Guest Post by snork
As the details of the Cap-and-Trade (a.k.a. Cap-and-Tax) bill start to filter out, there’s a very, very, very pernicious bomb hidden in the language. Let me explain:
There’s an emergency clause provision in the bill that both grants the president emergency powers and requires the president to act if the concentration of CO2 in the earth’s atmosphere exceeds 450 ppmv. Currently, it’s around 385. So 450 should be way, way, off in the distant future, and if we ever reach that, it would constitute extraordinary circumstances, right?
If you think so, you’re mistaken. The reason for this is that elsewhere in the bill, in complete contradiction to everything we know about how mixtures of gasses absorb radiation, they have defined this concentration to be ppmv CO2 equivalent. What you may ask is ppmv CO2 equivalent?
Because there are gasses other than CO2 that also absorb IR radiation, they decide that methane, CFCs, etc. all have an equivalence to CO2; that it for example with methane, the global warming potential is 72. This means, according to the calculations that are directed to be made by the EPA, a cubic foot of methane causes as much warming as 72 cubic feet of CO2.
So the ppmv equivalent is the amount of actual CO2, plus the amounts of the other gasses times their GWPs. In this piece, Senator Vitter (R-La) asked the Pacific Northwest Laboratory (of the DoE) what the current and projected ppmve is and is projected to be.
The cap-and-trade bill — both the Senate version that passed the Environment and Public Works committee and the version that already passed the House — effectively declares a climate emergency if world greenhouse gas levels climb above 450 parts per million. (The number appears to have been chosen arbitrarily.) According to the Pacific Northwest National lab, which wrote in response to Vitter’s inquiries, the world’s air will hit that level of greenhouse gases next year, in 2010, if undeveloped nations do not accept carbon limits.
The number was chosen arbitrarily, my butt.
What this all means is, that if this monstrosity passes in its current form, effective in a year, the President will be required by statute to offset every extra pound of CO2 or other regulated greenhouse gas emitted anywhere in the world – by China, by India, by Russia, by Brazil, it won’t matter who – with a reduction of one pound in the United States. This won’t be optional for the President.
This will put the machinery in place to deny any and all construction permits, ration gas, ration home heating fuel, shut down businesses, whatever the EPA and the rest of the federal bureaucracy deems necessary to offset any increase in consumption anywhere in the world. And no, there are no magical windmill and solar panel and unicorn ways out of this.
This is the mother of all monkeywrenches thrown into the US economy. And it’s not an error. It’s not a whoops. This is what butt naked environmental Malthusianism looks like. These people want unemployment. They want people unable to heat their homes. This is who they are. This is what they are. Take a good look.
Extra bonus feature:
If you have a half hour, and don’t mind switching back between subtitles and listening to Mr. McIntyre and Dr. Lindzen speaking in English, this is as good a summary of the state of the science, weak links and all, as I’ve seen. It was produced in Finland, and is in Finnish, but subtitled in English. There are a few items in there that are still a little controversial, but this is largely correct, and to the point.
