The unseemly haste with which cap-and-trade legislation was crammed through the House is due to one factor: the “crisis” is over.
The Wall Street Journal’s Kimberly Strassel explains:
Among the many reasons President Barack Obama and the Democratic majority are so intent on quickly jamming a cap-and-trade system through Congress is because the global warming tide is again shifting. It turns out Al Gore and the United Nations (with an assist from the media), did a little too vociferous a job smearing anyone who disagreed with them as “deniers.” The backlash has brought the scientific debate roaring back to life in Australia, Europe, Japan and even, if less reported, the U.S.
In April, the Polish Academy of Sciences published a document challenging man-made global warming. In the Czech Republic, where President Vaclav Klaus remains a leading skeptic, today only 11% of the population believes humans play a role. In France, President Nicolas Sarkozy wants to tap Claude Allegre to lead the country’s new ministry of industry and innovation. Twenty years ago Mr. Allegre was among the first to trill about man-made global warming, but the geochemist has since recanted. New Zealand last year elected a new government, which immediately suspended the country’s weeks-old cap-and-trade program.
The number of skeptics, far from shrinking, is swelling. Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe now counts more than 700 scientists who disagree with the U.N. — 13 times the number who authored the U.N.’s 2007 climate summary for policymakers. Joanne Simpson, the world’s first woman to receive a Ph.D. in meteorology, expressed relief upon her retirement last year that she was finally free to speak “frankly” of her nonbelief. Dr. Kiminori Itoh, a Japanese environmental physical chemist who contributed to a U.N. climate report, dubs man-made warming “the worst scientific scandal in history.” Norway’s Ivar Giaever, Nobel Prize winner for physics, decries it as the “new religion.” A group of 54 noted physicists, led by Princeton’s Will Happer, is demanding the American Physical Society revise its position that the science is settled. (Both Nature and Science magazines have refused to run the physicists’ open letter.)
The collapse of the “consensus” has been driven by reality. The inconvenient truth is that the earth’s temperatures have flat-lined since 2001, despite growing concentrations of C02. Peer-reviewed research has debunked doomsday scenarios about the polar ice caps, hurricanes, malaria, extinctions, rising oceans. A global financial crisis has politicians taking a harder look at the science that would require them to hamstring their economies to rein in carbon.
Credit for Australia’s own era of renewed enlightenment goes to Dr. Ian Plimer, a well-known Australian geologist. Earlier this year he published “Heaven and Earth,” a damning critique of the “evidence” underpinning man-made global warming. The book is already in its fifth printing. So compelling is it that Paul Sheehan, a noted Australian columnist — and ardent global warming believer — in April humbly pronounced it “an evidence-based attack on conformity and orthodoxy, including my own, and a reminder to respect informed dissent and beware of ideology subverting evidence.” Australian polls have shown a sharp uptick in public skepticism; the press is back to questioning scientific dogma; blogs are having a field day.
Republicans in the U.S. have, in recent years, turned ever more to the cost arguments against climate legislation. That’s made sense in light of the economic crisis. If Speaker Nancy Pelosi fails to push through her bill, it will be because rural and Blue Dog Democrats fret about the economic ramifications. Yet if the rest of the world is any indication, now might be the time for U.S. politicians to re-engage on the science. One thing for sure: They won’t be alone.
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“Beans,beans,the musical fruit/The more you eat,the more you toot…”
Cattle are mainly to blame.They have very inefficient digestive systems,which produce a lot of belching and farting.So the best way to cut down on greenhouse emissions is to eat more beef!
I can live with that….
Then again,vegans fart a lot,too
Adolf Hitler,history’s most vegan did,by all accounts…
Five peat!
The sound of one hand clapping, Capt. Chince.
I know it’s a-dic-a-lous, but I’ll pay any related fees for my stanky fart-ass (what can I say, it’s in the Porvaznik genes) only if I can hot-box Pelosi, Waxman, Sonny’s widow or The Big O. Might be worth it then and they may not even survive the experience. Not proud, just sayin’…
If it passes the Senate I’d be very shocked. But still 8 GOPERS voting yea? GRRRRRRRRR
Even NASA on their website says that “if” there is global warming, it’s not caused by anything mankind or animal life has done. It’s all related to the activity or lack thereof, from the sun. I saw a chart yesterday that shows we are at an all time low now for sunspot activity.
Las Vegas is also (since that’s my closest area on which to report) has been getting cooler over the past decade. Although most of the news sources here will lie and say it’s getting hotter. I’ve been exhaustively doing some local record checking and have found that with little exception, the highest record temps. in southern Nevada were in the 1930s. There have been a few in the 1950s, but very few. When I first moved here almost 25 years ago, the daily summer temps were always up around 115-120 F. In recent years (more than 15 years) the daily temps have been more like 107-115 F. I know that’s pretty hot, but hotter?…NOT!
8 RINOS,Stephanie…almost 40 Dems voted “NAY”,so you can see where the margin of victory came from….
Those 8 Republicans pushed it over the edge.
If they had voted “nay” then the it would not have passed.
Gee Scott no…no I can’t. I mean I am so clueless as to not being able to see how Nazi Pelosi was able to sucker punch this through….Scott I know its shocking but I can count..
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
June 27th, 2009 at 8:44 am ยท Reply
What’s up?
They don’t like Germans Fritz.
All kidding aside, apparently that just happens sometimes. At least that’s what they tell me.
Yes. It’s strange. It usually happens with my first comment of the day. Maybe it’s 3D’s way of telling me to go soak my head.
Write your Senators,then,Stephanie….Boxer and Feinstein
He he
My two toothless redneck hillbilly Senators from Tennessee will be voting “Nay”
Nevada won’t count. We’ve got one nay and one yay.
Um Scott I wish I was as smart as you…….I don’t have California residency. We pay taxes to Florida genius. You were saying?
I don’t think either Senator in Florida will vote yea. Nelson isn’t stupid. And Martinez isn’t either.