United Liberty

It seems that President Barack Obama is making a push on cap-and-trade (but don’t call it that), which has been stalled in the Senate since last year:

Closed-door talks extended to both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue yesterday as President Obama, key senators and industry officials searched for an elusive agreement on comprehensive energy and climate change legislation.

At the White House, Obama implored 14 Democrats and Republicans to reach consensus before the end of this year on a bill that puts a first-ever price on carbon emissions, rather than settle for the energy-only approach favored by some moderates.
[…]
Those talks occupied 70 minutes of Obama’s time as eight Democrats and six Republicans went around the Cabinet Room describing their demands. Obama opened the meeting by insisting the Senate stick to his plan to cap greenhouse gas emissions, and in return pledged to make concessions on oil and gas drilling and nuclear power.

You have to wonder if this is his back up plan on getting a major part of his domestic agenda passed in case health care falls apart. While not as much of a hot button issue like health care, cap-and-trade could easily turn into a damaging issue back home for Democrats in Republican-leaning district. In other words, it’s their funeral.

It appears that scientists may be taking another look at whether the world is actually warming or not.

The United Nations climate panel faces a new challenge with scientists casting doubt on its claim that global temperatures are rising inexorably because of human pollution.

In its last assessment the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said the evidence that the world was warming was “unequivocal”.

It warned that greenhouse gases had already heated the world by 0.7C and that there could be 5C-6C more warming by 2100, with devastating impacts on humanity and wildlife. However, new research, including work by British scientists, is casting doubt on such claims. Some even suggest the world may not be warming much at all.

“The temperature records cannot be relied on as indicators of global change,” said John Christy, professor of atmospheric science at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, a former lead author on the IPCC.

While the climate alarmists often say winter weather is not an indiction that global warming doesn’t exist, it’s hard to to convince people when they see stories about snow in 49 of 50 states. Here in Georgia, we’re bracing for another couple inches. We may get one good snow every few years. We’re not used to two systems in the same weekend.

It does seem that the climate alarmists face a believability problem. Just 35 years ago, they were telling us to brace for another cooling period. Notice now how they are changing how they phrase their message. It’s no longer “global warming,” it’s “climate change.”

Whatever it is, it looks like the collectivists will have to find another means to convey their message.

Considering all the snow in coastal states these past couple weeks, and the coming snowmageddon here in Atlanta (the threat of snow closes schools and businesses here), I thought this would be good for a laugh:

H/T: Club for Growth

“I am greatly relieved that the last-minute agreement President Obama negotiated is being widely described as ‘meaningful.’  When politicians call something ‘meaningful,’ that means it isn’t.” - Chris Chocola, President of the Club for Growth

Word came last night of a deal being struck at the United Nations conference in Copenhagen to scale back greenhouse gas emissions:

President Barack Obama said the United States, China and several other countries reached an “unprecedented breakthrough” Friday to curb greenhouse gas emissions - including a mechanism to verify compliance - after a frenzied day of diplomacy at the U.N. climate talks.

The agreement, which also includes the developing nations of India, South Africa and Brazil, requires each country to list the actions they will take to cut global warming pollution by specific amounts, a senior Obama administration official said. The official described the deal on the condition of anonymity because specific details had not been announced.

Under the agreement, the official said each country also will list the actions it will take to cut global warming pollution by specific amounts. The deal reiterates a goal that eight leading industrialized nations set earlier this year on long-term emission cuts and provides a mechanism to help poor countries prepare for climate change.

The deal, however, is non-binding and President Barack Obama knows he can’t get a treaty through the United States Senate, given that the can’t even get his cap-and-trade bill moved through.

So, yeah, this is much ado about nothing really.

It looks like all the climate change propaganda isn’t working as planned.

Back in 2007, when I was writing for the Pacific Publishing Company in Seattle, Washington, I wrote an article on climate change called “Fear Tactics Continue.” From disaster movies that showed a snow-covered New York City to the over-the-top documentary An Inconvenient Truth, I pointed out that there was a concerted effort to make climate change accepted in the popular consciousness (and thus push critics out of the mainstream) by scaring the crap out of people.

That effort is falling apart at the seams because it was built on a foundation of lies and half-truths.

First, one of the very scientists that Al Gore quoted has been backing away from the use of his data by Gore:

In his speech, Mr Gore told the conference: “These figures are fresh. Some of the models suggest to Dr [Wieslav] Maslowski that there is a 75 per cent chance that the entire north polar ice cap, during the summer months, could be completely ice-free within five to seven years.”

However, the climatologist whose work Mr Gore was relying upon dropped the former Vice-President in the water with an icy blast.

“It’s unclear to me how this figure was arrived at,” Dr Maslowski said. “I would never try to estimate likelihood at anything as exact as this.”

Mr Gore’s office later admitted that the 75 per cent figure was one used by Dr Maslowksi as a “ballpark figure” several years ago in a conversation with Mr Gore.

Someone forwarded this video to me yesterday of some of Tax Hike Mike Huckabee’s comments from the 2007 Global Warming and Energy Solutions Conference where he laid out his support for CAFE standards and cap-and-trade, which he not only supports but expresses disappointment that the Senate failed to pass it.

James Pethokoukis explains why cap-and-trade is dead:

Carbon cap-and-trade legislation appears to be Dead Policy Walking in Washington. The devaluation of the Copenhagen climate summit – now the goal is a “politically binding” rather than a “legally binding” agreement — reflects the emerging political reality in the United States. Yes, a bill did pass the House of Representatives in June. Also, the Senate Environment and Public Works committee passed a version earlier this month. So President Barack Obama won’t go to the talks in Denmark with empty pockets next month.

Publicly, Senate Democratic leaders say they are only pushing off debate and consideration of a comprehensive climate change bill until spring. But it is hard to get a major bill passed in a Democrat-controlled Senate when the Democratic majority leader of the Senate wants the bill to go away. And have no doubt that Senator Harry Reid would like to see cap-and-trade go away — or at least disappear until after 2010.
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A new Gallup poll finds that 51 percent of Americans see the weak economy or high unemployment as their biggest concerns. Barely 3 percent mention the environment. And Democrats have been unable to sell cap-and-trade as a job creator. At worst, the public sees it as a jobs killer or a costly energy tax. That charge has particular weight in Reid’s home state, Nevada, a high energy-use state. (All those air conditioners!) So Reid doesn’t want to have to vote for it, which he would be compelled to do as majority leader. And neither do moderates like MaryLandrieu, Blanche Lincoln, Mark Pryor, Debbie Stabenow and Jim Webb. They noticed the heat that centrist House members who voted for cap-and-trade took from constituents during Congress’ summer break.