The same ethical advice for doctors also makes sense for Congress as it considers several pending global warming bills – first do no harm. Given serious questions about global warming science as well as the efficacy of costly proposals to address it, the best choice for Washington is none of the above. With economy-wide cap and trade stalled in the Senate, a number of slightly scaled back variants have been proposed, including measures targeting selected industries or a carbon tax. All threaten to do more harm than good.
Live At Copenhagen: U.N. Official Admits Copenhagen Conference “is Not a Climate Change Negotiation”
The Heritage Foundation’s Steven Groves and Ben Lieberman are live at the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference reporting from a conservative perspective. Follow their reports on The Foundry and at the Copenhagen Consequences Web site. As the developed and developing worlds continue to spar here in Copenhagen over the terms of a comprehensive climate change treaty, a key United Nations official let the actual truth slip out as to what this conference is really about. Janos Pasztor—the Director of U.N. secretary-general Ban Ki-moon’s Climate Change Support Team—was characterizing the nature of …
The Heritage Foundation’s Steven Groves and Ben Lieberman are live at the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference reporting from a conservative perspective. Follow their reports on The Foundry and at the Copenhagen Consequences Web site. “The story of the day,” Steven Groves reports, is that the developing nations of the world – including China and India – love the 1997 Kyoto Protocol because there are no requirements for them. When they felt that extending Kyoto was not getting the attention it deserved they walked out in protest. Watch:
When it comes global warming, two debates are currently taking place. At the forefront is the political debate. Current legislation introduced by House Democrats Ed Markey and Henry Waxman includes a cap-and-trade plan to attempt to reduce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. But the debate unfortunately (and like most political debates) has largely evolved into each party talking past each other. In fact, even Democrats have been talking past each other, which forced Chairman Waxman to bypass subcommittee markup and moving to full committee to keep the bill moving …
Out of the entire atmospheric makeup, only one to two percent is made up of greenhouse gases with the majority being nitrogen (about 78 percent) and oxygen (about 21 percent). Of that two percent, “planet-killing” carbon dioxide comprises only 3.62 percent while water vapor encompasses 95 percent. And of the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, humans cause only 3.4 percent of annual CO2 emissions. What does this all boil down to? As shown by the accompanying graph, not very much. Indeed, anthropogenic effects are real but carbon is …
