WeGetIt.org Wednesday Bulletin

Climate measures get a free ride
(Un)Sustainable "green" jobs
Rival to the UN climate panel emerges

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Ignoring the costs of climate legislation


	A speed-reader was hired to read the entire 946-page bill.

That's what Christopher Booker sees happening in the UK, the US, and around the world.

Booker, co-author with Richard North of Scared to Death: From BSE to Global Warming--Why Scares Are Costing Us the Earth, wrote in the UK's Telegraph, "One of the mysteries of our time is how impossible it is to interest people in the mind-boggling sums cited by governments all over the world as the cost of the measures they wish to see taken to 'stop climate change.'"

"One measure of the fantasy world now inhabited by our sad MPs," Booker said, "was the mindless way that they nodded through, last October, by 463 votes to three, by far the most expensive piece of legislation ever to go through Parliament. This was the Climate Change Act...."

Booker might have pointed, too, at how the Waxman-Markey climate change bill got pushed through the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee. When Republicans wanted amendments read aloud, committee chairman Henry Waxman (D-California) hired an oral speed reader, whose pace--far too fast for anyone to follow thoughtfully--would have reduced reading time to about nine hours . In the face of that threat, Republican committee members backed off. As a result, much of the 946-page bill hadn't been read by most committee members before they voted on it.

Seven myths about "green jobs"

Washington rhetoric about remaking the American economy with "green jobs" is growing. But does the idea really make sense?

Not according to economic researchers Andrew Morriss, William Bogart, Andrew Dorchak, and Roger Meiners, who published a scholarly critique earlier this year after reviewing a wide range of green jobs-touting literature. An easy-to-understand summary (pdf) (puts the basic facts at anyone's fingertips:

Myth 1: Everyone knows what a “green job” is.
Fact 1: No standard definition of a “green job” exists in the green jobs literature.
Myth 2: Creating green jobs will boost productive employment.
Fact 2: Green jobs estimates include huge numbers of clerical and administrative positions that do not produce output.
Myth 3: Green jobs forecasts are reliable.
Fact 3: Green jobs studies make estimates using poor models based on dubious assumptions.
Myth 4: Green jobs promote employment growth.
Fact 4: Promoting more jobs instead of more productivity leads to low-paying jobs in less desirable conditions.
Myth 5: The world economy can be remade by reducing trade, relying on local production, and lowering consumption without decreasing our standard of living.
Fact 5: No nation can produce everything citizens need or desire.
Myth 6: Government mandates are a substitute for free markets.
Fact 6: Companies react more swiftly and efficiently to the demands of customers and the market than they can to cumbersome government mandates.
Myth 7: Wishing for technological progress is sufficient.
Fact 7: Some technologies preferred by the green jobs studies are not capable of meeting today’s demands.

Whenever someone touts legislation as helping to increase employment, ask yourself: "If the jobs were profitable, would we need legislation to create them?"

Move over, IPCC: A challenger comes on stage

For over a decade the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been looked upon by many as the world's most authoritative body on climate change science. Increasingly alarming claims in its summaries for policymakers, however, have notoriously exceeded what the technical reports justified, and have undercut its credibility.

Now a new report is about to be released that challenges the IPCC's hegemony. Climate Change Reconsidered: The Report of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change will be released next Tuesday, June 2nd, at the Third International Conference on Climate Change , in Washington, D.C. The 880-page book is the work of 35 contributors and reviewers led by co-editors S. Fred Singer, one of the world's foremost atmospheric scientists and head of the Science & Environmental Policy Project, and Craig Idso, of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change.

According to the publisher, "The authors cite thousands of peer-reviewed research papers and books that were ignored by the IPCC, plus additional scientific research that became available after the IPCC’s self-imposed deadline of May 2006."

An appendix to the book contains the names of more than 31,400 American scientists – 9,000 of whom hold Ph.D.s in their fields – who have signed a petition to the U.S. government that declares, “There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate.”

Now, please forward this message to your pastor, other Christian leaders, and friends and urge them to sign the WeGetIt.org Declaration, too!

The more people sign, the stronger the message our leaders will hear that Biblical principles and factual evidence, not media hype about speculative fears like global warming, should guide our care for the environment and the poor.

Gratefully,

-- The WeGetIt.org campaign team

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