Global Warming

 

© 2005 Lawrence Moore

 

 

Tiempo Climate Newswatch

 

http://www.tiempocyberclimate.org/newswatch/

 

 

 

 

 

For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
March 13, 2001

 

Text of a Letter from the President to Senators Hagel, Helms, Craig, and Roberts

 

Thank you for your letter of March 6, 2001, asking for the Administration's views on global climate change, in particular the Kyoto Protocol and efforts to regulate carbon dioxide under the Clean Air Act.  My Administration takes the issue of global climate change very seriously.

 

As you know, I oppose the Kyoto Protocol because it exempts 80 percent of the world, including major population centers such as China and India, from compliance, and would cause serious harm to the U.S. economy.  The Senate's vote, 95-0, shows that there is a clear consensus that the Kyoto Protocol is an unfair and ineffective means of addressing global climate change concerns.

 

As you also know, I support a comprehensive and balanced national energy policy that takes into account the importance of improving air quality. Consistent with this balanced approach, I intend to work with the Congress on a multipollutant strategy to require power plants to reduce emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and mercury.  Any such strategy would include phasing in reductions over a reasonable period of time, providing regulatory certainty, and offering market-based incentives to help industry meet the targets.  I do not believe, however, that the government should impose on power plants mandatory emissions reductions for carbon dioxide, which is not a "pollutant" under the Clean Air Act.

 

A recently released Department of Energy Report, "Analysis of Strategies for Reducing Multiple Emissions from Power Plants," concluded that including caps on carbon dioxide emissions as part of a multiple emissions strategy would lead to an even more dramatic shift from coal to natural gas for electric power generation and significantly higher electricity prices compared to scenarios in which only sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides were reduced.

 

This is important new information that warrants a reevaluation, especially at a time of rising energy prices and a serious energy shortage.  Coal generates more than half of America's electricity supply.  At a time when California has already experienced energy shortages, and other Western states are worried about price and availability of energy this summer, we must be very careful not to take actions that could harm consumers.  This is especially true given the incomplete state of scientific knowledge of the causes of, and solutions to, global climate change and the lack of commercially available technologies for removing and storing carbon dioxide.

 

Consistent with these concerns, we will continue to fully examine global climate change issues -- including the science, technologies, market-based systems, and innovative options for addressing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.  I am very optimistic that, with the proper focus and working with our friends and allies, we will be able to develop technologies, market incentives, and other creative ways to address global climate change.

 

I look forward to working with you and others to address global climate change issues in the context of a national energy policy that protects our environment, consumers, and economy.

 

 

                              Sincerely,

 

                              GEORGE W. BUSH

 

 

 

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/03/20010314.html

 

 

 

 

 

U.S. Withdraws From Kyoto Protocol

Europe Forging Ahead With Work on Global Warming

Greenpeace Urges U.S. Businesses To Reject Bush Reversal on Global Warming

 

Almost immediately after he declared his administration would not require industry to reduce carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions, President Bush delivered another blow to the world's climate by refusing to support the global warming treaty known as the Kyoto Protocol.

 

This treaty, negotiated by more than 100 countries over a decade, calls for the 38 largest industrial nations to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases by 2012 to 5.2 percent below the levels in 1990. President Bush has stated that conforming with the accord is not in U.S. interests.

 

"U.S. withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol in an extreme disappointment. U.S. action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is essential to international efforts to prevent dangerous global warming. Nevertheless, the treaty will be beneficial and start the world moving in the right direction," said Kert Davies, Director of Greenpeace's U.S. Global Warming Campaign. "President Bush is wrong when he says reducing greenhouse gas emissions will hurt the U.S. economy. Bush ignores the economic benefits of U.S. leadership on 21st century energy technology," Davies continued.

 

Global opposition to the U.S. position is mounting, with strong statements from the European Union, Japan, Brazil, Russia and New Zealand indicating their willingness to move on without the U.S. "Conscious nations must move forward on the global warming treaty with or without the U.S. Clearly, the Bush Administration is a negative influence on the international agreement at this point and they are getting that message from governments and people of the world," said John Passacantando, Executive Director of Greenpeace.

 

Greenpeace has called on leaders of the Fortune 100 companies to declare their opposition to President Bush's rejection of the Kyoto Protocol or face the consequences from concerned consumers, institutions and organizations around the world.

 

In a letter which gives them one week to respond, CEOs of Exxon/Mobil, General Motors, Ford Motor Company, Enron, Texaco, and others, are asked specifically if these corporations will support Bush's rejection of the global warming treaty. The letter also asks if these companies will support or oppose the efforts of other countries to bring the Kyoto Protocol into force without U.S. participation.

 

Activists protested Bush's withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol outside the American Society of Newspaper Editors meeting in Washington today. President Bush's motorcade passed the activists waving banners that read "Protect The Planet, Not Polluters" and "Bush: Polluter Of The Free World" as he made his way into the meeting. "President Bush has completely broken his trust with the American people simply to pay back his oil industry campaign contributors. It is time to determine just which companies will choose to go down with Bush and suffer the global outrage for undermining efforts to stop global warming," said Passacantando. "Greenpeace aims to help citizens around the world find out whose side these companies are on."

 

 

 

 

http://www.cop3.org/green.htm

 

http://www.cop3.org/climate.htm

 

 

 

 

 

Global Warming Could Worsen US Pollution, Report Says

February 21, 2005 — By Reuters

 

WASHINGTON — Global warming could stifle cleansing summer winds across parts of the northern United States over the next 50 years and worsen air pollution, U.S. researchers said Saturday.

Further warming of the atmosphere, as is happening now, would block cold fronts bringing cooler, cleaner air from Canada and allow stagnant air and ozone pollution to build up over cities in the Northeast and Midwest, they predicted.

"The air just cooks," said Loretta Mickley of Harvard University's Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences. "The pollution accumulates, accumulates, accumulates, until a cold front comes in and the winds sweep it away."

Mickley and colleagues used a computer model, an approach commonly used by climate scientists to predict weather and climate changes.

She told a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science that the model predicted a 20-percent decline in summer cold fronts out of Canada.

"If this model is correct, global warming would cause an increase in difficult days for those affected by ozone pollution, such as people suffering with respiratory illnesses like asthma and those doing physical labor or exercising outdoors," she said.

World temperatures have risen by an average of 1 degree Fahrenheit over the past century. Earlier this week 141 nations signed the U.N. Kyoto Protocol aimed at cutting the so-called greenhouse gas emissions that fuel global warming.

It imposes caps on carbon dioxide emissions, mainly from burning fossil fuels in power plants, factories and cars, in 35 developed nations.

The United States, which produces the most pollution of any country, has refused to sign it.

The model used by Mickley and her colleagues incorporates things such as the sun's luminosity, topography of the planet, the distribution of the oceans, the pull of gravity and the tilt of the Earth's axis, as well as predicted warming.

They fed in gradually increased levels of greenhouse gases at rates projected by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. What they found surprised them.

"The answer lies in one of the basic forces that drive the Earth's weather -- the temperature difference between the hot equator and the cold poles," Mickley said.

In the middle latitudes, low-pressure systems and accompanying cold fronts help redistribute heat by carrying warm air to the poles and replacing it with cool air. Warming slows that process down, Mickley's team found.

 

 

 

 

http://enn.com/today.html?id=7169

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn1932

 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/02/050222113627.htm

 

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=143

 

http://www.globalissues.org/EnvIssues/GlobalWarming/Kyoto.asp

 

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2004/030204.html