Sparing Change for a Changing Climate

I wanted to provide anyone who is interested with an in-depth and critical look at the Waxman-Markey bill, otherwise known as the Clean Energy and Security Act which passed through the House a week ago. It is important legislation which is worthwhile to understand, as it will impact everyone over the years to come if it is passed through the Senate. Any comments, thoughts, or questions on this bill or climate change are welcome.

Sparing Change for a Changing Climate

By Benjamin Mumma

Lehigh University Class of 2010

The Waxman-Markey Bill

The Waxman-Markey bill, touted as “transformational legislation,” would require the U.S. to reduce emissions of CO² and other gases by 17 percent within the next 10 years and by 80 percent before 2050. Should the bill pass through the Senate, the government will use a "cap and trade" system to regulate the emission of CO². Essentially, the government will issue permits to emit CO², which can then be traded from companies that pollute less to companies that pollute more. The end result should be a level of emissions equal to the "cap" that is set. The main issues in this bill are the effects on the monetary system, and the effects on the climate. So before a judgment is made about this bill, let's look at who pays, who profits, and what happens to the climate as a result.

As with most government policies, U.S. citizens will foot the bill. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that this bill will cost the average household $175 per year, mainly from an increase in the price of carbon based fuels. Due to a series of provisions within the bill, the poorest 20 percent of Americans will actually benefit, making $40 per year due to this bill[1]. In addition to the direct cost to taxpayers, the "cap and trade" system will increase manufacturing costs, and provide incentive for companies to move manufacturing plants overseas to areas with lower energy costs, which would likely result in increased unemployment.

Where does this money go? That should be obvious – to the bureaucracy! According to the same CBO report, the bill would increase federal revenue by $845 billion over the coming decade, with estimated expenditures related to the bill weighing in at $821 billion[2]. There are several interpretations of what this means. One interpretation is the creative New York Times headline that the climate bill "would trim budget deficit." Such an interpretation is accurate if the budgeting assumptions are valid, but also terribly misleading. This bill calls for an increase in spending of $82.1 billion per year. To put that into perspective, the AIG bailout of last August was $85 billion. This bill is essentially another one of those each and every year so that our government can regulate the emission of invisible gases.

Now despite the large costs involved, proponents of the bill claim that the cost is worth the benefit of reducing carbon emissions. According to climate models, CO² emissions are a contributor to climate change which, if continued, will result in a substantial increase in temperature across the globe, leading to other changes in climate directly caused by human activity. These models predict a rise of anywhere from two to nine degrees Celsius over the next century. Similar models predict the impact of the House's climate bill to be a drop of 0.05 degrees Celsius by 2050[3]. Simply put, if these climate models are indeed accurate, then this bill will do virtually nothing to change the warming trend. However, by 2050, this bill will have cost us $3,000,000,000,000 ($3 trillion) to change the global temperature increase from 3 degrees Celsius to 2.95 degrees.

With those facts in mind, let's look now at climate change.

Carbon and the Climate

The theory behind anthropogenic (human-induced) climate change is that CO² emissions are causing a rampant increase in global temperature. Thus far, proponents of this theory have largely succeeded in making the public believe that this is an undisputed fact among the scientific community. The truth is, this scientific hypothesis is disputed by many notable climatologists and other scientists. To name a few:

1. The Polish Academy of Sciences[4] who submitted a letter discussing ten problems with the theory of anthropogenic climate change.

2. Princeton Physicist Dr. William Happer[5], who testified before Senate in February that current climate models are inherently flawed.

3. Ivar Giaever, Norwegian Nobel Prize winner[6].

4. Dr. John Cristy, a lead author of the U.N.'s original IPCC report in 2001[7].

5. Over 700 scientists according to a list provided by the U.S. Government[8].

Clearly, any claims of a scientific consensus on climate change are inaccurate. All of these scientists provide theories of their own regarding human activity and the causes and effects of an increased level of CO² in the atmosphere. It's understandable, since even climate models that predict runaway warming can't agree on its role.

The climate models that do predict global warming provide an estimated increase in temperature of anywhere from two degrees Celsius to nine degrees Celsius by year 2100. These models require hundreds of assumptions to be made - one of them being carbon's role in regulating the climate. As Dr. Happer explains in his senate testimony though, about 90% of the "greenhouse effect" on earth is due to water vapor, not CO². CO² plays a much smaller role, and according to Dr. Happer could at most cause a 1 degree Celsius increase in global temperature. He explains:

"There is little argument in the scientific community that a direct effect of doubling the CO² concentration will be a small increase of the earth’s temperature -- on the order of one degree. Additional increments of CO² will cause relatively less direct warming because we already have so much CO² in the atmosphere that it has blocked most of the infrared radiation that it can."[9]

Dr. Happer continues to explain that models currently used rely on the assumption that small increases in CO² levels will lead to increased levels of water vapor in the atmosphere, causing runaway warming. However, empirical evidence has shown this correlation to close to zero of even negative[10]. By definition, the climate change hypothesis is not something we can prove or disprove at this time, so let’s look at some things we can predict.

Climate in the Real World

Looking to what will actually happen; there are a few things we can know for sure.

1. When the U.S. stops emitting CO², China and India won't. With one third of the world’s population residing in China and India, both countries are going through rapid economic growth. Economic growth is inextricably tied to cheap energy consumption, and hence CO² emissions. China's emissions of CO² have increased at a rate of 11% over the past five years, and are expected to continue at a similar rate[11]. These emissions will counteract any cooling effects the Waxman-Markey bill may have.

2. If the world does get a little too hot, it is actually very cheap and relatively easy to cool Earth down. Geoengineers have already devised methods of cooling earth, some of which involve ejecting particles like sulfates into earth's atmosphere to reflect sunlight[12]. This solution lacks appeal to environmentalists, but the result is that humans would see little effect from any warming that does occur.

3. Interestingly enough, a warmer earth is not even the biggest threat that our climate can offer. In the past, events such as Ice Ages and supervolcanic eruptions have wrecked havoc on humans and animals alike[13]. With such events being inevitable over the course of time, at some point we may want more of a greenhouse effect than we have today. As unpleasant the picture of a world 8 degrees warmer is, a world 8 degrees cooler would be much worse. Ironically, the next ice age was the focus of much climate research and alarmism in the 1970’s, and even now there are scientists who claim that we still are quickly headed for another ice age[14].

Money and How to Waste It

For the sake of clarity, here’s what the Waxman-Markey bill does in real terms:

1. Takes a lot of money from 80% of Americans

2. Gives some of that money to the poorest 20% of Americans.

3. Uses the rest to create a huge government agency that monitors and attempts to regulate the emission of an invisible gas.

4. Creates cost incentives that will drive industry elsewhere, as unemployment continues to rise.

5. All of this is done in hopes that we can cool the planet by a 1/20^th of a degree over 40 years.

Now, it is worth noting that supporters argue that this bill will also work to create a "green industry" here in the United States which would create jobs, and also decrease our dependence of foreign oil. These claims are, to a certain extent, accurate. Proponents argue that these benefits outweigh the price tag of $84 billion per year, lost manufacturing jobs, and higher energy prices. That’s simply silly.

Clean and domestic energy are worthwhile goals, no one can dispute that. But, in typical government fashion, this bill goes about “achieving” those two goals in the most convoluted and inefficient way possible. This huge sum of money - about $12,000 per person - over 40 years shouldn't be taken in the first place. Even if President Obama insists on raising taxes, the $3 Trillion could just be used to directly fund clean energy research and technology. It could be used to build more nuclear power plants to provide cheap and clean electricity. It could be used to just reduce the huge deficit built by President Obama and his predecessor. Instead, this bill is directly transferring wealth from citizen to citizen, and being used to fund yet another massive bureaucracy at the federal level. To cap it all off, it will do essentially nothing to combat any human-induced climate change that exists. No matter what you believe about climate change, this is an opportunity to unite to defeat a bill that will do much more harm than good for this country.

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[1] Steven Mufson, Washington Post, 6/23/2009. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/22/AR2009062202836.html)

[2] Darren Samuelsohn, New York Times, 6/8/2009. (http://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2009/06/08/08climatewire-house-climate-bill-would-trim-budget-deficit-83573.html)

[3] Chip Knappenberger, MasterResource.org, 5/6/2009. (http://masterresource.org/?p=2355)

[4] Kevin Mooney, Washington Examiner, 4/24/2009. (http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/Examiner-Opinion-Zone/Polish-Academy-of-Sciences-Questions-Gores-Man-Made-Global-Warming-Theory-43618922.html)

[5] Dr. William Happer, U.S. Senate Testimony, 2/25/2009. (http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/reprint/happer_senate_testimony.html)

[6] Christina Reed, Nature, 7/15/2008. (http://blogs.nature.com/climatefeedback/2008/07/nobelists_talk_energy.html)

[7] Jon Birger, Fortune Magazine, 5/14/2009. (http://money.cnn.com/2009/05/14/magazines/fortune/globalwarming.fortune/index.htm)

[8] Marc Morano, U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, 12/11/2008. (http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=2674E64F-802A-23AD-490B-BD9FAF4DCDB7)

[9] Dr. William Happer, U.S. Senate Testimony, 2/25/2009. (http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/reprint/happer_senate_testimony.html)

[10] Dr. Roy Spencer, Earth System Science Center, 2/28/2008. (http://www.drroyspencer.com/Spencer-and-Braswell-08.pdf)

[11] Univ. Of California – Berkeley, 3/10/2008. (http://www.physorg.com/news124384270.html)

[12] Jamais Cascio, The Wall Street Journal, 6/15/2009. (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204771304574181522575503150.html)

[13] Suburban Emergency Management Project, 1/11/2005. (http://www.semp.us/publications/biot_reader.php?BiotID=164)

[14] Dr. Zbigniew Jaworowski, 21^st Centure Science and Technology, 7/12/2003. (http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/Articles%202004/Winter2003-4/global_warming.pdf)