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Obama Apologizing for US on Climate Is Ridiculous

11/30/2015

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Had to share this, as-is.  Follow the links, they're good.
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The Daily Signal
November 30, 2015
Nicolas Loris 

​President Obama’s opening remarks at the Paris climate agreement were effectively an apology for industrial progress. At the kickoff of the talks, Obama remarked, “I’ve come here personally, as the leader of the world’s largest economy and the second-largest emitter, to say that the United States of America not only recognizes our role in creating this problem; we embrace our responsibility to do something about it.”
Obama should not be apologizing for the economic growth that dramatically improved Americans’ and much of the world’s quality of life. Instead, the president should apologize for pushing costly and ineffective climate policies that will make us worse off and trap the world’s poorest citizens in poverty.
The Cost of Climate Policies
 
The real problem facing American households and businesses is the Obama administration’s climate policies. The administration has finalized a slew of regulations to reduce domestic greenhouse gas emissions. Through a set of regulations known as the Clean Power Plan, the Environmental Protection Agency has required states to meet carbon dioxide emissions reduction goals for existing power plants.
 
At the same time, the EPA finalized a regulation capping emissions of carbon dioxide from new power plants so low as to effectively prevent any coal power plant from running without carbon capture and sequestration technology (which has yet to be proven feasible). The federal government also implemented climate regulations on vehicles, light and heavy-duty trucks, and fracking.
 
Heritage analysts modeled the cumulative costs of the Obama administration’s climate agenda by modeling the economic costs of a carbon tax. Taxing carbon dioxide energy incentivizes businesses and consumers to change production processes, technologies, and behavior in a manner comparable to the administration’s regulatory scheme—though neither regulations nor a tax is good policy. By 2030, Heritage economists estimate the damage would be:
  • An average annual employment shortfall of nearly 300,000 jobs
  • A peak employment shortfall of more than 1 million jobs
  • A loss of more than $2.5 trillion (inflation-adjusted) in aggregate gross domestic product (GDP)
  • A total income loss of more than $7,000 (inflation-adjusted) per person
The trade-off that Americans receive for higher electricity rates, unemployment, and lower levels of prosperity is not an appealing one. Even though electricity generation accounts for the single largest source of carbon dioxide emissions in the United States, the estimated reduction is minuscule compared to global greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, even if you do believe that the Earth is heading to catastrophic warming, the warming mitigated by the president’s plan would be barely measurable—unlike the economic consequences.
 
Is Climate Change a Problem?
 
This “problem” of climate change is hardly one at all. Natural variations have altered the climate much more than man has. Proponents of global action on climate change will argue that 97 percent of the climatologists agree on climate change. There is significant agreement among climatologists, even those labeled as skeptics, that the Earth has warmed moderately over the past 60 years and that some portion of that warming may be attributed to anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions. However, there is no consensus that temperatures are increasing at an accelerating rate.
In fact, the available climate data simply do not indicate that the Earth is heading toward catastrophic warming or more frequent and severe natural disasters. Quite the opposite. The earth has experienced a pause in warming since 1998, and data shows that the climate is less sensitive to increases in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions than the climate models predicted.
 
Dr. Roger Pielke, a professor at the University of Colorado’s Center for Science and Technology Policy Research, testified last year, saying:
 
… there exists exceedingly little scientific support for claims found in the media and political debate that hurricanes, tornadoes, floods and drought have increased in frequency or intensity on climate timescales either in the United States or globally.
In his remarks, Obama stressed that “[n]o nation—large or small, wealthy or poor—is immune.” Such a sentiment also holds true for climate policies. Policies that restrict the use of conventional fuels will make everyone poorer. And it’s the poorest who will suffer most.
 
Let’s place blame on the policies and regulations that obstruct citizens around the world from obtaining a better standard of living.
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Next Gen|Spotlight - Right on kiddo!

11/9/2015

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WE found this refreshing.  You may, too.
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Milestone: 250 Yr Anniversary of The Stamp Act

11/1/2015

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    Tin pots still lust to sway and dominate citizens by imposing taxes on the most basic of all necessities: water.  Subjects, take heart. Resistance to wrongful taxation is not necessarily futile.  The Scrapbook wishes a happy 250th birthday to the start of the American Revolution, and so do WE.

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A Stamp Too Far
Weekly Standard - The Scapbook
November 16, 2015, Vol. 21, No. 10
 
Two hundred and fifty years ago, the French and Indian War had just ended, and Britain’s Parliament was determined to find some way to maintain a standing army, to avoid putting 1,500 socially well-connected officers out of work. Their solution was to keep the Army in North America stationed as a buffer between the colonists and American Indians. Even though, said the colonists, no such buffer was needed.
 
The Army, of course, had to be paid for, and Parliament decided that the newly buffered colonists should do the paying. First came a sugar tax, which triggered a debate about the rights of Englishmen living in America: The fundamental law of Britain frowned on subjects being taxed without their consent, which was given by sending representatives to Parliament. A cry of “No Taxation Without Representation” was heard, which grew much louder a year later when word reached the colonies that a much more onerous stamp tax—a tax on all printed documents—would soon be enacted.
 
American colonists sent petitioners to London to seek redress of their grievances. They were ignored. The chancellor of the exchequer, Charles Townshend, addressed the effrontery of the Americans on the floor of the House of Commons: “Will these Americans, children planted by our care, nourished up by our indulgence, till they are grown to a degree of strength and opulence, and protected by our arms, will they grudge to contribute their mite?”
 
Isaac Barre, a Huguenot Irishman who had served with distinction during the French and Indian War, rose to the Americans’ defense:
 
     “They planted by your care? No! Your oppressions planted them in America. They fled from your tyranny to a then uncultivated and inhospitable country, where they exposed themselves to almost all the hardships to which human nature is liable; and among others, to the cruelties of a savage foe, the most subtle, and I will take upon me to say, the most formidable of any people upon the face of the earth. .  .  .
 
     “They nourished by your indulgence? They grew by your neglect of them. As soon as you began to care about them, that care was exercised in sending persons to rule them, in one department and another, who were perhaps the deputies of deputies to some member of this House, sent to spy out their liberties, to misrepresent their actions and to prey upon them; men whose behavior on many occasions has caused the blood of those sons of liberty to recoil within them. .  .  . 

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“They protected by your arms? They have nobly taken up arms in your defense, have exerted a valor, amidst their constant and laborious industry, for the defense of a country whose frontier while drenched in blood, while its interior parts yielded all its little savings to your emoluments. .  .  . 
 
“The people, I believe, are as truly loyal as any subjects the king has; but a people jealous of their liberties and who will vindicate them if ever they should be violated.”

​Barre’s warnings were ignored. The House of Commons passed the Stamp Act 205 to 49; it was implemented in America 250 years ago this week. Resistance to it was rapidly organized by a new, freedom-minded group which took its name from Barre’s speech: the Sons of Liberty.
 
The Scrapbook wishes a happy 250th birthday to the start of the American Revolution.

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