The Global Warming Bubble

[GaryC 7]

The Global Warming Bubble

By Rich Lowry

Rarely has so much hectoring produced so little.

After all the magazine covers, celebrity sermonizing and U.N.-certified-expert hand-wringing, the fight against global warming got a real-world test in the U.S. Senate a few weeks ago in the debate over a proposal to limit carbon emissions through a cap-and-trade system. After a small dose of the argument, supporters of the proposal couldn't wait to drop it. It was leading opponent Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate minority leader, who declared he'd be happy to talk about cap-and-trade for a month.

As an indirect tax on carbon, cap-and-trade would increase energy prices when people are already straining under $4-a-gallon gas. Even a political naif -- which McConnell assuredly is not -- would realize the benefit of hanging the proposal around its supporters' necks. Lately, we've seen the tech and housing bubbles burst, and now -- at least as an urgent political issue -- the global-warming bubble is getting pricked.

Let's count the ways: First, those gas prices. They are just one way that the soaring price of oil has put a crimp in the standard of living of Americans. They have little taste for seeing it crimped more, and why should they? The cost-benefit analysis of battling global warming is never going to make sense for Americans.

The places that would be hurt by global warming tend to be warm, wet, and low-lying. Think Bangladesh. For the U.S., warming isn't much of a threat. So, stringent measures against global warming are really a massive foreign-aid program, but an intangible and speculative one. If the predicted warming materializes, and if it has the drastic effects warned about (e.g., big rises in sea levels), people living in faraway countries a century or more from now may be adversely affected -- in short, a theoretical benefit to people as yet unborn.

We should feel a moral obligation to aid Bangladesh and similar places with mitigation measures, when (and, again, if) the time comes. Until then, our consciences should rest easy, given the $20 billion annually we spend on development assistance, including billions of dollars fighting AIDS, malaria, and other diseases affecting people whose suffering isn't theoretical.

Second, there's China. It has passed the U.S. as the world's leading emitter of carbon dioxide, and it accounted for two-thirds of the increase in the world's emissions in 2007. Global action against global warming makes little sense without China taking part, and it won't. If we can't get China to quit jailing dissidents and arming a genocidal Sudan, what hope is there of getting it to stop something -- rapid economic development -- that's otherwise unobjectionable? With hundreds of millions of Chinese people living in abject poverty, the country's economic growth is one of the world's most important initiatives against human misery.

Finally, there's the global-cooling spell. The world hasn't been warming since 1998, and an article in the journal Nature says warming won't pick up again until 2015. Since global warming is a long-term trend, a decade-long or more stall in temperatures doesn't mean much -- except that environmentalists have banked so much politically on whipping up hysteria based on imminent catastrophe. The stall in temperatures shows how little we know about global warming. It means that the .3 degrees Celsius increase in global temperatures predicted during the next decade by the U.N.'s much-vaunted Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change may not happen.

No matter what the price of gas is, the most sensible policy in the U.S. is to avoid costly schemes to fight global warming. If our economy keeps growing, we will be better positioned -- richer, and more technologically proficient -- to help others mitigate its effects decades from now. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid huffs that global warming is "the most critical issue of our time." Really? More critical than energy prices? Than health care? Than wages? Than terrorism? Than nuclear proliferation? Keep huffing, Mr. Reid -- that deflating bubble needs all the air it can get.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/...ing_bubble.html

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

The Global Warming Bubble

By Rich Lowry

Rarely has so much hectoring produced so little.

After all the magazine covers, celebrity sermonizing and U.N.-certified-expert hand-wringing, the fight against global warming got a real-world test in the U.S. Senate a few weeks ago in the debate over a proposal to limit carbon emissions through a cap-and-trade system. After a small dose of the argument, supporters of the proposal couldn't wait to drop it. It was leading opponent Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate minority leader, who declared he'd be happy to talk about cap-and-trade for a month.

As an indirect tax on carbon, cap-and-trade would increase energy prices when people are already straining under $4-a-gallon gas. Even a political naif -- which McConnell assuredly is not -- would realize the benefit of hanging the proposal around its supporters' necks. Lately, we've seen the tech and housing bubbles burst, and now -- at least as an urgent political issue -- the global-warming bubble is getting pricked.

Let's count the ways: First, those gas prices. They are just one way that the soaring price of oil has put a crimp in the standard of living of Americans. They have little taste for seeing it crimped more, and why should they? The cost-benefit analysis of battling global warming is never going to make sense for Americans.

The places that would be hurt by global warming tend to be warm, wet, and low-lying. Think Bangladesh. For the U.S., warming isn't much of a threat. So, stringent measures against global warming are really a massive foreign-aid program, but an intangible and speculative one. If the predicted warming materializes, and if it has the drastic effects warned about (e.g., big rises in sea levels), people living in faraway countries a century or more from now may be adversely affected -- in short, a theoretical benefit to people as yet unborn.

We should feel a moral obligation to aid Bangladesh and similar places with mitigation measures, when (and, again, if) the time comes. Until then, our consciences should rest easy, given the $20 billion annually we spend on development assistance, including billions of dollars fighting AIDS, malaria, and other diseases affecting people whose suffering isn't theoretical.

Second, there's China. It has passed the U.S. as the world's leading emitter of carbon dioxide, and it accounted for two-thirds of the increase in the world's emissions in 2007. Global action against global warming makes little sense without China taking part, and it won't. If we can't get China to quit jailing dissidents and arming a genocidal Sudan, what hope is there of getting it to stop something -- rapid economic development -- that's otherwise unobjectionable? With hundreds of millions of Chinese people living in abject poverty, the country's economic growth is one of the world's most important initiatives against human misery.

Finally, there's the global-cooling spell. The world hasn't been warming since 1998, and an article in the journal Nature says warming won't pick up again until 2015. Since global warming is a long-term trend, a decade-long or more stall in temperatures doesn't mean much -- except that environmentalists have banked so much politically on whipping up hysteria based on imminent catastrophe. The stall in temperatures shows how little we know about global warming. It means that the .3 degrees Celsius increase in global temperatures predicted during the next decade by the U.N.'s much-vaunted Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change may not happen.

No matter what the price of gas is, the most sensible policy in the U.S. is to avoid costly schemes to fight global warming. If our economy keeps growing, we will be better positioned -- richer, and more technologically proficient -- to help others mitigate its effects decades from now. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid huffs that global warming is "the most critical issue of our time." Really? More critical than energy prices? Than health care? Than wages? Than terrorism? Than nuclear proliferation? Keep huffing, Mr. Reid -- that deflating bubble needs all the air it can get.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/...ing_bubble.html

Well as bubbles go - the author seems to be living in one himself, if he seriously thinks that we shouldn't care about the state of the environment so long as it doesn't pose some sort of direct threat to us.

That would be like a person who lives at the top of the hill saying "flood defences are a waste of money as we're not in any danger, but if you guys at the bottom get flooded out - we've got a few tins of beans and some spare blankets you can have".

[GaryC 7]

Well as bubbles go - the author seems to be living in one himself, if he seriously thinks that we shouldn't care about the state of the environment so long as it doesn't pose some sort of direct threat to us.

That would be like a person who lives at the top of the hill saying "flood defences are a waste of money as we're not in any danger, but if you guys at the bottom get flooded out - we've got a few tins of beans and some spare blankets you can have".

I think you missed the point of the story. He is showing what the public sees. As I have said before, this is a scientific issue that has been turned into a political one. He is saying the political tide has turned. (just as I said it would)

He is also pointing out that without the cooperation of China there is little we can do really. We could turn the USA into a carbon zero output country and China will still put out enough CO2 to change the enviroment, if in fact the theory is true. He correctly points out that our money is better spent keeping our economy strong and just dealing with the fallout when or if it happens. GW isn't going to turn our planet into an oven. If it is true it will change things. Some areas will become harder to live in and others will become easier. The smart move is to adapt to the changes rather than fighting them.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Well as bubbles go - the author seems to be living in one himself, if he seriously thinks that we shouldn't care about the state of the environment so long as it doesn't pose some sort of direct threat to us.

That would be like a person who lives at the top of the hill saying "flood defences are a waste of money as we're not in any danger, but if you guys at the bottom get flooded out - we've got a few tins of beans and some spare blankets you can have".

I think you missed the point of the story. He is showing what the public sees. As I have said before, this is a scientific issue that has been turned into a political one. He is saying the political tide has turned. (just as I said it would)

He is also pointing out that without the cooperation of China there is little we can do really. We could turn the USA into a carbon zero output country and China will still put out enough CO2 to change the enviroment, if in fact the theory is true. He correctly points out that our money is better spent keeping our economy strong and just dealing with the fallout when or if it happens. GW isn't going to turn our planet into an oven. If it is true it will change things. Some areas will become harder to live in and others will become easier. The smart move is to adapt to the changes rather than fighting them.

I guess he better hope that the theory isn't true - because everyone will be f*cked if it is...

[GaryC 7]

Well as bubbles go - the author seems to be living in one himself, if he seriously thinks that we shouldn't care about the state of the environment so long as it doesn't pose some sort of direct threat to us.

That would be like a person who lives at the top of the hill saying "flood defences are a waste of money as we're not in any danger, but if you guys at the bottom get flooded out - we've got a few tins of beans and some spare blankets you can have".

I think you missed the point of the story. He is showing what the public sees. As I have said before, this is a scientific issue that has been turned into a political one. He is saying the political tide has turned. (just as I said it would)

He is also pointing out that without the cooperation of China there is little we can do really. We could turn the USA into a carbon zero output country and China will still put out enough CO2 to change the enviroment, if in fact the theory is true. He correctly points out that our money is better spent keeping our economy strong and just dealing with the fallout when or if it happens. GW isn't going to turn our planet into an oven. If it is true it will change things. Some areas will become harder to live in and others will become easier. The smart move is to adapt to the changes rather than fighting them.

I guess he better hope that the theory isn't true - because everyone will be f*cked if it is...

Come on man, no we won't. GW isn't going to turn the planet into a cinder. The planets climate changes all the time. In fact, man does better during warm periods than in cooler ones. Regardless of if we emit CO2 or not the climate will change at some point in our time on earth. It's just the facts of our planet. We have adapted to changes before and we will adapt to any that comes.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

You'd better hope so...

The planet has had mass extinction events before...

[GaryC 7]

You'd better hope so...

The planet has had mass extinction events before...

Unless a giant comet hits us I doubt if we are going anywhere anytime soon. We survived ice ages and periods warmer than this. GW is just another change.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

You'd better hope so...

The planet has had mass extinction events before...

Unless a giant comet hits us I doubt if we are going anywhere anytime soon. We survived ice ages and periods warmer than this. GW is just another change.

Actually - the theory is that most of the mass extinction events in the planet's history were linked to greenhouse phases.

[GaryC 7]

You'd better hope so...

The planet has had mass extinction events before...

Unless a giant comet hits us I doubt if we are going anywhere anytime soon. We survived ice ages and periods warmer than this. GW is just another change.

Actually - the theory is that most of the mass extinction events in the planet's history were linked to greenhouse phases.

And all of those happened without the aid of humans. The world climate is bigger than anything we can effect on that kind of scale. If it changes, it changes. We cannot stop it.

[kerewin21 2]

Can we put a moratorium on GaryC posting anti global warming articles? I think we get it by now. GaryC doesn't believe in global warming. I think we've also established that the vast majority of the scientific community *does* believe in global warming. We're just wasting electrons with this constant back and forth.

[GaryC 7]

Can we put a moratorium on GaryC posting anti global warming articles? I think we get it by now. GaryC doesn't believe in global warming. I think we've also established that the vast majority of the scientific community *does* believe in global warming. We're just wasting electrons with this constant back and forth.

Hmm.... I can't post global warming stories, I can't post Obama stories. I can see that everything is fine as long as I don't ruffle the feathers of those that disagree with me. Maybe you would be happy with a forum filled with kitten threads?Censorship is alive and well.

[HAL 9000 96]

The Global Warming Bubble

By Rich Lowry

Rarely has so much hectoring produced so little.

After all the magazine covers, celebrity sermonizing and U.N.-certified-expert hand-wringing, the fight against global warming got a real-world test in the U.S. Senate a few weeks ago in the debate over a proposal to limit carbon emissions through a cap-and-trade system. After a small dose of the argument, supporters of the proposal couldn't wait to drop it. It was leading opponent Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate minority leader, who declared he'd be happy to talk about cap-and-trade for a month.

As an indirect tax on carbon, cap-and-trade would increase energy prices when people are already straining under $4-a-gallon gas. Even a political naif -- which McConnell assuredly is not -- would realize the benefit of hanging the proposal around its supporters' necks. Lately, we've seen the tech and housing bubbles burst, and now -- at least as an urgent political issue -- the global-warming bubble is getting pricked.

Let's count the ways: First, those gas prices. They are just one way that the soaring price of oil has put a crimp in the standard of living of Americans. They have little taste for seeing it crimped more, and why should they? The cost-benefit analysis of battling global warming is never going to make sense for Americans.

The places that would be hurt by global warming tend to be warm, wet, and low-lying. Think Bangladesh. For the U.S., warming isn't much of a threat. So, stringent measures against global warming are really a massive foreign-aid program, but an intangible and speculative one. If the predicted warming materializes, and if it has the drastic effects warned about (e.g., big rises in sea levels), people living in faraway countries a century or more from now may be adversely affected -- in short, a theoretical benefit to people as yet unborn.

We should feel a moral obligation to aid Bangladesh and similar places with mitigation measures, when (and, again, if) the time comes. Until then, our consciences should rest easy, given the $20 billion annually we spend on development assistance, including billions of dollars fighting AIDS, malaria, and other diseases affecting people whose suffering isn't theoretical.

Second, there's China. It has passed the U.S. as the world's leading emitter of carbon dioxide, and it accounted for two-thirds of the increase in the world's emissions in 2007. Global action against global warming makes little sense without China taking part, and it won't. If we can't get China to quit jailing dissidents and arming a genocidal Sudan, what hope is there of getting it to stop something -- rapid economic development -- that's otherwise unobjectionable? With hundreds of millions of Chinese people living in abject poverty, the country's economic growth is one of the world's most important initiatives against human misery.

Finally, there's the global-cooling spell. The world hasn't been warming since 1998, and an article in the journal Nature says warming won't pick up again until 2015. Since global warming is a long-term trend, a decade-long or more stall in temperatures doesn't mean much -- except that environmentalists have banked so much politically on whipping up hysteria based on imminent catastrophe. The stall in temperatures shows how little we know about global warming. It means that the .3 degrees Celsius increase in global temperatures predicted during the next decade by the U.N.'s much-vaunted Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change may not happen.

No matter what the price of gas is, the most sensible policy in the U.S. is to avoid costly schemes to fight global warming. If our economy keeps growing, we will be better positioned -- richer, and more technologically proficient -- to help others mitigate its effects decades from now. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid huffs that global warming is "the most critical issue of our time." Really? More critical than energy prices? Than health care? Than wages? Than terrorism? Than nuclear proliferation? Keep huffing, Mr. Reid -- that deflating bubble needs all the air it can get.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/...ing_bubble.html

Well as bubbles go - the author seems to be living in one himself, if he seriously thinks that we shouldn't care about the state of the environment so long as it doesn't pose some sort of direct threat to us.

That would be like a person who lives at the top of the hill saying "flood defences are a waste of money as we're not in any danger, but if you guys at the bottom get flooded out - we've got a few tins of beans and some spare blankets you can have".

Plus, being one of the largest contributors of greenhouse gases, I think its more of a matter of proper foreign policy on our side- IF you want to take it as a matter of us and them.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

You'd better hope so...

The planet has had mass extinction events before...

Unless a giant comet hits us I doubt if we are going anywhere anytime soon. We survived ice ages and periods warmer than this. GW is just another change.

Actually - the theory is that most of the mass extinction events in the planet's history were linked to greenhouse phases.

And all of those happened without the aid of humans. The world climate is bigger than anything we can effect on that kind of scale. If it changes, it changes. We cannot stop it.

That of course doesn't preclude human activities from having an effect on the environment.

[GaryC 7]

The Global Warming Bubble

By Rich Lowry

Rarely has so much hectoring produced so little.

After all the magazine covers, celebrity sermonizing and U.N.-certified-expert hand-wringing, the fight against global warming got a real-world test in the U.S. Senate a few weeks ago in the debate over a proposal to limit carbon emissions through a cap-and-trade system. After a small dose of the argument, supporters of the proposal couldn't wait to drop it. It was leading opponent Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate minority leader, who declared he'd be happy to talk about cap-and-trade for a month.

As an indirect tax on carbon, cap-and-trade would increase energy prices when people are already straining under $4-a-gallon gas. Even a political naif -- which McConnell assuredly is not -- would realize the benefit of hanging the proposal around its supporters' necks. Lately, we've seen the tech and housing bubbles burst, and now -- at least as an urgent political issue -- the global-warming bubble is getting pricked.

Let's count the ways: First, those gas prices. They are just one way that the soaring price of oil has put a crimp in the standard of living of Americans. They have little taste for seeing it crimped more, and why should they? The cost-benefit analysis of battling global warming is never going to make sense for Americans.

The places that would be hurt by global warming tend to be warm, wet, and low-lying. Think Bangladesh. For the U.S., warming isn't much of a threat. So, stringent measures against global warming are really a massive foreign-aid program, but an intangible and speculative one. If the predicted warming materializes, and if it has the drastic effects warned about (e.g., big rises in sea levels), people living in faraway countries a century or more from now may be adversely affected -- in short, a theoretical benefit to people as yet unborn.

We should feel a moral obligation to aid Bangladesh and similar places with mitigation measures, when (and, again, if) the time comes. Until then, our consciences should rest easy, given the $20 billion annually we spend on development assistance, including billions of dollars fighting AIDS, malaria, and other diseases affecting people whose suffering isn't theoretical.

Second, there's China. It has passed the U.S. as the world's leading emitter of carbon dioxide, and it accounted for two-thirds of the increase in the world's emissions in 2007. Global action against global warming makes little sense without China taking part, and it won't. If we can't get China to quit jailing dissidents and arming a genocidal Sudan, what hope is there of getting it to stop something -- rapid economic development -- that's otherwise unobjectionable? With hundreds of millions of Chinese people living in abject poverty, the country's economic growth is one of the world's most important initiatives against human misery.

Finally, there's the global-cooling spell. The world hasn't been warming since 1998, and an article in the journal Nature says warming won't pick up again until 2015. Since global warming is a long-term trend, a decade-long or more stall in temperatures doesn't mean much -- except that environmentalists have banked so much politically on whipping up hysteria based on imminent catastrophe. The stall in temperatures shows how little we know about global warming. It means that the .3 degrees Celsius increase in global temperatures predicted during the next decade by the U.N.'s much-vaunted Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change may not happen.

No matter what the price of gas is, the most sensible policy in the U.S. is to avoid costly schemes to fight global warming. If our economy keeps growing, we will be better positioned -- richer, and more technologically proficient -- to help others mitigate its effects decades from now. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid huffs that global warming is "the most critical issue of our time." Really? More critical than energy prices? Than health care? Than wages? Than terrorism? Than nuclear proliferation? Keep huffing, Mr. Reid -- that deflating bubble needs all the air it can get.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/...ing_bubble.html

Well as bubbles go - the author seems to be living in one himself, if he seriously thinks that we shouldn't care about the state of the environment so long as it doesn't pose some sort of direct threat to us.

That would be like a person who lives at the top of the hill saying "flood defences are a waste of money as we're not in any danger, but if you guys at the bottom get flooded out - we've got a few tins of beans and some spare blankets you can have".

Plus, being one of the largest contributors of greenhouse gases, I think its more of a matter of proper foreign policy on our side- IF you want to take it as a matter of us and them.

China just passed us up. India will soon follow. It does not make any difference what we do. We cannot make them stop.

[HAL 9000 96]

Well as bubbles go - the author seems to be living in one himself, if he seriously thinks that we shouldn't care about the state of the environment so long as it doesn't pose some sort of direct threat to us.

That would be like a person who lives at the top of the hill saying "flood defences are a waste of money as we're not in any danger, but if you guys at the bottom get flooded out - we've got a few tins of beans and some spare blankets you can have".

I think you missed the point of the story. He is showing what the public sees. As I have said before, this is a scientific issue that has been turned into a political one. He is saying the political tide has turned. (just as I said it would)

He is also pointing out that without the cooperation of China there is little we can do really. We could turn the USA into a carbon zero output country and China will still put out enough CO2 to change the enviroment, if in fact the theory is true. He correctly points out that our money is better spent keeping our economy strong and just dealing with the fallout when or if it happens. GW isn't going to turn our planet into an oven. If it is true it will change things. Some areas will become harder to live in and others will become easier. The smart move is to adapt to the changes rather than fighting them.

I guess he better hope that the theory isn't true - because everyone will be f*cked if it is...

Come on man, no we won't. GW isn't going to turn the planet into a cinder. The planets climate changes all the time. In fact, man does better during warm periods than in cooler ones. Regardless of if we emit CO2 or not the climate will change at some point in our time on earth. It's just the facts of our planet. We have adapted to changes before and we will adapt to any that comes.

Man did so in the past when 1) The world population was 75% smaller and 2) The increase was relative to the "little Ice Age"...

(you're not the only one that saw that show... )