Green Science Online Blog

Is the sun setting on our way of life?

Even though we were granted a few days’ pardon, make no mistake.  The Climate Bill is coming soon! We have the word of Senators Lieberman and Kerry.

Unfortunately.

Due to its extreme unpopularity, the term “cap and trade” will be missing from the title and language of the bill.  But be sure that that’s what this Energy Bill is all about:  Capping CO2 emissions from power plants, factories, transportation, buildings, and anything else that dares exhale this “dangerous pollutant.”    And charging money (Trading) for permits to emit said “pollutants.”

Those who will promote this bill conveniently ignore the fact that every human being on the planet emits this “pollutant” with every breath exhaled (and every green plant on the planet needs this pollutant to survive).

Every home, every car, school, grocery store, mall, office building, EVERYTHING–will be subject to oversight and regulation by the ever-expanding Environmental Protection Agency.

Though proponents of the bill are quick to point out that they will start with only the “biggest polluters,” what is to prevent EPA from taking this regulation to its logical conclusion–taxing and regulating every manifestation of commerce, and in the process, shutting down our entire economy?

Watch Joel Rogers, a Progressive Movement superstar, on what reducing our Carbon Dioxide emissions according to President Obama’s plans will do to our economy:

Joel Rogers and Van Jones on shutting down our economy

The lure of absolute power is hard to resist, is it not?

Lisa P. Jackson, head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Earth Day, begun 40 years ago, has become one of many loud, incessant messages decrying our ill-treatment of Planet Earth.

Today in 2010, let’s look at America’s progress in the Environmental sector.  Even the most environmentally unfriendly SUV engine today puts out far cleaner emissions than any car built in 1970.  Yet this year once again, the EPA has insisted on another round of crackdowns and cleanups of  auto emissions, including that Most Evil of All Emissions–CO2.

Since CO2 is actually a necessary substance for any kind of green plant to grow, an outsider might wonder–is it really CO2 emissions the EPA is after, or is the car itself?

A survey of our country’s lakes, rivers and beaches will find that overall, the United States has one of the cleanest, most “environmentally sound” environments in the world.

Up until now, businesses have worked within a partnership that included local, state and yes, federal regulations, which has proved effective and the best in the world at balancing environmental with monetary benefits.

But with the addition of a “Carbon Tax” or any kind of cap or tax on carbon dioxide emissions, or on gasoline for that matter, free enterprise as we know it can not continue. In fact, if taken to its logical extreme, every human being on the Planet could be liable for the carbon dioxide emitted with each breath we exhale.

Could it be that preserving the physical environment is not the real purpose of the Greenies?  Could it be that their real aim is the heart of our country’s greatness, as laid out in the Constitution of the United States?  Is it our individual freedoms, even down to including the right to breathe, that the government wishes to control?

If that’s a ridiculous statement (which it is), then who is to say where

it stops? Right now, EPA has arbitrarily set CO2 emissions caps on only the “LARGEST” emitters, including coal-fired power plants, our country’s most essential source of electricity.

But the Agency reserves the right, based as they say on an erroneous 2007 Supreme Court decision, to regulate CO2 emissions just as they regulate demonstrably toxic emissions such as sulfur dioxide and NOx. Those toxins are now regulated to extremely minute quantities, and if CO2 were similarly regulated, every home in America would be subject to the regulations.

Obviously, the EPA is out of control here and it may need some help to cut itself back down to size.

Climate Science NOT Settled

Even though the mainstream media downplayed its importance, the release of thousands of digital documents from the Hadley Climate Research Unit in England last November showed that even those scientists most committed to the concept of human-caused global warming are not in lock-step agreement.

And it also gave lay-people a good glimpse of the “under-belly” of science–that scientists are just as human and just as prone to pride, petty arguments and a vengeful spirit as anyone else.

When digging for truth, it’s rarely easy to say that the science is “settled.”  There are so many pieces of the universe that are far from being competely understood by scientists, how earth’s climate works being one of them.

That fact that the planets and Sun revolve around the earth was “settled” for millenia, though there were “skeptics” all along.  Newtonian Mechanical theory explained a lot, but it turned out to be only a special case of the more universal theory of Quantum Mechanics, which itself  had to be revised several times during the last century.

Saying that “the science is settled” on the theory that human-caused global warming is dooming our planet is about as crazy as saying that the science is settled on the causes of and cures for cancer.

One of the most shocking facts from the exposed emails is the way these pillars of the scientific community decided that if they couldn’t control the peer review process at a scientific journal, they would conspire to shut it down.

And to say that the scientists who wrote those embarrassing emails should be respected for their “peer reviewed” research and their status as IPCC big-shots, while other scientists, who stayed away from the political game, are not “qualified,” is whitewash.  Or greenwash.

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Click here for a Free Mini-Course:

Six Startling Facts You Need to Know Before Changing Another Light Bulb!

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

This past year, my middle-schoolers were treated to a free showing of Al Gore’s fright film about the projected impact of human CO2 emissions on global warming. They did not get to see a similar treatment of legitimate opposing scientific views.

When I studied science, “back in the day,” the concepts of peer review and the scientific uncertainty principle were fundamental.

For over 200 years, scientific uncertainty was defined to mean that, although very few things can be proven with 100 percent certainty, a scientific concept can be considered truth as long as it is 95 percent certain, and had been reviewed and confirmed by a scientist’s peers.

But something changed in the scientific community at the end of the 20th century. In an article aptly titled “The Uses of Scientific Uncertainty,” published in Rachel’s Environmental & Health Weekly on July 1, 1999, Peter Montague revealed a “revolution” that dropped the time-honored uncertainty principle.

He traced the beginning of this revolution back to 1992, when the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, meeting in Rio, declared that “lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective [my emphasis] measures to prevent environmental degradation.”

The environmental community’s disdain for scientific truth and peer review has far surpassed the Rio declaration, as we saw in the recent United Nations conference in Bali. Credentialed scientists who dispute the data massaging and computer models used to predict an imminent catastrophe, were not allowed to voice their skepticism or to present their own findings at the official forum.

In the 15 years since the Rio declaration, we see that the concept of “cost-effective” measures no longer applies to the still-disputed global warming crisis. Instead, we are all expected to ante-up exorbitant taxes to “pay” for our carbon dioxide “pollution,” and the world’s economy be damned.

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Questions about saving energy and money with energy efficient light bulbs?

Sign up here for a free mini-course

Six Startling Facts You Need to Know–BEFORE Changing Another Light Bulb!

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Welcome to the Green Science Online blog!

At Green Science Online, our mission is to educate readers about the science behind the green technology wave. What’s myth and what’s truth? What’s good science, and what’s pure greenwash? What’s intelligent green, and what’s plain ‘ole tree-hugging hype?

We aim to answer these questions here–and have some fun in the process. After all, good science doesn’t have to be boring!

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

What’s your MOST BURNING QUESTION about home energy efficiency?

Please click here to submit your question to Green Science Online. Thanks!

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading …