There is an interesting sidebar embedded deep in the Washington Post article I referenced in my blog post Stop ‘Denying’ the View From Outside the Climate Catastrophist Government Establishment of 11/28/18.
From Major Trump administration climate report says damage is ‘intensifying across the country’ in The Washington Post:
The report is being released at the same time as another major federal climate study that, in contrast, reaches a more positive conclusion — at least with respect to what can be done about climate change.
The Second State of the Carbon Cycle Report, which examines all of North America (not just the United States), finds that over a decade, greenhouse-gas emissions from fossil fuels declined by 1 percent per year. The result is that while North America emitted 24 percent of the world’s emissions in 2004, that was down to 17 percent in 2013. This occurred in part thanks to improvements in vehicle fuel efficiency, the growth of renewable energy and the swapping of coal-burning for natural gas.
“For the globe, we’re still going up, but regionally, there have been these changes in how humans have been acting that have caused our emissions to go down,” said Ted Schuur, a Northern Arizona University expert on permafrost carbon who contributed to the report, the follow-up to an initial effort released in 2007.
The report concludes that it appears possible for economies to grow — at least in the United States, Mexico and Canada — without increasing overall emissions of greenhouse gases. That would be an important signal for the ability of the world to slow climate change over the course of the century. However, it does not mean any lessening of climate-change impacts within the United States. As long as global emissions continue, the risk of impacts here continue, because carbon dioxide circulates around the globe. [sic]
My emphasis. Which raises the question: If the U.S. is already successful at reducing greenhouse gases, and yet still susceptible to allegedly increasingly severe climate change effects, then what is the purpose of imposing severe and economically damaging restrictions on our reliable energy usage?
U.S coal exports are hitting record highs because much of the rest of the world is striving for the electrification that is vital to economic and human progress. If human life is getting better the world over due to increasing use of fossil fuels--coal abroad, natural gas here--then shouldn’t climate change be considered a natural occurrence or natural byproduct of human progress? Instead of cutbacks in fossil fuels for Americans, shouldn’t our policy be to encourage the export of the revolutionary hydraulic fracturing technology pioneered by American entrepreneurs so others can access cleaner burning natural gas?
Of course, the climate catastrophists will argue for a “global response.” That is, for the dream of Marxian Communists, reformulated--“sweeping global intervention” to bring about “"unprecedented transitions in all aspects of society." By whom? By a world totalitarian state run by expert elites with complete power over all aspects of our lives. End of freedom and progress. That’s straight from the United Nation’s most recent report.
WE rejected “The Dictatorship of the Proletariat.” We don’t want any Dictatorship of the Climate Catastrophists. We need policies that respect individual rights, free markets, and property rights. As Ronald Bailey demonstrates in his The End of Doom: Environmental Renewal in the 21st Century, any negative climate change effects can and should be dealt with through continued freedom and progress, not regression to statism.
Related Reading:
New U.N. Study Shows Climate Catastrophists Getting More Open About their Totalitarian Designs
The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels—Alex Epstein
The End of Doom: Environmental Renewal in the 21st Century—Ronald Bailey
Lukewarming: The New Climate Science that Changes Everything—Patrick J. Michaels and Paul C. Knappenberger
Our Alleged 'Climate Crisis' is No Longer, Thanks to Fossil Fuels
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