Global Warming Policy and Aviation

Air2Air selected the Piper Seneca II as our aircraft for several reasons, foremost among them was the airplane’s fuel efficiency. The Piper Seneca II gets approximately 40 miles per gallon per available seat and it does that at over 200 mph. No regional airliner touches that per seat fuel efficiency. So why am I concerned about Climate Change and legislation designed to address it? I’m concerned for several reasons,

1.) As someone who would like to live in a “clean” environment, I want to make sure that any policy decisions which result in law are well researched, well thought out, and well understood.

2.) I want to ensure that Air2Air’s “Retro-High-Tech” airplanes receive credit for their efficiency and are viewed legislatively as such. Having carefully selected a very fuel efficient plane we cannot squeeze additional fuel/carbon-use reductions out of it.

3.) I want to ensure that the idiots in Washington “First do no harm” before they enact legislation which will have far reaching and unintended consequences which my children will have to live with.

In an April 27, 2009 AlGore.com blog post, Al Gore proclaimed the climate “crisis” to be a “moral issue that requires serious debate.” Unfortunately, just three days earlier, the ex-VP refused to participate in a congressional hearing with Lord Christopher Monckton, former science advisor to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Monckton had been invited to counter Gore’s testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee. When Gore refused to debate, Chairman Henry Waxman told the UK climate expert he was uninvited. That little “soap opera” brings into question what would happen to the entire energy rationing crusade if real debate was allowed on the issue.

Monckton has impressive credentials and is adept at citing actual studies and their data, and would have focused on the science in the debate. Lord Monkton is particularly concerned about the “Climate Armageddon” claims which are being used to justify destructive government policies which have no rational basis in science or fact.

According to Lord Monkton and the extensive and the well documented studies he cites, global average temperatures stabilized in 1998 and have even cooled slightly, despite steadily rising CO2 levels. Except in its Western Peninsula, Antarctica is gaining ice. Arctic ice is seasonably normal. His peer-reviewed article in the 46,000 member American Physical Scociety journal: Physics and Society, dispassionately reviewed the IPCC’s method of evaluating climate sensitivity. In his article, Lord Monkton makes the following claims supported by mathematical analysis:

• The IPCC’s 2007 climate summary overstated CO2’s impact on temperature by 500-2000%;
• CO2 enrichment will add little more than 1 °F (0.6 °C) to global mean surface temperature by 2100;
• Not one of the three key variables whose product is climate sensitivity can be measured directly;
• The IPCC’s values for these key variables are taken from only four published papers, not 2,500;
• The IPCC’s values for each of the three variables, and hence for climate sensitivit y, are overstated;
• “Global warming” halted ten years ago, and surface temperature has been falling for seven years;
• Not one of the computer models relied upon by the IPCC predicted so long and rapid a cooling;
• The IPCC inserted a table into the scientists’ draft, overstating the effect of ice-melt by 1000%;
• It was proved 50 years ago that predicting climate more than two weeks ahead is impossible;
• Mars, Jupiter, Neptune’s largest moon, and Pluto warmed at the same time as Earth warmed;
• In the past 70 years the Sun was more active than at almost any other time in the past 11,400 years.

What Monkton’s article highlights is that climate change and its causes are complex and our knowledge is still limited. More importantly, our understanding of the inputs and assumptions are dangerously deficient. Current climate models are likely no more reliable than computer predictions of the likely-hood of rain in Los Angeles on a given day one year from now.

Ill conceived policies put into law are very scary for anyone who operates a business which is dependent on burning fossil fuels. An example of such scary policies on their way to becoming law is the 942-page Waxman-Markey climate bill’s absurd targets of a 17% reduction in US carbon dioxide emissions by 2020 and 83% by 2050. Even if achieved there is clear evidence that there would be no detectable benefits, even if CO2 does cause climate change. Research climatologist Paul “Chip” Knappenberger calculates that even these draconian measures would result in global temperatures rising a mere 0.1 degrees F less by 2050 than doing nothing, mostly because Chinese and Indian emissions would quickly dwarf America’s job-killing reductions.

This might lead you to ask just exactly why China and South Africa want developed nations to slash carbon emissions 40% by 2020, and, “Oh by the way,“ give poor countries $200 billion annually, to help them cope with global warming’s pending disasters.

Spain’s experience in wind power should be cautionary according to a study by Dr. Gabriel Calzada. Spanish taxpayers spent $800,000 for each new job in the wind turbine industry primarily installing wind power generating towers and destroyed 2.2 regular jobs for each “green” job they produced. Net jobs were destroyed primarily because pricey “renewable” electricity forced companies to lay off workers if they were to stay in business.

The Congressional Budget Office says that the Waxman-Markey climate bill’s impact on the poorest one-fifth of families could see annual energy costs rise $700 – while high income families could see their costs rise $2,200 a year. Harvard economist Martin Feldstein estimates that the average person could pay an extra $1,500 per year for energy. MIT says household energy costs could climb $3,000 per year. Waxman-Markey would cost the United States a cumulative $9.6 trillion in real GDP losses by 2035, according to an updated study by the Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis. The bill would also cost an additional 1.1 million jobs each year, raise electricity rates 90% after adjusting for inflation, cause a 74% hike in inflation-adjusted gasoline prices, and add $1,500 to the average family’s annual energy bill, says Heritage.

Which brings me back to my point. Yes I want intelligent clean. All I ask is that a free and open debate using real scientific data be used to assess the issue and its potential impact on our world. Then, and only then, a subsequent free and honest debate about policy issues and laws which might address the outcome of the scientific analysis.

Please, no policy decisions which result in law until the science is understood and the impact of that legislation is well researched, well thought out, and well understood.