Foreword: Following President Trump’s exit from the Paris Climate Treaty, a number of states, cities, universities, companies and institutions formed a “We are still in” consortium. Its members insist that they remain committed to Paris and are determined to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and prevent climate change.
As our article explains, this is all puffery and belief in tooth fairies. The issues and questions we raise ought to shame and embarrass WASI members – for spending countless billions of other people’s dollars to prevent an undetectable and irrelevant 0.01 degrees of global warming. We also ask whether jurisdictions within WASI states can take the “progressive” route and declare themselves sanctuary cities or counties, to protect their jobs and families against WASI dictates. Perhaps our article will persuade more Americans to make their voices heard, ask hard questions – and start resisting The Anti-Trump Resistance.
States that claim they’re committed to Paris do nothing for the climate and ill serve their citizens
Paul Driessen and David R. Legates
Ten states, some 150 cities, and 1,100 businesses, universities and organizations insist “We are still in” – committed to the Paris climate agreement and determined to continue reducing carbon dioxide emissions and preventing climate change. In the process, WASI members claim, they will create jobs and promote innovation, trade and international competitiveness. It’s mostly hype, puffery and belief in tooth fairies.
Let’s begin with the climate. When Delaware signed on to WASI, for example, Governor Carney cited rising average temperatures, rising sea levels, and an increase in extreme weather events. In Delaware, sea level rise is almost entirely due to subsiding land resulting from compaction of glacial outwash, isostatic response from the retreat of the ice sheets more than 12,000 years ago, and groundwater extraction.
The biggest threat to homes, roadways and wildlife habitats lies not in sea level rise – but in the effects of nor’easters, tropical storm remnants and other weather events that impact Delaware’s sand-built barrier islands. Moreover, not a single category 3-5 hurricane has struck the US mainland for a record 11.5 years.
Climate models have long overstated the supposed rise in air temperature. Recently, even alarmist scientists like Ben Santer have agreed that a warming hiatus has kept air temperatures unchanged for over 15 years, even as plant-fertilizing carbon dioxide levels in Earth’s atmosphere rose to 400 parts per million.
No trends exist in tropical cyclones, tornadoes, floods, droughts or other weather extremes. Contentions that these changes will pose health risks and threaten our economy are purely scare tactics. Climate has always changed and weather is always variable, due to complex, powerful natural forces. Insisting that these events must be caused or exacerbated by human activity reflects a denial of basic climate science.
Full adherence to the Paris Treaty by all nations would prevent an undetectable 0.3°F (0.2°C) rise by 2100 – assuming that all climate change is driven by humans and not by natural forces. This meaningless achievement, by switching to 100% renewable energy, would cost $12.7 trillion to $93 trillion by 2030.
Surely, WASI members and the rest of the world have better uses for that money than chasing climate chimeras. Paying their massive state debt, pension, welfare and retirement obligations, for instance; in developing nations, getting electricity and safe water to people and ending their poverty and disease.
But substantially reducing CO2 emissions will create jobs, won’t it? For every job these mandates and subsidies create, multiple jobs will be lost in businesses that require affordable, reliable energy. Your local or statewide CO2 emissions may decrease. But in 150+ countries that are under no obligation under Paris to reduce their fossil fuel use, emissions will increase. WASI groups may take pride in “resisting Trump,” but their actions really hurt America’s working class families, who had no vote on the matter.
WASI members California, Connecticut, Hawaii and New York already have among the worst unfunded pension liabilities. Their residential electricity prices are already outrageous: 17 cents a kilowatt-hour in NY, 19 in CA, 20 in CT and 29 in HI – versus 9 cents in North Dakota. Honoring “Paris commitments” would send rates skyrocketing to German and Danish levels: 37 cents per kWh. Expensive energy will hurt poor and minority families the most and send jobs to countries where energy costs less.
Just imagine what your WASI actions would do to households, hospitals, businesses, factories, malls and schools. How it would kill jobs and swell unemployment and welfare rolls – while creating a lot of low-pay, largely part-time jobs. Rather than producing jobs, the Paris Treaty is a job-killer for the USA.
For all these reasons, we should be glad we are out! We ask those who have told their constituents they are “still in,” How exactly will you meet your Paris commitments, and what exactly will you achieve?
How will you slash your CO2 emissions by 26-28% by 2025, as required for the USA under the Paris pact? The United States reduced CO2 emissions by 12% between 2005 and 2015. But that was accomplished by a downturn in the economy and increased reliance on natural gas, most of which is produced by hydraulic fracturing. Will you support fracking and build more gas-fired power plants?
Or will you build new nuclear and hydroelectric power plants to reduce your fossil fuel dependence? You cannot rely on wind and solar, as they currently account for barely 2% of overall US energy needs and the mining required to get rare earth metals, cadmium, iron, copper, limestone and other raw materials for these technologies has extensive, often horrendous environmental, health and human rights impacts.
Growing populations mean more energy will be needed. Do you expect wind and solar to grow to cover the new demand? These highly expensive technologies require vast land areas, much of it taken from wildlife habitats – and huge government/taxpayer subsidies. From whom will you take this money?
What will you get for your efforts? The cost is enormous, for minimal benefits. Higher electricity prices will affect businesses, hospitals, jobs and families in your state. The impact of 30, 40 or 50 cents per kilowatt-hour electricity will be devastating – especially for the poor, minority and blue-collar workers and families you say you care deeply about. They will be forced to choose among energy, food, clothing, shelter, health and safety. How will this serve climate and environmental justice?
By contrast, a change in global air temperature of about 0.01°F will have zero impact. That’s how much reduced warming the world is likely to see from all the sacrifices imposed by “We are still in” programs. Storms, floods and droughts are not linked to CO2 concentrations, so your actions will have no effect in these areas. Avoidance of an un-measurable increase in air temperature is simply not worth the cost.
Governors who have committed their states to this climate-centered resistance movement have done so without approval from the legislature or their constituents. How do you propose to pay for this unilateral executive decision? With tax increase and soaring energy costs? How will your constituents react to that?
The “We are still in” press release proudly proclaims that its members contribute $6.2 trillion a year to the US economy. That’s one-third of the United States $18.5 trillion GDP in 2016.
Under the Paris formula, the United States is to contribute $23.5 billion per year initially to the Green Climate Fund – with the US contribution rising to some $106 billion per year by 2030, based on the same percentages. Your one-third WASI share of that would be $7.8 billion in 2017, rising to $35 billion a year by 2030. Is this part of your vaunted commitment to the Paris treaty? How do you anticipate paying that?
Can individual cities and counties opt out of your pact, and become sanctuary cities or counties, to protect their jobs and families against runaway energy costs, climate fund payments and more autocratic actions?
By deciding that their schools will stay in the Paris Treaty, college and university presidents will drive up energy and other costs on their campuses. Did you consult with and get approval from your boards of trustees, legislators, taxpayers, students and parents – or was this simply another executive decision?
Delaware gets 95% of its electricity from natural gas, coal and oil. How exactly will the University of Delaware slash its fossil fuel use and carbon dioxide emissions by the 26-28% required by Paris? How will George Mason University, with Virginia getting 63% of its electricity from fossil fuels?
Have you calculated how much this will cost? Will you make up the difference by increasing tuition? How will you compensate those who can least afford these increasing expenses? In the interest of integrity, accuracy, transparency and ethics, have you made those analyses public (if they exist)?
Did all you “socially responsible” companies and organizations in WASI get approval from your boards of directors, shareholders, customers and clients before committing to stay in Paris? Did you analyze and discuss the likely economic and employment ramifications? Or are you the real climate deniers – denying the costs of anti-fossil fuel, renewable energy commitments, regulations, subsidies and mandates?
Finally, for the millions of voters, taxpayers, citizens, students, workers and consumers who are being impacted by “We are still in” states, cities, colleges, universities, businesses and organizations, we ask:
Are you still in with expending trillions of dollars to have an undetectable effect on Earth’s future climate? If not, perhaps it’s time you made your voices heard – and started resisting The Resistance.
Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power – Black death. David R. Legates is professor of climatology at the University of Delaware and a former Delaware State Climatologist.
I, for one, am glad that Trump pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Accord. Bruce..if the WAGTBO consortium is real, count me in.
Most of those mayors that sent out press releases in support were actually dreaming of paid vacations to Paris in the coming months and years. They know a good free deal when they see one.
We should exit the WHOLE UN Framework now and forever. Paris is just fruit of the poisonous tree. Globalist collectivism.
Nothing to “deal” over. AGW is fraud, you don’t deal on fraud.
WASI = We Are Still Ignorant/Inept/Incompetent/Illogical/Ideological. Take your pick, they all fit perfectly….
One thing about States and Cities conforming to the Paris Accord requirements is the Federal Government is not going to be financing this conformation, so the local politicians are going to have to go to their local taxpayers and make the case that taxes should be raised.
I think most taxpayers would reject paying higher taxes for uncertain gains, so these politicians that want to play “Paris Accord” are not going to have such an easy time implementing it, imo. Local taxpayers will have a voice in this, unlike previously on a national level, and we will see what *they* have to say about the issue.
It should be interesting.
[snip – language -mod]
Service companies produce little CO2 so if jurisdictions can drive out manufacturing and concentrate on service companies those jurisdictions can reduce their carbon footprint.
Al Gore has been pumping up the CO2 alarmism. He also sells stocks in companies that don’t produce CO2. link It’s made him wealthy. It should put him in jail.
If I start a rumour on the stock market that a company is in trouble, its stock will go down. If I buy the now cheap stock and the rumour is proved false, the stock will go up again and I’ll get rich. I should also go to jail. A similar scheme is called short and distort. Al Gore has a pretty obvious vested interest in keeping CAGW alarmism going.
The trouble with a service only economy is that it eventually collapses in on itself unless someone has the foresight to take drastic measures.
If Al hasn’t already found a new pump and dump scheme by now he’s even stupider than he looks, and Al isn’t all that stupid, he’s just pug ugly. Never confuse them.
Al will do fine. I’m sure he already knows the AGW scam is over and had moved on to the next obsessive diaper sniffer plan.
You won’t talk any sense into the Warmers political class. Their activism isn’t about protecting the environment, it is about funding their political ambitions and their socialist agendas….. and like all Socialist policy from Stalin’s “Collectivization” to Mao’s “Great Leap Forward”, these Socialist programs enslave, starve and imprison the citizens they were intended to “help”.
The politics of this “Combating Climate Change” is so like Mao’s “Great Leap Forward”…. that it is frightening.
We Are Silly Idiots
Like it. A lot.
I have a different take on the motivations of the WASI movement and strongly suspect they are not as stupid and foolish as they may appear. I have reason to believe the real reason behind them still wanting to abide by the ridiculous Paris Accord is they MUST raise taxes in certain states and in those states they can’t really soak the rich anymore as they’ve gone to that well too many times. Therefore they NEED to raise taxes on the vast majority of people who currently don’t pay much of anything in income tax and don’t want to take the political hit raising the sales tax because that’s the sort of thing everyone notices and might remember the next time they happen to vote..
Raising prices on energy will allow them to broaden their tax base substantially (everyone ends up paying for energy price increases be it through higher prices or whatnot) and increase revenues and some of these states like Connecticut, California and Illinois are truly in dire fiscal shape. They have to do [i]something[/i] and my guess is that behind the brainwashed dingbats who really believe the Paris Accords are worthwhile there’s those who just want political cover to broaden their tax base and, despite what they may say now, have no intention of ever forking out more than a token of the 23 billion foreign aid portion of that absurd agreement.They know that down the line they can concede that part and pocket the money and will have helped prevent/mitigate a potential fiscal catastrophe for their state.
For perpetrators of this lie, there are no ,better uses for that money than stuffing it into their own pockets.
I;m sorry to appear so cynical, but any logic trained individual, and the scammers are nt stupid either, can see this whole Warmista story is a load of bollocks.So, one can only assume that the perps are profiting.
Profiteering off human foolishness is hardly limited to just ‘Warmistas’ and is ubiquitous in a free society. I have no doubt that’s the motivation of *some* of them, and others are truly foolish enough to believer there’s a significant threat, but to some it’s just political cover to raise taxes on the lower incomes which some states *need* to do. That’s what this article was about and what I was referring to.
Not everyone took logic in college like we did, they hear that ‘97%’ propaganda and figure that many who who call themselves scientists couldn’t possibly be wrong, or don’t care that much. Their main problem is unfunded pensions and other causes which will doom their states to fiscal calamity long before the masses will figure out just how silly it was at this juncture to think there’s more danger than opportunity in the Earth being slightly warmer a century hence, if in fact that’s what it ends up doing.
Let’s just see where this WASI movement goes and whether they actually end up sending any money overseas. My guess is they’ll institute some sort of carbon tax which will end up with everyone paying more in energy prices in those states, raising their state revenues and they’ll tearfully concede (if they haven’t already by that time) that their fiscal status (or whatever excuse) precludes them from sending anything more than a token of that 23 billion overseas.
Individual States cannot enter into agreements with other countries. Ergo, they cannot send any state tax money to any outside agency over this agreement. It is all BS to look like they care.
It’s a pity that Journalism is as dead as Science.
Whoa, I’m not going there.
Science is a big space, and we’re having trouble in the “climate” cell, not the whole space. Experimentation, data & reproducibility still matter. We have not re-entered the dark ages.
Journalism, on the other hand, has decided to turn into politics, they have no idea what data (facts) is AND has no “guiding light” like experimentation & reproducibility to lead them out of the dark.
Gravity waves and the Higgs didn’t get discovered because some 24-year-old weenie with a fine arts degree thought they were a good idea.
Javert Chip June 25, 2017 at 7:51 pm
“Gravity waves and the Higgs didn’t get discovered because some 24-year-old weenie with a fine arts degree thought they were a good idea.”
You might like to revise your opinion of that after reading the 2 articles here, follow the links.
https://www.thegwpf.com/scientific-consensus-up-in-smoke-stephen-hawkings-big-bang-theories-are-wrong-claims-close-friend-and-colleague/
Just like Climate, the Big Bang, Gravity Wave theory has it’s detractors, epecially in light of new Data.
You might also like to read this one as well.
https://www.thegwpf.com/reuters-investigation-exposes-new-science-scandal/
Based upon the paleoclimate record and modeling results, I believe that the climate change we are experiencing is caused by the sun and the oceans over which Mankind has no conrtol. There is no real evicence that CO2 has any effect on climate and plenty of scientific rational to support the idea that the climate sensivity of CO2 is zero. The AGW conjecture is full of holes the biggest of which is the fact that the radiametirc greenhouse effect upon which the AGW conjecture depends has not been observed anywhere in the solar system including the Earth. The radiametric greenhouse effect is sceince fiction as in the AGW conjecture. So the actions of the Paris Climate Agreement will have no effect on climate change. But even if we could some how stop the climate from changing, extreme weather events and sea level rise would still continue becaue they are part of the current climate. So there is nothing to be gained.
However, as an individual you feel that the use of fossil fuels is bad then you can stop making use of goods and services that depend upon fossil fuels. For example, if the power grid that you are connected to has fossil fuel power generation stations on it then go out and turn off the main breaker and leave it off. Remember that it is your money the keeps the fossil fuel companies in business. You can also decrease your carbon foot print by breathing less. doing less, and sleeping as much as possible. Never buy of even possess any common consumer goods because at the very least they are transported by fossll fuel means of transportation. Without the use of fossil fuels, life is quite challenging. After all for most of human history, Man made almost no use of fossil fuels.
david leg is still up to this stuff?
who keeps funding him?
I have no objection to people spending their money on rubbish, but I do object to people spending my money on rubbish.
The money has already been spent, Jim, especially for some of these states. It’s now time to pay the fiddler in some of those states. If any of them ever actually end up sending anything more than a token outside those states I will be astonished and admit I underestimated Dem stupidity, but raising taxes has always been a critical feature of their ‘prevention’ paradigm and now more than ever they need to increase state revenues *somehow*.
I’ve come to think that маях¡хзм must be a form of neurosis. Karl M himself was a Jewish anti-semite, but that’s not it. It is a failed system that has failed and failed again and again, but it keeps attracting new hundreds of millions of people who clearly have defective logic or some more serious shortcoming. A science analogy was Einstein’s definition of insanity, I.e to repeat the same stuff over and over again and to expect different results. Indeed mainstream climate science does this and worse after the bad guys took it over.
I once asked an intelligent fellow about this who fashioned himself a Trotskyite and published a political newspaper in Toronto. His explanation was that it didn’t work in instances I cited because it was taken over by bad guys. I said that without the checks and balances of a western democracy that is what happens every time sooner rather than later.
Writing articles at WUWT has some effect, but by and large it mainly sequesters sceptical thought. I think full page ads in lefty publications might be effective – they are unlikely to turn down the ad revenue these days. Use IPCC like Monckton does so effectively to support his argument. Publicity stunts, entertainment (too bad George Carlin and Michael Crichton died – some one like these are superb). I innoculate my grandsons against it when I see the stuff from school. I buy books on the ice age and talk about the earth’s natural warming and cooling and ask them to conclude what this must mean…
A recent story has it that Karl Marx played golf.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/npr-karl-marx-played-golf/ (pictured are Che and Fidel playing)
You have to wonder what kind of handicap we are talking about!
This is a point of issue to all these Cities Univ. States that dis invest as one of their moral stands. This very likely to leave unfunded pensions & retirements in which they are going to expect someone to pick up the tab.
New regulations should be passed to protect the rest of the country from such antics. If policies are enacted in the name of adhering to the Paris agreement then those organizations may not seek restructuring to deal with their unfunded obligations. Also any trustees that base decisions on anything other then the increase of the funds under their care will be held legally responsible .
just a thought.
michael
Since the WASI wants to keep the Climate Accord, they not only should reduce CO2 but should also pony up their fair share to the UN Green Fund and send money to all those nations with their hand out to entice them to sign the Accord. So to keep things simple, WASI state who signed up for this should pay $2 billion per year till 2030. No takers? Crickets.
Just for fun… Eco lecturing moral high ground superiority pusher CBC Bob McDonald promotes driving to see the total eclipse of the sun on August 21…
http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/2017-summer-solar-eclipse-chaser-bob-mcdonald-1.4173908
“It’s worth the drive to totality: perspectives from an eclipse chaser: Bob McDonald”
LOL
Hypocrisy at its highest.
“Sanctuary cities” are cities which have announced that they welcome and will ostensibly protect illegal immigrants in the U.S. from apprehension and deportation by ICE. As they are a “progressive” outgrowth of the anti-Trump movement, acting in opposition to federal policies, they’ve staked a claim on the sanctimonious term “sanctuary” – and they should be allowed to keep it.
Several writers have referred to “Sanctuary CAGW cities” as those municipalities whose leaders have announced their intent to harbor the fugitive Paris Climate accord policies. Citizens of these havens can decide for themselves whether they want to stand and and deliver the blood money their leaders are promising. If they want to spend their hard-earned tax dollars on principle, they have every right to do so.
The term “Sanctuary CAGW cities” is emblematic of the MINORITY of cities which ostentatiously choose to follow this no-win path to their own self-detriment. No sanctuary is required for the MAJORITY of cities which perceive the Paris Accord for what it is: an illegal alien which need only be deported.
I think the “sanctuary cities” refers to cities in the WASI states that don’t want to be in, but got roped back in because their governors said WASI.
“In the process, WASI members claim, they will create jobs and promote innovation, trade and international competitiveness. It’s mostly hype, puffery and belief in tooth fairies.”
Shameless lies I would say and tranparent to any honest economist.
Cheers
Roger
http://www.thedemiseofchristchurch.com
We’re well out of Paris because it was engineered by a bunch of tedious, mendacious, interfering, busy-body, nosey-parkering little nobodies.
Nobodies with far too much time on their hands and with overpowering feelings of guilt that they want to impose on somebody/anybody/everybody else.
Mendacious and hypocritical because they have convinced themselves they are ‘Saving The World’ Just like they see on TV and at the movies almost daily.
They do this ‘convincing’ at-home-alone, in small groups everywhere or at epic religious guilt fests (what else is religion about if not guilt?) like Paris, Kyoto, Copenhagen etc
I say and YMMV that its called ‘Magical Thinking’ – the process whereby you/me/anyone effectively brain-washes themselves.
And as long as you/me/everyone hits themselves with a sugar loaded chemical cosh at *every* mealtime plus countless snacks in between, it is a problem that will not go away.
Compounded by the fact that we actually are relatively rich and hence can afford all these non-productive dreamers.
In a worst nightmare situation, enough of them get together and do something mind blowingly big and terminally dumb that brings down what would be by then, a Global Society.
Thanks for that Angela. (and the Interweb????)
Grenfell Tower is a nice little practice run.
How On Frigging Earth did anyone convince themselves that covering and filling houses with an oil-based material was a good idea?
I’d really rather NOT like to meet the guy that sold them ‘Non Flammable Oil’
Of course, The Alert amongst us (not me obviously this morning) will see the Magical Thinking parallel in the Green House Gas Effect and how it works.
It is a monumental (mental being the operative) crock of shyte – brought about by folks who have brain-washed themselves into ‘knowing’ how it works and egged on by similarly brain-washed and politically correct ‘friends’ who will always call on further ‘friends’ to back them up. The consensus at work.
The sort of (haha) friends you meet/get on the interweb, or at (for example) Kyoto.
Writing in 1994 in ” All the Trouble in the World”, P.J.O’Rourke in his chapter on Ecology (“We’re all going to die”) noted-
” CBS News and the New York Times took a poll in 1989, and 80% of the respondents agreed wth this statement:
‘ Protecting the environment is so important that requirements and standards can’t be too tight, and continuing environmental improvements must be made regardless of the cost.’
‘ Regardless’ would seem a bit strong if people thought about it. ”
People of course don’t think about it until their money is on the line.
The WASI seem to be intent on testing this proposition.
WASI employees need a new purpose and job. The quicker they invest their efforts into finding one, the better for everyone.
Oh, I am. And now we have to go around the country beeatch slapping mayors and governors who keep trying to make treaties with foreign countries.