“Is global warming from burning fossil fuels sufficiently dangerous to stop its use and replace our vast, inexpensive energy sources with possibly expensive and environmentally challenged solar, wind, ethanol from corn, other biofuels, and biomass (predominately burning wood). The answer is absolutely not–or not in the least.”
Some GOP candidates have responded “I am not a scientist” when confronted by questions about climate change (global warming). President Barack Obama singled out the phrase in his 2015 State of the Union speech stating,
I’ve heard some folks try to dodge the evidence by saying they’re not scientists; that we don’t have enough information to act. Well, I’m not a scientist, either. But you know what, I know a lot of really good scientists at NASA, and at NOAA, and at our major universities. And the best scientists in the world are all telling us that our activities are changing the climate, and if we don’t act forcefully, we’ll continue to see rising oceans, longer, hotter heat waves, dangerous droughts and floods, and massive disruptions that can trigger greater migration and conflict and hunger around the globe.
“I am not a scientist” is unsatisfactory because political candidates should be aware of important issues. In particular about climate change; where the Democrat Party’s response is overturning our entire energy supply system by abandoning our abundant, inexpensive, and geographically distributed fossil fuels of coal, oil, and natural gas. The U. S. is the most blessed nation on the planet with abundant fossil fuels.
The issue is as follows: Is global warming from burning fossil fuels sufficiently dangerous to stop its use and replace our vast, inexpensive energy sources with possibly expensive and environmentally challenged solar, wind, ethanol from corn, other biofuels, and biomass (predominately burning wood). The answer is absolutely not–or not in the least.
Talking Points
Fortunately for GOP candidates, resident scholar with the Institute for Policy Innovation Merrill Matthews published a brilliant paper “A GOP candidate’s primer of climate change answers.”
The paper gives rebuttals to Democrats’ arguments that carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels causes catastrophic climate change (global warming). The paper contains so much important material it is reproduced in its entirety at the end of this commentary. Additional comments follow to amplify Matthews’s remarks.
President Obama’s Alaska Trip. President Obama’s Alaska trip is analyzed in detail by an article “Obama’s Climate Alarmism Tour (contradictory data + tuned-out public = failure)” posted on Master Resource. The trip was totally for propaganda purposes and many remarks are misrepresentations at best.
Is the earth warming? For thousands of years the earth has followed warming and cooling cycles of very approximate 500-year durations. Tracing back into the past we have the Current Warming Period (1850-present), Little Ice Age (1350-1850), Medieval Warm Period (900-1350), Dark Ages (400-900), and Roman Warming Period (100 BC-400). Because satellite temperature data shows no warming since 1998; those promoting abandoning fossil fuels stopped using the words global warming around 2005 and now call it climate change. Naturally climate change has pestered the planet since its origin 4.5 billion years ago.
Is Arctic ice melting? Satellite data for polar sea ice in the Arctic and Antarctic is shown at the website The Cryosphere Today for the period 1979 to present. Inspection of Arctic sea ice shows the minimum for 2015 has recovered by 30 percent above the minimum for 2012. In 2012 a cyclone tore through the Arctic in late August, passed over the North Pole, and propelled much of the ice south where it melted.
Are humans to blame? Antarctic ice core data shows temperature increases are followed by carbon dioxide increases that lag by 600 +/- 400 years. This is a clear demonstration carbon dioxide increases don’t produce temperature increases.
Can the U. S. solve the problem? An article by energy columnist Marita Noon “Republican candidates must be strong on energy” cites additional polling data that shows energy will be an important issue in the 2016 election.
97 percent of scientists say humans cause global warming. This topic was not covered in Merrill Matthews paper; but invariably those promoting reducing fossil fuel use bring up that some high percentage of scientists, like 97 percent, claim humans consuming fossil fuels cause climate change (global warming). The proper response is that science is not ruled by consensus, but by continuous experimental data supporting a theory. By cherry-picking, one can produce papers claiming any percentage of scientists support a position. This is a nonsense argument.
Other Facets
The Obama administration’s position on climate change is depriving the nation of great opportunities and producing possible annual financial loss of hundreds of billions of dollars.
The Heritage Foundation published a paper “Energy Policy Agenda for the New Administration and Congress” that lists numerous suggestions for a new energy policy that is described by its Abstract.
Free markets will produce the energy America needs to power its economy. Government policies that allow markets to operate freely will expand opportunity for all and show favoritism to none. There is no role for government central planning, government subsidies for the favored few, or government overregulation that stifles economic activity. The next Administration and Congress should open access to natural resource development, encourage fossil fuel exports, cut tariffs on energy technology, eliminate subsidies, devolve commercial activities to the private sector, and eliminate costly, job-killing regulations that have little benefit.
A new book sponsored by the Global Warming Policy Foundation, The Price of Oil, argues:
[O]il has experienced an extraordinary price increase over the past few decades, a turning point has now been reached where scarcity, uncertain supply and high prices will be replaced by abundance, undisturbed availability and suppressed price levels in the decades to come. We also examine the implications of this turnaround for the world economy, as well as for politics, diplomacy, military interventions and the efforts to stabilize climate”.
Recent examples of the waste of tax dollars are shown by U. S. government news releases. On September 9, the DOE release cited a $6 million grant establishing clean energy and energy efficiency on tribal lands, a nine-day collegiate competition building solar energy houses, and solar energy programs supporting President Obama’s Climate Goals.
Also on September 9, the DOI announced the First-Ever National Climate Boot Camp to Address Tribal Needs and Concerns Related to Climate Change. On September 1, NPR issued a report about the U.S. Department of Agriculture promising more than $200 million for sage grouse conservation efforts over the next three years, with the hopes of almost doubling the current amount of protected habitat.
That’s on top of about $400 million that it has already spent since 2010. With the U. S. having 400,000 sage grouse, this is $1500 per bird. On September 10, the USDA announced awarding $100 million for adding 4880 pumps to 1400 fueling stations to sell higher grades of ethanol mixes such as E-15—over $20,000 per pump.
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James H. Rust, professor of nuclear engineering and policy advisor The Heartland Institute
Here is an exchange with Professor Freeman Dyson from which GOP candidates could usefully ,and are free to, quote.
Climate and CO2- Exchange with Freeman Dyson
E-mail 4/7/15
Dr Norman Page
Houston
Professor Dyson
Saw your Vancouver Sun interview.
I agree that CO2 is beneficial. This will be even more so in future because it is more likely than not that the earth has already entered a long term cooling trend following the recent temperature peak in the quasi-millennial solar driven periodicity .
The climate models on which the entire Catastrophic Global Warming delusion rests are built without regard to the natural 60 and more importantly 1000 year periodicities so obvious in the temperature record. The modelers approach is simply a scientific disaster and lacks even average commonsense .It is exactly like taking the temperature trend from say Feb – July and projecting it ahead linearly for 20 years or so. They back tune their models for less than 100 years when the relevant time scale is millennial. This is scientific malfeasance on a grand scale. The temperature projections of the IPCC – UK Met office models and all the impact studies which derive from them have no solid foundation in empirical science being derived from inherently useless and specifically structurally flawed models. They provide no basis for the discussion of future climate trends and represent an enormous waste of time and money. As a foundation for Governmental climate and energy policy their forecasts are already seen to be grossly in error and are therefore worse than useless. A new forecasting paradigm needs to be adopted. For forecasts of the timing and extent of the coming cooling based on the natural solar activity cycles – most importantly the millennial cycle – and using the neutron count and 10Be record as the most useful proxy for solar activity check my blog-post at
http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com/2014/07/climate-forecasting-methods-and-cooling.html
The most important factor in climate forecasting is where earth is in regard to the quasi- millennial natural solar activity cycle which has a period in the 960 – 1020 year range. For evidence of this cycle see Figs 5-9. From Fig 9 it is obvious that the earth is just approaching ,just at or just past a peak in the millennial cycle. I suggest that more likely than not the general trends from 1000- 2000 seen in Fig 9 will likely generally repeat from 2000-3000 with the depths of the next LIA at about 2650. The best proxy for solar activity is the neutron monitor count and 10 Be data. My view ,based on the Oulu neutron count – Fig 14 is that the solar activity millennial maximum peaked in Cycle 22 in about 1991. There is a varying lag between the change in the in solar activity and the change in the different temperature metrics. There is a 12 year delay between the neutron peak and the probable millennial cyclic temperature peak seen in the RSS data in 2003. http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1980.1/plot/rss/from:1980.1/to:2003.6/trend/plot/rss/from:2003.6/trend
There has been a cooling temperature trend since then (Usually interpreted as a “pause”) There is likely to be a steepening of the cooling trend in 2017- 2018 corresponding to the very important Ap index break below all recent base values in 2005-6. Fig 13.
The Polar excursions of the last few winters in North America are harbingers of even more extreme winters to come more frequently in the near future.
I would be very happy to discuss this with you by E-mail or phone .It is important that you use your position and visibility to influence United States government policy and also change the perceptions of the MSM and U.S public in this matter. If my forecast cooling actually occurs the policy of CO2 emission reduction will add to the increasing stress on global food production caused by a cooling and generally more arid climate.
Best Regards
Norman Page
E-Mail 4/9/15
Dear Norman Page,
Thank you for your message and for the blog. That all makes sense.
I wish I knew how to get important people to listen to you. But there is
not much that I can do. I have zero credibility as an expert on climate.
I am just a theoretical physicist, 91 years old and obviously out of touch
with the real world. I do what I can, writing reviews and giving talks,
but important people are not listening to me. They will listen when the
glaciers start growing in Kentucky, but I will not be around then. With
all good wishes, yours ever, Freeman Dyson.
Email 4/9/15
Professor Dyson Would you have any objection to my posting our email exchange on my blog?
> Best Regards Norman Page
E-Mail 4/9/15
Yes, you are welcome to post this exchange any way you like. Thank you
for asking. Yours, Freeman Dyson
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