By Klaus Rohrich
Friday, November 10, 2006
If you're still arguing that global warming caused by human-produced "greenhouse gasses” is mankind's greatest threat, then chances are you've lived under a rock these past few months. Certainly, there is evidence that surface temperatures on earth are on the increase. But some of the catastrophic side effects of this warming remain as elusive today as they were when scientists first raised the alarm.
But never to pass up a chance to impose new regulations on its citizens, the European Union (EU) is pursuing plans to regulate carbon dioxide emissions even if they have to go so far as to set up neighborhood committees that will that determine how many pots of tea Mrs. Grabowski can brew on a daily basis.
The latest uproar in the global warming debate comes on the heels of an October 30th report produced by Sir Nicholas Stern, head of the British government's economic service. Stern claimed in his report if action isn't taken immediately, the cost of global warming will be upward of 20% of world GDP within the next century. If action is taken, then the cost right now will only be about 1% of global GDP by the year 2050.
That figure is too low by about 500%, according to a leaked report produced by the intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a group operating under the auspices of the United Nations (UN). The IPCC report, due to be released in 2007, estimates that if Sir Nicholas's recommendations are accepted they will actually cost up to 5% of global GDP, which means the cost will be the same as the savings.
In a stinging rebuttal of Sir Nicholas's report published in the Wall Street Journal by Bjorn Lomborg, Ph.D. and adjunct Professor, Copenhagen Consensus Center, Copenhagen Business School the report's many errors are pointed out in meticulous detail. Professor Lomborg concludes:
"Why does all this matter? It matters because, with clever marketing and sensationalist headlines, the Stern review is about to edge its way into our collective consciousness. The suggestion that flooding will overwhelm us has already been picked up by commentators...”
The hysteria over global warming has been particularly shrill in Europe, as the EU demands that all other countries get behind the fight against global warming. The result is dismal for the EU's citizens, as they are faced with higher energy prices and less available energy. The associated Press reported a massive power outage in Germany this week, halting trains, throwing millions of homes into darkness and trapping people in elevators and high-rise buildings.
The Financial Times writes that Europe is in serious trouble due to energy shortages, as growth in demand has far outstripped the EU's ability to meet that demand and investment in new power stations is not enough to keep up with the growth in demand.
But then, that's the EU. In a recent article in The Economist, the magazine speculates that Sir Nicholas's report may well be flawed, but argues that this isn't reason enough to ignore his recommendations. The article goes on to talk about the melting ice caps and how this will increase the rate at which the planet is expected to heat up. Only trouble is, the scientific evidence belies that conclusion as well.
"Contrary to all the horror stories one hears about global warming-induced mass wastage of the antarctic ice sheet leading to rising sea levels that gobble up coastal lowlands worldwide, the most recent decade of pertinent real-world data suggest that forces leading to just the opposite effect are apparently prevailing, even in the face of what climate alarmists typically describe as the greatest warming of the world in the past two millennia or more.”
--CO2 Science Magazine, 8 November 2006
So the global warming rationale goes essentially like this: There may or may not be man-caused global warming, but just in case... let's tax the bejeezus out of our people just to be on the safe side.
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