devil gas CO2 from the half-precession old Holocene interglacial and you might just end-up spanning the climate gap between this thermax to the next. Remove it, and take your chances on the second thermal maxima.
If “it” does not naturally eventuate another MIS-11, or if we do not somehow, anthropologically, avoid onset of the next glacial, what else might we readily deploy save GHGs?
Actually I kind of like the idea of Obama’s “war on Carbon”. He can now ask Michelle and all his rich supporters to turn in all their diamond rings, necklaces, cufflinks, watches, tie pins, drill bits, abrasives and all other carbon materials to the government for sequestration. Oh, wait. Just about everything has carbon in it – steel, tires, clothing, shoes, aircraft, trains, cars, boats, asphalt highways and runways and … Hmm. Oh, yeah, and no concrete as you have to heat limestone to a couple of thousand degrees F to drive out the CO2 and turn it into cement. Looks like he just confiscated everything in America for the purposes of fighting the war.
/sarc off. Well maybe not. Sad day.
Obama is a politician lawyer. He undderstands the debate in his terms- politics and communications, not the science. His ploy is clever: he has claimed what he perceives as the strong PR ground, on the “side of the scientific consensus”, placing the onus of sounding reasonable on the other side who are arleady decried by compliant media as flat earthers etc. . Clever, but open to the vagaries of nature, like one more cold winter. and the increasingly wrong climate models. Merkel tried the same and Fukushima came along, causing her to close nuclear plants and build coal power stations to keep the economy going. It will be an interesting winter.
I am one of the scientist/professors who received a free copy of Steve Gorham’s “Climatism” book and I actually read it. (Note–the Heartland Institute send out free copies of the book to many scientists and professors). It is a complete smear of science and scientists. I have to admit that Gorham has finely tuned his ability to smear and mock science and scientists. After reading his book, I feel that I have a right to more than doubt anything he writes on the subject.
BillD says:
June 28, 2013 at 3:53 am
After reading his book, I feel that I have a right to more than doubt anything he writes on the subject.
Yeah, no it doesn’t. Your whining though leads one to believe it hit close to the mark.