Re: A realistic approach to combat the share of global warming that human activity may be causing

1. Is it possible a guy with the last name of 'DuPont' may have a vested
interest in any possible outcomes?
2. It's an interesting paragraph and helps take up space in the column but
whether cars are more efficient today compared to earlier time periods is
irrelevant if there are more cars on the road. The only relevant number is
total pollution output, anything else is simply an intentional attempt to
mislead. Why would a 'DuPont' wish to mislead in this area?
3. Nuclear energy is 'clean' up to a point. It has this nasty side problem
called radiation. A side problem whose consequences last about 25,000 years.
As I'm sure Mr. DuPont well knows one of the big problems with nuclear
energy is those who want to produce it don't want their waste products in
their own back yard. Places like NYC want to ship their waste cross country
to places like Nevada and store their waste underground in someone else's
mountain. Obviously, the people in Nevada that derived no benefit from the
nuclear energy are a little hesitant to accept NYC's waste. Do you and Mr.
DuPont agree with the idea that if you generate radiation you store it
yourself in your own backyard for the next 10,000 years? And, if you store
it incorrectly, causing some type of negative event on surrounding areas,
you are legally liable to the surrounding area.
4. It's been well known for a long time that the sun's output is variable.
In Mr. DuPont's column he states this variability accounts for 10 - 30 % of
temperature variability. Would you or he care to enlighten us all as to what
is causing the remaining 70 - 90 % variability?
5. How do either you or Mr. DuPont account for the breakdown in the ozone
layer? Even if the poles don't melt and the sea doesn't rise should we all
just expect to die of skin cancer by the time we're 50 so as to maintain
corporate profits?
6. As anyone with even a slight knowledge of mathematics can tell you it's
not the 30% temporary increase from the sun's variable output that anyone is
worrying about. Obviously the planet is used to dealing with this
variability. It's the other 70% that is worrying. Suppose the scientists are
right and this marginal increase causes irreversible changes. How do you
expect the population of the planet to deal with these changes?
7. We've heard this story of LNG terminals for ages. As Mr. DuPont states
there are many who don't particularly want to see these things built in
their harbors. Which 50 harbors in the US to you intend to tell they must
take a chance on the destruction of their environment so a landlocked city
like Atlanta can have cheap(er) energy, cleaner or otherwise? Would Houston
be one of these harbors? Because, if so, you can go *** yourself.
8. How much energy is expended in the growth and conversion of sugarcane to
ethanol and what energy output can we expect from this production? Is there
any pollution as a side effect of producing this sugar cane with chemical
fertilizers? Or do you not particularly care if you pollute someone else's
farmland and/or river as long as you can continue to drive your SUV?

I suppose I can stop there. This guy isn't saying anything new, nor anything
particularly relevant.



JH



"SMBalloon" <smballoon@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:jidi22hi7kbs8m6echd16a9r5ot1qo5f4g@xxxxxxxxxx
The Wall Street Journal
Kyoto? No Go.
How to combat "global warming" without destroying the economy.

BY PETE DU PONT
Tuesday, March 28, 2006 12:01 a.m.

Did the 1970s mark the beginning of an ice age? Scientists and the
press thought so. In 1971 Global Ecology forecast the "continued rapid
cooling of the earth." The New York Times reported in 1975 that "many
signs" suggest that the "earth may be headed for another ice age," and
Science magazine that this cooling could be the beginning of "a
full-blown 10,000-year ice age." It seemed sensible because, as NASA
data show, there was indeed a 30-year, 0.2-degree Celsius cooling
trend from 1940 to 1970.
So are we now at the beginning of a global warming catastrophe? Again,
scientists and the press think so: the same NASA data indicates a
0.7-degree warming trend from 1970 to 2000. The Washington Post's
David Ignatius reflects the media view in saying that "human activity
is accelerating dangerous changes in the world's climate."

But it is not clear that human activity is wholly responsible. The
Washington Policy Center reports that Mount Rainier in Washington
state grew cooler each year from 1960 to 2003, warming only in 2004.
And Mars is warming significantly. NASA reported last September that
the red planet's south polar ice cap has been shrinking for six years.
As far as we know few Martians drive SUVs or heat their homes with
coal, so its ice caps are being melted by the sun--just as our Earth's
are. Duke University scientists have concluded that "at least 10 to 30
percent of global warming measured during the past two decades may be
due to increased solar output."

So what is causing these cooling and warming increases? Normal
temperature trends? Solar radiation changes? Or human-caused global
warming? There is little we can do about historical temperature or
solar heat cycles, but if human actions are in fact causing global
warming, what could be done to reduce it?

One remedy is improved technology, and here America is making
significant progress. Philip Deutch's article in the December edition
of Foreign Policy lays it out: "Today's cars use only 60 percent of
the gasoline they did in 1972; new refrigerators about one third the
electricity; and it now takes 55 percent less oil and gas than in 1973
to generate the same amount of gross domestic product." The cost of
wind power production is down 80% over 20 years, and "the cost of
solar power has fallen from almost $1 per kilowatt to less than 18
cents."
On the other hand, there are some remedies that are not being pursued.
"More than 50 percent of U.S. consumers," Deutch notes, "have the
option of buying electricity generated from renewable energy sources.
. . . Only 1 or 2 percent actually do." And while two dozen
low-pollution nuclear power plants are under construction in nine
nations (and another 40 are planned), in America government regulation
has virtually stopped nuclear plant construction. Our last nuclear
plant was ordered in 1973 and completed in 1996, and no others are
under construction.

We also know that the Kyoto Treaty will do little to solve the
carbon-dioxide problem. Masquerading as a global environmental policy,
Kyoto exempts half of the world's population and nine of the top 20
emitters of carbon dioxide--including China and India--from its
emissions reduction requirements. It is in fact an effort to replace
the world's markets with an internationally regulated (think U.N.)
global economy, perhaps better described as a predatory trade strategy
to level the world's economic playing field by penalizing the economic
growth of energy efficient nations and rewarding those emitting much
greater quantities of noxious gasses. Which explains why in 1997 the
U.S. Senate voted 95-0 to oppose the signing of any international
protocol that would commit Western nations to reduce emissions unless
developing countries had to do so as well.

As The Wall Street Journal recently pointed out, almost none of the
nations that signed on are meeting Kyoto's requirements. Thirteen of
the original 15 European signatories will likely miss the 2010
emission reduction targets. Spain will miss its target by 33
percentage points and Denmark by 25 points. Targets aside, Greece and
Canada have seen their emissions rise by 23% and 24%, respectively,
since 1990. As for America, our emissions have increased 16%, so we
are doing better than many of the Kyoto nations.

In the December 2004 issue of Environment, Princeton professors Robert
Socolow and Stephen Pacala calculated what actions would be necessary
to keep global emissions at their current levels for the next 50
years. Rejecting the Kyoto approach, they conclude that new energy
strategies would be monumental efforts that "must be implemented on a
massive scale across all sectors of the economy and in countries at
all stages of economic development":
For starters, replace every burned-out incandescent light bulb in the
world with a compact fluorescent bulb, which is four times as
energy-efficient.

Then construct two million new wind turbines--a 50-fold expansion of
wind power machines. To function properly they must be far enough
apart to allow wind pressure to flow between them, so about five
turbines per square mile can be installed. But windmill construction
is controversial. The environmentally dedicated Kennedy family has
already forbidden wind power off their summer island of Nantucket.
Why? Because, says Robert Kennedy Jr., a lawyer with the Natural
Resources Defense Counsel, the wind farm would "damage the views from
16 historic sites." One of them, of course, is the Kennedy family
summer compound.

Using natural gas instead of burning coal would help a great deal too.
Messrs. Socolow and Pacala say that "50 large liquefied natural gas
(LNG) tankers docking and unloading every day" would do it, or
"building the equivalent of the Alaska natural gas pipeline . . .
every year." In America today LNG terminals and pipelines can't get
anywhere near the support they need from members of Congress or state
legislators, for both are believed to be too dangerous and too
environmentally risky.

One million square miles--about the size of India--of cropland to grow
sugar cane to turn into ethanol is another option the Princeton
scholars offer up.

Finally there is the nuclear energy option, not one that the U.S. has
been willing to participate in for the past 30 years. Globally some
700 new nuclear plants would be needed to meet the carbon-dioxide
reduction goal, assuming of course that we can deal with the nuclear
weapons risk posed by each of these plants, as we are now trying to do
with Iran.

None of these startling recommendations--except perhaps the light
bulbs--are economically or politically inexpensive, and none are going
to come to pass in the foreseeable future. So the Princeton professors
suggest a 10-year, 20% solution as a first step: just 400,000 new wind
turbines, 140 nuclear plants, 10 natural gas pipelines and so forth.

As these politically explosive ideas are endlessly debated, the best
things we can do are, first, to reduce carbon dioxide and other
greenhouse gasses in ways that do not reduce economic growth; and
second, to keep improving technology--in cars, electric generating
plants and manufacturing machinery. Third, we must keep researching
the real cause of climate change to understand better the sun's solar
output and the historical rise and fall of global temperatures.
Finally, we must permanently reject the Kyoto concept, for
international regulation of the world's economic process would be the
beginning of the end of the world's opportunities.

(Mr. du Pont, a former governor of Delaware, is chairman of the
Dallas-based National Center for Policy Analysis. His column appears
once a month.)

(end of commentary)




.