Carbon and Death

DDP Newsletter, July 2014 Vol. XXXII, No. 4

Release of the National Climate Assessment was supposed to kick-start Barack Obama’s push on a “key component of his legacy” (WSJ 5/6/14): destruction of the coal industry and coal-fired electrical generating plants. This attack on “polluters” and their “carbon emissions” is supposed to forestall “climate change” and death.

The emissions include CO₂ and soot. The dreaded doubling of atmospheric concentrations of CO₂ obviously cannot cause death directly. The concentration in the air inside a jetliner quadruples during a 2-hour sojourn on the tarmac, reports Roy Spencer, who carries a CO₂ meter with him. There are no serious health effects below 15,000 ppm, about 37 times the current level (NIPCC, Climate Change Reconsidered II: Biological Impacts, Summary for Policymakers 2014, http://tinyurl.com/ldovkgd).

While CO₂ at 400 ppm must act through “climate change,” soot is alleged to cause immediate “premature deaths,” notes John Dale Dunn, M.D., J.D. (CDP, July 2014, and J Am Phys Surg, spring 2014, http://tinyurl.com/p5convz). The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) is echoing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s claim that the new EPA rules on coal-fired plants—which target CO₂— will avert 2,700 to 6,600 “premature deaths” and 140,000 to 150,000 asthma attacks in children by 2030 (Science 6/6/14).

The rules, which affect the 1,000 existing coal-fired generating facilities “responsible for spewing 40% of annual U.S. carbon emissions” (and making about 40% of our electricity), are just a “bold baby step.” It is important that “these first steps do not become our last steps,” said climate scientist Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution for Science in Palo Alto, Calif. Acknowledging the “tough choices,” Obama said, “I refuse to condemn our children to a planet that is beyond fixing” (ibid.).

How did the EPA come up with the estimates? EPA administrator Gina McCarthy, in response to a subpoena issued after 2 years of EPA stonewalling, admitted to the House Science, Space and Technology Committee that the EPA neither possesses nor can produce the data used in developing the rules under the Clean Air Act.

Key EPA figures responsible for excessive, job-killing rules were John Beale and his immediate supervisor Robert Brenner. Beale pleaded guilty to defrauding the taxpayers of $900,000 and was sentenced to 32 months in federal prison. Brenner retired. Their legacy is undisturbed. Besides environmentalist ideology, GIGO computer models, and false claims of consensus, the EPA’s “Leaning Tower of Pisa” policies are built on outright malfeasance, writes Paul Driessen (http://tinyurl.com/pw2ab3n).

In an attempt to rein in the regulators, Rep. Stephen Fincher (R-TN) inserted the “sound-science bill,” requiring that agencies favor data from research that is “experimental, empirical, quantifiable, and reproducible,” into a farm bill. When this was stripped out, “scientific and environmental groups scored a small victory,” writes Colin Macilwain. “Sound science has become Orwellian double-speak for various forms of pro-business spin.” It would, for example, rule out the use of weather modeling (Nature 4/17/14).

The Secret Science Reform Act (HR 4012) has now been introduced by Rep. David Schweikert (R-AZ). It provides that:

The Administrator shall not propose, finalize, or disseminate a covered action unless all scientific and technical information relied on to support such covered action is (A) specifically identified; and (B) publicly available in a manner that is sufficient for independent analysis and substantial reproduction of research results.

Rep. Mike Honda (D-CA) says that the bill “attacks the mainstays of scientific investigation” and is “an attempt by climate change deniers to stop the EPA from doing its job” (Frontpage Mag 4/14/14, http://tinyurl.com/mfqrskx).

The EPA disregards contrary evidence, and claims that avoided impacts on health and infrastructure will actually save up to $93 billion by 2030. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce estimates costs of $859 billion and some 800,000 jobs. Economist Paul Krugman, however, says that this would stimulate economic growth by creating major incentives for new investment—just like other unexpected events such as terrorism, wars, and earthquakes. Krugman even seems to think a threatened invasion by space aliens would be a positive development, notes Greg Scandlen (http://tinyurl.com/pk98xvd).

The EPA also ignores the impact of a lower standard of living. Sen. Joseph Manchin (D-WV) said: “A lot of people on the lower end of the socio-economic spectrum are going to die.” This is an intended result of the “massive campaign” long advocated by Obama’s chief science advisor John Holdren, to “de-develop” the U.S., write David Rothbard and Craig Rucker (http://tinyurl.com/m8d3tzd). In his 1973 book Human Ecology, Holdren and coauthors Paul and Anne Ehrlich wrote of the need to reduce U.S. and world population to the “optimum size,” with “a much more equitable distribution of wealth.”

In its Jun 23 ruling in Utility Air Regulatory Group v. EPA, the U.S. Supreme Court placed some mild limits on the scope of EPA authority, but would not permit questioning of EPA science (The Week That Was 6/28/14, www.sepp.org).

The developing world will not necessarily accept this anti-human ideology. India is asserting its “right to grow,” use its coal reserves, and emit more CO₂. It is banning direct foreign funding of groups that its intelligence bureau finds to be “spawning” mass movements that pose a “significant threat to national economic security.” It has targeted Greenpeace and other nongovernmental organizations (CCNet 6/16/14, 6/23/14).

The campaign to control and restrict energy sources—especially but not exclusively those that emit CO₂—as well as “carbon” is the campaign to limit life. Carbon is the remarkable element that makes life possible because it can form incredibly complicated molecules. The element just below it in the Periodic Table, silicon, can form some similar structures. Some speculate that there could be life forms based on silicon, but Howard Hayden explains why this is unlikely. When methane (CH₄) burns, it forms CO₂ and H₂O. When silane burns, it forms SiO₂ and H₂O. CO₂ is soluble in water; SiO₂ is not. CO₂ is a gas; SiO₂ is a solid. The mobility of CO₂ makes it possible for life to spread. The immobility of SiO₂ makes silicon-based life unlikely (The Energy Advocate, June 2014).

The “magic fix for carbon,” or “the fairy godmother of climate change” is carbon capture and storage (CCS). This “deux ex machina,” the only way to slash CO2 emissions by 80%, may not be feasible (Nature 5/1/14). What it would do, of course, is to make the carbon as immobile as silicon, and inaccessible to life.

“A total population of 250-300 million people, a 95% decline…, would be ideal.”  —Ted Turner

“Depopulation should be the highest priority of foreign policy towards the third world.” —Henry Kissinger

“It is easier to kill a million people rather than trying to control a million people… people are fighting back…our capacity to impose control over humanity is at an historical low…” —Zbigniew Brzezinski

“The Planetary Regime might be given responsibility for determining the optimum population.” – John Holdren