This editorial explains how the United Nations expects to obtain the funds to "stop global warming". If this isn't the biggest con-job in all history, I don't know what is. If people think the ENRON scandal was bad, or the current mortgage problems in the U.S. are serious, this plan to basically tax everyone enormously and then use that money to stop global warming is a hundred, or a thousand times worse.
Peter
Tax And Wane
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY Posted Friday, December 14, 2007 4:20 PM PT
Environment: Big news from the United Nations global warming conference was the last-second agreement on a pact for cutting greenhouse gas emissions. But a more ominous development went largely unnoticed.
The media obsession has been on the efforts of delegates at the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change conference to craft an agreement for a climate treaty that would take effect after the Kyoto Treaty expires in 2011.
Though it appeared the meeting would end with no deal, the delegates looked to be near a compromise late Friday.
That treaty is likely to be as effective as the useless, symbolic Kyoto protocol with which no nation has yet complied.
A day earlier, however, a panel at the IPCC conference titled "A Global CO2 Tax" took a step that will have a more lasting impact than an empty agreement. It urged the U.N. to adopt taxes on carbon dioxide emissions that would be "legally binding to all nations."
And guess who would be hit the hardest? That's right, the tax, if levied, would put an especially high burden on the U.S.
"Finally, someone will pay for these costs" related to global warming, Othmar Schwank, a global warming busybody from Switzerland, told Sen. James Inhofe's office. We imagine Schwank, a panel participant, took great glee in saying the U.S. and other developed nations should "contribute significantly more to this global fund."
Schwank estimates the CO2 tax would generate "at least" $10 billion to $40 billion a year in revenues; but anyone who believes that has not paid attention. Even in nations that have a legitimate and more-or-less-limited government, such as ours, bureaucratic programs and taxes always grow bigger than first expected.
It's a good bet that Schwank's low estimate was done intentionally. If the public found out what he and others like him really want, the backlash would put the alarmists out of business.
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.
In this case, redistribution would be handled by the Multilateral Adaptation Fund, an agency that would use the carbon tax receipts to help countries that are having to deal with climate change.
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.
Still think this is all about halting climate change? We would go as far as to say that anyone who does is either naive or a dupe. Both the rhetoric and the behavior of the eco-activists back us up.
Showing posts with label UN. Show all posts
Showing posts with label UN. Show all posts
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Friday, November 23, 2007
More Nonsense From the UN and IPCC About Global Warming
As many have been saying, and Mr. Milloy reiterates in the article below, the key issue in the global warming/climate change debate is whether or not atmospheric carbon dioxide CO2 is the driver of change. The scientific evidence, some of which is described below, gives no evidence that carbon dioxide emissions, from whatever source, causes global warming or climate change. This truth will eventually be accepted because it is overwhelming. The politicians at the UN and the IPCC are simply using scare tactics and can not back up their claims with real-life, observable facts.
Peter
from:http://www.junkscience.com/ByTheJunkman/20071122.html
UN Climate Distractions
Thursday, November 22, 2007
By Steven Milloy
The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) just issued the final installment of its year-long scare-the-pants-off-the public assessment of global warming. It should come as no surprise that, according to the UN, 257 years of western development and progress has placed the Earth in imminent danger of utter disaster and that the only way to save the planet is to drink the UN Kool-Aid and knuckle under to global government-directed energy rationing and economic planning. Oh, and did I mention that the UN says we only have seven years to end the growth of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and 40 years to stop them entirely if we are to avoid killing as many as one-fourth of the planet’s species?
I’d be scared too, if I didn’t know that this is the very same UN that just admitted to inflating the African AIDS epidemic -- thereby maximizing the public panic feeding its fundraising efforts -- and the very same UN that presided over the corrupt oil-for-food program which gave Saddam Hussein as much as $20 billion in kickbacks while delivering food unfit for human consumption to hungry Iraqis.
What we need to do is peer through the UN’s frantic efforts to distract us with a multitude of dire predictions of climatic Armageddon and focus on the core issue of the global warming debate -- only then does it become obvious why the UN’s claims call for extreme skepticism. That key issue, of course, is whether or not manmade CO2 emissions drive global temperature.
In its shockingly brief and superficial treatment of this crucial issue, the UN states, in relevant part, that, “Most of the observed increase in globally-averaged temperatures, since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations. It is likely that there has been significant anthropogenic warming over the past 50 years averaged over every continent (except Antarctica).” This glib statement overlooks that fact that from 1940 to 1975 globally-averaged temperature declined (giving rise to a much-hyped scare about a looming ice age) while manmade CO2 emissions increased.
Global temperature has fallen since 1998 despite ever-increasing CO2 emissions. So for 27 of the last 50 years, globally-averaged temperatures have declined while CO2 emissions have increased. If there’s a cause-and-effect relationship between CO2 and temperature in the last 50 years at all, it seems to be slightly in the opposite direction from what the UN claims. And if we are experiencing manmade global warming, someone should tell Antarctica to get with the program.
The UN also says that, “Atmospheric concentrations of CO2… exceed by far the natural range over the 650,000 years.” Readers, apparently, are supposed to let their imaginations run away with them as to the implications of this statement. What the UN left out is that the relationship between CO2 and temperature over the last 650,000 years is precisely opposite of what it has led the public to believe with statements like the preceding one. Increased atmospheric concentrations of CO2 actually lag global temperature increases anywhere from 800-2000 years according to the Antarctic ice core record that covers the 650,000-year span of time.
Note to readers: A video debate on this point produced by me can be viewed by clicking here. A new temperature reconstruction for the past 2,000 years created by Craig Loehle of the National Council for Air and Stream Improvement indicates that, 1,000 years ago, globally averaged temperature was about 0.3 degrees Celsius warmer than the current temperature. Since that climatic “heat wave” obviously wasn’t caused by coal-fired power plants and SUVs, the current temperature is quite within natural variability, further deflating the UN’s rash conclusion about the warming of the past 50 years.
There’s also the matter of the quality of the temperature records relied on by the UN. In his project entitled, “How Not to Measure Temperature,” meteorologist Anthony Watts travels the U.S. inspecting stations at which temperature data are recorded by NASA. In the recently released Part 34 of his series, Watts found that the Klamath Falls, Oregon station was located amid acres of heat-trapping asphalt and exposed to huge amounts of waste heat from electric power conversion. Watts says the location of the temperature station seems to have been chosen for the convenience of the observer rather than the integrity of the temperature reading. It’s not hard to imagine how the upward bias in temperature readings from this and similarly situated stations around the world has raised serious questions about the validity of official temperature records and, consequently, their use in the global warming debate.
So when the UN claims to have divined a global warming trend averaging 0.75 degrees Celsius per century regardless of its cause it’s useful to keep in mind that NASA alarmist James Hansen says that the margin of error around the average global temperature is plus/minus 0.7 degrees Celsius. So we can’t possibly have all that much confidence in what the UN claims to be happening global temperature-wise.
Don’t be distracted by the alarmist arm-waving and sideshows about the North Pole melting, polar bears drowning and the myriad other supposed catastrophes mentioned in the same breath as manmade CO2 emissions and global warming. There’s no evidence that manmade CO2 emissions have any created any environmental problem and certainly no scientific justification for handing the keys of the American economy over to the UN.
Peter
from:http://www.junkscience.com/ByTheJunkman/20071122.html
UN Climate Distractions
Thursday, November 22, 2007
By Steven Milloy
The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) just issued the final installment of its year-long scare-the-pants-off-the public assessment of global warming. It should come as no surprise that, according to the UN, 257 years of western development and progress has placed the Earth in imminent danger of utter disaster and that the only way to save the planet is to drink the UN Kool-Aid and knuckle under to global government-directed energy rationing and economic planning. Oh, and did I mention that the UN says we only have seven years to end the growth of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and 40 years to stop them entirely if we are to avoid killing as many as one-fourth of the planet’s species?
I’d be scared too, if I didn’t know that this is the very same UN that just admitted to inflating the African AIDS epidemic -- thereby maximizing the public panic feeding its fundraising efforts -- and the very same UN that presided over the corrupt oil-for-food program which gave Saddam Hussein as much as $20 billion in kickbacks while delivering food unfit for human consumption to hungry Iraqis.
What we need to do is peer through the UN’s frantic efforts to distract us with a multitude of dire predictions of climatic Armageddon and focus on the core issue of the global warming debate -- only then does it become obvious why the UN’s claims call for extreme skepticism. That key issue, of course, is whether or not manmade CO2 emissions drive global temperature.
In its shockingly brief and superficial treatment of this crucial issue, the UN states, in relevant part, that, “Most of the observed increase in globally-averaged temperatures, since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations. It is likely that there has been significant anthropogenic warming over the past 50 years averaged over every continent (except Antarctica).” This glib statement overlooks that fact that from 1940 to 1975 globally-averaged temperature declined (giving rise to a much-hyped scare about a looming ice age) while manmade CO2 emissions increased.
Global temperature has fallen since 1998 despite ever-increasing CO2 emissions. So for 27 of the last 50 years, globally-averaged temperatures have declined while CO2 emissions have increased. If there’s a cause-and-effect relationship between CO2 and temperature in the last 50 years at all, it seems to be slightly in the opposite direction from what the UN claims. And if we are experiencing manmade global warming, someone should tell Antarctica to get with the program.
The UN also says that, “Atmospheric concentrations of CO2… exceed by far the natural range over the 650,000 years.” Readers, apparently, are supposed to let their imaginations run away with them as to the implications of this statement. What the UN left out is that the relationship between CO2 and temperature over the last 650,000 years is precisely opposite of what it has led the public to believe with statements like the preceding one. Increased atmospheric concentrations of CO2 actually lag global temperature increases anywhere from 800-2000 years according to the Antarctic ice core record that covers the 650,000-year span of time.
Note to readers: A video debate on this point produced by me can be viewed by clicking here. A new temperature reconstruction for the past 2,000 years created by Craig Loehle of the National Council for Air and Stream Improvement indicates that, 1,000 years ago, globally averaged temperature was about 0.3 degrees Celsius warmer than the current temperature. Since that climatic “heat wave” obviously wasn’t caused by coal-fired power plants and SUVs, the current temperature is quite within natural variability, further deflating the UN’s rash conclusion about the warming of the past 50 years.
There’s also the matter of the quality of the temperature records relied on by the UN. In his project entitled, “How Not to Measure Temperature,” meteorologist Anthony Watts travels the U.S. inspecting stations at which temperature data are recorded by NASA. In the recently released Part 34 of his series, Watts found that the Klamath Falls, Oregon station was located amid acres of heat-trapping asphalt and exposed to huge amounts of waste heat from electric power conversion. Watts says the location of the temperature station seems to have been chosen for the convenience of the observer rather than the integrity of the temperature reading. It’s not hard to imagine how the upward bias in temperature readings from this and similarly situated stations around the world has raised serious questions about the validity of official temperature records and, consequently, their use in the global warming debate.
So when the UN claims to have divined a global warming trend averaging 0.75 degrees Celsius per century regardless of its cause it’s useful to keep in mind that NASA alarmist James Hansen says that the margin of error around the average global temperature is plus/minus 0.7 degrees Celsius. So we can’t possibly have all that much confidence in what the UN claims to be happening global temperature-wise.
Don’t be distracted by the alarmist arm-waving and sideshows about the North Pole melting, polar bears drowning and the myriad other supposed catastrophes mentioned in the same breath as manmade CO2 emissions and global warming. There’s no evidence that manmade CO2 emissions have any created any environmental problem and certainly no scientific justification for handing the keys of the American economy over to the UN.
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Czech President Challenges UN About Climate Change
I'll bet you won't find this speech on the nightly news or in the mainstream media. Here is the Czech President, Vaclav Klaus, speaking on global warming at the United Nations. He is not just a politician, but an economist and an author of a book on the economics of climate change. He is convinced that there is no reason for panic over climate change, and he makes far more sense than most American politicians.
Peter
from: http://www.praguemonitor.com/en/177/czech_national_news/12570/
CZECH PRESIDENT CHALLENGES IPCC 'MONOPOLY' AT THE UN
"The increase in global temperatures has been in the last years, decades and centuries very small in historical comparisons and practically negligible in its actual impact upon human beings and their activities," Czech President Vaclav Klaus said at the world politicians' meeting on global warming today. The conference in New York has been organised by U.N. General Secretary Ban Ki-Moon.
Klaus said "the hypothetical threat connected with future global warming depends exclusively upon very speculative forecasts, not upon undeniable past experience and upon its trends and tendencies. These forecasts are based on relatively short-time series of relevant variables and on forecasting models that have not been proved very reliable when attempting to explain past developments." No scientific consensus exists, "contrary to many self-assured and self-serving proclamations" about the causes of the ongoing climate changes, Klaus said.
The arguments of both parties in dispute - i.e. those believing in "man's dominant role in recent climate changes" and those who support the hypothesis about "its mostly natural origin" - are so strong that they must be listened to carefully, Klaus continued. "To prematurely proclaim the victory of one group over another would be a tragic mistake and I am afraid we are making it," Klaus continued. "Different levels of development, income and wealth in different places of the world make worldwide, overall and universal solutions costly, unfair and to a great extent discriminatory.
The already-developed countries do not have the right to impose any additional burden on the less developed countries. Dictating ambitious and for them entirely inappropriate environmental standards is wrong and should be excluded from the menu of recommended policy measures."
He proposed that the U.N. organise two parallel inter-government discussion panels and issue two competing reports on climate changes. "To get rid of a one-sided monopoly is a condition sine qua non for an efficient and rational debate. Providing the same or comparable financial backing to both groups of scientists is a necessary starting point," Klaus said. Commenting on the issue for public Czech Radio (CRo) later today, Klaus said "Let's not create a false illusion that we share a single expected opinion. This is simply just the huge cheat and trick ... the gentlemen such as [Al] Gore and [Martin] Bursik have created."
He alluded to former U.S. vice-president and to the Czech Green Party (SZ) chairman, respectively.... In his New York speech Klaus said that "as a result of the scientific dispute there are those who call for an imminent action and those who warn against it. Rational behaviour should depend on the size of the probability of the risk and on the magnitude of the costs of its avoidance." "As as a responsible politician, as an economist, as an author of a book on the economic of climate changes, with all available data and arguments in mind, I have to conclude that the risk is too small, the costs of eliminating it too big and the application of a fundamentally-interpreted precautionary principle a wrong strategy," Klaus stated. More here
Peter
from: http://www.praguemonitor.com/en/177/czech_national_news/12570/
CZECH PRESIDENT CHALLENGES IPCC 'MONOPOLY' AT THE UN
"The increase in global temperatures has been in the last years, decades and centuries very small in historical comparisons and practically negligible in its actual impact upon human beings and their activities," Czech President Vaclav Klaus said at the world politicians' meeting on global warming today. The conference in New York has been organised by U.N. General Secretary Ban Ki-Moon.
Klaus said "the hypothetical threat connected with future global warming depends exclusively upon very speculative forecasts, not upon undeniable past experience and upon its trends and tendencies. These forecasts are based on relatively short-time series of relevant variables and on forecasting models that have not been proved very reliable when attempting to explain past developments." No scientific consensus exists, "contrary to many self-assured and self-serving proclamations" about the causes of the ongoing climate changes, Klaus said.
The arguments of both parties in dispute - i.e. those believing in "man's dominant role in recent climate changes" and those who support the hypothesis about "its mostly natural origin" - are so strong that they must be listened to carefully, Klaus continued. "To prematurely proclaim the victory of one group over another would be a tragic mistake and I am afraid we are making it," Klaus continued. "Different levels of development, income and wealth in different places of the world make worldwide, overall and universal solutions costly, unfair and to a great extent discriminatory.
The already-developed countries do not have the right to impose any additional burden on the less developed countries. Dictating ambitious and for them entirely inappropriate environmental standards is wrong and should be excluded from the menu of recommended policy measures."
He proposed that the U.N. organise two parallel inter-government discussion panels and issue two competing reports on climate changes. "To get rid of a one-sided monopoly is a condition sine qua non for an efficient and rational debate. Providing the same or comparable financial backing to both groups of scientists is a necessary starting point," Klaus said. Commenting on the issue for public Czech Radio (CRo) later today, Klaus said "Let's not create a false illusion that we share a single expected opinion. This is simply just the huge cheat and trick ... the gentlemen such as [Al] Gore and [Martin] Bursik have created."
He alluded to former U.S. vice-president and to the Czech Green Party (SZ) chairman, respectively.... In his New York speech Klaus said that "as a result of the scientific dispute there are those who call for an imminent action and those who warn against it. Rational behaviour should depend on the size of the probability of the risk and on the magnitude of the costs of its avoidance." "As as a responsible politician, as an economist, as an author of a book on the economic of climate changes, with all available data and arguments in mind, I have to conclude that the risk is too small, the costs of eliminating it too big and the application of a fundamentally-interpreted precautionary principle a wrong strategy," Klaus stated. More here
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)