So how do things work at a big international conference? Mainly lots and lots of writing, re-writing, and finalizing of written statements that can be agreed upon by all. Based upon the World Climate Conference-3 in Geneva, this is my impression of how it happens.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Geneva is truly an international city. Important people from all over the world live here, and this might explain why.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
The climate change debate came to a rocky perch in western South Dakota the other day. Eleven activists representing Greenpeace slipped into a restricted area, climbed over the top of Mount Rushmore, and unfurled a huge banner containing President Obama’s picture, challenging him with the statement, “America honors leaders not politicians: Stop Global Warming.”
While the activists generated publicity, they evoked no sympathy. Park visitors jeered the eleven as they were taken away in handcuffs. One tourist yelled, “Put them in jail.” Another called it degrading, saying “They’re just idiots for doing stuff like this and ruining something that means something to other people.”
In retrospect, one wonders why Greenpeace would overplay a winning hand. President Obama is on the same side of the climate change issue, so why embarrass him by demanding even stronger, more aggressive political action? The president’s sweeping cap and trade climate change bill passed the House, but will be fiercely fought in the Senate. So why pull off a stunt that antagonized onlookers (and voters) for no apparent reason?
Accounts of the incident were carried in newspapers nationally and internationally. The environmental website therenewableplanet.com headlined, “Mount Rushmore ‘Defaced’ by Greenpeace.” The website of the Chronicle newspaper in San Francisco (where four of the arrested activists are from) seemed to excuse the act, which it said “included an apt, and symbolically powerful, message.”
San Francisco aside – even those who favor climate change legislation have to be shaking their heads at Greenpeace. Hijacking a national monument does nothing to change minds or attract converts to the green side of the climate change debate.
Whenever a chunk of Antarctic ice breaks off, the national newscasts cover it. Whenever the ice in the Arctic thins out (especially if there is video of a forlorn polar bear), the national newscasts cover it. But when a fundamental part of the climate system that affects our weather and climate on a daily basis changes: crickets.
Sunspots (NASA)
On April 1, NASA announced that – contrary to predictions – 2008′s “deep solar minimum” has continued into 2009. 344 of the past 456 days have been sunspot-free, which sunspot expert David Hathaway of the Marshall Space Flight Center calls it the “quietest sun we’ve seen in almost a century.” Sunspots are created by magnetism on the sun’s surface, and seem to peak and decrease in cycles lasting approximately eleven years. While invisible to the naked eye, they are considered an indicator of solar activity. At the same time as announcing the continuation of the solar minimum, NASA also pointed out that during 2008 the earth received a 12 year low in solar irradiance; the sun’s brightness dropped by two one-hundredths of one percent at visible wavelengths since a previous solar minimum in 1996.
Sunspots by year (NASA)
2008 also marked a 50 year low in solar wind pressure and a 55 year low in solar radio emissions.
What does the lack of sunspots and solar acvitiy mean to our weather and climate? It depends on who you talk to, and on which side of the climate change debate they stand. For the record, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has dismissed solar activity as a significant contributor to global temperature change. But IPCC opponents can show convincing graphs matching sunspots numbers and global temperature cycles. A conclusive causal link evades both sides.
Regardless, it would seem NASA’s announcement of unusually diminished sun should at least make network news on the internet. But since such information does not fit with the news divisions’ “runaway climate change” drumbeat, they haven’t posted the story on the websites at CBS, NBC, or ABC. And you certainly won’t see it on the evening television newscasts – unless they can work in a polar bear.
With few in government or media prepared or able to stand in the way, it looks like full speed ahead for President Obama’s proposed cap and trade program. In fact, the program is likely to be locked into place when the United States agrees to an international climate change treaty later this year. Cap and trade is designed to lower industrial emissions by making it expensive for American industries to release carbon dioxide into the air. Industries will be required to pay a carbon tax to the government, the cost of which would certainly be passed along to consumers.
Contained in the President’s proposed 2009 budget is a forecast that industries will pay the government $79 billion in 2012 alone for permission to emit carbon dioxide into the air. How will that affect our pocketbooks?
According to Point Carbon, a European consultancy which analyzes carbon trading schemes, the initial cost for energy industries will be about 14 dollars per metric ton of carbon emitted. That would result in an increase of 12 cents per gallon of gasoline, and a 7 percent price hike in the cost of electricity.
For consumers, the sacrifice does not end there. Businesses will have to pay those additional energy costs, which will lead to trickle down price hikes on everything that is bought and sold. Again, the consumer will pay the penalty.
Remember – this is only the initial cost. The president’s projection is that by 2019, the carbon tax on industries will reach $646 billion, and the cost to consumers will rise accordingly.
Never mind the 2009 economic stimulus package and how much federal debt is being accumulated on the backs of future generations. Even before we have figured out how to get out of the current economic crisis, the seeds are quietly being sown for a green attack on the American economy three years from now.
If the American people wish to increase their cost of living to benefit a global initiative, so be it. But shouldn’t cap and trade receive a thorough debate and up or down vote in Congress before the executive branch quietly makes it the law of the land?
UPDATE, 3/18/09 – At least eight Senate Democrats have joined with two dozen Republicans opposing the president’s plan to sneak cap and trade into the annual budget bill, according to an Associated Press report.
A few years ago while visiting Europe, I was privileged to attend a public forum on climate change. Several prominent scientists answered questions from informed citizens on the topic of what individuals could do about global warming. One recurring theme was whether people in that country should bother reducing carbon emissions if the United States continued to ignore international climate change efforts. To be honest, I felt a little embarrassed – although over the years I have often seen global warming used as an issue with which to bash America.
Today, London’s The Independent newspaper kicked off a series of news articles previewing the Copenhagen conference to be held in December. 
The conference is expected to produce a Kyoto-like treaty that will impose limits on emissions of carbon dioxide. Unlike Kyoto, this time America is very likely to sign agreement to the treaty. President Obama’s goal is to lower US carbon emissions by 2020 - the same level of emissions we had in 1990.
But the article contained two statistics that have received little or no attention. One is that the United States is no longer the world’s top carbon polluter. China currently emits 6.018 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide, surpassing America’s 5.903 billion metric tons. It is interesting that if the 2001 Kyoto accord been adopted by the United States, this country would have been working under restrictive regulations for the past several years – while China was expanding its economy at will. The Kyoto treaty mostly exempted China because it was considered a developing nation.
I am certain many critics would respond that China has 1.3 billion people; so it might be justified in emitting more carbon dioxide than the United States, which has only 304 million people. But before we start to feel guilt for our prosperity, we should think about the second key statistic in the article.
When you compare nations based upon the amount of carbon dioxide emitted per person, the United States again comes in second. Australia emits 20.58 metric tons of CO2 per person, followed by the US at 19.78 metric tons per person, and Canada and Saudia Arabia at 18.81 and 15.7 metric tons per capita respectively.
While I truly respect and cherish other countries, I wish they would stop blaming all the world’s carbon pollution on the United States. Despite their “green” rhetoric, when other industrialized nations point fingers at us for global CO2 concentrations – we could point a finger back.
According to a front page story in the London Sunday Telegraph, Britain’s Prince Charles is set to announce that the world has “100 days to act” to reverse climate change. “The clock is ticking,” according to the prince, who will reportedly make a speech on Thursday insisting that catastrophe looms within eight years unless something is done about global warming.
The prince’s plea is nothing new. The London Guardian newspaper said “governments must act swiftly” to address global warming – in an article in 2006.
It is always interesting when people ask governments to act swiftly. It is against the nature of government to do anything swiftly even when they do act. Frankly, the faster governments act, the more mistakes they make. Yet people constantly claim we are in crisis mode, demanding that governments “do something.” In recent years, we have been told “Governments must act swiftly…
No wonder governments never get anything done. They’re too busy dealing with stuff upon which they are supposed to act swiftly.
World news World sports