Currently viewing the tag: “Warming”
As the Republican led House, and many Republicans, and some Democrats, in the Senate look to keep the EPA from regulating greenhouse gases, Mr. Obama has quietly implemented his own rules
On March 4th, in a move surely designed to side-step Congress, Obama’s Council on Environmental Quality issued instructions to all federal agencies on how to adapt to climate change. All agencies, from the Food and Drug Administration to the Department of Defense, will be required to analyze their vulnerabilities to the impacts from climate change and come up with a plan to adapt. Thousands of governmental employees will be trained on climate science, like it or not.
The changes aren’t limited to just federal agencies. Countless numbers of private businesses that sell, build, provide logistics or maintenance, or anything else to the government will be forced to comply with new Federal climate adaptation guidelines—all because of Presidential Executive Order 13514.
Got that? Any company that has dealings with the Federal government will have to implement all the requirements of EO 13514, which include things like
- Appoint a Climate Adaptation specialist
- Establish an Agency wide Climate Change Adaptation Policy and Mandate by June 2011
- Participate in Climate Adaptation workshops and then educate all employees throughout 2011
- Identify and analyze climate vulnerabilities that would interfere with accomplishing the Agency’s mission by March 2012
- Implement the adaptation plan by September 2012
No wonder Obama has avoided most talk about “climate change”: he’s stealthily implemented the Warmist idiocy.
Say, I wonder if this would apply to anyone paying taxes?
It also “requires Federal Agencies to set a 2020 greenhouse gas emissions reduction target within 90 days; increase energy efficiency; reduce fleet petroleum consumption; conserve water; reduce waste; support sustainable communities; and leverage Federal purchasing power to promote environmentally-responsible products and technologies.”
So, the power of the federal government will be used to push one product over another. So much for a fair and impartial government.
Crossed at Right Wing News and Stop The ACLU.
Guest blogger Lowell Feld is editor of Blue Virginia, in a WonkRoom cross-post.
This week, Sen. Jim Webb’s office put out a press release (see the full release at Blue Virginia) calling for a vote on the “Rockefeller Amendment to Delay EPA Greenhouse Gas Regulations.” Needless to say, I strongly disagree with Jim Webb that any delay in taking aggressive, comprehensive action on clean energy and climate change makes any sense whatsoever. There are three main reasons we need to act immediately, not delay a minute longer:
One: The scientific evidence of dangerous, man-made climate change is crystal clear and voluminous, as is the overwhelming consensus among climate scientists that we need to act urgently – as in, this is a planetary environmental emergency – to slash greenhouse gas emissions now;
Two: Our national security depends heavily on a rapid move off of our oil addiction, which means first and foremost transitioning the U.S. vehicle fleet to far higher efficiency, and also to clean-energy-generated electricity;
Three: Our economic future will be determined in large part on how rapidly we transition off of 19th and 20th century fuels (mainly coal and oil) and into 21st century energy sources (efficiency, wind, solar, wave, geothermal, next-generation biofuels).
Frankly, none of that should be remotely controversial. The vast majority of people who aren’t in the pocket of the fossil fuel industry – or snookered by the constant barrage of Big Lie propaganda that industry puts out — see the Chevron “Human Energy” campaign or “Energy Tomorrow” for a constant stream of lies, half-truths, and distortions — would almost certainly agree with those three points. I know Sen. Mark Warner gets it, because I’ve sat down and discussed these issues with him. As for Jim Webb? Sadly — and it truly is sad for me, as someone who led the “Draft James Webb” effort and who worked for his campaign — it doesn’t seem that he has much if any understanding – or even curiosity to learn – about energy and environmental issues. Yesterday, he actually said the following words:
I am not convinced the Clean Air Act was ever intended to regulate or classify as a dangerous pollutant something as basic and ubiquitous in our atmosphere as carbon dioxide.
That’s bad enough. But for now I just want to focus on a truly egregious distortion and piece of revisionist history from Webb’s press release. According to Sen. Webb, the “sweeping actions that the EPA proposes to undertake clearly overflow the appropriate regulatory banks established by Congress, with the potential to affect every aspect of the American economy.” Webb believes that “[s]uch action represents a significant overreach by the Executive branch.”
That’s so many kinds of wrong it’s hard to know where to start. Just a few points. First off, the EPA’s establishment (by President Nixon) was approved by Congress, back in 1970. Second, the Clean Air Act was passed by Congress, extended multiple times by Congress, revised many times by Congress, etc. Third, the U.S. Supreme Court clearly ruled in 2007 that the EPA “can avoid taking further action [on global warming] only if it determines that greenhouse gases do not contribute to climate change or if it provides some reasonable explanation.” Finally, the U.S. Senate has utterly failed in its duty to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, per the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision, the overwhelming scientific evidence, etc. In 2009, recall that the U.S. House of Representatives passed a comprehensive, clean energy and climate law.
The U.S. Senate, of which Jim Webb was and is a part, then did what it usually does – nothing. Clearly, that is where the failure lies, in the U.S. Senate, not with the Executive Branch — or the Judicial Branch, for that matter. Frankly, at this point, the U.S. Senate has made it abundantly clear that it has zero ability to tackle this issue.
So, here’s my message to Sen. Webb and to the rest of his “scorpions in a bottle” — as he calls them — in the Senate: on clean energy and climate change, either lead, follow, or get the heck out of the way!
– Lowell Feld, cross-posted from Blue Virginia, where Webb’s anti-EPA press release can be read.
Our guest blogger is Lowell Feld, the editor of Blue Virginia.
Yesterday afternoon, Sen. Jim Webb’s office put out a press release (see the full release at Blue Virginia) calling for a vote on the “Rockefeller Amendment to Delay EPA Greenhouse Gas Regulations.” Needless to say, I strongly disagree with Jim Webb that any delay in taking aggressive, comprehensive action on clean energy and climate change makes any sense whatsoever. There are three main reasons we need to act immediately, not delay a minute longer:
One: The scientific evidence of dangerous, man-made climate change is crystal clear and voluminous, as is the overwhelming consensus among climate scientists that we need to act urgently – as in, this is a planetary environmental emergency – to slash greenhouse gas emissions now;
Two: Our national security depends heavily on a rapid move off of our oil addiction, which means first and foremost transitioning the U.S. vehicle fleet to far higher efficiency, and also to clean-energy-generated electricity;
Three: Our economic future will be determined in large part on how rapidly we transition off of 19th and 20th century fuels (mainly coal and oil) and into 21st century energy sources (efficiency, wind, solar, wave, geothermal, next-generation biofuels).
Frankly, none of that should be remotely controversial. The vast majority of people who aren’t in the pocket of the fossil fuel industry – or snookered by the constant barrage of Big Lie propaganda that industry puts out — see the Chevron “Human Energy” campaign or “Energy Tomorrow” for a constant stream of lies, half-truths, and distortions — would almost certainly agree with those three points. I know Sen. Mark Warner gets it, because I’ve sat down and discussed these issues with him. As for Jim Webb? Sadly — and it truly is sad for me, as someone who led the “Draft James Webb” effort and who worked for his campaign — it doesn’t seem that he has much if any understanding – or even curiosity to learn – about energy and environmental issues. Yesterday, he actually said the following words:
I am not convinced the Clean Air Act was ever intended to regulate or classify as a dangerous pollutant something as basic and ubiquitous in our atmosphere as carbon dioxide.
Watch it:
That’s bad enough. But for now I just want to focus on a truly egregious distortion and piece of revisionist history from Webb’s press release. According to Sen. Webb, the “sweeping actions that the EPA proposes to undertake clearly overflow the appropriate regulatory banks established by Congress, with the potential to affect every aspect of the American economy.” Webb believes that “[s]uch action represents a significant overreach by the Executive branch.”
That’s so many kinds of wrong it’s hard to know where to start. Just a few points. First off, the EPA’s establishment (by President Nixon) was approved by Congress, back in 1970. Second, the Clean Air Act was passed by Congress, extended multiple times by Congress, revised many times by Congress, etc. Third, the U.S. Supreme Court clearly ruled in 2007 that the EPA “can avoid taking further action [on global warming] only if it determines that greenhouse gases do not contribute to climate change or if it provides some reasonable explanation.” Finally, the U.S. Senate has utterly failed in its duty to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, per the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision, the overwhelming scientific evidence, etc. In 2009, recall that the U.S. House of Representatives passed a comprehensive, clean energy and climate law.
The U.S. Senate, of which Jim Webb was and is a part, then did what it usually does – nothing. Clearly, that is where the failure lies, in the U.S. Senate, not with the Executive Branch — or the Judicial Branch, for that matter. Frankly, at this point, the U.S. Senate has made it abundantly clear that it has zero ability to tackle this issue.
So, here’s my message to Sen. Webb and to the rest of his “scorpions in a bottle” — as he calls them — in the Senate: on clean energy and climate change, either lead, follow, or get the heck out of the way!
Cross-posted from Blue Virginia, where Webb’s anti-EPA press release can be read.
Our guest blogger is Lowell Feld, the editor of Blue Virginia.
Yesterday afternoon, Sen. Jim Webb’s office put out a press release (see the full release at Blue Virginia) calling for a vote on the “Rockefeller Amendment to Delay EPA Greenhouse Gas Regulations.” Needless to say, I strongly disagree with Jim Webb that any delay in taking aggressive, comprehensive action on clean energy and climate change makes any sense whatsoever. There are three main reasons we need to act immediately, not delay a minute longer:
One: The scientific evidence of dangerous, man-made climate change is crystal clear and voluminous, as is the overwhelming consensus among climate scientists that we need to act urgently – as in, this is a planetary environmental emergency – to slash greenhouse gas emissions now;
Two: Our national security depends heavily on a rapid move off of our oil addiction, which means first and foremost transitioning the U.S. vehicle fleet to far higher efficiency, and also to clean-energy-generated electricity;
Three: Our economic future will be determined in large part on how rapidly we transition off of 19th and 20th century fuels (mainly coal and oil) and into 21st century energy sources (efficiency, wind, solar, wave, geothermal, next-generation biofuels).
Frankly, none of that should be remotely controversial. The vast majority of people who aren’t in the pocket of the fossil fuel industry – or snookered by the constant barrage of Big Lie propaganda that industry puts out — see the Chevron “Human Energy” campaign or “Energy Tomorrow” for a constant stream of lies, half-truths, and distortions — would almost certainly agree with those three points. I know Sen. Mark Warner gets it, because I’ve sat down and discussed these issues with him. As for Jim Webb? Sadly — and it truly is sad for me, as someone who led the “Draft James Webb” effort and who worked for his campaign — it doesn’t seem that he has much if any understanding – or even curiosity to learn – about energy and environmental issues. Yesterday, he actually said the following words:
I am not convinced the Clean Air Act was ever intended to regulate or classify as a dangerous pollutant something as basic and ubiquitous in our atmosphere as carbon dioxide.
Watch it:
That’s bad enough. But for now I just want to focus on a truly egregious distortion and piece of revisionist history from Webb’s press release. According to Sen. Webb, the “sweeping actions that the EPA proposes to undertake clearly overflow the appropriate regulatory banks established by Congress, with the potential to affect every aspect of the American economy.” Webb believes that “[s]uch action represents a significant overreach by the Executive branch.”
That’s so many kinds of wrong it’s hard to know where to start. Just a few points. First off, the EPA’s establishment (by President Nixon) was approved by Congress, back in 1970. Second, the Clean Air Act was passed by Congress, extended multiple times by Congress, revised many times by Congress, etc. Third, the U.S. Supreme Court clearly ruled in 2007 that the EPA “can avoid taking further action [on global warming] only if it determines that greenhouse gases do not contribute to climate change or if it provides some reasonable explanation.” Finally, the U.S. Senate has utterly failed in its duty to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, per the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision, the overwhelming scientific evidence, etc. In 2009, recall that the U.S. House of Representatives passed a comprehensive, clean energy and climate law.
The U.S. Senate, of which Jim Webb was and is a part, then did what it usually does – nothing. Clearly, that is where the failure lies, in the U.S. Senate, not with the Executive Branch — or the Judicial Branch, for that matter. Frankly, at this point, the U.S. Senate has made it abundantly clear that it has zero ability to tackle this issue.
So, here’s my message to Sen. Webb and to the rest of his “scorpions in a bottle” — as he calls them — in the Senate: on clean energy and climate change, either lead, follow, or get the heck out of the way!
Cross-posted from Blue Virginia, where Webb’s anti-EPA press release can be read.
A new study finds that all those aircraft condensation trails you see across the sky may, on any given day, be warming the planet more than all the CO2 emitted by all the planes since the Wright Brothers’ first flew over a century ago.
The study is “Global radiative forcing from contrail cirrus” (subs. req’d) in Nature Climate Change by Ulrike Burkhardt1 and Bernd Kärcher of the DLR German Aerospace Center. That the climate forcing from airplanes is considerably greater than just that of their CO2 emissions has been known a long time.
What this study adds is an analysis of an “important but poorly understood component of this forcing,” namely contrail cirrus—”a type of cloud that consist of young line-shaped contrails and the older irregularly shaped contrails that arise from them.” It turns out that “the radiative forcing associated with contrail cirrus as a whole is about nine times larger than that from line-shaped contrails alone.” On the bright side, “contrail cirrus cause a significant decrease in natural cloudiness, which partly offsets their warming effect.”
Nature CC’s news story has this explanation and satellite images:
Aircraft-engine emissions are mostly composed of carbon dioxide, water vapour, nitrogen oxides, sulphur oxides and aerosol particles. As well as the direct effect that these emissions have on climate, aviation has an added impact induced by the formation of condensation trails (contrails) in the wake of the aircraft. These line-shaped trails are formed by the mixing of hot, moist air coming out of the engine with cold ambient air. When the atmosphere is supersaturated with respect to ice, the line-shaped contrails can spread to form cirrus cloud, which has a warming effect on climate. [Fig. 1, click to enlarge]
The young contrails, which appear as a spring shape and sharp lines in the first image, gradually spread into cirrus clouds, which appear as bright white areas in the lower images. The time of each image and the satellite used to take it are shown in the inset of each frame. Burkhardt and Kärcher used a model that simulates this spreading process to assess the warming effects of contrails and the cirrus clouds that form from them. Their results indicate that so-called spreading contrails cause an order of magnitude more climate warming than the line-shaped contrails alone, and are the largest single climate-forcing agent associated with aviation.
Here are some more details:
Burkhardt and Kärcher developed a process-based model of how contrails form, grow (through the depletion of water vapour in the surrounding air), spread and finally disappear (through mixing and fall-out of the ice crystals). By tracking the fate of contrail and natural cirrus separately, the authors can quantify the radiative forcing from spreading contrails (including young line-shaped contrails), which they estimate to be 38 mW m−2. This can be compared with a radiative forcing of 4 mW m−2 from young contrails alone and 28 mW m−2 from aviation carbon dioxide. Interestingly, spreading-contrail cirrus clouds cause a reduction in natural cirrus, because they modify the water budget in the upper troposphere; however, this reduction in natural cirrus is relatively small (-7 mW m−2).
The lead author Ulrike Burkhardt told Reuters, “You can get rid of contrails very quickly. You can’t get rid of CO2 quickly.” As Nature put it:
Overall, and despite their short lifetime, contrails may have more radiative impact at any one time than all of the aviation-emitted carbon dioxide that has accumulated in the atmosphere since the beginning of commercial aviation. It is important to note, however, that the emitted carbon dioxide would continue to exert a warming influence for much longer than contrails, should all aircraft be grounded indefinitely.
Yes, well, that ain’t gonna happen.
The question arises as to whether changing the flight pattern of aircraft or perhaps their engine technology could ameliorate this problem:
These findings are important, because if the calculations of Burkhardt and Kärcher are correct, they provide a basis to develop mitigation strategies to reduce the impact of aviation on climate. For instance, it has been suggested that flight routes or flight altitudes could be planned and altered in real time to avoid parts of the atmosphere that are supersaturated with respect to ice8, 9. Even though this would help to reduce both young and spreading contrails, such a strategy is likely to lead to an increase in fuel consumption. It would be important to make sure that, given the large difference in atmospheric lifetime of carbon dioxide and contrails, the associated carbon dioxide penalty does not offset in the longer term the gain obtained by avoiding contrail formation10.
The results by Burkhardt and Kärcher might also justify the development of a novel engine concept that seeks to condense a fraction of the water vapour in aircraft emissions in a cooling unit before it leaves the engine11. The condensed water could be vented in the form of large ice crystals or droplets that would fall quickly through the atmosphere. Reducing the content of water vapour in the engine exhaust would make contrail formation less likely.
Certainly this is an important area for continued work.
Russia’s boreal forest – the largest continuous expanse of forest in the world, found in the country’s cold northern regions – is undergoing an accelerating large-scale shift in vegetation types as a result of globally and regionally warming climate. That in turn is creating an even warmer climate in the region, according to a new study….
That’s from the University of Virginia news release for a new Global Change Biology study (abstract here).
Back in 2005, Science published an analysis, “Role of Land-Surface Changes in Arctic Summer Warming,” which explained how reduced snow cover and albedo (reflectivity) in the summertime Arctic landscape, caused by global warming, has added local atmospheric heating “similar in magnitude to the regional heating expected over multiple decades from a doubling of atmospheric CO2” (Science, subs. req’d).
That same Science study warned “Continuation of current trends in shrub and tree expansion could further amplify this atmospheric heating 2-7 times.”
The new study looks at a completely different effect:
The Great Russian forest, which includes much of Siberia, is the size of the contiguous United States. It has experienced significant documented warming over the last several decades. As a result, tree species that are more tolerant of warmer weather are advancing northward at an increasing rate as species that are less tolerant to a warmer climate are declining in number.
“We’ve identified that the boreal forest, particularly in Siberia, is converting from predominantly needle-shedding larch trees to evergreen conifers in response to warming climate,” said the study’s lead author, Jacquelyn Shuman…. “ This will promote additional warming and vegetation change, particularly in areas with low species diversity.”
… “What we’re seeing is a system kicking into overdrive,” said co-author Hank Shugart, a U.Va. professor of environmental sciences. “Warming creates more warming.”
The researchers used a climate model to assess what would happen if evergreens continued to expand their range farther north and larch species declined. The “positive feedback” cycle of warming promoting warming showed an increase of absorbed surface warming. The model takes into account detailed information about tree growth rates, and the results agree with actual field studies documenting changes in cone production and movement of evergreen treelines northward….
The Russian boreal forest sits over a tremendous repository of carbon-rich soil frozen in the permafrost. As the forest changes in species distribution from larch to evergreens, warming of the ground surface would cause decomposition of the soil, releasing huge quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere – possibly as much as 15 percent of the carbon dioxide currently in the atmosphere.
“This is not the scenario one would want to see,” Shugart said. “It potentially would increase warming on a global scale.”
Well, actually, the permafrost permamelt contains a staggering “1.5 trillion tons of frozen carbon, about twice as much carbon as contained in the atmosphere, much of which would be released as methane. Methane is 25 times as potent a heat-trapping gas as CO2 over a 100 year time horizon, but 72 times as potent over 20 years!
Going back to the 2005 Science study, the point is that if you convert a white landscape to a boreal forest, the surface suddenly starts collecting a lot more solar energy. That trend is occurring now, as seen in these two photos from a recent ScienceNews article, “Boreal forests shift north.”
“Upper photo taken in 1962 shows tundra-dominated mountain slope in Siberian Urals. A 2004 photo of the same site, below, shows conifers were setting up dense stand of forest.”
A 2008 study warns that the warming-driven northward march of vegetation poses yet another threat to the tundra. That study, “Frequent Fires in Ancient Shrub Tundra: Implications of Paleorecords for Arctic Environmental Change,” finds:
… greater fire activity will likely accompany temperature-related increases in shrub-dominated tundra predicted for the 21st century and beyond. Increased tundra burning will have broad impacts on physical and biological systems as well as on land-atmosphere interactions in the Arctic, including the potential to release stored organic carbon to the atmosphere.
The concern is not so much the direct emissions from burning tundra. As the article concludes:
… studies of modern tundra fires suggest the possibility for both short- and long-term impacts from increased summer soil temperatures and moisture levels from altered surface albedo and roughness, and the release soil carbon through increased permafrost thaw depths and the consumption of the organic layer.
The image hows just how much the fire changes the albedo (reflectivity) of the tundra landscape.
A new, very conservative study by NOAA and the National Snow and Ice Data Center — which doesn’t even consider these various amplifying feedbacks in the region — finds that that the thawing permafrost feedback will turn the Arctic from a carbon sink to source in the 2020s, releasing 100 billion tons of carbon by 2100.
Again, the people out there who think R&D or an energy quest is going to stop us from multiple catastrophes are deluding themselves and others. We need to start aggressive mitigation now as every major independent study concludes.
Related posts and amplifying feedbacks:
- Science: Second ‘100-year’ Amazon drought in 5 years caused huge CO2 emissions. If this pattern continues, the forest would become a warming source.
- Science: Drought drives decade-long decline in plant growth
- Nature review of 20 years of field studies finds soils emitting more CO2 as planet warms
- Science: Global warming is killing U.S. trees, a dangerous carbon-cycle feedback
- Nature: “Global warming blamed for 40% decline in the ocean’s phytoplankton”: “Microscopic life crucial to the marine food chain is dying out. The consequences could be catastrophic.”
According to a Gallup poll released today, of nine environmental issues, Americans worry the least about global warming.
I’m pretty sure the mainstream media will overlook this survey.
Technorati tags: 
climate change environment global warming weather current events
Hitting bottom.
In its last survey of voter priorities, Gallup found that the least pressing issue on the mind of the electorate was the environment, scoring below race relations in a race for last place. Now, with the Obama administration and Democrats on the Hill preparing to do battle over carbon emissions, Gallup’s latest poll of environmental […]
So says Gallup, anyway:
I think you could divide this table into two parts: the top five, which concern more than 70 percent of Amerricans, are “things that could kill my child now.” The bottom four are “things that could harm my child, or maybe my grandchildren, later.”
Americans find it harder to be concerned about the latter group, even if global warming in particular poses a tremendous threat. But this is one reason it’s difficult to persuade people to act on climate change now: unlike the American health-care system or the war in Iraq or even poisoned drinking water, it’s not obviously killing anyone right now. Increasingly, I’m becoming convinced that the best hope for policies to combat climate change will come through some sort of alliance with deficit hawks.
Newt Gingrich really doesn’t like it when Barack Obama takes his advice. It’s not just true of intervention with Libya — it’s also the case with fighting global warming pollution. In short, Newt was for carbon cap and trade, until Obama became president:
February 15, 2007: “I think if you have mandatory carbon caps combined with a trading system, much like we did with sulfur, and if you have a tax-incentive program for investing in the solutions, that there’s a package there that’s very, very good. And frankly, it’s something I would strongly support.” [Frontline, 2/15/07]
April 4, 2009: “And now, in 2009, instead of making energy cheaper—which would help create jobs and save Americans money—President Obama wants to impose a cap-and-trade regime. Such a plan would have the effect of an across-the-board energy tax on every American. That will make our artificial energy crisis even worse—and raising taxes during a deep economic recession will only accelerate American job losses.” [Newsweek, 4/4/09]
Gingrich’s full record on global warming is a series of epic flip-flops over more than two decades, with his positions mostly coinciding with whether the party holding the presidency is a Republican or a Democrat. Since 1989, when Gingrich supported aggressive climate action against “wasteful fossil fuel use,” until today, as he proposes abolishing the Environmental Protection Agency, the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has risen from 353 ppm to 391 ppm (from 26 percent above pre-industrial levels to 40 percent above), and the five-year global mean temperature anomaly has nearly doubled from 0.3°C to 0.56°C.
FLIP
1989: Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-GA) co-sponsors the ambitious Global Warming Prevention Act (H.R. 1078), which finds that “the Earth’s atmosphere is being changed at an unprecedented rate by pollutants resulting from human activities, inefficient and wasteful fossil fuel use, and the effects of rapid population growth in many regions,” that “global warming imperils human health and well-being” and calls for policies “to reduce world emissions of carbon dioxide by at least 20 percent from 1988 levels by 2000.” The legislation recognizes that global warming is a “major threat to political stability, international security, and economic prosperity.” [H.R. 1078, 6/15/1989]
FLOP
1992: Gingrich calls the environmental proposals in Al Gore’s book Earth in Balance “devastatingly threatening to most American pocketbooks and jobs.” [National Journal, 9/5/92]
1995: Gingrich’s budget shuts down climate action, killing the U.S. Congress Office of Technology Assessment, NASA’s Mission to Planet Earth program, and NOAA global warming research. Carl Sagan asks, “Is it wise to close our eyes to a possibly serious danger to the planetary environment so as not to offend such companies and those members of Congress whose reelection campaigns they support?” [Los Angeles Times, 7/16/95]
1996: At a speech for the Detroit Economic Club, Gingrich mocks “Al Gore’s global warming,” citing “the largest snowstorm in New York City’s history”: “We were in the middle of budget negotiations; the football games were coming up and we noticed on the weather channel that an early symptom of Al Gore’s global warming was coming to the East Coast. And it does make you wonder sometimes, doesn’t it, how theoretical statisticians in the middle of the largest snowstorm in New York City’s history could stand there and say, ‘I don’t care what it’s doing. It’s going to get very hot soon.’” [FDCH Political Transcripts, 1/16/96]
FLIP
1997: As Speaker of the House, Gingrich co-sponsors H. Con. Res. 151, which notes carbon dioxide is a “major greenhouse gas” that comes from “products whose manufacture consumes fossil fuels” and calls on the United States to “manage its public domain national forests to maximize the reduction of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.” [H. Con. Res. 151, 9/10/1997]
2007: Gingrich calls for a cap-and-trade system with tax incentives for clean energy. “I think if you have mandatory carbon caps combined with a trading system, much like we did with sulfur, and if you have a tax-incentive program for investing in the solutions, that there’s a package there that’s very, very good. And frankly, it’s something I would strongly support.” [Frontline, 2/15/07]
In a debate on climate policy with Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), Gingrich says “the evidence is sufficient that we should move towards the most effective possible steps to reduce carbon-loading of the atmosphere,” and that we should “do it urgently.” [ThinkProgress, 4/10/07]
2008: In an advertisement made for Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection, Gingrich sat with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and said that “we do agree our country must take action to address climate change.” [We Campaign, 4/18/08]
FLOP
2008: Defending himself to his conservative base, Gingrich then rejects climate science: “I don’t think that we have conclusive proof of global warming. And I don’t think we have conclusive proof that humans are at the center of it.” [Newt.org, 4/22/08]
In a Washington Post chat, Gingrich rejects a cap-and-trade system, saying it “would lead to corruption, political favoritism, and would have a huge impact on the economy.” He says he supports “tax credits for dramatically reducing carbon emissions.” [Washington Post, 4/17/08]
In a later post, Gingrich says, “I do not know if the climate is warming or not.” He also rejects Warner-Lieberman, a cap-and-trade system with tax incentives for clean energy, as “leftwing”: “I disagree with leftwing solutions like Warner-Lieberman, which ignore the economic and national security implications of their attempts to protect the environment.” [Newt.org, 5/5/08]
“Last week, liberals in Congress voted for the equivalent of a $ 150 billion tax increase,” Gingrich wrote, of a decision to block oil shale development in Colorado. “The answer to high energy prices,” he said, is “so simple it could fit on a bumper sticker: Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less.” [Human Events, 5/20/08]
2009: In his appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference, Gingrich attacks President Obama’s cap-and-trade proposal, claiming the president “mentioned in passing, using code words, so nobody would recognize it, he is for an energy tax.” [C-SPAN, 2/27/09]
In a Newsweek column, Gingrich calls Obama’s cap-and-trade proposal “an across-the-board energy tax on every American.” [Newsweek, 4/4/09]
Gingrich’s 527 organization, American Solutions for Winning the Future (ASWF), launches an anti-cap-and-trade campaign. “I hereby petition Congress to reject any and all legislation (or regulatory action by the EPA) that would enact new energy taxes and/or establish a national cap and trade system for carbon dioxide that would, as President Obama has said, cause electricity and other energy prices to ‘necessarily skyrocket.’” [ASWF, 5/28/09]
2011: Gingrich proposes abolishing the Environmental Protection Agency because of its “attempts to regulate greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, and thereby the entire American economy.” [ThinkProgress, 1/25/11]
Newt Gingrich really doesn’t like it when Barack Obama takes his advice. It’s not just true of intervention with Libya — it’s also the case with fighting global warming pollution. In short, Newt was for carbon cap and trade, until Obama became president:
February 15, 2007: “I think if you have mandatory carbon caps combined with a trading system, much like we did with sulfur, and if you have a tax-incentive program for investing in the solutions, that there’s a package there that’s very, very good. And frankly, it’s something I would strongly support.” [Frontline, 2/15/07]
April 4, 2009: “And now, in 2009, instead of making energy cheaper—which would help create jobs and save Americans money—President Obama wants to impose a cap-and-trade regime. Such a plan would have the effect of an across-the-board energy tax on every American. That will make our artificial energy crisis even worse—and raising taxes during a deep economic recession will only accelerate American job losses.” [Newsweek, 4/4/09]
Gingrich’s full record on global warming is actually a series of epic flip-flops over more than two decades, with his positions mostly coinciding with whether the party holding the presidency is a Republican or a Democrat. Since 1989, when Gingrich supported aggressive climate action against “wasteful fossil fuel use,” until today, as he proposes abolishing the Environmental Protection Agency, the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has risen from 353 ppm to 391 ppm (from 26 percent above pre-industrial levels to 40 percent above), and the five-year global mean temperature anomaly has nearly doubled from 0.3°C to 0.56°C.
FLIP
1989: Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-GA) co-sponsors the ambitious Global Warming Prevention Act (H.R. 1078), which finds that “the Earth’s atmosphere is being changed at an unprecedented rate by pollutants resulting from human activities, inefficient and wasteful fossil fuel use, and the effects of rapid population growth in many regions,” that “global warming imperils human health and well-being” and calls for policies “to reduce world emissions of carbon dioxide by at least 20 percent from 1988 levels by 2000.” The legislation recognizes that global warming is a “major threat to political stability, international security, and economic prosperity.” [H.R. 1078, 2/22/1989]
FLOP
1992: Gingrich calls the environmental proposals in Al Gore’s book Earth in Balance “devastatingly threatening to most American pocketbooks and jobs.” [National Journal, 9/5/92]
1995: Gingrich’s budget shuts down climate action, killing the U.S. Congress Office of Technology Assessment, NASA’s Mission to Planet Earth program, and NOAA global warming research. Carl Sagan asks, “Is it wise to close our eyes to a possibly serious danger to the planetary environment so as not to offend such companies and those members of Congress whose reelection campaigns they support?” [Los Angeles Times, 7/16/95]
1996: At a speech for the Detroit Economic Club, Gingrich mocks “Al Gore’s global warming,” citing “the largest snowstorm in New York City’s history”: “We were in the middle of budget negotiations; the football games were coming up and we noticed on the weather channel that an early symptom of Al Gore’s global warming was coming to the East Coast. And it does make you wonder sometimes, doesn’t it, how theoretical statisticians in the middle of the largest snowstorm in New York City’s history could stand there and say, ‘I don’t care what it’s doing. It’s going to get very hot soon.’” [FDCH Political Transcripts, 1/16/96]
FLIP
1997: As Speaker of the House, Gingrich co-sponsors H. Con. Res. 151, which notes carbon dioxide is a “major greenhouse gas” that comes from “products whose manufacture consumes fossil fuels” and calls on the United States to “manage its public domain national forests to maximize the reduction of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.” [H. Con. Res. 151, 9/10/1997]
2007: Gingrich calls for a cap-and-trade system with tax incentives for clean energy. “I think if you have mandatory carbon caps combined with a trading system, much like we did with sulfur, and if you have a tax-incentive program for investing in the solutions, that there’s a package there that’s very, very good. And frankly, it’s something I would strongly support.” [Frontline, 2/15/07]
In a debate on climate policy with Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), Gingrich says “the evidence is sufficient that we should move towards the most effective possible steps to reduce carbon-loading of the atmosphere,” and that we should “do it urgently.” [ThinkProgress, 4/10/07]
2008: In an advertisement made for Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection, Gingrich sat with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and said that “we do agree our country must take action to address climate change.” [We Campaign, 4/18/08]
FLOP
2008: Defending himself to his conservative base, Gingrich then rejects climate science: “I don’t think that we have conclusive proof of global warming. And I don’t think we have conclusive proof that humans are at the center of it.” [Newt.org, 4/22/08]
In a Washington Post chat, Gingrich rejects a cap-and-trade system, saying it “would lead to corruption, political favoritism, and would have a huge impact on the economy.” He says he supports “tax credits for dramatically reducing carbon emissions.” [Washington Post, 4/17/08]
In a later post, Gingrich says, “I do not know if the climate is warming or not.” He also rejects Warner-Lieberman, a cap-and-trade system with tax incentives for clean energy, as “leftwing”: “I disagree with leftwing solutions like Warner-Lieberman, which ignore the economic and national security implications of their attempts to protect the environment.” [Newt.org, 5/5/08]
“Last week, liberals in Congress voted for the equivalent of a $ 150 billion tax increase,” Gingrich wrote, of a decision to block oil shale development in Colorado. “The answer to high energy prices,” he said, is “so simple it could fit on a bumper sticker: Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less.” [Human Events, 5/20/08]
2009: In his appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference, Gingrich attacks President Obama’s cap-and-trade proposal, claiming the president “mentioned in passing, using code words, so nobody would recognize it, he is for an energy tax.” [C-SPAN, 2/27/09]
In a Newsweek column, Gingrich calls Obama’s cap-and-trade proposal “an across-the-board energy tax on every American.” [Newsweek, 4/4/09]
Gingrich’s 527 organization, American Solutions for Winning the Future (ASWF), launches an anti-cap-and-trade campaign. “I hereby petition Congress to reject any and all legislation (or regulatory action by the EPA) that would enact new energy taxes and/or establish a national cap and trade system for carbon dioxide that would, as President Obama has said, cause electricity and other energy prices to ‘necessarily skyrocket.’” [ASWF, 5/28/09]
Gingrich proposes abolishing the Environmental Protection Agency because of its “attempts to regulate greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, and thereby the entire American economy.” [ThinkProgress, 1/25/11]
Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), who revealed Thursday plans to run for president, is no run-of-the-mill global warming denier. Rather, she is what one might call a climate fantasist, tinged with an element of evangelical certitude, with a side of word salad. On the House floor on Earth Day, April 22, 2009, Bachmann argued that the threat of manmade global warming doesn’t make any sense because “carbon dioxide is a natural byproduct of nature“:
Carbon dioxide, Mister Speaker, is a natural byproduct of nature. Carbon dioxide is natural. It occurs in Earth. It is a part of the regular lifecycle of Earth. In fact, life on planet Earth can’t even exist without carbon dioxide. So necessary is it to human life, to animal life, to plant life, to the oceans, to the vegetation that’s on the Earth, to the, to the fowl that — that flies in the air, we need to have carbon dioxide as part of the fundamental lifecycle of Earth.
Her speech only gets better from there.
Watch it:
Rep. Blumenauer (D-OR), later in the evening, demolished Bachmann for “making things up on the floor of the House.”
Full transcript at the original 2009 Wonk Room post.
Now that Tim Pawlenty has announced that he has formed a presidential exploratory committee, it is time to start looking at his conservative credentials. Overall, he would appear to be a great candidate. But, there is one problem I see
A video created by a Democratic state legislator in Minnesota captures Tim Pawlenty, the former Republican governor and a 2012 presidential candidate, repeatedly calling for a cap-and-trade program for carbon dioxide emissions to fight climate change. The video was aired during a hearing on a Republican bill to lift restrictions on coal-fired power plants. Mr. Pawlenty now describes his past support for cap-and-trade as “stupid.” [MinnPost]
Here’s what T-Paw had to say
“As to cap and trade, almost everybody who’s run has got the same problem,” Pawlenty said last month during the Conservative Political Action Committee conference in Washington. “If you look under the hood, you’ll see that I, like everybody else potentially running, looked at it, flirted with it and then decided it was a bad idea.”
“So have I changed by position? Yes,” Pawlenty said at CPAC. “But I’m not going to be cute about it, hem and haw, be dippy and dancy about it. Just saying yeah, it was a mistake, it was stupid. It was wrong.”
I’ll give him points for honesty in saying he was wrong, but, is this something he truly believes? Or, is it just something he is saying to placate the Conservative base? He has some questions to answer
- Have you truly changed your position on cap and trade, along with the climate change hoax?
- Will you state specifically that you will forswear from pushing cap and change legislation and/or signing cap and tax legislation?
- What is your position on anthropogenic global warming?
Feel free to chime in with some questions of your own.
Boy, them Googlers Act Fast.
Climate ’skeptic’ website ICECAP posted this item noting Google’s latest gambit in global warming activism, which includes bringing on board as an advisor an academic whose name and address pop up with some frequency in the ClimateGate emails.
Apparently in response, Google has flagged ICECAP’s website with this warning, discouraging traffic:
ICECAP host Joe D’Aleo, the first meteorologist at the Weather Channel before that operation sold out to the alarmist industry, brought this to my attention and assures me this warning was not the case until now. He also attests that the site is not compromised. We just have a co-incidence of challenge followed by inaccuracy, is all.
So not only are the Google crowd global warming rent-seekers looking to rob Peter (you, the taxpayer and ratepayer) to pay their Paul, they are activists who fit in very well with their chosen crowd.
One more good reason to go elsewhere for your searching.
It’s probably the fault of climate alarmists James Cameron and Al Gore, who took unnecessary fossil fueled flights to Latin America. Anyhow, there’s a new study out
More and more brown bears are embracing the single life — at least that’s according to an extensive, decades-long study of the animals in Alaska’s Kodiak wilderness. Researchers have observed a dramatic change in the bears’ relationship statuses in recent years, warning that shifts in seasonal patterns may be behind this new-found unwillingness to settle down and give their parents some darn grandcubs already.
Biologist Bill Leacock of the Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge recently presented the findings from the longest-running bear survey of its kind, and it would appear that traditional couplings are falling out of fashion in the world of brown bear relationships. “So, we’re seeing a lot less family groups,” he said. “Whether this is a long-term trend or not, we don’t know yet.”
Obviously, it’s all globull warming
Climate change has already been linked to anomalies in seasonal changes, which, in turn, have had recorded impact on plant, bird, and insect species throughout the world. For some animals, like bears, shifts in seasonal triggers could throw off the balance our their hibernation patterns and ultimately their mating habits — meaning more bears stay single and less cubs are born.
Ah, but, is it globull warming, or something else?
Leacock notes that changes in seasonal patterns, namely the late arrival of Spring, may be contributing to the shift in bear behavior — but further study may be required to better assess the trend.
See, it’s all about greenhouse gases making the world warmer and …….. wait, what? The late arrival of Spring? Doesn’t that mean that the Alaskan winter is lasting longer than it used to, ie, frickin’ cold?
