February 07, 2007
It's official... we're causing global warming
"I feel that it is inappropriate for the state to regulate carbon-dioxide emissions due to the highly speculative arguments that it may contribute to global warming. As the Star-Telegram correctly noted, I think the global warming theory is bad science." - State Rep. Phil King
Ok, Phil, I think this pretty much settles the fallacy that the arguments regarding the contribution of man-made CO2 emissions are 'speculative'. They are fact, dumbass, even the if they aren't published in the Star-Telegram.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, made up of hundreds of scientists from 113 countries, said that based on new research over the last six years, it is 90 percent certain that human-generated greenhouse gases account for most of the global rise in temperatures over the past half-century.
So, what do we do now? Surely it's a good idea to go with clean coal and gen 4 nuclear as a first step, then move to pure renewables like wind and advanced solar. All the while we can make some dramatic improvements to efficiency and conservation. The sure thing is that it'll take all kinds of solutions to get us past this. One is, as Hank Gilbert talked about, using biofuels derived from crops like miscanthus. For one thing, it's easier to grow in Texas than corn and doesn't require nearly as much water to grow or process into fuel.
Unfortunately, the lead on biofuels is going to Illinois and California. Way to go, Texas Dept. of Agriculture!
Since Phil and his pals won't be able to whine about speculative science anymore, they'll now start whining about how expensive it will be and that it will destroy the economy. That won't play either.
Forcing power plants to reduce carbon dioxide emissions will not make consumers - or in most cases the power plants themselves - feel a pinch in their pocketbooks, according to a study released Thursday.Economists from the University of Maryland, Towson University and a Washington think tank, Resources for the Future, said the overall affect on Maryland's economy will be slightly positive when Maryland joins the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative in June.
"We concluded that there is a modest positive effect, it will actually lower a consumers electricity bill by about $22 dollars per year," said Steve Gabriel, co-principal investigator at the University of Maryland. "We can breathe a sigh of relief. Actually, we can breathe better, because that, after all, is the intent of the program."
We know the problem is big. We know what we need to do. We know that doing it won't break us. SO LET'S DO IT, SENATOR.
Posted by mcblogger at February 7, 2007 05:00 PM
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