Cool the Alarmism

The Tribune has drunk the eco-alarmist Kool-Aid on global warming, along with the Supreme sillies. (Should Chicago become an auto-free zone?And how about those delivery trucks?)

Richard S. Lindzen, professor of meterology at MIT has a well-argued essay in Newsweek, RCP, "There's No Such Thing as a 'Perfect' Temperature":

What most commentators—and many scientists—seem to miss is that the only thing we can say with certainly about climate is that it changes. The earth is always warming or cooling by as much as a few tenths of a degree a year; periods of constant average temperatures are rare. Looking back on the earth's climate history, it's apparent that there's no such thing as an optimal temperature—a climate at which everything is just right. The current alarm rests on the false assumption not only that we live in a perfect world, temperaturewise, but also that our warming forecasts for the year 2040 are somehow more reliable than the weatherman's forecast for next week.

Read the whole thing. And if carbon is key, how to explain the medieval warming period?

And let's look at the alternative energy being peddled to buy votes in Iowa. Here's a note from a friend, which underscores ethanol's dubious contribution to energy independence:

I had a Canadian friend call into Don Coxe's weekly address a couple of Friday's ago, and ask the question, "Politicians trumpet ethanol as lessening our dependence upon fossil fuels, specifically "foreign" ones. Given that ethanol's net energy creation is a small net positive at best, aren't we really just masking our dependence upon fossil fuels, since largely all ethanol does is convert fossil fuels to ethanol?". He said yes. Said mostly we were converting scarce valuable natural gas into ethanol. But, it buys a lot of votes.

Then there are the unintended consequences. Pushing up the price of corn to manufacture ethanol crowds out other uses. Here are two experts from the University of Minnesota:

Some biofuels, if properly produced, do have the potential to provide climate-friendly energy, but where and how can we grow them? Our most fertile lands are already dedicated to food production. As demand for both food and energy increases, competition for fertile lands could raise food prices enough to drive the poorer third of the globe into malnourishment. The destruction of rainforests and other ecosystems to make new farmland would threaten the continued existence of countless animal and plant species and would increase the amount of climate-changing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

(Note this--what you can do now:"Car tune-ups and proper tire air pressure would save more energy" than that saved from using ethanol in the US.)

And US meat prices are going up, as well as other staples.

Rising feed prices are also hitting the livestock and poultry industries. According to Vernon Eidman, a professor emeritus of agribusiness management at the University of Minnesota, higher feed costs have caused returns to fall sharply, especially in the poultry and swine sectors. If returns continue to drop, production will decline, and the prices for chicken, turkey, pork, milk, and eggs will rise. And the impact among the world's poor could be devastating.

In 2005 US taxpayers subsidized corn production to the tune of $8.9 billion, and it's only the beginning if Congress continues on this wrongheaded, protectionist path. Direct corn subsidies may drop as the price rises, but other subsidies remain, still more are in the works. (Brazilian cane sugar is much cheaper and more energy efficient in producing ethanol, but high tariffs keep it out.) While Congress may be helping farmers in the short run, consumers will feel the bite and other jobs will be lost. If we're going to subsidize some alternative energy, better to switch to prairie hay or switchgrass from the energy intensive row crops. And we need more nuclear power plants. In the meantime, we need to develop our own existing fossil fuel resources to give us some energy flexibility.

And cool the harmful and counterproductive global warming alarmism.

UPDATE: Jay Ambrose, Daily Southtown:

But as dissenting Justice Antonin Scalia observed, an air pollutant first off has to pollute, which carbon dioxide doesn't do.

As a greenhouse gas, it traps heat, but that's not the same as polluting -- carbon dioxide is essential to life -- and the trapping occurs in the upper atmosphere, not in the air. It is not, in short, an air pollutant. Said one newspaper editorial, you might as well call oxygen a pollutant. Scalia was funnier. Under the majority's definition, he said, "everything airborne, from Frisbees to flatulence, qualifies as an air pollutant."

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, law professor Jonathan Adler has noted that the Clean Air Act was devised to deal with urban air pollution and that Congress repeatedly has declined to cope with global warming by regulating greenhouse gases. Those facts alone should instruct sensible people that Congress never intended for the EPA to have the authority under law that five not-so-sensible people said it does.