Michaelyya/contrarian-claims huggingface dataset:
The answer is as simple as not interfering with the historical and still-ongoing increase in the atmosphere's CO 2 concentration, since this latter phenomenon dramatically increases the water use efficiencies of essentially all agricultural crops -- see Water Use Efficiency (Agricultural Species) in our Subject Index -- thereby enabling farmers to produce ever-increasing quantities of the vast array of grains, fruits and vegetables, as well as animal feed crops, upon which the inhabitants of all nations of the earth ultimately depend for their sustenance, all of which can be accomplished without the need to extract ever greater quantities of ever-more-difficult-to-obtain water from earth's soils.
Typically, a doubling of the airs CO2 content above present-day concentrations raises the productivity of most herbaceous plants by about one-third; this positive response occurs in plants that utilize all three of the major biochemical pathways of photosynthesis.
Regardless of atmospheric oxygen concentration, shoots of both mint and thyme exposed to elevated CO 2 produced substantially more biomass than shoots grown at 350 ppm CO 2 . At an ambient O 2 concentration of 21%, for example, CO 2 -enriched shoots of mint and thyme attained fresh weights that were 3.1- and 5.8-fold greater, respectively, than those reached by shoots exposed to ambient O 2 and CO 2 concentrations. What it means
LaDeau and Clark determined that "carbon dioxide enrichment affected mean cone production both through early maturation and increased fecundity," so that "trees in the elevated CO 2 plots produced twice as many cones between 1998 and 2004 as trees in the ambient plots." They also report finding that trees grown in elevated CO 2 "made the transition to reproductive maturation at smaller diameters," and that they "not only reached reproductive maturation at smaller diameters, but also at younger ages." By 2004, for example, they say that "roughly 50% of ambient trees and 75% of fumigated trees produced cones." In addition, they observed that "22% of the trees in high CO 2 produced between 40 and 100 cones during the study, compared with only 9% of ambient trees." What it means
The four researchers report that their data indicated that for both maize and grain sorghum, there was a "maintenance of relatively high canopy photosynthetic rates in the face of decreased transpiration rates resulted in enhanced water use efficiency when these plants were grown at elevated CO 2 of 720 ppm, but not at 360 ppm." And as a result, they demonstrated that "both plants maintained growth better at double-ambient CO 2 than their counterparts at ambient CO 2 in the presence of drought," such that reductions in total above-ground biomass due to drought were 42% for maize and 36% for sorghum at ambient CO 2 , but only 18% for maize and 14% for sorghum at double-ambient CO 2 .
But such infinitesimal estimates of averted global warming would only apply, of course, if Kyoto's signatories actually complied with its provisions. They are finding it virtually impossible to even do that.
36: Wind and solar are unreliable. 37: They can only replace a small fraction of our energy need. 38: Todays economy runs on inexpensive energy. 39: To grow the economy we will need to use fossil fuels to generate extra wealth. 40: We will need to burn more fossil fuels to find replacements for fossil fuels.
The economics also work against a major transformation in the technology of producing power, either mobile or stationary. Coal is cheap. Natural gas is becoming even cheaper, but its carbon emissions, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, are still half those of coal and three-quarters those of gasoline per unit of energy produced. Although a switch to natural gas for many power uses would help, and accounts for recent drops in U.S. emissions, it cannot change the carbon arithmetic enough to prevent the world from exceeding "safe" levels.
Coal remains the lowest-cost fuel for electric generation and remains the mainstay of base load power in the U.S. and many countries. Access to affordable energy is essential in the U.S. at a time when 48 million Americans live in poverty and a record 115 million qualify for energy assistance. China and India will not forego low-cost coal for base load power in favor of high-cost, non-dispatchable electric generation from renewable energy sources.
Sprawling wind and solar installations and transmission lines across millions of acres of wildlife and scenic areas will kill millions of eagles, hawks, and other birds and bats.
What's often ignored is that the creation of green jobs through subsidies and regulation inherently leads to the destruction of job opportunities in other industries. That's because any resource forcibly taken out of one sector and politically allocated in favor of renewable energy cannot be invested elsewhere. In our country, green energies are subsidized through a premium that every electricity consumer pays on his electricity bill (about 4.3% of the average bill). That helps to make Italy's electricity costs among the most expensive in Europe. In particular, big industrial consumers pay the most for electricity in Europe (at least 25% above the EU average in 2008, according to Italy's energy regulator).
In 2012 Germans paid 20 billion for green energy that otherwise could have been produced for about 3 billion. The extra cost is because of green subsidies that will have almost no effect on Global Warming even a 100 years from now. If all that money was spent on energy research instead, Germany would actually help solve Global Warming.
Biomass is a fancy name for plant material and vegetable trash which, if maintained in/on the soil, will provide the fertility for the next crop. Burning it reduces the humus that maintains fertile soil. The ultimate biomass stupidity is to harvest American forests, pelletise them, dry them and ship them across the Atlantic (all using hydrocarbon fuels) to burn in a UK power station. Burning biomass produces the same emission gases as coal.
Stabilizing or even reducing global concentrations of GHGs will require two closely related actions: research and development to create new technologies that are more energy-efficient than those now used in developed countries; and effective action to spread these technologies to developing nations. Until these new technologies are available, significant savings in energy use and carbon emissions could be achieved by transferring current Western technology to developing countries. These actions will not merely reduce global emissions, but will also improve living standards and hope for the future in developing countries.
???By not enforcing , the administration provides little incentive for companies to build wind farms where there are fewer birds. And while companies already operating turbines are supposed to avoid killing birds, in reality there??s little they can do once the windmills are spinning.??
Approve the Keystone XL pipeline and streamline energy infrastructure projects. The next Administration's easiest decision may be to approve the Keystone XL pipeline. Keystone XL is environmentally responsible, will not contribute significantly to climate change, will boost the economy, will increase the supply of oil to America's Gulf Coast refineries, and will provide much needed energy infrastructure. Further, the recent growth in domestic oil and gas productionsometimes in nontraditional areas, such as North Dakotahas resulted in transportation delays. Streamlining the environmental review and permitting processes for new pipelines and grid investments is a welcome step for managing new supplies. However, taxpayers should not subsidize those investments, and Congress should eliminate any federally imposed cost-socialization requirements through which regulatory agencies support expensive, uneconomic projects by spreading the costs to citizens who derive little, if any, benefit from those projects. Additionally, Congress should be mindful of protecting private property rights and respect the state authority to control local and regional needs.
Senator Harry Reid says he may still try to pass even a minimalist renewable energy bill in the Senate, and then use it to ram through an economy-disrupting climate bill during a lame duck session, if even by a single vote. That would make the United States the only country to enact draconian climate and energy rules in the midst of a recession sending millions of jobs overseas, where energy prices and regulatory regimes are more hospitable and governments believe people have a right to better lives.
Besides, should there be any real surprise that the plant isnt likely to be any budget bargain? After all, wasnt that the whole idea all alongrun up the cost of fossil energy so high that it would even begin to make subsidies for stratospherically costly and unreliable wind and solar boondoggles appear competitive? Isnt that what cap-and-trade was all about?
We at CFACT hope President Obama and the Congress will make the full journey towards energy realism and concede that we can't run our country on subsidies and technologies that feel good, but don't meaningfully produce the energy needed to fuel our economy. So far the climate and energy proposals being floated in Congress have been all pain, no gain. Cap and trade, offsets, and subsidies will enrich a few carbon profiteers, but do nothing to secure our energy future, nor meaningfully affect our climate.
Lyons told me: "The biggest issue facing utilities is the closure of 300 coal-fueled power plants. This represents tens of thousands of jobs in the coal mining industry and billions of dollars of revenues for local, state and federal government." There are no plans to effectively replace the comparatively cheap electricity. Progressive thought leaders Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhous state: "Energy poverty causes more harm to the poor than global warming" and cheap energy "makes the poor vastly less vulnerable to climate impacts."
The American people deserve better. The nations existing coal, natural gas and nuclear power plants could continue to deliver reliable and affordable electricity for decades to come, if not for the EPAs costly and disruptive climate agenda.
Section III challenges the economic basis of AB 1493 and ARB's regulatory proposal. AB 1493 fails a reasonable cost-effectiveness test in two ways. First, even if the theory of catastrophic global warming were true, the emissions reductions achieved by AB 1493 would make no detectable difference in global temperature trends over the next 50 years. As environmental policy, AB 1493 is all cost for no benefit. Second, AB 1493 will raise the sticker price of new cars more than it will lower operating expenses for most consumers.
Given the manifest reluctance of the worlds big emitters to accept any legally binding carbon targets and in face of our deepening economic crisis, Europe should undertake a comprehensive review of its economically damaging carbon targets and in the absence of an international agreement should consider the suspension of all unilateral climate policies that threaten Europes economic recovery. Benny Peiser, National Post, 25 November 2011
At least the Government admits for the first time that the wind doesn?t always blow; so it proposes a Capacity Mechanism to subsidise the building of dozens of gas-fired power stations, to be kept running all the time, emitting CO2, just to provide instant back-up for when the wind drops. More than once on these recent cold, windless days, the contribution of wind to our electricity needs has been as low as 0.1 per cent ? so the back-up to all those turbines will cost billions more, doing much to negate any CO2 savings from the turbines when they work.
To summarize, industrialized countries indeed have a historical responsibility for industrialization. But industrialization has been a net boon to humanity not only for industrialized countries but developing countries as well. The real problem may well not be climate change but ill-considered climate change policies that would use crops for energy production thereby increasing hunger, poverty, and the threat to biodiversity.
Most plants will not grow without energy from the sun. Solar arrays steal energy directly from the biosphere. Some incoming solar energy is reflected to space by the panels, some is converted to waste heat on the panels, and some is converted to electricity much of which ends up as waste heat. Solar radiation that could have given energy to growing plants is largely returned to the atmosphere as waste heat and much is then lost to space.
Kerry and Graham support a border tax to protect American jobs from products produced in countries that don??t commit to reducing their emissions. That is an admission that energy prices are going to go up and so are the prices of goods and services that are produced with or use energy. Consumers will be poorer as a result and hence will be able to afford fewer goods and services. Bye-bye manufacturing jobs. They also claim that their as-yet-to-be-written bill will reduce our imports of foreign oil. That??s plausible, but not exactly correct. As our economy declines, we will need less oil. But it will reduce U. S. and Canadian production first because the production costs are much higher here than in Saudi Arabia.
To wit, that a) gasoline prices are beyond his control, but b) to the extent oil and gas production is rising in America, his energy policies deserve all the credit, and c) higher prices are one more reason to raise taxes on oil and gas drillers while handing even more subsidies to his friends in green energy. Where to begin?
First, energy efficiency through legislation is a Trojan Horse for the green goal of energy rationing.
But the real stakes are much higher. They are the businesses, jobs, families, living standards and liberties that will be increasingly threatened if President Obama, EPA, Big Green and the United Nations remain free to impose their climate and energy agenda. Responsible governors, state legislators and members of Congress must get involved, block these actions, and roll back the destructive policies.
Their goal is to end the hydrocarbon and nuclear era in America, and force us to convert to "renewable" energy. Beginning January 2, they plan to ignore clear voter mandates and consumer needs and use regulations and executive edicts to slash carbon dioxide emissions, impose "clean energy standards," halt onshore and offshore drilling, and hobble the vehicles, electrical generating plants and factories that are the backbone of our nation's economy, jobs and living standards.
As IPCC leaders have explained, the climate change agenda is no longer about the environment. It is now about intentionally transforming the global economy and negotiating the redistribution of the worlds wealth and natural resources, in the name of social justice and equal distribution of misery.
Regulation of markets and government subsidies to promote corn to ethanol conversion have distorted the existing economic allocation by diverting food to energy use. This raised equilibrium prices, increased energy supply by a small fraction (US corn ethanol accounted for less than 1% of US energy consumption in 2009 and reduced grain for food by a much larger one (US corn used for ethanol production is 4.3% of the total world grain production, even after allowing for the feed byproduct.
Taxes on energy use or on carbon emissions could raise California's electricity bill from $2.6 billion to $10.4 billion, an increase of 12.5 to 50 percent. A tax on motor fuels of $.50 per gallon would add at least $7.7 billion to California's annual driving costs, a 40 percent increase; and a $1.00 tax would add $15.4 billion, an 80 percent increase. A BTU tax on natural gas, oil and coal of $.60 would add 6.1 percent to California's energy costs and a $1.00 BTU tax would increase annual costs by 10.6 percent.
NADA Chairman Bill Underriner doesnt agree with EPAs argument for higher fuel efficiency standards: This increase shuts almost 7 million people out of the new car market entirely and prevents many millions more from being able to afford new vehicles that meet their needs.
The world stands on the verge of committing itself to limits on the emission of carbon dioxide that would drastically reduce the use of fossil fuels. If this fateful decision is made, the economies of developed nations will be strangled. Human prosperity will be reduced. Our ability to solve pressing problems, both human and environmental, will be severely limited. We have been told that these shackles must be imposed to forestall a hypothetical global warming projected to occur some time in the distant future. But to date the only unambiguous evidence for planetary warming is a modest rise in temperature (less than one degree Celsius) that falls well within the range of natural variation.
and since the cost of AB 32 (direct & indirect) is at least $116 Billion, the cost to "avoid global warming" per 1 C would be $116,000,000,000/.000087429 = $1,326,790,881,744,043 ($1.3 Quadrillion per degree). Note: Global GDP (61.1 trillion) is less than 5% of this amount. Looks like the cost/(assumed benefits) ratio is rather high, even if you are a true believer.
If, asalmost certainly would happen, the mandates compeldifferent actions and investments than industry would otherwise undertake to meetthe cap,then the same emission reductions would be achieved athigher cost.Thetargeted mandates and incentivescan only substitute more costly GHG cuts for those that could have been made at lower cost.
Further, most other programs to create jobs create the jobs much more cheaply, without the knock-on effect of higher energy costs requiring schemes to mitigate the impact on seniors and the poor. Tahtis to say, paying workers to dig ditches and fill them up again is less economically harmful ??? that is, more wise ??? than green jobs schemes.
- Low-cost, coal-fired electric power is vital to the jobs, incomes, and health of millions of Americans. Complete elimination of coal-fired power by Kyoto-style regulation could reduce household income by as much as $225 billion in 2010, and induce 14,000 to 25,000 premature adult deaths, especially among minorities and the poor.
What it conspicuously fails to do, however, is to make any assessment of the unequivocally adverse economic impact of the decarbonisation policy it continues to advocate, which (if implemented) would be far worse than any adverse impact from global warming.
United Kingdom manufacturers say "green energy" policies and increased penalties for using fossil fuels are raising their costs to intolerable levels, especially for energy-intensive industries. Manufacturing is "reaching a tipping point," they say, "where companies that are internationally mobile will say "enough is enough,'" and simply move to Asia. Millions of jobs are on the line.
Recent studies on Spain , Germany , and Denmark suggest that, in fact, RES subsidies destroy, not create, jobs a remarkable result, since these three countries are widely regarded as the most successful models in Europe. The U.S. Congressional Budget Office found similar results.
Climate experts tell us that a 1930s style global economic depression is needed to stabilize the climate.
One in five people in the UK still live in poverty, often without enough money to heat their homes or to eat healthily. The new report shows that the poorest people in the UK will be most affected by the effects of climate change. They tend to live in poorer housing, have poorer health, less access to home insurance, and less money to adapt to price rises. Their situation could be worsened by measures to combat climate change such as higher taxation on fossil fuels.
The CO2 emissions per capita are nearly proportional to the GDP per capita - but no one cares about this particular number, anyway. Costa Rica has something like 2 tons of CO2 per capita and year while the Netherlands has 23 tons or so. If you reduce your emissions to 1/10, your wealth will drop to 1/5 or so, which is about 0.7th power of 1/10.
States' CO2 "Nuisance' Suit Threatens Already-Staggering Economy
Furthermore, to demand a "global" solution is tantamount to asking poor countries to commit economic suicide. Such rhetoric reinforces the perception, tirelessly promoted by greenhouse lobbyists, that Kyoto foes are motivated solely by greed. Worse, those who attack Kyoto as a trade bonanza for developing countries can only encourage such nations to make whatever symbolic or token "commitments" it takes to keep Kyoto alive.
Europe must invest ???2.9tn to meet 2020 emissions goal ( other sources ) the EU commitments to reduce the carbonization of the economy before the year 2020 will cost a staggering ???2.9 trillion which is $3.9 trillion.
"The Tailoring Rule is an illegal solution to an administrative nightmare of EPA's own making," said Lewis. "Having failed to get Congress to enact cap-and-trade, the Obama Administration is using the Clean Air Act to achieve the same results: higher energy prices, lower economic growth, and jobs shipped overseas," said Myron Ebell, Director of CEI's Center for Energy and Environment.
Obama adviser Martin Feldstein notes that "the Congressional Budget Office recently estimated that the resulting increases in consumer prices" from capping the amount of carbon dioxide energy users can emit "would raise the cost of living of a typical household by $1,600 a year," a figure that "would rise significantly" from year to year.
The Supreme Court ruling was an important victory for those of us concerned about the burdensome costs of EPAs regulatory agenda, but it came too latethe damage from MATS is already done. However, there is still time to save Americans from the harmful impacts of EPAs so-called Clean Power Plan. State policymakers like you must protect American families by rejecting policies that make electricity more expensive and less reliable. Without your help, unlawful regulationseven if struck down in courtwill shackle American families with higher costs for decades to come.
A State Global Warming Policy Could Destroy the Economy
Taylor argues that the early numbers from a joint federal-provincial group analyzing the potential economic impact of Kyoto show the costs to be unacceptable. He told the National Post (March 28, 2002), "My understanding is that the numbers that will come out of that process will be higher than Ottawa has expected and so looking outside that process now at other studies to see what they can find."
These hundreds of billions are being paid by ordinary families and small and medium-sized businesses in what is undoubtedly one of the biggest wealth transfers from poor to rich in modern European history. Rising energy bills are dampening consumers? spending, a poisonous development for a Continent struggling with a severe economic and financial crisis.
No such green hijacking is going to take place in Canada, at least not without an official fight. On the eve of hearings, which begin Tuesday in Kitimat, B.C., into the $5.5-billion Northern Gateway pipeline to carry the same oil sands production from Alberta to the West Coast and on to China the Harper government clearly aims to do what Barack Obama cannot or will not do in America, namely stand up to the growth-killing professional green movement. (Financial Post)
President Obama took it all back and now offers the possibility of a little bit of offshore exploration and calls it a compromise. His purpose is clearly to draw moderate support in the Congress for global warming legislation that will raise energy prices for consumers and industry. The Republican staff of the House Natural Resources Committee have provided a useful analysis that includes some very revealing maps. My comments are here .
YouTube - Obama Poised to Cede US Sovereignty, Claims British Lord On October 14, Lord Christopher Monckton, a noted climate change expert, gave a presentation at Bethel College in St. Paul, MN in which he issued a dire warning regarding the United Nations Climate Change Treaty which is scheduled to be signed in Copenhagen in December 2009.