 |
| Select your preferred color scheme | |
| Stark | Isle |
| Shore | Field |
| Twilight | Coral |
Brought to you by DemandDebate.com
Because no one should dictate what you see.
By Steven Milloy
April 3, 2008
George Bush appears to have beaten Al Gore again.
In very same week that Gore launched a $300 million public relations campaign to convince Americans that “together
we can solve the climate crisis,” prominent climate alarmist Tom Wigley essentially endorsed President Bush’s
approach to global warming, while criticizing that of Gore’s co-Nobelist, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC).
In an article entitled “Dangerous
Assumptions” published in Nature (April 3), Wigley writes that the technology challenge presented by
the goal of stabilizing atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations “has been seriously underestimated by the
IPCC, diverting attention from policies that could directly stimulate technological innovation.”
Wigley, a lead author of the most recent IPCC report, describes that document as relying on “unrealistic” and
“unachievable” CO2 emissions scenarios -- even for the present decade.
For the period 2000-2010, the IPCC assumes that energy and fossil fuel efficiency is increasing. But Wigley points
out that in recent years both energy and fossil fuel efficiency have decreased, reversing the trend of previous
decades.
One reason for this phenomenon, says Wigley, is the economic transformation occurring in the world, particularly in
Asia. Whereas the IPCC assumes in its emissions scenarios that CO2 emissions in Asia are increasing by 2.6 percent
to 4.8 percent annually, China’s emissions are actually increasing at a rate of 11 percent to 13 percent annually.
“Because of these dramatic changes in the global economy, it is likely that we have only just begun to
experience the surge in global energy use associated with rapid development. Such trends are in stark contrast to
the optimism of the near-future IPCC projections and seem unlikely to alter course soon,” writes Wigley.
As a consequence, “enormous advances in energy technology will be needed to stabilize atmospheric CO2
concentrations at acceptable levels,” he concludes.
Wigley faults the IPCC for simply assuming that these technological advances will occur spontaneously as opposed to
creating the conditions for innovation to occur.
So between George Bush and Al Gore, whose approach to the climate controversy is more consistent with Wigley’s
recommendation?
In “An Inconvenient Truth,” Al Gore preached to us about downsizing our lifestyles. He wants us to take colder
showers, hang our clothes outside to dry, avoid driving, use less heating and air conditioning and generally reduce
our standard of living.
On his public relations campaign’s web site, Gore urges the shuttering of coal-fired power plants (which provide
50 percent of U.S. electricity needs), the adoption of so-called “clean energy technologies” (like
cost-inefficient solar and wind power, and hybrid cars), energy efficiency (which would only reduce energy use by
marginal amounts) and government mandates for not-ready-for-prime-time taxpayer-subsidized alternative energy
sources.
In the “Clean Energy Economy” section of his web site, Gore even calls for more sidewalks and bike paths”
-- hardly a technological innovation that will provide measurably more energy with fewer emissions.
In contrast, President Bush has since 2005 promoted technological development in the form of the Asian-Pacific
Partnership for Clean Development and Climate Change. In this non-UN group, Australia, Canada, China, India, Japan,
Republic of Korea and the U.S. have agreed to work together and with private sector partners to meet goals for
energy security, national air pollution reduction, and climate change in ways that promote sustainable economic
growth and poverty reduction.
President Bush may have also advanced the technology ball in another, more subtle, way.
The Department of Energy recently pulled out of FutureGen, a public-private partnership to build a first-of-its-kind
coal-fueled, near-zero emissions power plant. The ostensible reason for the federal pullout was the increasing cost
of the $1.5 billion plant, most of which was to be borne by the government. But it may very well be that FutureGen
was sacrificed as part of a Bush administration effort to pressure Congress to take affirmative action on nuclear
power, a true technological solution for concerns about atmospheric CO2.
Finally, and much to his credit, President Bush has (so far) avoided the sort of futile mandatory clamp-down on CO2
emissions that is supported by Gore, but that Wigley realizes will be impossible to implement without halting vital
economic growth.
You almost have to feel bad for Al Gore -- being outsmarted on his own home turf by George Bush. But there still
might be time for Gore to set things right.
Just last week, the UN’s World Food Programme launched an “extraordinary emergency appeal” for donations of at
least $500 million in the next four weeks to avoid rationing food aid in response to the spiraling cost of food -- a
problem brought about in part by Gore’s climate alarmism, which helped spur the lurch to biofuels like corn-based
ethanol.
British billionaire Richard Branson, for example, credits Gore for pushing him to make a $3 billion pledge in 2006
to replace fossil fuels with biofuels. While campaigning in 2006 for Democratic senatorial candidate Amy Klobuchar,
Gore asked, “What is so complicated about choosing fuel that comes from Minnesota farmers rather than from the
Middle East?” while simultaneously asserting that Klobuchar would “provide leadership in the fight against
global warming.”
So, Al Gore, rather than wasting $300 million on a public relations campaign to promote an unrealistic and
impractical approach to the dubious problem of manmade climate change, why not donate that money to the UN and help
prevent real people from starving today?
Steven Milloy publishes JunkScience.com and DemandDebate.com. He is a junk science expert, and advocate of free enterprise and an adjunct scholar at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
| Archives | Competition & Videos | Short Course | Site Links | More | Buy Stuff |
JunkScience.com is updated every weekday. Items from the main page are moved to the archives. Links should be good for at least the date posted. After the posting date, link reliability depends on the policy of the linked sites. Some sites require visitors to register before allowing access to articles. Material presented on this page represents the opinion of JunkScience.com. Copyright -- 1996-2008 JunkScience.com, Inc. All rights reserved on original works. Material copyrighted by others is used either with permission or under a claim of "fair use."
Anti-Quackery Ring
Join Now Ring Hub Random << Prev Next >>