Don Briggs – Louisiana Oil & Gas Association –

While the U.S. House of Representatives and Speaker Nancy Pelosi focused their attention to the all-important debate over healthcare this past week, the Senate launched three days of hearings pushing President Obama’s Cap and Trade agenda.

Energy Secretary Steven Chu kicked the meetings off by saying that the United States has fallen behind other countries in a clean energy race to produce wind turbines, advanced batteries and solar cells.  Chu said, “We must enact comprehensive climate legislation, the most important element of which is a cap on carbon emissions that ratchets down over time.  That critical step will drive investment decision towards clean energy.”

Senators Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and John Kerry, D-Mass., are the authors of Senate Bill 1733, the 923-page climate change bill being debated in the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. The bill is similar to a bill passed by the House a few months ago.  The basic crust of the Senate bill would set up a cap-and-trade system allowing polluters to comply with the new caps by either cutting emissions or buying and selling a limited supply of legal allowances that would allow them to pollute.

Two questions come to my mind in the debate over cap-and-trade and global warming: 1) what about global warming, and 2) what is cap-and-trade really about?  I readily admit there is no possible way for me to fully present the answers to both of these questions in a 500 plus word column, but I can present some conclusions of fact that are important to the discussion.

What about global warming?  We turn our attention to the scientists that study the atmosphere and such issues.  At least that is what I do.  I certainly will not leave my conclusions to the whims of politicians.

Is CO₂ a pollutant?  No, it is not.  CO₂ is odorless, colorless and non-toxic. We actually drink it in soft drinks and beer.  That is where the burp comes from.  CO₂ is necessary for life (photosynthesis converts CO₂ into O₂ and carbon.)  Without CO₂ nothing grows.  Increased CO₂ means greener and more productive vegetation and crops.

Al Gore says the science is settled, and 2,500 IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) scientists agree CO₂ causes climate change. NOT TRUE.

In an IPCC study, 62 scientists (not 2,500) reviewed the last chapter, which examined what causes climate change.  The bottom line is only five of those scientist concluded that there was a 90 percent certainty CO₂ caused climate change.

On the other hand, over 31,000 independent U.S. scientists have signed a petition saying no conclusive evidence demonstrates CO₂ causes climate change.  Science shows that over the last 5,000 years three warm periods occurred where the climate was warmer than it is today.  Climate change is natural, and warmer periods occur with no relation to human CO₂ emissions.

In 2007, Hungarian scientist Dr. Ferenc Miskoczi published a peer-reviewed paper, which has not been refuted. He also worked out new laws about the atmospheric recordings and created a theory that the greenhouse effect is saturated and extra CO₂ will not affect the Earth’s temperature.  Fellow Hungarian scientist and IPCC reviewer Dr Miklos Zagoni now champions this work.

Miskolczi’s work concluded that the Earth’s temperature varies according to the amount of heat from the Sun and other sources, and extra greenhouse gases like CO₂ will not change the Earth’s greenhouse effect.

What is cap-and-trade really about?  The answer in two weeks.