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Cleveland
Plain Dealer
Overheated
climate rhetoric hurts
the economy
By Lamar Smith
May 30, 2013
Climate
change is an issue that
needs to be discussed thoughtfully and objectively. Unfortunately,
claims that
distort the facts hinder the legitimate evaluation of policy options.
The
rhetoric has driven some policymakers toward costly regulations and
policies
that will harm hardworking American families and do little to decrease
global
carbon emissions. The Obama administration's decision to delay, and
possibly
deny, the Keystone XL pipeline is a prime example.
The
State Department has found that
the pipeline will have minimal impact on the surrounding environment
and no
significant effect on the climate. Recent expert testimony before the
House
Committee on Science, Space and Technology confirms this finding. In
fact, even
if the pipeline is approved and is used at maximum capacity, the
resulting
increase in carbon dioxide emissions would be a mere 12 one-thousandths
of 1 percent
(0.0012 percent). There is scant scientific or environmental
justification for
refusing to approve the pipeline, a project that the State Department
has also
found would generate more than 40,000 U.S. jobs.
Contrary
to the claims of those who
want to strictly regulate carbon dioxide emissions and increase the
cost of
energy for all Americans, there is a great amount of uncertainty
associated
with climate science. These uncertainties undermine our ability to
accurately
determine how carbon dioxide has affected the climate in the past. They
also
limit our understanding of how anthropogenic emissions will affect
future
warming trends. Further confusing the policy debate, the models that
scientists
have come to rely on to make climate predictions have greatly
overestimated
warming. Contrary to model predictions, data released in October from
the
University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit show that global
temperatures
have held steady over the past 15 years, despite rising greenhouse gas
emissions.
Among
the facts that are clear,
however, are that U.S. emissions contribute very little to global
concentrations of greenhouse gas, and that even substantial cuts in
these
emissions are likely to have no effect on temperature. Data from the
Energy
Information Administration show, for example, that the United States
cut carbon
dioxide emissions by 12 percent between 2005 and 2012 while global
emissions
increased by 15 percent over the same period.
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the rest of the article at the
Cleveland Plain Dealer
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