Albemarle County Board of Supervisors revert to climate hysteria
by: Dr. Charles Battig
(An open letter to the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors)
The County and staff have arbitrarily decided to pledge allegiance to the U.N. and adopt the Paris Climate Pledge. Years back, during a BOS meeting, Supervisor Dennis Rooker told me the he did not see any U.N. blue helmets there in the County, when I pointed out to him the flawed climate policies of the U.N. IPCC. My how times have changed. Now the County holds the U.N. up as a standard of reference.
What is the justification or objective of this County embrace of the U.N. now? It is unstated. The Paris Agreement is deeply flawed in terms of any theoretical impact on global climate change or temperature because two major contributors to global CO2 (if that is the parameter being targeted) are India and China, both of which currently remain unrestrained in their use of fossil fuels by that agreement. In addition, the IPCC has based its alarmist, computer-generated predictions upon the false assumption that carbon dioxide is the prime determinant of global temperature, while ignoring the facts that water vapor (clouds) is the number one greenhouse gas, and that there exists the effect of solar interactions with cosmic particles. https://www.sciencealert.com/cosmic-rays-could-influence-cloud-cover-on-earth
China emits almost twice the amount of greenhouse gases as the US, which it surpassed in 2006 as the world’s top contributor to atmospheric carbon dioxide. Today, China accounts for approximately 23 percent of all global CO2 emissions. The United States government estimates project that, barring major reform, China will double its emissions by 2040, due to its heavy reliance on fossil fuels for steel production and electricity.
India plans to double its coal production to feed a national power grid that suffers from increasingly frequent blackouts, and is the third largest contributor to fossil fuel CO2 production.
The US has never entered into any binding treaty to curb greenhouse gases, but has cut more carbon dioxide emissions than any other nation.
Prior studies have shown the utter futility of these carbon dioxide and fossil fuel reduction schemes on a state-by-state analysis:
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/originals/state_by_state.pdf
From which study, it was calculated that if Virginia were to cease use of all fossil fuels and CO2 production, the savings in global temperature by 2050 would be a minuscule 0.0016 degrees C. Moreover, it would take only 50 days before global increases in CO2 production would completely wipe out that insignificant temperature saving. Anything the County is proposing will have no real or measurable effect.
County planners and climate lobbyists tout renewable energy as a replacement for fossil fuels. Natural gas produces 35.1 percent of the kilowattage, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, and coal is responsible for 27.4 percent. Wind and solar contribute 6.6 percent and 1.6 percent. Explain how 8 per cent wind and solar will replace 62 per cent reliable energy 24/7. During heat spells, wind activity falls, and wind turbine power output falls just when it is needed the most.
A logical conclusion is that the County staff have an agenda for wishing to ration energy in the County not related to temperature or climate change, or that they are uninformed of these climate/energy facts. The County Staff openly give away the game by using the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as their guide. Thus, we must then assume that they fully believe the U.N. when Ottmar Edenhofer, lead author of the IPCC’s fourth summary report released in 2007 stated the priority: “One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. Instead, climate change policy is about how we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth.”
This is the apparent County goal, and it is moving forward with the support of environmental activists and commercial enterprises hoping to profit from imposed de facto energy rationing. Members of the public at large are greatly outnumbered at relevant County hearings by special interest groups. Unelected County staff are crafting numerous schemes to ration the public’s free use of energy and modes of transportation. These schemes do not offer a cost-benefit analysis, nor do they quantify the impact on the climate. They do reflect an anti-democratic mindset which wishes to impose a government-defined bureaucratic a mode of living including unnecessarily more expensive energy, and higher taxes to subsidize commercial make-work efforts with no proof of cost effectiveness nor measurable impact on the climate.
Or as the chief of staff for Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez stated that her signature Green New Deal was not really about saving the planet after all.
In a report by the Washington Post, Saikat Chakrabarti revealed that “it wasn’t originally a climate thing at all … we really think of it as a how-do-you-change-the-entire-economy thing.”
That “thing” is known as democracy and informed freedom of choice.
The Albemarle Couinty BoS are not interested in the climate. They are interested in the votes of those who will kbe the majority voters in the future. Eventually Spanish will become and official language in Albemarle and all government documents will have corresponding Spanish edition. The new voters are pro open borders, too. The County will continue to increase the tax rate to contribute annually to “affordable housing.” Be thankful for FLANg (Fluvanna, Louisa, AUGUSTA, Nelson and Green), Culpeper and Madison to maintain their efforts to keep Central Piedmont livable.
Assumptions one has to make to find this editorial convincing:
To accept the conclusions of the vast majority of climate scientists is to make an arbitrary decision.
To agree with an organization is to pledge allegiance to it.
When announcing a decision in regards to a much discussed issue it is necessary to spell out one’s reasons and goals, even though these are well known to anyone interested in the subject in the first place.
It makes no sense to stop contributing to a problem if other major contributors won’t stop as well.
If officials advise doing what is in our power to do about a problem, that means they think that’s sufficient by itself to solve the problem.
If experts forecast eventual, inexorable catastrophe brought on by a particular behavior, there is no value in sparing as many generations are possible that catastrophe by reducing, as much as it’s in one’s power to do so, that behavior. (This is consistent with being pro-life).
Never mind how many people express concern about a problem, if one politician’s chief of staff says their concern for it is a smokescreen, it’s a smokescreen for everyone who professes concern for it. Likewise, if one expert actually addresses the concerned people and tells them their hopes are misplaced, that is a sign those people aren’t really concerned in the first place.
Retarding climate change has nothing to do with extending economic opportunity and helping the needy because the poor can cope with it as well as the rich.
Measures taken by democratically elected politicians become undemocratic if they change the economy. (And all democratically elected politicians fail to do their Constitutional duty to represent the people if they support laws opposed by minority “conservatives” who lost the election).
What reasonable people object to is the illogical move to a form of energy that is clearly unable to supply our current levels of energy. It’s not even remotely close. To insist that we continue to spend our resources switching to it is economic suicide not to mention the negative impact on quality and cost of living. So let’s put a long line of turbines along the blue ridge parkway. We can also stick them up on Monticello Mountain and all around Monticello. This is the same Monticello that was given the right of approval of construction within their viewing vista meaning if they don’t like the looks they can prohibit said construction. Then we sit back and watch these same knee jerk virtue signaling county executives turn blue in the face when their wealthy liberal constituents run them out of the county on a rail.
It would be reasonable to object to hurting the economy. It’s not reasonable to pretend that climate change isn’t happening already and isn’t itself already hurting the economy. It’s not reasonable to sneer and do nothing because people you don’t like aren’t entirely reasonable. It’s not conservative either.