Star-Crossed Biofuel Lovers Overcome by Gasses

Years ago, the most popular ice-breaker line when a couple first met was, “So, do you come around here often?” As astrology developed into a cottage industry, awkward moments were made less excruciating when couples began asking, “So, what’s your sign?” For today’s romantics, a generation of global warming/climate change lemmings, the new ice-breaker (literally) seems to be, “So, can you believe this global warming? What are you doing to reduce greenhouse gasses?” My eco-pulse has quickened by merely writing a brief description of such an encounter!

Not only is that question a unique conversation starter, it also demonstrates a keen awareness of the hip sociopolitical phenomenon sweeping the globe. The War on Terror or Operation Iraqi Freedom are mere bylines compared to what many believe is the most pressing story of our time. The following headlines from today’s news coverage are only a small sampling of the countless global warming/climate change stories dominating global media outlets each day:

“Global Majority Wants Action on Climate Change.”
“Global Warming Leaves Russians Cold.”
“UN Chief Urges Immediate Climate Action.”
“Schwarzenegger Urges UN to Move on Climate Change.”
“Rising Seas Threaten US Historical Sites.”

Could anything send a more convincing message of responsibility and commitment to a prospective “soul mate” than passionately expressing a lifelong dedication to reducing one’s greenhouse gas emissions? Any woman will embrace a man’s efforts to control his gaseous emissions of any kind, but particularly those pesky greenhouse gasses that are allegedly going to be the death of us all one day. To global warming devotees, bulging biceps or bounteous beauty take a back seat to biofuel usage as desired mate traits.

Yet what will happen to the star-crossed eco-lovers when they learn that a trait once held as a treasured virtue is actually a vice? Such love spell breaking news appeared yesterday in an article by Times (London) reporter Lewis Smith titled, “Study: Biofuels May Produce More Greenhouse Gas than Oil.” The thump you would have heard, if more media outlets had published the story, was the sound of millions of collective environmentalist jaws hitting the floors of their hybrid vehicles as they realized how lovingly and blindly they had embraced biofuels that now appear to be uglier than their declared nemesis, big oil. As our farmers rapidly convert their fields to accommodate the burgeoning ethanol industry rather than food production while millions starve in agriculture-poor African nations, the scientific revelation that ethanol and rapeseed biofuels produce high levels of nitrous oxide should be particularly disheartening to ethanol-enchanted environmentalists.

It’s not as if the study was part of a global conspiracy by big oil to further its allegedly insidious interests. The study was a collaborative effort of British, American, and German researchers, one of which was a Nobel Prize-winning expert on ozone. Before you buy a hybrid vehicle or applaud your congressman for working to expand ethanol production as a means to save the world from global warming catastrophe, pause a moment and examine what renowned scientists, rather than Alarmist Al Gore, discovered about those bewitching biofuels (bold emphasis added by Capital Cloak):

A renewable energy source designed to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions may be contributing more to global warming than fossil fuels, a study suggests.

Measurements of emissions from the burning of biofuels derived from rapeseed and corn have been found to produce more greenhouse gas emissions than they save.

Other biofuels, especially those likely to see greater use over the next decade, performed better than fossil fuels, but the study raises serious questions about some of the most commonly produced varieties.

Rapeseed and corn biodiesels were calculated to produce up to 70 percent and 50 percent more greenhouse gases, respectively, than fossil fuels.

The concerns were raised over the levels of emissions of nitrous oxide, which is 296 times more powerful a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

Scientists found that the use of biofuels released twice as much as nitrous oxide as previously realized.

…The findings illustrated the importance, the researchers said, of ensuring that measures designed to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions are assessed thoroughly before being hailed as a solution.

"One wants rational decisions rather than simply jumping on the bandwagon because superficially something appears to reduce emissions," said Keith Smith, a professor at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and one of the researchers.

Corn for ethanol is the prime crop for biofuel in the U.S., where production for the industry has recently overtaken the use of the plant as a food. In Europe the main crop is rapeseed (one variety of which is canola), which accounts for 80 percent of biofuel production.

"The significance of it is that the supposed benefits of biofuels are even more disputable than had been thought hitherto," Smith told Chemistry World magazine.
…But they concluded that the biofuels "can contribute as much or more to global warming by N2O [nitrous oxide] emissions than cooling by fossil-fuel savings."

The research is published in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, where it has been placed for open review.

The research team consisted of scientists from Britain, the U.S. and Germany, and included Professor Paul Crutzen, who won a Nobel Prize for his work on ozone.

…Dr. Dave Reay, also of the University of Edinburgh, used the findings to calculate that with the U.S. Senate aiming to increase corn-ethanol production sevenfold by 2022, greenhouse-gas emissions from transportation will rise by 6 percent.

In their rush to gain the political favor of environmentalists, congressmen are tip-toeing through and around a growing body of expert scientific research that is debunking the hysteria over greenhouse gasses almost as fast as Al Gore produces them jetting around in gas guzzling private aircraft or keeping cool in his palatial homes.

Devotion tends to blind one to the faults of his or her beloved. Environmentalists enjoyed an energetic elopement with ethanol and other plant-derivative biofuels. Now that the flaws of their betrothed have been exposed by a Nobel Prize winner and an international team of environmental experts, the relationship they so cherished with biofuels may soon wind up wrecked on the rocky shoals of reality. The honeymoon with ethanol has led only to a mournful rendition of “Love on the Rocks.” Neil Diamond proved prophetic with his second line, “Ain’t no surprise.”

Technorati Tags:
Biofuels, Ethanol, Rapeseed, Greenhouse Gasses, Global Warming, Climate Change, Al Gore, Nitrous Oxide, Greenhouse Emissions

Bush is Warming Whimp Next to Klaus

It is rare for a the president of a nation to write a guest column for a newspaper. It is even rarer for a president to openly challenge, in an international publication, the prevailing politically correct view of a controversial issue that appears to be dictating the policies and actions of many governments worldwide. Yet perhaps because an issue is in fact dictating in a manner that reminds Czech Republic President Vaclav Klaus of another oppressive form of public thought control, communism, he chose to warn the world of the dangers of climate change hysteria. President Bush relishes his image as a “cowboy” president, a man who talks tough, talks straight, and never runs from a fight, but when it comes to confronting the increasingly alarmist radical political movement that surrounds “global warming,” President Bush is no match for President Klaus. While President Bush attends summits and pays verbal homage to man’s contributions to global warming, President Klaus adopted the true cowboy swagger and spoke his mind about climate change and the flawed science behind this hysterical phenomenon.

In a guest opinion column in the Financial Times last week, President Klaus offered the following view of global warming, quoted here in part:

We are living in strange times. One exceptionally warm winter is enough – irrespective of the fact that in the course of the 20th century the global temperature increased only by 0.6 per cent – for the environmentalists and their followers to suggest radical measures to do something about the weather, and to do it right now.

In the past year, Al Gore’s so-called “documentary” film was shown in cinemas worldwide, Britain’s – more or less Tony Blair’s – Stern report was published, the fourth report of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was put together and the Group of Eight summit announced ambitions to do something about the weather. Rational and freedom-loving people have to respond. The dictates of political correctness are strict and only one permitted truth, not for the first time in human history, is imposed on us. Everything else is denounced.

The author Michael Crichton stated it clearly: “the greatest challenge facing mankind is the challenge of distinguishing reality from fantasy, truth from propaganda”. I feel the same way, because global warming hysteria has become a prime example of the truth versus propaganda problem. It requires courage to oppose the “established” truth, although a lot of people – including top-class scientists – see the issue of climate change entirely differently. They protest against the arrogance of those who advocate the global warming hypothesis and relate it to human activities.

As someone who lived under communism for most of his life, I feel obliged to say that I see the biggest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy and prosperity now in ambitious environmentalism, not in communism. This ideology wants to replace the free and spontaneous evolution of mankind by a sort of central (now global) planning.

…Does it make any sense to speak about warming of the Earth when we see it in the context of the evolution of our planet over hundreds of millions of years? Every child is taught at school about temperature variations, about the ice ages, about the much warmer climate in the Middle Ages. All of us have noticed that even during our life-time temperature changes occur (in both directions).

…I agree with Professor Richard Lindzen from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who said: “future generations will wonder in bemused amazement that the early 21st century’s developed world went into hysterical panic over a globally averaged temperature increase of a few tenths of a degree, and, on the basis of gross exaggerations of highly uncertain computer projections combined into implausible chains of inference, proceeded to contemplate a roll-back of the industrial age”.

The issue of global warming is more about social than natural sciences and more about man and his freedom than about tenths of a degree Celsius changes in average global temperature.

As a witness to today’s worldwide debate on climate change, I suggest the following:
■Small climate changes do not demand far-reaching restrictive measures
■Any suppression of freedom and democracy should be avoided
■Instead of organising people from above, let us allow everyone to live as he wants
■Let us resist the politicisation of science and oppose the term “scientific consensus”, which is always achieved only by a loud minority, never by a silent majority
■Instead of speaking about “the environment”, let us be attentive to it in our personal behaviour
■Let us be humble but confident in the spontaneous evolution of human society. Let us trust its rationality and not try to slow it down or divert it in any direction
■Let us not scare ourselves with catastrophic forecasts, or use them to defend and promote irrational interventions in human lives.

President Klaus in this column demonstrated courage and common sense to a degree that is lacking, on this issue of global warming, in the leaders of both American political parties. Democrats embrace global warming like lemmings, prepared to follow the pied-piper of the day, Al Gore, off the environmental cliff without considering any of the voluminous contradictory evidence. Republicans, including the President and Newt Gingrich, concur that it is politically inadvisable to question the existence of global warming as a man-made phenomenon and thus are out on the speaking stump proposing solutions for a problem many scientists do not believe is a problem at all. A Republican who bows at the altar of global warming should be sacrificed upon it when voters choose the Party’s nominee for 2008. Blindly following any form of hysteria is a sign of poor judgment that is not worthy of one who would lead the strongest of the world’s free nations.

The fall of communism in Eastern Europe provided the free world with an influx of people starving for liberties and thirsting for freedom, and they, better than many unappreciative and apathetic Americans, recognize threats and intrusions on freedom. President Klaus sees such danger in the global warming movement. The world tends to ignore lone voices in the wilderness, but it would do so at its peril if it chooses to set aside the advice of Vaclav Klaus, a true straight-talking president.

Technorati:
Vaclav Klaus Global Warming Czech Republic Climate Change Al Gore Hysteria Communism Environmentalists

Gore's Denials Are Evidence He Will Run

Al Gore will officially become a candidate for the 2008 Democratic nomination. He just hasn’t admitted it to himself yet. Although he attempts to deny to the media that he intends to run, his denials themselves actually provide the best evidence that he will in fact seek the presidency again.

Experienced interviewers/interrogators will recognize certain patterns in Gore’s responses to questions about his potential candidacy, patterns consistent with attempts to deceive himself and the interviewer. There are noticeable similarities between Al Gore’s denials of presidential ambition and standard denials of involvement by criminals undergoing law enforcement or intelligence interrogation.

For example, many murderers, when asked during interrogations if they killed the victims, offer the following responses: “I could never do something like that” or “I loved her, how could I hurt her?” While these responses give an outward impression of denial, when examined closely they actually contain no denial of guilt and reveal an avoidance of the actual question. Such answers also demonstrate the inability of the suspect to admit to himself that not only was he capable of murder, but he actually went through with it when the opportunity presented itself. In the minds of many who have murdered or committed violent crimes, there remains the faint hope that what happened did not really happen and that they must be innocent because they have no explanation how they could be involved in something so grave. They literally attempt to convince themselves with internal arguments such as, “that couldn’t have been me, I’m not that kind of person, I would never do that.” Yet these are merely conscious deflections from the unconscious knowledge of what they have done. The conscious cannot admit what the unconscious knows to be true, and the conflict is expressed in the attempted denial that contains a belief about them rather than an admission of what actually occurred.

Now, Al Gore is not a murderer or criminal (although there was that pesky issue of selling military and nuclear technology to China), but his responses when asked if he will enter the presidential campaign contain most elements of deception and denial commonly encountered by law enforcement and intelligence interrogators. In a mere two sentences, Al Gore's words confirmed for me that he fully intends to run but refuses to admit to himself or the media that he cravenly harbors that ambition. In an interview with ABC News this week, Gore was asked the question everyone wants answered: will he run for president in 2008? Gore’s response follows:

Gore underscored in the interview that he is "not a candidate," and that he is "not looking for a set of circumstances that would open the door for me to get back into politics. I'm really not."

But he does leave some wiggle room for the possibility of running in 2008. "Look, we're a year and half away from this election," he said, "[I] see no need to say, 'OK. I'm not ever going to even think about that in the future.'”

As the ABC headline provided by Gore proclaimed, “I Am Not a Candidate.” That was Gore’s initial response when asked if he was running in 2008. While this gives the impression of a denial, it is not a denial but is instead a deflection. In this response Gore is stating a truth: he is currently not a declared candidate. This does not answer the question as to whether he intends to become a candidate. By answering in this fashion, Gore clearly wants to give the impression that he does not intend to seek the presidency but his conscious cannot admit what the unconscious knows to be true: he has already made plans to run.

Gore’s expanded response is even more revealing. He claimed that he is not actively looking for exactly the right circumstances that would force his run for the presidency, such as adulation and begging from his party. He even reinforced this claim by adding “I’m really not.” This statement also bears some resemblance to a denial, but it is not a denial. It demonstrated that Gore cannot consciously admit to himself that he would hungrily seek the presidency if the door appeared open to him. He may not be looking for the open door, but he will walk through it when he comes to it on his own or his party beckons him toward it. “I’m really not” simply means “I really am, but admitting that would mean I am ambitious and power hungry, and I cannot admit that to myself or the media yet. Not until the door is open.”

He has made similar comments in the media. To Time Magazine, Gore stated:

…that he "has fallen out of love with politics" and that he was unlikely to run.

"I haven't ruled it out. But I don't think it's likely to happen," Gore told Time, explaining that he considered the role he was now playing as a global spokesman for awareness on climate change to be an important one.

"If I do my job right, all the candidates will be talking about the climate crisis. And I'm not convinced the presidency is the highest and best role I could play," he said in the cover story for the Time issue dated May 28.

Gore, who has repeatedly referred to himself as a recovering politician, warned however: "You always have to worry about a relapse."

The problem with falling out of love with politics, or anything else, is that falling back in love is common and unpredictable. In fact, the phrase “fall in love” is entirely inaccurate. Love is developed over time, through experience, trial, and sacrifice. One can become temporarily infatuated, but that is not love. Gore’s lifelong pursuit of political achievement and high office was akin to love, while his obsession with global warming and propaganda movie making is an extended infatuation dedicated to one convenient truth (sorry Al): keeping Gore politically viable while he licked his 2000 election wounds in preparation for 2008. His statement about falling out of love, while giving an impression of denial, was not a denial. If shown sufficient adulation by his party and his pet cause, Gore’s love of politics would quickly rekindle to its normal flame of obsession. Likewise, he claimed that he was not convinced that the presidency was the best role for promoting his global warming hysteria. He did not state, “I can never be convinced,” thus if the right people whispered the right things about global warming and the “bully pulpit” in his ear, he would surely find that convincing enough to jump into the ring while claiming he was issued a call to duty rather than fulfilling the lifelong ambition he publicly conceals.

Al Gore loves politics more than Priuses, campaigning more than carbon offsets, and the White House more than greenhouse gas reduction. If you believe Al Gore would rather be the world’s global warming guru than the President of the United States, you do not know Al Gore.

Terrorists Motivated by Global Warming?

"It's not hard to make the connection between climate change and instability, or climate change and terrorism." So wrote Gen. Anthony Zinni, President Bush's former Middle East envoy in a 35 page report produced by CNA Corporation, a national security think tank. 6 retired admirals and 5 retired generals contributed to the report, which asserts that global warming poses a significant threat to national security. Zinni’s quote above may also illustrate why he is the President’s former Middle East envoy.

The existence and rise of terrorism has been blamed on a variety of factors, all of which inevitably lead to a central villain: America. U.S. support of Israel, America’s declining morals and corrupt culture, placement of U.S. military bases in Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War, “occupations” of Iraq and Afghanistan, all of these have been cited as reasons for why terrorists hate America. Now, eleven distinguished retired military leaders have come to the logic defying conclusion that terrorists, who willingly dwell in 130 degree Fahrenheit desert heat, want to kill Americans because of global warming.

According to CNN:

The report says that in the next 30 to 40 years there will be wars over water, increased hunger instability from worsening disease and rising sea levels and global warming-induced refugees. "The chaos that results can be an incubator of civil strife, genocide and the growth of terrorism. . . ."

Stanford scientist Terry Root, who co-authored a similar paper earlier this month on global warming’s impact on earth’s inhabitants, quoted by CNN/AP, warned:

"We're going to have a war over water," Root said. "There's just not going to be enough water around for us to have for us to need to live with and to provide for the natural environment."

On a related note, the U.S. Northeast today awakened to flooding and continued torrential rain as a “nor’easter” hit the region over the weekend. Amazingly, the earth’s natural environment has distributed water for eons without the assistance or obstruction of feeble mankind. The earth never loses water, as the condensation, evaporation, precipitation cycle returns moisture into the atmosphere where clouds transport it elsewhere. Droughts and floods were common throughout recorded history in most parts of the world long before “greenhouse gasses” became a concern. Polar icecaps have thawed and refrozen to varying degrees during the earth’s existence, before CFCs and carbon footprints (or in Al Gore’s case, Bigfoot prints-get a smaller house Al!).

In fairness to the NCA report, migrating populations seeking better resources and opportunities throughout the world are indeed a threat to world stability, but not for the reasons their report claims. Hence the need for better border security and enforcement of our existing immigration statutes, to get ahead of this problem that is, in fact, a quest for freedom rather than an escape from melting ice caps. The migrations are already occurring and have been for decades. Global warming is not driving Mexicans to leave their families to seek employment and income in America.

The large influx of immigrants from Europe in the nineteenth century that made America a strong and inclusive nation were not fleeing Europe’s coal belching factories choking the air in the great industrial centers. They came to America seeking greater freedom and opportunity. In all respects, population migrations are a search for better opportunity, and the nations of the world should prepare to receive immigrants and heat up the melting pots.

NCA and other think tanks should focus on devising secure, organized, and humanitarian immigration systems to prepare for normal cyclical climate change and resulting migration rather than urging the government to spend billions on emissions protocols and mandating consumer behavior. President Bush deserves praise for rebuffing demands to place a restrictive carbon emissions stranglehold on American businesses competing with other nations not lifting a finger to curb “global warming,” such as China. It would be foolish to impose economy crushing standards on American companies and hope that other nations will eventually follow our example.

Global warming must be globally accepted and globally combated in an “all for one and one for all” program, or it should be ignored. In the Cold War, President Reagan did not disarm America because nuclear weapons posed a threat to the earth and then hope that the Soviets would follow that example out of the goodness of their hearts. Instead, negotiations over arms control required mutual effort and reductions. In the so-called global warming battle, the U.S. should not expose its economy to the ravages of the financial battlefield until China and all other emissions culprits are playing on the same level playing field.

General Zinni and his collaborators on the global warming report are strategists, and as such have experience developing tactical and logistical plans for virtually any contingency. While it is not unusual for such men to prepare for any eventuality, the recent rush by members of Congress, 2008 presidential candidates, and think tankers (perhaps with aspirations for public office) appears politically opportunistic in the embrace of the cause du jour. As I wrote last week, elevating global warming to a national security issue may satisfy a need for political attention, but it will significantly hamstring our military resources and dilute priorities as attention is diverted from al Qaeda to Al Gore.

From War to Warming: Senators Seek to Divert Attention

One of the left’s sharpest criticisms of President Bush’s handling of the War on Terror has been the argument that after routing the Taliban in Afghanistan, he turned his focus away from Bin Laden and al Qaeda in that region in favor of waging war on Saddam Hussein. The needless war in Iraq, liberals and Richard Clarke claim, shifted resources and priorities away from pursuing Bin Laden and the Taliban further, and this stretched our military too thin to effectively achieve its missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. Additionally, the 9/11 Commission determined that our intelligence agencies possessed thousands of seized terrorism related Arabic documents yet to be translated and analyzed due to inadequate budgets and staffing. The burdens of a War on Terror, the President’s critics claim, are too heavy for our military and intelligence agencies to bear.

Now global warming hysteria has moved members of Congress to propose a bill that would tie a millstone to the neck of our military and intelligence agencies by diverting their attention further from the War on Terror and sink them in a quagmire of studies, strategic planning, and war games to prepare for, drum roll please: global warming. That’s right, a normal cyclical global weather pattern is in line for being awarded status as a “national defense issue,” if a bill cosponsored by Sen. Chuck (Cut and Run) Hagel, R-NE, and Sen. Dick (our troops in Guantanamo act like Nazis) Durbin, D-IL, passes in Congress. The Boston Globe reported that the bill would order the National Intelligence Director to conduct a “National Intelligence Estimate” on global warming, and would likewise order the Pentagon to engage in war games exploring possible national security scenarios that could allegedly result from extreme weather.

Apparently some members of Congress, with the urging of the National Academy of Sciences, have become so spooked by wildly exaggerated films such as “The Day After Tomorrow” and “An Inconvenient Truth,” that they determined global warming poses a danger to national security so grave that it warrants their recommending that the military divert its attention away from the War on Terror to focus on hurricanes and climate change. I find it ironic that the President’s critics feel that diverting military and intelligence attention from the War on Terror is acceptable for global warming, but it was not acceptable in the case of deposing a dictator who had used chemical weapons on his own people and failed to comply with 14 UN resolutions demanding WMD inspections.

When I go to sleep at night, I am far more worried about a rogue nation in possession of WMDs than I am of a cyclical and temporary melting of polar ice fields. Severe weather was such a threat to national defense in 2006 that we had 0 (none, zero) hurricanes make landfall in the U.S.

The motive behind the bill is more insidious. The White House has apparently not embraced the questionable science behind the global warming frenzy, and this has frustrated those who have staked their professional reputations on the issue. Consider this excerpt from the Boston Globe’s coverage of the proposed bill:

"If you get the intelligence community to apply some of its analytic capabilities to this issue, it could be compelling to whoever is sitting in the White House," said Anne Harrington , director of the committee on international security at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington. "If the White House does not absorb the independent scientific expertise, then maybe something from the intelligence community might have more weight."

Will this be the new trend, to declare every pet issue a “national defense” issue because the White House is more likely to read and take action on military and intelligence reports than climate change “science?” Like the boy who cried wolf’s exaggerated warnings, the more causes that are given national defense status, the more difficult it will become to properly assign highest priority to those that pose the greatest immediate threat. Worse, diverting resources from military and intelligence operations to alleged global warming while we are fighting a real War on Terror and Operation Iraqi Freedom, is a shoddy approach to national defense that reeks of political opportunism.

Senators Hagel and Durbin should cut out some of that shameful pork attached to the armed service appropriation bill drafts and divert it to hire more translators and intelligence staff to sift through the mountain of documents seized in Afghanistan and Iraq instead of demanding national intelligence estimates on global warming. We need better intelligence on Iran more than we need intelligence estimates on severe weather. We can assert far more control over one than the other.