Below is an excerpt of NASA scientist James Hansen’s critique of the President Obama supported Waxman-Markey global warming cap-and-trade bill that passed the House and is now under consideration in the U.S. Senate. Hansen’s full critique appeared on July 9, 2009 in The Huffington Post. Hansen is director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, but he writes on this policy-related topic as a private citizen.(Climate Depot Editor’s Note: Hansen is the man Al Gore says we should listen to for “intelligent action” on climate policy. See: Gore: “When the history of the climate crisis is written, Hansen will be seen as the scientist with the most powerful and consistent voice calling for intelligent action to preserve our planet’s environment.” )
Jim Hansen Excerpt:
It didn’t take long for the counterfeit climate bill known as Waxman-Markey to push back against President Obama’s agenda. As the president was arriving in Italy for his first Group of Eight summit, the New York Times was reporting that efforts to close ranks on global warming between the G-8 and the emerging economies had already tanked. […]
This requires nothing less than an energy revolution based on efficiency and carbon-free energy sources. Alas, we won’t get there with the Waxman-Markey bill, a monstrous absurdity hatched in Washington after energetic insemination by special interests.
For all its “green” aura, Waxman-Markey locks in fossil fuel business-as-usual and garlands it with a Ponzi-like “cap-and-trade” scheme. […]
The fact is that the climate course set by Waxman-Markey is a disaster course. Their bill is an astoundingly inefficient way to get a tiny reduction of emissions. It’s less than worthless, because it will delay by at least a decade starting on a path that is fundamentally sound from the standpoints of both economics and climate preservation.
Here are a few of the bill’s egregious flaws:
•It guts the Clean Air Act, removing EPA’s ability to regulate CO2 emissions from power plants.
•It sets meager targets — 2020 emissions are to be a paltry 13% less than this year’s level — and sabotages even these by permitting fictitious “offsets,” by which other nations are paid to preserve forests – while logging and food production will simply move elsewhere to meet market demand.
•Its cap-and-trade system, reports former U.S. Undersecretary of Commerce for Economic Affairs Robert Shapiro, “has no provisions to prevent insider trading by utilities and energy companies or a financial meltdown from speculators trading frantically in the permits and their derivatives.”
•It fails to set predictable prices for carbon, without which, Shapiro notes, “businesses and households won’t be able to calculate whether developing and using less carbon-intensive energy and technologies makes economic sense,” thus ensuring that millions of carbon-critical decisions fall short. […] End Hansen Excerpt.
To read Complete Hansen article go here:
Climate Depot Editorial Note:
Even the strongest proponents of man-made global warming fears – NASA’s James Hansen and UK’s James Lovelock — are now ridiculing the Congressional cap-and-trade approach as “ineffectual” and “verging on a gigantic scam.” Adding to that, Green Party presidential nominee Ralph Nader has also voiced opposition to this bill, saying, “I’m really astonished… I mean, it’s not going to work. It’s too complex. It’s too easily manipulated politically.”
Former progressive Democrat Presidential candidate and Congressman Dennis Kucinich also opposed the bill, warning: “It might make the problem [of global warming] worse.” (Also, there were opposing editorials in unexpected places: See: ‘Too big, too fast’ Obama’ hometown paper – Chicago Tribune – rejects climate bill! ‘House members should vote no’ & Washington Post: ‘We think it’s too soon to settle for something that falls so far short of ideal’ & Denver Post: Climate bill’s ‘goals exist in fantasy…Not ‘way to go about it’ )
Related Links:
NASA Warming Scientist James Hansen Hopes Congressional Climate Bill Fails! – May 4, 2009
Jan. 2009: Former NASA Supervisor Says Hansen ‘Embarrassed NASA’ – January 24, 2009
NASA’s Hansen: Skepticism ‘can confuse the public’ – April 9, 2009
Scientist: New study ‘rules out’ Hansen’s claims of ‘catastrophic’ Greenland melt
Inconvenient Physicist Freeman Dyson calls Gore/Hansen promoters of ‘lousy science’
NASA’s Hansen rails against climate bill as watery slop…’this is just stupidity’ – June 23, 2009