End the phony Social Cost of Carbon

Photo by: Mark Schiefelbein
FILE – In this Nov. 4, 2015 file photo, a worker monitors coal being carried along conveyor ramps at a coal mine near Ordos in northern China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. According to official data released Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2017, China’s consumption of coal fell in 2016 for a third year in a row as the world’s top polluter has emerged as a leader in efforts to tackle climate change. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)

The SCC drives war on fossil fuels but relies on faulty analyses that ignore carbon benefits

Guest essay by Paul Driessen and Roger Bezdek

The Social Cost of Carbon is the foundation for numerous Obama-era energy policies, regulations and programs. Under complex SCC metrics, agencies calculate the “hidden costs” of carbon dioxide emissions associated with fossil fuel use, assigning a dollar value to each ton of CO2 emitted by power plants, factories, homes, vehicles and other sources.

Originally, in 2010, every ton of U.S. emissions averted would prevent about $25 in global societal costs allegedly resulting from dangerous manmade climate change: less coastal flooding and tropical disease, fewer droughts and extreme weather events, for example.

Within three years, regulators increased the SCC to around $40 per ton, the better to justify the Clean Power Plan, Paris climate agreement, and countless actions on electricity generation, drilling, fracking, methane, pipelines, vehicle mileage and appliance efficiency standards, livestock operations, carbon taxes, and wind, solar and biofuel mandates and subsidies.

The Trump Administration is challenging this climate cataclysm edifice – prompting activists to launch campaigns asserting that the SCC is so rooted in solid science and economics that any attempted rollback would fail.

In reality, the social cost of carbon is little more than junk science and Garbage In-Garbage Out forecasting. That’s why the House Science Committee’s Environment and Oversight Subcommittees has held an investigative hearing on the subject.

First, the supposed bedrock for the concept is the shifting sands of climate chaos theory. New questions are arising almost daily about data quality and manipulation, the degree to which carbon dioxide affects global temperatures, the complex interplay of solar, cosmic ray, oceanic and other natural forces, and the inability of computer models to predict temperatures, sea level rise or hurricanes.

Meanwhile, as the 2015-16 El Nino dissipated, average global temperatures have fallen back to their 1998-2014 level, according to Britain’s Meteorological Office. That means there has been no measurable planetary warming for 18 years.

The very notion that U.S. emissions impose significant climate costs is increasingly indefensible – and developing nations are burning fossil fuels and emitting CO2 at many times the U.S. rate.

Second, the SCC scheme blames American emissions for supposed costs worldwide. It incorporates almost every conceivable cost of oil, gas and coal use on crops, forests, coastal cities, property, “forced migration,” and human health, nutrition and disease.

However, it utterly fails to mention, much less analyze, tremendous and obvious carbon benefits.

That violates a 1993 Bill Clinton executive order requiring that federal agencies assess both benefits and costs of proposed regulations. It is also irrational, completely contrary to human experience.

Fossil fuels created the modern world and lifted billions out of destitution and disease. They supply over 80% of the energy that powers United States and other modern civilizations, and will continue doing so for decades to come. They generate up to $70 trillion in annual global GDP.

Using readily available data on global living standards, economies, disease, nutrition, life spans and other benefits – and the government’s own SCC cost figures and methodologies – we estimate that carbon benefits exceed costs by orders of magnitude: at least 50 to 1; as much as 500 to 1!

The U.S. Energy Information Administration forecasts that fossil fuels will provide 75-80% of worldwide energy through 2040 – when the total amount of energy consumed will be at least 25% greater than today. That means these notable benefit-cost ratios will continue.

The SCC ignores all of this, too.

Third, SCC schemes likewise impute only costs to carbon dioxide emissions. However, as thousands of scientific studies verify, rising levels of this miracle molecule are “greening” the Earth – reducing deserts, and improving forests, grasslands, drought resistance, crop yields and human nutrition.

No matter which government report or discount rate is used, asserted social costs of CO2 are infinitesimal compared to its estimated benefits.

Fourth, government officials claim they can accurately forecast damages to the world’s climate, civilizations, economies, populations and ecosystems from U.S. carbon dioxide emissions over the next two to three centuries. They say we must base today’s energy policies, laws and regulations on those forecasts.

The notion is indefensible, even delusional and dangerous. The rate of change in energy generation, communication, medical and other technologies has become exponential over the past several decades, with forecasting ability declining at an equal rate. Uncertainties over natural forces and climate change during the coming decades and centuries are equally colossal.

Amid all the other SCC assumptions, methodologies, fabrications and omissions, injecting such predictions into high-speed computer models simply paints scientific varnish over a phony endeavor.

Politicians, bureaucrats, activists and corporate rent-seekers certainly welcome the intellectual special effects and facades. But we taxpayers and consumers should be wary of the power that the SCC gives them over energy, economic growth, livelihoods and living standards.

Eliminating the social cost of carbon and programs implemented under its aegis requires little more than applying the same rules and standards that government regulators have imposed on Volkswagen, Fiat and Wall Street dishonesty.

However, rooting out this government deception is far more important, because the scope, impact and cost of the agenda-driven SCC chicanery are infinitely greater, affecting every aspect of our lives.

Congress, President Trump and EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt need to review, rescind and defund the scheme – and replace it with honest, objective cost-benefit analyses.

 

Ref.: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/03/06/end-the-phony-social-cost-of-carbon/

 

Support

Newscats – on Patreon or Payoneer ID: 55968469

Cherry May Timbol – Independent Reporter
Contact Cherry at: cherrymtimbol@newscats.org or timbolcherrymay@gmail.com
Support Cherry May directly at: https://www.patreon.com/cherrymtimbol

Ad

Why do CO2 lag behind temperature?

71% of the earth is covered by ocean, water is a 1000 times denser than air and the mass of the oceans are 360 times that of the atmosphere, small temperature changes in the oceans doesn’t only modulate air temperature, but it also affect the CO2 level according to Henry’s Law.

The reason it is called “Law” is because it has been “proven”!

“.. scientific laws describe phenomena that the scientific community has found to be provably true ..”

That means, the graph proves CO2 do not control temperature, that again proves (Man Made) Global Warming, now called “Climate Change” due to lack of … Warming is – again – debunked!