Climate 411

“The purpose of these [global warming] programs is to ration fossil-based energy by making it more expensive and therefore less appealing for public consumption. It is a regressive tax that imposes a greater burden relative to resources on the poor than it does on the rich.”

– Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) from his January 8, 2009 statement on the floor of the Senate.

The purpose of a climate bill that caps America’s global warming pollution is to reward innovation and unleash clean energy technologies to rebuild America and free ourselves from our dependence on fossil fuels.

A properly designed policy would not impose any new financial burdens on the poor and, instead, would provide tremendous economic benefits and put people to work building out our clean energy infrastructure.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that by 2020 under a program that caps America’s global warming pollution, the value of auctioning pollution credits could total between $50 billion and $300 billion (in 2007 dollars) in new revenue to the federal government.

According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), “Funding equal to about 15% of the value of the emissions allowances under a ‘cap-and-trade’ system would be enough to hold the poorest fifth of households harmless and partially offset the costs for those with modestly higher incomes.”

“Even under the most optimistic assumptions, every study we examined predicts huge welfare costs in terms of consumption. A lower estimate involves a drop in consumption of 0.8%-1% below the business-as-usual scenario in every year starting in 2008 and going into the future, which represents a huge decrease in social welfare.”

– From The Cost of Climate Regulation for American Households, a report published by the George C. Marshall Institute, March 2, 2009

This report claims to be a meta-analysis review of several studies on the economic impact of the Lieberman Warner Climate Security Act from last year’s Congress.

The studies covered in the Marshall Institute report include those from:

• The Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• The Environmental Protection Agency
• The Environmental Investigation Agency
• The American Council for Capital Formation and the National Association of Manufacturers (joint study)
• The Charles River Associates
• The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis
• The Clean Air Task Force

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“The so-called ‘consensus’ on global warming is even more disputed. Over 650 dissenting scientists from around the globe challenged man-made global warming claims made by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and former Vice President Al Gore.”

– Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) from his January 8, 2009 statement on the floor of the Senate.

There is no real debate among scientists about the basic facts of global warming. The most respected scientific bodies have stated unequivocally that global warming is occurring, and people are causing it by burning fossil fuels and cutting down forests.

Most of the 650 scientists’ names listed in the report were recycled from the debunked 2007 version that consisted largely of individuals with no expertise in climate science.

Here is a five-part series from our Climate 411 blog on how we know humans cause global warming, which explores the 175-year history of global warming science and what we know about global warming.

“The current warming period began about 1800 at the end of the little ice age, long before there was an appreciable increase of CO2. There have been similar and even larger warmings several times in the 10,000 years since the end of the last ice age. These earlier warmings clearly had nothing to do with the combustion of fossil fuels. The current warming also seems to be due mostly to natural causes, not to increasing levels of carbon dioxide. Over the past ten years there has been no global warming, and in fact a slight cooling. This is not at all what was predicted by the IPCC models.”

— Testimony to Senate Energy Committee by William Happer, the Cyrus Fogg Bracket Professor of Physics at Princeton University, February 25, 2009

William Happer is a physics professor at Princeton University, but he is also the Chairman of the Board at the George C. Marshall Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington, DC, which has been a leading voice in opposing global warming action. Between 1998 and 2006, the Marshall Institute received $715,000 from ExxonMobil.

Mr. Happer’s testimony before the Senate Energy Committee was misleading on a variety of fronts. The planet has indeed warmed and cooled in cyclical fashion for millennia. But that’s not the point. The inference – that the current warming trend is just another naturally occurring warm cycle – is not true, as this post from Climate 411 explains.

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“Since September, however, the increase in sea ice has been the fastest change, either up or down, since 1979, when satellite record-keeping began. According to the University of Illinois’ Arctic Climate Research Center, global sea ice levels now equal those of 1979.”

– Washington Post Columnist George Will, February 15, 2009.

The University of Illinois’ Arctic Climate Research Center responds:

“We do not know where George Will is getting his information, but our data shows that on February 15, 1979, global sea ice area was 16.79 million sq. km and on February 15, 2009, global sea ice area was 15.45 million sq. km. Therefore, global sea ice levels are 1.34 million sq. km less in February 2009 than in February 1979. This decrease in sea ice area is roughly equal to the area of Texas, California, and Oklahoma combined.

“It is disturbing that the Washington Post would publish such information without first checking the facts.”

– Talking Points Memo, Muckraker

“As I see it, the most important single item in President Obama’s budget is his commitment to a cap-and-trade plan (to limit and reduce carbon emissions). It represents nothing less than an absolutely breath-taking attempt at reengineering the entire American economy.”

— James Pethokoukis, U.S. News and World Report, February 26, 2009

Maybe just a touch of hyperbole here?

President Barack Obama’s proposal to cap and reduce America’s global warming pollution is a straight forward plan to reduce America’s dependence on fossil fuels and foreign oil and put people to work to unleash our green energy future.

This is not a government take over of the energy sector. The only mandate from the government would be to cut global warming pollution. Industries and utilities would be free to make business decisions on the best way to meet these pollution reduction requirements.

A cap on global warming pollution would send a clear market signal that businesses must innovate and adopt cleaner energy solutions or they would have to pay for market-based pollution credits. It is a balanced plan that offers the most efficient and effective way to deal with the growing threat of global warming.