Carbon Emissions Cause Global Warming? IPCC Admits Error, But Obama Not Phased

Here’s the ideology part. On Friday, September 20, 2013, Dear Leader Barack Hussein Obama announced tough new requirements for new coal-fired power plants. He is set to ban all future coal-fired power plant construction by regulatory fiat by having the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issue new regulations. This is a central part of Obama’s global warming prevention plan, because it will help end what he calls “the limitless dumping of carbon pollution” from coal-fired power plants. Obama said at Georgetown University on June 25, 2013:

“As a President, as a father, and as an American, I’m here to say we need to act.
I refuse to condemn your generation and future generations to a planet that’s beyond fixing. And that’s why, today, I’m announcing a new national climate action plan, and I’m here to enlist your generation’s help in keeping the United States of America a leader — a global leader — in the fight against climate change.  [emphasis mine]

The only way coal-fired power plants can comply with his latest requirements is to capture carbon-dioxide emissions and stick them underground, but that is a costly process that hasn’t been demonstrated on a commercial scale before. There are currently two coal-fired power plants being built that will meet the new EPA regulations. They are in Canada’s Saskatchewan Province and in Kemper County MS.

But (and there’s always a “but” when Obama is involved) there two troubling facts about the Kemper County plant. First, the $4.3 billion Kemper County plant has been plagued with at least a $1.9 billion cost overrun. Southern Company, the power plant’s builder, explains the overrun as a byproduct of “first-of-a-kind technology.” That is precisely the technology needed to meet the new EPA regulations. Second, the Kemper County plant has received a $270 million grant from the Department of Energy (DOE) AND a $133 million investment tax credit.

So we taxpayers get it in the shorts in the form of higher electricity rates and by paying subsidies.

But wait, there’s more! Here’s the irony part. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 5th report (AR5) states that “computer predictions for global warming and the effects of carbon emissions have been proved to be inaccurate.” And that “computers may not have taken enough notice of natural variability in the climate, therefore exaggerating the effect of increased carbon emissions on world temperatures.”

As David Rose wrote, “A leaked copy of the world’s most authoritative climate study [AR5] reveals scientific forecasts of imminent doom were drastically wrong.” Rose also wrote “Last night Professor Judith Curry, head of climate science at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, said the leaked summary showed that ‘the science is clearly not settled, and is in a state of flux’.”

Obama promised in 2008 to “fundamentally transform America.” He has certainly done that, and this latest regulatory fiat continues his efforts. And he hasn’t let little things like facts stand in his way! Irony or Ideology, or some of both?

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