Eviscerating the global warming crowd

I haven't blogged on the Kyoto Protocol much recently - not since mid-December - and that's because I don't really know that much on it. I presume that the average everyday person doesn't really know the facts from the myths either, which is where Andrew Bolt comes in.

So I thanked The Age, Australia's most Left-wing daily paper, for launching a crusade to convert sinners like me – pages and pages on global warming, starting on Saturday with a huge graphic: "10 Reasons to Start Worrying Now." And a headline screaming: "WAKE UP. THIS IS SERIOUS."

Here, then, was a carefully researched list of the 10 clearest signs a serious newspaper could find of the harm already caused by global warming. These 10 Truths had to end all doubt.

But – forgive me my sin – I checked this list against the facts. Forgive me again, but is this tosh truly all it takes to panic an entire newspaper – and so many of you, dear readers? Is reason now dead?

Let's go through The Age's 10 "reasons to start worrying now", so you can see I do not say all this for the fun of farting in church.

Bolt then presents The Age's claims, and the facts after that, which as a general rule, show there's no reason to be as uptight as many sectors of the left get. Some interesting facts:

Australia's National Tidal Facility monitors Tuvalu's sea levels and found: "The historical record from 1978 through 1999 indicated a sea level rise of 0.07 mm per year", with "no visual evidence of any acceleration".

At this rate, Tuvalu's seas will in 100 years rise by the thickness of a pen. "We have never believed these island will go under water," said University of South Pacific oceanographer Than Aung.

But our seas have risen – 120 metres in the 17,000 years since the last Ice Age, without human gases to fuel it.

At this rate, in the next 17,000 years the seas will rise 1.19m. They have risen more than 100 times that much in the previous 17,000 years. But rising seas will kill us all, apparently.

New studies agree solar activity may indeed be behind some of the surface temperature changes we think we've seen – a 0.6 C warming from 1890 to 1940, followed by a cooling of 0.2 C until 1975, and a 0.4 C warming since.

As Bolt exclaims, "Fancy – warming being caused by the sun."

From reading the whole piece, it's clear that the problem is quite miniscule - if there even is one at all. But what will Kyoto do for the world? Let's ask the NCPA:

According to an NCPA study by Dallas Federal Reserve economist Stephen Brown, if the United States met Kyoto's standards by 2010, its gross domestic product (GDP) would be 3.6 to 5.1 percent lower than otherwise.

The large economic decline spurred by Kyoto would also increase unemployment. The National Black Chamber of Commerce and the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce estimate that as many as 3.2 million Americans could lose their jobs. Low- and moderate-income workers in blue-collar industries would suffer most of the job losses, with almost half of these jobs being lost by Hispanic and African American workers. High-income Americans would be largely shielded from the job cuts.

Conclusion:
The costs of Kyoto will be borne disproportionately by the poor. Low-income families spend a greater portion of their income on necessities than do the wealthy, so they suffer to a greater degree during economic slowdowns. Nor will the poor of the United States be the only victims; the Protocol will deny the poor in developing countries a chance to raise their standards of living. While Kyoto will miss its global warming target, it will score a bull's-eye on the world's poor.

That sounds like it'll be, erm, great for the world! Let's implement Kyoto right away! Seriously. And that's the low-end scale as far as predicting the effects go. According to The Mises Institute:

The administration's own Department of Energy projects economic losses of $397 billion (in 1992 dollars) by 2010.

And what would Kyoto provide in return? If implemented with 100 percent participation and compliance, it would reduce global temperatures .07 degrees Celsius (.13 F) by 2050 -- an amount so small that it could not be reliably measured with ground-based thermometers.

Assuming that 77 percent of U.S. CO2 reductions come from curtailing fossil fuel usage, DRI estimates the average annual job loss during the 2001-2007 transition period would be 900,000 jobs. From 2008-2012 this number rises to 1.1 million. This implies an average increase of 980,000 unemployed individuals per year between 2001-2012.

While the article is old, it shows the extent of potential job losses - almost 1 million Americans each and every year for 12 years. But it's not just going to happen in America.

- Compliance with the Kyoto Protocol will cost Germany and Britain about 5 percent of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and increase unemployment by 1.8 million and one million respectively.
- The Netherlands is set to lose 3.8 percent of its GDP and 240,000 jobs, and Spain 5 percent and one million jobs.

You're beginning to see just how horrid the Kyoto Protocol is. And as the NCPA pointed out, it's the poor who will suffer the most.

So go ahead - support the Kyoto Protocol if you wish. But its impact on the lives of everyday Australian's will be a million times larger than its impact on the environment.

(Cross-posted to The House Of Wheels.)