Climate change and the "Green Raw Deal"

      Over the past generation or so, climate change has become a very hot topic.  In today's political discussions, it is right up near the top.  According to the prognosticators, global warming will soon cause more frequent and violent storms, draughts, and wildfires, and all the glaciers will melt and the seas will rise and flood coastal cities around the world.  They claim that if we don't enact it soon, then all life on Earth will die in a decade or so.

     To combat it, some of the more radical left-wing politicians have proposed the Green Raw Deal, excuse me, the Green New Deal.  It will supposedly, among other actions, abolish all hydrocarbon-burning cars, airplanes, and ships, and also cows.  

      I live on this planet also, and I, too, don't want incessant hurricanes, draughts, and floods to kills us destroy all that man has built.  But I also, like a billion of my fellow Earth-dwellers, like my gasoline-burning car and the other trappings and luxuries of modern life.  So today your favorite blogger will look at this whole dire global warming thing with his usual skepticism.

     To begin, let us take this issue of Global Warming, and understand that it is not one issue, but is actually three separate issues:

      Issue #1:   Is the Earth getting hotter?  Answer:  probably yes.

      Issue #2:   If the Earth is indeed getting hotter, how much of it (if any) is caused by human activity?  Answer:  hard to say.  (More on this later.)

      Issue #3:   If man is indeed a major contributor to global warming, then what is the role of government?

      And there lies the rub.  The leftist liberals skip completely over Issue #1 and Issue #2 and make a beeline for Issue #3 and scream that only Big Government can save us from catastrophe, and anyone who disagrees is a global change "denier".  No, I'm not a global change denier; I'm a big-government denier.  

      For all of those out there who believe that government is the solution, government is the answer, government knows best, government can solve all problems, government is always right, government never makes mistakes, then global warming IS the nirvana of made-to-order issues to justify their eternal goal of having government in control of everything and everybody.  For after all, nobody wants to see Miami sink into the ocean, right?  

       So.  What can be done about climate change?  First, let's look at where fossil fuel energy comes from, and where it goes.  According to Wikipedia (quoting numbers from the US Department of Energy), about 87% of the word's energy comes from fossil fuels.  Consumption-wise, here's where it is used: 

          Residential - 13%

          Commercial - 7%

          Industrial - 54%

          Transportation - 26%

      Let us focus on that last category: Transportation.   Unlike buildings and other immobile energy consumers, a vehicle such as a car, truck, ship, or airplane must generate its own power "on the go".  Burning fossil fuels is the most reliable and economical option for vehicles (at least for the owner/operator).  There's much heated discussion about alternative ways to power them.  The Green New Deal proposes to just get rid of them.  

      What should governments do to reduce greenhouse gases and other pollutants from fossil-fuel burning vehicles?  Impose more rules, regulations, and bureaucracy?  In my blog post "Pave, Baby, Pave", I noted that all of the proposed regulations ostensibly are written to address PER-VEHICLE fuel consumption … but nobody considers the NUMBER of vehicle-miles driven.  If you double the fuel efficiency of each vehicle but simultaneously double the number of vehicles on the road, have we gained anything?  If the government truly wants to reduce vehicle pollutants, then quit paving highways!  

      Now let us back up to Issue #2 above:  How much of the Earth's global warming is caused by man?  This is a difficult question to answer because the Earth's climate, like the economy, is influenced by many, many things, and it's not possible to set up a "controlled test experiment" to isolate and measure them all. 

      But know first that, for all of Earth's history, climate has been cyclical.  Global climate and ice ages and such are caused by many things, including tectonic movements (including vertical movement), changes in ocean currents, variations in the Earth's orbit, variations in the Sun's output, and even some wobble in the Earth's rotation.  

     And then there are volcanos.  Granted, human activity dwarfs volcano emissions, but volcanoes still do exist and do spit out an awful lot carbon dioxide and other gases and things.  Also, there is some evidence that volcanos underneath Antarctica are melting the ice sheets from below.

      Furthermore, there is some speculation that warmer temperatures could increase the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere, which increases the cloud cover, which reflects more sunlight, thus inducing a cooling effect.  This means that, in essence, the Earth is pretty self-regulating.  (Granted, the jury is still out on this one.)

      I remember as a schoolboy growing up in the 1960s how our science books all warned us that the Earth will experience another ice age someday, and it's a matter of when, not if.  I guess now they've changed their mind.  

      Actually, of all the Earth-damaging materials that humans produce, carbon dioxide is not the worst.  My vote goes to plastics.  Worldwide, we humans now produce about 300 million tons of it every year.  Unlike CO2, plastic never degrades or is consumed by plants.  Most of it ends up in the ocean, where it just gets broken up into smaller and smaller pieces and then is ingested by fish and other marine creatures.  No, I am not saying that reducing plastic production is a job for government (although I wouldn't mind if the leftist-liberals would spend more time talking about the plastics menace).  But in the end, it's really something that starts with us consumers.  So quit buying water in those plastic bottles!

      And finally, PUH-LEASE spare me the doomsday talk about the world coming to an end, or running out of energy, or food, whatever, on such-and-such a date.  We've all heard the Chicken Little story one too many times before.