Jun 28 2009
McHenry Statement on Vote Against Cap and Trade
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 26, 2009
Contact: Brock McCleary
(202) 225-2576
McHenry Statement on Vote Against Cap and Trade
WASHINGTON – Congressman Patrick McHenry (NC-10) released the following statement regarding his vote against H.R. 2454, the cap-and-trade bill.
“For this Congress to cut jobs and raise energy costs on working families at a time like this truly boggles the mind. The economy is shedding hundreds of thousands of jobs every month and families are struggling to pay their bills. So I fail to see the wisdom in eliminating 88,000 jobs in North Carolina alone, raising energy prices by $1,400 annually on every household, and hiking gasoline prices by 77 cents per gallon. For what? So we can possibly lower the earth’s temperature by two-tenths of a degree by the end of the century. Any serious climate change initiative must include binding commitments from China and India to reduce carbon emissions. In the absence of that, we are asking the American people to bear enormous sacrifices at a time when they can least afford it – for two-tenths of a degree by 2100.”
(sources: Heritage Foundation, Congressional Budget Office, American Petroleum Institute)
NOTES:
Groups opposing the legislation include the National Association of Manufacturers, National Textile Association, and American Farm Bureau Federation.
“Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.” – President Barack Obama
“Nobody in this country realizes that cap-and-trade is a tax, and it’s a great big one.” – Congressman John Dingell (D-MI)
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McHenry is a rubber-stamp republican, nothing more. He brings nothing to the job that you couldn’t get by exchanging his head with a horse’s ass.
It’s fitting that the shrinking, largely regional GOP has been leading the fight against climate change/global warming. Climate change skepticism , in some ways, is the perfect convergence between the most rigid kind of fundamentalism and the most short-sighted version of capitalism.
[Reply]
Global warming has been discredited. If you are literate and interested. Go online and read anything by some of the thousands of scientists that argue against global warming theories. The models have consostently failed to predict events accurately. In science if your theory proves to not match results, you are wrong. Mars has subsurface ice that is melting, solar event. The earth has a regular pattern of warming and cooling, following the suns output.
Please people read. Sceptic is not a four letter word. The facts are not with global warming, you are being deceived and used.
[Reply]
Thanks, Bob.
Global warming has been discredited – by whom, Bob? Go online, you say?!? Read, you say?!? Thousands of scientists, Bob?!? Thousands, you say!?!
You sure cleared that whole thing up for me! Wow, is my face red!
Bob:
Really you only prove the point I have made repeatedly about how appallingly ignorant people choose to show themselves to be when commenting online.
You talk and, as though by the act of having done so, you believe you have produced something of worth. You have not done so, Bob.
You have not even really developed an argument at all, much less countered mine.
Yours is the style of the writings of a high schooler, at best.
You have left your ideas stranded, undeveloped.
Poor Bob!
Why would anyone be ‘convinced’ or swayed by your ‘arguments’, Bob? Why would you even think you have contributed anything at all toward an intellectual exchange at this site is beyond me.
It’s not all about global warming/climate change. It is also about how the environment is being degraded, resources squandered. There are some things you can’t take back. There are no ‘do-overs’.
The acidification of the oceans due to increased C02 is a problem you cannot sweep under the rug with your dismissal of global warming/climate change. That you cannot see a bigger picture due to your stubborn refusal to look at related issues is not due to ME not reading; that would be your problem, not mine.
You are being deceived, it is quite clear, but by your own choice (I can tell you have never done your homework on this subject, young man, so don’t try and pull that crap on me). I doubt however, there is any use for you, by the deniers, if this is the quality of your ‘debunking’ of global warming.
Oh, Bob – this is the best that the ‘opposition’ has to offer? Perhaps you might try skipping posting in the ‘comments’ and simply attend a tea-bagging party where you’ll better fit in. I understand that the intellectual qualifications (you can carry a sign displaying an offensive message, can’t you, Bob?) are more suitable for your abilities.
[Reply]
Brief highlights of the report featuring over 400 international scientists:
Israel: Dr. Nathan Paldor, Professor of Dynamical Meteorology and Physical Oceanography at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has authored almost 70 peer-reviewed studies and won several awards. “First, temperature changes, as well as rates of temperature changes (both increase and decrease) of magnitudes similar to that reported by IPCC to have occurred since the Industrial revolution (about 0.8C in 150 years or even 0.4C in the last 35 years) have occurred in Earth’s climatic history. There’s nothing special about the recent rise!”
Russia: Russian scientist Dr. Oleg Sorochtin of the Institute of Oceanology at the Russian Academy of Sciences has authored more than 300 studies, nine books, and a 2006 paper titled “The Evolution and the Prediction of Global Climate Changes on Earth.” “Even if the concentration of ‘greenhouse gases’ double man would not perceive the temperature impact,” Sorochtin wrote. (Note: Name also sometimes translated to spell Sorokhtin)
Spain: Anton Uriarte, a professor of Physical Geography at the University of the Basque Country in Spain and author of a book on the paleoclimate, rejected man-made climate fears in 2007. “There’s no need to be worried. It’s very interesting to study [climate change], but there’s no need to be worried,” Uriate wrote.
Netherlands: Atmospheric scientist Dr. Hendrik Tennekes, a scientific pioneer in the development of numerical weather prediction and former director of research at The Netherlands’ Royal National Meteorological Institute, and an internationally recognized expert in atmospheric boundary layer processes, “I find the Doomsday picture Al Gore is painting – a six-meter sea level rise, fifteen times the IPCC number – entirely without merit,” Tennekes wrote. “I protest vigorously the idea that the climate reacts like a home heating system to a changed setting of the thermostat: just turn the dial, and the desired temperature will soon be reached.”
Brazil: Chief Meteorologist Eugenio Hackbart of the MetSul Meteorologia Weather Center in Sao Leopoldo – Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil declared himself a skeptic. “The media is promoting an unprecedented hyping related to global warming. The media and many scientists are ignoring very important facts that point to a natural variation in the climate system as the cause of the recent global warming,” Hackbart wrote on May 30, 2007.
France: Climatologist Dr. Marcel Leroux, former professor at Université Jean Moulin and director of the Laboratory of Climatology, Risks, and Environment in Lyon, is a climate skeptic. Leroux wrote a 2005 book titled Global Warming – Myth or Reality? – The Erring Ways of Climatology. “Day after day, the same mantra – that ‘the Earth is warming up’ – is churned out in all its forms. As ‘the ice melts’ and ‘sea level rises,’ the Apocalypse looms ever nearer! Without realizing it, or perhaps without wishing to, the average citizen in bamboozled, lobotomized, lulled into mindless acceptance. … Non-believers in the greenhouse scenario are in the position of those long ago who doubted the existence of God … fortunately for them, the Inquisition is no longer with us!”
Norway: Geologist/Geochemist Dr. Tom V. Segalstad, a professor and head of the Geological Museum at the University of Oslo and formerly an expert reviewer with the UN IPCC: “It is a search for a mythical CO2 sink to explain an immeasurable CO2 lifetime to fit a hypothetical CO2 computer model that purports to show that an impossible amount of fossil fuel burning is heating the atmosphere. It is all a fiction.”
Finland: Dr. Boris Winterhalter, retired Senior Marine Researcher of the Geological Survey of Finland and former professor of marine geology at University of Helsinki, criticized the media for what he considered its alarming climate coverage. “The effect of solar winds on cosmic radiation has just recently been established and, furthermore, there seems to be a good correlation between cloudiness and variations in the intensity of cosmic radiation. Here we have a mechanism which is a far better explanation to variations in global climate than the attempts by IPCC to blame it all on anthropogenic input of greenhouse gases.”
Germany: Paleoclimate expert Augusto Mangini of the University of Heidelberg in Germany, criticized the UN IPCC summary. “I consider the part of the IPCC report, which I can really judge as an expert, i.e. the reconstruction of the paleoclimate, wrong,” Mangini noted in an April 5, 2007 article. He added: “The earth will not die.”
Canada: IPCC 2007 Expert Reviewer Madhav Khandekar, a Ph.D meteorologist, a scientist with the Natural Resources Stewardship Project who has over 45 years experience in climatology, meteorology and oceanography, and who has published nearly 100 papers, reports, book reviews and a book on Ocean Wave Analysis and Modeling: “To my dismay, IPCC authors ignored all my comments and suggestions for major changes in the FOD (First Order Draft) and sent me the SOD (Second Order Draft) with essentially the same text as the FOD. None of the authors of the chapter bothered to directly communicate with me (or with other expert reviewers with whom I communicate on a regular basis) on many issues that were raised in my review. This is not an acceptable scientific review process.”
Czech Republic: Czech-born U.S. climatologist Dr. George Kukla, a research scientist with the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University, expressed climate skepticism in 2007. “The only thing to worry about is the damage that can be done by worrying. Why are some scientists worried? Perhaps because they feel that to stop worrying may mean to stop being paid,” Kukla told Gelf Magazine on April 24, 2007.
India: One of India’s leading geologists, B.P. Radhakrishna, President of the Geological Society of India, expressed climate skepticism in 2007. “We appear to be overplaying this global warming issue as global warming is nothing new. It has happened in the past, not once but several times, giving rise to glacial-interglacial cycles.”
USA: Climatologist Robert Durrenberger, past president of the American Association of State Climatologists, and one of the climatologists who gathered at Woods Hole to review the National Climate Program Plan in July, 1979: “Al Gore brought me back to the battle and prompted me to do renewed research in the field of climatology. And because of all the misinformation that Gore and his army have been spreading about climate change I have decided that ‘real’ climatologists should try to help the public understand the nature of the problem.”
Italy: Internationally renowned scientist Dr. Antonio Zichichi, president of the World Federation of Scientists and a retired Professor of Advanced Physics at the University of Bologna in Italy, who has published over 800 scientific papers: “Significant new peer-reviewed research has cast even more doubt on the hypothesis of dangerous human-caused global warming.”
New Zealand: IPCC reviewer and climate researcher and scientist Dr. Vincent Gray, an expert reviewer on every single draft of the IPCC reports going back to 1990 and author of The Greenhouse Delusion: A Critique of “Climate Change 2001: “The [IPCC] ‘Summary for Policymakers’ might get a few readers, but the main purpose of the report is to provide a spurious scientific backup for the absurd claims of the worldwide environmentalist lobby that it has been established scientifically that increases in carbon dioxide are harmful to the climate. It just does not matter that this ain’t so.”
South Africa: Dr. Kelvin Kemm, formerly a scientist at South Africa’s Atomic Energy Corporation who holds degrees in nuclear physics and mathematics: “The global-warming mania continues with more and more hype and less and less thinking. With religious zeal, people look for issues or events to blame on global warming.”
Poland: Physicist Dr. Zbigniew Jaworowski, Chairman of the Central Laboratory for the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Radiological Protection in Warsaw: “We thus find ourselves in the situation that the entire theory of man-made global warming—with its repercussions in science, and its important consequences for politics and the global economy—is based on ice core studies that provided a false picture of the atmospheric CO2 levels.”
Australia: Prize-wining Geologist Dr. Ian Plimer, a professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Adelaide in Australia: “There is new work emerging even in the last few weeks that shows we can have a very close correlation between the temperatures of the Earth and supernova and solar radiation.”
Britain: Dr. Richard Courtney, a UN IPCC expert reviewer and a UK-based climate and atmospheric science consultant: “To date, no convincing evidence for AGW (anthropogenic global warming) has been discovered. And recent global climate behavior is not consistent with AGW model predictions.”
China: Chinese Scientists Say C02 Impact on Warming May Be ‘Excessively Exaggerated’ – Scientists Lin Zhen-Shan’s and Sun Xian’s 2007 study published in the peer-reviewed journal Meteorology and Atmospheric Physics: “Although the CO2 greenhouse effect on global climate change is unsuspicious, it could have been excessively exaggerated.” Their study asserted that “it is high time to reconsider the trend of global climate change.”
Denmark: Space physicist Dr. Eigil Friis-Christensen is the director of the Danish National Space Centre, a member of the space research advisory committee of the Swedish National Space Board, a member of a NASA working group, and a member of the European Space Agency who has authored or co-authored around 100 peer-reviewed papers and chairs the Institute of Space Physics: “The sun is the source of the energy that causes the motion of the atmosphere and thereby controls weather and climate. Any change in the energy from the sun received at the Earth’s surface will therefore affect climate.”
Belgium: Climate scientist Luc Debontridder of the Belgium Weather Institute’s Royal Meteorological Institute (RMI) co-authored a study in August 2007 which dismissed a decisive role of CO2 in global warming: “CO2 is not the big bogeyman of climate change and global warming. “Not CO2, but water vapor is the most important greenhouse gas. It is responsible for at least 75 % of the greenhouse effect. This is a simple scientific fact, but Al Gore’s movie has hyped CO2 so much that nobody seems to take note of it.”
Sweden: Geologist Dr. Wibjorn Karlen, professor emeritus of the Department of Physical Geography and Quaternary Geology at Stockholm University, critiqued the Associated Press for hyping promoting climate fears in 2007. “Another of these hysterical views of our climate. Newspapers should think about the damage they are doing to many persons, particularly young kids, by spreading the exaggerated views of a human impact on climate.”
USA: Dr. David Wojick is a UN IPCC expert reviewer, who earned his PhD in Philosophy of Science and co-founded the Department of Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie-Mellon University: “In point of fact, the hypothesis that solar variability and not human activity is warming the oceans goes a long way to explain the puzzling idea that the Earth’s surface may be warming while the atmosphere is not. The GHG (greenhouse gas) hypothesis does not do this.” Wojick added: “The public is not well served by this constant drumbeat of false alarms fed by computer models manipulated by advocates.”
[Reply]
I don’t know a lot about Global Warming. I do know that the likes of Al Gore have become rich and will continue to pull in the millions as government legislations kicks in.
I have just read the following on the epw.senate.gov website.
Interesting.
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=04373015-802A-23AD-4BF9-C3F02278F4CF
EPA Chief Vows to Probe E-mail Threatening to
‘Destroy’ Career of Climate Skeptic
During today’s hearing, Senator James Inhofe (R-OK), Ranking Member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, confronted Stephen Johnson, Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), with a threatening e-mail from a group of which EPA is currently a member. The e-mail threatens to “destroy” the career of a climate skeptic. Michael T. Eckhart, president of the environmental group the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE), wrote in an email on July 13, 2007 to Marlo Lewis, senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI):
“It is my intention to destroy your career as a liar. If you produce one more editorial against climate change, I will launch a campaign against your professional integrity. I will call you a liar and charlatan to the Harvard community of which you and I are members. I will call you out as a man who has been bought by Corporate America. Go ahead, guy. Take me on.”
In a July 16, Washington Times article, Eckhart confirmed that he did indeed write the email.
After Senator Inhofe read Eckhart’s comments, Johnson vowed to launch a probe concerning the threatening e-mail. Johnson responded to Inhofe saying, “I was not aware of this quote.” He continued, “Statements like this are of concern to me. I am a believer in cooperation and collaboration across all sectors.” Johnson then added, “This is an area I will look into for the record.” (See YouTube video of exchange between Senator Inhofe and Johnson)
Senator Inhofe replied, “I would like to have you look into this and make an evaluation, talk it over with your people and see if it is appropriate to be a part of an organization that is headed up by a person who makes this statement.”
Following the hearing, Senator Inhofe announced that he will be sending letters to the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Commerce, the Department of Energy, and EPA, urging them to “reconsider their membership in ACORE.”
Full Text of Eckhart’s July 13, 2007 e-mail to CEI’s Lewis:
Marlo –
You are so full of crap.
You have been proven wrong. The entire world has proven you wrong. You are the last guy on Earth to get it. Take this warning from me, Marlo. It is my intention to destroy your career as a liar. If you produce one more editorial against climate change, I will launch a campaign against your professional integrity. I will call you a liar and charlatan to the Harvard community of which you and I are members. I will call you out as a man who has been bought by Corporate America. Go ahead, guy. Take me on.
Mike
Michael T. Eckhart
President
American Council On Renewable Energy (ACORE)
[Reply]
Wow fascinating comments. You can see whether in Washington or on a humble blog environmentalism has become what its proponents hate. Gore shows the millions to be made, the hiding of contradicting reports shows how venal and corrupt Green, INC is, and people like Dale who comment here show an irrational anger to the assertion that devoting ones life to Mother Earth is subscribing to a childish religion replacement.
If your theories are wrong, if their projection of future events fails, the underlying assumptions are wrong. This is true of Global warming. We have been on a mild cooling trend that is accelerating. The ocean levels are not rising. Dale draw your shawl tighter and wring your hands over some more personal guilt. Do not draw a nation into atoning for your real or imagined sins.
[Reply]
Bob and Mr. Cut-n-Paste:
As I stated earlier it is not all about warming. The matter involves environmental degredation, human population and depletion of natural resources – facts you have quite handily chosen not to address but still think you have stated the be-all and end-all of arguments, in cut-n-paste form!
You also play fast and loose with your posting. Here is just one example that I was immediately familiar with:
You cut and pasted this: “Belgium: Climate scientist Luc Debontridder of the Belgium Weather Institute’s Royal Meteorological Institute (RMI) co-authored a study in August 2007 which dismissed a decisive role of CO2 in global warming: “CO2 is not the big bogeyman of climate change and global warming. “Not CO2, but water vapor is the most important greenhouse gas. It is responsible for at least 75 % of the greenhouse effect. This is a simple scientific fact, but Al Gore’s movie has hyped CO2 so much that nobody seems to take note of it.”
What you didn’t include is this: Climate scientist Luc Debontridder of the Belgium Weather Institute’s Royal Meteorological Institute (RMI) co-authored a study in August 2007 which dismissed a decisive role of CO2 in global warming. The press release about the study read, “CO2 is not the big bogeyman of climate change and global warming.
This is the conclusion of a comprehensive scientific study done by the Royal Meteorological Institute, which will be published this summer.
The study does not state that CO2 plays no role in warming the earth. “But it can never play the decisive role that is currently attributed to it,” Luc Debontridder said according to the August 2007 release.
“Not CO2, but water vapor is the most important greenhouse gas. It is responsible for at least 75 % of the greenhouse effect. This is a simple scientific fact, but Al Gore’s movie has hyped CO2 so much that nobody seems to take note of it,” Debontridder explained. “Every change in weather conditions is blamed on CO2. But the warm winters of the last few years (in Belgium) are simply due to the ‘North-Atlantic Oscillation’. And this has absolutely nothing to do with CO2,” he added.
In an article with Belgian magazine Knack, Debontridder leaves no doubt what his opinion on the subject is.
Some key passages:
“CO2 isn’t the big cause of global warming” is what newspaper HLN concluded. “A complete misrepresentation”, climatologist Luc Debontridder of the RMI says.
(…)
“as a scientist, i’d be absolutely crazy if i’d be saying CO² isn’t the main cause of global warming”
(…)
“RMI’s new climate report has been wrongly interpret. Earth’s warming of the past 20 years is caused mainly by CO2″
Later on, the knack article has a closer look where the confusion comes from and explains without greenhouse gasses would be minus 18 °C. Debontridder explains wator vapour is the most important GHG, but unlike what the NZ-coalition wants to insinuate, Debontridder is not minimalising the role of CO2 :
“The increased greenhouse effect is causing problems and of 60% of the effect comes from CO2″
Debontridder concludes :
“we cannot go on, following a busines as usual policy like this, but there’s no need either to needlessly frighten the public.”
How stupid of you. But thanks for your attempt at making a relevant argument. Ocean acidification, weather/rain pattern change, fracturing shale for natural gas, mountian top removal, ongoing melting of the permafrost in the upper northern hemisphere – all problems you refuse to see because of your C02 goggles.
As far as imputing anger to me: pffT! you and your ‘comments’ aren’t worth the emotion. If you want to play with the big boys, act like one and address the issues. Your personal attacks are so . . . republican . . .
[Reply]
Dale, I am undecided on this topic. I think it is foolish to say that there is NO warming of our environment, just as it is foolish to say humans are the sole cause. That being said, if the major argument is that environmental degredation, human population and depletion of natural resources are also main points to guard against, then how does cap and trade do that? Does it save mushrooms in Iowa, give abortions whether you want one or not and shut down coal mines in West Virginia? Perhaps until we have a true solution we should pass laws that really may help some now: encourage recycling, research solar and wind energy farms adding energy to our grids nationwide, update our mass transit systems, make government save paper by publishing all bills online for public viewing. And those are just ideas that came to me, there are numerous other ways we can start “saving our environment”.
Since C got a nickname, I want to be “Mr. Writes-In-One-Paragraph” and Dale can be Captain Planet or Professor McTalks Down To Everyone Like He Is Speaking Scientific Law Not Hypothesis (long name but it is catchy). Bob can be “My Comments Don’t Warrant Emotions” or “People Call Me a Republican”
[Reply]
Good point, Will. The vast majority of the revenue from Cap and Trade will not even go to environmental causes. It’s mostly just another revenue stream for the aristocrats in Washington who can’t live within their means.
[Reply]
If you are undecided perhaps you just aren’t trying hard enough to care. Some people don’t care and that is fine with me. I run across you all the time. For those that have already decided, at least at this website it’s a matter of a simple cut-n-paste job or a single paragraph, or a reply to a topic on which you have done no research but still have formulated an opinion. If it matters, or if you think it should matter to you, do something about it. Have a real reason to post an idea. Christ. Undecided? You are just a lazy ‘thinker’ just like the others, Cut-n-paste, who never met a website he didn’t like to pilfer ‘his’ ideas from, or ‘Bob’ (who I am sure came by the name honestly) who clearly doesn’t realize he speaks in talking points he has heard repeated time and time again and thinks that brings them to the level of truth. Unfortunately he doesn’t realize he’s got the puppeteers hand up his arse. He shows no original thought and cannot speak on the subject, just combining what he has heard others say as though they were his own thoughts, his own conclusions.
I agree with the ideas you list, although, most are already implemented, so you really bring nothing at all new to the table, or they will be implemented but not on a scale, unfortunately, to make a real difference. It will take a major crisis (see how that works?) to wake up the idiots who, like a vast herd of ’stupid beefs’, are unaware of the danger until it is upon them (although those at the fringe, out scouting the territory, have become aware and are acting to redirect the herd from it’s peril. Nature has its patterns. You just have to be open to be aware of them.).
For me cap and trade is just the way some change works: through incrementalism. If you don’t think change costs something and that some won’t take advantage and enrich themselves in the subsequent flurry of activity you know nothing about either politics or human nature. We seldom, as humans, do something because it is ‘right’ or adopt an idea because of the truth it contains. We generally do what is easiest for us, feels good, or especially if it benefits us immediately. Most people are not good at long term thinking, regardless of what we might think. Agree or disagree, cap and trade may not be the best way to address environmental problems but it does bring environmental issues to the public eye. CO2 is an environmental problem for reasons other than just being a greenhouse gas. The real threat lies in the acidification of the oceans. It affects the bottom rung of the food chain. It’s a simple chemistry problem but with major effects. If it matters at all to you you would look into it and not comment when you are sitting on the fence crowing, in effect, about NOTHING.
As far as your ‘hypothesis’ comment: we all speak in hypotheses. The fact that you just found that out is telling. We all glean what we believe to be ‘facts’ and formulate ideas. Some by cut-n-paste, some by believing what others tell them. Some by actually looking into a matter. As far as ’scientific law’, yes I speak scientific law as well. If you understood what you were talking about (too undecided? or too lazy?) you would know that even scientific law is just an accepted idea that gains it’s legitimacy through widespread use – not really different from a hypothesis except in its acceptance by a large group.
As far as nicknames: you don’t get to choose your own, at least not in this tribe. You will be called ‘Will’. My choice, which I came to after much deliberation, reflects in kind the amount of effort you have taken to understand the issues you are talking about, have formed an opinion on, and felt the need to counter another who has actually done his homework.
Bane:
I do not disagree with your second and third sentences. On the first, please see above.
[Reply]
Thank you Dale, you have managed to compose a response without saying anything. YOU brought nothing to this conversation. YOU did not mention a single solution, but merely chose to piggyback the liberal idea of screw the economy and all business owners. I respected that you had an opinion. I wanted an intelligent response. I got neither respect or a response worthy of being called intellegent from you. How dare someone bash others for wanting to gather information to make an informed decision? How hypocritical. But I am not surprised, doubting the “terrible impact of man on our environment” today is like doubting the Catholic church during the inquisition. You can’t win support for an idea by acting like an union organizer. Bring answers to the table, not foolish assumptions about the nature of my beliefs or education. I would venture that I am no less educated on the subject of global climate change than you. I want people to act responsibly because it is the right thing to do. And yes, people will choose to act in a manner that benefits the greater good. We act to ensure survival of our families and taking care of the environment does that as well.
But since you have felt compelled to call me a “lazy thinker” I feel that it is only fair to note some things that strike me about you. You are not passionate about this subject, you just lack something tangible to be passionate about. You have adopted this as the fair-weather topic of the month to become incensed over. You overcompensate for a lack of relevant education by hurling heated personal attacks (or you feel that you have to make up for an inferior education by belittling strangers). You call me lazy without asking what I have done to come to my conclusion that “I don’t have enough information yet”. You are lazy if you have come to a conclusion and do not feel the need to question it and push for more concrete data. I am apparently one of the “beefs” as I am not a member of your procession of lemmings. You can’t have an argument where your answer for everything is “that’s just what you’ve heard people say before”. Where did you get your information? What research team were you on? Did Al Gore have no impact on you at all? And in the interest of full disclosure, I do believe humans are the cause for some global warming, I just know that we do not know the extent of our impact or how to fix it.
My problem is with cap and trade. There is no practical application for cap and trade. The major offenders will still pump out gases, that will not stop by taxation. Don’t tax, regulate, give guidelines and limits without loopholes and taxes. The increased costs will pass down to the consumer. Consumers will stop buying, the economy tanks further. How is that good for the environment? A six dollar gallon of gas or 400 dollar electric bill will not serve any interest except to fund our spendthrift government.
Now can we move back to a civil discussion about cap and trade?
[Reply]
Ha Ha.
Obviously you think I care.
[Reply]