Alex Mills
By Alex Mills
The Obama administration released two reports recently that indicate that further regulation of energy is just around the corner.
On May 28, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released the third edition of “Climate Change Indicators in the United States.” The report “demonstrates that climate change is already affecting our environment and our society” and “makes it clear that climate change is a serious problem.”
The report states that tropical storm activity in the Atlantic Ocean, the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico has increased during the past 20 years, and that sea levels have risen along the Gulf and Mid-Atlantic coasts.
Glaciers are melting, droughts are occurring and wildfires are rampant.
It’s very frightening.
The very next day the White House releases its 42-page report that calls for major reduction in the use of fossil fuels, especially coal and crude oil, to decrease greenhouse gas emissions and save the planet from destruction from global warming.
However, the term “global warming” is never used. The buzz phrase now is “climate change”, and the Obama administration never talks about the positive impact that can happen with warmer temperatures. EPA only addresses the potential negatives that may or could possibly happen.
The impression the Obama administration and the new media give is that it is much hotter today than ever before. Actually, their own data shows that the surface temperature in the U.S. is only 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit higher in 2010 than in 1901.
Assuming that the administration is correct in projecting rising temperatures; can the world also assume that all of the negatives will occur that EPA predicts?
The Cato Institute, a Washington, D.C. organization, believes that the administration is overreacting. Patrick J. Michaels, director of the Center for the Study of Science at Cato, and Chip Knappenberger, assistant director, stated in a paper release on May 5 that the administration “is woefully ignorant of humanity’s ability to adapt and prosper in response to challenges.”
“While death, disease, poverty and injustice are all conjured by warming, there is not one mention of the fact that life expectancy in the U.S. is approximately twice what is was in the year 1900, or that per-capita income in real dollars is over 10 times what it was then,” Michaels and Knappenberger wrote. “It emphasizes diseases that will somehow spread because of warming, neglecting the fact that many were largely endemic when it was colder and were eradicated as we warmed a bit.”
Michaels and Knappenberger attribute the increase in life expectancy in the U.S. to cheap and plentiful energy. They suggest that the administration take a field trip to Chad, a country in Africa, “so they can see the world without cheap and abundant energy.”
The United States has been blessed with abundant natural resources that have given the nation many advantages over other countries. However, President Obama’s “all-of-the-above” energy policy, if enacted, will be a major setback at a time when the nation needs more positives than negatives for a complete economic recovery.
Alex Mills is President of the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers. The opinions expressed are solely of the author.
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