Global Warming

North Carolina is headed toward imposing major new regulations and taxes on the consumption and production of energy, all in the name of fighting global warming. But the climate hysteria on which they are based has nothing to do with reality. Whatever the risks of future climate change, they pale in comparison to the risks of the “wrenching transformation” sought by climate alarmists.

There are three new proposals that would impose hundreds of millions of dollars in new taxes on North Carolinians in the name of fighting global warming. None of these proposals are actually called taxes.

RALEIGH – North Carolinians could face hundreds of millions of dollars in new taxes and an assault on their safety and standard of living, in a misguided effort to fight…

Any recommendations made by North Carolina’s Global Climate Commission this spring will lack much of the underlying analysis required by the Commission’s enabling legislation. Senate Bill 1134, which established the Commission in 2005, was explicit. It stated that the Commission “shall conduct an in depth examination” of a list of important scientific and economic issues. After over a year of meetings the Commission has ignored what any reasonable observer would conclude are the most important questions.

There is a consensus on global warming, but it is not the consensus that environmental groups and many in the media suggest. There is no consensus on the extent of future climate change or the extent to which current climate change is human induced or a result of natural variation. The true consensus — where there seems to be no disagreement whatsoever among scientists — is on the proposition that there is no public policy currently being considered to restrict carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by any level of government, including the State of North Carolina, that would have a measurable impact on the climate, either in the short or the long run (a century or longer). That proposition so far remains undisputed. (Revised February 20, 2007.)

RALEIGH – Scientific evidence shows North Carolina can take no steps that would reduce global warming. That’s a key finding in a new John Locke Foundation Spotlight report.

Evidence from throughout the world shows that the planet was relatively warm 1,000 years ago during the Medieval Warm Period and relatively cold 500 years ago during the Little Ice Age. When the 1°C (1.8°F) of global warming of the past 100 years is considered in the context of climate variability of the last 1,000 years, the recent warming looks quite natural and nothing out of the ordinary. In 2001, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change prominently featured an important graph of northern hemispheric temperatures over the past 1,000 years, and the plot resembled a hockey stick. This same graph was recently highlighted in testimony to the North Carolina Legislative Commission on Climate Change.

RALEIGH – North Carolina’s policymakers want to do something about global warming. They should heed the controversy about the issue among scientists before acting decisively, a climatologist warns. Dr. Robert…

RALEIGH — The state legislature created the North Carolina Global Warming Commission this year and gave it a mandate to investigate the science and economic impact of climate change, but…

The North Carolina Global Warming Commission is tasked with examining the relationship between greenhouse gases and climate change, but only one of its 16 members so far is a climate scientist. It is also supposed to study the economic impact of climate change and policy proposals, but none of its members are economists. Rather than experts, the commissioned is stocked with representatives of environmental pressure groups and particular industries. Such a commission is unlikely to propose reasonable, scientifically sound policies — and far more likely instead to advance their own ideologies and bottom lines.