Global Warming Science: www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming

 

The Clean Energy Jobs & American Power Act

 

[last update: 2009/10/28]

 

 

The Act

 

Senators Kerry and Boxer have unveiled their “Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act (S.1733)” According to Kerry, his act “will get tough on corporate pollution and put American ingenuity to work to dramatically improve every facet of the way America generates and uses energy. It will create millions of new, good-paying jobs, protect our air and water from dangerous pollution, and secure our children's future by making America more energy independent. And it does not raise the federal deficit by one single dime.” [http://kerry.senate.gov/cleanenergyjobsandamericanpower/intro.cfm]

 

The “dangerous pollution” referred to is greenhouse gases. Since it “does not raise the federal deficit”, it will cost consumers a huge amount given the extensive new layers of CO2 monitoring bureaucracy included, not to mention the cost of paying for the “vouchers” that corporate polluters will pass on to consumers.

 

 

The Foreign Aid Aspect

 

The Act provides a mechanism to transfer funds to other countries through several sections:

 

  • Sec. 753. Emission Reductions from Reduced Deforestation, which will “establish a program to provide assistance to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation in developing countries … (1) to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation in developing countries by at least 720,000,000 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2020, and a cumulative quantity of at least 6,000,000,000 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent by December 31, 2025, with additional reductions in subsequent years … (2) to assist developing countries in preparing to participate in international markets for international offset credits for reduced emissions from deforestation; and  (3) to preserve existing forest carbon stocks in countries where such forest carbon may be vulnerable to international leakage.’’

 

  • Sec. 323. International Clean Energy Development Program, which will “assist developing countries in activities that reduce, sequester, or avoid greenhouse gas emissions; (2) to encourage those countries to shift toward low-carbon development, and promote a successful global agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, done at New York on May 9, 1992 (or a successor agreement) (referred to in this subtitle as the ‘‘Convention’’);”

 

  • Sec. 323. International Clean Energy Development Program, which will “provide assistance to the most vulnerable developing countries, particularly to the most vulnerable communities and populations in those countries; and (2) to support the development and implementation of climate change adaptation programs”

 

[Above from: http://kerry.senate.gov/cleanenergyjobsandamericanpower/pdf/bill.pdf -- 821 page document]

 

This plays right into the hands of the UN – see: http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/UNCopenhagenPrep.htm

 

 

The Federal Deficit

 

The Act also provides a mechanism for paying into federal deficit reduction: a section describes that 25 percent of emission allowances established for each year shall be auctioned and the proceeds used for deficit reduction (p.578).

 

 

 

The Money

 

Given that it “does not raise the federal deficit”, where does the money come from that will both be transferred to the “developing countries” and used to reduce the federal deficit? From the sale of allowances or credits – the sale of which will be passed on to the consumer. As Obama has previously stated: “Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.” [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLK-U8kggFk] 

 

Obama’s officials have been clear that higher energy prices are precisely the point of a cap and trade system. “Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told the Senate Finance Committee on March 4 that higher energy prices were necessary to control how people use energy. “Cap and trade will increase the cost of energy,” Geithner told the committee. “That’s necessary if you’re going to change how people use energy.” [http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/45330]

 

The Act claims it will create millions of jobs, but most studies show that cap and trade will more likely result in net job reductions [http://rpc.senate.gov/public/_files/CapandTradeDestroysJobs.pdf] (See also: http://www.openmarket.org/2009/10/27/secretary-chus-befuddled-economics/)

 

Prepare to pay.

 

 

 

The Background

 

John Kerry is married to Teresa Heinz, who runs the Heinz Center for Science, Economy and the Environment. (Enron’s Ken Lay was one of the founding board members of the Heinz Center (http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0407/12/lkl.00.html], and Enron was one of the biggest promoters of the Kyoto cap and trade.) In 2001 Heinz gave a $250,000 award to James Hansen, NASA’s main alarmist. “It was Dr. Hansen who, in the sweltering, drought-scorched summer of 1988, went where few scientists were willing to go - before Congress, to explain just how serious the potential for global warming truly was. Dr. Hansen courageously testified that the time had come to recognize that the "greenhouse effect" was real and that new and cleaner sources of energy had to be found. Time has validated his position.” [http://www.heinzawards.net/recipients/james-hansen]

 

“Time has validated his position”??? In 1988 Hansen presented to Congress temperature predictions based on climate models. He modeled three scenarios: ‘A’ had an increasing rate of CO2 emissions, ‘B’ had constant rate of CO2 emissions, while scenario ‘C’ had reduced CO2 emissions rate from 1988 levels into the future “such that the greenhouse gas climate forcing ceases to increase after 2000” (Hansen 1988,  [http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abstracts/1988/Hansen_etal.html]). The following figure is from Hansen 1988, showing the “observed” global temperature (solid black line) along with model outputs for the three future CO2 scenarios. (The shaded area is the estimate of global temperature during the peak of the current and previous interglacial periods 6,000 and 120,000 years ago.) The figure superimposes the Hadley temperature anomaly data used by the IPCC (red) on Hansen’s 1988 model projections. The vertical blue line indicates the year in which the projections were made. In the 20 years since Hansen’s model projections, the global temperature is below the scenario ‘C’ in which “the greenhouse gas climate forcing ceases to increase after 2000”. So his scenario ‘C’ most closely matches reality. But there is a problem: CO2 has continued to increase. (See: http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/HansenModel.htm for more details on this.)

 

 

 

 

Timothy Wirth, former United States Senator from Colorado, former Assistant Secretary of State for Global Affairs for President Clinton, was involved in organizing the 1988 congressional hearing at which NASA’s James Hansen made his famous testimony to get the global warming scare rolling. In a PBS Frontline episode in 2007, Timothy Wirth was shown saying this about the preparations for the 1988 hearing: “What we did is that we went in the night before and opened all the windows, I will admit, right, so that the air conditioning wasn't working inside the room. And so when the- when the hearing occurred, there was not only bliss, which is television cameras and double figures, but it was really hot.” [http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/hotpolitics/etc/script.html] Wirth said in 1988: "What we’ve got to do in energy conservation is try to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, to have approached global warming as if it is real means energy conservation, so we will be doing the right thing anyway in terms of economic policy and environmental policy." [http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200007/global-warming/2]

 

 

 

The Climatic Effect

 

The Act sets the following goals for US emissions (p.11):

  • 2012 – greenhouse gas emissions = 97 % of the 2005 level
  • 2020 – greenhouse gas emissions = 80 % of the 2005 level
  • 2030 – greenhouse gas emissions = 58 % of the 2005 level
  • 2050 – greenhouse gas emissions = 17 % of the 2005 level

 

What effect will this have?

 

The following figure shows global greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) by type from the 2007 IPCC AR4 SPM [http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/syr/ar4_syr_spm.pdf]. Note that CO2 fossil fuel use is 56.6 % of GHG globally. In 2004 the United States produced about 22 % of the global fossil fuel based CO2 emissions [http://www.eia.doe.gov/bookshelf/brochures/greenhouse/Chapter1.htm]. Thus, even if the United States eliminated all automobiles and all fossil fuel based electricity generation, etc – i.e. 100% reduction – global GHG would be reduced by only 12 %. 

 

 

 

China and India: (China is the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases): Bloomberg – Oct 21, 2009: “India signed an agreement with China, the world’s biggest polluter, to increase cooperation on tackling climate change after the countries rejected calls from rich nations to set binding caps on carbon emissions. … The world’s fastest-growing major economies called on rich nations to slash carbon dioxide output while refusing to accept binding reduction targets that they say will hurt development. … “There’s no way developing countries will accept caps.” [http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601072&sid=aFyFHkF6C3Fs]

 

China – In 2007 China released a plan supporting the rights of developing nations to pursue growth. The Chinese spokesman said "The consequences of inhibiting their development would be far greater than not doing anything to fight climate change … our general stance is that China will not commit to any quantified emissions reduction targets". [www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,2575639,00.html]  

 

India - In July 2008 The Government of India published a National Action Plan on Climate Change, which states: "No firm link between the documented [climate] changes described below and warming due to anthropogenic climate change has yet been established … India is determined that its per capita greenhouse gas emissions will at no point exceed that of developed countries even as we pursue our development objectives." [pmindia.nic.in/Pg01-52.pdf] 

 

Russia also disagrees with the politicized western view. "Russian critics of the Kyoto Protocol … say that the theory underlying the pact lacks scientific basis. When President Vladimir Putin was weighing his options on the Kyoto Protocol the Russian Academy of Sciences strongly advised him to reject it as having "no scientific foundation."" Russian scientists state: "There is no proven link between human activity and global warming. This problem is overshadowed by many fallacies and misconceptions that often form the basis for important political decisions" and "The current warming is evidently a natural process and utterly independent of hothouse gases". [http://www.hindu.com/2008/07/10/stories/2008071055521000.htm]

 

 

The Kerry-Boxer Act will do nothing but cost the US money and jobs.