Images from: National Resources Defense Council blog
Guest essay by Taylor Smith
Last week I attended an Environmental Protection Agency “Public Listening Session” held here in Chicago. I had only been to one other such hearing in the past as a college student, when my professor took myself and the rest of the International Studies class to see a public hearing on Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s famous Act 10 legislation.
Public hearings I would soon learn (before I would ironically go on to land my first job in government relations), are not the most thrilling experiences in the world. But in fairness, it’s not like I was expecting much: For basically a whole day, one speaker after another testifies to a panel of government officials about why they support or oppose a certain policy. Usually the speakers are an eclectic mix of industry representatives, activists, academics, students, and even religious leaders.
Although the EPA hearing yielded the same mix of speakers, this time I noticed they were all wearing green Sierra Club “Climate Action Now” shirts.
The reason for this, I would later learn, was that the Sierra Club had mobilized hundreds of activists, transported them via bus (I presume of the fossil-fuel powered kind), prepped their testimonies the night before, and completely dominated the morning speaker slots. (There were several coal industry representatives in the morning, and a few other dissenters, including Heartland Policy Adviser Paul Driessen, who covered his experience here). By the afternoon, the Sierra Club had completely monopolized the speaking time (at least in the room I was in).
After the hearing, everyone was invited to a “Climate Social” held at the Sierra Club’s office with Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), Lt. Gov. Sheila Simon, and Illinois state Sen. Michael Frerichs.
Now maybe it’s just me, but I felt a slight level of discomfort when I saw a single organization dominate a “public” hearing in the way that they did. I don’t care what the organization is or what they say they stand for, because if their 2011 listed revenue is over $97 million, then you know not all of it could have fallen in their laps from heaven.
Left: NRDC Chicago Staff: David Weiskopf, Blake Korb, Sylvia Garcia-Sadowski. Images from: National Resources Defense Council blog
For example, we know Chesapeake Energy, a large natural gas producer, contributed more than $25 million to the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign— the same campaign whose organizers were at the hearing and bused several people down from around the Midwest and prepped their testimonies.
But going back to the policy discussion, two things struck me about the speeches I heard — from both the climate activists, and the few coal-affiliated dissenters:
1) Lots of talk about reducing carbon dioxide, hardly any on reducing temperature. As I wrote to the Baltimore Sun once, the question shouldn’t so much be “How much carbon dioxide can we possibly reduce?” But rather, “How much temperature can we realistically save?” The latter question provides a much clearer picture when assessing exactly how much CO2 reduction would be worth its economic cost. The former doesn’t attach any long-term value to CO2 reduction, as if any CO2 reduction were worth its economic cost. Handy for political expediency — which as anyone who works in government relations knows, is half the political battle.
So why is temperature discussion always ignored? One reason might have to do with Dr. Pat Michaels’ research, which found if U.S. CO2 emissions were to be reduced to zero, the resulting temperature decrease would not be scientifically detectable.
So it should be obvious why many climate activists don’t like discussing temperature reduction relative to reducing CO2. But many speakers from the coal industry also didn’t like discussing temperature, instead discussing how electricity prices will go up or how jobs will be lost. Those points are important. But unless a more concrete value is ascribed to the amount of CO2 that activists say needs to be reduced, it’s always going to be perceived as outweighing any economic cost.
2) China and India. According to Diana Furchtgott-Roth:
Other countries are increasing emissions. China, India, and Germany are expanding coal consumption, according to the International Energy Agency. Global coal use will rise by 1.2 billion tons in five years. “By 2017,” according to a December 2012 IEA report, “coal will come close to surpassing oil as the world’s top energy source.”2 Mr. Obama’s reductions in U.S. emissions, with their associated costs, will just be a drop in the global bucket.
Which leads to two additional key quotes:
Even if rising greenhouse gas emissions are affecting the climate, actions by the United States will not be helpful in the absence of changes by China and India.
and
To reduce global greenhouse gas emissions in a less costly manner, America could assist China and India develop shale gas from hydrofracturing and build natural-gas fired plants to reduce their reliance on coal. Or, America could ship coal to China, because U.S. coal burns cleaner than Chinese coal. The majority of China’s coal (54 percent) is bituminous, which has a carbon content ranging from 45 to 86 percent. On the other hand, 47 percent of the U.S.’s coal, a plurality, is subbituminous, which contains a carbon content of only 35 to 45 percent.
But many of the Sierra Club activists opposed both hydrofracturing and nuclear. So what exactly would they support? Short of a blackout?
If we reduce carbon dioxide to the same level as 15 years ago, the temperature will be the same as it was 15 years ago. No? /sarc
“But many of the Sierra Club activists opposed both hydrofracturing and nuclear. So what exactly would they support? Short of a blackout?”
Oh… I dunno, but I’d think that showing up in loincloths would be a clue as to where they’d like us to be. BTW, I hear the Hunter-Gatherers have a strong Union; the IBHG or something like that (International Brotherhood of Hunter Gatherers).
Thank you very much for the report, Taylor.
I would say it’s just PR, but it’s not that anymore. These kinds of things have become nothing but scripted kabuki theater, run by activists in government and out for the sole purpose of generating a paper trail which they hope will justify them doing whatever they want to do. Of course, they have always been set on doing whatever they want, no matter what, hearings or no hearings, so the existence or non-existence of these hearings has no bearing on what is actually going to happen.
No one who isn’t in on milking the gravy train would ever bother going to one of these useless pieces of nonsense anymore (other than men like the sainted but masochistic author of this piece) Since they could accomplish the exact same goals at much less expense by simply publishing a scripted transcript the next day and pretending to have the meeting. I would once have said that would have been faking it, but since the entire process is a fraud packed in a fake wrapped in a web of unbreakable lies, there’s no point. I think the only reason left for having these is because some EPA officials need a paper trail to justify their salaries and their travel expenses and massive wet-bar bills when they travel to carry out one of these ridiculously useless dog and pony shows.
The world, and every one of us, would be massively better off if all of these things were canceled forever and our rulers just nakedly did whatever the heck they wanted to. At least that would be honest theft.
Sierra Club = controlled opposition. Public hearing yeah right. The famous “stakeholders” of communitarianism and Post-Normal Science.
Thanks, Taylor. I don’t believe I would have had the patience to sit through more that a few minutes.
Regards
“So why is temperature discussion always ignored? ” — OP
Strictly, for one set, temperature is just a means to an end; and the end is reducing human industry. In the other, asking questions about controlling temperature is to ask how we can control weather. And doing just that would ask to many hard questions, and introduce too many scofflaws that are well familiar with just how bad 5 day forecasts are.
“But unless a more concrete value is ascribed to the amount of CO2 that activists say needs to be reduced, it’s always going to be perceived as outweighing any economic cost.”
Which is precisely why this discussion will not happen. It’s salesmanship and public speech acts about which religion you belong to. Everyone else cannot be given quarter; as they’ll stroll into the pasture and do lewd things to the sacred oxen with a thermometer.
The Sierra Club cares little about pollution. It’s all liberal politics. Always there to support expensive removal of the last microgram of sulphur from transportation diesel ($100 billion a year with no detectable effect on air quality)… but narry a word about taxing Chinese imports to pay for their wholesale pollution of the planet. Chinese are fellow travelers you see.
“But many of the Sierra Club activists opposed both hydrofracturing and nuclear. So what exactly would they support? Short of a blackout?”
I can tell you what the “educated” and “intellectual” ones support; Outright communism.
Anybody who has studied this knows that they (the greens, or watermelons) don’t support environmental protection nearly as much as they support hobbling any capitalist economy and reducing freedom through governmental fiat.
If this were not true they would put their efforts forth in places where the environmental damage is much more severe. Such as China, Venezuela and the former Soviet Union. You see, private enterprise in a democratic society is far more likely to take care of its resources in a reasonable and safe manner than any all powerful government or subsidiary agent.
But they aren’t really interested in helping the masses, who are easily the most harmed by this type of (insert euphemism for un-petrified coprolite here).
And they’re better than you because they care more. So they will shout you down.
The rest of them, the non-educated, non-intellectual members of these groups, just see green and think ‘pretty color and it makes me feel smart and all warm and fuzzy’. These are the ‘useful idiots’ to whom Engals referred.
At some point, the green shirts turn brown.
” So what exactly would they support? Short of a blackout?”
More donations. To “fight global warming”, of course. They were going door to door in my neighborhood a while back. I laughed and laughed and laughed.
Back in the late 1990s there were environmental hearings for the proposed Voiseys Bay nickel mine (which would finally open 8 years later). The hearings were in St. John’s, the capital city of Newfoundland.
One noted speaker showed up in a pilot’s uniform, claiming to be a fighter pilot from Goose Bay (located a few hundred kilometers from the proposed mine site). He claimed that while flying into St. John’s he noticed the main river that emptied into the harbour was totally polluted as was the harbour where raw sewage had been pumped in directly without treatment for decades. He went on to wonder why the locals would be so upset about possible environmental damage to a proposed mine site 1,500 km away when their own back yard was a steaming cesspool.
The fighter pilot turned out to be CodCo comic Andy Jones (a local Newfie himself) but the people in the crowd were not assumed. I chuckled the whole of the day. But his point was never lost on me. Environmental activists often seem to end up upset about something that never affects them directly.
T-shirt text:
GOD:
PROTECT US FROM IGNORANT GREEN PEOPLE!
CO2 IS NEEDED FOR LIFE!
Temperature is never discussed by the Warmists, as when they do discuss it they encounter adverse calculations and find themselves in ridiculous situations. Instead they prefer to declare CO2 a noxious gas despite the fact that plants depend on it and benefit from more. Having done that they can spend all their time talking about reducing CO2 as if was a virtue in itself. Then they shift ‘Warming’ to ‘Climate Change’ so that whatever happens, they can blame CO2 for it (whatever it is). Their true aim is to shut down civilisation and get us back into the caves, pre-fire. It is all political and zero Science.
For some reason the photos above of those enviro activists wearing their coats outside on a chilly Chicago day in November brings to mind a rather stunning scene I saw in a West Chicago suburb a few years back. A middle aged woman, clearly homeless, was walking down the sidewalk wearing a bulky winter coat that stretched down to her mid-calf. The thing is, it was a sweltering July day in the Midwest. I couldn’t believe it. A young woman, my passenger in the car, was much older in wisdom than I. She explained to me that homeless people, that woman included, are terrified of losing their coats and won’t take them off or part with them for any reason since when winter comes and rears its head, and it will, not having that heavy coat is tantamount to death. Summer heat, while dangerous to many, for those in the know, such as that homeless woman, does not carry the ferocity winter cold does. I wonder if those young and vigorous activists; well tended, well fed, and amply endowed with the necessities of life; realize how close to calamity’s hidden door they actually frolic. If they did they just might respect what the modern world thanklessly provided to them and not concern themselves with phantom threats such as the minute possibility of a warmer Earth.
@ur momisugly Jquip says:
November 20, 2013 at 3:01 pm
“So why is temperature discussion always ignored? ” — OP
Strictly, for one set, temperature is just a means to an end; and the end is reducing human industry.
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Precisely. But that implies a reduction in human population, true? And corresponding reductions in standards of living. Instead of “back to the future”, they desire “back to the distant past” of short, miserable lives, disease, starvation, etc. What a wonderful world they envision. /sarc
These are like people who would walk through a grocery store, pick up anything they want, never look at the prices and then tell the guy behind them in line to pick up the check.
Has the Sierra Club ever put a price (monetary or human) on decarbonizing the world economy? I’ve never seen one.
“Cleaner burning”? Are they serious? Sub-bituminous coal is filthy! You have to burn up to twice as much to get the same amount of heat as you would from bituminous or anthracite coal. What isn’t water is what gets converted to flyash and all the PM2.5 everyone is wailing about nowadays.
OT but hard to ignore, Climate Progress is touting “A bright spot in UN Climate negotiations.Progress in gender equality”
seriously? Of course that’s what it’s all about. I think the next goal for the UN Climate negotiations should be sexual preference equality. I mean, after all, that’s what’s important, isn’t it.?
@ur momisugly Sasja (3:14pm) — Amen!
Good to see you post again –it’s been awhile. Hope all is well.
Janice
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Dirk H. and Bob Kutz and Tom J. — precisely. They are THAT e-vil (or brainwashed, as the case may be).
The great thing is…. communism is LOSING all over the world. For one recent example, see the tax protestors in Brittany in northern France.
Further, before long, most of those well-dressed young protesters will have real jobs and be paying a mortgage and will begin to resent being forced to hand over large chunks of cash to the government… . Only the borderline psychotic (seriously…… have you listened to and taken a good look at them? — they are clearly NOT healthy) hang in there pushing socialism past their 30’s. The rest, the majority, will give their old coat to a homeless person, drive a Holy Car, eat “organic food,” and call it good.
(And…. some of them will come to WUWT and find out the facts! #(:))
GO, A-TH-Y and MODS — WUWT IS THE BEST!!
Yes, we must, nevertheless, be forever vigilant (communists, unlike their policies, are here to stay and must be continually countered). Those snakes h-ate light, so, our battle strategy is a simple one: the brilliant light of truth.
GOOD FOR YOU, TAYLOR! Keep on shining — keep those dirty rats in the corners.
Thanks for the well-written report.
Bob Tisdale says:
November 20, 2013 at 2:54 pm
Thanks, Taylor. I don’t believe I would have had the patience to sit through more that a few minutes.
Regards
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Been sitting through public hearings for 30 years. I guess I’m fortunate I didn’t end up before a judge, but I would have asked for a jury of my peers. Even had a County Commissioner threaten me and my family before one and then sat a couple seats from me during the meeting.
My post-doc advisor almost talked me into joining the Sierra Club in 1975, then I discovered they really don’t like people.
Grassroots organizing needed on this side of the debate.
Never forget just behind a very thin veil these backpacking types have a William Ayers personality.
They have George Soros type funding.
“Danger Will Robinson”!
Liberal in Australian politics is conservative (right). I believe, correct me if I am wrong, that when many people in other regions use the term, ‘liberal’ they are referring more to left wing!
But many of the Sierra Club activists opposed both hydrofracturing and nuclear. So what exactly would they support? Short of a blackout?
===============
How many drove to the meeting? They must be in agreement with more CO2. Or do the want someone else to go first?
@ur momisugly SasjaL says: November 20, 2013 at 3:14 pm
Gives new meaning to the term – Pod people. 😉
Rocky Steve;
or amused, even. ;P