President Barack Obama’s speech on global warming to the United Nations today is based on fantasy. Here are some quotes from the speech followed by the reality.
“…[T]he threat from climate change is serious, it is urgent, and it is growing.” Reality: global mean temperatures increased slightly from 1977 to 2000. Temperatures have been flat since then.
“Rising sea levels threaten every coastline.” Reality: sea levels have been rising on and off since the end of the last ice age 13,000 years ago. The rate of sea level rise has not increased in recent decades over the nineteenth and twentieth century average.
“More powerful storms and floods threaten every continent.” Reality: there is no upward global trend in storms or floods.
“More frequent drought and crop failures breed hunger and conflict in places where hunger and conflict already thrive.” Reality: there is no upward global trend in major droughts. Reversals in large-scale cycles have meant that the southward march of the Sahara Desert into the Sahel has been reversed in recent years and the Sahara is now shrinking.
“On shrinking islands, families are already being forced to flee their homes as climate refugees.” Reality: some Pacific islanders may want to emigrate to New Zealand or Australia and are claiming that their islands are disappearing as the reason, but shrinkage has been minimal in recent decades because sea level rise has been minimal.
President Obama’s policy prescriptions are energy rationing and energy poverty disguised as growth and prosperity. The emissions reductions that he promises the United States will make through cap-and-trade legislation are dead in the water in the U. S. Senate and would not survive a second vote in the U. S. House. If enacted, cap-and-trade would consign the economy to perpetual stagnation and make the U. S. into a second-rate economic power.
His policy prescription for poor countries is to promise them massive “financial and technical assistance”. The track record of paying off poor countries is that it has lined the pockets of corrupt leaders and bureaucracies with billions and tens of billions of dollars, but has done nothing to help those countries become prosperous. What these countries need is free markets and abolishing barriers to trade. The global warming policies advocated by the Obama Administration and the Democratic-controlled Congress would raise trade barriers and foster energy poverty throughout the world. Energy rationing is not the way forward and is not a message of hope for the poorest people in the world, who lack access to electricity and modern transportation.
My favorite Obamaism is that “the country that invented the Car will never abandon the Automobile!” He said that before the joint session of Congress and nobody at the Whitehouse realized that since Herr Benz invented the car in Germany it was cringe whorthy.
He certianly lives in a complete fantisy world. Little wonder that men trying to stay grounded in this one cry “You Lie!”
TEST
Alas, Dear Readers, So Much for a True Website, Freedom of the Press and Free Speach. Blog Censors, will not let RQuestions of eligability, not Constitutionality, of this Man’s Agenda be posted.
Will Keep trying to get information out, and this site, sadly, is not responsive to Critical thought, not if it states fact.
Who by the way Wrote the Cap and Trade Bill anyway? Along with Health care? answer those questions, and you will know the Truth, we all know the Consequences!
Reality: Myron Ebell doens’t need to use citations, apparently. Where’s the data to back up your claims?
If they’re true, please contact the President of the Maldives and let him know that he can stop worrying about his country no longer existing.
I only had a few minutes to reply to President Obama’s speech, so did not provide links to substantiate my criticisms. Does the White House provide any evidence to support the President’s ridiculous statements? The claim that the Maldives are disappearing because of rising sea levels has been made over and over again. It is a counterfactual claim. See this thorough commentary: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/03/19/despite-popular-opinion-and-calls-to-action-the-maldives-is-not-being-overrun-by-sea-level-rise/.
See here: http://www.openmarket.org/2009/09/22/obama-speech-to-the-un-the-data/
And on droughts specifically, see here http://www.openmarket.org/2009/09/21/will-climate-change-cause-water-wars-will-waxman-markey-enhance-us-energy-security-no-and-no/
You’re clearly cherry-picking and missing the broader point that sea level rise threatens the Maldives. You’re getting and presenting your information largely from other ideologically-biased sources that also cherry-pick the science. I urge you to step outside your echo chamber and critically examine how you’re communicating. I yearn for the day when libertarians simply proclaim their ideology instead of dressing up their opposition to climate and energy legislation with easily-dismissed scientific disinformation.