President
Obama may consider introducing a tax on carbon emissions to help cut the U.S.
budget deficit after winning a second term as president, according to HSBC
Holdings Plc. A
tax starting at $20 a metric ton of carbon dioxide equivalent and rising at
about 6 percent a year could raise $154 billion by 2021, Nick Robins, an
analyst at the bank in London, said today in an e-mailed research note, citing
Congressional Research Service estimates. “Applied to the Congressional Budget
Office’s 2012 baseline, this would halve the fiscal deficit by 2022,” Robins
said.
Make no mistake Obama will pass this off carbon taxes as necessary to save the planet from global warming when, in fact, he openly admits it is about generating revenue. Beyond the generating of revenue to offset our own budget deficit, world wide, carbon taxes are also on the UN's radar as a way to spread the wealth of wealthy nations to the less fortunate. Of course in the end the real winners in the carbon tax debate will be the banks, as usual. The biggest problem with the whole "man made" global warming theory is that the science used to explain it was/is flawed and has been misrepresented for years. The FACTS about global are clear, and the science against it being "man made" are real...
COMMON
MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING
MYTH 1: Global temperatures are
rising at a rapid, unprecedented rate.
FACT: The HadCRUT3 surface
temperature index shows warming to 1878, cooling to 1911, warming to 1941,
cooling to 1964, warming to 1998 and cooling through 2011. The warming rate
from 1964 to 1998 was the same as the previous warming from 1911 to 1941.
Satellites, weather balloons and ground stations all show cooling since 2001.
The mild warming of 0.6 to 0.8 C over the 20th century is well within the
natural variations recorded in the last millennium. The ground station network
suffers from an uneven distribution across the globe; the stations are preferentially
located in growing urban and industrial areas ("heat islands"), which
show substantially higher readings than adjacent rural areas ("land use
effects"). Two science teams have shown that correcting the surface
temperature record for the effects of urban development would reduce the
warming trend over land from 1980 by half.
There has been no catastrophic warming
recorded.
MYTH 2: The "hockey stick" graph proves that the earth has experienced a steady, very gradual temperature decrease for 1000 years, then recently began a sudden increase.
FACT: Significant changes in
climate have continually occurred throughout geologic time. For instance, the
Medieval Warm Period, from around 1000 to1200 AD (when the Vikings farmed on
Greenland) was followed by a period known as the Little Ice Age. Since the end
of the 17th Century the "average global temperature" has
been rising at the low steady rate mentioned above; although from 1940 – 1970
temperatures actually dropped, leading to a Global Cooling scare.
The "hockey stick", a poster
boy of both the UN's IPCC and Canada's Environment Department, ignores
historical recorded climatic swings, and has now also been proven to be flawed
and statistically unreliable as well. It is a computer construct and a faulty one
at that.
MYTH 3: Human produced carbon
dioxide has increased over the last 100 years, adding to the Greenhouse effect,
thus causing most of the earth's warming of the last 100 years.
FACT: Carbon dioxide levels have
indeed changed for various reasons, human and otherwise, just as they have
throughout geologic time. Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, the
CO2 content of the atmosphere has increased. The RATE
of growth during this period has also increased from about 0.2% per
year to the present rate of about 0.4% per year ,which growth rate has now been
constant for the past 25 years. However, there is no proof that CO2
is the main driver of global warming. As measured in ice cores dated over many
thousands of years, CO2 levels move up and down AFTER the
temperature has done so, and thus are the RESULT OF, NOT THE CAUSE of warming.
Geological field work in recent sediments confirms this causal relationship.
There is solid evidence that, as temperatures move up and down naturally and cyclically
through solar radiation, orbital and galactic influences, the warming surface
layers of the earth's oceans expel more CO2 as a result.
MYTH 4: CO2 is the most common
greenhouse gas.
FACT: Greenhouse gases form about 3% of the atmosphere
by volume. They consist of varying amounts, (about 97%) of water vapor and
clouds, with the remainder being gases like CO2, CH4,
Ozone and N2O, of which carbon dioxide is the largest amount. Hence,
CO2 constitutes about 0.039% of the atmosphere. While the minor
gases are more effective as "greenhouse agents" than water vapor and
clouds, the latter are overwhelming the effect by their sheer volume and – in
the end – are thought to be responsible for 75% of the "Greenhouse
effect". (See here) At current concentrations, a 3% change of
water vapor in the atmosphere would have the same effect as a 100% change in
CO2.
Those attributing climate change to CO2
rarely mention these important facts.
MYTH 5: Computer models verify that CO2 increases will cause
significant global warming.
FACT: The computer models assume
that CO2 is the primary climate driver, and that the Sun has an insignificant
effect on climate. You cannot use the output of a model to verify or prove its
initial assumption - that is circular reasoning and is illogical. Computer
models can be made to roughly match the 20th century temperature rise by
adjusting many input parameters and using strong positive feedbacks. They do
not "prove" anything. Also, computer models predicting global warming
are incapable of properly including the effects of the sun, cosmic rays and the
clouds. The sun is a major cause of temperature variation on the earth surface
as its received radiation changes all the time, This happens largely in
cyclical fashion. The number and the lengths in time of sunspots can be
correlated very closely with average temperatures on earth, e.g. the Little Ice
Age and the Medieval Warm Period. Varying intensity of solar heat radiation
affects the surface temperature of the oceans and the currents. Warmer ocean
water expels gases, some of which are CO2. Solar radiation interferes with the
cosmic ray flux, thus influencing the amount ionized nuclei which control cloud
cover.
MYTH 6: The UN proved that man–made CO2 causes global warming.
FACT: In a 1996 report by the UN
on global warming, two statements were deleted from the final draft approved
and accepted by a panel of scientists. Here they are:
1) “None of the studies cited above has shown clear evidence that we can attribute the observed climate changes to increases in greenhouse gases.”
2) “No study to date has positively attributed all or part of the climate change to man–made causes”
1) “None of the studies cited above has shown clear evidence that we can attribute the observed climate changes to increases in greenhouse gases.”
2) “No study to date has positively attributed all or part of the climate change to man–made causes”
To the present day there is still no
scientific proof that man-made CO2 causes significant global warming.
MYTH 7: CO2 is a pollutant.
FACT: This is absolutely not true. Nitrogen forms
80% of our atmosphere. We could not live in 100% nitrogen either. Carbon
dioxide is no more a pollutant than nitrogen is. CO2 is essential to
life on earth. It is necessary for plant growth since increased CO2 intake
as a result of increased atmospheric concentration causes many trees and other
plants to grow more vigorously. Unfortunately, the Canadian Government has
included CO2 with a number of truly toxic and noxious substances listed
by the Environmental Protection Act, only as their means to politically control
it.
MYTH 8: Global warming will cause more storms and other weather extremes.
FACT: There is no
scientific or statistical evidence whatsoever that supports such claims on a
global scale. Regional variations may occur. Growing insurance and
infrastructure repair costs, particularly in coastal areas, are sometimes
claimed to be the result of increasing frequency and severity of storms,
whereas in reality they are a function of increasing population density,
escalating development value, and ever more media reporting.
MYTH 9: Receding glaciers and the calving of ice shelves are proof of global warming.
FACT: Glaciers have
been receding and growing cyclically for hundreds of years. Recent
glacier melting is a consequence of coming out of the very cool period of the
Little Ice Age. Ice shelves have been breaking off for centuries. Scientists
know of at least 33 periods of glaciers growing and then retreating. It’s
normal. Besides, glacier's health is dependent as much on precipitation as on
temperature.
MYTH 10: The earth’s poles are warming; polar ice caps are breaking up and melting and the sea level rising.
FACT: The earth is variable. The
western Arctic may be getting somewhat warmer, due to cyclic events in the
Pacific Ocean, but the Eastern Arctic and Greenland are getting colder. The
small Palmer Peninsula of Antarctica is getting warmer, while the main
Antarctic continent is actually cooling. Ice thicknesses are increasing both on
Greenland and in Antarctica.
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