The Cost of Climate Change Hysteria

Iain MurrayDefending the American Dream SummitAustin, TXJuly 19th 2008

The Really Inconvenient Truths

Subtitle – Seven Environmental Catastrophes Liberals Don’t Want You to Know About – Because They Helped Cause Them

Liberals have a track record of hyping environmental issues

The cure is often worse than the disease

“Global Warming: What Should Texas Do?” Texas Public Policy Foundation, April 2007

The global warming debate is subject to obfuscation and misrepresentation

Significant uncertainties remain in the basic areas of climate science

The benefits of affordable energy to Texas, the US and the world are immense

Emissions reductions are not the best way to tackle the potential damages of global warming

Global warming is not all downside Resilient societies are wealthier, healthier and

cleaner

“Global Warming: What Should Texas Do?” Texas Public Policy Foundation, April 2007

Texas requires greater energy capacity to meet its demand or it will suffer hardship

Cap and trade schemes are failing where they are being tried

Spending money on global warming is generally a bad investment

Even accounting for the cost of carbon emissions is imprudent

Obfuscation and Misrepresentation

Too many examples to cite. Here’s one:

NOAA: June the ninth warmest in 129 years

But, NASA’s satellites tell a different story

13th coldest June in last 30 years

Obfuscation and Misrepresentation

Benefits of Affordable Energy

“Energy is an indispensable ingredient of material prosperity. . . . Where and when energy is in short supply or too expensive, people suffer from lack of direct energy services (such as cooking, heating, lighting, and transport) and from inflation, unemployment, and reduced economic output.”

- John Holdren

Are Renewables Affordable?

24.34Solar

23.37Wind

0.67Hydroelectric

0.89Biomass

1.59Nuclear

0.25Natural Gas

0.44Coal

Subsidy $Fuel Source

Source: Energy Information Administration

Subsidies per Megawatt Hour

Cost to Replace Coal, Gas and Nuclear with Wind and Solar

In 2007, the US generated 4000 billion kilowatthours of electricity

3659 bn kwh from coal, natural gas and nuclear ($3.6 billion in subsidies there)

Subsidies needed to replace that with wind and solar:

$88 BILLION Yet solar and wind still more expensive

Emissions Reduction

Replacing high-emissions fuel sources with low-emissions fuel sources is expensive

High prices mean less energy used Gas demand fallen 3% thanks to $4

gas Burden falls mostly on the poor

How Easy is Emissions Reduction?

The Truth About Kyoto

How Expensive is the Gore Plan?

So What Do We Do?

No Regrets Mitigation Focused Adaptation Resiliency

No Regrets Mitigation

Prime Example: Air Traffic Reform Utilizing satellite-based technology

could save 146 million barrels of oil annually

Saves the economy $20 billion Reduces GHG emissions by 53

million tonnes

Focused Adaptation

Main risks of global warming: hunger, disease, sea level rise, water stress, biodiversity

Halting global warming is an expensive way of tackling these problems

Goklany (2008): halting global warming reduce hunger, disease and sea level rise by 4-10 percent by 2085, but increase water stress and biodiversity problems at a cost of much more than $165 billion annually for many years

Focused adaptation could reduce each of these problems by 50-75% by 2015 at a cost of less than $34 billion annually, and also provide benefits in terms of child mortality, literacy etc.

Resiliency

Wealthier societies manage disasters better

1955: Hurricane Janet, category 5, hits Mexico – 600 people killed

2007: Hurricane Dean, category 5, hits Mexico in exact same place – no-one killed

2005: Hurricane Katrina, category 5, hits most vulnerable place in America and kills 1,836

2008: Cyclone Nargis, category 4, hits Burma and kills at least 84,500

A Final Thought

“In short, if we can rise to the challenge, the permanent abolition of the wheel would have the marvelously synergistic effect of creating thousands of new jobs - as blacksmiths, farriers, grooms and so on - at the same time as it conserved energy and saved the planet from otherwise inevitable devastation.”-- Catherine Bennett, The Guardian, 2004

For more information

The Really Inconvenient Truths on AmazonThe PIG to Global Warming on Amazonhttp://www.globalwarming.orghttp://cei.orghttp://planetgore.nationalreview.com