Green benefits are overrated
Published: June 24, 2009
The May 31 letter “Clean-car standards applauded” (The Daily Progress) by an advocate from Environment Virginia applauds the 39 miles-per-gallon mileage edict imposed by the Obama administration. He claims a reduction in global warming pollution, without defining what that pollution is or the impact on global temperature.
His advocacy group claims $7 billion in pump savings with not a hint of meaningful analysis to justify the claim. Perhaps drivers will just be staying at home.
The public is left to face a future of less safe automobiles in the quest of an arbitrary mileage standard. Lighter cars are one answer to such standards. The Insurance Institute of Highway Safety recently reported on the generally poor crash worthiness of lighter cars.
In his November 2007 Wall Street Journal opinion article “My Nobel Moment,” Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change scientist John R. Christy quantified the effect on projected global warming by an assumed 43 mpg automotive standard: “even if you applied this law to the entire world, the net effect would reduce projected warming by about 0.05 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100.”
That such an infinitesimal reduction in global warming could bring such applause from the Environment Virginia letter writer is remarkable.
President Obama has praised Spain as a successful example of generating new green jobs and “clean energy.” The reality is starkly sobering to such green dreams.
According to “Ground-breaking Study Puts Real-World Numbers Behind The Promise of ‘Green Jobs,’ ” Western Business Roundtable, April 7: Each new green job cost the loss of 2.2 existing jobs at a per job cost of $774,000 since 2000. Spain now has an 18 percent unemployment rate in spite of the green jobs revolution. The stock value of green energy firms has crashed, and 40,000 jobs may be lost.
Global warming is being solved, not by rebranding it climate change, but by the reality of global temperature records. All four major temperature data centers document a continuing cooling trend for the past 6 plus years, in spite of rising carbon dioxide.
Charles Battig
Albemarle County
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Reader Reactions
Holycheeses, the science does NOT support the theory. Do a little research somewhere other than the main stream news outlets or UN conclusions. Man made global warming is a political idiology, nothing more.
In fact, the science shows that Co2 follows heat spikes by 600 to 800 years, not the other way around. To think that mans activities are actually capable of altering climate on a PLANET is crazy. There are thousands of people employed and billions of dollars being spent, chasing rabbits.
We keep hearing about alternative energy sources, at this point in time there arn’t any, simple as that. Solar?
It would cost you a minimum of $30.000 for a system to produce enough energy to heat your water heater. Sure you can power your house with solar energy for about $150 to 200k for the set up, how many electric bills would that cover? Hopefully people will some day come to their senses and we will stop wasting so much money and time on this sudo-science. If the green nuts would not have stopped the construction of nuclear power plants in the 70s, our dependence on fossel fuels would have been greatly reduced.
John R. Christy was a co-drafter of the American Geophysical Union’s December 2003 position statement on climate change, which concludes that:
“Human activities are increasingly altering Earth’s climate, and that natural influences alone cannot explain the rapid increase in surface temperatures observed during the second half of the 20th century.“
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