Taxing Carbon in the Name of Climate Change

The former Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin wrote in Washington Post on July 27, 2014, “How ignoring climate change could sink the U.S. economy.”

Not counting the non-enforced southern border and the hordes of new and lawless Democrat citizens who demand their fair share of the American dream now turned into a welfare nightmare, the national debt is most likely to sink the economy sooner than any other variable and that includes climate change that has been changing for millennia.

Rubin asserts that, since the “scientific community is all but unanimous in its agreement that climate change is a serious threat,” we have to include climate change risks in economic policy, fiscal and business decisions, even though we cannot define climate change risks with precision.

He cites a Gallup poll (we know how accurate opinion polls are) that nearly “60 percent of Americans believe that global warming is caused by human activity.” We’ve had 17 years of record cold temperatures and an unusually cold and late spring and summer. Every time progressives have met somewhere to hold a global warming protest or conference, Mother Nature rewarded them with blizzards and snow storms. Since the coastal areas are not underwater as Al Gore has predicted due to the melting of the polar ice caps, progressives have modified their talking points from global warming to climate change.

“The buildup of greenhouse gases is cumulative and irreversible.” Even though we’ve had record ice this year, Secretary Rubin repeats the environmentalists’ fallacious statement that “the melting polar ice sheets will cause sea levels to rise.” Did he learn in school why melting ice cubes in a glass does not cause the water to spill over?

The discussion, he said, has been incorrectly concentrated on the trade-off between environmental protection and economic prosperity. Instead, the discussion should be focused on the “cost of inaction.” Inaction is an exaggeration since every agency of the federal government has been ordered to adopt a climate change platform and the EPA has been busy forcing many coal powered plants to close due to their inability to comply with the draconian new rules imposed by the EPA.

Rubin believes that the long term cost of inaction is much greater than the cost of action. We are spending a lot of money on a healthy patient on the assumption that, at some point, this patient might get the plague.

A bipartisan effort (It must be good since it’s bipartisan) is measuring the economic risks of unchecked climate change in the U.S. Are we now so powerful that we can keep the climate in check? The report named “Risky Business,” was released in June 2014 under the co-chairmanship of the former Mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg.

Apparently agriculture, energy, coastal property sectors, public health, and labor productivity will be significantly harmed by climate change by 2050.

We cannot accurately predict the weather a week in advance, or where the tornado will decide to touch down, but we can now predict and manipulate climate change? Maybe we can with cloud seeding.

How about Mark Armitage, the professor who found in 2012 soft tissue on a triceratops horn at Hell Creek Formation in Montana? His discovery sure turned on its head the “consensus” science that dinosaurs roamed the earth 60 million years ago.  The soft tissue found under a powerful microscope proves that the fossil is “only 4,000 years old at most.” If triceratops roamed the earth at the same time as humans, then what theory are scientists going to advance now about climate change, its causes, and how dinosaurs disappeared? (Acta Histochemica, July 2013, Vol. 115(6): 603-608, doi:10.1016/j.acthis.2013.01.001)

Properties in Florida and Louisiana will be below sea level and thus flooded to the tune of $48-68 billion, said Rubin.  I could be wrong but a lot of Louisiana and Florida are already below sea level and subject to floods. Al Gore told us in his award-winning documentary that sea levels would rise by 20 feet and many coastal nations would be under water “in the near future.” http://scienceline.org/2008/12/ask-rettner-sea-level-rise-al-gore-an-inconvenient-truth/

Damage from super storms that are yet to occur, like Katrina and Sandy (combined $193 billion in economic losses), will drain the economy, he says. He states that “we can’t attribute all the damage caused by Katrina and Sandy to global warming,” but rising sea levels caused higher surges and these “super storms will increase if global warming persists.” He is sure that the damage will not be on a straight line, it will be on an “upward sloping curve.”

How do we mitigate the damage from a potential super storm or an erupting volcano? Why mitigate just potential super storm costs? Because environmentalists blame CO2 (carbon emissions) on human activity and they want to tax it. They certainly cannot tax a volcano spewing ash into the atmosphere or under sea volcanos that release lava and gases constantly, possibly accounting for the acidification of sea water.

“Carbon” is the chemical element with the symbol C and the atomic number 6. A second definition pops up, obviously driven by the global warming agenda, “carbon dioxide or other gaseous compounds released into the atmosphere, associated with climate change.”

Rubin’s Malthusian prognosis is that “dramatically rising temperatures in much of the country will make it far too hot for people to work outside during parts of the day for several months each year – reducing employment and economic output, and causing as many as 65,200 additional heat-related deaths every year.”

The actual deaths associated with exposure to excessive natural heat in the U.S. in the period of 1999-2010 when several super storms and hurricanes hit was 7,415, an average of 618 per year, the highest in 1999 (1,050) and the lowest in 2004 (295).  http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6136a6.htm

Incidentally, 2004 was the year that registered three super storms, Hurricane Charley that hit southwest Florida, Hurricane Ivan that hit the Caribbean and the Mid-Atlantic states, and Hurricane Frances that hit the Bahamas, Florida, the Carolinas, Ohio, and Canada. http://www.neontommy.com/news/2013/11/top-10-super-storms-2000

Perhaps we should recall that unemployment is already at a very steep 18 percent, not the rosy and inaccurate MSM reporting of a constantly dropping unemployment rate (due to a larger and larger contingent of discouraged workers who gave up looking for work and are thus no longer counted, but receive unemployment or welfare), GDP has been negative in the last quarter, and measured temperatures around the globe have been cooler in the last 17 years.

Rubin identified three risks associated with “unmitigated climate change:

1.      “Future federal spending to deal with climate change is likely to be enormous and should be included in fiscal projections” (the spending is already enormous, to the tune of trillions of dollars during this regime); costs must be covered either by increasing the deficit, raising taxes (Democrats’ favorite playbook), cutting spending on defense (they’re going that), cutting our social safety net (the safety net no longer exists due to government out of control spending and welfare largesse to evil dictatorships around the world), and cutting public investment in infrastructure, education, and basic research. Where did the stimulus billions go that were supposed to build and fix roads and bridges?

2.      Investors should demand that companies “disclose their exposure to climate risks, assets that could be stranded by climate change, and the costs they may someday incur to address their carbon emissions.” (There is the real reason for this entire article, more taxes, taxing the carbon footprint.)

Former SEC chairwoman Mary Shapiro wants to encourage businesses to make such reporting mandatory in their quarterly disclosures. If not, SEC, the Wall Street regulator, should mandate such disclosures.

If climate-related risks are exposed, companies would be forced to change their polluting behavior.

3.      GDP is not a good measure of our economy because it does not include negative externalities resulting from climate change. Rubin proposes a parallel GDP that reflects the impact of greenhouse gas emissions.

Tax the companies for the damage resulting from their emissions involved in producing goods and services and then pass the cost onto hapless consumers who need the goods and services to survive.

Suddenly we are faced with the never-before proposed scenario “to protect our economy by protecting the environment” or “allowing environmental havoc to create economic havoc.” The economy is “risky business” but it is even riskier when environmentalists are driving the debate of an economy to reflect the world as the globalists plan it to be.

 

                                                                                                                                      

Green Scam, I Am

More and more liberal MSM outlets and environmental groups with deep bank accounts and lavish support from Hollywood celebrities are expanding their propaganda and indoctrination of GREEN to the low information Americans who only hear sound bites delivered with such assurance and expensively made videos that the information seems true. But I see the scam of GREEN, the Green Growth of wealth being redistributed by Uncle Sam, with the help of environmentalists with an agenda that coincides with U.N.’s Agenda 21.

USA Today dedicated on March 1, 2013 a special report and a video to the indoctrination of the masses that had little basis in fact. It enumerated how climate change is responsible for a host of problems in America: “More American children are getting asthma and allergies, and more seniors are suffering heat strokes. Food and utility prices are rising. Flooding is overrunning bridges, swamping subways and closing airport runways.  People are losing jobs in drought-related factory closings. Cataclysmic storms are wiping out sprawling neighborhoods. Towns are sinking.” http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/02/28/climate-change-remaking-america/1917169/

My question is, if this is true, and flooding will swallow beaches, islands, and any state with an opening to the sea, why do Hollywood celebrities and political elites build lavish homes on the water front, beaches, and tropical islands? If it is not sustainable for us to use fossil fuels, build where we want, and emit CO2, why is it sustainable for them to live in a McMansion, fly in personal jets, own numerous cars, and leave behind a huge carbon foot print? Why not ride bikes, five minutes from home and work like the rest of us are supposed to do?

Do sound principles of Economics explain that the price of food, utilities, and the unemployment rate are caused by global warming? One only needs an elementary knowledge of economics to know that such statements are false. Where do current government regulatory, monetary, and fiscal policies come into place as a cause of the above ills?

The fear mongering does not stop there. The glaciers in Montana’s Glacier National Park are going to melt, the sea levels are rising and the oceans are becoming more acidified. Climate change, heat waves, downpours, drought, wildfires, flooding are the result of burning fossil fuels and are likely to increase. It is so bad that “a remaking of America is likely in our lifetimes – a flicker in geological time. This will transform how and where we live, work, and play.”

I happen to agree that there is a remaking of America in our lifetime, affecting every facet of economic activity, where we live, work, and play, but it is accomplished by U.N. Agenda 21 which has been implemented across the world since 1992. I have discussed this in great detail in my book, “U.N. Agenda 21: Environmental Piracy.” http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3AUN+Agenda+21%3A+Environmental+Piracy&keywords=UN+Agenda+21%3A+Environmental+Piracy&ie=UTF8

The author of the USA Today article, a self-described “reformed luddite,” who built an eco-friendly home in 2011, defines the planet as being affected this year by the highest concentration of “heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions in at least 800,000 years.”

According to real science, not political consensus, the planet has actually cooled in the last 17 years. Climate change does occur all the time and should not be confused with catastrophic weather events which may come in a cyclical pattern. No mention is made of the Little Ice Age which affected Europe from 1350-1850.

Sebastian Luning and Fritz Vahrenhold wrote in The Cold Sun about the impact of sun on the earth’s climate. The Maunder Minimum of 1645-1715, with only 50 sunspots during a 30 year period (normal sunspots 40,000-50,000), coincided with the Little Ice Age. During this period, agricultural production was seriously reduced and the widespread human suffering was painfully evident in the historical records of that time.

The tomes published by the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), Climate Change Reconsidered, are a strong scientific rebuttal to United Nation’s International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The recorded temperatures in the 1900s do not form an up and down slope that follows the industrial revolution’s spikes in carbon dioxide (CO2). Instead, the temperatures follow the up and down pattern of naturally caused climate cycles. “Temperatures dropped steadily from the late 1940s to the late 1970s.”

From late 1970s to late 1990s, the natural cycle turned warm and the global warming alarmists used it to their advantage. However, “satellite measured global atmospheric temperatures show less warming during this period than the heavily manipulated land surface temperatures.”

How are land surface temperatures manipulated? According to the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), every 25-30 years the oceans undergo the natural cycle of colder water from below roils to replace the warmer water at the surface, affecting global temperatures by fractions of a degree. PDO was cold 1940s-1970s and warm 1970s-1990s. The Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) was similar. (Peter Ferrera)

United Nations’ IPCC made in 2000 the prediction that global temperatures would rise by 1 percent by 2010 which was obviously wrong. Don Easterbrook, Professor Emeritus of Geology at Western Washington University, predicted that temperatures would cool and he was right because he knew PDO had turned cold in 1999.

Peter Ferrera explained that “natural climate cycles have already turned from warming to cooling, global temperatures have already been declining for more than 10 years, and global temperatures will continue to decline for another two decades or more.” http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterferrara/2012/05/31/sorry-global-warming-alarmists-the-earth-is-cooling/

The International Climate Change Conference sponsored by the Heartland Institute held a conference in Chicago, May 21-23, 2012, discussing the economic implications of high cost energy as a result of unnecessary regulatory schemes, carbon taxes, carbon swaps, and the push to replace fossil fuels with renewables. http://climateconferences.heartland.org/iccc7/

Real scientists can explain with irrefutable data what causes weather events and temporary changes in temperature. Political scientists and journalist alarmists who promote climate Armageddon cannot defend in a public debate how humans are the cause of “global warming.” Yet based on their alarmist theory, world governments are expanding regulation and taxation in lock step with the dictates of U.N. Agenda 21.

Thinking Americans are skeptics – we do not believe in the “human-induced climate change” environmentalist consensus. The following examples given in the USA Today article do not constitute irrefutable scientific evidence of global warming:

-         “My windows and doors are rotted away and the village is sinking” (Stanley Tom on flooding risk in Alaska)

-         "My house isn't straight anymore. It's tilted." (Jeff Miskill on repeat flooding in Norfolk, Va)

-         "Who's going to hire me now?" (Barbara Roberts on beef processing plant closing its doors in Texas)

Could it be that floods in coastal cities occur because they are built below sea level like New Orleans? Is it not possible that land is naturally sinking? Could it be that some homes are built on unsteady terrain? Is it not possible that oceanic air currents, cold/hot air mass collisions, volcanic eruptions, and earthquakes are contributors to catastrophic weather events? Could it be that solar flares are contributors to unusual high temperatures? Is it not possible that sink holes and sinking in general develop naturally in certain prone areas regardless of human activity?

Dr. Heinz Hug, citing peer reviewed sources said, “IPCC assertion that increased global greenhouse gas water vapor causes global warming is wrong.”

Dr. Kaiser said, “The reality also is that all the models used by the IPCC and their followers make untenable assumptions, contain internal inconsistencies and totally disregard the physical basis necessary.”

Science is exact; it does not work by “consensus” as declared by United Nations or activist environmentalists. “Consensus is a societal or judicial term which has no place in science.”

In the same article, Dr. Klaus Kaiser gives a very good explanation why the tropospheric CO2 causes a net cooling effect on our planet, not a greenhouse “blanket.”

“Look at planet Mars. Its atmosphere contains 950,000 parts per million (ppm) CO2 versus 400 ppm on Earth. Yet, on the side of Mars facing the sun, the temperature is about 30 °C like on Earth, but on the opposite (night) side it is well below MINUS-100 °C (approximately MINUS-200 °F). The thick layer of CO2 on Mars does not at all provide a “warm blanket” on its night side – au contraire – all that CO2 in the Martian atmosphere produces a cooling effect through outward radiation of IR energy its molecules.”

Al Gore’s global warming predictions that the sea levels will rise, flood, and swallow islands and lands opening to the ocean are wrong. Nils-Axel Mörner, sea level expert, has recently criticized main stream media alarmists, including the United Nations IPCC, for claiming that Bangladeshi floods are caused by man-made global warming. Independent scientists have proven that floods in Bangladesh are caused by rain over the Himalayas and cyclones that push water inland. “This has nothing to do with the sea,” said Mörner.

We are transforming our way of life fundamentally, our cities, in the name of “greening” them or “smart-growing” them, at great expense and pain to all, based on environmental lies, scientific misinterpretation of data, faux “consensus,” and U.N. Agenda 21’s schemes to redistribute wealth and to control every facet of life. Would it not be easier if the U.N. and its ardent supporters just came in and confiscated our “ill-gotten wealth” overnight instead of stealthily stealing from us in the name of saving the planet?

No matter how much logical and scientific explanation we bring to shed light on the global warming/climate change hoax, and the deliberate misinformation of our population, coupled with the brainwashing in school into the scam of GREEN, we are losing ground to the powerful progressive media that controls the irrational and hypocritical debate.

 

Carbon Tax is Still Environmental Piracy

“Why would they [illegal immigrants] vote for a party that is going to cut taxes they do not pay, but take away government benefits they do receive?” Patrick J. Buchanan

As the country is reeling from the electoral loss and the re-election of President Obama, half rejoicing and the other half in stunned disbelief, the economic reality is beginning to sink in.

People chose the promise of Santa Claus and Christmas every day of the year. Government Santa is likely to slow down in delivering unearned freebies as the economy worsens.

The Dow Industrials reacted immediately to the re-election by dropping more than 300 points. All other indexes also dropped more than 2 percent the next day. The finance and energy sectors will be the hardest hit by the promised increased regulation.

De-developing America has been a stated goal of the President’s platform during the first campaign by increasing energy costs through the bankruptcy of many coal plants via onerous EPA regulations.

Republicans are co-culprits to the de-industrialization of America. They approved NAFTA, GATT, WTO, and allowed free trade with China. Multi-national corporations moved their factories overseas, fired workers, destroyed 6 million manufacturing jobs in the U.S. and moved 55,000 factories out of the U.S. (Patrick J. Buchanan, “Is the GOP Headed for the Boneyard?” November 8, 2012)

The stranded homeless from Hurricane Sandy in New Jersey and New York are poorly cared for, electricity is still absent in many areas, and the infrastructure damaged from the storm surge is at least eight months away from being repaired. To make matters worse, a cold front and a virus outbreak in the FEMA camp is exacerbating the misery.

The divided government, the Democrat controlled Senate and White House, and the Republican controlled House, has many challenges to address. The “fiscal cliff” and reaching the debt ceiling are the most immediate.

On January 1, 2013 the Bush era tax cuts will expire and new higher taxes will take effect, a total of $500 billion, affecting individuals, families, struggling small businesses, and investors. In such a climate of more taxation and lower business confidence, it will be very hard to create jobs. The Obamacare mandate and penalties will additionally force many businesses to make painful layoffs – resulting in higher unemployment.

Massive budget cuts to the military will be automatically enforced through sequestration, a legislative tactic to hold the military budget hostage to the tax increases that Democrats and the administration wish to enforce. Cutting the military drastically and its budget at the time when the Middle East is a basket case, North Korea, China, Russia, and Iran are exercising their military muscles, is not a very safe idea.

Speaker Boehner’s tax reform plan to lower tax rates and eliminate certain tax deductions would lead to higher economic growth than the current anemic 2 percent, resulting in more tax revenues. Raising tax rates without cutting spending is not a viable option. The Speaker of the House believes that “shoring up entitlements and reforming the tax code to bring jobs home” would go a long way to increase economic activity and raise revenue.

Democrats in Congress are eager to raise taxes and continue deficit spending to stimulate the economy. Keynesian economists, who believe it is the government’s job to smooth out the fluctuations in the economy, would choose government spending and tax breaks to stimulate the economy in bad times.

The Washington Post’s Steven Mufson has a bolder suggestion to solve the problem of out-of-control deficit spending that Congress has engaged in: pass a carbon tax to raise enough money to bring the budget deficit under control. “Climate activists hope a carbon tax would reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by penalizing the use of coal, oil, and natural gas.” (Carbon Tax getting closer look, November 10, 2012)

Mufson quotes William Pizer from Duke who said that a “$20-a-ton tax on carbon dioxide would raise gasoline prices by about 20 cents per gallon and boost electric bills slightly.” The tax would take place “upstream, at coal mines, oil and gas wells, or terminals for oil tankers at U.S. shores.”

The problem is that higher gasoline and electricity prices would fall on those who can ill-afford them because average Americans spend a larger percentage of their incomes on gasoline and electricity. Companies who export to countries that don’t have carbon taxes would have to be given subsidies in order to compete, more government spending of taxpayer dollars we do not have. Liberals forget that there is also on-going carbon trading in California and the northeastern part of the United States. The environmentalists proposals to tax CO2 emissions is nothing more than a get-rich scheme for those in power, and a sure way to raise cash for more spending, it has nothing to do with the environment or saving the planet, it resembles more environmental piracy.

Jeff Flake (R-Arizona) co-sponsored a carbon tax bill in 2009 but now “has no plans to reintroduce it or support it as part of a tax reform package.” The American Petroleum Institute opposes the carbon tax on grounds that it will constrain energy production and it will impact the American people by increasing costs.

Add all the EPA onerous new regulations and you have a recipe for economic disaster. It does not matter to liberals that China and India would continue polluting with a vengeance. As long as our polluters are taxed, which in turn will pass these taxes to consumers, the budget deficit gap will be solved – until liberals run out of money and the debt ceiling must be raised again or another scheme will be devised to bring in more revenue.

If the fiscal cliff is not averted, the fiscal crisis will be accompanied by higher unemployment, higher inflation, higher food and energy prices, and higher interest rates. Republicans will have to cave in to Democrats because all the subsequent pain the American public will experience will be blamed on Republicans. After all, we’ve been hearing for the past years every day, everything is Bush’s fault and President Obama inherited a mess from President Bush.

Hurricane Sandy gave mayor Bloomberg a fresh excuse to promote global warming and his Agenda 21 plan for New York. EPA can step in and limit CO2 from power plants and other sources through executive orders. Expensive renewable energy will be pushed again at the forefront in spite of the 12 or more bankruptcies that occurred in the last four years. Corn will be taken out of the food supply and put into bio-fuels, including a new brand of Diesel mixed with rapeseed oil that Europeans are already using, DieselMaxx.

According to Paul Driessen, “Billions of dollars in taxpayers’ subsidies continue to flow each year to bureaucratic zealots, environmental pressure groups, universities, and other organizations. These dollars fund junk science, strained justification for indefensible rules, more pressure to regulate for increasingly diminished returns, and outright propaganda.” (Green agenda threatens economic future, Washington Times, November 8, 2012)

Americans are perennially optimistic and that’s a good thing. Fifty percent of Americans are also extremely gullible and believe in government as Santa Clause. They refuse to accept the fact that “fundamental change” is inevitably life-altering, cannot be reversed, may not have a quick fix, or may not have a fix at all. It is not a piece of merchandise that you can return to the store later if dissatisfied.

When faced with pessimism, Americans react by either verbally shooting the messenger with personal insults or discounting experienced opinion as ranting or defeatist attitude. We are Americans and we can fix everything. President Obama is going to help all poor people by giving them the opportunity to succeed. Somehow before Obama arrived on the world stage, the opportunity to succeed did not exist.

I live in Realityville and have observed carefully the European Union and its disastrous socialist economic policies and multiculturalism. These policies are finally bearing fruit in the U.S. We are a new country today, following into the footsteps of the failed lab experiment of the European Union, including the proposed carbon taxes, a form of environmental piracy.

Epilogue to My New Book, U.N. Agenda 21: Environmental Piracy

When President Obama says, “We don’t need more roads in the suburbs,” he is pushing and forcing us into the United Nations Agenda 21. On my recent trip to Europe, I experienced the many effects of Agenda 21 compliance.

A windmill was slowly turning next to a gas station in a field in Romania. Nearby was a small well, pumping crude oil.

Lighting was so poor everywhere, I could hardly see to put make-up on in the morning. Anemic, low wattage CFL bulbs cast a dim glow that made me feel sick.

Smart meters had turned off the AC in the lobby of the four star hotel where I stayed. The wide-open doors did not help reduce the stifling hot atmosphere. Rooms were allowed AC with the door key. Fancy bathroom mirrors in the lobby had tiny television sets imbedded in the middle. I would have preferred air conditioning.
 
Decrepit multi-storied apartments had banks of brand new and shiny smart meters in the lobby. Cell phone towers were placed on rooftops of high-rise tenements approved by regional authorities.
 
Electricity use was drastically cut. The high price per kilowatt hour discouraged the use of appliances that we take for granted, placing them out of the reach of many consumers who lived on fixed incomes.
 
Crops were scarce because many fertile fields were used for hundreds of windmills instead of producing grains and food.

Diesel was $10 a gallon and a new breed of bio fuel Diesel was almost $11 a gallon. This new Diesel Maxx contained a mixture of rapeseed oil, a vegetable plant that makes thick oil we used for cooking during the communist regime when foodstuff was in short supply.
 
Nobody was running air conditioners even though it was 92 degrees Fahrenheit and very humid for early October. Europeans have been falsely conditioned by doctors and environmentalists that it is bad for one’s health to use air conditioning and to drink anything chilled or with ice. Asking for ice cubes in Europe is perceived as nothing short of madness. European waiters roll their eyes and return with two ice cubes floating in a large glass of lukewarm beverage.
 
The airliner I chose to travel to Europe was KLM. Ever so environmentally conscious, KLM asked passengers to defray their carbon foot print of the flight by donating money to an environmental cause pushing Agenda 21 goals.
 
In order to change my ticket for another day, which normally would cost $150 in the United States, KLM charged me $674, the cost of almost another ticket. Most of the quoted price consisted of global and environmental taxes, including the transatlantic air tax which so far American airliners have refused to pay.

Wherever I went, lights were so dim that everything looked dingy and depressing. If you did not stumble in the dark stores and restaurants, you most certainly succumbed to cigarette smoke inhalation.
 
President Obama is going to make good on his promise to spread the wealth around through his global tax plan, the UN global governance, a plan to steal from the United States and distribute our wealth to third world nations that are really the backbone and the reason for the United Nation’s existence. United Nations is no longer the peacekeeper it was intended to be and it does not represent the interests of the United States.
 
If Obama is re-elected, his second term will be dedicated to the focused de-development of the United States with the help of United Nations via global taxes and governance:

-         Billionaires Taxes (there are currently 1,600 billionaires across the globe, 400 in the U.S. alone)

How far of a stretch would it be to tax millionaires and then ordinary citizens when the revenue collected from billionaires is not enough?

-         The Robin Hood Tax (the financial transactions tax involving every purchase of currency, stocks, bonds, real estate, or any transaction involving purchase of assets)

-         Global cigarette tax

-         Transatlantic air tax, a tax meant to offset the carbon emissions of airplanes flying to and from  Europe (this is the very expensive tax I paid to fly with KLM, a Dutch carrier)

This tax is required by the European Union and is in excess of airport fees and taxes.

-         The Law of the Sea Treaty gives the United Nations the right to tax nations for the right to explore for minerals and oil on the sea bed, fish, and move in global waters. The taxes charged will be paid to the “Authority” which in turn will distribute the proceeds to the United Nations. After paying itself the lion’s share, UN will distribute the rest to third world nations, particularly land-locked countries. A percentage of royalties from underwater oil wells will also be distributed to third world nations. An additional tax associated with LOST is the carbon tax levied because of the marine thermal pollution presumably caused by the United States.

All these taxes are part of the master plan for global redistribution of wealth from the United States to the third world via the stewardship of the United Nations under the umbrella of global governance. The global transfer of taxes is not going to help poor people in third world nations. The money will go to the corrupt dictators who run these nations and dominate the discussion and policy at the United Nations.

All the foreign aid that we give third world nations is never used for good – it buys weapons to further the wars between factions in third world nations that are fighting for control and dominance. Those in power take the foreign aid that becomes the means to succeed in their plans to control the population and keep it poor, undermining free enterprise and economic freedom.

According to Dick Morris, President Obama plans to sign various treaties in the lame duck session of Congress that would obligate the United States “in perpetuity” to fund dictatorships and causes that are contrary to American values until “the Senate rejects it or the new President renounces it.” Under the Vienna Convention, the President’s signature suffices and ratification by Congress is not necessary. (Dick Morris TV: Lunch Alert, October 8, 2012)

A treaty to regulate the Internet will be signed in December 2012 in Dubai. Although the proceedings are held in secret, we do know that the United Nations will control and Internet, assigning IP addresses to people, requiring them to notify the host country of their IP addresses. United Nations will censor who uses Internet and will charge excessive fees to those individuals accessing websites outside of their countries, a form of taxation. We invented the Internet. Must we now relinquish it to the power and control of the United Nations?

Hillary Clinton is going to sign a global code of conduct which will put United States in the position of being unable to defend itself or start a war without the approval of the Security Council, more specifically, Russia and China.

Although defeated in July 2012, the Small Arms Treaty might still be signed during the lame duck session of Congress, putting Americans in the position of having to give up their hunting and self-defense weapons. (Dick Morris and Eileen McGann, Here Come the Black Helicopters!)

Is this the kind of country we want to live in? Do we want to give up our wealth, weapons, the ability to defend ourselves, our economic freedom, our property, our country, our way of life, and sovereignty to the United Nations, run by tin pot third world dictators, in the name of “social justice” dictated by Agenda 21?

 

 

 

Carbon Capture, Carbon Sequestration and Carbon Tax

“Climate change is shorthand for global warming.” (Alan Caruba)

In spite of evidence from the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center in Colorado that “Arctic summer sea ice has increased by 409,000 square miles, or 26 percent, since 2007,” it is politically and financially convenient for carbon capture, carbon sequestration, and carbon tax proponents to continue the push to fundamentally alter the U.S. economy with the worn out lie, “man has caused global warming.”

“And the planet is certainly warming. Humans releasing trapping gases into the atmosphere are almost certainly responsible for much, if not all, of that warming; the particular patterns of warming, comparison to the historical record, and the basic precepts of physics all indicate this.” (Op-ed, Washington Post, July 18, 2012)

How can one argue with such non-scientific liberal thinking, backed up by “basic precepts of physics?” Science is not “almost certainly,” science has to be factual and exact. If you search, “basic precepts of physics,” you realize that the above statement is shameless and worthless propaganda.

How do environmentalists explain that on June 27, 2012, 116 cities from Montana to Florida measured record low temperatures? Orlando measured 64 degrees overnight, the lowest since 1920. June 1933 was much hotter than June 2012 although atmospheric carbon-dioxide concentration was less than it is today.  U.S. has 2 percent of the Earth’s surface (3.8 million square miles) and it “does not indicate temperature patterns elsewhere.”(The Washington Times, July 16, 2012)

What are Americans to do when they suffer the next heat wave? Should they pay a tax to the United Nations and its third world dictatorships for breathing and economically existing? Would that fix the heat wave in the northeastern U.S. and prevent others?

Washington Post advises, in a typical narcissistic liberal view (humans are gods who can control and affect the weather and planetary moves in the universe), that the heat wave should “spur Americans to demand action from their leaders.” The article does not suggest what action we should demand from our leaders, but I am interpreting this to be CCS, carbon taxes, UN Agenda 21, and a return to a primitive lifestyle devoid of industry, electricity, modern conveniences, A/C, cars, and mobility, a world in which only the elites can pollute with their jets and lavish lifestyles.

Carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) traps and stores underground CO2, preventing it from reaching the atmosphere. Electricity-generating plants are the first candidates for CCS. According to the Congressional Research Service report on carbon capture, “Electricity generation contributes over 40% of U.S. CO2 emissions from fossil fuels. Currently, U.S. power plants do not capture large volumes of CO2 for CCS.” (Peter Folger, Carbon Capture and Sequestration: A Primer, May 14, 2012)

CCS has three steps:

1.      Capture and separate CO2 from other gases

      2.      Purifying, compressing, and transporting the captured CO2 to the sequestration site
      3.      Injecting the CO2 in subsurface geological reservoirs or storing it in the oceans

The above process is expensive and uses more energy. Who will decide where compressed and purified CO2 is stored and is it safe? What Pandora’s Box might be opened? The oil and gas industry in the U.S. already injects 50 million tons of CO2 underground yearly for the purpose of enhanced oil recovery (EOR). However, doing it on the mammoth proposed scale to the tune of billions of tons yearly and keeping the CO2 trapped there indefinitely, may be a problem, expensive, and not such a good idea.

CCS would require significant investments of capital (network of pipeline). Peter Folger said, “Time would be required to assess the potential CO2 storage reservoir, inject the captured CO2, and monitor the injected plume to ensure against leaks to the atmosphere or to underground sources of drinking water, potentially for years or decades until injection activities cease and the injected plume stabilizes.” (CRS, May 14, 2012)

The proposed sites for storage are oil and gas reservoirs, deep saline reservoirs, and un-mineable coal seams. Deep ocean injection of CO2 is controversial because of mineral carbonation, reacting minerals with a stream of concentrated CO2, which form a solid carbonate.

Peter Folger admits, “Acceptance by the general public of large-scale deployment of carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) may be a significant challenge.” I hope the public will become aware of this new experimentation on their environment and the possible adverse effects of concentrated CO2 injection tests in their local communities.

Lucky for us, “To date, there are no commercial ventures in the U.S. to capture, transport, and inject industrial-scale quantities of CO2 solely for the purposes of carbon sequestration.” However, Congress has appropriated $6 billion since 2008 for CCS research and development at the Department of Energy’s Office of Fossil Energy, $2.3 billion through annual appropriations and $3.4 billion through President Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. (Congressional Report Service, April 23, 2012)

The research and development of CCS may speed up since EPA proposed a new rule on March 27, 2012 to limit emissions to no more than 1,000 pounds of carbon dioxide (CO2) per megawatt-hour of production from new fossil-fuel power plants with a capacity of 25 megawatts or larger under Section 111 of the Clean Air Act. The air would be clean but the underground, water tables, and the ocean would be infused with massive quantities of compressed and purified CO2. (CRS, April 23, 2012)

The proponents of global warming/climate change are quite powerful, political or politically connected, and overflowing with cash. Rachel Swaffer wrote about the left’s environmental extremists as political goliaths.”The constant careening from environment disaster to environmental disaster allows these very prophets of global doom to raise even more funds to promote their latest scare.” (NetRightDaily.com, July 2012)

Corporate oil interests have spent on the average $12.5 million a year on political activism while environmentalists and other greenies have received mammoth donations from Hewlett Foundation, Pew Charitable Trust, Tides, and Sierra Club. The top 30 environmentalist groups donated close to $287 million in 2010 alone to promote climate change education, UN Agenda 21, sustainable growth, and renewable energy. (Rachel Swaffer, writer for Americans for Limited Government, in NetRightDaily.com, July 2012)

The US Air Force is going to spend $59 per gallon of green biofuel and the Navy will spend $56 per gallon. The justification is that “alternatives” to traditional fuel will be needed in the future if United States would be unable to produce or import petroleum. Such worry is not unjustified since our President has promised, early in his campaign, that he will bankrupt the coal industry and cause electricity prices to skyrocket by directing the EPA to reduce drastically or rescind permits for drilling, shale oil and shale gas exploration, and requiring onerous new regulatory guidelines for both coal and oil industries. The moratorium on domestic drilling in the Gulf of Mexico under the guise of saving humans from potential oil spills such as the BP disaster was the “piece de resistance.” Meanwhile foreign companies were allowed to drill even deeper than BP had.

A House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and Power held a hearing in Abingdon, VA on July 16, 2012. Dozens of coal miners who packed the room complained about President Obama’s “war on coal.” Excessive regulations on energy plants will raise energy costs for all sectors of the economy. The loss of so many jobs and private household bankruptcies will destroy the U.S.

President Obama supports an “all of the above” energy policy as stated in January this year, yet the policy does not include fossil fuels. (Joe Gary Street, Vice President of Sales for West River Conveyors and Machinery Co.)

President Obama’s administration proposed a de facto ban on the construction of new coal-fired power plants. The House of Representatives passed H.R. 2401 (Transparency in Regulatory Analysis of Impacts on the Nation (TRAIN Act) that “would put a stop to the new rule and require a study of the cumulative impacts of several Obama administration regulations on jobs, energy prices, and electric reliability.” (Katie Boyd, Speaker of the House, John Boehner, July 17, 2012)

“Citing mercury and air pollution, the EPA ordered businesses to install the MACT (Maximum Achievable Control Technology) to control emissions from their plants.” EPA estimates the rule to cost $9.6 billion annually, to be paid by utilities and customers alike for new equipment, monitoring and reporting, loss of generating capacity, and higher electricity rates. Energy insiders say that it is a low estimate of the cost.” (Amy Payne, Heritage Insider, June 20, 2012)

According to Matthew L. Wald of the New York Times, EPA required oil companies to pay $6.8 billion in fines and even higher fines in 2012 to the Treasury for failing to “mix a special type of biofuel into their gasoline and diesel.” This synthetic ingredient called “cellulosic biofuel” only exists in a few laboratories around the country. In 2011, refineries were required to blend 6.6 million gallons of “cellulosic biofuel” into gasoline and diesel and 8.65 million gallons in 2012. (Becket Adams, Fire Blaze, January 11, 2012)

North Dakota is currently thriving, with lowest unemployment rate in the nation, thanks to oil shale exploration (fracking), unless the EPA will step in to stop them with possible new regulations.

A Washington Post headline was boldly declaring in July 2012, “Scientists link monster fires in Colorado to climate change.” Somewhere in the middle of the article the author says, “Scientists do not have the data to link climate change to Colorado’s decreased snow and rain. Why then claim that they are linked, for deception and to sell newspapers?

“But climate change has been linked [Where? By whom?] to warmer temperatures that cause snow to melt earlier and rain to evaporate faster, parching the land, contributing to drought and drying out the vegetation that can fuel fires, said John Nielson-Gammon.” (Darryl Fears, Washington Post, July 2012)

Dr. Robert Zubrin, author of “Merchants of Despair,” attributed the recent Colorado fires to the western pine beetle that decimated 6 million acres of forest. The fact that environmentalists forbade logging and thinning of forests facilitated the burning of millions of dead trees and the rapid fire spread over large areas. According to Dr. Zubrin, the western pine beetle has destroyed twice as much forest surface as the 3 million acres logged in the Amazon forest. He calls the environmentalist disinformation agenda, the “antihumanism” movement. (Interview on Savage Nation in July 2012)

Carbon tax or a “national energy tax,” the replacement of the failed cap-and-trade tax system defeated in 2009-2010, was discussed in a left and right wing coalition meeting last week at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think-tank in D.C. Marlo Lewis called the coalition the “carbon tax cabal.” 

Daniel Wiser made several points in the Washington Times why a carbon tax is a bad idea.

-         It cannot be revenue neutral since it can be raised any time

-         Poor people spend a higher percentage of their incomes on energy, thus are taxed more
-         A carbon tax would not reduce fuel consumption unless it is high like Europe, $5 per gallon;   coal would then cost $500 per ton instead of the current $65 per ton

The carbon tax as an alternative to onerous regulations is still a tax we do not need to pay. Using the hot weather to promote faux manmade global warming agenda in order to empower elites to collect more undeserved taxes is a farce. The government must learn to live within its means and stop spending so much money we do not have. The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said in March 2012 that long-term weather trends “have not been attributed to natural or anthropogenic climate change.”

Energy Policy and Biking to the Grocery Store

“Nuclear power provides 20 percent of America’s energy needs via 104 reactors in 31 states, from California to Arizona, Texas to Michigan, and Florida to New York.” The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) gave permits last month to build two nuclear reactors, the first time since 1979 when the partial reactor meltdown occurred at Three Mile Island. The two reactors will begin operating at the Vogle Plant in Waynesboro, Georgia in 2016 and 2017. NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko objected, citing potential meltdown of the reactors.

Our economy is starved for energy because this administration has blocked the development of domestic sources of energy in order to promote its expensive and bankrupt green energy in the name of environmental and social justice that the left is pushing so vehemently.

A barrage of unnecessary and costly regulations has driven up gas prices to more than double since Obama became President. The Keystone XL pipeline would have removed the uncertainty of future supplies that affect energy prices. Sadly, Canadian oil will not be flowing to the United States via the Keystone XL pipeline, but to the port of Vancouver, to be shipped via oil tankers to China.

Releasing energy from the strategic petroleum oil reserves is not a good idea since it would increase further market price volatility and uncertainty. Such reserves would only prop up supply for a short time, and it would not significantly reduce the price of gas to make a difference at the pump.

The Obama administration has hindered domestic energy production at every turn, starting with the oil-drilling moratorium in the Gulf of Mexico. Brazilians were allowed to drill and store oil in the deep ocean of the Gulf of Mexico but not so much for domestic producers.

With gas $6 per gallon in some parts of the country, Secretary of Energy Chu, who admittedly does not own a car, stated that the Department of Energy goal is to strengthen the economy and decrease our dependence on oil.  Yet in 2008, Secretary Chu said, “Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels of Europe.” His solutions include green energy projects like Solyndra solar panel plant, harvesting algae as a replacement for oil, the electric Chevy Volt that nobody wants to buy in spite of the $10,000 subsidy, and the very expensive Tesla electric car that turns into a “brick” when the battery drains completely.

Candidate Obama promised that under his presidency gas prices will sky rocket and anyone who will build a coal-fired plant will go bankrupt. His supporters were too busy with “hope and change” to pay attention when he promised to “fundamentally transform” this nation.

As this administration states publicly that it is “boosting domestic production onshore,” new leasing on federal lands is down 44 percent, and the number of new oil wells drilled is down 39 percent. The President says that new offshore areas are opening, but his latest plan keeps 87 percent of these areas off limits. Claims that oil and gas activity in the Gulf of Mexico is back to normal are contradicted by a forecasted drop in production this year of nearly 21 percent from 2010 levels. (Speaker Boehner’s Office)

“House Republicans have passed several bills that would eliminate the Obama’s administration barriers to American energy production and move the Keystone XL pipeline forward,” but were defeated in the Senate.

All the anti-domestic energy policies of this administration are lovely music to the leftist environmental movement’s ears. However, they are never satisfied; their demands are more and more aggressive.

According to the Washington Post, drivers must be forced to bear the true economic cost of their choice to drive. It is not enough that we pay $4-6/gallon for gas that cost $1.79 when Obama took office. A federal carbon tax must be imposed on all of us who drive to the grocery store instead of biking, walking, or taking public transit.

“Perhaps fewer people would drive if we reattached costs to driving that are now being offset by non-drivers.” The author is incensed that people like him, who make sacrifices for the planet by biking to his favorite store, have to pay for our “free” parking via higher grocery prices.

Although Whole Foods encourages customers to “go green,” other “grocery chains like Stop and Shop, Giant, Safeway, Price Chopper make deals with gas stations that give customers per gallon discounts when they purchase a certain amount of groceries.”(Washington Post)

“Environmentalists and those who cannot afford to drive end up making it easier for other customers to shop by automobile.” It boils down again to social justice, the haves and have-nots. The author must not have or feed a family of four. How much groceries can one carry daily on a bicycle? Then again, logic is not the strong suit of progressives. Extreme environmentalism looks good on paper, not so much in practice.

Most Americans care for their environment and do not wish to destroy it. Regressing humanity and de-grow developed nations economically to primitive life styles in order to satisfy the goals of the Sierra Club crowd or other like-minded environmentalists is not the majority’s idea of living.

Last time I checked, most food is trucked by 18-wheelers that burn expensive Diesel fuel. Food is priced according to the delivery distance, the amount of fuel burned, production costs, and supply and demand.

Fuel and Diesel prices are driven up on purpose by our “environmentally appeasing” President, to the point that the rental price for the parking lot becomes an insignificant portion of the total operating cost of a grocery store vis-à-vis the inflationary cost of energy and food. Some grocery stores own the land and the costs of the parking lot are sunk over many years of operation.

The author is angry that his biking sacrifice for the planet is nullified by “Range Rover drivers” who do not care about their waistlines, wallets, and “ultimately for the Earth.” He laments, “Why should my bike subsidize your car?”

Liberal environmentalist know-it-alls are not subsidizing our cars. We pay road taxes and high gas prices, which include gas taxes. Should we tax bicyclists for using the paved roads freely while they are a nuisance to those who paid the road tax?

No matter what we do, the lack of a sane energy policy and constant class warfare from the left are going to bring about conflict between outlandish environmentalists and average Americans who wish to live in a free country with choices offered by the free market and not choices dictated by omnipotent few who want to control the entire population under the false premise of protecting the planet.

UN is Fleecing US and the EU Carbon Tax

The EU charges a carbon emissions fee, an “extra terrestrial tax.” This is viewed by non-European governments as an attack on sovereignty. China’s airlines have refused to comply. “Some non-European airlines may have to choose whether to obey the law of their land or that of Europe.” Companies refusing to comply would be fined and denied the right to land in the 27 countries that are members of EU.

The European Court of Justice has already rejected the legal basis of a challenge raised in London by North American airlines. Carriers have until April 30 to calculate their damaging annual emissions and to buy polluting rights for 2012. Delta Airlines has already added a surcharge to passenger tickets. The scalping of the developing world continues. Each flight will cost us an additional $32 of a round-trip long-distance ticket. The financial gains are substantial for the bureaucrats since 655 million people flew to Europe last year.

The United Nations is pushing for a global deal through its International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). It does not matter that global warming has been debunked, the EU and UN coffers must be replenished by hapless developed world citizens and the wealth must be spread to developing nations in the name of “social justice.”

The media did not report on the temperature rise in the U.S. during the time period when no airplanes flew after the 9/11 attack, proving that pollution from airplanes does not increase temperatures, on the contrary, it provides a level of cooling protection. (Lord Monckton)

Never mind that the United Nations no longer lives up to its charter of world peace and is indoctrinating children and the population into the green sustainability hoax. UN wants more than the $516.3 requested from the United States for its regular budget and more than the $2.182 billion requested for the peacekeeping budget.

In 2009, U.S. contribution to the UN octopus was $6.347 billion. US have provided aid to UN since 1945, currently giving 22 percent of UN’s operating budget and 27 percent of its peacekeeping budget. (OMB)

Aaron Cantor, USAF (retired) perfectly encapsulated the peacekeeping mission of the United Nations “Ready, Aim, Flee.”

The Congressional Research Service revealed that we are giving hundreds of millions of dollars of foreign aid to some of the world’s richest countries while borrowing billions from them. More specifically, we gave $1.4 billion to 16 foreign countries that hold at least $10 billion in Treasury securities. China received $27.2 million, India $126.6 million, Brazil $25 million, and Russia $71.5 million.

Palestinians receive $400.4 million in economic aid, $100 million to support the Palestinian Authority police training, $61.5 million in emergency humanitarian aid after Israel’s “assault on Gaza,” an actual retaliation for all the rockets fired randomly from Gaza into Israel.

Fritz Vahrenhold and his geologist colleague, Sebastian Luning, work for the German utility company RWE. They published a book last month, “Die Kalte Sonne” (“The Cold Sun”) in which they claim that important research about climate change was hidden and “cries of an impending catastrophe are misleading.” “The world is not facing a climate catastrophe.” The authors are dismissing the “CO2 lie” – it is not greenhouse gases that cause problems, it is the sun that determines climate change.

The most relied upon source of information on the topic is the climate report produced by the United Nations, more specifically the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC). The report, produced by civil servants and not researchers, is full of misinformation and doubts. Yet countries around the world are basing their policies and fundamental changes of their citizens’ lives on a bogus report produced by bureaucrats.

Many climate researchers question the quality of computer models used to forecast climate change. “Knowledge of the effect of particle from industry, heating, and auto emissions as well as from oceans, volcanoes and from the soil is very low, according to the IPCC report. These particles serve as seeds for clouds, and some estimates suggest that an increase in the cloud cover by just one percent could offset a doubling of the CO2 in the air.”

Making matters worse, a trading scheme is now part of European Union laws. The EU is trading on emissions that would limit the release of “harmful greenhouse gases.” Prices for CO2 certificates have dropped constantly to about half, around $10.60 per metric ton, in spite of the closure of eight German nuclear power plants in 2011 and the increase in demand for coal power. The CO2 trading system is not working and is producing nothing but deceptive hot air because politicians decide the amount of CO2 that industries in the EU may emit way into the future.

Why are CO2 certificates so cheap? Other than the obvious that people understand it is a fleecing scheme, Germany for one spends billions on renewable energy. “With CO2 certificates so cheap, generating power from environmentally harmful fuels becomes even more than a good deal - which explains why brown coal consumption increased by nearly 4 percent in 2011, bucking the general trend.”  Emissions trading is not stopping climate change, but actually speeding it up. (Alexander Jung)

Politicians in America and the current administration are fleecing the American public with their Green Environmentalist Agenda 21 driven by the United Nations and its bureaucrats. Do we want to become subservient to the laws of the European Union and United Nations or follow the supreme law of the land, the U.S. Constitution?