What he’s talking about is not quite clear
since our current economy is about 75 percent dependent on fossil fuels
and will remain that way for at least the next 25 years, as solar and
wind technologies remain only marginal sources of energy.
If
anything, we are likely to be even more dependent on fossil fuels in
the future as nuclear power, which provides about 20 percent of our
electricity, shrinks in availability as a supply of energy.
Although
our energy needs are ever-growing, construction of nuclear power plants
is not keeping pace — not one has come online in the last 30 years.
Even if a few nuke plants are constructed during the next decades, they
will not supply enough power to keep nuclear power at the 20 percent
level.
McCain then demonstrated how little he knows about the science of global warming.
"No
longer do we need to rely on guesswork and computer modeling, because
satellite images reveal a dramatic disappearance of glaciers, Antarctic
ice shelves and polar ice sheets. And I’ve seen some of this evidence
up close…"
Global warming alarmism, however, is
entirely based on the "guesswork and computer modeling" that McCain
says isn’t necessary. The reason the United Nations relies on
"guesswork and computer modeling" is because the glaciers that are
receding have been doing so since at least the 19th century, before
significant human output of greenhouse gases.
In
any event, the melting of glaciers is not evidence that humans are
involved. Glaciers have been advancing and retreating for hundreds of
millions of years. Just because humans are witnessing changes in
glaciers does not mean that humans are causing them; moreover,
Antarctic ice is expanding while any melting of Arctic ice is not likely due to warmer air temperatures.
"We
have seen sustained drought in the Southwest and across the world
average temperatures that seem to reach new records every few years. We
have seen a higher incidence of extreme weather events," McCain stated.
But
that "sustained drought" is why the Southwest is commonly known as a
"desert" — and it was a desert long before industrial emissions of
greenhouse gases.
As to global temperature, the world has cooled since 1998 and the latest research
from U.N.-approved researchers indicates that more global cooling is on
the way. With respect to extreme weather events, I can’t think of a
single scientist — even an alarmist scientist — who has the temerity to
stand up and link specific weather events with climate change.
McCain’s apparent climate mentor, Al Gore, learned this lesson the hard way last fall.
McCain touted a so-called cap-and-trade system
for controlling greenhouse gas emissions, citing the supposed success
of the 1990 Clean Air Act amendments’ cap-and-trade system for the
sulfur dioxide emissions linked to the alleged phenomenon of acid rain.
But
even if acid rain were a genuine environmental problem — and studies
leading up to the 1990 law cast significant doubt — controlling sulfur
dioxide emissions is many orders of magnitude easier than controlling
greenhouse gas emissions.
The volume of sulfur
dioxide emissions to be eliminated is much smaller, the sources
(coal-fired power plants) are relatively few and the smokestack
technology is comparatively inexpensive.
McCain
said that "A cap-and-trade policy will send a signal that will be heard
and welcomed all across the American economy." This is unlikely since
cap-and-trade’s economic harms have been exposed and condemned
by the likes of the Congressional Budget Office, the Environmental
Protection Agency and renown economists such as Alan Greenspan and
Arthur Laffer.
Even the Clinton administration warned of the economic harms that would be caused by cap-and-trade.
Although
China, the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitter, vows not to reduce
its emissions, McCain says the U.S. should act anyway. So as China,
India and other developing nations become the world's greenhouse gas
smokestacks, thereby nullifying any reductions made by the U.S., McCain
willingly condemns the U.S. to more expensive and less available energy
supplies for no environmental benefit whatsoever.
Undaunted
by facts, McCain appears to be programmed with every nonsensical green
platitude and policy — a truly worrisome situation since global warming
regulation is shaping up to be the most important domestic policy issue
of the upcoming election.
Many McCain supporters believe
he is the candidate to lead the country at a time of war. But there is
a war of sorts at home, too — the struggle against the greens for
control over vital domestic energy and economic policy. We can’t afford
to lose the latter war, either. Source
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