“We’ve got to ride this global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic and environmental policy.”Timothy Wirth, President of the United Nations Foundation
What is cap-and-trade?Cap-and-trade is an approach designed to control carbon emissions. The government sets a “cap” on the amount of carbon dioxide that can be emitted. Companies are issued emission permits and are required to hold an equivalent number credits which represent the right to emit a specific amount carbon dioxide.
The total amount of allowances and credits cannot exceed the cap, limiting total emissions to that level. Companies that need to increase their emission allowance must buy credits from those who use less. The transfer of allowances is referred to as a “trade.” In effect, the buyer is paying a charge for emitting carbon dioxide, while the seller is being rewarded for having reduced emissions by more than was needed.
Why should American citizens be concerned about cap-and-trade?
Cap-and-trade will impose huge costs upon American citizens. Cap-and-trade will impose a carbon tax on all goods and services produced in the United States. The average family of four can expect to pay an additional $1700 or more each year. The United States is expected to lose more than 2 million jobs as the result of cap-and-trade schemes. Poor and middle-income families will be hurt the most. All of this for little, if any, real impact on the earth’s climate. Even proponents of cap-and-trade have acknowledged that this scheme will only amount to approximately 1/10 of 1 degree of temperature change in 100 years. Visit the Institute for Energy Research @
http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/cost-of-climate-change-policies/ to see the estimated economic impacts for your state.
So what are the real facts about global warming? 1. Carbon Dioxide (CO2) is not a pollutant. CO2 is necessary for life on earth. Nothing would be green without it. Vegetation thrives on increased levels of CO2. CO2 amounts to approximately 0.04% [1] of the Earth’s atmosphere. Likewise, mankind’s contributions to annual atmospheric carbon dioxide emissions are tiny. 97% of the CO2 released into the air is from natural sources. Mankind is thus responsible for 3% of the 0.04% of the atmosphere that’s comprised of carbon dioxide (0.001% of the atmosphere). As a greenhouse gas, CO2 is a weak agent. The most powerful contributor to the greenhouse effect is water vapor, which is responsible for 95% of the Earth’s greenhouse effect [2].
2. The Climate Changes. The Earth has constantly gone through periods of warming and cooling. The recent warming trend (which has now reversed – average world temperatures have been falling for the last decade) is not outside the natural variation that’s been observed in the geologic record. Mankind had nothing to do with the onset or end of any of the numerous past ice ages or warm periods.
3. Garbage in, Garbage Out. Computer models used by UN IPCC scientists that project catastrophic global warming are based on flawed inputs. The models assume that when average global temperatures are rising, less solar radiation is escaping from the Earth’s atmosphere. A new study by MIT climate scientist Richard Lindzen, using 15 years of data collected from an orbiting satellite found that the exact opposite is true [3].
4. Consensus. Science isn’t determined by consensus. Consensus is a mechanism of politics. We always hear that the debate is over, the science is settled and the scientific consensus is that we are facing a manmade global warming crisis. It’s a lie. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change consists of hundreds of bureaucrats and only a handful of scientists. Only 50 IPCC scientists were responsible for the reports claiming catastrophic climate change is around the corner. 54 IPCC scientists dissented, but their remarks were excluded from the reports. Over 31,000 scientists from around the world, each holding a bachelor’s or higher degree (over 9,000 PhDs) have now signed a document stating that global warming is not a serious concern [4]. There is a consensus, but it’s not what we’ve been told.
Citations:
1) T. J. Blasing, “Recent Greenhouse Gas Concentrations,” Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (2009)
2) S.M. Freidenreich and V. Ramaswamy, “Solar Radiation Absorption by Carbon Dioxide, Overlap with Water, and a Parameterization for General Circulation Models,” Journal of Geophysical Research 98 (1993):7255-7264
3) Richard S. Lindzen and Yong-Sang Choi, “On the determination of climate feedbacks from ERBE data,” Geophysical Research Letters (2009)
4) Petition Project
http://www.petitionproject.orgSOURCE:
http://www.nocapandtrade.com/the-facts/
