Professional Documents
Culture Documents
A Skeptical Tour
By Marlo Lewis
Senior Fellow
Competitive Enterprise Institute
1001 Connecticut Ave. NW, Suite 1250
Washington, DC 20036
202-331-1010
mlewis@cei.org
“By far the most terrifying movie you will ever see.”
• “The Greenland ice sheet cannot slip into the sea, since
it is resting in a bowl-shaped depression produced by its
own weight, surrounded by mountains which permit only
limited glacier outflow to the sea.”
Source: Wm. Robert Johnston, “Falsehoods in Gore’s An Inconvenient
Truth,” 11 August 2006.
• To melt half the Greenland ice sheet and raise sea level
by 3 meters, would require additional “sustained” warmth
of 5.5°C “over a thousand years.”
Source: IPCC, Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis, p. 678.
How alarming is the current ice loss rate in
Greenland?
• Greenland’s glaciers are
thickening in the interior and
thickening at the edges.
Luthcke et al. (Oct. 2006)
estimate:
• Greenland lost ~ 101 Gt/yr of
ice during 2003-2005,
contributing ~0.28 mm/yr of sea
level rise—a little more than 1
inch per century.
Apocalypse Not!
How alarming is the overall ice loss rate?
• 2000-2004: EU CO2 8
6
emissions increased 5.8%;
4
U.S., 1.7%. 2
• Rampant rent seeking: “If the 0
current national [emission 1997-2004 2000-2004
credit] allocation plans are EU Emissions U.S. Emissions
allowed to stand, it could
seriously undermine the
credibility of the EU ETS Chart derived from
[emissions trading system]…” http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/international/ielf/
– Michael Grubb, Chief tableh1co2.xls, July 2006
Economist, Carbon Trust
Despite high gas taxes (and prices), EU transport-
sector CO2 emissions are growing rapidly
60
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40
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20
10
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Ru
Uk
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Former Communist Countries
• Kyoto would not discernibly reduce global warming but would cost
tens to hundreds of billions of dollars in higher energy prices, lost
jobs, and reduced GDP. All pain for no gain.
• The only proven “method” for making deep emission cuts is that of
the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe: economic collapse.
• Policies tough enough to measurably affect climate would likely be a
cure worse than the alleged disease.
Is energy suppression moral?
Energy Transmission
Energy Use