Clinton: “U.S. has been negligent in living up to its responsibilities” for Global Warming
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told a group of young Europeans at the European Parliament in Brussels today that the global economic downturn provided a fresh new opportunity. “Never waste a good crisis,” Secretary Clinton suggested. “Don’t waste it when it can have a very positive impact on climate change and energy security,” she said.
Clinton also said she was encouraged during her recent trip to Asia by China’s evolving position on forging a new climate policy. A policy that is inextricably linked with economic and energy security.
“There is no doubt in my mind the energy security and climate change crises, which I view as being together, not separate, must be dealt with,” Clinton added.
Europe has already agreed to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 20 percent from 1990 levels in the next decade and President Obama has proposed to cut carbon dioxide emissions 80 percent by 2050.
But with a struggling global economy, including a tanking European carbon market, some European states have already shown trepidation towards aggressive climate policy.
AP Photo courtesy of US Department of State
Is the gullible warming crowd even remotely paying attention? Like are they paying attention to the fact we are cooling and have been for some time now? Or the fact that drastically cooler temperatures while CO2 continued to rise proves gullible warming is a farce? Or maybe the fact the economy is having enough trouble without throwing a trillion here and a trillion there as if we had the money to spend?
THIS IS NOT A GOOD CRYSIS!!!!!!!!!
Tom: Do you have any evidence to back up the statement,”We are cooling and have been for some time now”? Or, where these “drastically cooler temperatures” are occurring?”
While calendar year 2008 was the coolest since 2000, it was also the ninth warmest since 1880! ( http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2008/ )
Timothy,
There is more than enough evidence out there and I am not obligated in the slightest to provide it. The gullible warming crowd are the ones who have made a claim (man is the cause). It is up to them to prove their THEORY right, not the rest of us to prove them wrong.
Let me put it this way. The link you provided is not the only source of temperature records. And lets look at track records for a sec. That same group put September’s numbers into the record for October last year if I remember correctly. And weren’t they the ones that said 1998 was the warmest year in a thousand years and were later forced to admit it was really 1934? And aren’t some of these players the same people who were crying global cooling in the 70’s? And didn’t we have record cold temps all over the world not just this winter but last winter? And record snow falls? Why should I trust anybody at this point?
And what about warming that is unquestionably occuring on numerous other solar system bodies? How many SUV’s do you see running around Mars? How many coal power plants do you see on Pluto?
I’m sorry but this is getting entirely out of hand. CO2 is not a pollutant. At a certain point more CO2 has no more affect. And ice core studies show CO2 to follow temperature, not preceed it. And I don’t care what anybody says, the simple fact of the matter is the gullible warming crowd are the ones that need to prove their case.
Individuals CAN prevent Global Warming
I am not completely convinced CO2 has anything to do with Global Warming. That notwithstanding, I am certain that reducing our reliance on fossil fuels is both a good idea and necessary, for a large number of obvious reasons.
The good news is that we can all make a difference. It goes way beyond buying a few (polluting) low energy light bulbs, and will have a real impact if even half of those concerned about Global Warming follow the proposals. The beauty is that even if only half do this, it makes no difference what the rest do! Renewable energy will become cheaper than fossil fuels with enough investment in the technology, and everyone will move over naturally!
Firstly, buy renewable energy.
As far as I am aware, you have the choice to buy renewable electricity in all developed countries. If you cannot now, you should campaign for that inalienable right immediately. Currently our own household buys 25% of our electricity as renewable, costing us about US$33 extra per year. 100% would cost US$183)*.
Some argue that if millions of householders (and industries, I would hope) buy renewable energy, there will not be enough. If you do not buy it, there will NEVER be enough. If you do, the money will be used to INVEST in infrastructure for future renewable energy, so making the expense just as effective.
Merely by choosing to buy this, you are immediately and directly investing in the renewable energy industry, and sending a powerful and undeniable message to those who matter, the people who actually generate electricity, not environmentalists or politicians who may have different agenda.
Secondly, stop investing in ‘Big Oil’ and ‘Big Coal’.
It comes as a shock to many ordinary citizens to be told that the huge greedy corporations actually make money for THEM, not for some faceless consortium. Sure, corporate flunkies may make millions of dollars, but WE, as investors, make billions, and even trillions. Their huge payouts and massive junkets are insignificant compared to the profits the companies make for their investors.
You may well think that you do not invest in these companies, but if you have a pension or investment fund, you almost certainly do. These funds will, quite obviously, be invested in the very companies that make the most profits and returns for their investors. All these corporations are doing is actually acting effectively YOUR instruction, ie to get the best possible return. If WE stop investing in them, they fail, and will be forced to change their practices to survive in a capitalist environment.
The answer is to choose ethical investments (there may be different names). Talk to your financial adviser and make the switch now. ONLY YOU control your investments. Make the choice and stop letting others do it for you.
The message is that YOU control the future of energy production with your wallets. The bad news is that it will cost, but nothing the environmentalists or governments will ever do about this issue will cost you less than this, and most of what they want to do will take control away from you and waste most of your expenditure in bureaucratic bungling and misguided foolishness, in my opinion. This simple two-step approach has all the potential to work and with no complex side effects that I can see immediately. It has a direct and immediate effect.
It is so rare that we are able to do something so straightforward in this complex world. If Global Warming concerns you, I urge you to put your money where your mouth is, and make an immediate difference TODAY, before the power is taken away from you.
* Based on a usage of 5,000 kWh of electricity.
Source: http://www.originenergy.com.au/1142/Green-energy-FAQs#extracost
I apologize for my tone. It just strikes a nerve with me to see words like “good crisis” if that makes any sense. I keep wondering what any of the millions of people who have lost their jobs (what was it? something like 650,000 last month alone?) would think of what is happening to them being called a “good crisis”. Or the people that lost their homes. Or their life savings. Or their confidence they are going to have a job next week. Some people like having jobs so they can feed their families so it seems more than a little important. It is just a little hard for me to consider this mess good.
I don’t like to link for more reasons that one but for one you can go to the Discovery Channel website and search for “global warming” and “on hold” and you should find a Discovery News article where they essentially say global temperatures have flatlined since 2001 when you put the hot years of 2005 to 2007 together with the other years. They are certainly one of the few sources left I trust and I have to wonder about them some times. I have seen article after article where people have been saying we are cooling including people at the IPCC. I have seen plenty of articles saying the cooling of the winter of 2007/2008 nearly canceled out the warming of the last century. I have seen predictions of cooling for the next ten years and predictions of cooling for the next fifty. In other words, I have seen numerous articles talking about a cooling trend. They aren’t hard to find. I wouldn’t want people to take my word for it I would want people to think for themselves.
There is no question the climate is changing but the causes are certainly questionable. And with record low sunspots and yes, an unquestionable cooling trend, it seems to stand to reason for me that the Sun, the object in our sky that generates more energy than all of mankind has from the beginning of time all put together in about a second, may just play a bigger role than people think.
The only people who still call it “global warming” are those that want to take the mickey out of it by saying “look, it’s colder over here”.
Everyone else, including the scientists that are studying the climate, call it CLIMATE CHANGE and have been doing so for a looooong lime.
Tom-
My role here is not to debate the methodological rigor of today’s climate science. Perhaps you are equipped with the necessary training and experience to do that, however, I am not – and am perfectly at peace with that fact.
I am, however, equipped with the necessary training and experience to understand that this shouldn’t be a question of placing the burden of proof on one party or another: the best analogy for science should not be a court of law.
If we employed the precautionary principle to this debate, the burden of “proof” would be lifted, and we could begin working on solutions that would clean up our air and water, not to mention help wean us off of foreign sources of energy from politically unstable regions.
You don’t have to believe in global warming/climate change to read the signs at the lake just one mile from my house (a lake that provides drinking water to tens of thousands of people and irrigates thousands of acres of vegetable and grain crops) that recommend I don’t eat more than one fish per month from its waters because of high concentrations of mercury. The vast majority of this mercury is coming from coal-fired power plants.
For the sake of argument, let’s just say GW/CC isn’t happening, but that we’ve taken all of these steps to clean up our energy supply, create new jobs and wean us off the foreign energy sources that continue to drain our GDP? What is the worst thing that could happen? Slowed economic growth? (I think compare to now, we’d take any economic growth over slowed growth).
Okay, now for the sake of argument, let’s just say that GW/CC is happening and that we’ve done nothing to stem it or prepare for its impacts. What is the worst that could happen then? In my estimation the potential impacts of inaction far outweigh the potential costs of action.
Timothy,
Thanks much for the food for thought.
I understand the precautionary principle but I just can’t buy into that being the best choice because it can still lead to trillions upon trillions of dollars that we don’t have being spent with the end result being little or no change in the climate but drastic and devistating change to the economy.
I think the burden of proof (not of warming or cooling but of causes) is paramount. If gullible warming was caused by the Sun and the change we are seeing is more solar variability than anything else then spending trillions of dollars would only be smart if it was spent on adapting rather than trying to keep it from happening. And if we are going to even think about trying to stop the climate from changing we better start by keeping in mind it would be an extremely extremely bad idea. The climate changes, period, and life on earth utterly depends on those changes. The atmosphere wouldn’t have the self cleaning capabilities it does if it weren’t for change. Change is what the climate does and has been doing for billions of years.
That is why it is weak to call it climate change and why I am convinced the change from calling it “global warming” to “climate change” is directly because of the cooling trend.
The fact there are high concentrations of mercury in your local lake is truly disgusting if you ask me. I think it is a crime it got that way and it would be a crime to not clean it up. I am all for cleaning up the messes we have made and not making more. But we have to learn the difference between knowledge and wisdom among other things and make sure our solutions are not just smart but also wise. I have a hard time believing spending millions on a study that results in people saying worm burps are contributing to gullible warming is either smart or wise.
We can’t just pull the plug on power plants. Lives sometimes literally depend on electricity at this point. We have to gradually modify and replace them regardless of gullible warming or climate change or the weather next week. But we are going to need the economy to do that.
I was taken back by Hillary’s comments “never waste a good crisis” to fight global warming.
First, nobody knows much about global warming. Empirical observation has pretty much canceled the crisis.
Second, Hillary is making light of people’s misfortune in this global economic crisis. She needs to rephrase that and apologize to people who are hurting.
Third, the Obama administration isn’t doing anything to lessen the US dependence on fossil fuels. Windmills and solar panels aren’t going to get the job done. The only green energy available is nuclear power, and the administration has banned that word from their teleprompters. Obama could mandate that new federal vehicles be powered by natural gas. That woould reduce pollution and at least use less imported oil.
Timothy, the problem with people like you is that you’re ignorant. The data and reports disproving the global warming scam would fill an entire library – so when some schmuck says ‘prove it’ the statement is an absolute joke. Every single aspect of the global warming scam can be discredited and/or disproved if you just do the research. And btw…CO2 is NOT pollution so stop comparing it to mercury or other actual pollutants. Do you own research and open you eyes.