As the true disciples of climate alarmism jet to what will certainly be a less hospitable Paris, make no mistake about it, they will gather to chart the future of the very health and prosperity of the rest of the world. They are, after all, our betters. President Obama, and the sizable U.S. delegation, will be there to accomplish his signature accomplishment, defeating what he has called the greatest strategic threat to America, something that is in his view far more important than defeating ISIS.
This evil opponent is known as “carbon dioxide” — a colorless, odorless, naturally occurring trace gas (0.04 percent of the atmosphere) vital to all life on earth. (Or at least to all aerobic organisms.) And I hate to tell you but it is coming OUT OF YOUR MOUTH! Even though CO2 concentrations have been far higher in the geologic past, government propagandists and paid “science” advisers, are obsessed with rising levels of the gaseous foe all around us.
The thing is, we use this adaptable gas in many ways including adding it to carbonate our water and soft drinks. It’s added to champagne and BEER! We freeze it into “dry ice,” and pressure it into fire extinguishers. To me the main question they need to answer in Paris is “do they actually expect me to drink flat beer?” And massive amounts of CO2 are generated to run the data-centers and electric backbones of the Internet – do they expect me to do without the Internet?
Is CO2 a pollutant? This was the central question we explored at the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s “At the Crossroads: Energy and Climate Summit” last week. The gathering included Ph.D. climatologists, scientists, economists, and think-tank experts from across the country. The Summit looked at the Earth’s climate cycles, the false vilification of carbon dioxide, the ethical and economic ramifications of government efforts to raise the cost of electricity, and the coming dangerous federal mandates the EPA is attempting to impose on states via its Clean Power Plan.
These were not “climate change” deniers. Of course the climate is always changing, concentrations of CO2 are rising and human activity is certainly contributing to the increase. But it is also clear that, no matter how much EPA and NOAA water-board the data, government climate models continue to overestimate the climate’s sensitivity to carbon dioxide. There is a significant disconnect between observed temperatures and temperatures predicted by the UN IPCC models, exhibited by almost 19 years of no global temperature rise.
The bottom line is that this may be a case where both the disease and the cure are overstated. As MIT Meteorologist Dr. Richard Lindzen said at the Summit of predicted warming, “so what?” A few degrees of warming is not harmful and certainly not devastating to the environment.
The climate benefits of the administration’s signature Clean Power Plan (0.018 degrees C) are inconsequential, however the economic costs of are massive and amount to increased electric costs of hundreds of billions of dollars and double-digit increases for the cost of electricity. This will slow economic growth, impact employment, and raise the cost of electricity to low and middle income families.
The plan is also illegal. That is why the administration is facing court challenges by 27 states, 24 national trade associations, three national unions, and dozens of businesses … so far. Certainly more groups will sue.
Speaking of Paris, it is said that Marie Antoinette, upon learning that peasants in France had no bread, proclaimed, “let them eat cake.” She was so disconnected from the condition of the poor. Perhaps the same could be said about those who support Obama’s Clean Power Plan. They know it will not prevent climate change, it is massively expensive, and will hurt the poor the most. But whatever.
Destroying the lives of the poor is one thing. But taking away my beer and internet … now those are fighting words.
The Honorable Doug Domenech is the Director of the Fueling Freedom Project at TPPF.