Global Warming is Corporation's Biggest Government Trough Yet

Washington this week officially welcomed the newest industry on the hunt for
financial and regulatory favors. Big CarbonCap may have the same dollar-sign
agenda as Big Oil or Big Pharma, but don't expect Nancy Pelosi to admit to
it.

Democrats want to flog the global warming theme through 2008 and they'll
take what help they can get, even if it means cozying up to executives whose
goal is to enrich their firms. Right now, the corporate giants calling for a
mandatory carbon cap serve too useful a political purpose for anyone to
delve into their baser motives.

The Climate Action Partnership, a group of 10 major companies that made
headlines this week with its call for a national limit on carbon dioxide
emissions, would surely feign shock at such an accusation. After all, their
plea was carefully timed to coincide with President Bush's State of the
Union capitulation on global warming, and it had the desired PR effect. The
media dutifully declared that "even" business now recognized the climate
threat. Sen. Barbara Boxer, who begins marathon hearings on warming next
week, lauded the corporate angels for thinking of the "common good."

There was a time when the financial press understood that companies exist to
make money. And it happens that the cap-and-trade climate program these 10
jolly green giants are now calling for is a regulatory device designed to
financially reward companies that reduce CO2 emissions, and punish those
that don't.
Four of the affiliates--Duke, PG&E, FPL and PNM Resources--are utilities
that have made big bets on wind, hydroelectric and nuclear power. So a Kyoto
program would reward them for simply enacting their business plan, and
simultaneously sock it to their competitors. Duke also owns Cinergy, which
relies heavily on dirty, CO2-emitting coal plants. But Cinergy will soon
have to replace those plants with cleaner equipment. Under a Kyoto, it'll
get paid for its trouble.

DuPont has been plunging into biofuels, the use of which would soar under a
cap. Somebody has to cobble together all these complex trading deals, so say
hello to Lehman Brothers. Caterpillar has invested heavily in new engines
that generate "clean energy." British Petroleum is mostly doing public
penance for its dirty oil habit, but also gets a plug for its own biofuels
venture.

Finally, there's General Electric, whose CEO Jeffrey Immelt these days
spends as much time in Washington as Connecticut. GE makes all the solar
equipment and wind turbines (at $2 million a pop) that utilities would have
to buy under a climate regime. GE's revenue from environmental products long
ago passed the $10 billion mark, and it doesn't take much "ecomagination" to
see why Mr. Immelt is leading the pack of climate profiteers.

CEOs are quick learners, and even those who would get smacked by a carbon
cap are now devising ways to make warming work to their political advantage.
The "most creative" prize goes to steel giant Nucor. Steven Rowlan, the
company's environmental director, doesn't want carbon caps in the U.S.--oh,
no. The smarter answer, he explains, would be for the U.S. to impose trade
restrictions on foreign firms that aren't environmentally clean. Global
warming as foil for trade protectionism: Chuck Schumer's dream.

What makes this lobby worse than the usual K-Street crowd is that it offers
no upside. At least when Big Pharma self-interestedly asks for fewer
regulations, the economy benefits. There's nothing capitalist about lobbying
for a program that foists its debilitating costs on taxpayers and consumers
while redistributing the wealth to a few corporate players.

This is what comes from Washington steadily backstepping energy policy into
the interventionist 1970s, picking winners and losers. In ethanol, in
biodiesel, in wind farms, success isn't a function of supply or demand. The
champs are the ones that coax out of Washington the best subsidies and
regulations. Global warming is simply the biggest trough yet.

Both Republicans and Democrats understand this debate is increasingly about
home-state economics, even as they publicly joust about environmental rights
or wrongs. The softening Republican stance on a mandatory program is one
result. New Mexico's Pete Domenici appeared to undergo an epiphany about
global warming in 2005, voting for a Senate resolution supporting caps. The
switch might have more to do with remembering that his state is
nuclear-power central, and will win big under a new program. Just ask his
fellow New Mexican, Jeff Bingaman, who introduced the resolution.

Economic interests also motivate those Democrats who won't play nice. The
senators who have voted against previous bills represent those industries
that will suffer most under Mr. Immelt's agenda. Louisiana's Mary Landrieu
(oil); Montana's Max Baucus (coal); West Virginia's Robert Byrd (ditto).
House Energy & Commerce Chair John Dingell remains a skeptic, since the last
thing his Michigan auto makers need is yet another reason for people to not
buy their cars.
Which is fine with Ms. Pelosi. The Democratic leadership ran out of the
winner's circle last November promising to tackle climate. And much was made
this week of Madam Speaker's decision to wrest control of the debate away
from Mr. Dingell's purview, handing it instead to a new "select" committee
on climate change.

But read the fine print. The new vaunted committee will have no legislative
authority, but exists solely to hold hearings and to "communicate with the
American people." Ms. Pelosi and Harry Reid want to talk about this issue .
.. . and talk, and talk and talk. But not necessarily anything more.

That's because Democrats want global warming as an issue through 2008. With
Al Gore getting his Oscar nod, they've got a "problem" that captures the
public imagination, as well as an endless supply of cash from thrilled
environmental groups. No need to spoil it with a solution. And a Democratic
president in 2009 would be more open to any ultimate legislation.

Best yet, they've got the "support" of the business community, or at least
the savvier elements of it. Welcome, Big CarbonCap; we're likely to be
hearing a lot from you.

-////////- [At least until November, 2008] -\\\\\\\\-

"Our understanding of the climate is very primitive, simply because the
climate is so complex. Climate is an immense, multi-stable, driven, chaotic,
optimally turbulent, constructally organized tera-watt scale heat engine,
with dozens of forcings and feedbacks, both internal and external, and both
known and unknown. It is composed of five major subsystems (ocean,
atmosphere, lithosphere, cryosphere, and biosphere), none of which are well
understood. Each of these subsystems has its own forcings and feedbacks,
again both known and unknown, which affect both itself and the system as a
whole.

"In addition, because of the sheer size of the system, our measurements of
the various phenomena have large error margins. Even with satellites, we don
't have good figures for such basic things as total upwelling radiation at
different frequencies, the albedo, or the temperature of the upper
atmosphere. Our scientific knowledge of the whole is so poor, and our
measurements are so uncertain, that we can not predict the next month's
weather or the next decade's climate in anything more than the most general
terms.

"Despite (or perhaps because of) this lack of knowledge, the rude truth is
that many climate scientists seem extremely reluctant to say "we don't
know". As a result, people like yourself and others expect or request that
we explain extremely short-term (25 year) fluctuations in the climate.
Unfortunately, given our current state of knowledge, this is not necessarily
possible.

"Take for example the effects of the solar magnetic field on climate. This
effect is known, but is very poorly understood. Is it responsible for the
recent warming? We don't know.

"And this is separate from the effect of coronal mass ejections and the
solar wind on climate, which is even less understood.

"Or how about the effect of land use changes? NOAA has said publicly that
they may have a greater effect than CO2 changes. Are they responsible for
the recent warming? We don't know.

"It is well known that there are a variety of short-term (multi-decadal)
oscillations or shifts in the climate system, such as the Pacific Decadal
Oscillation, the Arctic Oscillation, the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation,
and others. These have significant effects on the global temperature. Could
one of these, or a combination of these, or other unknown oscillations have
caused the recent warming? We don't know.

"Methane is not a well-mixed gas. Levels vary all over the world. It has
recently been discovered that plants emit methane, perhaps a quarter of the
global totals. This methane is concentrated in the lowest levels of the
atmosphere. Worldwide, the planet is greening. What effect has this had on
the registered temperatures, which are measured in the lowest layers of the
atmosphere? We don't know.

"It has recently been discovered that plankton emit gases that cause the
formation of clouds above them. What effect does this have on the climate?
We don't know.

"How much has the sun's irradiance changed since 1975? There is much
scientific dispute about that question as well, because of the lack of
overlap between satellites that have given different answers.

"Finally, how do these (and a host of other forcings and feedbacks) affect
each other? What happens if a swing in the PDO occurs at the same time as a
swing in the cosmic ray intensity, or any of hundreds of other possible
interactions? This we really, really don't know.

"In fact, of the 12 forcings listed by the IPCC in the Third Annual Report,
the "Level of Scientific Understanding" (LOSU) of nine of them is rated as
"Low", or "Very Low" . that's the majority of the forcings (and doesn't even
include some known forcings), yet despite that, people like yourself say
"explain the historical record". Sorry, but . we don't know.

"Now, faced with this lack of knowledge, the standard response from the AGW
crowd is "it must be CO2? . but why must it be CO2? Not knowing is certainly
not proof of anything. In addition, the change doesn't fit the theoretical
model of CO2 effects. Why would CO2 cause very little effect until 1975 (as
evidenced by the close correlation between solar and temperature up to that
point) and then suddenly cause a large effect? Why would the sun's suddenly
stop affecting the temperature in 1975? Saying "we can't explain it, so it
must be CO2? is nonsense.

"So, despite the existence of a wide variety of possible explanations, I
regret that I cannot offer you anything that is "resistant to criticism"
about what caused the divergence. We don't even have any evidence "resistant
to criticism" regarding whether the divergence is of the claimed size. It is
one of the many, many unsolved mysteries of the climate. All it proves is
one thing .

"WE DON'T KNOW"

http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1108

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