Actual Effects of Global Warming Legislation on Temperature
Like so many ecological/environmental scares that have been presented to us over the past 40 years, the science of global warming is anything but settled.
We were warned in the late 1960s that as a result of increasing population, the US would inevitably face mass starvation and that, “By 1985 enough millions will have died to reduce the earth’s population to some acceptable level, like 1.5 billion people.” It was prophesied that food riots would ensue in the 1980s and that 60 million Americans would die of starvation.
We were also warned that by 1980 the life expectancy of Americans would be 42 years as a result of pesticide use and that by 1999, the population of the US would drop to 22.6 million. Newsweek reported that because of the increased dust, cloud cover, and water vapor in the atmosphere, “…the planet will cool, the water vapor will fall and freeze, and a new Ice Age will be born.”
We were told that “The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years,” and that if present trends were to continue “the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. . . . twice what it would take to put us into an ice age.”
I remember, during the 1970s in New York, being taught this “science” in school as though it were fact. All of this matters because many of the same individuals and groups who endorsed the aforementioned apocalyptical prophesies are at the forefront of the current global warming hysteria.
This is one of a series of articles which will address various aspects of the debate surrounding climate change, its impact on our earth, and our impact on it.
I begin with this question: Before examining any of the science, and assuming the accuracy of the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports with regard to the effect of CO2 on temperature, what would be the “savings” of temperature increase through the implementation of climate legislation over time?
If we were to reduce US CO2 output to zero, based on the assumptions made by believers in anthropogenic global warming regarding the effect of those emissions on temperature, the resulting decrease in global temperature would be 0.152°C immediately. This is, of course, wildly unrealistic and would return us immediately to the stone age (as opposed to slowly, over time, so we won’t notice quite so much).
We pretty much all realize by now that if Kyoto were adhered to by all signing countries, the total reduction in temperature increase would amount to .19°C over 50 years, a miniscule amount that would have “no discernable effect on global climate.” We also are all pretty much aware by now that the countries that bound themselves to the Kyoto protocol haven’t done well at actually reducing emissions.
Environmental scientist Chip Knappenberger writes that reduction of greenhouse gas emissions to over 80% by the year 2050, the goal of the Waxman-Markey climate change bill, would produce global temperature savings over the next 50 years of about 0.05°C. By the year 2100, the decrease in the temperature increase is projected to be between .112°C and .195°C. His projections are determined using the Model for the Assessment of Greenhouse-gas Induced Climate Change, or MAGICC. These projected reductions in temperature would have the grand effect of simply pushing back the “inevitable” by 2 to 5 years.
I have searched and dug and investigated, and NOWHERE can I find any sort of rebuttal to this analysis. In fact, every analysis I do find says basically the same thing. NOWHERE is the issue even discussed among global warming believers. The argument seems to be that Waxman-Markey is simply needed in order to mitigate global warming. End of story. And that, apparently, is how the debate ended.
We will next look at the economic impact of global warming legislation.