Reasonably enlightened?? Do reasonably enlightened leaders continue to jail dissidents, impose strict restrictions on freedom of speech and assembly, use mega-surveillance on internet use, blocking many sites, and employ a host of decidedly oppressive measures to control the population?? Also, capitalism in China means the government owns half of every enterprise, last I heard…

This claim is false, and has already been debunked by Factcheck.org. From their website (June 20, 2009):

Q: Does the House energy bill subject owners of existing homes to an energy efficiency audit before they can sell?

A: Rep. Boehner and Rush Limbaugh got this wrong. The Realtors and home builders associations say there’s no such requirement in the bill, as do we.
It’s true that the bill sets new national efficiency standards for new residential and commercial buildings. It calls for buildings to be 30 percent more efficient by 2012, and 50 percent more efficient beginning in 2014. It ultimately calls for buildings to be 75 percent more efficient by 2029. But those efficiency benchmarks apply only to homes constructed after the bill becomes law, not currently existing ones. We found no requirement for energy audits or energy-efficiency inspections in the bill.

http://www.factcheck.org/2009/07/energy-bill-and-…

Mr. Steyn’s conspiratorial claims that environmental concerns will result in world government are based on faulty information. Readers of Canada’s national newsmagazine deserve better.

Incidentally, "every single climatologist" does NOT believe "that carbon dioxide is the primary driver of global temperature increases". That kind of 100% consensus exists only for what are called scientific laws, like gravity.

Climatology is a new branch of science and full of controversy and unknowns. Only ideologists like you try to give climatologists a unity and authority they do not have. Therefore you are also wrong about your comment immediately below, that your political beliefs do not influence your understanding of science. They certainly do, at the most basic level as you have demonstrated.

However, your desire for a solution with the least amount of government interference takes you out of the category of ideologists who are using the environmental file cynically to enlarge government control and grab permanent power over citizens.

In reply to the comment quoted, I gave another example of the hypothetical (false hypothesis on DDT damage to bird eggs and a totally imaginary leap to human damage) trumping real human rights (right to life of African children who were slain in millions by malaria because they were deprived of DDT on the basis of bogus hypotheses).

Greenies' faith based not science based beliefs kill people today for the hypothetical advantage of people a hundred years from now.

L:et the debates begin and let the best man/woman (Conservatives) win.

You keep referencing this website:

http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2005/04/gwsbingo….

To refute a lot of the arguments here. Why are you referencing a blog post written by a computer scientist in 2005? You should really find something more recent.

Explain why every planet in the solar-system is warming at about the same rate as Earth?

Guess it's all those SUVs the martians are driving, huh?

Morons and liars and dictators (Oh MY!)

God help us…

DD

Am I the only one who noticed when "global warming" became "climate change" — right about the time the liars noticed a cooling-trend again? Sheer genius, that — I mean WHATEVER happens is "CHANGE!!" – right?

FACT: ONE volcano produces more CO2 in a single eruption than all of man's endeavors – TOTAL – in the entire history of humans.

This is about CONTROL, and they figure you're stupid enough to fall for it.

Read the so-called "treaty" – then read your Constitution and understand just what totalitarian power-grab they're trying to perpetrate.

On the bright side, this surrender of sovereignty MIGHT just finally get the sheeple to turn off the TV, pick up the proper tools and take their country back.

God Save Our Republic!

DD

The worse of the green/left AGW scam is over, having been largely discredited with the help of the blogosphere.

The death of AGW however, will be prolonged because of the colossal financial and political power committed to it, but once gone it and the green left will never rise again.

Yes, the startup for nuclear power is expensive next to coal due the more exotic and exacting nature and safety protocols, but if we are seriously piddling with what will be the raising of prices anyhow due to carbon abatement methods and schemes like Cap-n-Trade, we might as well funnel the money to a particular direction of new sources of power generation rather than merely shifting expense from Peter to Paul, and then socking it to the end consumer (and we both know energy prices will rise anyhow under Cap-n-Trade–see that Heritage article).

Thanks for your interesting input, Craig. I appreciate your insights even where I might disagree on the "behind the scenes" ideology, or what I perceive as such for now.

I think at this point the thread is getting…well…threadbare.

There ARE some problems or concerns of toxic materials and start-up costs for such, and some discussion of fuel-cell technology that's been brewing for decades now, but these can be overcome once industry and consumers get used to alternative sources, and the issue of battery recycling and maintenance are solved.

The US has more nuke plants, yes, but every conversion (and I'll agree this is warranted) to nuclear would help offset nations that have not gone that path.

How many cars are in China? Not nearly the load from N. America.

As to the rest, what I meant in the politicization of science is that this has turned into an ideology–as Steyn suggests also.

What I meant in the first part is that it is lifestyle alteration some ideologies are after.

I was not able to find a numeric breakdown at the moment, but obviously coal-fired plants, the majority of all power plants–is the main source of CO2 emissions if we can easily extrapolate that bringing on line China's planned power generation will have her overtake even the US in carbon emission.

Even if what you said is the case about the proportion of C02 emissions from industry/transport/etc vs. energy production feeding the main grid, we'd need to remove at every juncture.

When it comes to transport, we'll still be burning things with biofuels and other sources. Which as many have shown are a BUST due to issues like deforestation and the ethics of taking land away from food production and BURNING foodstuffs, etc. Contrary to what some say, the CO2 emissions of biofuels is neither "a wash" carbon-wise not very efficient.

Gasoline still packs a good old punch of BTUs for the volume burned anyhow.

NOW we have the same demon on both shoulders.

Hmmm.

^^^^
That's an interesting thought

As a right wing green guy (is that an oxymoron?), there's gotta be ways we can efficiently protect our environment and protect citizens rights? Just a thought!

And somewhere, at sometime, long ago, liberalism embraced the concept that Limited Government equals freedom.
Now, it seems, unlimited Gubbmint represents perfection!?!?!

Save the Water! Buy Two-Ply.

The Leftists are nutbags, period.
It's all about power.

Right now, we have scientists giving their opinion and support, with politicians over the last two decades being very resistant to any real change – Harper's offering nothing while Chretien and Martin did nothing either. There has to be involvement between science and politics, because if we make policies without considering the relevant science, then we're intentionally shooting ourselves in the foot.

By-and-large, our CO2 emissions do not come from electricity production, which is the only mechanism that nuclear energy can impact. It comes from heating, transportation and various industries. The way reduce our carbon emissions will have to be largely in increasing efficiencies and getting cars off gas to electricity. Those both require either mass investment on the part of the government, or some other form of economic incentive to develop the technologies that will accomplish that.

I'm all for nuclear, but for Canada, it can only do so much and it's overly cost-effective. Ontario is already primarily driven by nuclear and is moving to (eventually) close coal plants. Saskatchewan and Alberta are the other big coal-using provinces, so it's up to them to move to nuclear. It's an important shift but it's nowhere near enough because it doesn't (alone) address Canada's major sources of emissions.

Other incentives will be necessary to see the culture address this imbalance. Cuz, at the moment, this ain't sounding good. We are top heavy in Imams preaching beheadings but slack in new power plants.

Hmmm.

This is where I part with the libertarians–the market cannot take account of everything, even in the service of emergencies and getting preached to.

As to this:

This is not an ideological battle unless the validity of science is an ideological battle. I sure hope it's not.

I hope not either. But hope is not an excuse for continued caution. The mixing of science and politics can be VERY dangerous.

Carbon shifting has seen little evidence other than claims of exotic technologies and the foul-up and eco-damage of biofuels as anything coming from such "incentives", which our new eco-busybodies claim is some new Austrian School of Economics "market force" drive for alternative means.

Nuclear is the best bet at the moment.

No–you can't "create" energy. True enough. At least not in the real sense of that word.

But you can, for human beings and modern industrial civilization, redirect it, and we DO need to do the hard task of moving energy from point A to point B. Men don't "create" the genetic blueprint for trees either, but we've modified our common crop versions and even for those we don't, we still harvest and use for all manner of products, including our very homes.

There are no new energy sources that we can push for research on – everything that's out there is either the realm of very theoretical, high-energy physics (that would likely require a particle accelerator of magnitudes of power greater than the LHC to fully test) or it's just increases in efficiency on the energy sources we already have. The second, the most likely mechanism to increase our energy production in a sustainable way, is to provide an economic incentive for the market to make such improvements to efficiency – there are multiple ways to do this, but the one that involves the least decision-making on the part of the government is a carbon tax because it limits the government's role to what it does best, taking other people's money and letting everyone else sort it out.

This is not an ideological battle unless the validity of science is an ideological battle. I sure hope it's not.

I find this is mostly an ideological battle.

I defy anyone to find my ties to the much-demonzied "Carbon Lobby" with anything other than the need to fil the car up with gasoline.

Certainly we'll see a hike in prices from Cap-n-trade hoopla, but little other benefit other than a reduction in usage. That pleases the Greens, but does little to help the economy or make long-term gains for new energy sources to replace the ones supposedly about to kill us.

Which is exactly the real problem.

Yeah–and that's the whole damned point, isn't it, now?

I forget who originally first made this recommendation, but The First Commandment of any field or academic endeavor should be "Thou shalt not fool thine own self–as ye are the easiest one to playeth the Fool"

I'll only add here my own insight that this becomes far more problematic when you give the extra helping of bull by doing something even MORE dangerous–mixing science and politics. And so we get notions that float around like a horde of flies like "Carbon abatement" and Cap-n-Trade (is this the nephew of Captain Crunch?) that does little but make governments powerful in their reach, hikes energy rates on consumers, enriches some businesses, halts others, but produces no new increase in energy.

Brilliant. Prof. Fox could not have advised better.

Further giving credence to the notion that it's better to be considered nice to one's collegues in similar lines of work and respected than risk sounding heavy or ham-handed in your critique of the other guys alleged "insights." Or, perhaps, to go around tipping over the apple carts of your pals.

Of course, the whole presentation was bull from start to finish.

The experiment's 55 unwitting participants who attending this "lecture" from this "Dr. Fox", came from all manner of professional and academic backgrounds, and most had had a hand or two in reviewing "peer-reviewed" material, etc.
Few of the comments were negative, except in the mildest degree of some very minor clarifications requests, and other smallish concerns. Of course, a good cover story and background filled in any potential gaps that might have leaked during presentation.

Overwhelmingly, the response was very positive. One participant claimed to have read "Dr. Fox's" work elsewhere and was exited about the possible applications to education.

Another participant merely questioned whether "Dr. Fox" was merely restating the painfully obvious over and over, since the "lecture" seemed very LOGICAL to most everyone in the room and the truth of such matters should have been long-apparent to everyone.

Nuftin was a psychiatrist at the University of Southern California who cooked up this novel experiment, reproduced many times over at other snicker-fests, where a false name like "Dr. Myron Fox" was lecturing on a phony curriculum vitae, and the deliverty was carefully rehearsed to produce something with titles such as Mathematical Game Theory as Applied to Physical Education.

There's nothing to worry about in the aggrandizement of government power whatsoever, and the motives of the Chilly Dominion as well as the idiots we have down in here in the US Congress are–like their comrades in Europe–pure as the driven snows.