NoaIzumiCap-and-Trade Spin again, at 6000 rpm
July 14th 2009 00:09
Wind Farm in Denmark
With the Waxman-Markey bill passed in the House and headed for the Senate here in the US, cap-and-trade is once again a popular topic among right-wing bloggers. I had a three-fer all picked out, one from American Thinker, one from David Limbaugh over at Townhall.com, and one from the Investor’s Business Daily. Then I ran across these two articles (from the same author) and just couldn’t resist. (I’m sorry, but when you write these kinds of distortions, half-truths, and outright lies in a piece, you’re asking for a ripping. When you publish said piece on a site with a pseudo-populist name like “Regular Folks United”, you are sitting up and begging for that ripping.)
Cap and (Be)Trade, by Bjaffe
“According to an MIT study, the total cost to businesses to purchase carbon credits from the government will be about $366 million annually.”
Someone really needs to update their files. For one thing, the study doesn’t look at the Waxman-Markey bill at all; in fact, the study came out in April 2007, before Waxman-Markey was more than a gleam in a California Congressman’s eye.
MIT Report (PDF file)
In addition, the actual projected revenue under Obama’s original cap-and-trade plan was $80 billion per year, not $360 billion.
The Obama budget
Finally, as most people know by now, instead of being sold in an auction, under Waxman-Markey 85% of the carbon credits will be given away, as in free, as at no cost to American businesses.
PolitiFact’s take on the matter:
Really Long Link
“Around the world, this has been tried, and has failed. According to a report issued by the Heartland Institute, 12 of the 15 EU nations who signed onto the onerous Kyoto treaty have failed to meet their carbon reduction targets.”
Um, doesn’t that mean that 3 of the 15 did meet their targets? And some countries, such as France and Germany, failed to meet their goals, but still made significant reductions in CO2 reductions. In some cases, Kyoto was tried, and failed. But in other cases, Kyoto was tried, and succeeded.
UN Report on Changes in Greenhouse Gases (PDF file)
The Greatest Hoax in History
“The entire green movement is based on a lie – which is that the climate should remain as it is right now. The climate does not work that way; it is not a static system with a set temperature and set global conditions”
Except that no one claims that. Even Al Gore in An Inconvenient Truth acknowledges natural climate change before and during modern times. The claim is not that the climate doesn’t change due to natural causes, it’s that rising CO2 is currently causing the climate to change, a claim supported by the fact that the natural causes don’t seem to be causing the change.
Really Long Link
“The most prevalent greenhouse gas in our atmosphere is water vapor – accounting for about 60-70 percent of greenhouse gases. Yet still, we are told that Carbon is the main source of the problem. And to prove it, scientists use a computer model that is programmed to accept carbon as the primary warming agent in our atmosphere”
Um, no, to prove it, we look at basic physics. The amount of water vapor has not been changing drastically, because it has such a small residence time in the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide, on the other hand, stays in the atmosphere for decades, and it’s carbon dioxide that has been pumped out to excess.
Really Long Link
“but there is a way to regulate carbon, and it involves attacking productivity”
It is a way, but is it the only way? If you measure productivity by GDP, in terms of GDP per units of CO2 emitted, the US is near the bottom of the First World list. Ireland emits less than half of the CO2 the US does for the same amount of GDP. Sweden emits less than a third. And they’re not the only ones.
Wikipedia article
I mean, c’mon, Bjaffe, would you use your imagination, please? Nuclear power, increased use of natural gas, increased energy efficiency for machines and transport vehicles, all of these cut CO2 emissions without sacrificing productivity, and all of these are things we can do today.
“using the environmentalists’ own global warming models and assumptions shows a maximum temperature reduction of 0.09 of one degree Fahrenheit by the year 2050 if every target of the bill is met”
This one is true. But, A) This assumes that no one else will do anything at all, and the countries that have cut their emissions will go back to pre-Kyoto levels. This is equivalent to seeing a fire that threatens the whole neighborhood and refusing to pick up a hose because you’re worried about being the first to use water.
And B) No matter what we do, even if we stop all CO2 emissions tomorrow, we’ll still be in for some warming, because of the thermal inertia in the system. In the same way that a blanket on a cold night takes a few minutes to warm you up as the heat from your body builds up, increased greenhouse gases have a lag time. And then there’s all the extra heat and CO2 stored in the oceans that has yet to be released. It’s not a choice between no warming and warming, it’s a choice between moderate warming and more extreme warming.
And why the cut-off at 2050? Does the world end in 2051? (I thought it was 2012.)
Gristmill has more to say on this subject.
Really Long Link
“Given that this bill does nothing for the environment, but will cripple economic production”
Readers of this blog will know what’s coming, because they’ve seen it before. Denmark, the UK, France, Germany, Iceland and Sweden all cut their emissions to below 1990 levels in this decade. Every single one of those countries enjoyed an average GDP growth rate of over 3.7% per year between 1990 and 2007. Iceland and the UK even grew at a faster rate than the US and Canada did. Granted, GDP growth is not the only way to measure economic well-being, but if you can’t cut carbon dioxide without hurting the economy, there should be some evidence from those six European countries. There doesn’t seem to be any.
Wikipedia article
“Add in the fact now that the EPA suppressed a report that contradicted the environmentalist case for such regulations”
“Suppressed” a report that included no original research, and was mainly a rehash of debunked arguments.
RealClimate: Bubkes
“Bubkes” indeed. There’s nothing wrong with being against the cap-and-trade plan, or even cap-and-trade in general, but it would be nice to see a new argument once in a while.
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