By Jim Sykes / Chronicle contributor
In the latest cap and trade bill known as the Kerry and Boxer bill, Senator Kerry removed the phrase “cap and trade” and replaced it with “Pollution Reduction and Investment.” Let’s examine the pollution that Senator Kerry is claiming to reduce. All of the discussion has been on reducing the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) being released into the atmosphere by the burning of so-called fossil fuels. Greenhouse gases make up no more than 2 percent of the Earth’s atmosphere. Of this amount, 95 percent is water vapor and 3.62 percent is CO2. Of this 3.62 percent, 96.6 percent is produced by nature and only 3.4 percent is produce by humans. The human contribution to the greenhouse effect on the Earth’s warming is only 0.28 percent of the total. Over the past 400,000 years, the earth’s temperature and CO2 levels have varied and the CO2 levels have consistently risen and fallen hundreds of years after the increases and declines of the temperature. It has been proven that the current global temperature “crisis” has been created by manipulation of the data collected and used by some scientist seeking huge government grants for their research. Trillions of dollars would be required to implement the cap and trade legislation and it would not significantly affect the temperature of the earth or the level of CO2 in the atmosphere. Global temperatures cooled in five of the last seven decades even though CO2 levels increased steadily throughout that period.
Global temperatures increased for twenty years from the late 1970s to the late 1990s but have actually been cooling the last twelve years. This warming and subsequent cooling were predictable using hundreds of years of historical trends and observation of the impact of variations in solar activity on the temperature. Solar activity is constantly changing. Sunspots are used to measure solar activity and have been observed and counted for hundreds of years.
Cooling periods on earth have occurred when there were fewer sunspots. Similarly, the earth has warmed (such as the second half of the 20th century) when there were more sunspots. The sunspot average from 1900 to 1949 was 576 annually, and from 1950 to 1999 it was 876, an increase of 52 percent. We are now in a period of reduced sunspot activity.
This administration estimates cap-and-trade would raise $645.7 billion annually. Wall Street companies, including Al Gore’s, will buy and sell these cap and trade allotments and make billions of dollars simply by transferring “paper.” The public, you and me, will pay these additional costs incurred by every company that produces energy, or other products, by burning or using fossil fuels for any purpose whatsoever.
The “global warming crisis” was renamed the “climate change crisis” and is now being renamed the “pollution reduction and investment crisis.” CO2 is not a pollutant anymore than water vapor. Carbon dioxide is essential for internal respiration in the human body and for plant growth. Without greenhouse gases, earth would be a frozen planet. As the United States begins to recover from a recession, is the country going to sacrifice the economy for these sudden amendments to the dictionary? Let’s hope not.
