The senators claim that because there were some errors included in the IPCC’s 2007 report — for instance, how quickly the Himalayan glaciers might melt — the entire phenomenon of climate change must now be questioned.
I am not a scientist by training, but even I know their reasoning doesn’t hold up. The few errors that have been uncovered in the thousand pages or so of the IPCC report have nothing to do with the science of whether and why climate change is occurring. Instead, those errors are about a few specific projections about what might happen in the future.
Saying we should discard the entire thrust of climate scientist because of a couple of sloppy projections is like saying the concept of evaporation is in doubt because a handful of scientists mistakenly said Lake Mead evaporates faster than we thought.
Senator Inhofe and Barrasso are trying to use this excuse to ignore the IPCC (which stands for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). But it won’t be so easy to get around the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Academy of Sciences, the National Science Foundation, the Pentagon, the National Intelligence Council, the World Health Organization, and the CIA.
Each and every one of these world-class institutions has concluded that climate change is a serious threat.
But let’s face it, people like Inhofe will never be persuaded by scientific argument. Climate denial is an article of faith for them, and I don’t believe in arguing about people’s religion.
But I do argue politics, and on the issues that matter most to Americans right now — jobs, the economy, and security — climate action makes good political sense.
So even if Inhofe’s posturing about the IPCC gives some Senators pause, they can’t ignore the following facts.
Fact: Climate Action Will Create Jobs
Every senator running for reelection this year has one question to answer: where are the jobs? Voters are hungry for opportunities, and a clean energy and climate bill will deliver them.
Clean energy jobs are growing 2.5 times as fast as traditional jobs right now. Indeed, according to economists at the University of California, the climate bill that passed the House of Representatives last June could generate nearly 2 million new jobs.
Why so many opportunities? Clean energy industries require more people than those in the fossil fuel industry. In fact, for every $1 million spent on clean energy, we can create 3 to 4 times as many jobs as if we spent the same amount on fossil fuels.
Some senators have the defeatist attitude that China will capture the clean energy market because of its low wages. In fact, A recent study by the EPIA (for which Barclay’s vetted the data) found that 75 percent of all solar energy jobs are in installation and maintenance and the trend is similar for other clean energy technologies.
You can’t outsource the job of building a wind farm or making an office more energy efficient.
But here is another fact: the only way to get these jobs benefits is to pass a clean energy and climate bill. Without that bill, businesses don’t get the incentive to invest in job-heavy, low-carbon energy sources. And without those jobs, Senators will have a much harder time talking to their voters.
Fact: Climate Action Will Generate Economic Growth
Many economists believe that we need a new engine for growth. We need individuals and companies to invest in something on a massive scale in order to instill confidence and create jobs.
Clean energy and climate solutions fit the bill. Annual investments in the global clean energy market could reach $106 to $230 billion a year in 2020 and as much as $424 billion in 2030. What other sector is offering that kind of growth right now?
But in order to unleash private investment, companies need the right incentives. Peter Darbee, the head of PG&E, wrote in the Capitol Hill newspaper Politico that America’s utilities need about $2 trillion over the next 20 years to modernize electrical infrastructure. But, he said, companies are delaying capital spending because, while they know climate legislation is coming, they don’t know when and they don’t know what it will look like. In the meantime, they are holding onto their cash and postponing job creation.
Darbee urged Congress to pass a climate bill because, he wrote, it will “clear the way for many companies to accelerate near-term investment and job creation. Longer term, it would enhance America’s economic competitiveness and national security.”
Fact: Climate Action Will Strengthen Our National Security
The Christmas bomber put security back on the list of top priorities for many American voters. It was a terrible reminder that distant unrest can wash up on our shores.
And that’s what the Department of Defense is worried about when it comes to climate change. A few weeks ago, the Pentagon released its Quadrennial Defense Review–its official assessment of military risks–and it called climate change a threat to national security that “may spark or exacerbate future conflicts,” and labeled global warming “an accelerant of instability.” The Central Intelligence Agency and the National Intelligence Council came to similar conclusions.
If we stay on our current path –ignoring climate change and continuing to fuel it with our oil addiction–the risks will only grow. Americans spent a record $450 billion on imported oil in 2008–$1,400 for every man, woman, and child in this country. This money was sent overseas to places like Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and Nigeria. Do you think those regimes have our best interests in mind?
Retired Navy Vice Admiral Dennis McGinn explained it like this: “Our growing reliance on fossil fuels jeopardizes our military and affects a huge price tag in dollars and potentially lives… In our judgment, a business-as-usual approach constitutes a threat to our national security.”
A clean energy and climate bill will disarm that threat, protect our servicemen and women, and keep billions of dollars here in America.
Senators Inhofe and Barrasso can argue over the science as much as they want. The scientific community can and will defend the science behind climate change. While they have that debate, there are lots of additional, incredibly important reasons to get started…. So, let’s not wait.
This blog post was originally posted at The Markup
“The Invention of Lying”.
Now as to why I shall never support the CO2 green Nazi party I don’t support global poverty, eugenics or keeping sheeple in the dark about enviornmental problems to create the Bernie Madoff carbon bank. Instead I think the global parasites who run the world have ended it prematurely. Since 1993 the de-industrialization of America in favor of China and India, those two “carbon exempt states, their industrial gold rush has been unprecedented. In the US we have to be enviornmentally responsible while these “developing” countries can dump the green toxic wastes in the river.
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p>It is not that I “deny” the science but I have developed that ability to see the pigs flying in the sky. Nobody is going to fix the enviornment as long as globalist sociopaths run the world. When there is full and complete disclosure on what the five operating HAARP arrays are all about I might think about recycling again.
I want to know all about Welsbach seeding and torsional vortex imaging.
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What recent events have indicated any interest in “our national security”.
We are tazering grandmothers, sitting home collecting unemployment checks and trying to stock up on homeopathic remedies.
Why don’t we just bomb Iran and get on with WWIII.
The climate change deniers are convinced that liberals and their scientists are trying to sneak in social changes through climate change regulation. The tune seems to run a bit like this:
I don’t think providing different reasons to “ban SUVs” is going to appeal to the deniers because their beliefs are about scientists not about science.
Amusingly, of course, the whole Hoax Theory has very little empirical backing. Their skepticism is rather selective, no?
… tell them that global warmin causes teh gay. That’ll light a fire under them.
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p>Oil is a finite resource. There is no choice and no indefinite period in which to make a choice. Personally, I’m rather persuaded that we’re at, or are just passed, peak oil… and the rest is downhill if we remain wedded to it.
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p>The argument can be attempted that the sun, too, is a finite resource… but since the sun occupies 99.85% of the solar system (and Jupiter the bulk of the .15% remaining…) the ratios are against warming slowing down (on its own) before oil runs out.
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p>The other argument regarding national security is that we’re really just looking to continue efforts already underway: we’re not introducing anything new, since a great deal of our navy is nuclear. We just need to keep this thinking going for smaller and smaller scales.
http://video.foxnews.com/v/402…
A TV scientist v. a TV meteorologist, racing through a many hour debate in 5 minutes.
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p>So, let’s recap:
1. Science discussions ought not be that short… not only were they not able to really talk to each other, but they had to ignore/avoid major portions. Furthermore, the amount of chart presented made it impossible to debate each other’s presentation. For example, did you notice the “correlation == .02” portion of the meteorologist’s chart? That is a scientifically dishonest number, and he damn well knows it. Why? Because the range was short (under a decade) even though the data are more plentiful. But, that’s not the big problem. The big problem is that he “just so happened” to choose the years 1998 and 2007… years which were both abberations relative to the trend. 1998 was hotter than 97 and 99; 2007 was cooler than 06 and 08. He cherrypicked 2007 despite having more recent data (that are warmer), and he cherrypicked 1998 because it was warmer than 1999.
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p>Know how when you walk up a wheelchair ramp and there are level spots every 30′ or so? He picked the beginning and the end of the level spot and claimed that there is no warming, despite the fact that the rest of the ramp is pitched upwards. He used scientifically dishonest methods to show what he wants, and because of the format Bill Nye couldn’t possibly refute.
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p>2. Seriously — weather isn’t climate. The meteorologist (Bastardi) has a BS in meteorology. Furthermore, mechanical engineering isn’t climate. Nye has a BS in mechanical engineering. Both are smart guys to be sure, and both have educated themselves on issues beyond their field. But really — neither has an advanced degree in science, no less in a specialty related to climate change.
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p>My point isn’t that they’re right nor wrong — just that they’re not experts in the field. One doesn’t need to be an expert in the field to have a conversation, but this was made for television, not made for science.
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p>3. Oh look! A singleton! There must be parity! Bastardi is a meteorologist who is an outspoken questioner (not denier) of climate change. One meteorologist. One. Presenting one person from each side suggests balance — but the reality is that the more one knows about climate, atmospheric chemistry, geology, and so forth, the more likely that person is to believe in man-induced climate change. That there are a few outliers only proves that this isn’t mathematics, but rather physical science.
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p>So, was that better than some other segments? Yeah. But the bar is awfully low, and this doesn’t clear it by much.
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p>And Bill Nye is…
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You hit the nail on the head. The mainstream media is so cowed by accusations of bias, that they will bend over backwards to show “balance” even when there isn’t any.
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p>97% of climatologists and 82% of earth scientists believe that climate change is real. And yet, watching the news or reading the paper will give you the false impression that there is some sort of “debate” among scientists.
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p>Last week, the Boston Globe quoted Senator Inhofe and Rush Limbaugh alongside a climate-change expert, Joseph Romm, and a meteorologist, Jeff Masters, as if their “opinions” were equivalent. Two guys saying one thing, two guys saying something else means there must be a closely divided debate, right?
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p>A very vocal, yet tiny minority is still a tiny minority.
Green jobs are subsidized by the government costing tax money. Green energy requirements perform as a tax by forcing consumers and businesses to buy energy at a higher cost.
That is the mission of this website and the rest of the liberal left. Take every dollar that the working taxpayer has, and give it to the people who stay at home and game the system. They will only happy when the working people have no money left. And with the deficits this administration is creating, it won’t be long.
About what you just wrote. I think you distorted the evidence to write that.
Everything has a cost. Specifically, everything the government does, or doesn’t do, has a cost, in one form or another; to claim “green jobs have costs” as though that were the only consideration in the equation is absurd.
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p>What matters is, based on our best available information – which is conclusive about the fact of anthropogenic global warming despite some uncertainty of the exact magnitude of every consequence – how do the costs and benefits, in the long, medium and short term, of attempting through various legislation, regulation, taxes, incentives, etc., to deal with that problem compare with the costs and benefits of doing nothing? If you’ve got one, present a legitimate argument that the dangers of doing nothing don’t vastly outweigh the costs of doing something, but don’t just say “there are costs!” as though that settled things, if you’d like to be taken seriously.
Let’s see:
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p>Government built the Erie Canal and alot of the other canals, the transcontinental railroad, the interstate highway system and nearly every other road, the airports, used air mail as a way to jump start the airline industry, and used the oil depletion allowance to subsidize the oil industry. Not to mention running the sewer system so you don’t have to wallow in you own s**t when you flush.
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p>But you’re right gubmint shouldn’t do these kind of things.
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… Last I checked, oil, autos, agriculture and a good portion of our health care infrastructure is subsidized by the government…
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p>So… Um… what’s you’re point?
This post is showing up as gobbledygook in my RSS reader because of an extra quotemark in the link at the bottom: href=”http://www.nrdcactionfund.org/blog/””