To hear the Mayor and his fellow leftist-greens tell it, Anthropomorphic Global Warming is settled science and any expression of doubt that the end of the world may soon be upon us is tantamount to asserting the world if flat (which it is if you believe Tom Friedman). The true believers — exactly the sort of people Noam Bramsom stacked onto his GreenR boards — demand we trade in our SUVs for hybrid-electric Go-Karts, bulldoze our wasteful and inefficient single-family homes, and reduce our carbon footprint by moving into Soviet-style high-rise buildings which will offer us centrally controlled thermostats (set to 64 degrees in the winter) and reduced water pressure (so we can have a trickled of water for a shower).
The only problem being that there is no consensus among scientists – over 31,000 have signed a petition to that effect.
Times of London: Rebel scientists force Royal Society to accept climate change scepticism
Britain’s premier scientific institution is being forced to review its statements on climate change after a rebellion by members who question mankind’s contribution to rising temperatures. The Royal Society has appointed a panel to rewrite the 350-year-old institution’s official position on global warming. It will publish a new “guide to the science of climate change” this summer. The society has been accused by 43 of its Fellows of refusing to accept dissenting views on climate change and exaggerating the degree of certainty that man-made emissions are the main cause.
And the “solutions” offered are often worse than the problem they aim to cure.
ANL Study: Mass adoption of EVs in China will lead to tremendously higher emissions
Argonne National Laboratory and China’s Tsinghua University study shows widespread adoption of electric vehicles (EV) could actually increase greenhouse-gas emissions rather than reduce them. The study focused on China and concludes that mass EV adoption could lead to tremendously higher emissions of carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide due to the country’s widespread use of coal as a power source.
Americans, Britons and German are now rejecting claims of man-made global warming in ever growing numbers.
New York Times: Climate Fears Turn to Doubts Among Britons
Last month hundreds of environmental activists crammed into an auditorium here to ponder an anguished question: If the scientific consensus on climate change has not changed, why have so many people turned away from the idea that human activity is warming the planet? Nowhere has this shift in public opinion been more striking than in Britain, where climate change was until this year such a popular priority that in 2008 Parliament enshrined targets for emissions cuts as national law. But since then, the country has evolved into a home base for a thriving group of climate skeptics who have dominated news reports in recent months, apparently convincing many that the threat of warming is vastly exaggerated.
A survey in February by the BBC found that only 26 percent of Britons believed that “climate change is happening and is now established as largely manmade,” down from 41 percent in November 2009. [In] the United States…A March Gallup poll found that 48 percent of Americans believed that the seriousness of global warming was “generally exaggerated,” up from 41 percent a year ago.
Economies that have adopted GreenR solutions like California and Spain have found that the only “green” being generated by their policies is for other, less-restrictive economies as jobs leave neighboring states or countries or entire regions and move to places like China with virtually no restrictions.
Wall Street Journal: California refutes its own ‘green jobs’ policy.
In 2007 when Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the law, called AB-32, he said it would propel California into an economy-expanding, green job future. Well, a new study by the state’s own auditing agency—its version of the Congressional Budget Office—has burst that green bubble. The study released May 13 concludes that “California’s economy at large will likely be adversely affected in the near term by implementing climate-related policies that are not adopted elsewhere.” While the long-term economic costs are “unknown,” the study finds that AB-32 will raise energy prices, “causing the prices of goods and services to rise; lowering business profits; and reducing production, income and jobs.”…some new “green jobs” will be created. But the “net economywide impact,” it says, “will in all likelihood be negative.”
Bloomberg: Job Losses From Obama Green Stimulus Foreseen in Spanish Study
Subsidizing renewable energy in the U.S. may destroy two jobs for every one created if Spain’s experience with windmills and solar farms is any guide. For every new position that depends on energy price supports, at least 2.2 jobs in other industries will disappear, according to a study from King Juan Carlos University in Madrid.
Championing these policies and community meetings is one thing but actually implementing them is another as Cape Cod residents in ultra-liberal Massachusetts have shown in the long-running fight over installing wind turbines off the coast.
New York Times: Cape Cod Residents Don’t Expect One Ruling to End Long Fight
Word that the federal government had approved a permit on Wednesday for Cape Wind Associates to build a 130-turbine wind farm off the coast here barely caused a ripple in Hyannis, where the installation will be visible from parts of the town, including a popular beach and many houses. After a nine-year battle over the proposal, most here thought the decision would lead to even more years of litigation and waiting.
Of course, the Mayor is not going to cop to any of this but what do you expect from a politician. The best way to judge is to look at the sorts of people Bramson placed on his Green R committee, some of whom traveled great distances to come to New Rochelle to tell the City Council why they support a plan they wrote for a community where they do not live filled with costs they will not pay.
Ain’t experimenting with other people’s lives grand?