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What If the Government Actually Banned Coal, Oil, and Natural Gas?

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Xiuhtezcatl Martinez is not your typical teenager.

The 16-year-old hip-hop artist and global warming activist with the nonprofit Earth Guardians has been dubbed the “anti-Bieber.” He “rallies supporters of every age and creed through school presentations, his unique brand of eco hip-hop, and heartfelt speeches,” according to the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Xiuhtezcatl, from Boulder, Colorado, also is petitioning the presidential candidates to implement policies eliminating the use of all fossil fuels in America by 2026. He challenges them to “be the leader [his] generation demands.”

But what would happen if politicians actually cut off all use of so-called fossil fuels—including coal, natural gas, and petroleum—in the next 10 years, as this idealistic teenager exhorts the next president to do?

What if the government implemented policies, mandates, and taxes to restrict Americans’ energy choices artificially?

Conventional fuels, in many respects, are the backbone of the American way of life. Artificially eliminating them would have an enormously negative impact.

It’s fairly common knowledge that Americans use coal and natural gas to power homes, vehicles, businesses, schools, and hospitals. In fact, the United States gets 81 percent of all its energy from oil, coal, and natural gas.

What’s less known is that conventional fuels go beyond providing energy for Americans. Petroleum and natural gas are used to make thousands of everyday items—aspirin, toothpaste, sunglasses, shoes, tires, shag rugs, and tennis balls, to name a few.

In fact, roughly 20 percent of oil refined in the U.S. is used for plastics, chemicals, and rubber products. Indeed, America relies on natural gas and oil for a vast variety of uses.

Ultimately, policies that prohibit the use of conventional fuels would impede these lesser known but no less valuable uses.

What’s more, the push to eliminate conventional fuels ignores the fact that these fuels, especially natural gas, are efficient, abundant, and environmentally sound sources of energy. There will be no shortage of these resources anytime soon, and more are being found all the time, thanks to advances in technology.

Even if these resources were to run out soon, prices would reflect that and markets would shift to finding innovative alternatives borne out of necessity rather than arbitrary restrictions that keep resources in the ground.

And as producers of electricity, both coal and natural gas have higher efficiency rates—the “capacity factor”—than other energy sources such as wind and solar. Oil-based gasoline is 33 percent more powerful than ethanol.

Policies to eliminate conventional fuels also would put a lot of folks out of work.

Roughly 538,000 Americans work in the oil and natural gas industry. Around 75,000 work in the coal industry. Millions more have jobs that are supported by these industries. Nearly every product and service made in America at some point relied on conventional energy sources.

Americans not only would face significant lifestyle changes, many would lose their entire livelihoods. It’s not just the American way of life that would be lost, either—fossil fuels have raised people around the world out of poverty and into healthier, safer lives.

The kicker is, while forgoing all of these benefits, policies forbidding the use of conventional energy wouldn’t have the impact on global warming that Xiuhtezcatl Martinez hopes for. If the U.S. eliminated all carbon dioxide emissions, only 0.137 degree Celsius would be averted by the year 2100.

Arbitrarily banning all conventional fuels isn’t the answer. Young or old, Americans should be wary as their government considers such drastic, harmful policies. (For more from the author of “What If the Government Actually Banned Coal, Oil, and Natural Gas?” please click HERE)

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The Intolerant Left: This Dem Senator Wants to Censor Climate Change Skeptics

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According to Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I. (F, 4%), you shouldn’t be reading this commentary.

A polemic he’s written for the Columbia Journalism Review makes that clear. Why? Because I, along with several others whom the senator identifies, am a “persistent climate denier.” Anything I write questioning the attacks on the First Amendment rights of those who have their doubts about global warming is nothing more than “clever, made-to-order, industrial-scale dissemination of industry propaganda.”

Whitehouse suggests that editorial boards should refrain from publishing articles and letters containing what he calls “phony ‘opinion’ writing” about the climate change debate.

Whitehouse is unapologetic, of course, about urging censorship and supporting government-run investigations of anyone on the wrong side of what he considers to be an undisputable fact – the existence of man-induced, catastrophic global warming. Never mind that this is an unproven, scientific theory over which there is vigorous, persistent and educated debate by reputable researchers, scientists and meteorologists. Whitehouse refuses to distinguish between what are facts and what is opinion.

He refers to the “fossil fuel industry’s climate denial operation,” even though there is no proof any such widespread, systematic “conspiracy” exists. This unsubstantiated allegation apparently justifies, in his mind, either a civil or criminal investigation under RICO, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. He faults me and others for not distinguishing between civil and criminal RICO investigations, as if a civil RICO investigation by the government of a company (or anyone else) is somehow less onerous or less serious than a criminal investigation.

The state attorneys general who have launched these investigations have been hazy on whether they are conducting civil or potential criminal investigations. But it doesn’t really matter. Any type of investigation that attempts to criminalize scientific dissent or impose civil penalties for such dissent is an abuse of government power and a violation of fundamental First Amendment rights.

Whitehouse says that fraud trumps the First Amendment. But as I pointed out recently in a letter to The Washington Post, the U.S. Supreme Court said in 2003 in Illinois ex rel Madigan v. Telemarketing Assocs., Inc. that “simply labeling an action one for ‘fraud’ does not carry the day.”

What “fraud” has been committed? According to Whitehouse, it is the sponsorship by companies such as ExxonMobil of “phony science” supporting climate denial. What “phony science” is he talking about? In a 2006 Corporate Citizenship Report, ExxonMobil (seemingly the main target of this series of investigations) acknowledged that “the risk to society and ecosystems from rising greenhouse gas emissions could be significant” and that “strategies that address the risk need to be developed and implemented.” That doesn’t sound like a denial to me.

Moreover, in the countersuit filed by the Competitive Enterprise Institute after it was served with a subpoena issued by the U.S. Virgin Islands attorney general for all of its research on climate change, CEI noted that the AG could only come up with two statements made by ExxonMobil that he claimed were supposedly fraudulent:

“International accords and underlying regional and national regulations for greenhouse gas reduction are evolving with uncertain timing and outcome, making it difficult to predict their business impact.”

“Current scientific understanding provides limited guidance on the likelihood, magnitude, and timeframe of physical risks such as sea level rise, extreme weather events, temperature extremes, and precipitation.”

These statements simply express the uncertainty that exists over the scope, causes and pace of climate change and about appropriate climate policy. The view that these are, or even could be construed as, fraudulent statements that can form the basis of a governmental investigation lacks both common sense and a basic understanding of the legal standards that apply not just to government investigations, but to protected First Amendment activity.

Also alarming is the fact that these nascent investigations appear to target not only ExxonMobil, but scientists and academic scholars who question the accepted wisdom of those who want to declare the debate about climate change is over. How else can one explain why a think tank, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, was targeted with a subpoena in a climate change investigation? Or why another subpoena served on ExxonMobil targeted its communications with almost a hundred different think tanks, universities, and individual scientists, professors and researchers?

Whitehouse and others have tried to compare these investigations to the lawsuits filed against the tobacco industry for misleading the public about the health effects of tobacco. But that comparison fails to distinguish between proven facts and unproven theory. When those lawsuits were filed, we had decades’ worth of tests, observation, research and experimentation showing that tobacco contains carcinogens that cause cancer, and that nicotine is a highly addictive drug.

On the other hand, there are many problems with the theory of man-induced, catastrophic climate change, from computer models that have over-predicted warming to data sets that disagree on whether the earth is warming or whether temperatures have plateaued. And it is a matter of great dispute — and vigorous debate — over how much of our climate is influenced by man-made events, as opposed to natural occurrences such as sun flares.

The bottom line is that no fraud of any kind is being committed by anyone or any entity that questions the “science” behind climate change. Anyone who insists that those who question this should be investigated is violating basic free speech rights guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. Americans — and that includes corporate America, both profit and non-profit — have the right to speak their minds about public policy and issues involving science and technology — and that includes climate change. They should not be harassed, threated, investigated, silenced or bullied for doing so. (For more from the author of “The Intolerant Left: This Dem Senator Wants to Censor Climate Change Skeptics” please click HERE)

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Dem AG Targets 90 Conservative Groups in Climate Change Racketeering Suit

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OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAThe attorney general of the U.S. Virgin Islands is targeting dozens of conservative and libertarian organizations in a racketeering lawsuit against climate change skeptics that has been widely described as an effort to silence political opponents.

In a subpoena issued in March, the office of USVI attorney general Claude Walker demanded from Exxon Mobil copies of communications between the oil company and 90 different political and policy organizations “and any other organizations engaged in research or advocacy concerning Climate Change or policies.”

The subpoena was part of a national, coordinated legal campaign by state attorneys general and left-wing advocacy groups to use the legal system against companies and organizations that disagree with and advocate against Democratic policies to address global climate change.

The existence of the subpoena was first reported by the Wall Street Journal in April. A newly released copy obtained by the Washington Free Beacon reveals the names of the organizations targeted in the effort, which had previously been redacted.

Those organizations include some of the nation’s preeminent conservative and libertarian nonprofit groups. The AG is requesting Exxon Mobil communications with the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute, the Federalist Society, the Hoover Institution, the Reason Foundation, and the Mercatus Institute, among other groups. (Read more from “Dem AG Targets 90 Conservative Groups in Climate Change Racketeering Suit” HERE)

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Top 5 Reasons Congress Should Reject Obama’s Climate Change Treaty

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8216393551_acc6d4ef64_bSecretary of State John Kerry will join leaders from around the world to sign the Paris Protocol global warming agreement this Friday at the United Nations headquarters.

Here are the top five reasons Congress and the next administration should withdraw from the accord:

1) Higher energy bills, fewer jobs and a weaker economy.

The economic impact of domestic regulations associated with the Paris agreement will be severe. To meet America’s commitment to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, the administration will need to drive the cost of conventional fuels higher so households and businesses use less.

Because energy is a necessary input for almost all goods consumers buy, households are hit by higher prices multiple times over. Global warming regulations will increase electricity expenditures for a family of four by at least 13 percent a year. Cumulatively, they will cost American families over $20,000 of lost income by 2035 and impose a $2.5 trillion hit on the economy.

2) No impact on climate.

Regardless of one’s opinions on the degree to which climate change is occurring, regulations associated with the Paris accord will have no meaningful impact on the planet’s temperature.

Even if the government closed the doors to every businesses and CO2-emitting activity in the U.S., there would be less than two-tenths of a degree Celsius reduction in global temperatures.

Even Kerry admitted during the negotiations last December that:

If all the industrial nations went down to zero emissions— remember what I just said, all the industrial emissions went down to zero emissions— it wouldn’t’t be enough, not when more than 65 percent of the world’s carbon pollution comes from the developing world.

Though the Paris Protocol is an international agreement, there is little reason to believe that the developing world (India, China, etc.) will prioritize reducing cargo dioxide emissions over using affordable energy that provides their citizens with a better standard of living.

Yes, China and other developing countries have serious air and water quality problems from industrial byproducts. But do not associate those problems with carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is a colorless, odorless and non-toxic. The focus of the Paris Protocol is to address catastrophic global warming. The developing world has more pressing tangible environmental challenges, which they’ll be able to address when they’re wealthier and have the necessary means to tackle them.

3) Massive taxpayer-funded wealth transfer for green initiatives.

An important part of the Paris agreement for the developing world is money. More specifically, other peoples’ money. In Nov. 2014, President Barack Obama also pledged to commit $3 billion to the Green Climate Fund, an international fund for green projects in the developing world.

The administration and proponents of a Green Climate Fund have repeatedly called for spending $100 billion per year between the United States and other countries in public and private financing to combat climate change.

In March, the Obama administration made a $500 million taxpayer-funded payment to the Green Climate Fund despite Congress never having authorized the funding.

The Green Climate Fund is nothing more than a taxpayer-funded wealth transfer from developed countries to developing ones. The fund will do little to promote economic growth in these countries but instead connect politically-connected companies with taxpayer dollars.

4) Avoids review and consent from elected officials.

The Paris agreement is in form, in substance, and in the nature of its commitments a treaty and should be submitted to the Senate for review and consent. The executive branch has shown contempt for the U.S. treaty-making process and the role of Congress, particularly the Senate.

As my colleague Steven Groves writes and explains in great detail, “The argument that the U.S. Nationally Determined Contribution “targets and timetables” are not legally binding and therefore the Paris Agreement is not a “treaty” requiring the advice and consent of the Senate simply has no basis in law.”

5) A top-down, government controlled push for economic transformation.

To achieve their global warming goals, international leaders want to control an economic transformation. Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change has said that:

This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the industrial revolution.

A top-down, concentrated effort to shift away from the use of coal, oil and natural gas will prevent millions from enjoying the basic energy needs Americans and the developed world takes for granted. In the industrialized world, the effects of moving away from conventional fuels have been devastating at times. Fuel poverty and pricier energy caused tens of thousands of deaths in Great Britain because families could not heat their homes. The world runs on traditional fuels because they are cost competitive and abundant. If and when any transformative shift away from these natural resources occurs, it will be driven by the market.

The Paris agreement, and U.S. participation in the entire framework convention on climate change is a raw deal for Americans. The next administration should not only withdraw from Paris but the entire United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. (For more from the author of “Top 5 Reasons Congress Should Reject Obama’s Climate Change Treaty” please click HERE)

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AG Lynch: DOJ Has Conferred With the FBI About Pursuing Climate Deniers [+video]

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Attorney General Loretta Lynch acknowledged Wednesday that there have been discussions within the Department of Justice about possibly pursuing civil action against so-called climate change deniers.

“This matter has been discussed. We have received information about it and have referred it to the FBI to consider whether or not it meets the criteria for which we could take action on,” Lynch said at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Justice Department operations.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) raised the issue, drawing a comparison between possible civil action against climate change deniers and civil action that the Clinton administration pursued against the tobacco industry for claiming that the science behind the dangers of tobacco was unsettled.

“The similarities between the mischief of the tobacco industry pretending that the science of tobacco’s dangers was unsettled and the fossil fuel industry pretending that the science of carbon emissions’ dangers is unsettled has been remarked on widely, particularly by those who study the climate denial apparatus that the fossil fuel industry has erected,” Whitehouse said.

“Under President Clinton, the Department of Justice brought and won a civil RICO action against the tobacco industry for its fraud. Under President Obama, the Department of Justice has done nothing so far about the climate denial scheme,” Whitehouse added. (Read more from “AG Lynch: DOJ Has Conferred With the FBI About Pursuing Climate Deniers” HERE)

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Judicial Watch Sues for Documents Withheld from Congress in New Climate Data Scandal

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Judicial Watch announced today that it filed a lawsuit on December 2, 2015, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia seeking records of communications from National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) officials regarding methodology for collecting and interpreting data used in climate models (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Commerce (No 1:15-cv-02088)). The lawsuit sought the same documents unsuccessfully subpoenaed by a House committee. Less than week after Judicial Watch served its lawsuit on NOAA, the agency finally turned over the targeted documents to Congress.

Judicial Watch sued the Department of Commerce after the agency failed to respond to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request submitted on October 30, 2015 – NOAA is a component of the Department of Commerce. The timeframe for the requested records is October 30, 2014, through October 30, 2015, and requests all documents and records of communications between NOAA officials, employees, and contractors regarding:

The methodology and utilization of night marine air temperatures to adjust ship and buoy temperature data;

The use of other global temperature datasets for both NOAA’s in-house dataset improvements and monthly press releases conveying information to the public about global temperatures;

The utilization and consideration of satellite bulk atmospheric temperature readings for use in global temperature datasets; and

A subpoena issued for the aforementioned information by Congressman Lamar Smith on October 13, 2015.

Judicial Watch is investigating how NOAA collects and disseminates climate data that is used in determining global climate change. NOAA collects data in thousands of ways – from temperature gauges on land and buoys at sea, to satellites orbiting Earth. Considered the “environmental intelligence agency,” NOAA is the nation’s leading collector of climate data. In July, Representative Lamar Smith (R-TX) asked NOAA for both data and internal communications related to a controversial climate change study. After the agency refused to comply with the document request, Smith’s committee issued a subpoena on October 13. According to the Science, Space, and Technology Committee:

In June, NOAA widely publicized a study as refuting the nearly two-decade pause in climate change. After three letters requesting all communications from the agency surrounding the role of political appointees in the agency’s scientific process, Chairman Smith issued a subpoena for the information. Smith subsequently sent a letter on December 1st offering to accept documents and communications from NOAA political, policy and non-scientific staff as a first step in satisfying the subpoena requirements.

(Read more from “Judicial Watch Sues for Documents Withheld from Congress in New Climate Data Scandal” HERE)

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Climate Change Shock: Burning Fossil Fuels ‘COOLS Planet’, Says NASA

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Major theories about what causes temperatures to rise have been thrown into doubt after NASA found the Earth has cooled in areas of heavy industrialisation where more trees have been lost and more fossil fuel burning takes place.

Environmentalists have long argued the burning of fossil fuels in power stations and for other uses is responsible for global warming and predicted temperature increases because of the high levels of carbon dioxide produced – which causes the global greenhouse effect.

While the findings did not dispute the effects of carbon dioxide on global warming, they found aerosols – also given off by burning fossil fuels – actually cool the local environment, at least temporarily.

The research was carried out to see if current climate change models for calculating future temperatures were taking into account all factors and were accurate.

A NASA spokesman said: “To quantify climate change, researchers need to know the Transient Climate Response (TCR) and Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS) of Earth. (Read more from “Climate Change Shock: Burning Fossil Fuels ‘COOLS Planet’, Says NASA” HERE)

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NOAA’s Climate Change Science Fiction

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NOAA appears to pick and choose only data that confirms their bias. NOAA then disseminates this incomplete data to the media who manufacture alarming headlines but ignore the uncertainty of the conclusions.

Earlier this year, NASA issued a news release stating that 2014 was the warmest year on record. Few media acknowledged the footnote: Scientists were only 38 percent sure this was actually correct. That is less than 50-50.

NOAA fully understands margins of error and works with them on a daily basis. But where are these details in their news releases? While NOAA’s monthly projections usually warn of increased warming, they ignore satellite data that refutes their alarmist statements.

The ability to remain independent of political consideration seems like a minimum requirement for an agency that should provide unbiased scientific information. But NOAA’s habit of picking and choosing data raises serious questions about the agency’s independence. In fact, it shreds NOAA’s credibility.

As a self-proclaimed “environmental intelligence agency,” NOAA’s reports should be based only on the best available science that takes into account all sources of data. Unfortunately, NOAA continues to rely upon biased science in pursuit of a predetermined outcome. That’s not good science, it’s science fiction.

(Read more from “NOAA’s Climate Change Science Fiction HERE)

Pumpkins Cause Climate Change?

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How scary are your jack-o’-lanterns? Scarier than you think, according to the Energy Department, which claims the holiday squash is responsible for unleashing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

Most of the 1.3 billion pounds of pumpkins produced in the U.S. end up in the trash, says the Energy Department’s website, becoming part of the “more than 254 million tons of municipal solid waste (MSW) produced in the United States every year.”

Municipal solid waste decomposes into methane, “a harmful greenhouse gas that plays a part in climate change, with more than 20 times the warming effect of carbon dioxide,” Energy says . . .

Municipal solid waste can be used to harness bioenergy, the Energy Department says, which can help the U.S. become less dependent on carbon-based fuels while limiting stress on landfills by reducing waste. The agency has partnered with industry to develop and test two integrated biorefineries — “facilities capable of efficiently converting plant and waste material into affordable biofuels, biopower and other products.” (Read more from “Pumpkins Cause Climate Change?” HERE)

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Massive Toxic Algae Bloom Reaches From California to Alaska

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downloadOceanographers are studying whether ‘climate change’ is contributing to an unprecedented bloom of toxic algae that spans the Pacific Coast of the United States and Canada, raising health concerns and leading to multimillion-dollar income losses from closed fisheries.

The bloom, which emerged in May, stretches thousands of miles from the Channel Islands off the coast of Southern California to Alaska’s Aleutian Islands and has surprised researchers by its size and composition.

“It’s just lurking there,” Vera Trainer, research oceanographer with the Northwest Fisheries Science Center in Washington state, told Reuters on Thursday. “It’s the longest lasting, highest toxicity and densest bloom that we’ve ever seen” . . .

The runaway bloom of pseudo-nitzschia algae is believed to have been spawned in part by unusually warm ocean water along the West Coast that scientists have dubbed “the blob” . . .

The algae bloom has produced a profusion of a chemical compound called domoic acid, which accumulates in shellfish, anchovies and sardines exposed to it, and acts as a neurotoxin on higher orders of marine life, such as sea lions and birds, that feed on them. (Read more from “Massive Toxic Algae Bloom Reaches From California to Alaska” HERE)

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