About That Global Warming Bill....

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This Week, the United States Senate will begin debate on America's Climate Security Act (S. 2191), sponsored by Senators Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) and John Warner (R-VA). The Lieberman-Warner bill (LW) would restrict energy use to combat global warming. Like global warming itself, the bill has been the subject of considerable hype and little hard-nosed analysis. For this reason, there are several myths about it that need to be dispelled.

Myth #1: LW would not be expensive.
Fact: Simply put, LW works like a massive energy tax. By restricting carbon dioxide emissions from coal, oil, and natural gas--with a freeze at 2005 levels beginning in 2012, to a 70 percent reduction in 2050--the bill forces down supply and thus boosts the price of energy. In fact, if energy prices did not go up, then the targets in the bill would not be met. As energy is the economy's lifeblood, and 85 percent of it comes from these fossil fuels, the impact will be substantial. Cumulative gross domestic product (GDP) losses could reach $4.8 trillion by 2030, according to an analysis conducted by the Heritage Foundation. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Environmental Protection Agency, Charles River Associates, and the National Association of Manufacturers have all conducted studies predicting significant economic burdens on consumers should the bill be enacted.

Myth #2: The costs fall on industry, not consumers.
Fact: Virtually all the burden imposed by LW falls upon consumers. The bill will spur net job losses well into the hundreds of thousands, and possibly nearing one million. Particularly hard hit is the manufacturing sector where over one million jobs will be lost by 2022 and two million by 2027. The losses in household incomes could reach $1,026 per year by 2015. Annual household energy-price increases could hit $1,000 by 2030, including a 29 percent increase in the price of gasoline from 2008 levels.

Myth #3: Global warming is a crisis that must be addressed at all costs.
Fact: Global warming is a concern, not a crisis. Both the seriousness and the imminence of the threat are overstated. For example, the recent United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report estimates 7 to 23 inches of sea level rise by the end of the century--far less than the widely popularized claims of 18 to 20 feet and little more than ongoing trends over the past several centuries. The attempt to link Hurricane Katrina with climate change is directly contradicted by the World Meteorological Organization and many scientists. Overall, current and expected future temperatures are far from unprecedented, and are highly unlikely to lead to catastrophes.

Myth #4: LW effectively addresses the threat of climate change.
Fact: Even assuming the worst of global warming, LW reduces the threat by a minuscule amount. The bill reduces emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the United States only. China has overtaken America as the world's largest emitter, and its emissions growth is several times greater than that of the U.S. India and other fast-developing nations are on a similar trajectory. Thus, the unilateral impact of the bill on global emissions would be inconsequential. At most, it would reduce the earth's future temperature by one or two tenths of a degree Celsius--too small to even verify. In other words, LW is all economic pain for no environmental gain.

Myth #5: LW's cap-and-trade approach is a proven success.
Fact: Critics of the cap-and-trade approach in LW, in which emissions are capped and regulated entities may trade their rights to emit, point to the European Union's substantial difficulties since initiating its own cap-and-trade program in 2005. Most E.U. nations [13 of 15] are not on track to meet their targets, and many are seeing their emissions rise faster than those in the U.S. The program is furthermore plagued by accusations of fraud and unfairness. LW essentially adopts the European approach wholesale.

Conclusion
Overall, the Lieberman-Warner bill promises substantial hardship for the economy overall, for jobs, and for energy costs. Given current economic concerns and energy prices, this is the last thing the American people need. At the same time, the environmental benefits would likely be small to nonexistent. The Lieberman-Warner bill fails any reasonable cost-benefit test.

SOURCE

Senate Bill 2191: "America's Climate Security Act"

President Bush: president@whitehouse.gov

Barbara Boxer: http://boxer.senate.gov/contact/email/policy.cfm?CFID=9716973&CFTOKEN=89336911

Dianne Feinstein:
http://feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=ContactUs.EmailMe

YOUR Senator: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

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Al Qaeda on the Run

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Efforts to begin talks last year also faltered over a now-resolved trade dispute between Poland and Russia over meat exports.

The delays have irked Moscow. Medvedev's trip to China last week, his first trip abroad as Russia's new president, was seen as a slap to Russia's western neighbors.

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New London Mayor Boris Johnson [Yank] wasted no time in taking his city off Hugo Chávez's PR payroll.

Elected earlier this month, Mr. Johnson has announced that the city won't renew a deal with the Venezuelan strongman to get cheap oil to subsidize bus fares for London residents. "I think many Londoners felt uncomfortable about the bus operation of one of the world's financial powerhouses being funded by . . . a country where many people live in extreme poverty," the Conservative Mayor explained Sunday.

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Brad Jayakody wearing the Transformers T-shift which caused offense at Heathrow

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The IT consultant was set to fly off on a business trip to Dusseldorf in Germany when he was pulled to one side.

Mr Jayakody said the first guard started joking with him about the Transformers character depicted on his French Connection T-shirt.

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'It's a 40ft tall cartoon robot with a gun as an arm. There is no way this shirt is offensive in any way, and what I'm going to use the shirt to pretend I have a gun?

He was cooperative with the supervisor and took off the the 'offensive' T-shirt, replacing it with another shirt in his carry on luggage.

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Explaining global warming to Congress.

Lord Christopher Monckton, a policy adviser to former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, was recently referenced by senior climate-science authority Fred Singer as saying: “Global warming stopped ten years ago; it hasn't gotten warmer since 1998. . . . . And in fact in the last seven years, there has been a downturn in global temperatures equivalent on average to about [or] very close to one degree Fahrenheit per decade. We're actually in a period . . . of global cooling.”

This is what the temperature data shows. Indeed, even global-warming advocates are now saying there won’t be any actual global warming for the next ten years or so. You can interpret that to mean the budding cooling trend will continue.

So what is all the hysteria about? The answer is very simple, and very obvious once pointed out.

Global warming has nothing to do with climate or science. What it is all about is the great, historic class struggle between working people and the ruling classes.

Global warming is a great excuse for a massive expansion of government power. That, not science, is why the overlords, from the New York Times to the United Nations to Al Gore, so heartily embrace it.

The U.N. thinks global warming is a perfect reason for the U.N. to be transformed into a world government. So how long do you think it took for the world-class bureaucrats at Turtle Bay to conclude that global warming was real and caused by humans?

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[HT:GC]

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