Post-Gazette Editorial – 11/22/06

This page was last updated on November 27, 2006.

Greening the Capitol: It’s about time the environment got higher priority; Editorial; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; November 22, 2006.

Here’s my critique of a previous PG editorial about global warming.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject editorial.

“As Washington prepares for an influx of fresh faces in Congress, agendas are being dusted off, polished and readied for the glare of legislative scrutiny.

“Environmental issues are likely to be among the most prickly.

“While our allies, France and the United Kingdom among them, are moving forward with initiatives on global warming, Washington insiders are warning against expecting too much from lawmakers because of the slim margin held by the Democrats.

“That is despite the changes taking place in key committees. For example, Sen. Barbara Boxer of California will take over as chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee. She favors cuts in emissions linked to global warming and wants to have information about the risks from Superfund sites made public as one way of protecting families.

“She replaces Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma, who labeled scientific agreement on global warming a hoax. What a difference an election makes.”

[RWC] When you read about global warming, be careful. This issue really isn’t about global warming; it’s about whether any of the warming is caused by man. Outlets like the PG tend to use “global warming” and “manmade global warming” interchangeably.

I don’t know if man is contributing or not, but here are reasons why I’m skeptical.

First, the Earth has gone through cooling and warming cycles since its creation. For example, there was the Medieval Warm Period (WMP) from about 600 AD into the 1100s or 1200s. The warming was significant enough it allowed the Vikings to settle Greenland and Iceland and farm there. Immediately after this warm period we entered the Little Ice Age (LIA). The Little Ice Age lasted from the 1200s through the mid-1800s with about a 100-year warming in the middle. What the MWP gave the Vikings, of course, the LIA took away.

Second, the guys who 30 years ago sounded the alarm for manmade global cooling almost overnight switched to manmade global warming. During the mid-1970s, publications like Newsweek, Science Digest, The Christian Science Monitor, and Time published articles about the impending “ice age.” As recently as the early 1990s, CNN did an ice age piece.

Third, when people get hysterical trying to make their point, I get suspicious. When you ask for credible scientific evidence, more often than not instead of data you get an answer something like “regardless of the data, we have to act because the risk is too great.”

Fourth, the manmade global warming camp – which includes the press – tries to smear anyone who expresses a different opinion. For example, CNN reporter Miles O’Brien earlier this year asserted scientific skeptics “are bought and paid for by the fossil fuel industry, usually.” Ironically, Mr. O’Brien was the reporter for the aforementioned CNN ice age piece.

Sixth, no matter what our weather is, the manmade global warming camp claims it’s proof of manmade global warming. When it’s a little warmer in the summer, global warming is the reason. When it’s a little colder in the winter, that too is a result of global warming. The 2005 hurricane season? Global warming was to blame, of course, despite the fact hurricane experts disagreed. Predictably, these guys were silent when there were no “major” hurricanes during the 2006 season.

“But having lawmakers who favor more environmentally friendly policies in key positions is not necessarily going to bring immediate changes. It will remain a challenge to forge agreements on those issues cited by Sen. Boxer, particularly when there is no concern within the Democratic Party, particularly from lawmakers, on fuel-efficiency mandates.

“So the suggestion, made by one environmentalist, that the new leadership in Washington represents the biggest change in worldviews since the Enlightenment seems a trifle hyperbolic.

“The reality is more likely to be that while the Democrats may pursue more environmentally friendly policies, neither the Bush administration nor Congress is going to initiate or enforce measures that will put struggling American businesses, including Detroit automakers who met with President Bush at the White House, at immediate risk.

“That, sad to say, could place this country at odds with some of its closest allies, including the United Kingdom and France.”

[RWC] When did France become one of our “closest allies?”

You won’t be surprised to learn that perhaps our closest ally, Australia, so far takes the same position as the U.S. I’m sure it was an honest oversight the editorial didn’t mention this fact – not.

“In the Queen’s Speech, a forum in which the legislative program of the British government is outlined, Prime Minister Tony Blair last week promoted technology to curb carbon emissions and dependence on fossil fuels. Earlier this month he encouraged the German chancellor, who next year heads the group of industrialized nations known as the G-8, to find agreement on emissions cuts.

“Also, the French prime minister has suggested taxes on imports from countries that have not signed the Kyoto Protocol, which calls for reductions of greenhouse gases, and has outlined domestic taxes on industrial pollution and coal usage. If enacted, that measure could hurt U.S. trade because this country pulled out of the pact in 2001.”

[RWC] The statement that “this country pulled out of the pact in 2001” is very misleading. You see, the U.S. was never in the pact. Here’s a recap of the history.

In 1997, the U.S. Senate passed a resolution [S. Res. 98 sponsored by Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV)] 95-0 stating the U.S. should not sign any treaty that didn’t include all countries, whether developing or already industrialized. U.S. environmentalists like to skip over the fact that so-called “developing” countries like India and Red China are specifically excluded from the Kyoto treaty. In a letter President Bush sent to several senators in March 2001, Mr. Bush asserted the Kyoto pact excluded 80% of the world.

As a result of the above “sense of the Senate,” then-President Clinton never even sent the treaty to the Senate for ratification.

In 1998, then-VP Al Gore (surprise, surprise) signed the Kyoto Protocol for the Clinton administration in what was nothing more than a PR stunt. If you recall your grade school civics lessons, you remember treaties cannot be implemented in the U.S. without the approval of 2/3’s of the Senate.

To make sure nothing was done in the U.S. about the Kyoto Protocol, the Clinton administration included language in subsequent appropriation bills to make sure the EPA didn’t use any funds to “issue rules, regulations, decrees, or orders for the purpose of implementation, or in preparation for implementation, of the Kyoto Protocol” until the Senate ratified the treaty.

During the 2000 presidential campaign, Messrs. Gore and Joe Lieberman assured voters the U.S. wouldn’t enter into the treaty until it included developing nations.

Also, the Kyoto Protocol was written so it didn’t go into effect until ratified by at least 55 nations. By March 2001, over three years after the treaty had been negotiated, only one of the required 55 nations had ratified the Kyoto Protocol.

So, if the U.S. was never in the pact and the treaty needed 54 more nations to ratify it before it took effect, how could the PG assert “this country pulled out of the pact in 2001?” In March 2001, President Bush ended the Clinton administration charade and simply said the U.S. wasn’t participating.

“All of which suggests that, if nothing else, the environment will enjoy a higher profile in the next congressional term, while the United States feels pressure from its allies to get a little greener.”

[RWC] What is it with libs and worrying about what others do and think? If we did everything the French and German way, we’d have double-digit unemployment and slower economic growth.