Mark Williams of the Associated Press recently wrote an article about an unlikely source of energy that could solve the global warming crisis.
An unlikely source of energy has emerged to meet international demands that the United States do more to fight global warming: It's cleaner than coal, cheaper than oil and a 90-year supply is under our feet.
It's natural gas, the same fossil fuel that was in such short supply a decade ago that it was deemed unreliable. It's now being uncovered at such a rapid pace that its price is near a seven-year low. Long used to heat half the nation's homes, it's becoming the fuel of choice when building new power plants. Someday, it may win wider acceptance as a replacement for gasoline in our cars and trucks.
I'm not sure why Mr. Williams thinks natural gas is such an unlikely solution. People have been talking about it for years, converting cars to run on it. For transportation purposes what has been lacking is a reliable distribution system. When's the last time you saw the natural gas option when you pulled up to the pump to fill your tank?
But natural gas is one of the pillars in the T. Boone Pickens energy plan, which was so highly touted not so long ago.
The Pickens Plan.There are several pillars to the Pickens Plan:
- Create millions of new jobs by building out the capacity to generate up to 22 percent of our electricity from wind. And adding to that with additional solar generation capacity;
- Building a 21st century backbone electrical transmission grid;
- Providing incentives for homeowners and the owners of commercial buildings to upgrade their insulation and other energy saving options; and
- Using America's natural gas to replace imported oil as a transportation fuel in addition to its other uses in power generation, chemicals, etc. [my emphasis]
I can tell you why I think natural gas is such an unlikely solution. I anticipate significant barriers to the development and distribution of our natural gas energy resources. OPEC will resist and drop prices accordingly. But more importantly there is the political resistance that will rise up to oppose increased US development and production.
The political resistance comes in two flavors. Primarily there is ideological resistance. You might be tempted to think that global warming science seeks to reduce global temperatures, but you would be mistaken if you did. In reality, Anthropogenic Global Warming is a justification for redistributive social justice.
Delegates, NGOs Respond
Just as climate talks hit their lowest point, Hillary Clinton descended on Copenhagen like a deus ex machina, putting on the table a $100 billion-per year package of worldwide climate aid starting in 2020, provided that a deal can be reached with China... "I understand the talks have been difficult," said Clinton, who was heading into talks with the Chinese prime minister. "There is a way forward."
That's what everybody in Copenhagen was waiting for. Show them the money. Hillary's pledge of $100 billion a year brought immense relief on the left and turned the failed conference into at least a partial success.
So, for the sake of argument let's pretend that the damaging emails that were leaked from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia had never been written. Could we still believe that Anthropogenic Global Warming might actually be real? I'd be willing to bet, no.
If wholesale conversion to natural gas were undertaken, and it reduced US emissions of CO2 by 80% lefty ideologues would still oppose it. The point of Copenhagen was to make developed nations, the US in particular, pay lefty dictators restitution for the sin of wealth. A unilateral reduction in so called greenhouse gas emissions by the US would simply defeat that purpose.
And then for another impetus for resisting natural gas development, there is the good old profit motive. Phil Jones, director of the Climate Research Unit, was said to have raked in roughly $22 million in grants on its behalf from 1991 to the present. The amount of money devoted to its study is directly related to the perceived severity of the global warming crisis. The more severe the crisis the more money it deserves.
As it turns out there are other individuals and organizations making millions on Anthropogenic Global Warming as well. For them, yet another goal of the Copenhagen climate summit was achieved. Keep the cap and trade gravy train rolling.
The amount of money involved isn’t trivial. According to Richard North at the Daily Mail, the carbon trading market last year was worth about £129 million (or about $205 million U.S.) and was heading toward trillions of dollars by 2020. So it’s probably not a coincidence that, for all the discord in Copenhagen, the one thing to which all the parties did agree was to extend the Kyoto cap and trade system. The market in carbon offsets or CER would continue.
Who benefits from this?
An interesting question. Of course, it’s well known that Al Gore is heavily involved in the carbon offset market and in other environmental ventures. There is speculation that Gore could be the world’s first green billionaire.
Another beneficiary is the UN itself. All of these international processes happen under the supervision and control of the UN and UN-chartered nongovernmental organizations.
There is huge money to be made, and global warmists are not about to let such a lucrative crisis go to waste without putting up a fight. Even if by developing and converting to natural gas the US could eliminate global warming, expect environmentalists to fight it tooth and nail. And that, in itself, will be revealing. Environmentalist opposition to US natural gas development will be as convincing testimony as you'll want that Anthropogenic Global Warming is not about the weather and not about the climate. It's about redistributive social justice. In other words, they just want the money.
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