On Sunday, we learned that one of the best things we can do for Mother Gaia is to keep the sizes of our families at a minimum. In the final analysis, a human being is nothing more than a CO2 generator on legs.

Today’s lesson in Saving the Planet comes from Britain, where the Lord High Poo-Bah of Climate Change, Lord Stern of Brentford, has declared:

“Meat is a wasteful use of water and creates a lot of greenhouse gases. It puts enormous pressure on the world’s resources. A vegetarian diet is better.”

Save the Planet. Eat your arugula.

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The Director of the Congressional Budget Office, Douglas W. Elmendorf, told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee that the House-passed Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade tax climate change legislation – would slow the economy and would cause “significant” job losses in fossil fuel industries:

We want to leave no misunderstanding that aggregate performance — the fact that jobs turn up somewhere else for some people — does not mean that there are not substantial costs borne by people, communities, firms in affected industries and affected areas. You saw that in manufacturing, and we would see that in response to changes that this legislation would produce.

Director Elmendorf also testified that the Waxman-Markey cap-and-tax would cut the nation’s gross domestic product by 0.25 to 0.75 percent in 2020 compared with “what it would otherwise have been,” and by 1 to 3.5 percent in 2050.

Elmendorf’s testimony undercuts the current position of President Obama and the Democrats’ congressional leaders, who claim cap-and-tax would help revive the economy. They make that claim despite the fact that presidential candidate Obama said his cap and trade plan will cause electricity rates to “necessarily skyrocket” and will bankrupt anyone who builds a coal-powered plant.

It’s good for the environment.  Well, until all the plants suffocate*. Mark Hertsgaard, in the Nation:

The IPCC says that rich industrial countries must cut emissions 25 to 40 percent by 2020 (from 1990 levels) if the world is to have a fair chance of avoiding catastrophic climate change. By contrast, the WBGU study says the United States must cut emissions 100 percent by 2020–i.e., quit carbon entirely within ten years. Germany, Italy and other industrial nations must do the same by 2025 to 2030. China only has until 2035, and the world as a whole must be carbon-free by 2050.

I don’t object to a man having a religion.  I don’t even mind when his religion impacts his policy opinions.  But this desire of the Left to mix their religion with their science is a definite problem.

Via The Corner and AoSHQ.

Moe Lane

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A. By getting the microphone cut off, of course. Via Breitbart TV and the B-Cast:

For the record, I find the sight of Big Green shills stomping on the free speech of an independent whistleblower - yes, that was fun to write; thanks for asking - to be just a sign that they themselves know that they’re having problems pushing their agenda these days. When even the BBC’s no longer a reliable stenographer (H/T: AoSHQ), well…

Moe Lane

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

Since the 1930’s, Louisiana has lost over 2,000 square miles to coastal erosion - an area larger than the state of Delaware. Stabilizing the remaining marshlands requires massive projects, such as plantings, erosion control structures and mass plantings, but more than anything it requires masses of money.

Governor Bobby Jindal thinks he knows who might help foot the bill: you and me, pal, if Cap and Tax gets passed.

It turns out that projects for rebuilding marsh and the delta will score all kinds of points in the Carbon Offset game. If someone wants to build, say, a coal-fired electrical generation plant, they will be required under the Waxman-Markey abomination to purchase Carbon Credits from a “qualified project”.

Scientists working with Louisiana to develop a carbon-credit plan say the river delta is a factor in the greenhouse gas equation. They say the 2,000 square miles of Louisiana marshland lost since 1932 is equivalent to the carbon output of 80 million automobiles driving for one year.

So, you’re looking to keep driving that Suburban? Or using coal-based electricity? We in Louisiana are here to help.

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The U.N.’s International Panel on Climate Change and Climate Change scientists have waaaay too much invested in Anthropogenic Global Warming to walk away from it based on mere data. Data, for example, that demonstrates that despite the dire warnings of steadily increasing temperatures, global temperatures are actually cooling, and have been for 10-12 years.

In other words, the Hockey Stick is broken. (Temporary) Global Cooling is seeing increasing acceptance among some in the Climate Change community, but they remain True Believers in Anthropogenic Global Warming.

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Scott Armstrong of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania is co-author of a paper which was presented to the International Symposium on Forecasting in June. The conclusion: “The paper explained the need for simple methods and conservative forecasts in the face of uncertainty and complexity and pointed out that simple no-change benchmark forecasts are sufficiently accurate for policy decisions. In contrast, simple causal models with CO2 as the policy variable are not credible.”

Prediction markets for temperatures in three and ten years time agree that the no-change forecast is the more likely outcome than the IPCC 0.03C per annum forecast. Finally, similar (analogous) alarms in the past identified by the authors and others turned out to be false alarms. The slides for the talk are available as a PowerPoint file and as a PDF file.

In layman’s terms, Armstrong et al conclude that if you had to bet what the temperature will be in ten years, “the same as today” is a more accurate than any scientific model. And the no-change model is the one they recommend using for climate change policy.

This sounds absurd! Why, there is a well-known Scientific Consensus on man-made global warming! Do you think they’re wrong? Then here’s your chance to make some easy money: The Climate Bet.

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Is health care not going all that well for you, Mr. President? Maybe you ought to push the energy agenda - after all, there’s ‘broad support’ for that:

Most Americans approve of the way President Obama is handling energy issues and support efforts by him and Democrats in Congress to overhaul energy policy — including the controversial cap-and-trade approach to limiting greenhouse gas emissions, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Even as public support has slipped for Obama’s health-care proposals, support for ambitious changes in energy policy has been steady. Although the issue of health care arouses more intense feelings than energy policy does, those who do feel strongly about energy and climate policy tend to tilt toward the administration’s position and a broad majority of people echo Democratic lawmakers’ views on the benefits of proposed changes.

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So there’s this Canadian fellow named Steve McIntyre, who works with an organization called Climate Audit. Climate Audit’s interest is not in debunking Global Warming. Rather, they audit the data in an effort to make sure the conclusions derived are unassailable. To that end, Steve contacted the Climactic Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia, the repository of the data that underlie the “overwhelming scientific consensus” in the Climate Science community. He requested the original raw data behind their temperature trend conclusions, to wit:

You’d expect scientists who are so sure of their conslusions to welcome this type of scrutiny. Instead, Steve got the Heisman Treatment - the big stiffarm - because he’s “not an academic”.

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Democrat Senators Kent Conrad and Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, Senator Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas and Ben Nelson of Nebraska say the Senate should abandon efforts to pass cap-and-trade this year.

Cap-and-trade legislation will require 60 votes to pass the Senate. According to Bloomberg, at least 15 of the Senate’s 60 Democrats have said the House-passed version — the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade tax climate change legislation — would hurt the economy and must be changed before they can support it. Most Republican Senators oppose the cap-and-trade measure.

The resistance by Senate Democrats Lincoln undercuts President Obama’s plan to cap carbon dioxide emissions and establish a market for trading pollution allowances. A plan that presidential candidate Obama said will cause electricity rates to “necessarily skyrocket“ and will bankrupt anyone who builds a coal-powered plant.

Does Obama’s cap-and-trade tax, face the same fate as President Clinton’s BTU energy tax, which died in the Senate?

The bottom line is that the extent to which the American consumer is going to pay for a national energy tax cannot be overstated—it will cost hundreds of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars. The weight of the new taxes associated with this bill will break the backs of some families, forcing them out of their homes and into the street. America will lose its competitive edge in our global economy as we regulate ourselves into economic obscurity, allowing countries like China and India to outpace our productivity because this legislation will make it far too expensive to conduct business in America.

From the diaries by Erick

The subject of the environment is a difficult one for conservatives. The Left has owned the discussion for years, always pitching the issue in the direst terms, decade after decade. When we have tried to point out reasonable objections to this extremist rhetoric, such as that there is less than a scientific consensus about climate change, we have been called “deniers” or worse.

This is doubly unfair because there are few things more conservative than conservation. There can be no doubt that being good stewards of our natural resources is necessary for human sustainability and survival. Unfortunately, in the public’s mind the Left has a monopoly on setting wise environmental policy. What we understand, as the Left seems unwilling to acknowledge, is that environmental and economic policies are often very closely associated. There are always tradeoffs for any change in policy.

Right now congressional Democrats, led by Henry Waxman and Ed Markey, are trying to use that conventional wisdom to pass a bill that could be destructive on both fronts. As even some on the left have pointed out, the bill may not actually establish binding caps on emissions, and may in fact actually contribute to worldwide pollution. This kind of up-is-down outcome is no surprise to those of us who understand how government is often less efficient at coming up with solutions than it is generating unintended consequences.

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Promoted from the diaries by Skanderbeg.  Do be sure to read down to the tabulation of the incipient green oligopoly that’s trying to coalesce around all this “AGW” nonsense….

After the “global warming” terminology morphed into “climate change”, the EPA dedicated a large section of their website to the issue. With EPA now able to provide the comprehensive information, the challenge to curtail “climate change” is now up to the Obama Administration.

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This week, as the stock market continues its perilous slide towards an unknown abyss; the House Energy and Commerce Committee will begin hearings on a national energy tax bill that will cost every American household $3,128 a year for the “right” to emit carbon dioxide.

The discussion draft of the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES) has four primary objectives (a renewable energy production mandate; improving energy efficiency; a cap and tax on carbon emissions; and creating “green collar” jobs) with one common thread tying them all together—central government planning.

ACES is nothing more than a veiled attempt to bring more of the private sector underneath big government’s tent while creating a $1.3 trillion slush fund for liberal social agendas under the guise of environmental do-goodism.

Most importantly, for a cap and tax bill to be effective and produce the goals of carbon emission reductions outlined in ACES (83 percent reduction of 2005 levels by 2050); energy is going to have to get expensive—oppressively expensive. Even President Obama admitted cap and tax bill would cause electricity prices to “necessarily skyrocket.”

The entire premise behind a cap and tax energy proposal is to punish those who produce, thereby punishing those who consume, which by my quick math amounts to everyone in the United States. Unfortunately, the sadistic nature of radical environmentalism is the disproportionate impact on the poor. While there are some families in this country who can afford to be burdened by a $3,128 energy tax—the vast majority cannot.

Worse, ACES’s provisions to create a new green economy will steal jobs from many low to middle class Americans. In fact, a recent study of Spain’s renewable job program found that the U.S. can expect 2.2 jobs to be destroyed for every 1 “green” job manufactured and subsidized by the government. Ironically, the Institute of Energy Research notes that “according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), Spain’s annual emissions of carbon dioxide have increased by nearly 50 percent since the nation began its aggressive push to subsidize and support ‘green jobs.’”

The questions one should ask when thinking about global warming legislation are: Can I afford a $3,128 tax? Can I afford 60-144 percent increase in gas prices? Can I afford to have my job shipped overseas because my employer can’t afford to stay in business with a 77-128 percent increase in electricity prices? My guess is, the answers to all three are “no”—I know I can’t and neither can my constituents, which is why I’ll be working to defeat this devastating legislation.