Climate Distorting U.S. Energy Policies

ARLINGTON, VA.–There is no question that the exaggerated concern about global warming is distorting energy policy in the United States, and indeed throughout the world. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, most of the media, and almost all politicians have demonized carbon dioxide as a pollutant whose emissions have to be reduced.

It is significant that proponents of anthropogenic global warming (AGW) have largely ignored natural climate influences, principally from changes in solar activity. Yet the evidence is overwhelming that such natural factors control the climate and that the greenhouse effect from rising carbon dioxide, while certainly present, is insignificant and as yet undetectable.

These scientific facts have not yet penetrated to decision makers and we find, for example, both the Republican and Democratic candidates for president calling for bureaucratic controls on CO2 emissions. Even President Bush has given way partially to AGW activists’ pressure and sponsored a bewildering number of programs, mainly under the auspices of the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) and the Department of Energy. While the ostensible purpose of these policies is to reduce oil imports as well as CO2 emissions, the net effect has been to waste tax dollars and increase energy costs.