Carbon Cap and Trade Promotional Techniques

Edward Felker and Stephen Dinan of The Washington Times reported in the 19-20 June 2009 print edition that the Democratic think tank Third Way recommended that the plan for carbon cap and trade that House Democrats agreed on can not be sold to the taxpayers using the terms "green" jobs and "global warming." Apparently, too many voters have the old fashioned kind of jobs that depend upon energy being affordable and available and many have begun to notice that the temperatures are far from becoming unbearable. Perhaps some have even noticed that they have failed to increase for about a decade now, despite the predictions of the computer models having been quite unanimous that they were going to rise as the CO2 atmospheric concentrations increased. Well the CO2 increased, but the temperatures failed to follow that increase.

Congressman Peterson (D - Minnesota, Agriculture Committee Chairman) has been dickering with Congressmen Waxman (D - California, Energy and Commerce Committe Chairman) and Markey (D - Massachusetts) to change the bill's treatment of farmers and rural cooperative electricity utilities. The Democrats are about ready to push a compromise bill through the House.

So what is Third Way telling the Democrats to do to sell this bill to the people? They say it should be sold as a clean energy bill. This is nonsense in terms of what it is, so hopefully the American people will come to realize this. This bill is designed to reduce CO2 emissions, which it is most likely not going to do in any significant way. This at least is the rationale for the bill. Really, it is more about stealing money from some industries and private individuals and redistributing it to special interests, including many large companies playing the alternative energy game. Third Way says the people want clean energy. But, what on earth does CO2 have to do with dirt? Absolutely nothing, except that plants thrive in it, just as they do in good rich soil. There is no dirt in CO2.

Now, CO2 has been ridiculously called a pollutant by the EPA because there are completely false claims that a doubling of the CO2 in the next 100 years will lead to a catastrophe for the earth. In fact, the warming effect of increasing CO2 is minimal by the time its concentration exceeds 100 ppm in the atmosphere. At the start of the Industrial Age, it was about 280 ppm and it is now about 380 ppm. The temperature effect due to the 100 ppm increase of CO2 in the atmosphere has been minimal. If we were to double it from 380 to 760 ppm, the increase in temperature is less than 0.5 degree C! See Fig. 17 of David Archibald's report The Past and Future of Climate read the succinct and sweet Letter to the Oil & Gas Journal (11 August 2008) by him called Warming or cooling? This is no catastrophe. The earth has gone through innumerable temperature swings many times this, with only those in colder directions bringing on a catastrophe for man.

But, this so-called pollutant, which causes no problems for human health, does greatly benefit plant growth, which with a growing world human population will be very helpful in feeding us all. Perhaps the catastrophe for man is that we will have to cut our grass more often! Is that supposed to be why we call CO2 a pollutant, and by implication, it is therefore dirty? This is an incredibly weak reed! On this basis we are going to sell huge increases in their energy bills to homeowners and businessmen who have not been bought off with free coupons? I do not think so.