One analysis by CRA International estimates the Lieberman-Warner bill will cost $4 to $6 trillion over 40 years. The American Council for Capital Formation has concluded that the legislation’s emissions-swapping scheme would lead to “higher energy prices, lost jobs and reduced [gross domestic product].” During testimony before a House committee, Peter Orszag, director of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), stated that such swapping programs known as “cap-and-trade” would create “windfall” profits – profits that have even been denounced by presidential candidate John Edwards. The CBO has also cautioned that “price increases would disproportionately affect people at the lower end of the income scale.” It is baffling that congressional Democrats, who never cease to spout their populist rhetoric, are ignoring such a clarion call for ensuring economic stability among low and middle-income families. Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan in his new book, “The Age of Turbulence,” described how these programs have unintended effects when he wrote that “[c]ap-and-trade systems or carbon taxes are likely to be popular only until real people lose real jobs as their consequence. There is no effective way to meaningfully reduce emissions without negatively impacting a large part of an economy,” he argued. Democrats in Congress would do well to listen to Mr. Greenspan’s cogent views. The rhetoric surrounding the issue of greenhouse gases has been fraught with emotion rather than reason.
Senate Climate Bill Will Cost Trillions for No Benefit, Says The Washington Times Editorial:
Small island states meeting in the Maldives in the Indian Ocean this week are working on a resolution saying that climate change is a threat to human rights.
Reuters: Is climate change “human rights abuse”?
Nov. 12 (Bloomberg) — American officials are planning to back a new United Nations document that says governments and businesses will have to spend billions of dollars a year to reduce global warming and adapt to its effects.
UN Panel’s Global Warming Report May Win U.S. Support (Update1)
The ocean’s plankton can suck up far more airborne carbon dioxide (CO2) than previously realised, although the marine ecoystem may suffer damage if this happens, a new study into global warming says.
The sea has soaked up nearly half of the CO2 that has been emitted by fossil fuels since the start of the Industrial Revolution.
Global warming: Oceans could absorb far more CO2, says study
Reading about the recent global warming rally at Kincaid Park, I wondered if the participants would be relieved if man’s activities were proved not responsible for Alaska’s warming weather. An intriguing question.
Despite predictions, sky is not falling
The IPCC’s Assessment Report will tell policy-makers what to expect from man-made climate change. It is the result of rigorous and painstaking labour: more than can be said for the other Nobel Prize winner. The difference between Gore’s claims and IPCC research is instructive.
Ignore Al Gore – but not his Nobel friends
By Bjorn Lomborg
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Interesting point. If the sea has absorbed half of all human emissions over the past century, and human emissions have only been in the order of 7Gt CO2 for the past third of a century, then a major portion of the increase in atmospheric CO2 has come from natural sources.
Atmospheric CO2 has been increasing by about 1.2ppm per year over the same period. And 1.2ppm amounts to about 6.25Gt. Therefore, if half of the human emitted 7Gt has been absorbed by oceans then we are left with only 3.5Gt of unabsorbed human emissions that have accumulated in the atmosphere. And this leaves at least 2.75Gt of atmospheric accumulation that have come from other sources.
And when we consider that atmospheric CO2 went up by 3ppm in the ElNino year of 1998 with no compensating reduction the folowing year, while human emissions remained on trend, then the actual non-human contribution to CO2 build up must be even higher. A guesstimate would put it closer to 50%.
The most likely culprit would be the release of cycled oceanic CO2 that was absorbed from high natural emissions in the Medieval Warming and are now returning to the surface, particularly in El Nino years.
So even if CO2 is a real driver of climate change, we have no control over half the accumulation.
This is a worthy addition to the News Roundup.
PASADENA, Calif. – A team of NASA and university scientists has detected an ongoing reversal in Arctic Ocean circulation triggered by atmospheric circulation changes that vary on decade-long time scales. The results suggest not all the large changes seen in Arctic climate in recent years are a result of long-term trends associated with global warming
“Our study confirms many changes seen in upper Arctic Ocean circulation in the 1990s were mostly decadal in nature, rather than trends caused by global warming,…”
Reporting in Geophysical Research Letters, the authors attribute the reversal to a weakened Arctic Oscillation, a major atmospheric circulation pattern in the northern hemisphere. The weakening reduced the salinity of the upper ocean near the North Pole, decreasing its weight and changing its circulation.
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/lookingatearth/ipy-20071113.html
Only just came across it while having a cuppa at work so don’t have time to think much about it and the implications, but what struck me is that timeframes they are talking about seems to relate to PDO cycles. Be interesting to dig deeper into this.
May even be worthwhile for it to be a thread on its own.
cheers
Arnost