Like many other newspapers, the Detroit Free Press has decided that it is time to declare all out war on climate change. In an editorial titled “A war on climate change,” they assert that because the scientific community “speaks with one voice” Obama should violate the Constitution by issuing Executive Orders to circumvent Congress no matter what the cost.
the president says he doesn’t need Congress. Rather, Obama says the broad reforms he envisions can be implemented by executive order, expanding the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s regulatory oversight of pollution to include carbon emissions, a use of the executive order is sure to prompt legal and political battles. It’s also worth nothing that Obama is the second American president to define the powers of the executive in broad terms, insisting that the office carries authority and autonomy traditionally not exercised by American presidents.
Obama’s willingness to circumnavigate Congress is a regrettable necessity.
In an ideal world, lawmakers would be swayed by the preponderance of scientific evidence, reach consensus and move to enact regulations that protect our environment. But that’s not what has happened. For a legislator to accept that climate change is happening has become a political, not scientific decision.
And while we’re wary of the increasing power of the presidency, what could be a more appropriate use of that power than to turn the country from environmental devastation?
Another day, another unconstitutional power grab.
Yawn.
That this one is being encouraged by the malignant and dishonest media makes it worthy of a post.
We are fortunate enough to be living in a temporary interglacial period. We are still in what is called the Ice Age, and while the role of CO2 is poorly understood, it may or may not be slowing the return to more glaciation, and the global cooling which had been predicted by scientists and taught to me when I was a student at the University of California in the early 1970s. Now, of course, scientists often like to say they were wrong about global cooling (whether they were or not). Scientists are as human as anyone, and they change their minds and their theories change just as fashions do.
Right now, they like to say that CO2 (emitted by plants, animals, and the planet itself) is a dangerous pollutant which should be regulated by the EPA, lest it make the planet uninhabitable, and much hysteria is generated over CO2 levels reaching 400 parts per million. If we look at the planet’s past, not only there is no correlation between CO2 levels and global warming, but when levels were more than ten times higher than today’s levels (5600 ppm), not only did life flourish, but so did glaciers!
What if it turns out that today’s CO2 levels are dangerously low?
Comments
3 responses to ““Fool me once…””
Plants don’t emit CO2, they breathe that in and emit O2.
At night plants do produce the deadly CO2, as do yeasts. But you are right in that they consume more CO2 than they produce. Whether that will save them from regulation, who knows? I think it is extremely dangerous to regulate a necessary part of the life cycle as if it were a poison.
Great post! The link “Climate and the Carboniferous Period” is outstanding.