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Climate Change Rallies, Realities, and Sacrifices by Paul Driessen December 18, 2007 Fossil fuels provide 85% of the energy we use. Slashing emissions by even 25% means slashing the use of these fuels, paying vastly more to control and sequester emissions, and radically altering lifestyles and living standards. Families will do so voluntarily, or under mandatory rationing systems, enforced by EPA, courts, climate police and “patriotic” snitches. Getting beyond 25% would require a “radical transformation” of life as we know it. ... That’s on top of the $2000 in higher energy costs that US families have endured since 1998 – and the 11% extra that USA Today says average households will pay this winter compared to a year ago. Higher energy costs will increase the price of everything we eat, drive, buy and do.
Gore wrong on US being climate change obstacle: US Dec 13, 2007 The European Union, backed by developing countries, wants a reference by industrialized countries that a cut of 25-40 percent in their emissions by 2020, compared with 1990 levels, will be a guideline for future talks. The United States is opposed to the 25-40 figures, and delegates say its position is also shared by Japan, Canada and Russia.
Hot Air Emitted by Climate Summit Equals 20,000 Cars Government officials and activists flying to Bali, Indonesia, for the United Nations meeting on climate change will cause as much pollution as 20,000 cars in a year. The delegates each will produce an average 4.07 metric tons of carbon dioxide, or CO2, to reach the resort island 950 kilometers (600 miles) from Jakarta, according to estimates e- mailed to Bloomberg by the UN agency holding the conference.
Skeptical Scientists Urge World To ‘Have the Courage to Do Nothing’ At UN Conference by EPW Blog December 11, 2007 Lord Christopher Monckton, a UK climate researcher, had a blunt message for UN climate conference participants on Monday. "Climate change is a non-problem. The right answer to a non-problem is to have the courage to do nothing," Monckton told participants. "The UN conference is a complete waste of our time and your money and we should no longer pay the slightest attention to the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,)" Monckton added. Monckton also noted that the UN has not been overly welcoming to the group of skeptical scientists.
Answer to hot air was in fact a chilling blunder
by
Ben Cubby, Environment Reporter
Hot Air by David Victor Newsweek Web Exclusive Dec 2, 2007 Fearful that taming coal could hiccup the country's economic growth, China has steadfastly refused to curtail its emissions. The European Union and Japan are trying in Bali to set the stage for fresh commitments to control emissions that would update the commitments they adopted a decade ago under the Kyoto Protocol. … But these nations account for barely one fifth of the world's emissions of greenhouse gases. Meanwhile, a new study by the International Energy Agency suggests that by 2030, China alone could account for more than one quarter of all the world emissions. … It encourages investment in projects to cut emissions in those countries—in theory a good idea, but in practice it has encouraged investors to get credit for projects that would have occurred anyway. For example, essentially every new wind project in China has applied for credit under the CDM. The CDM's governing body has even adopted new rules that allow China to gain credit for efficient coal-fired power plants already under construction. … A new study by the Berlin-based Institute for Applied Ecology shows that the agencies charged with verifying CDM projects are stretched much too thin. This system is based on the idea that developing countries must be paid to control emissions, but it has inadvertently created a multibillion-dollar industry that thrives only because these countries have refused to limit emissions on their own.
Climate Change Rallies, Realities, and Sacrifices by Paul Driessen Tuesday, December 18, 2007 Gloom-and-doom scientists and bureaucrats owned Bali’s podiums. Radical environmentalists fumed and staged stunts. Al Gore denounced President Bush, repeated myths that enthralled the Academy and Nobel committees, and demanded sacrifices – by others. Meanwhile, respected climate scientists were barred from panel discussions, censored, silenced and threatened with physical removal by polizei, if they tried to hold a press conference to present peer-reviewed evidence on climate. … It’ll be easy, they insist. Rubbish, Even a 25-40% reduction over the next twelve years would impose major sacrifices on families, workers and communities, especially poor ones – while leaving no room for population or economic growth.
Bali Who? Under cover of fighting global warming, developing countries try to slow America's economy. by Pete Du Pont Wednesday, December 19, 2007 On the surface it was about global warming, but in reality it was as much about mandating an international agreement that would slow economic growth in developed nations. The developing country parties still believe they must be exempted from a requirement to reduce global warming. The G77 Group (150 developing nations) said they were not ready to cut emissions from fossil fuels to fight climate change. India argued that it should receive compensation for protecting its forests rather than having to pledge to reduce emissions. China is vastly expanding its factories and power plants--it is building another coal-fired power plant every seven to 10 days--and so opposed emission targets that would bind it. As the New York Times reported a year ago, China now "uses more coal than the United States, the European Union and Japan combined," and so "the increase in global warming gases from China's coal use will probably exceed that for all industrialized countries combined over the next 25 years." China is already home to 20 of the world's 30 most polluted cities, but Su Wei, China's top climate expert in Bali, said the burden of reducing global warming pollution is one that belongs to the wealthy, not China. Developing countries nevertheless signed on to the Bali Action Plan, agreeing that with financial and technical help from developed nations they would consider "nationally appropriate mitigation actions"--not "commitments or actions" as developed countries had to agree to--to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. What they did not get was the binding emission reductions for developed nations that the European and United Nations delegates sought: emission cuts 40% below 1990 levels by 2020, and 50% by 2050. Bali will solve our global energy emission problems. According to a Princeton University study a few year ago the world could hold its carbon dioxide emissions flat if 700 nuclear power plants were built around the globe, for they do not increase global warming. But they are not favored by the climate establishment, and so are not a part of the Bali solution.
Tax And Wane by Investor's Business Daily December 14, 2007 - The driving force of the environmental movement is not a cleaner planet — or a world that doesn't get too hot, in the case of the global warming issue — but a leftist, egalitarian urge to redistribute wealth. A CO2 tax does this and more, choking economic growth in the U.S. and punishing Americans for being the voracious consumers that we are. Eco-activists have been so successful in distracting the public from their real intentions that they're becoming less guarded in discussing their ultimate goal. "A climate change response must have at its heart a redistribution of wealth and resources," Emma Brindal, a "climate justice campaign coordinator" for Friends of the Earth Australia, wrote Wednesday on the Climate Action Network's blog. ... Since the "complete list of things caused by global warming" now exceeds 600 (see our "Chilled By The Heat" editorial, Dec. 13), there would be few if any limits on the U.N.'s ability to move riches from countries that have created and earned them to those that have done neither.
Gore's warming plan will blister U.S. by Nolan Finley, editorial page editor of The Detroit News Gore statements in Bali, "I am not an official, and I am not bound by diplomatic niceties," Gore said to applause. "So I am going to speak an inconvenient truth: My own country, the United States, is principally responsible for obstructing progress here in Bali." … if Gore and his Bali disciples prevail, growth in the United States and other developed nations will grind to a quick halt, while developing nations such as China and India remain free to pollute at will. That will trigger the greatest transfer of wealth in modern history, as American jobs rush to places with the least regulatory burdens, and more Americans join the ranks of the world's poor. A generation from now, Americans may well look back at Al Gore as the Benedict Arnold of his age, someone so determined to save the earth he was willing to ruin his country.