fossten
Dedicated LVC Member
DLS8K said:
Now, was that YOU saying that, or was that just a collection of molecules that said that?
BuSh Adm. Attempts to Hide Facts on Global Warming
- Thread starter JohnnyBz00LS
- Start date
Now, was that YOU saying that, or was that just a collection of molecules that said that?
fossten
Dedicated LVC Member
Doesn't matter, because it is contrary evidence that weakens the GW crowd who claim man is responsible and who also falsely claim that man can reverse the trend. The point I'm making is that there is sufficient evidence that man is NOT responsible for global warming, and in FACT the reported average earth temperature for the LAST 20 YEARS has actually COOLED.DLS8K said:
What evidence do you have of this? One of the most pathetic and yet most common arguments of the global warming crowd is that you can look out your window and tell that there is global warming. Well, I looked out my window this morning and I saw 15-degree weather. So I guess I can look out my window and claim global cooling, right?DLS8K said:
DLS8K said:
That is your opinion, but I see no data cited by you that supports it. And when was the last time the media crowed about acid rain? Welcome back to the 70's.
And what about the adverse effects of cleaner requirements on our economy? Do you even know what the Kyoto Protocol would cost this nation? I'll bet you don't have the first clue, because if you did, you wouldn't speak so nonchalantly about "pushing industry." You know who pays for that? You and I do, and I'm not footing a five hundred and fifty-three TRILLION dollar bill.
By the way, forests cause more smog than humans do. Look it up.
JohnnyBz00LS
Dedicated LVC Member
shagdrum said:
Nice try. But this excerpt of the article is merely talking about a relative measurement of the CO2 in the North Atlantic compared to the North Pacific and considers ONLY what "America releases" into the "North American air". There is no mention of what ASIA is releasing into Asian atmosphere that will blow over into the North Pacific and raising levels of CO2 there. So taken at face value, your "evidence" is worthless, as you are trying to imply that North America acutally "sucks more CO2 out of the atmosphere than it pumps into it", which is false and misleading. Also, this carbon balance issue, addressed by this study over a brief moment in time (relatively speaking) and over only a portion of the globe, is merely one little piece of the puzzle WRT global warming and it's causes.
CO2 contributors:
http://www.tamug.edu/labb/Global_Warming_Info.htm
Global Average Temps:
http://www.grida.no/climate/vital/17.htm
Sea Level Rise:
http://www.grida.no/climate/vital/19.htm
Satellite Temp Measurements:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_temperature_measurements
Sea surface Temperature:
http://lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/trends.html
Of course, I'm not trying to paint the US and the GOP as the world's most evil polluter, on the contrary the US has done well keeping it's CO2 contribution per capita quite level since the 70s:
http://www.calvert-henderson.com/energy.htm
But that doesn't change the fact that global warming is REAL, and that the US is the major contributor to greenhouse gases. And YES, CHINA's increase in CO2 contributions is the worst, and that MUST be corrected.
fossten said:
WRONG:
http://www.grida.no/climate/vital/17.htm
*owned*
I'll get back to the rest of your drivel later........
Do you just not understand the concept of air pollution and the greenhouse effect? What world do you live in and what books have you been reading? The greenhouse effect is a simple concept that I would think anybody could understand but apparently it escapes you.fossten said:
Secondly...you have no idea about trends, do you? Just because the temperature today is 15 degrees out does not mean anything in the bigger picture. Global warming is not a drastic effect.....it has been a gradual effect and it will continue to be a gradual effect. Aside from that, a temperature change as little as 1-2 degrees has a drastic effect on the weather of the Earth.
As for acid rain........take a trip through a forrest and you will see it first hand.
And your comment about how much the Kyoto protocol will cost our nation, don't you care about the future of the Earth or are you just concerned about the here and now?
While there are scientists that claim human produced carbon dioxide is responsible for global warming, there are just as many or perhaps more scientists that dispute the global warming hypothesis. I heard that there are 1,500 scientists that support the global warming theory, while there are about 19,000 that do not support the theory.
Thus, to say that Bush is hiding the "facts" about global warming is misrepresenting the real facts, which include the "fact" that whether there is actually such a thing as "global warming" and whether humans are responsible for same has not been settled.
I know the pro-global warming advocates would like to think it's settled, but when there are scientists such as the first Canadian climatologist that has done extensive research (over 30 years) about Earth's climate, who states that the theory of global warming is a fraud, I would think that his word is just as golden as the next scientist. (If I can find his paper, I will post it.) The problem with the pro-man-made global warming movement is that it is simply not settled no matter how many graphs and charts are presented.
Moreover, if pro-global warming advocates are willing to ignore indications that other planets such as Mars are warming then they become less credible since they are apparently refusing to consider all evidence before coming to a conclusion. I doubt the U.N. report even addressed any other possible causes of global warming except human induced global warming. I might be wrong, but I would think that in order for a report to even begin to be credible the researchers must address all possibilities. To stay fixated on human produced carbon dioxide as the only possibility without amply considering other possible causes simply diminishes the credibility of the research.
Thus, to say that Bush is hiding the "facts" about global warming is misrepresenting the real facts, which include the "fact" that whether there is actually such a thing as "global warming" and whether humans are responsible for same has not been settled.
I know the pro-global warming advocates would like to think it's settled, but when there are scientists such as the first Canadian climatologist that has done extensive research (over 30 years) about Earth's climate, who states that the theory of global warming is a fraud, I would think that his word is just as golden as the next scientist. (If I can find his paper, I will post it.) The problem with the pro-man-made global warming movement is that it is simply not settled no matter how many graphs and charts are presented.
Moreover, if pro-global warming advocates are willing to ignore indications that other planets such as Mars are warming then they become less credible since they are apparently refusing to consider all evidence before coming to a conclusion. I doubt the U.N. report even addressed any other possible causes of global warming except human induced global warming. I might be wrong, but I would think that in order for a report to even begin to be credible the researchers must address all possibilities. To stay fixated on human produced carbon dioxide as the only possibility without amply considering other possible causes simply diminishes the credibility of the research.
JohnnyBz00LS said:
What Asia releases is irrelevent. These conclusions are based on direct measurements of CO2 levels in both the North Pacific and North Atlantic. It focuses on North America, but due to the method used it can't exclude other factors as computer models can and do. If prevailing winds in Asia run east to west (opposite of North America as it seems u r implying) then that would be included in the measurements in the north atlantic; if winds blow west to east then asia's output would be in the north pacific. The point is, these measurement can't distinguish particles of CO2 from North America and those from Asia. Both as well as any other sources in the air are included. The only way your argument works is to say that zero Pg are in the North Pacific, but in fact the study shows 1.6Pg, where else do u think the 1.6Pg of CO2 came from?
The same study summarizes how North America does take in more CO2 then it puts out:
First, there's regrowth on abandoned farmland and previously logged forests. Second, uptake is enhanced by anthropogenic nitrogen deposition (that's nitrogen "pollutants" and fertilizers, for the rest of us). Third is 'CO2 fertilization' which promotes green growth, just as phosphates do. "Up to a point, greenhouse gas is it's own antidote, nature sees to that."
fossten
Dedicated LVC Member
DLS8K said:
Don't try that guilt-laden bullcrap argument on me. Of course I care about the earth, I'm just not so arrogant as to think that we, mere humans, can so easily destroy God's creation simply by being capitalists. That's absurd. Furthermore, as Johnny acknowledged, we are one of the best nations at cleaning up or preventing messes on this planet. Moreover, there is no conclusive proof that we are causing global warming, as Mac1 has mentioned, scientists are switching sides lately. Or don't you read the papers?
Finally, you ignored the FACT that global warming is happening on Mars. Are we the cause of that as well? If not, HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN IT? How arrogant are these envirochondriacs to think that we are the cause of everything? Don't you ever question the bile that spews forth from these less-than-credible ecoterrorist sources? Aren't you concerned about having half our nation's economy for the next 100 years confiscated by a bunch of international ne'er-do-well hypocrites in the UN over a lousy hunch?
fossten said:
Firstly, there is also no conclusive proof that we aren't causing global warming. Secondly, I never said humans are fully responsible for the climate changes that have/are taking place on this planet......but I am also not going to deny that what we as a planet do and have done do not play a role in the Earth's climate.
And finally, the Kyoto Protocol will cost money and there is nobody on this planet who thinks otherwise. But can it be any worse than paying 3 dollars a gallon for gas? You don't know how much this plan will cost and neither do I.
And it isn't just about Global warming.....its about a cleaner future with cleaner air and drinking water. In economic terms, you are a laggard.......the last to join with the rest of the sensible people in this country who support a cleaner Earth.
fossten
Dedicated LVC Member
DLS8K said:
There's no proof that we aren't causing it? That's a ridiculous argument. So we should cripple our economy because we can't prove a negative? That's like saying, "You're going to jail unless you can prove that you don't beat your wife." Don't make me laugh. I shouldn't have to prove that we aren't causing it; before we bankrupt our nation the onus is on YOU to prove why we should.
And by the way, we DO know how much it will cost. The general agreement by the best economists estimate the cost at $553 TRILLION over the next hundred years. That's $5,530,000,000,000 (Trillion) per year. You can't even conceive of that much money. But let me put it in perspective: Our total GDP is only $12.5 Trillion. So we'd be stripping almost half our total output out of our economy all because of some jealous UN nations that want a piece of our big pie. There's no way this nation can sustain the rest of the world putting its greedy hands in our pockets, and it shouldn't happen because we already feed and protect most of the world anyway.
And as for you cleaner earth environment worshipers, let me tell you something: I understand the environment better than you ever possibly could. I believe in God, and I don't think He would allow us to destroy the planet simply for doing what we are supposed to do: Produce better lives for ourselves and the rest of the world.
I don't have to apologize for being a capitalist, and I don't have to listen to socialists like you complain and whine about how bad this country is. The fact is that America is one of the CLEANEST nations on the PLANET. I don't see you whining about China's output, yet they are exempt from Kyoto.
Just how clean is your drinking water, anyway? I buy drinking water from the grocery at 75 cents a gallon. Is that too expensive for you? And don't tell me about cleaner air while you're out there driving around in your Mustang GT and putting a new exhaust on your V8 LS. Can you say hypocrite?
JohnnyBz00LS
Dedicated LVC Member
shagdrum said:
Exactly how is the CO2 that Asia releases into the northern hemisphere “irrelevant” to this study? You cannot possibly draw a valid scientific conclusion from data by ignoring factors that influence that data. In case you don’t know, the prevailing winds over Asia flow from west to east, just like those over North America. Therefore some of the CO2 released in Asia will precipitate out into the North Pacific ocean, thereby raising the concentration of CO2 there, JUST like some of the CO2 released in North America will precipitate out into the North Atlantic ocean. Your argument is attempting to state that since the concentration of CO2 in the NA is 0.3ppm lower than in the NP, North America actually “sucks it out” of the atmosphere. The ONLY way that would be true is if Asia released absolutely ZERO CO2 into the atmosphere (but if that was the case, then why doesn’t the concentration of CO2 in BOTH oceans eventually go to ZERO??). Are you saying that is what you believe?? The FACT of the matter is that Asia (and areas to the west of the North Pacific) probably contribute MORE CO2 to the atmosphere in the northern hemisphere than North America does, and the result is that the concentration of CO2 in the North Pacific is higher than in the North Atlantic.
World fires map:
http://esamultimedia.esa.int/images/EarthObservation/worldfireatlas_H.jpg
Active volcanos (you think maybe they DON’t contribute CO2 to the North Pacific??):
http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Glossary/PlateTectonics/Maps/map_plate_tectonics_world.html
shagdrum said:
Oh, I what to hear more of your “theories”, because it just demonstrates how easily some can be misled into disbelief by enticing them to ignore the big picture and zoom in on a minute spec of data and then attempt to extrapolate that data to the final answer. That’s like looking at a picture of a lion, then zooming into the 4 pixels in the center, even change the color of those pixels if they feel like it, then try to convince themselves that it’s a picture of a frog. What is the point of debating “holes” that don’t exist in my point of view when your only argument has holes intentionally placed in it (i.e.: “What Asia releases is irrelevant”)??
CO2 concentration since ’58 showing annual variation due to plant uptake in the springtime:
http://www.grida.no/climate/vital/06.htm
CO2 concentration – long term data:
http://www.greengrasscutters.com/id2.html
http://www.elmhurst.edu/~chm/vchembook/globalwarmA2.html
Note that the highest ancient CO2 measurement from ice cores is only ~290 ppmv about 130,000 years ago, while the more recent measurements are over 330 ppmv. (380 ppm and rising as shown here: http://www.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/ )
A critique of “An Inconvenient Truth”:
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=384&tstamp=200606
IPCC report:
http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/005.htm
The bottom line:
Global warming IS occuring.
Global warming is most likely caused by man's activities. Maybe it's possible it's due to just "farts and campfires" due to escelating population is the cause, but it's much more likely due to the industrial revolution and pumping 100 of times more CO2 into the air from the escelation of buring of fossile fuels over the same time period.
What's still open for debate is, Is it too late to do anything about it, and CAN we as a human race DO anything about it?
Using the "cost to the economy" agument is a cop-out excuse to throw our hands up in the air and do nothing about it. It ignores the cost of NOT doing anything about it, and is usually used by people who have no genetic investment in the future of our planet.
fossten
Dedicated LVC Member
Before you get all worked up over CO2, Johnny, you need to remember that the planet needs CO2 to survive. We wouldn't have oxygen without CO2.
JohnnyBz00LS
Dedicated LVC Member
fossten said:
No sh!t Shirlock. Pull your head out of your ass and at least acknowledge that it is the BALANCE of CO2 in the atmosphere that is being tossed off and contributing to the greenhouse effect that results in GW. Nobody is proposing that we ELIMINATE CO2 from the atmosphere, only to help bring it back into balance, or at least keep it from spiraling out of control.
fossten
Dedicated LVC Member
JohnnyBz00LS said:
You didn't read the article that I posted. It is clear to prominent scientists that the so-called "greenhouse effect" is not scientifically substantiated. In other words, you have been suckered into drinking the media's kool-aid.
And you haven't pulled your head out of your ass long enough to explain why there is global warming on Mars, either.
97silverlsc
Dedicated LVC Member
On the subject of this thread:
http://www.nrdc.org/globalWarming/agwcon.asp
Untangling the Accounting Gimmicks in White House Global Warming, Pollution Plans
In its first year, the Bush administration retreated from a campaign promise to limit C02 emissions, rejected the Kyoto Protocol, and proposed a new national energy policy that would actually accelerate global warming, all the while promising that it would in due course issue its own solution to the looming devastation global warming will bring. On February 14, 2002, the administration finally delivered two major proposals addressing global warming and air quality. The problem? Behind the rhetoric of progress, neither plan does anything to curb global warming or reduce dangerous air pollution. This February 2002 NRDC analysis exposes the administration's fuzzy math. Back to the Bush Administration's Global Warming Policies Index
President Bush's voluntary global warming plan announced on February 14 will let emissions of heat-trapping pollutants continue growing indefinitely at exactly the same rate they have grown over the last 10 years. The president's "clear skies" proposal, announced at the same time, would actually weaken and delay the clean up of other power plant pollutants compared to requirements under the existing Clean Air Act. In both cases, the president has used deceptive accounting and false comparisons to disguise more pollution, not less.
Global Warming
1. Enron-Style Accounting
The president's global warming plan uses a brazen accounting trick to mask the fact that -- even if his completely voluntary emissions target is actually achieved -- emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping pollutants would increase by 14 percent over the next 10 years, almost exactly the same rate they increased over the last decade.
* In the decade from 1990-2000, U.S. emissions intensity (defined as the ratio of total global warming pollution to total gross domestic product) decreased by 17.4 percent. But that did not reduce our emissions. Over the decade, the U.S. economy grew by nearly 40 percent, and our global warming emissions grew by 14 percent.
* The new Bush plan simply calls for continuing the status quo. It sets a completely voluntary target of maintaining exactly the same rate of improvement in emissions intensity -- another 17.5 percent reduction by 2012. (The plan sets a target of reducing from today's level of 183 metric tons of global warming pollution per million dollars of gross domestic product (GDP) to 151 metric tons by 2012 -- a 17.5 percent change -- and then rounds this number up to 18 percent.)
* However, over the same period, the Bush plan forecasts another 38 percent increase in GDP. So emissions will increase once again by 14 percent from 2002 to 2012 -- the same percentage as the last decade.
* Bottom line: Under the new Bush plan emissions in 2012 will be 30 percent above 1990 levels and still rising.
History
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) (2001 $) All Heat-Trapping Gases (HTG) (million metric tons carbon equivalent (MMTCE) Emissions Intensity HTG/GDP (T/M$)
1990 7379 1678 227
2000 10146 1906 188
Change 37.5 percent 13.6 percent -17.4 percent
Bush Plan
2002 10475 1917 183
2012 14483 2187 151
Change 38.3 percent 14.1 percent -17.5 percent
2. Walking Away from the Rio Global Warming Treaty
President Bush's climate plan repudiates not only the Kyoto Protocol, but also the Rio global warming treaty (the Framework Convention on Climate Change) that was negotiated and signed by his father, George H.W. Bush, and ratified by the United States Senate in 1992. The Rio treaty, which remains the law of the land, established the target of reducing the global warming emissions of industrial nations to 1990 levels. Under President Bush's climate plan, U.S. emissions will be 30 percent over the Rio target by 2012, and still climbing.
President Bush professed still to honor what the Rio Treaty calls its "ultimate objective" -- to keep the concentration of global warming gases in the atmosphere from reaching dangerous levels. But because global warming gases last in the atmosphere for decades to centuries, each year's new emissions add to the previous emissions and drive atmospheric concentrations ever higher.
* Unless emissions are actually reduced, atmospheric concentrations of global warming gases will keep rising indefinitely.
* Higher concentrations mean ever greater danger. The National Academy of Sciences -- in a report requested by the president -- warned that "...risk increases with increases in both the rate and the magnitude of climate change."
3. The Failure of Voluntary Programs
The United States has tried a range of domestic and international voluntary efforts to reduce global warming pollution over the past decade, but U.S. emissions have continued to rise. The fact is voluntary programs alone will not stop the rise in emissions. Because the Bush global warming plan relies exclusively on voluntary programs, it won't work either.
The president proposes a voluntary registry for companies that have reduced their global warming emissions, with the promise of "credit" for those reductions in any future mandatory program. The fact is that companies are already able to report emission reductions to a registry maintained by the Department of Energy under section 1605(b) of the 1992 Energy Policy Act.
* Because companies report only if they want to, and because they can pick and choose what part of their operations they report on, it is no surprise that the registry is filled with glowing claims of progress.
* In 1999 the 1605b registry received approximately 100 reports from firms in the electric power sector claiming total reductions from emission reduction projects equivalent to 123 million tons of CO2
* But what counts is overall emissions. Despite these claims, total emissions from power plants in 2000 were 25 percent higher than in 1990. 1
4. Hiding Behind "Uncertainty"
President Bush continues to cite uncertainty in the science of global warming to justify not reducing emissions. That proposition was refuted last year by the National Academy of Sciences, in a report requested by the president himself. The National Academy concluded: "Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise. Temperatures are, in fact rising. The changes observed over the last several decades are likely mostly due to human activities, but we cannot rule out that some significant part of these changes are also a reflection of natural variability."
* Another National Academy of Sciences report last year warned that global warming could trigger "large, abrupt and unwelcome" changes in our climate.
* The 2,500-member Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says average earth temperatures could rise as much as 10 degrees over the next century, the fastest rate in 10,000 years. 2
* Announcing that 2001 was the second hottest year on record, the World Meteorological Organization recently confirmed that "temperatures are getting hotter, and they are getting hotter faster now than at any time in the past." 3
5. Budget Hype
The administration's climate plan proposes $4.5 billion for fiscal year 2003 in total climate spending and claims an increase of $700 million over FY 2002. Yet most of the president's proposed spending is only a continuation of past work on the science of climate change. The increases are slated mainly for research on "sequestering" carbon on farms and in forests -- a strategy that could substitute temporary CO2 "sinks" for necessary cuts in fossil fuel emissions. Astonishingly, the plan actually reduces investment in developing new renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies.
* The Bush plan proposes $7.1 billion in tax incentives for alternative sources of energy over ten years, $2.2 billion less than proposed by the Clinton administration.
* Meanwhile the Bush budget would cut federal R&D for energy efficiency by $52 million.
* The Bush administration has endorsed the House energy bill (H.R. 4), which shovels $17.3 billion in new subsidies at the fossil fuel industry over the next ten years.
Power Plant Pollution
1. Weakening the Clean Air Act
The President also announced new targets for three pollutants from U.S. power plants: sulfur dioxide, mercury, and nitrogen oxides. But his targets are weaker than those already required by the Clean Air Act. Compared to current law, the Bush plan allows three times more toxic mercury emissions, 50 percent more sulfur emissions, and hundreds of thousands more tons of smog-forming nitrogen oxides. The administration plan would delay compliance with even these weak standards by up to a decade longer than would be allowed under current law. (see chart).
* For mercury -- a potent neurotoxin -- proper application of current law would reduce emissions from 47 tons per-year today to 5 tons per year by 2008. By comparison, the Bush plan aims for 15 tons per year by 2018 -- ten years later and three times more.
* For sulfur dioxide (SO2) -- which causes acid rain and thousands of premature deaths from respiratory disease -- the Bush plan calls for a 3 million ton emissions cap in 2018. In contrast, last September the Environmental Protection Agency sought an SO2 cap of two million tons by 2010.
* For nitrogen oxide (NOX) -- which causes lung-damaging ozone smog -- the Bush plan would reduce emissions to 1.7 million tons by 2018. In contrast, EPA sought a NOX cap of 1.25 million tons by 2012.
2. A Three-Legged Horse
By leaving CO2 out of his power plant plan, the president gives a green light for another generation of investments in power plants that ignore global warming -- missing the chance to make a single set of integrated plans for the future of the power sector.
* Even utility executives know that we won't be able to ignore CO2 indefinitely. That's why there is growing acknowledgement even in the industry that power plant legislation must address CO2.
* Recognizing this reality, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee is expected to take up the Clean Power Act (S.556) this spring, which will address all four power plant pollutants in an integrated fashion.
Comparison of Approaches to Power Plant Air Pollution
Pollutant Current Utility Pollution Levels "Business as Usual" Under Current Clean Air Act4 Administration So-Called Clear Skies Initiative (2/14/02) EPA Approach (September, 2001)4 Clean Power Act (S.556)
CO2 586 million metric tons carbon equivalent (mmtce) 689 mmtce (Annual Energy Outlook 2002 forecast. No limits in current law.) 689 mmtce (No limits. Business-as-usual goal) -- 505 mmtce by 2008
NOX 5 million tons 1.25 million tons by 2010 2.1 million tons by 2008
1.7 million tons by 2018 1.87 million tons by 2008
1.25 million tons by 2012 1.51 million tons by 2008
SO2 11 million tons 2 million tons by 2012 4.5 million tons by 2010
3 million tons by 2018 2 million tons by 2010 2.25 million tons by 2008
Mercury 48 tons Enviros: 5 tons by 2008 (90% reduction per plant under MACT) No pollution trading.
EPA: 15 tons by 2008 (approx. 70% reduction per plant under MACT) No pollution trading. 26 tons by 2010 (46% reduction nationwide)
15 tons by 2018 (69% reduction nationwide)
Allows all out pollution trading.
No local safe-guards to protect against higher mercury levels at specific plants. 24 tons by 2008
7.5 tons by 2012
(Facility-specific 70% reductions with pollution trading allowed beyond that reduction.) 5 tons by 2007
(90% reduction per plant to protect local health and environments)
No pollution trading.
Notes for Power-Plant Pollution Table
SO2: EPA calculates that if the Clean Air Act continues to operate as it is written today, this "business as usual" scenario will reduce SO2 pollution from power plants from today's 11 million tons to 2 million tons by 2012. Incredibly, rather than cleaning up dirty grandfathered power plants beyond what the Clean Air Act would already achieve, today's administration announcement actually proposes to roll back the Clean Air Act to allow 50 percent more SO2 pollution for 50 percent longer. The administration approach would allow higher pollution levels (first 4.5, then 3 million tons) than what the current Clean Air Act will deliver (2 million tons), and the administration approach would even delay this weaker result until 2018, when the current Act would reach 2 million tons by 2012. The 2018 date for SO2 reductions means tens of thousands more avoidable premature deaths from fine particle exposures compared to what the current Clean Air Act would allow, and even more premature deaths compared to the Jeffords-Lieberman bill (the Clean Power Act) that would achieve cleanup by 2007.
NOX: EPA calculates that if the Clean Air Act continues to operate as it is written today, this "business as usual" scenario will reduce NOX pollution from power plants from today's 5 million tons to 1.25 million tons by 2010. Incredibly, rather than cleaning up dirty grandfathered power plants beyond what the Clean Air Act would already achieve, today's administration announcement actually proposes to roll back the Clean Air Act to allow hundreds of thousands more tons of NOX pollution for close to a decade longer than today's law allows. The administration approach would allow higher pollution levels (first 2.1, then 1.7 million tons) than what the current Clean Air Act will deliver (1.25 million tons), and the administration approach would even delay this weaker result until 2018, when the current Act would achieve far cleaner air by 2010.
Mercury: EPA calculates that if the Clean Air Act continues to operate as it is written today, this "business as usual" scenario will reduce mercury pollution from power plants from today's 48 tons to 15 tons by 2008. Environmentalists are more confident in the state of American technology and believe mercury pollution can be reduced to 5 tons by 2008 under current law. Incredibly, rather than cleaning up dirty grandfathered power plants beyond what the Clean Air Act would already achieve, today's administration announcement actually proposes to roll back the Clean Air Act to allow dramatically higher levels of mercury pollution, and allows cleanup to be avoided for 10 years longer than the current Clean Air Act mandates. The administration approach would allow higher mercury pollution levels (first 26, then 15 tons) than what the current Clean Air Act will deliver (from 5 to 15 tons), and the administration approach would even delay this weaker result until 2018, when the current Act requires cleanup by 2008.
Notes
1. E/EIA, Emissions of Greenhouse Gases in the United States: 2000.
2. PCC, 2001. Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis. Cambridge University Press.
3. WMO Press Release December 18, 2001;
4. Source: EPA, Discussion of Multi-Pollutant Strategy, Meeting with Edison Electric Institute (September 18, 2001).
http://www.nrdc.org/globalWarming/agwcon.asp
Untangling the Accounting Gimmicks in White House Global Warming, Pollution Plans
In its first year, the Bush administration retreated from a campaign promise to limit C02 emissions, rejected the Kyoto Protocol, and proposed a new national energy policy that would actually accelerate global warming, all the while promising that it would in due course issue its own solution to the looming devastation global warming will bring. On February 14, 2002, the administration finally delivered two major proposals addressing global warming and air quality. The problem? Behind the rhetoric of progress, neither plan does anything to curb global warming or reduce dangerous air pollution. This February 2002 NRDC analysis exposes the administration's fuzzy math. Back to the Bush Administration's Global Warming Policies Index
President Bush's voluntary global warming plan announced on February 14 will let emissions of heat-trapping pollutants continue growing indefinitely at exactly the same rate they have grown over the last 10 years. The president's "clear skies" proposal, announced at the same time, would actually weaken and delay the clean up of other power plant pollutants compared to requirements under the existing Clean Air Act. In both cases, the president has used deceptive accounting and false comparisons to disguise more pollution, not less.
Global Warming
1. Enron-Style Accounting
The president's global warming plan uses a brazen accounting trick to mask the fact that -- even if his completely voluntary emissions target is actually achieved -- emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping pollutants would increase by 14 percent over the next 10 years, almost exactly the same rate they increased over the last decade.
* In the decade from 1990-2000, U.S. emissions intensity (defined as the ratio of total global warming pollution to total gross domestic product) decreased by 17.4 percent. But that did not reduce our emissions. Over the decade, the U.S. economy grew by nearly 40 percent, and our global warming emissions grew by 14 percent.
* The new Bush plan simply calls for continuing the status quo. It sets a completely voluntary target of maintaining exactly the same rate of improvement in emissions intensity -- another 17.5 percent reduction by 2012. (The plan sets a target of reducing from today's level of 183 metric tons of global warming pollution per million dollars of gross domestic product (GDP) to 151 metric tons by 2012 -- a 17.5 percent change -- and then rounds this number up to 18 percent.)
* However, over the same period, the Bush plan forecasts another 38 percent increase in GDP. So emissions will increase once again by 14 percent from 2002 to 2012 -- the same percentage as the last decade.
* Bottom line: Under the new Bush plan emissions in 2012 will be 30 percent above 1990 levels and still rising.
History
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) (2001 $) All Heat-Trapping Gases (HTG) (million metric tons carbon equivalent (MMTCE) Emissions Intensity HTG/GDP (T/M$)
1990 7379 1678 227
2000 10146 1906 188
Change 37.5 percent 13.6 percent -17.4 percent
Bush Plan
2002 10475 1917 183
2012 14483 2187 151
Change 38.3 percent 14.1 percent -17.5 percent
2. Walking Away from the Rio Global Warming Treaty
President Bush's climate plan repudiates not only the Kyoto Protocol, but also the Rio global warming treaty (the Framework Convention on Climate Change) that was negotiated and signed by his father, George H.W. Bush, and ratified by the United States Senate in 1992. The Rio treaty, which remains the law of the land, established the target of reducing the global warming emissions of industrial nations to 1990 levels. Under President Bush's climate plan, U.S. emissions will be 30 percent over the Rio target by 2012, and still climbing.
President Bush professed still to honor what the Rio Treaty calls its "ultimate objective" -- to keep the concentration of global warming gases in the atmosphere from reaching dangerous levels. But because global warming gases last in the atmosphere for decades to centuries, each year's new emissions add to the previous emissions and drive atmospheric concentrations ever higher.
* Unless emissions are actually reduced, atmospheric concentrations of global warming gases will keep rising indefinitely.
* Higher concentrations mean ever greater danger. The National Academy of Sciences -- in a report requested by the president -- warned that "...risk increases with increases in both the rate and the magnitude of climate change."
3. The Failure of Voluntary Programs
The United States has tried a range of domestic and international voluntary efforts to reduce global warming pollution over the past decade, but U.S. emissions have continued to rise. The fact is voluntary programs alone will not stop the rise in emissions. Because the Bush global warming plan relies exclusively on voluntary programs, it won't work either.
The president proposes a voluntary registry for companies that have reduced their global warming emissions, with the promise of "credit" for those reductions in any future mandatory program. The fact is that companies are already able to report emission reductions to a registry maintained by the Department of Energy under section 1605(b) of the 1992 Energy Policy Act.
* Because companies report only if they want to, and because they can pick and choose what part of their operations they report on, it is no surprise that the registry is filled with glowing claims of progress.
* In 1999 the 1605b registry received approximately 100 reports from firms in the electric power sector claiming total reductions from emission reduction projects equivalent to 123 million tons of CO2
* But what counts is overall emissions. Despite these claims, total emissions from power plants in 2000 were 25 percent higher than in 1990. 1
4. Hiding Behind "Uncertainty"
President Bush continues to cite uncertainty in the science of global warming to justify not reducing emissions. That proposition was refuted last year by the National Academy of Sciences, in a report requested by the president himself. The National Academy concluded: "Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise. Temperatures are, in fact rising. The changes observed over the last several decades are likely mostly due to human activities, but we cannot rule out that some significant part of these changes are also a reflection of natural variability."
* Another National Academy of Sciences report last year warned that global warming could trigger "large, abrupt and unwelcome" changes in our climate.
* The 2,500-member Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says average earth temperatures could rise as much as 10 degrees over the next century, the fastest rate in 10,000 years. 2
* Announcing that 2001 was the second hottest year on record, the World Meteorological Organization recently confirmed that "temperatures are getting hotter, and they are getting hotter faster now than at any time in the past." 3
5. Budget Hype
The administration's climate plan proposes $4.5 billion for fiscal year 2003 in total climate spending and claims an increase of $700 million over FY 2002. Yet most of the president's proposed spending is only a continuation of past work on the science of climate change. The increases are slated mainly for research on "sequestering" carbon on farms and in forests -- a strategy that could substitute temporary CO2 "sinks" for necessary cuts in fossil fuel emissions. Astonishingly, the plan actually reduces investment in developing new renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies.
* The Bush plan proposes $7.1 billion in tax incentives for alternative sources of energy over ten years, $2.2 billion less than proposed by the Clinton administration.
* Meanwhile the Bush budget would cut federal R&D for energy efficiency by $52 million.
* The Bush administration has endorsed the House energy bill (H.R. 4), which shovels $17.3 billion in new subsidies at the fossil fuel industry over the next ten years.
Power Plant Pollution
1. Weakening the Clean Air Act
The President also announced new targets for three pollutants from U.S. power plants: sulfur dioxide, mercury, and nitrogen oxides. But his targets are weaker than those already required by the Clean Air Act. Compared to current law, the Bush plan allows three times more toxic mercury emissions, 50 percent more sulfur emissions, and hundreds of thousands more tons of smog-forming nitrogen oxides. The administration plan would delay compliance with even these weak standards by up to a decade longer than would be allowed under current law. (see chart).
* For mercury -- a potent neurotoxin -- proper application of current law would reduce emissions from 47 tons per-year today to 5 tons per year by 2008. By comparison, the Bush plan aims for 15 tons per year by 2018 -- ten years later and three times more.
* For sulfur dioxide (SO2) -- which causes acid rain and thousands of premature deaths from respiratory disease -- the Bush plan calls for a 3 million ton emissions cap in 2018. In contrast, last September the Environmental Protection Agency sought an SO2 cap of two million tons by 2010.
* For nitrogen oxide (NOX) -- which causes lung-damaging ozone smog -- the Bush plan would reduce emissions to 1.7 million tons by 2018. In contrast, EPA sought a NOX cap of 1.25 million tons by 2012.
2. A Three-Legged Horse
By leaving CO2 out of his power plant plan, the president gives a green light for another generation of investments in power plants that ignore global warming -- missing the chance to make a single set of integrated plans for the future of the power sector.
* Even utility executives know that we won't be able to ignore CO2 indefinitely. That's why there is growing acknowledgement even in the industry that power plant legislation must address CO2.
* Recognizing this reality, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee is expected to take up the Clean Power Act (S.556) this spring, which will address all four power plant pollutants in an integrated fashion.
Comparison of Approaches to Power Plant Air Pollution
Pollutant Current Utility Pollution Levels "Business as Usual" Under Current Clean Air Act4 Administration So-Called Clear Skies Initiative (2/14/02) EPA Approach (September, 2001)4 Clean Power Act (S.556)
CO2 586 million metric tons carbon equivalent (mmtce) 689 mmtce (Annual Energy Outlook 2002 forecast. No limits in current law.) 689 mmtce (No limits. Business-as-usual goal) -- 505 mmtce by 2008
NOX 5 million tons 1.25 million tons by 2010 2.1 million tons by 2008
1.7 million tons by 2018 1.87 million tons by 2008
1.25 million tons by 2012 1.51 million tons by 2008
SO2 11 million tons 2 million tons by 2012 4.5 million tons by 2010
3 million tons by 2018 2 million tons by 2010 2.25 million tons by 2008
Mercury 48 tons Enviros: 5 tons by 2008 (90% reduction per plant under MACT) No pollution trading.
EPA: 15 tons by 2008 (approx. 70% reduction per plant under MACT) No pollution trading. 26 tons by 2010 (46% reduction nationwide)
15 tons by 2018 (69% reduction nationwide)
Allows all out pollution trading.
No local safe-guards to protect against higher mercury levels at specific plants. 24 tons by 2008
7.5 tons by 2012
(Facility-specific 70% reductions with pollution trading allowed beyond that reduction.) 5 tons by 2007
(90% reduction per plant to protect local health and environments)
No pollution trading.
Notes for Power-Plant Pollution Table
SO2: EPA calculates that if the Clean Air Act continues to operate as it is written today, this "business as usual" scenario will reduce SO2 pollution from power plants from today's 11 million tons to 2 million tons by 2012. Incredibly, rather than cleaning up dirty grandfathered power plants beyond what the Clean Air Act would already achieve, today's administration announcement actually proposes to roll back the Clean Air Act to allow 50 percent more SO2 pollution for 50 percent longer. The administration approach would allow higher pollution levels (first 4.5, then 3 million tons) than what the current Clean Air Act will deliver (2 million tons), and the administration approach would even delay this weaker result until 2018, when the current Act would reach 2 million tons by 2012. The 2018 date for SO2 reductions means tens of thousands more avoidable premature deaths from fine particle exposures compared to what the current Clean Air Act would allow, and even more premature deaths compared to the Jeffords-Lieberman bill (the Clean Power Act) that would achieve cleanup by 2007.
NOX: EPA calculates that if the Clean Air Act continues to operate as it is written today, this "business as usual" scenario will reduce NOX pollution from power plants from today's 5 million tons to 1.25 million tons by 2010. Incredibly, rather than cleaning up dirty grandfathered power plants beyond what the Clean Air Act would already achieve, today's administration announcement actually proposes to roll back the Clean Air Act to allow hundreds of thousands more tons of NOX pollution for close to a decade longer than today's law allows. The administration approach would allow higher pollution levels (first 2.1, then 1.7 million tons) than what the current Clean Air Act will deliver (1.25 million tons), and the administration approach would even delay this weaker result until 2018, when the current Act would achieve far cleaner air by 2010.
Mercury: EPA calculates that if the Clean Air Act continues to operate as it is written today, this "business as usual" scenario will reduce mercury pollution from power plants from today's 48 tons to 15 tons by 2008. Environmentalists are more confident in the state of American technology and believe mercury pollution can be reduced to 5 tons by 2008 under current law. Incredibly, rather than cleaning up dirty grandfathered power plants beyond what the Clean Air Act would already achieve, today's administration announcement actually proposes to roll back the Clean Air Act to allow dramatically higher levels of mercury pollution, and allows cleanup to be avoided for 10 years longer than the current Clean Air Act mandates. The administration approach would allow higher mercury pollution levels (first 26, then 15 tons) than what the current Clean Air Act will deliver (from 5 to 15 tons), and the administration approach would even delay this weaker result until 2018, when the current Act requires cleanup by 2008.
Notes
1. E/EIA, Emissions of Greenhouse Gases in the United States: 2000.
2. PCC, 2001. Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis. Cambridge University Press.
3. WMO Press Release December 18, 2001;
4. Source: EPA, Discussion of Multi-Pollutant Strategy, Meeting with Edison Electric Institute (September 18, 2001).
97silverlsc
Dedicated LVC Member
And:
NASA Scientist: Bush Stifles Global Warming Evidence
By Chuck Schoffner
Associated Press
posted: 27 October 2004
12:53 pm ET
http://www.space.com/news/bush_warming_041027.html
IOWA CITY, Iowa - The Bush administration is trying to stifle scientific evidence of the dangers of global warming in an effort to keep the public uninformed, a NASA scientist said Tuesday night.
"In my more than three decades in government, I have never seen anything approaching the degree to which information flow from scientists to the public has been screened and controlled as it is now," James E. Hansen told a University of Iowa audience.
Hansen is director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York and has twice briefed a task force headed by Vice President Dick Cheney on global warming.
Hansen said the administration wants to hear only scientific results that "fit predetermined, inflexible positions." Evidence that would raise concerns about the dangers of climate change is often dismissed as not being of sufficient interest to the public.
"This, I believe, is a recipe for environmental disaster."
Hansen said the scientific community generally agrees that temperatures on Earth are rising because of the greenhouse effect — emissions of carbon dioxide and other materials into the atmosphere that trap heat.
These rising temperatures, scientists believe, could cause sea levels to rise and trigger severe environmental consequences, he said.
Hansen said such warnings are consistently suppressed, while studies that cast doubt on such interpretations receive favorable treatment from the administration.
He also said reports that outline potential dangers of global warming are edited to make the problem appear less serious. "This process is in direct opposition to the most fundamental precepts of science," he said.
White House science adviser John H. Marburger III has denied charges that the administration refuses to accept the reality of climate change, noting that President Bush pointed out in a 2001 speech that greenhouse gases have increased substantially in the past 200 years.
Last December, the administration said it was planning a five-year program to research global warming and climate change.
Hansen said he was speaking as a private citizen, not as a government employee, and paid his own way for the Iowa appearance. He described himself as moderately conservative, but said he will vote for John Kerry in the presidential election.
"He certainly is not in denial of the existence of climate change problems," Hansen said.
NASA Scientist: Bush Stifles Global Warming Evidence
By Chuck Schoffner
Associated Press
posted: 27 October 2004
12:53 pm ET
http://www.space.com/news/bush_warming_041027.html
IOWA CITY, Iowa - The Bush administration is trying to stifle scientific evidence of the dangers of global warming in an effort to keep the public uninformed, a NASA scientist said Tuesday night.
"In my more than three decades in government, I have never seen anything approaching the degree to which information flow from scientists to the public has been screened and controlled as it is now," James E. Hansen told a University of Iowa audience.
Hansen is director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York and has twice briefed a task force headed by Vice President Dick Cheney on global warming.
Hansen said the administration wants to hear only scientific results that "fit predetermined, inflexible positions." Evidence that would raise concerns about the dangers of climate change is often dismissed as not being of sufficient interest to the public.
"This, I believe, is a recipe for environmental disaster."
Hansen said the scientific community generally agrees that temperatures on Earth are rising because of the greenhouse effect — emissions of carbon dioxide and other materials into the atmosphere that trap heat.
These rising temperatures, scientists believe, could cause sea levels to rise and trigger severe environmental consequences, he said.
Hansen said such warnings are consistently suppressed, while studies that cast doubt on such interpretations receive favorable treatment from the administration.
He also said reports that outline potential dangers of global warming are edited to make the problem appear less serious. "This process is in direct opposition to the most fundamental precepts of science," he said.
White House science adviser John H. Marburger III has denied charges that the administration refuses to accept the reality of climate change, noting that President Bush pointed out in a 2001 speech that greenhouse gases have increased substantially in the past 200 years.
Last December, the administration said it was planning a five-year program to research global warming and climate change.
Hansen said he was speaking as a private citizen, not as a government employee, and paid his own way for the Iowa appearance. He described himself as moderately conservative, but said he will vote for John Kerry in the presidential election.
"He certainly is not in denial of the existence of climate change problems," Hansen said.
97silverlsc
Dedicated LVC Member
And:
Bush covers up climate research
White House officials play down its own scientists' evidence of global warming
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1046363,00.html
Paul Harris New York
Sunday September 21, 2003
The Observer
White House officials have undermined their own government scientists' research into climate change to play down the impact of global warming, an investigation by The Observer can reveal.
The disclosure will anger environment campaigners who claim that efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions are being sabotaged because of President George W. Bush's links to the oil industry.
Emails and internal government documents obtained by The Observer show that officials have sought to edit or remove research warning that the problem is serious. They have enlisted the help of conservative lobby groups funded by the oil industry to attack US government scientists if they produce work seen as accepting too readily that pollution is an issue.
Central to the revelations of double dealing is the discovery of an email sent to Phil Cooney, chief of staff at the White House Council on Environmental Quality, by Myron Ebell, a director of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI). The CEI is an ultra-conservative lobby group that has received more than $1 million in donations since 1998 from the oil giant Exxon, which sells Esso petrol in Britain.
The email, dated 3 June 2002, reveals how White House officials wanted the CEI's help to play down the impact of a report last summer by the government's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), in which the US admitted for the first time that humans are contributing to global warming. 'Thanks for calling and asking for our help,' Ebell tells Cooney.
The email discusses possible tactics for playing down the report and getting rid of EPA officials, including its then head, Christine Whitman. 'It seems to me that the folks at the EPA are the obvious fall guys and we would only hope that the fall guy (or gal) should be as high up as possible,' Ebell wrote in the email. 'Perhaps tomorrow we will call for Whitman to be fired,' he added.
The CEI is suing another government climate research body that produced evidence for global warming. The revelation of the email's contents has prompted demands for an investigation to see if the White House and CEI are co-ordinating the legal attack.
'This email indicates a secret initiative by the administration to invite and orchestrate a lawsuit against itself seeking to discredit an official US government report on global warming dangers,' said Richard Blumenthal, attorney general of Connecticut, who has written to the White House asking for an inquiry.
The allegation was denied by White House officials and the CEI. 'It is absurd. We do not have a sweetheart relationship with the White House,' said Chris Horner, a lawyer and senior fellow of CEI.
However, environmentalists say the email fits a pattern of collusion between the Bush administration and conservative groups funded by the oil industry, who lobby against efforts to control carbon dioxide emissions, the main cause of global warming.
When Bush first came to power he withdrew the US - the world's biggest source of greenhouse gases - from the Kyoto treaty, which requires nations to limit their emissions.
Both Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney are former oil executives; National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice was a director of the oil firm Chevron, and Commerce Secretary Donald Evans once headed an oil and gas exploration company.
'It all fits together,' said Kert Davies of Greenpeace. 'It shows that there is an effort to undermine good science. It all just smells like the oil industry. They are doing everything to allow the US to remain the world's biggest polluter.'
Other confidential documents obtained by The Observer detail White House efforts to suppress research that shows the world's climate is warming. A four-page internal EPA memo reveals that Bush's staff insisted on major amendments to the climate change section of an environmental survey of the US, published last June. One alteration indicated 'that no further changes may be made'.
The memo discusses ways of dealing with the White House editing, and warns that the section 'no longer accurately represents scientific consensus on climate change'.
Some of the changes include deleting a summary that stated: 'Climate change has global consequences for human health and the environment.' Sections on the ecological effects of global warming and its impact on human health were removed. So were several sentences calling for further research on climate change.
A temperature record covering 1,000 years was also deleted, prompting the EPA memo to note: 'Emphasis is given to a recent, limited analysis [which] supports the administration's favoured message.'
White House officials added numerous qualifying words such as 'potentially' and 'may', leading the EPA to complain: 'Uncertainty is inserted where there is essentially none.'
The paper then analyses what the EPA should do about the amendments and whether they should be published at all. The options range from accepting the alterations to trying to discuss them with the White House.
When the report was finally published, however, the EPA had removed the entire global warming section to avoid including information that was not scientifically credible.
Former EPA climate policy adviser Jeremy Symons said morale at the agency had been devastated by the administration's tactics. He painted a picture of scientists afraid to conduct research for fear of angering their White House paymasters. 'They do good research,' he said. 'But they feel that they have a boss who does not want them to do it. And if they do it right, then they will get hit or their work will be buried.'
Symons left the EPA in April 2001 and now works for the National Wildlife Federation as head of its climate change programme. The Bush administration's attitude was clear from the beginning, he said, and a lot of people were working to ensure that the President did nothing to address global warming.
Additional reporting by Jason Rodrigues
And there are hundreds more showing just how clueless George is. Or more likely how deep in big oil and coals pockets shrubster is.
Bush covers up climate research
White House officials play down its own scientists' evidence of global warming
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1046363,00.html
Paul Harris New York
Sunday September 21, 2003
The Observer
White House officials have undermined their own government scientists' research into climate change to play down the impact of global warming, an investigation by The Observer can reveal.
The disclosure will anger environment campaigners who claim that efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions are being sabotaged because of President George W. Bush's links to the oil industry.
Emails and internal government documents obtained by The Observer show that officials have sought to edit or remove research warning that the problem is serious. They have enlisted the help of conservative lobby groups funded by the oil industry to attack US government scientists if they produce work seen as accepting too readily that pollution is an issue.
Central to the revelations of double dealing is the discovery of an email sent to Phil Cooney, chief of staff at the White House Council on Environmental Quality, by Myron Ebell, a director of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI). The CEI is an ultra-conservative lobby group that has received more than $1 million in donations since 1998 from the oil giant Exxon, which sells Esso petrol in Britain.
The email, dated 3 June 2002, reveals how White House officials wanted the CEI's help to play down the impact of a report last summer by the government's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), in which the US admitted for the first time that humans are contributing to global warming. 'Thanks for calling and asking for our help,' Ebell tells Cooney.
The email discusses possible tactics for playing down the report and getting rid of EPA officials, including its then head, Christine Whitman. 'It seems to me that the folks at the EPA are the obvious fall guys and we would only hope that the fall guy (or gal) should be as high up as possible,' Ebell wrote in the email. 'Perhaps tomorrow we will call for Whitman to be fired,' he added.
The CEI is suing another government climate research body that produced evidence for global warming. The revelation of the email's contents has prompted demands for an investigation to see if the White House and CEI are co-ordinating the legal attack.
'This email indicates a secret initiative by the administration to invite and orchestrate a lawsuit against itself seeking to discredit an official US government report on global warming dangers,' said Richard Blumenthal, attorney general of Connecticut, who has written to the White House asking for an inquiry.
The allegation was denied by White House officials and the CEI. 'It is absurd. We do not have a sweetheart relationship with the White House,' said Chris Horner, a lawyer and senior fellow of CEI.
However, environmentalists say the email fits a pattern of collusion between the Bush administration and conservative groups funded by the oil industry, who lobby against efforts to control carbon dioxide emissions, the main cause of global warming.
When Bush first came to power he withdrew the US - the world's biggest source of greenhouse gases - from the Kyoto treaty, which requires nations to limit their emissions.
Both Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney are former oil executives; National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice was a director of the oil firm Chevron, and Commerce Secretary Donald Evans once headed an oil and gas exploration company.
'It all fits together,' said Kert Davies of Greenpeace. 'It shows that there is an effort to undermine good science. It all just smells like the oil industry. They are doing everything to allow the US to remain the world's biggest polluter.'
Other confidential documents obtained by The Observer detail White House efforts to suppress research that shows the world's climate is warming. A four-page internal EPA memo reveals that Bush's staff insisted on major amendments to the climate change section of an environmental survey of the US, published last June. One alteration indicated 'that no further changes may be made'.
The memo discusses ways of dealing with the White House editing, and warns that the section 'no longer accurately represents scientific consensus on climate change'.
Some of the changes include deleting a summary that stated: 'Climate change has global consequences for human health and the environment.' Sections on the ecological effects of global warming and its impact on human health were removed. So were several sentences calling for further research on climate change.
A temperature record covering 1,000 years was also deleted, prompting the EPA memo to note: 'Emphasis is given to a recent, limited analysis [which] supports the administration's favoured message.'
White House officials added numerous qualifying words such as 'potentially' and 'may', leading the EPA to complain: 'Uncertainty is inserted where there is essentially none.'
The paper then analyses what the EPA should do about the amendments and whether they should be published at all. The options range from accepting the alterations to trying to discuss them with the White House.
When the report was finally published, however, the EPA had removed the entire global warming section to avoid including information that was not scientifically credible.
Former EPA climate policy adviser Jeremy Symons said morale at the agency had been devastated by the administration's tactics. He painted a picture of scientists afraid to conduct research for fear of angering their White House paymasters. 'They do good research,' he said. 'But they feel that they have a boss who does not want them to do it. And if they do it right, then they will get hit or their work will be buried.'
Symons left the EPA in April 2001 and now works for the National Wildlife Federation as head of its climate change programme. The Bush administration's attitude was clear from the beginning, he said, and a lot of people were working to ensure that the President did nothing to address global warming.
Additional reporting by Jason Rodrigues
And there are hundreds more showing just how clueless George is. Or more likely how deep in big oil and coals pockets shrubster is.
JohnnyBz00LS
Dedicated LVC Member
fossten said:
Naw, you've been suckered into drinking the urine of the GOP. Read about some of the "myths" you've been led to believe:
http://www.environmentaldefense.org/documents/382_myths.htm
fossten said:
That has to be the most desperate, last ditch attempt at dillusionment and discrediting of science about the planet EARTH. Explain to me how what "might" be occuring on MARS proves or disproves ANYTHING about what IS occuring on EARTH. #1, we've only been monitoring mars for a couple of decades. #2, the amount of emperical data we have about mars and it's atmosphere is but a drop in the ocean compared to the data we have about our own planet. #3, even IF mars is experencing so-called "global warming", is that any suprise that other planets also experience "ice-ages" (and recoveries from them) like the planet earth has long before man was an influence on the environment? You've obviously have lost your mind if you think your "mars" argument holds any shred of scientific credibility or validity about global warming on EARTH. :bowrofl: :bowrofl: Now THAT is some kool-aid your drinking, pal.
JohnnyBz00LS
Dedicated LVC Member
Calabrio said:
Oh lord. Who's mongering FEAR now??
Exactly what "economic" structures, or "political" structures are you referring to? And exactly what are these "consequences" that you FEAR?? Or are you just crying wolf?
MonsterMark
Dedicated LVC Member
JohnnyBz00LS said:
Ooops! Stepped right in it, eh Johnny.
Can't have it both ways fella.
JohnnyBz00LS
Dedicated LVC Member
MAC1 said:
Heres the correlation between CO2 levels and global temps:
http://www.whrc.org/resources/online_publications/warming_earth/scientific_evidence.htm
And you'd be wrong about the majority of the world's scientist are in disagreement over global warming (see the recent IPCC report). There is obviously a consensus on this subject amongst the worlds most credible scientists. About the only ones who "disagree" are those who have been "pressured" by the BuSh administration to change their tune. Big suprise.
JohnnyBz00LS
Dedicated LVC Member
MonsterMark said:
I didn't step in anything. Click the above link to see the long term historic trends for this planet, then concentrate on the last 200 or so years to see how things are going off-scale (outside the historic trends that reflect the earth's natural balance and life cycle). That seems to be the pill you RWWs seem to have a hard time swallowing, probably because your mouths are so full of ........... something else.
MonsterMark
Dedicated LVC Member
JohnnyBz00LS said:
You're right. You didn't step in anything, you fell face first.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0206/p04s01-woap.html
Cambodians ponder an unfamiliar concept: cold
Temperatures in the 40s spurred some people to don socks, sweaters, and even coats.
By Erika Kinetz
Across Cambodia, residents have been engaging in a rare activity: turning off their air conditioners and stilling their fans. Some of Phnom Penh's intrepid moto drivers have even been seen zipping around the streets at night in puffy parkas.
It has been cold here – the coldest in 27 years of recorded history, according to Seth Vannareth, the director of meteorology at the Ministry of Water Resources and Meteorology.
MonsterMark
Dedicated LVC Member
Here...
'Scientists say' ...oooohhhh...... that Greenland's ice shelf is GROWING. How can that be????
http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/greenland_icesheet_growing.html
'Scientists' can't even tell you with reasonable accuracy what the weather is going to be a month from now, much less 50, 100, 500 years.
Step away from the global warming cooler.
'Scientists say' ...oooohhhh...... that Greenland's ice shelf is GROWING. How can that be????
http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/greenland_icesheet_growing.html
'Scientists' can't even tell you with reasonable accuracy what the weather is going to be a month from now, much less 50, 100, 500 years.
Step away from the global warming cooler.
JohnnyBz00LS
Dedicated LVC Member
MonsterMark said:You're right. You didn't step in anything, you fell face first.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0206/p04s01-woap.html
Cambodians ponder an unfamiliar concept: cold
Temperatures in the 40s spurred some people to don socks, sweaters, and even coats.
By Erika Kinetz
Across Cambodia, residents have been engaging in a rare activity: turning off their air conditioners and stilling their fans. Some of Phnom Penh's intrepid moto drivers have even been seen zipping around the streets at night in puffy parkas.
It has been cold here – the coldest in 27 years of recorded history, according to Seth Vannareth, the director of meteorology at the Ministry of Water Resources and Meteorology.
In case you didn't know, "global warming" doesn't predict that the entire globe will get warmer, only that on average the globe will get warmer, and in fact localized cold-spots and periods will result from the change in weather patterns. But then again, if you weren't drinking the kool-aid you'd know that already.
Two nights ago I was taking out the trash, it was -1F out and I was thinking to myself, "Damn it's cold, maybe this global warming thing really IS a bunch a BS". Then I hear a big formation of Canadian geese flying over head heading south. That's when I thought to myself "Crap, this is FEBURARY!" Around my parts most of the geese have headed south in November and December and you rarely see them headed south in Feb!.
In any case, the climate changes that result from global warming will not smack you in the face, it's not going to come in the form of a tidal wave washing away NYC or DC like in the movies. It'll come slow and it'll come in cycles, but it is coming. If you lack the ability to step back and see the big picture, you'll one day be in for a rude awakening.
JohnnyBz00LS
Dedicated LVC Member
MonsterMark said:
Thanks for the link. You must have missed this part: