For Bill, In Response To Your Last Post

Just a few interesting facts taken from Frontlines Hot Politics in response to your recent post:
1. After Jim Hasnen testified in front of Congress about his conclusion that manmade greenhouse gases were causing global warming, the coal, mining, and oil industries quickly spent millions of dollars to hire scientists to refute his findings. They did what they were paid for, resulting in a global warming debate. Since that time many of those scientists admit their data and conclusions were flawed. Not all do, but many do. These are the studies that have fueled Republican resistance to carbon caps and carbon taxes. Meanwhile the body of science has hardened and now, even the White House, can't be deniers that the science is strong (although not 100%, more like 98% ) suggesting that global warming is manmade.
2. The Clinton administration sent Al Gore to sign a treaty saying the US would require mandatory caps on carbon emissions. This was knowing full well that the Republican Congress would never in a million years ratify such a treaty. The Republican and Democratic members of Congress had way too much to lose by ratifying such a treaty. The Democrats relied heavily on union support, and unions were adamantly opposed to carbon caps. The Republicans relied heavily on funding from the mining, coal, and oil lobby and so were also adamantly opposed to carbon caps. Al Gores signing of the treaty now seems a cheap political trick because the administration didn't even present the treaty to Congress for ratification, knowing it didn't have a chance, but it was an election year and Al Gore was running for president against Texas governor George W. Bush.
3. During the 2000 Presidential campaign, oddly enough, Bush was the "Greener" candidate. He was able to run saying that he had done something to help combat global warming because as Governor of Texas, he had mandated carbon caps. With Gores bogus treaty signing, Bush actually had an advantage on this one. He promised as a candidate that if elected he would make sure that caps on carbon became Federally mandated. This was a promise he repeated often. He talked about global warming as the serious problem that it is, while on the campaign trail.
4. In the first year of Bush's presidency Energy Policy was top priority. A few weeks into her new job as EPA chief, Christie Todd Whitman, a forward thinking "environmentalist" was sent on the talk show circuit, toutiing carbon caps and the administrations serious attitude about climate change. Then she was off to Trieste to continue global climate talks. Before she left her understanding was that the US was for mandatory carbon caps. This was based on Bush's platform and on instructions recieved from Andy Card and Condoleeza Rice before her departure.
5. While she was away, Cheney convened his private energy policy decision making which involved him, and the top industry leaders from coal, oil, and mining. What went on we can easily guess, because of the way the Bush policy changed.
6. At this point Republican strategist Frank Lutz was asked to come up with a memo directing the Republican party on how to change the debate on what should be done to combat global warming into a debate about the science of global warming. He says it was a brilliant memo. Whenever global warming was discussed, it was to be discussed in terms of inconclusive and biased science. "The science just doesn't prove that global warming is man-made" was to be the debate. It worked. It worked very well. He now, although, still claiming the words he came up with were utterly brilliant, feels it was a bad thing he did, because we have dragged our feet and the body of science shows almost inconclusively that global warming is man caused. He feels it was a mistake.
7. After this, in a total reversal from his campaign promises, Bush announced that the US was withdrawing from the Kyoto Treaty. Their arguments were two-fold:
A) It wasn't fair for the US to have mandatory carbon caps if India and China, potentially the two largest polluters weren't required. (As a mom this argument holds no sway...Wahhh, why do I have to clean my room? Cindy doesn't have to clean her room. Mom: I don't care what the Jones do, we are the Smiths and not the Jones') Why do I think this is a bogus argument? Because up until that time we had been the number one emitters of carbon and we should have taken responsiblity for our role as massive polluters and said, yup we've been bad, and we aren't going to be the leaders in pollution anymore. It seems like fairness was a whiny excuse. I think leading by example would have been a much nobler and wiser position to take.
B) If we start capping emissions or taxing carbon on our biggest industrial polluters they will pack up and move to India or China where they won't have to bother with regulations that hinder profit. This argument is useless because the largest polluters are coal plants, oil refineries, and cattle and hog feedlots (all of which have massively wealthy and powerful and overly-influential lobbies). These are industries that can't move overseas. A mine in West Virginia can't pack up and move. You can't light up Salt Lake City from Beijing. You can't supply meat to the largest buyer of meat, USA McDonalds, as cheaply and profitably from India as you can from Nebraska. It was a hollow argument.
8. Bush's withdrawl drew massive anti-American, and mostly anti-Bush crowds around the world to demonstrate. The Bush administration was surprised by this. Christy Todd Whitman says, in her view, America's sudden withdrawl from the Kyoto accord was the equivilant of flipping the world the bird. It was a policy that says, America does whatever it wants and you, world, will have to deal with it. At this point Congress was confused about the administrations energy policy. As far as they knew, Bush was for Carbon Caps. Hegel and Craig wrote a letter to Bush asking him to define his energy policy. He wrote back basically saying Global Warming was not an issue and therefore it was business as usual for the powerful energy companies. There would be no voluntary or mandatory carbon caps.
9. In 2002 according to government whistleblower Rick Piltz and emails obtained by Greenpeace through the Freedom of Information Act, Phil Cooney, a former oil industry lobbyist working for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, edited government scientific reports. His revisions downplayed concerns about global warming.
10. In 2001 the Bush administration suppressed the U.S. National Assessment of the Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change, a government report described by one researcher as the "most comprehensive" analysis of the possible effects of global warming on this nation (not just scientifically but how it would affect farming and the economy and what would become beachfront property, etc.). The findings of the assessment would have done what "An Inconvenient Truth" did instead: awakened people to the way that global warming could affect them.
11. In 2005 Rick Piltz resigned from federal Climate Change Science Program, protesting the intrusion of politics into the scientific arena, notably the editing by Phil Cooney. Piltz testified before Congress at a hearing on the alleged politicization of science by Bush administration officials. Cooney resigned once his actions were exposed by the media. Shortly after he took a job at ExxonMobil.
12. Meanwhile, scientific evidence continues to harden, that yes indeed, we are causing global warming.
13. States have taken the lead and have been doing amazing things in the march towards renewable and clean energy. In Texas, the Republican Governor, fast-tracked the building of eleven new coal-fired power plants. Ranchers in Texas felt very concerned about this. The last five winters have not been cold enough to kill off grasshopper larvae and they have had a plague of grasshoppers which is bad when you are trying to feed your cattle. Mayors didn't like it either. They banded together as "Cowboys against Coal". The governor wouldn't really listen. Instead big business, the Wall Street variety, realizing there are HUGE amounts of money to be made from the new energy economy, stepped in and got the job done. The utility company was bought out, the plans for 9 of the eleven coal plants scrapped, and wind has been heavily invested in. The money guy that orchestrated the buyout isn't sure if they've got a winning solution, but he is in big demand to orchestrate similar buyouts and it appears to be a winning strategy.
14. Massachussettes in 2003 sued the EPA, trying to force them to enforce emission caps they had mandated. Many states supported their bid. Republican states did not, leading me to believe that politics wins out over common sense.
15. Scientists working under the Bush administration have repeatedly reported that they have been gagged or censored or found their funding cut. They claim that this administration has an aversion to science. Jim Hansen, the leading climate scientist says that the administration wanted to know when and where he was going to lecture and what he was going to say. He claims they wanted to gag him.
16. Recently (in 2007) a bunch of company executives calling themselves the U.S. Climate Action Partnership made up of executives from companies that Congress will actually listen to (Ford motor company, BP, Conoco, GE, Duke Energy, and a long list of other major companies) and leading environmental organizations (quite an unusual pairing), in Senate hearings called on the Federal Government to quickly enact strong national legislation to require significant reductions of greenhouse gas emissions.
17. The Heartland Institute, who sponsored the paper you linked, is a very conservative think tank, obviously very adamantly opposed to carbon tax and carbon caps. I'm not sure who funds them, but I would bet that they get some of their money from industry that wants the status quo. You once told me you didn't trust factcheck.org because they were run by a think tank that had liberal monetary support. So, I would argue the same logic applies here. Perhaps if the paper came from a scientific journal it would have more clout.
So, ultimately I see more to be skeptical of in the politics of global warming than in the science. I think the science at this point is pretty strong.
WITH ALL THIS SAID,( which is a lot, I know) I believe that doomesday approaches are always a bad idea, except Americans tend to be totally apathetic in general and so you have to move the people somehow. Will had a great post stating just this, and I have to agree with all he said. I think that the challenge of global warming is one that can be met, can revitalize our economy, and potentially will transform our country for the better. I think that it will be marvelous when we don't remove the tops of mountains to get coal for our electrical power. I think we should stay out of ANWAR, because soon, oil will be irrelevant. I listen to Science Friday every Friday on NPR and am BLOWN AWAY and competely excited by all the incredible innovations that are already being made. We have the technology, the innovations, the means. We just need the will, which is where the government will come in handy. I think that if I had some spare cash I would love to invest it in tidal power, and wind power and solar power, because I think that there are some serious fortunes that are going to be made there. Leading the revolution would be a great place to be as a country. If we don't lead on this issue someone else will, and they will be in a pretty good position. They will have China and India and other developing countries as their markets. That is a pretty huge market. The big industries are ready and willing to adapt, because they see the tremendous opportunities. I think Bush has missed a HUGE opportunity. Let's hope then next time around the opportunities won't be wasted.