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The Environmental Spectator
Henny-Penny Skips Cancun
Such a nice conference going to waste.
“I didn’t go,” was the curt voice-mail message. It was from Henny-Penny, founder and Recording Secretary of The Holy Order of The Sky is Falling (THOOTSIF). I knew she was referring to the big two-week U.N. Climate Change conference in Cancun. Consumed with curiosity, I called her right away,.
ME: I thought you were packed and ready to go.
H-P: I was, but the more I heard about it, the more I was convinced it would be a waste of time and money.
ME: How so?
H-P: The true believers had high hopes that after the Copenhagen fiasco last year we would finally get an international treaty to put caps on carbon emissions, but it wasn’t meant to be. The collapse of President Obama’s cap-and-trade plan and signals from China and India that they would never sign such a treaty did it in.
ME: So what will come out of Cancun?
H-P: Substantively, nothing. For the 15,000 true believers, most of whom are on U.N. or national expense accounts, it will have been two weeks of sunbathing and mariachi music.
ME: Does this mean you think the sky is no longer falling?
H-P: Oh, it’s still falling, but more slowly. The United Kingdom’s Meteorological Office issued a report just before the conference saying that the rate of global warning over the past decade has been slower than it was in the 1980s and '90s. Still, the scientists predict that global temperatures will rise by 4 degrees Centigrade by 2060 which would wipe out much agricultural production.
ME: How can they predict that with certainty when a professional weather man or woman can’t predict next week’s weather with certainty?
H-P: I don’t know, but I do know I am disheartened by the news that we haven’t had a big hurricane in the U.S. in the last five years.
ME: You hoped for the death and destruction that big hurricanes bring?
H-P: Heavens no. I’m disheartened because it calls into question the infallibility of our Pontiff, Al Gore. He predicted devastating hurricanes every year and they didn’t come. I’ve been a believer in Pontiff Infallibility. Now I’m beginning to doubt it.
ME: I’ve been telling you for years that your Pontiff’s formidable knowledge consists mostly of hot air. For example, he tirelessly promoted that error-filled movie of his, “An Inconvenient Truth,” so that many gullible school teachers showed it to their students without critiquing it.
H-P: I’m beginning to rethink our whole strategy on global warming. The emphasis until now has been on limiting carbon emissions. A new study released by the Wall Street Journal says what governments should do is recognize that no amount of wind-farm and solar-panel subsidies will get us more than a minor percentage of electrical power production over the next 50 years. It says that approach will result in us paying a lot more for energy. Instead, our government should reward private R&D that creates ways to lower the cost of producing clean energy from fossil fuels, then give away the intellectual property so other countries can us the new technology.
ME: Congratulations. You’re beginning to sound rational, just like those scientists who have long doubted the global warming catastrophe theory of the your True Believer friends.
H-P: I want to see our government stop doing what doesn’t work and find new ways to keep the sky from falling so that we have cleaner energy and air. Meanwhile, I’m going to do what I do best, which is to relax on my nest and lay eggs.
About the Author
Peter Hannaford was closely associated for a number of years with the late President Reagan, beginning in the California Governor’s office. His latest book is Presidential Retreats.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (13) | Leave a comment
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Conrad Spiracy| 12.8.10 @ 7:09AM
Packed and read to party on the "government" (read, yours and mine) dime.
How prescious!
Laura| 12.8.10 @ 7:10AM
H-P's statement regarding government "then give away the intellectual property" is problematic on many fronts, but chief amongst the problems is the issue of patents. The granting of patents is actually one of the Enumerated Powers as shown here "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited
Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings
and Discoveries;" Does she really believe the government has the power, let alone the right, to give away someone's inventions or intellectual property?
Tom| 12.8.10 @ 7:34AM
Laura,
I suppose it is in the "reward private R&D" part of that statement. Government is really good at giving money with strings attached. Do you really think it is beyond the feds to craft a program where money is given to private firms but the resulting research is made public domain?
Just a nit to pick ME: "How can they predict that with certainty when a professional weather man or woman can't predict next week's weather with certainty?" One has nothing to do with the other. They cannot predict what is going to happen 50 years from now because the models are awful there are too many unaccounted variables, and weather is just too damn chaotic, not because they cannot predict next weeks weather.
Laura| 12.8.10 @ 8:14AM
Hi Tom, I'm not sure I understand your comment, but the sentence regarding "Instead, our government should reward private R&D that creates ways to lower the cost of producing clean energy from fossil fuels, then give away the intellectual property so other countries can use the new technology" implies to me that the fruit of the R&D is private property. IF the "reward" is conditioned (strings placed) upon the injunction of the producers from filing for patent, then there would be no need to "give it away" In effect, Ben Franklin (not the government) "gave away" his own lightening rod invention to the public because he did not file for patent protection. Make sense?
Tom| 12.8.10 @ 8:18AM
Laura,
Sorry, it is pre-first cup of coffee.
Imagine a federal program where in exchange of recieving federal R&D money private entities release any and all ownership rights to any patents that might arise from said research. The feds fund the research, private companies undertake the research, and the feds own the patents. At which point they give it away for free to foreign governments and companies.
Laura| 12.8.10 @ 9:37AM
Hi Tom, no prob :) Gotta say that I didn't know our government was in the business of filing for patents. You have prompted me to a new area of investigation, as I don't see that as an Enumerated Power, not that this impediment stops them. As a matter of fact, I would think that the government being able to apply for a patent seems anti-competitive, and ripe for abuse. If the government files for patent to Itself, where are the checks and balances?
Tom| 12.8.10 @ 9:58AM
Of course it is not an enumerated power. But has that stopped the feds from encroaching on education, healthcare, gun rights, or any of the myriad other intrusions into our lives? They'll just lump it under the commerce clause and start printing money.
Coal Miner's Son| 12.9.10 @ 7:32PM
The federal government does file patents for Itself. The NSA can file classified patents for technology it produces but does nhttp://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/11/secret_nsa_pate.htmlot have to release the details of those patents.
Louis Jenkins| 12.8.10 @ 8:35AM
Perhaps Henny Penny is beginning to wise up, at least a little.
al gayda| 12.8.10 @ 11:16AM
Go to You tube or Google and watch algore on Conan. The pure stupidity of the global warming group is clearly on display that night. His claim of the earths temperature at 2,000,000 degrees a kilometer below the surface was clearly the death of his movement.
jrjr| 12.8.10 @ 5:23PM
The Cancoon thingy give some of the lesser intelligent beings an oppoutunity to add to the Wiki Leaking sport.
MikeD| 12.8.10 @ 8:14PM
As with our own 'mini-fuhrer' obama, the other 'fuhrer-wannabees' in the U.N. and democratic party who have been pinning their hopes for controlling the ignorant masses on the power of stopping 'Globull Warmng', this has been a very bad time. The best way for them to regain some traction might be to actually learn something about science, at least as it pertains to energy and climate.
First, they need to know that energy and matter cannot be created or destroyed, but just changed in form. Then, they need to learn that energy comes from very few places, like the sun, the earth, and space. Then, they must understand that all energy falls into just a few classes, like solar, electrical, gravitational, electromagnetic, and cosmic; like from cosmic rays. That's it.
Why is that important? Because all matter and energy forms can be traced back to one of these. Like wind. Wind energy is caused by warm air rising, and also by the rotation of the earth and areas of land and water. Likewise, the energy from gasoline comes from fossil vegitation that grew with solar energy, died, was crushed and decayed into petrochemicals which were extracted and then burned to get the energy.
This is not hard stuff; but I find it amazing...and amusing that the cretins on the left are in love with electric cars. Like they don't know where the electricity comes from to charge the batteries. And here's the dirty little secret: Due to extraction of fuels, conversion into electricity, resistance loss in transmission lines, and heat loss; THERE IS A NET LOSS OF ENERGY when the same amount of fuel is used to run an electric car compared to the energy used by a gasoline engine to move the same car the same distance at the same speed. You cannot get around the laws of physics. THAT'S WHY THE LEFTIES AND THE MEDIA RUN FROM SCIENCE. IT CATCHES THEIR LIES.
Global warming is a fraud; and all the bleating of the new-age pseudo-environmentalists won't change it. Like their 'facts', they are also frauds. The whole thing is a scam to help the selected few make boatloads of money so the obamas, pelosis, and reids of the world can stay in control of the rest of us, the ones they think are inferior to them. Dja hear that, Algore?
Gregory Picard| 12.8.10 @ 9:49PM
I keep reading (on your site and elsewhere) about no hurricanes hitting the US in the last 5 years. Please note that on September 13, 2008, Hurricane Ike (a category 2 / almost category 3 hurricane) came ashore at Galveston TX. Over 98% of CenterPoint Energy customers lost electricity. Restoration costs for the Houston/Galveston area exceeded $600 million.