CLIMATE DATA DENIERS ARE TRYING TO 'BORK' TRUMP'S EPA TRANSITION LEADER
by Nicolas Loris
President-elect Donald Trump's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) transition leader, Myron Ebell, is a huge threat to the green gravy train. Now, with billions of crony dollars at stake, the green slander machine is doing all it can to slime him.
Following their standard tactic, advocates of big government cronyism have picked someone to demonize as the face of small-government, pro-freedom ideals.
Ebell is that face, and he's enduring the left's vilification for voicing reasonable thought on climate change policy. Though he bears the burden with grace and humor, there is no excuse for the personal attacks, which are designed to distract attention from the high stakes of the debate.
What's at stake for big green is billions upon billions of dollars taken from taxpayers and consumers and given to green crony businesses. Just for wind energy alone, grants, tax credits, loan guarantees, and other subsidies add up to at least $176 billion.[1]
What isn't at stake—contrary to the left's talking points—is the Earth's climate.
As costly as our current energy and climate policies are[2] to the economy (they would cost the U.S. a net loss of 400,000 jobs and up to $2.5 trillion), they are projected to have negligible impacts[3] on global temperatures—even if you believe the questionable climate models of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
When judged by their actual effect, it becomes clear that the real goal of international climate policies is a power and money grab that no one, not even its most vocal supporters, believes will have much impact on the climate.
In fact, Christiana Figueres—until recently the executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change—noted that the goal of those policies was to rearrange the world economy:
This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution.
The big problem for the framework convention, the IPCC, renewable energy hustlers, and climate rent-seekers of all sorts is that Ebell is on to their game. So, out come the daggers of personal attacks and character assassination.
Many in the media are more than happy to abet the groups who perpetrate these attacks. The Media Research Center provides a nice sampler of these attacks and associated yellow journalism here.[4]
It's not at all clear what the name-callers mean when they call Ebell a "climate denier," but in a bizarre semantic twist, they appear to mean that he is not a hysterical climate data denier.
Like most skeptics, Ebell recognizes the basic carbon dioxide science: Adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere may somewhat increase warming. But he also recognizes the much more important question: How much is this "somewhat"?
Ebell and those following the numbers know that the Earth's warming to date is much less than the IPCC models predicted and that the actual data don't point to a climate catastrophe.[5]
In addition, the unhinged claims of ever-worsening, extreme climate events don't square with the data either. There are no upward trends in droughts, floods, tornadoes, or hurricanes.[6]
Because knowledge of these facts is such a threat to the climate-industrial complex, anyone who dares to expose the truth comes under threat of personal destruction.
In 1987, "Borking" became a term for getting shot down after the U.S. Senate torpedoed Robert Bork's nomination to the Supreme Court. We should not allow green activists to make "Ebelling" a synonym for "Borking."
Footnotes
[1] http://www.nationalreview.com/article/436228/wind-energy-subsidies-billions-and-billions-your-tax-dollars
[2] http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2016/04/consequences-of-paris-protocol-devastating-economic-costs-essentially-zero-environmental-benefits?_ga=1.248989700.2080581440.1483236224
[3] https://www.cato.org/blog/002degc-temperature-rise-averted-vital-number-missing-epas-numbers-fact-sheet
[4] http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/business/alatheia-nielsen/2016/11/23/liberal-nonprofits-lead-attack-against-possible-trump-epa
[5] http://docs.house.gov/meetings/SY/SY00/20160202/104399/HHRG-114-SY00-Wstate-ChristyJ-20160202.pdf
[6] http://dailysignal.com/2014/03/31/five-myths-extreme-weather-global-warming/
EDITOR'S NOTE:
Some of the comments that added useful information.
Jerry Zacny · Southern Illinois University Carbondale The EPA in concept is a needed regulatory agency. but like many good ideas, there are always unintended consequences. What those who run government agencies seem to forget is the concept of "moderation in all things". Too much can be as bad as too little. Government agencies are like living things and there are those in government who believe "If you are not growing, you are dying." The more rules and regulations they can implement, the more bureaucrats are needed to enforce those rules and regulations. As the number of bureaucrats grow, the more opportunities for ambitious bureaucrats to advance to higher positions within these agencies (Assistant Directors, Deputy Directors and Directors, each with their own offices and staff, each with higher pay grades and perks). The rationale (excuse) of course is always "to serve the public". If we aren't careful, the government will protect us out of all we own, for our own good of course. |
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Larry Frazer · Hot Springs Village, Arkansas Climate change due to man's activity is pure BS. Climate change has been going on since the beginning of time and will continue regardless of what this little inhabitant human does. Man needs to understand what this natural climate change cycle means and learn to live with it, perhaps first is to stop building on the shoreline or at least don't bail out anyone who does. |
Felicity Frohelmender 9000 years ago most of N America was buried under a 1 MILE thick glacier. (not that long ago,) Where did it go and why? There were only; about 2 million humans on the planet at the time Until that change in our climate can be explained, all of today's 'sky is falling' scare tactics is bovine excrement. Yes!! clean up our environment and stop pollution, but do it for legitimate reasons. |
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Ken Marx · California State University at San Francisco There are countless products and services that once were available and no longer are. Why? Because they weren't profitable or lacked sufficient demand. Businesses are started all the time and fail within short order. On the other hand, a lot of businesses have succeeded over the years because they found an economical way to manufacture a product or service that people needed or desired and were willing to pay for. So called renewable energy is not among the winners. First of all, both solar and wind cost more to produce than fossil fuels. Second, both solar and wind kill wildlife. Third, they are not a pleasant site to see on every mountain and hillside. Having said that, I would be the first to applaud should they find a way to produce more value than they consume. Finally, enterprises using money invested by private individuals always find a way to maximize their investment. Having your own money at risk is a greater incentive than simply using funds granted by some government agency. As for global warming or climate change or whatever you want to label it, there is ample evidence that global temperatures have gone up and down throughout the history of the earth, not just since man started to populate the earth, or the industrial revolution, or anything else man has done. Climate change is a fact. So is the need for all of the greenies beloved trees for Carbon Dioxide. Ultimately, the earth will balance itself out without our help. |
Marc Jeric · UCLA World-renowned physicist and Nobel Laureate Richard Feynman's admonition has been largely discarded in the halls of academia. "I would rather have questions that can't be answered," he said, "than answers that can't be questioned." Sadly, answers that none dare question now dominate classroom life led by liberals, progressives, socialists, communists, Marxists, "social sciences" professors, Democrats, union goons, and other such low-lives, slime, and scum of this once free country. The main vehicle today for this war on dissent is the Global Warming hoax which, - after 20 consecutive years of GLOBAL COOLING, — had to be renamed as the Climate Change scam by that coterie of government-paid drones under the supervision of the UN socialist panel. In preparation for that Paris Conference last December the fakers had to "recalibrate their instruments", and to "refine their computer models" to "demonstrate further warming" retroactively. A number of our socialist Marxist attorney generals are getting ready to sue those doubters; well — there are some 32,000 such scientists and professionals to be sued: find their names on the Internet under "Oregon Petition" and "Manhattan Declaration". And I am one of them: MS, PhD, Engineering, UCLA, with specialties in Heat & Mass Transfer and in Thermodynamics. Hello creeps — sue me if you dare! And I will counter-sue you for some $3 trillion government dollars which that far-left coterie absorbed so far. A growing number of our universities are preparing to forbid access to their students by those "criminal doubters and deniers". That is just a sick repetition of those medieval religious inquisition courts against the non-believers, and of those Stalin's show-trials against non-conformists. |
Nicolas Loris, an economist, focuses on energy, environmental and
regulatory issues as the Herbert and Joyce Morgan fellow at The
Heritage Foundation.
This article appeared on The Daily Signal website December 1, 2016
and is archived at
http://dailysignal.com/2016/12/01/climate-data-deniers-are-trying-to-bork-trumps-epa-transition-leader/
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