Today, the Environmental Protection Agency announced new rules for existing coal-fired power plants, a 30 percent reduction in allowable carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. The only way this will be possible will be by upgrading almost all combustion units, and the ultimate cost of the upgrades will make coal noncompetitive with much-less-expensive natural gas–fired facilities.
The EPA’s proposed new greenhouse-gas regulations are a campaign promise come true. In 2008, Senator Barack Obama announced that, if elected, his climate policies would “necessarily bankrupt” anyone who wanted to build a new coal-fired power plant.
Public comments on EPA’s proposal to do just that closed on May 9, and there is no chance that the president will renege — or that this policy will have any detectable effect on global temperature.
The EPA’s own model, ironically acronymed MAGICC, estimates that its new policies will prevent a grand total of 0.018ºC in warming by 2100. Obviously, that’s not enough to satisfy the steadily shrinking percentage of Americans who think global warming is a serious problem.
MAGICC tells us that the futility of whatever Obama proposes for existing plants will be statistically indistinguishable from making sure that there are no new coal-fired ones. In fact, dropping the carbon dioxide emissions from all sources of electrical generation to zero would reduce warming by a grand total of 0.04ºC by 2100.
This is hardly going to stop the crescendo of global-warming horror stories, perhaps best summarized by the government’s recently released “National Assessment” of the effects of climate change on our country.
For example, the assessment tells us that global warming will increase mental illness in our nation’s cities. The obvious implication is that people in Richmond are crazier than they are in Washington, 100 miles to the north. Or that people must really be loony in Miami.
But what about all the weird weather plaguing the country? What the alarmists don’t tell you is that not since records were kept in the 1860s have we have gone this long without a Category 3 hurricane’s crossing our shoreline. They omit that there’s no evidence of an increase in weather-related damages once you adjust for the fact that there are now more people with more expensive stuff to hit. Even the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, so often cited to justify our futile policies, acknowledges that one.
The politics of scaring people to death over climate change are probably more dangerous than the weather. And research suggests that the more people read that some “scientists say” the world is about to end, the less they believe them.
Chalk it up to apocalypse fatigue. By my best guess, global warming is the eighth environmental Armageddon I have lived through. Who even remembers that, according to some of our most esteemed scientists, “acid rain” was going to cause an “ecological silent spring”? Like so many global catastrophes, it was a bit exaggerated.
You’d think the administration would see not just how futile these policies are in addressing climate change but also how costly they are politically. Some compelling analysis of polls shows that the Republicans gained control of the House of Representatives in the 2010 election because, under Democratic leadership, it passed cap-and-trade, which the Senate wisely stopped short of. In Australia, similar policies favoring cap-and-trade cost the Liberal party its leader in 2009 and subsequently sacked two Labour prime ministers, Keven Rudd and Julia Gillard.
Is this really the road the administration wants to go down in 2014? If history is any guide, a pretty steep price will be paid on Election Day — all for policies that will have no measurable effect on climate change.
This article appeared on National Review (Online) on May 30, 2014.
Patrick J. Michaels is director of the Center for the Study of Science at the Cato Institute and a senior fellow in research and economic development at George Mason University.
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Begun, the Climate Wars have.
Joe tell it like it is: http://www.weatherbell.com/saturday-summary-may-31-2014
But how can you respect a President elect who screws his own electorate????????????
Bastille Day is July 14.
However not widely reported was that the subsequent DTT bad that led to the unnecessary deaths from Malaria, of millions of people in Africa and other third world nations.
It’s all about presidential legacy. Obama is doing to the economy what Clinton did to the middle-east peace process.
Well, it’s a good thing Duke Energy didn’t just spend $1.8B upgrading and modernizing the Cliffside Steam plant in my hometown. Oh…wait….
A fragile case< the Dark Side has
30% of 2005 CO2 levels brings back to before Reagen, hmmmm….
Sandi says:
June 2, 2014 at 12:21 pm
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The last time I made a comment about DDT i got modded right out of here. Can we add second hand smoke, CFCs, population ExPOlSiOn etc. to list of pseudo science that plagues us? The list is very long but most psuedo science has very little impact. DDT is certainly an exception to this and global warming may follow it its footsteps. Sorry 3rd world, we had good intentions…
I would wager that the vast percentage of people who think this is a good idea think the EPA is reducing particulate pollution. Smoke and Smog and just plane nasty chemicals. They have no idea that what is really being ordered reduced is a perfectly harmless gas that is actually beneficial to the earth. That was the beauty of declaring CO2 a pollutant. People hear that word and think disgusting sludge and Love Canal.
As I have suggested monotonously for almost a decade, the real threat we face from CAGW has almost nothing to do with whatever occurs in the planetary environs due to increasing atmospheric CO2, but everything to do with the incredibly damaging and wasteful that have been done and are proposed to be done in the future to avoid catastrophes whose likelihood is incredibly dubious and for which the multitude of nonsolutions have virtually nq prospect of making any difference which will even be within our range of detectability, now or in the future.
I would caution against presuming a change of the party in power is eminent as well. The Republicans yearn for Death and have an almost infinite capacity to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Even if they do win it will not be by a veto proof majority and Barry will just continue to shred the Constitution with his pen.
Obama, the gift that keeps on giving. On the other hand, I would like to thank Obama from Alberta, Canada. We have 70% of the natural gas in Canada in my province. Good time to mention pipelines to my southern soon to be great customers? Oh, this is going to be fun.
Dave Wendt says:
June 2, 2014 at 12:38 pm
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Agreed, I would add to the first paragraph another great threat is us ignoring actual environmental and social problems and focusing on fake ones. To the second paragraph I will add that politicians say whatever you want to hear. Some people like to hear that we are saving the world, others like to hear that that is bullshit. The politicians pander to both. The only faith I have in government is that left to its own devices it will indefinetly expand in consumption of wealth and the erradication of freedom of the individual. I am happiest when I turn on the news and hear that congress is in deadlock. Good, no harm no foul.
The administration will not pay a steep price. In fact a Democrat president will be elected when Obama leaves office. This is because the Republicans have no stomach for real political combat on any issue and this is just one of them. They are just as venal as the Democrats but less skillful.
The EPA and Obama / Holdren making pointless gestures, when global car ownership is predicted to double by 2035 and global population will continue to climb. The US is just pissing into the wind.
http://notrickszone.com/2014/06/02/obama-plan-will-have-miniscule-global-impact-der-spiegel-co2-will-keep-rising-1-1-annually-for-next-20-years/
Not that old DDT canard again.
DDT was never banned internationally and continues to be used in several countries. You can buy it now from several manufacturers in India, for example. DDT is not exempt from the resistance problem – in fact, resistant mosquito strains exist. Had its use continued on the same scale as in the sixties, resistance would have spread more rapidly, and it would likely have long since been rendered totally ineffective.
Note I’m not saying that the ban of DDT was necessary or, on balance, a good thing – I haven’t really looked into those questions enough. However, the wild estimates of malaria deaths due to the ban are based on several untenable assumptions.
For example, the assessment tells us that global warming will increase mental illness in our nation’s cities.
It certainly has in the White House.
I would assume that hidden somewhere in the Climate Change Initiative is a massive tax increase (disguised of course as something else). This is one of the reasons these monstrosities are so hard to get rid of, even if you toss out all the incumbents who passed it — by that time the new revenue is essential to keep disguising just how much all the previous grand initiatives are really costing.
This is great news for Europeans as it looks as though you are shooting yourselves in the foot as regards energy costs. Your power is far too cheap which has made the US far too competitive.
Now, please play fair. European governments shot themselves in both feet a decade ago. So can you shoot yourselves in your other foot as well before Obama finishes his term in office?
Tonyb
An incredible lack of judgement is fast becoming Obama’s legacy, on the same day:
1. A highly puffed announcement to cause incredible damage to the American economy in a futile attempt to ‘solve’ a non-problem, and
2. A highly puffed announcement of swapping the release of an American army deserter for five Taliban terrorists.
Most people who do remember acid rain also think that the emissions reductions achieved under Title IV actually reduced the acidity of rainfall. Not so for most areas. At Hubbard Brook, the acidity of rain has remained nearly constant since the mid 1970s, the first time it was routinely sampled. There has likewise been little to no change in the acidity of the waters in oligotrophic lakes in the Northeast US and eastern Canada.
George Steiner says:
June 2, 2014 at 1:08 pm
If the Obama Economy turns into the Obama Recession next month, I see no way a Democrat gets elected in 2016. That said, the spineless Republicans will try hard to blow it. And when they win by default they won’t have a mandate to tackle any of the real problems.
Steve Keohane says:
June 2, 2014 at 1:18 pm
For example, the assessment tells us that global warming will increase mental illness in our nation’s cities.
It certainly has in the White House.
Obama keeps the thermostat set at 78 degrees. Does that explain anything?
You wouldn’t happen to have a simulation run of when it would have become totally ineffective by any chance?
It’s good to have real numbers that we can critique and use to evaluate the results of the various policies.
I wonder if the Indians realize they are manufacturing a useless chemical?
The continuation of obama’s war on America.