President Obama has directed the EPA to reconsider California’s application for a waiver from federal tailpipe emission standards for cars and trucks. California is seeking to impose tougher standards than what is required under the federal Clean Air Act (CAA).

Under the CAA, only California can seek a waiver from federal motor vehicle standards (so long as their regulations exceed federal standards). Once California’s waiver has been granted, then other states can adopt California’s more stringent standards.

About a year ago, the EPA had denied California’s request for a waiver, explaining:

California’s current waiver request is distinct from all prior requests. Previous waiver petitions covered pollutants that predominantly impacted local and regional air quality. Greenhouse gases are fundamentally global in nature, which is unlike the other air pollutants covered by prior California waiver requests. These gases contribute to the challenge of global climate change affecting every state in the union. Therefore, according to the criteria in section 209 of the Clean Air Act, EPA did not find that separate California standards are needed to “meet compelling and extraordinary conditions.”

Last year, some North Carolina legislators were trying to adopt California’s standards, even though it wouldn’t have been legal. The state’s Climate Action Plan Advisory Group (CAPAG), which was basically gamed to reach results that DENR and its “consultant” wanted, recommended that the California standard be adopted. If the waiver is granted, expect a big push to adopt California’s standards.

Expect the fleet mix to change in the state (i.e. what kind of cars are available) as well as cars to cost a lot more money (anywhere from $1,000-$3,000 more). These are just some of the costs. The benefit of such a policy would be non-existent.

The “father” of global warming hysteria, Dr, James Hansen, stated the following in trial testimony (link to a PPT file–also see this link)

Q: “Have you modeled the CO2 emission savings that would result if only Vermont and New York were to implement the AB 1493 regulation [California’s regulations]?”

Hansen’s Answer: “I haven’t modeled that. It would not be difficult to do it.”

Q: “Okay. Well, you have that model, one of the best in the country that you’ve got, correct?”

Hansen’s Answer: “Well, I wouldn’t run a model with such a very small change, because then you’re wasting computer time, because you do have the problem of finding a signal when compared to the natural variability of the climate.”

Q: “You never modeled — let’s move past Vermont and New York. Let’s say that it’s all 11 states that have adopted the regulation. Have you modeled that? Have you found the computer time or the time to model the total CO2 emission saving in all of the states that adopted the regulation –”

Hansen’s Answer: “No. Because we try to do useful things.”

If California gets the waiver and decides it doesn’t care about its economy or its citizens (which it doesn’t from its typical actions), then let it destroy itself. Some North Carolina legislators may have “California-envy,” but the legislature shouldn’t hurt the state’s citizens to appease a bunch of extremists.

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The following is a lesson in why you don’t mess with cats, and also why trying to manage ecosystems is usually a bad idea.

From the article:

It seemed like a good idea at the time: Remove all the feral cats from a famous Australian island to save the native seabirds.

But the decision to eradicate the felines from Macquarie island allowed the rabbit population to explode and, in turn, destroy much of its fragile vegetation that birds depend on for cover, researchers said Tuesday.

The article goes on to say:

The unintended consequences of the cat-removal project show the dangers of meddling with an ecosystem — even with the best of intentions — without thinking long and hard, the study said.

We can think long and hard all we want, but we are incapable of thinking of every possible scenario. We can’t master Mother Nature. The whole reason why they are called “unintended consequences,” believe or not, is because they are consequences that are unforeseen (i.e. unintended).

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For a couple years now the John Locke Foundation has been trying to get local global warming alarmist organizations to co-sponsor a debate on the topic. Finally an institution has stepped up to the plate. On February 11 The John Locke Foundation will team up with The Reese Institute for Conservation of Natural Resources at Lenoir-Rhyne College to present A Forum on Climate Change: Opposing Views, featuring Dr. John Christy and Dr. William Schlesinger.

Dr. John Christy is Professor of Atmospheric Science and Director for the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama in Huntsville where he began studying global climate issues in 1987.

Dr. William H. Schlesinger is the President of the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies. Before coming to the Institute, he was the Dean of the Nicolas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences at Duke University.

Get complete details here.

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The Raleigh News & Observer’s Rick Martinez wrote this column today on Perdue’s energy plan.

Among other things, Mr. Martinez is all in favor of energy efficiency mandates. He should read this report and the numerous reports and data I cited in my report, and maybe he’ll reconsider his conclusions.

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To get you in the holiday spirit:

Click here

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Upon casually browsing North Carolina’s Environmental Education website, I found a link to a program conducted by the NCDOT’s Roadside Environmental Unit entitled “Swat-A-Litterbug,” which seeks to get citizen tipsters to report examples of littering from across the state

If you see a litterbug and “Swat ‘Em!,” you are required to give the person’s license plate, the date, time, county, and highway/street where the littering occurred. You also have to report what was littered in the process (were they throwing a Jolly Rancher wrapper out the window, or pushing a sewing machine out the back of a pickup going 78 mph?). The site seems to be missing a box where you give actual proof of the event that “transpired.”

It all just makes me wonder what happens if you are reported? Do you get a nasty letter, or “threat” of a future citation? Do they have David Caruso and the CSI folks out on the road fingerprinting each piece of litter and observing the detailed minutiae of the crime scene? I don’t know.

The best part about it is that if you report someone, you can do it anonymously. Pretty Orwellian, if you ask me.

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This is from the Daily Tech:

Data from the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) has indicated a dramatic increase in sea ice extent in the Arctic regions. The growth over the past year covers an area of 700,000 square kilometers: an amount twice the size the nation of Germany.

so now both poles are increasing in ice cover. According to the the same article, “recent research has indicated Antarctica is on a long-term cooling trend, for reasons which remain unclear.”

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This is a great article from Spike on how over a decade ago the marriage of big business and big environmental pressure groups was coming together to sacrifice consumers and taxpayers at the alter of corporate profits and social engineering. The article comes in the form of a review of Christopher Horner’s new book Red Hot Lies: How Global Warming Alarmists Use Threats, Fraud and Deception to Keep You Misinformed.

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The General Electric owned National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is sponsoring its annual “green week.” During this week NBC uses its programming to propagandize its viewers in ways that will promote the fiscal health of it’s parent company. GE is probably the leading corporate component of what can best be termed the eco-industrial complex. This is the network of companies that benefit from environmental regulations restricting consumer
choice and the environmental groups that do their bidding ostensibly in the name of improving the environment but in reality in an attempt to social engineer American lifestyles. This includes the ethanol industry and companies like ADM and more recently entrepreneur/rent seekers like T. Boone Pickens. GE is a major manufacturer of things like wind turbines and fluorescent light bulbs. Hence, the more global warming alarmism GE can promote the fatter its bottom line gets. William Yeatman over at the cooler heads digest puts it this way:

GE is a world leader in the production of clean energy goods and services that people don’t want to buy, like compact fluorescent light bulbs. That’s why it spends millions every year to convince the Congress to pass laws like last year’s energy bill, which forces consumers to buy compact fluorescent light bulbs.

Generally speaking, Americans don’t like being told what to do, so GE uses “Green Week” to propagate global warming alarmism and frighten Americans into accepting rules and regulations that force them to buy GE products.

Yeatman’s post is quite insightful and can be found hear in its entirety.

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The UN’s International Energy Agency has released its World Energy Outlook 2008.  Among the highlights:

The IEA recognizes that the world supply of oil is abundant and predicts that oil production will increase from 82 million barrels/day to 104 million barrels/day between 2007 and 2030.

Calls for “renewable” energy sources such as wind, solar and biomass to account for 40% of global energy production by 2030.  This would essentially mean severely restricting the production from traditional sources since it would be pretty much impossible to meet this goal and actually be producing enough energy to meet the world’s needs.

Ignores most recent climate models (that predict cooling) to adopt the most extreme models of warming available.  It predicts a rise in temperature of 6 degrees C.

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