‘Climate Change’ Lawyers Quietly Lay Groundwork For EPA Takeover Of US Energy Sector
Environmentalist lawyers have been pushing a legal theory that would give the Environmental Protection Agency cover to regulate every facet of state energy policy — effectively eliminating state’s authority to craft their own regulations.
“Buried in the Clean Air Act is an extremely powerful mechanism that effectively gives EPA carte blanche to tell states to make drastic cuts to their emissions,”Brian Potts, a partner at the law firm Foley & Lardner wrote in Politico Monday.
“This provision, which can now be used thanks to the completion of the Paris climate deal, raises important questions about national sovereignty and states’ rights — questions that Republicans would undoubtedly use to try and kill such a proposal,” Potts wrote. “But the benefits of using this mechanism dwarf those concerns.”
Potts is referring to Section 115 of the Clean Air Act. Liberal legal scholars argue the Paris global warming treaty has triggered this little-known provision of federal law, and now the EPA can launch a full takeover of states’ environmental regulatory agendas.
“Section 115 of the Clean Air Act provides an untapped but potent opportunity for achieving many of the United States’ long-term climate change goals,” 13 liberal legal experts wrote in a January brief published by the Institute for Policy Integrity.…
Study claims there is no significant natural component to global warming, i.e. ‘it’s all your fault’
DURHAM, N.C. — By examining how Earth cools itself back down after a period of natural warming, a study by scientists at Duke University and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory confirms that global temperature does not rise or fall chaotically in the long run. Unless pushed by outside forces, temperature should remain stable.
The new evidence may finally help put the chill on skeptics’ belief that long-term global warming occurs in an unpredictable manner, independently of external drivers such as human impacts.
“This underscores that large, sustained changes in global temperature like those observed over the last century require drivers such as increased greenhouse gas concentrations,” said lead author Patrick Brown, a PhD student at Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment. Natural climate cycles alone are insufficient to explain such changes, he said.
Brown and his colleagues published their peer-reviewed research Feb. 1 in the Journal of Climate.
Using global climate models and NASA satellite observations of Earth’s energy budget from the last 15 years, the study finds that a warming Earth is able to restore its temperature equilibrium through complex and seemingly paradoxical changes in the atmosphere and the way radiative heat is transported.
Scientists have long attributed this stabilization to a phenomenon known as the Planck Response, a large increase in infrared energy that Earth emits as it warms. Acting as a safety valve of sorts, this response creates a negative radiative feedback that allows more of the accumulating heat to be released into space through the top of the atmosphere.
The new Duke-NASA research, however, shows it’s not as simple as that.
“Our analysis confirmed that the Planck Response plays a dominant role in restoring global temperature stability, but to our surprise we found that it tends to be overwhelmed locally by heat-trapping positive energy feedbacks related to changes in clouds, water vapor, and snow and ice,” Brown said. “This initially suggested that the climate system might be able to create large, sustained changes in temperature all by itself.”
A more detailed investigation of the satellite observations and climate models helped the researchers finally reconcile what was happening globally versus locally.…
Poll: 91% Of Americans Aren’t Worried About Global Warming
http://dailycaller.com/2016/02/01/poll-91-of-americans-arent-worried-about-global-warming/
A new poll has surfaced showing once again the vast majority of Americans don’t rank global warming as the most serious issue facing the country.
A YouGov poll of 18,000 people in 17 countries found only 9.2 percent of Americans rank global warming as their biggest concern. Only Saudi Arabians were less concerned about global warming at 5.7 percent. The biggest concern for Americans was global terrorism — 28 percent of Americans polled listed this as their top issue.
Despite a big PR push by President Barack Obama to tout his administration’s global warming agenda, most Americans have been unconvinced it’s the country’s most pressing issue. A Fox News poll from November found only 3 percent of Americans list global warming as their top concern.…
Climatologist Dr. Fred Singer: ‘Any warming observed during the past century appears to be trivially small and most likely economically beneficial’
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/01/climate_change_the_burden_of_proof.html
The real threat to humanity comes not from any (trivial) greenhouse warming but from cooling periods creating food shortages and famines.
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The burden of proof falls upon alarmists to demonstrate that this null hypothesis is not adequate to account for empirical climate data. In other words, alarmists must provide convincing observational evidence for anthropogenic climate change (ACC). They must do this by detailed comparison of the data with climate models. This is of course extremely difficult and virtually impossible since one cannot specify these natural influences precisely.
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Policies to limit CO2 emissions are wasting resources that could better be used for genuine societal problems like public health. They are also counter-productive since CO2 promotes plant growth and crop yields, as shown by dozens of agricultural publications.…
‘Obama’s hidden climate leverage’: ‘Buried in the Clean Air Act is an extremely powerful mechanism – Gives EPA carte blanche to tell states to make drastic cuts to their emissions’
A few weeks ago, a group of 13 prominent environmental law professors and attorneys released a 91-page report outlining this new approach, which would allow EPA to use existing laws to quickly and efficiently regulate all pollution sources, in all states — not just power plants and cars. The experts concluded, “It could provide one of the most effective and efficient means to address climate change pollution in the United States.”
Here’s how it works: A rarely used provision of the Clean Air Act — Section 115 — gives EPA the authority to mandate that every U.S. state cut its emissions by whatever amount the agency determines is necessary to protect public health and welfare if two things happen.
First, EPA must receive a report or studies from an “international agency” showing that U.S. air pollution is anticipated to endanger public health or welfare in a foreign country. The many reports put out by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change over the past few decades meet this requirement. The U.S. is one of the top greenhouse gas emitters in the world, and its pollution undoubtedly endangers public health and welfare in many other countries.
Second, EPA must determine that the foreign country harmed by U.S. pollution has given the U.S. “essentially the same rights with respect to the prevention … of air pollution occurring in that country.” In other words, there needs to be reciprocity. That’s where the newly signed Paris agreement becomes important. The Paris agreement satisfies this reciprocity requirement because there are now nearly 190 countries planning to reduce their emissions, at least in part, to protect one another’s health and welfare.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/agenda/agenda/story/paris-climate-deal-epa-obama-000034#ixzz3yvlG7RMU…
Hillary Clinton: GOP disbelieves climate change because Koch brothers tell them to
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said late Saturday that most Republicans are skeptical of climate change because billionaire donors David and Charles Koch tell them to be.
“Most of them are not that ill-informed,” she said during a campaign rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. “They just have to do what the Koch brothers tell them. They say, ‘don’t believe your lying eyes — listen to us.’ ”…
Remember when Pikas were going to be wiped off the face of the Earth due to climate change? Never mind…
Remember when Pikas were going to be wiped off the face of the Earth due to climate change? Never mind…
From OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY comes this Emily Litella climate moment, we told you so… Study: Future for charismatic pika not as daunting as once feared CORVALLIS, Ore. – The American pika is thought by many biologists to be a prime candidate for extirpation as the planet continues to warm, done in by temperatures too severe for…
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