On Feb 26, 9:12 pm, "Kurgan Gringioni" <
[email protected]> wrote:
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/26/AR200...
>
> Five western states to bypass Bush on climate
>
> By Timothy Gardner
> Reuters
> Monday, February 26, 2007; 2:28 PM
>
> NEW YORK (Reuters) - Five Western U.S. states have formed the latest
> regional pact that bypasses the Bush administration to cut emissions
> linked to global warming through market mechanisms, according to
> Oregon's governor.
>
> Oregon, California, Washington, New Mexico and Arizona have agreed to
> develop a regional target for reducing greenhouse emissions in six
> months, according a statement from Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski.
>
> During the next 18 months, the governors will devise a market-based
> program, such as a load-based cap and trade program to reach the
> target. The five states also have agreed to participate in a multi-
> state registry to track and manage greenhouse gas emissions in their
> region.
>
> The Western Regional Climate Action Initiative comes on the heels of
> an agreement in the East called the Regional Greenhouse Gas
> Initiative.
>
> "With the Western states you've got a huge part of the U.S. economy
> that are beginning to regulate greenhouse gases," said Jeremiah
> Baumann, an advocate with the Oregon State Public Interest Research
> Group.
>
> California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger recently passed the country's
> toughest greenhouse emissions laws which aim to reduce the state's
> economy-wide output of the gases by 25 percent by 2020.
>
> Monday's agreement "sets the stage for a regional cap and trade
> program, which will provide a powerful framework for developing a
> national cap and trade program," Schwarzenegger said in a statement on
> Monday. "This agreement shows the power of states to lead our nation
> addressing climate change."
>
> The other states in the Western pact have also passed greenhouse gas
> reduction initiatives of their own. The regional pact would allow the
> states to use market mechanisms more efficiently to reduce output of
> the gases, said Baumann.
>
> The United States initiated cap and trade programs on pollutants such
> as acid rain components in the early 1990s.
>
> In such markets for greenhouse gases, companies can offset their
> emissions by investing in clean projects like solar and wind power, or
> earn credits that they can sell for cutting their emissions at their
> factories.
>
> In 2005, the European Union formed a cap and trade program to meet its
> countries' obligations under the Kyoto Protocol.
>
> Unlike developed countries that ratified Kyoto, the United States does
> not regulate carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases. President
> George W. Bush withdrew from the international pact early in his first
> term, saying it would hurt the economy and unfairly leave rapidly
> developing countries without emissions limits in its first phase.
>
> Greenhouse pacts on both coasts could send a message to smokestack and
> transportation businesses and encourage them to lobby for a national
> greenhouse plan, rather than face patchwork local regulations, Baumann
> said.
>
> Like California's recent laws, the Western pact also seeks to regulate
> imports of electricity from dirty coal-burning power plants from
> surrounding states outside of the agreement.
>
> The seven states in the Eastern regional pact, which include New York
> and Massachusetts, aim to cut carbon dioxide emissions at power plants
> by 10 percent by 2019.
The weather is a perfect tool for scientists who use the media to get
attention. I pointed out
a good example with the hurricane hysteria of 2005:
http://cf.geocities.com/ilanpi/hurricane2.html
I just heard on the news today that there was the strongest Atlantic
hurricane in history, and that this year had a record number of
powerful hurricanes. In my constant quest to understand media
distortion, I immediately set out to understand what the hidden trick
was behind this alarming turn of events in the world climate.
Here is my conclusion: These hurricanes are classed according to their
wind speed which reaches its highest numbers when the hurricanes are
out in the ocean. But how do you measure 200+ kph winds out in the
open sea? As near as I can figure, you can't do it safely by boat or
airplane, so the only good way of tracking a hurricane is from a
satellite. Since the first weather satellites were launched 45 years
ago, this significantly reduces the period of observation of ocean
hurricanes. A further minute's research reveals that a complete system
of weather satellites was first established in 1975 with the GOES
project. In other words, recorded data on Atlantic hurricanes only
goes back 30 years. Since other climatic effects can have a period
extending decades, I conclude that there is insufficient historical
data do indicate a permanent change in global climate.
As a final remark, note that 30 years of data should be enough to
correlate hurricane speed on land with their maximum force over the
ocean which could therefore give realistic extrapolations as to the
maximum wind speed of hurricanes over the ocean for the recorded
period before satellite data. This would give a clearer understanding
of whether this year's hurricanes are truly exceptional.
-ilan
Back to ilanpi
Such hysteria caused much human suffering including the irrational
exodus from Houston, TX.