The Real Cost of Cap and Trade

There is a lot of stuff flying around for and against the Cap-n-Trade Scheme that dares to lurk as a possibility for enactment. So, what do the internal goverment memos say about it? I’ve heard it won’t really cost anything. And it’s green. If it’s green, it must be good, right? Yeah. We like green. Go into a store now and you’ll find green everything. It’s green because batteries last 10% longer, or because it used 5% less energy. It’s green because it’s made with 10% recycled plastic. We just moved into a new corproate office not long ago, and I’m pleased to let everyone know that it’s green. Ironically, they damn A/C is always on too high, and I’m one of the few who seems to think it’s a waste of energy, even though I’m not really a “greenie” because I don’t buy into global warming.

But I digress.

In a Washington Times article we get the scoop, thanks to the Freedom of Information Act:

Officials at the Treasury Department think cap-and-trade legislation would cost taxpayers hundreds of billion in taxes, according to internal documents circulated within the agency and provided to The Washington Times.

Huh. Go figure. Who’d have thought that this might actually cost us money?

I’ll Be Back Soon…

Sorry for the hiatus. I actually do have a HadCrut analysis worked up that’s been sitting here for over a week, but I’ve been caught up in other things. Hey… I warned everyone that there would be times like this, as I juggle a number of things. Blogging is cool, and I consider this important enough to keep doing, but at times it just needs to take a back seat. I’m during one of those times right at the moment.

But I should get that HadCrut analysis up sooner rather than later, and soon we’ll be talking about June anomalies.

Here’s my quick hits:

• Thank goodness the House of Representatives passed that climate bill.  They did it just when we in Wisconsin was enjoying some of the few unseasonably warm temperatures we’ve had in the last couple years.   Three days after passage, we’re back to 15 degrees below normal.  Coincidence?   I think not!  Thank you, Nancy Pelosi!
• Obama says the White House will be changing light bulbs.   If they are looking for a place to donate their old incandescents, please let them know that I am accepting.
• I’ve learned a great lesson in economics this week.  I’ve learned that passing a bill that restricts any development of energy that is efficient and trades it for alternative energy systems that are (as of now) inefficient, and that will increase electical costs, that it means “Jobs, Jobs, Jobs, Jobs, and Jobs!”   To quote one of my favorite movies: “You keep saying that word.  I do not think it means what you think it means.”

Obama’s Speech in Germany Was Ridiculous (and other stuff)

Eeek! Barack, only say the word and I shall be healed!

OK, that’s a pretty general statement, but it was. Excerpts from Planet Gore:

“As we speak,” said Obama, “cars in Boston and factories in Beijing are melting the ice caps in the Arctic, shrinking coastlines in the Atlantic, and bringing drought to farms from Kansas to Kenya.”

He followed that up by suggesting that the world “reduce the carbon we send into our atmosphere” with “the same seriousness of purpose as has your nation,” apparently unaware that CO2 emissions in Europe, to which he was appealing, grew 2.1% from 2000 to 2004, while U.S. emissions increased just 1.3% over the same time.

“This is the moment when we must come together to save this planet,” Obama declared. “Let us resolve that we will not leave our children a world where the oceans rise and famine spreads and terrible storms devastate our lands.”

Ugh.

Gore gives me hope. Oh, and you too, Obama...

To make matters worse, comes this gem from Senator Patrick Leahy:

‘In an Obama administration, you’d see one of his closest advisers would be Al Gore. And that gives me a lot of hope.

Ugh.

Anecdote ALERT!

I wouldn’t want anyone accusing me of using anecdotes as evidence without being up-front about it. But on the heels of the reports a couple days ago about the coldest summer ever in Anchorage comes something from the other side of the globe: Adelaide was freakin’ cold.

Adelaide’s temperature plummeted to 0.8C about 6.25am, this mark the lowest since the winter of 1983.

I picked this picture because Murtha looks happier than he usually does on this one.

In a related story, we find out that Nancy Pelosi is trying to save our planet. At least, that’s the excuse for stalling a proposal to lift the moratorium on drilling.

With fewer than 20 legislative days before the new fiscal year begins Oct. 1, the entire appropriations process has largely ground to a halt because of the ham-handed fighting that followed Republican attempts to lift the moratorium on offshore oil and gas exploration. And after promising fairness and open debate, Pelosi has resorted to hard-nosed parliamentary devices that effectively bar any chance for Republicans to offer policy alternatives.

“I’m trying to save the planet; I’m trying to save the planet,” she says impatiently when questioned. “I will not have this debate trivialized by their excuse for their failed policy.”

“I respect the office that I hold,” she says. “And when you win the election, you win the majority, and what is the power of the speaker? To set the agenda, the power of recognition, and I am not giving the gavel away to anyone.”

Huh. Sounds more like someone who just doesn’t want to lose a grip on her little empire. No drilling, no coal, no nuclear, years away from efficient alternatives that are not sufficiently funded. Am I the only one who sees the problem with this picture?

James Hansen, Congress, GISS, and Adding Fuel to the Fire for Skeptics

If you’ve followed this blog, you know that I have willingly used the GISS data for analysis of global temperature trends.  The GISS (Goddard Institute of Space Studies) uses surface temperature readings to derive monthly average temperature on regional and global bases, but not before incorporating some complicated – but publicly available – smoothing of the current data, and adjustments of past data through an algorithm process.   These adjustments are somewhat controversial for different reasons.  The smoothing process stretches to 1200km, and it is suspect that such large distances can be trusted to proxy intermediate distances.  We know that temperatures can vary widely across such distances.   It is not so much that smoothing is incorporated that is the problem as much as the paucity of measuring stations in some areas, and exclusion of others with little explanation as to why.

The algorithmic adjustment process is also suspect in that it continues to tweak historical temperature data.   This would not be problematic to many if the results were unbiased as to a particular direction and the adjustments distributed relatively evenly both up and down across all periods.   This, however, has not been the case.  The historical adjustment process has lowered early century temperatures and increased more recent temperatures.  This increases the trend line’s slope and increases the estimate of warming rates.   One result of this can be seen by looking at the comparison I did between GISS and NCDC monthly anomalies.   While I cannot say all the difference in the early data is due to adjustment, it is clear that the greatest divergence between the two data sets is early in the period, and any such adjustments only exacerbate this difference.