Articles Tagged "Ed Hiserodt"

On August 25, the United States Chamber of Commerce, which claims to represent some three million large and small businesses in the United States, filed a 21-page request with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to hold a public debate on climate-change science or face litigation in federal court.

The Chamber’s concern originates with an April 2007 Supreme Court decision in Massachusetts et al. v. EPA, wherein the court sided with the 12 states that had sued the EPA for its lack of regulation of four greenhouse gases - including CO2 - from the transportation sector. The EPA, in a (wink, wink) defense somehow reminiscent of Br’er Rabbit�s admonition to Br’er Fox about the briar patch, argued that Massachusetts and the other states did not have standing to file the lawsuit. In a five-to-four decision the court ruled otherwise, finding the EPA’s refusal resulted in “actual” and “imminent” harm to the State of Massachusetts, primarily from rising sea levels along the state’s coast. The EPA didn’t bother refuting this with numerous studies that have found no detectable sea-level rise to be occurring there or anywhere else in the world for the last decade or more, Al Gore’s obituary on the Maldives to the contrary notwithstanding.

Over the past several years, it appeared that our society was doomed to succumb to what Weather Channel founder John Coleman has described as "the greatest scam in history": anthropogenic (human-caused) global warming (AGW). For two decades there has been an incessant drumbeat of propaganda attributing every weather-related event to an increase in carbon dioxide caused by the burning of fossil fuels. With the election of a president who is solidly in the global-warming-alarmist camp — and with many high-level appointees who are bona fide climate-change alarmists — coupled with a Democratic legislature anxious to please their environmentalist and media benefactors, the passage of legislation causing some form of economy-crippling energy taxation seemed to be a foregone conclusion.

But then came the unexpected: a recession brought on and exacerbated by the heavy hand of government, and a second consecutive severe winter. Indeed, we may look back and see that our current financial crisis and Mother Nature were the saviors of free-market capitalism. They may have slowed the statist steamroller long enough for the proponents of climate realism to make such socialistic schemes as "cap and trade" understood for what they are and what they are not. They are not about anything to do with global warming or climate change. They are instead a massive transfer of wealth from the productive to those who will not adopt free markets.

Now that record-cold temperatures across the globe are making a mockery of human-caused global warming, we look to see if this is merely a "weather hiccup."

In 1970, I recall New Orleans schoolchildren taking a 185-mile field trip to Jackson, Mississippi, so students might experience something they had never seen before: snow. This year they didn't have to bother, as Southern Louisiana was blanketed with four inches of the white stuff, the first major snow in 45 years, and only two inches shy of the all-time record of six inches set in 1895. It was also the earliest snow since record keeping began in 1850.

Not to be outdone, Las Vegas checked in with what local meteorologist Jerome Jacquest said was the most snow since 1979. With no snow removal or de-icing equipment, the airport was closed along with most roads. Gambling, however, was not affected..

The New American has joined as a cosponsor of the Second International Conference on Climate Change sponsored by the Heartland Institute of Chicago. It will be held March 8-10 at the Marriott Marquis in New York City. While the mainstream media continues to parrot the claim of Al Gore and the UN’s IPCC that “the science is settled” regardeing global warming, the expected 1,000 attendees from across the globe are living, visual proof that such a claim is merely an excuse to avoid debate.

Governments often find it useful to have an enemy on whom it can blame a need to raise taxes and/or take away individual rights from its citizens. Real people such as WWII-era Japanese Prime Minister Tojo and personifications like Johnny Reb have proven useful targets as have ethnic and racial groups. The Jews have been a favorite target since biblical times. But never before has a gas — carbon dioxide — been public enemy number one.

For the last two decades, we have been bombarded with the claim that carbon dioxide, a minor greenhouse gas, is going to cause the planet to heat up, the polar ice to melt, the sea level to rise, tropical diseases to become rampant, and hurricanes to intensify and become more numerous. Virtually any problem, including record snowfalls, has been left on the doorstep of this supposedly evil gas.