The Truth About Cap and Trade

What I am about to say has been said in this blog many times; in a variety of ways. But, with the passage of the massive Cap and Trade bill by the House of Representatives on Friday, much of what I have said in the past is worth repeating.

The current push for Climate Control through taxing schemes like Cap and Trade has nothing to do with saving the planet. To say that CO2, an innocuous and ever-present gas, is the blame for the earth's current warming trend is just a ruse. The real thrust behind Global Warming and the exaggeration of CO2 as a pollutant is to control human expansion and to eliminate all those things that liberals hate like SUV's, coal energy plants, fossil fuel burning vehicles, and the encroachment of humanity into nature.

Years ago, the enemies of the tree hugging left were true pollutants like sulfur dioxide. Humanity knew that kind of pollution had to be controlled because their eyes burned and the sky was increasingly being blocked out by dark yellow clouds that hung over most of our cities. People could literally see the pollution; feel it; and, they knew that it was a real problem. For once, the tree-huggers thought they had found the tool to fight human expansion into the pristine nature of this country. But, to their dismay, science found ways to fight the pollution and, subsequently, continue mankind's march into the destruction of nature. Science created catalytic converters in cars to minimize tailpipe pollution. Scrubbers were developed to eliminate and minimize pollution from all the smoke stacks across America. The burning of fossil fuels was limited to low sulfur coal and oil products. But, still humanity marched on.

But now, the "greens" think that they have their perfect culprit in controlling humanity: Carbon Dioxide. This is something that science really can't defeat because it is so basic to life on this planet. It is produced when any of us breathe. It is produced every time any carbon based substance is oxidized (burned). In our atmosphere it is only 350 ppm (parts per million) or about 35 ten-thousandths of a percent of our atmosphere. Another 50 times that amount of CO2 is trapped in our oceans in the form of sodium bicarbonate and carbonic acid. Yet, the global warming scientists would have you believe that any change in this minute gas in our atmosphere creates a greenhouse gas and is killing our planet. Ultimately, to the extinction of mankind.

The perfection of the global warming argument is that every man, woman, and child has and creates a carbon footprint; either directly or indirectly. The more humans and human activity, the more CO2 is that is being produced. Recently, the output of cattle is even being blamed for the high levels of CO2 in our atmosphere. Logically, if you could control beef consumption by either minimizing the number of humans that inhabit the earth and/or by moving humanity to a vegan lifestyle, the planet could be saved. Certainly, less humans would mean less cars; less houses; less energy usage; less roads; less air travel; less plastic products; and, so on.

Even though the supposed science that has been used to support the tenants of global warming has been weakened -- almost every day -- by contradictory events and by the exposure of faulty assumptions, the liberal politicians and environmentalists are pressing hard to control human activity and CO2 output because it has never ever really been about the science. It has always been about green ideology. Today, by a factor of more than 10 to 1, there are more scientists who are refuting the conclusion that global warming is man made.

Despite acute rises in CO2 levels since 2001, and the decades before that, the consolidated measurements of the earth's temperatures have remained flat to slightly downward in the last eight years; and, for sure, that is totally contradictory to the junk science of global warming. Further, previously receding ice masses are, once again, growing. Since Katrina/Rita, the hurricane seasons have been relatively muted; and, this is in direct contradiction to Al Gore's opening scare-tactic in his global warming movie: An Inconvenient Truth. Supercomputer outputs that have been used to compute the effects of global warming have been found to be as much as 50% wrong in their conclusions. Many climatologists believe that an error rate of 50% is too conservative. Others say those global warming conclusions are completely wrong. That's because those computations are incapable of taking into consideration the energy output of our Sun. Right now, the sun's activity is quite low; probably accounting for the flattening out of temperatures over the last 8 years.

Those scientists who buy into the global warming theory have set out to "only" prove it to be right. Contrary to good scientific practice, they don't necessarily collect the facts that could, too, disprove the theory. Most of these people are ideologues who are being paid by government grants to support the theory of Global Warming. That to me, is truly a conflict of interest.

Often, in support of the global warming theory, they will take data as to when the earth has been known to have gone through a warming period and, then, eagerly run out to take core samples to see if high levels of carbon dioxide are present at the same time. And, guess what? High levels of CO2 are almost always there during warm periods during earth's history. But, think about that. Could it just be that CO2 is a symptom and not necessarily the cause? Could the presence of CO2 be as illogical as saying: "Every time I am sick I run a temperature. Therefore, if I can control my fevers I won't be sick!" No sane person would see the logic in that statement. So, then, why take for granted that CO2 is the cause of earth's warming? And, why is CO2 not present during some warming periods in the earth's history?

If CO2 is really the cause of earth's warming, why does the earth manage to cool itself down after high levels of carbon dioxide? Certainly, if the earth flooded, the immobile CO2 eating plants would suffer greater losses than the humans and animals that could flee the floods. As a consequence, the CO2 levels without plants would continue to go higher and higher. That's why most climatologists blame the sun and its rise and fall of solar activity as the main culprit behind global warming. Also, the world's oceans and their ability to absorb and expel CO2 might be a contributing factor in those core samples that are being taken. But the effect of the sun and our oceans are not included in the supercomputer findings that support global warming.

To believe that we can predict temperature and weather patterns in the decades to come is pure folly. We can't even predict weather events that are any more than a few days out. Forecasting literally changes on a daily basis. If we really could forecast accurately, the flooding of New Orleans would have been clearly predicted and many people spared from the agony of that event. In many ways, the fact that Katrina's landfall couldn't be predicted, only makes Al Gore's junk science prediction of increased hurricane frequency and intensity, a complete joke.

Make no mistake about it, the Cap and Trade bill that was just passed by our House of Representatives is designed to punish humanity; and, by doing so, restrict most human activity by making that activity too expensive to conduct. Some of the industries that will be hit the hardest under this bill are directly involved in human expansion on this earth. Those industries include metal mining and production, like steel and aluminum, that are used in make cars, airplanes, and buildings; the production of cement, which is produced under high heat in coal-powered kilns and which uses the ash from the coal as a component in the final product; and, the extraction of crude oil and the production of oil-based products which include gasoline, heating oil, asphalt, paints, fertilizers, and plastics. Put all those things together and you can see how punitive it will be to produce and operate a car or other vehicle and how expensive it will become to build roads, buildings, and homes. As a consequence, human activity, at least in the United States, will be stifled because of the cost.

The real benefactor in this Cap and Trade bill will be the Chinese and other foreign countries that won't be burdened by the high, punishing costs associated with carbon penalties. As a consequence, foreign imported steel, aluminum, and plastics will drive domestic production out of existence. Foreign cars will be cheaper than those made here; both from a labor and from a material standpoint. Homes will be smaller because of increased costs. Condos will rule as the primary mode of housing in the United States. Office buildings, because of the high cost of cement and steel, will be built on a minimal basis. Expect, office space to be cramped in the future. Our cars will be smaller. Air travel will be more expensive. Many people will probably elect to not have children because of the high cost of supporting them.

Cap and Trade has done little in the last four years to drop CO2 levels in Europe. It is primarily responsible for the 18% unemployment rate in Spain. Australia is currently in the process of voting down their Cap and Trade system because of other failures around the world. The only thing that Cap and Trade has produced in Europe is an inflated cost of products and energy.

Cap and Trade and the punishment of humanity is what the liberals and the environmentalists are really hoping for; even though, they, themselves are humans. But, of course, they are better humans than the rest of us.

And, that's the truth behind Cap and Trade and all the junk science of Global Warming.

Lastly, let's not forget that some prominent companies and people are set to make a lot of money if Cap and Trade is passed into law. For sure, Al Gore has already become a multimillionaire because of his involvement in his own global warming "awareness" campaign. He also has pieces of businesses that will see dramatic boons in revenues, once Cap and Trade becomes the law. Further, companies like Goldman Sachs and General Electric are seeing gold in their futures with the trading of carbon credits. General Electric also sees additional revenue streams from building wind turbines, the selling of smart grid systems to power companies, and by increased sales of electric motors that will replace gas power engines. Solar power companies just can't wait. For them this is manna from heaven because they have never before been able, to cost effectively compete with fossil fuels. The only people that will lose because of Cap and Trade are the American people. Costs will skyrocket. We will be the losers because of high inflation, complete losses of industries and high unemployment rates.