Environmental debate heats up; global warming is melting away
by James H. Shott
Proponents of man-made global warming say that burning fossil fuels
to produce electricity, power manufacturing processes and fuel motor
vehicles is seriously harming the environment. However recent
evidence shows that to be a flawed theory.
Data show that the Earth cooled last year rather than warmed,
following a trend that began in 2000, and in light of this evidence
much of the doomsday talk has quieted down. However, while activists
still cling to their flawed theory, they have replaced the term
“global warming” with “climate change,” using the same theory to now
account for any change that occurs, warming or cooling.
Scientists do not speak with one voice on this issue. Ivar Giaever
is a Nobel Laureate in Physics, and is one of 650 dissenting
scientists who argued against this theory at the United Nations
global warming conference in Poland last December. “I am a skeptic,”
he said. “Global warming has become a new religion.”
Other opponents have made similar comments, like former NASA
official, atmospheric scientist Dr. Joanne Simpson, who declared,
“Since I am no longer affiliated with any organization nor receiving
any funding, I can speak quite frankly … As a scientist I remain
skeptical.” Paleontologist Dr. Eduardo Tonni, of the Committee for
Scientific Research in Buenos Aires commented that, “The [global
warming] scaremongering has its justification in the fact that it is
something that generates funds.” Colorado State University hurricane
expert William Gray was more direct, calling global warming “a big
scam.”
Whether or not man causes atmospheric changes is no mere peripheral
argument; a lot hangs in the balance. We must know beyond any
reasonable doubt that human activities are actually harming the
environment before we take the drastic actions that environmental
activists tell us we need to take. We do not know beyond a
reasonable doubt that man-made “climate change” is real, and as time
passes the evidence that it isn’t real continues to mount.
Studies show that cutting greenhouse gas emissions would be
extremely costly and would produce an insignificant affect on global
temperatures. The Congressional Budget Office reports that a 15
percent cut in emissions would increase average household energy
costs by $1,300 annually. That’s a lot of money.
But is there any reason to increase household energy costs even $1
per year in the absence of overwhelming evidence that burning fossil
fuels seriously damages the environment? No.
What we need is a sensible energy policy. We must continue the
development of solar, wind, geothermal and other alternative and
renewable energy sources, but we also must not rush their
development and implementation, forcing these technologies into use
before they are ready. When they are efficient, effective and
economical, they will thrive of their own accord, without the use of
scare tactics or government edicts.
In the meantime, let’s open known or highly likely areas of oil and
natural gas supplies to responsible development by energy companies.
Let’s refuse to increase, and in fact scale back punitive taxation
and regulations on coal, oil and natural gas so the price of these
energy sources does not further escalate.
And let’s get past the irrational fear we have of nuclear power, and
take fuller advantage of this safe and inexpensive energy source. In
more than 12,700 cumulative reactor-years of commercial operation in
32 countries there have been only two noteworthy accidents: Three
Mile Island in Pennsylvania, and Chernobyl, Ukraine.
Our fear of nuclear power is based largely upon a gross exaggeration
of the problems caused by the radiation released at Three Mile
Island 30 years ago. In an analysis for the Heritage Foundation,
Jack Spencer and Nicolas Loris tell us that “the steam leakage
released a radiation dose equivalent to that of a chest X-ray scan,
about one-third of the radiation humans absorb in one year from
naturally occurring background radiation. No damage to any person,
animal, or plant was ever found.”
The far more serious accident at Chernobyl seven years later was the
result of human error, a poorly designed system, and technology that
was far less well developed than that of the United States at that
time. While there was an increase in the incidence of thyroid cancer
in the region after the accident, nothing remotely close to the
number of deaths the World Health Organization said might result
from the radiation release have occurred in the 23 years since the
accident.
What has passed for “discussion” of these critical issues is
something far removed from what is needed. Like fossil fuels, the
use of which we have been told is going to kill the planet, nuclear
power has been the victim of a concerted effort to create fear among
the citizenry. As Spencer and Loris wrote, “the propagation of
ignorance by anti-nuclear activists has caused more harm to the
affected populations than has the radioactive fallout from the
actual accident.”
The American people deserve a free, honest and balanced discussion
of energy issues that will produce an energy policy based upon
facts, and free of ideological bias. Fear-mongering and demagoguery
have no place in this discussion, but that may be beyond the
abilities of the politicians and the media.
http://www.jshott.com/