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Science Forum Index » Environment Forum » McCain Should Stick To Real Problems...
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| 00ZNB... |
 Posted: Wed May 14, 2008 12:07 am |
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INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
May 13, 2008
http://ibdeditorial.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=295571289462118
After the coldest April in 11 years, John McCain offers a "market
friendly" approach to global warming - saying we "have a genius for
adapting, solving problems."
But shouldn't the problems be real?
McCain is the last politician we'd accuse of pandering. His honesty,
steadfastness and independence have earned him the right to call his
campaign the Straight Talk Express.
So we were disappointed when, at an Oregon wind turbine manufacturer on
Monday, he seemed to embrace the shaky environmentalist position on
global warming.
Saying the costs of our reliance on fossil fuels "have added up now in
the atmosphere, in the oceans and all across the natural world," he
proposed that by 2050, the U.S. should reduce CO2 emissions to a level
60% below that emitted in 1990.
The question is, why?
Cold water was thrown on the climate-change disaster hypothesis by the
National Climate Data Center's recent announcement that last month was
the coldest April in more than a decade and the 29th coolest since
record keeping began 114 years ago.
The average temperature was 1 degree cooler than the average April
temperature of the entire 20th century.
A few weeks ago, as North America was emerging from one of its coldest
and snowiest winters in decades, the climate center issued a statement
saying that snow cover on the Eurasian land mass had been the most
extensive ever recorded, and that this March had been only the 63rd
warmest since 1895.
On April 24, the World Wildlife Fund published a study, based on last
September's data, showing that Arctic ice had shrunk from 13 million
square kilometers to just 3 million. What the WWF omitted was that by
March the Arctic ice had recovered to 14 million square kilometers and
that the ice cover around the Bering Strait and Alaska was at the
highest level ever recorded.
In fact, the United States already leads the world in both energy
efficiency per unit of GDP and control of CO2 emissions. We recently
pointed out that, according to the 2008 Index of Leading Economic
Indicators, U.S. emissions grew by 6.6% from 1997 to 2004, vs. 18% for
the world as a whole and 21.1% for those nations that signed the Kyoto
Protocol on greenhouse gases.
The U.S. reduced carbon emissions from natural gas and petroleum by 1.7%
and 1.5% from 2005 to 2006 and coal emissions by 0.9%. Energy intensity
(energy consumed per dollar of real GDP) fell more than 4% as total
energy declined 0.9% and the U.S. economy expanded 3.3%.
We were pleased that McCain endorsed nuclear power as a pollution-free
source of energy that can help us toward energy independence while
reducing emissions. But the fact is that we will need more energy, not
less, by 2050, from all sources. Both economic and technological growth
will demand more.
The nation that first split the atom should first stop splitting hairs
and revive nuclear power. We should also be taking more American oil out
of our soil. We are the Saudi Arabia of coal. McCain is right about our
ability to solve problems. The nation that put men on the moon can find
a way to burn coal cleanly.
We definitely should not subsidize burning food in our gas tanks. McCain
heroically opposed ethanol subsidies in 2000, running third in the Iowa
caucuses, and he rightly opposes them today. And we have nothing against
wind and solar, if they are economically competitive.
Our needs for more energy and less reliance on foreign sources are both
real and solvable. Global warming is debatable, both as to its causes
and its effects. By taking the lead on domestic energy, McCain could
help solve a real problem and make a clear distinction between himself
and his head-in-the-tundra opponents.
--
Warmest Regards
Bonzo
"America in Longest Warm Spell Since 1776; Temperature Line Records a
25-year Rise" New York Times, March 27, 1933 |
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