SHOCK, HORROR: US BEATS EUROPE OVER CO2 CONTROL

The United States has frozen its carbon dioxide emissions at a time when signatories of the Kyoto Protocol are conceding that they cannot meet their own targets, according to official figures released last week. While the American economy grew by 3.5% last year, more than twice the European average, its fossil fuel emissions were up by only 0.1% - with no growth in road pollution and a drop in aircraft emissions. Its progress came as several members of the European Union (EU) missed the deadline to submit new targets to reduce their carbon footprint with Germany demanding an opt-out for its power stations and Spain and Portugal preparing to abandon their target.

The US Energy Department said last week that rising fuel prices had a profound effect on its economy, encouraging the shift to more efficient technology and seeing a decline in carbon usage, which many European countries would find enviable. The oil price rises hit the US proportionately harder as its petrol is taxed at a lower rate. Pump prices in the United States jumped 19% to 61cents (35.2p) a litre while UK prices rose by just 3.6% to 89.4p a litre with similar rises across Europe. Road pollution increases were halted across the US and aircraft CO2 emissions declined. American industry reduced its carbon emissions overall by 3.3% - a trend reflecting the economic shift from manufacturing

Since 1997, when the Kyoto Protocol was first signed, the US has now made more progress in reducing its per capita fossil fuel emissions than the UK, France, Spain, Finland, Sweden and Japan - even before its economic growth is considered.

The US is frequently criticised for having the highest CO2 emissions in the world - 19.5 tons per person. This is more than twice the level of Britain, at 9.5 tons a head, which itself is sharply ahead of nuclear-driven France at 6.8 tons a head. The Bush administration has said this is because the US generates more wealth than any country in the world, and it has instead said carbon emissions should be judged as a function of economic wealth created, not per capita.

Although President George Bush pulled out of the Kyoto Protocol in 2001, after a bipartisan vote in Congress, America has made substantially more progress than its European counterparts, which are still signed up to reach its targets. The EU has moved to a new flagship environment policy called the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), and all 25 member states were due by the end of last week to have submitted their carbon reduction targets for the period from 2008 to 2012. Those countries that went public with their plans had low ambitions.

The German government said last week it would be able to reduce its carbon emissions by only 1% by 2012 and has said this will not apply to its new power plants. David Miliband, UK Environment Secretary, acknowledged last week that the government is "off track" in meeting its own target of reducing emissions by 20% under the 1990 baseline set by Kyoto. It has met the 10% target. Spanish carbon emissions were 48% above the 1990 base in 2004, more then treble the 15% limit of its Kyoto target. Portugal, Greece and Ireland - also Kyoto signatories - all have emissions at least 20% higher. Of the 30 industrialised countries which signed Kyoto, 17 were exceeding their targets at the time the last count was taken, in 2004. Japan pledged itself to a 6% drop in its 1990 emissions levels, yet has so far experienced a 7% rise.

The main US increase was registered from air conditioning, reflecting an economic boom in America's hotter states. Arizona's economy grew by an extraordinary 8.7% over the year and Nevada's by 8.2% - both on a par with the growth rates in India.

The Business Online, 2 July 2006






WARNING: BRITISH GOVERNMENT RISKS ECONOMIC STABILITY OVER CARBON POLICIES

Business groups hit out at the Government for cutting its cap on carbon emissions which they say will push up energy prices and make Britain less competitive. David Miliband, the Environment Secretary, said the Government would issue 3pc fewer carbon credits, which give companies the right to emit carbon dioxide, from 2008 to 2012 under the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme.

Electricity companies are allocated less carbon credits than they need to encourage investment in environmentally friendly power generation and have to make up the shortfall by buying credits from others. Businesses believe electricity companies will be forced to buy even more carbon credits from 2008 with the extra costs passed on to customers. They claim Britain already has some of the highest energy costs in Europe.

CBI deputy director-general John Cridland said: "Such a demanding cut is likely to feed through to higher electricity prices, and with firms already struggling to meet energy costs, the Government is taking a risk with the competitiveness of UK business."

Business groups also fear that other European governments will dole out more credits than Britain which will keep down their electricity costs. Britain was one of the few EU countries last year to have issued fewer carbon credits than industry and electricity suppliers needed. Martin Temple, the director-general of the manufacturers' organisation EEF, said: "These proposals will leave the UK significantly out of step with the rest of Europe and hurt our competitiveness when we can ill afford it."

Mr Miliband claimed the impact on electricity prices would be small. Industrial energy prices would have a one-off rise of 1pc and domestic customers 0.5pc. About 7pc of the carbon credits will be auctioned by the Government from 2008. Currently it distributes carbon credits for free. Mr Miliband said the auction at today's carbon prices would raise £150m a year with much of it earmarked for a new fund to invest in renewable energy. The CBI welcomed the fund but said it was unlikely to soften the impact of the proposed cuts in carbon credits.

However, the environmental group Friends of the Earth said Britain should have been more ambitious in the cap. The Government will fall short of its own target of a 20pc cut by 2010.

The Daily Telegraph, 30 June 2006






USUAL SUSPECTS BLAME GLOBAL WARMING FOR HEAVY RAIN

Images of swamped homes in the U.S. Northeast deepened suspicions over global warming, giving ammunition to scientists and others who say greenhouse gas-spewing cars and factories are fueling extreme weather. Meteorologists cautioned that no one should read too much into one storm. But the Atlantic Ocean is unusually warm for this time of year, they said, creating excess moisture in the atmosphere that can swiftly build a powerful rainstorm.

Paul Epstein, associate director of Harvard Medical School's Center for Health and the Global Environment, said the Atlantic is warming faster than scientists projected even a decade ago, and he expects such storms as the one seen this week from Virginia to New York to become common. "Scientists and climatologists are looking at one another and we're just stunned because no one, even in the 1990s, projected the magnitude of the storms and degree of warming in the Arctic that we are seeing," he said. Epstein sees a clear pattern: rain has increased in the United States by 7 percent in three decades; heavy rain events of more than 2 inches a day are up 14 percent and storms dumping more than 4 inches a day rose 20 percent.

The floods that forced up to 200,000 evacuees from a historic Pennsylvania coal town on Wednesday followed a year of erratic weather in other parts of the region, including record rainfall in May and June in Massachusetts, a spring-like January in Maine and Vermont's worst autumn foliage in memory. On February 12, Boston dug itself out of its largest snowfall for a single day when 17.5 inches fell -- an abrupt change from the second-warmest January on record in much of New England. Rhode Island's January was the warmest in 56 years. In Maine, lakes froze later, then thawed, faster than many could remember.

Most scientists say greenhouse gases could cause huge climate changes like floods, heat waves, droughts and a rise in sea levels that could swamp low-lying Pacific islands by 2100. But not everyone blames human pollution for drenching the U.S. Northeast. "The climate is warming," said Bernie Rayno, senior meteorologist at Accuweather.com. "The real question is: 'Are humans causing it or is it occurring because of natural cycles?' We believe that we are in a natural cycle like we were back in the 1930s, 40s and 50s. And that was a time of big climate swings."

Brenda Ekwurzel of the Union of Concerned Scientists sees a gradual shift over the past 50 years toward heavier rain and more violent weather, including the record-shattering hurricane season that produced 28 storms last year. "We do expect to see an increase in the intensity of rainstorms particularly in the Northeast," she said.

At current projections, Epstein said, a typical day in Boston could feel like present-day Richmond, Virginia, in 100 years under one model of the atmosphere and oceans produced by the federally funded New England Regional Assessment of 2001. Epstein, who contributed to that study, said another model that sees Boston resembling Atlanta, Georgia with a 10-degree Fahrenheit (5.6-degree C) rise in temperature over a century could be conservative. "What we are seeing is really the pace and magnitude of these changes are much greater than we had imagined, so in fact the models each year become underestimates," he said.

The Insurance Information Institute, a nonprofit trade group, said the Northeast looked "woefully unprepared" to the risk of floods. "We're entering a period of time when we should expect more severe and frequent hurricanes and at the same time we've got this trend toward more and more people moving into coastal areas," said spokeswoman Jeanne Salvatore. "The risk is a lot higher than most people anticipate."

Reuters, 29 June 2006






Australian Greenies: Heads I win, tails you lose

Last summer was the hottest on record. But last month many parts of Australia reported record or near-record cold nights. The average minimum temperature was 1.69 degrees below the long-term average, making it the second-coldest June since 1950.

As people pile on extra clothes they may be sceptical about global warming. But Grant Beard of the Bureau of Meteorology's National Climate Centre said global warming could in fact be driving down overnight winter temperatures. The cold spell, he explained, was being fuelled by the high pressure systems that increasingly dominate southern areas of Australia during autumn and early winter. "High pressure systems are associated with clear nights, low humidity and light winds. These are perfect ingredients for low overnight temperatures," he said.

Source

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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

Global warming has taken the place of Communism as an absurdity that "liberals" will defend to the death regardless of the evidence showing its folly. Evidence never has mattered to real Leftists

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