EPA calls greenhouse gases dangerous: Who wins?
April 22, 2009 by Tom GuayPosted in: News, Special Report
So EPA now says greenhouse gas emissions are dangerous to human health and public welfare. Is it time to panic?
Hardly. This doesn’t mean we have to stop breathing carbon dioxide (CO2), and there won’t be any “cow tax” on dairy animal methane releases. But there’s lots of risk, extra costs and uncertainty ahead, because no matter how EPA ends up regulating GHG emissions to combat global warming, the coming barrage of regulations will drive up energy costs.
The big winners will be companies that create energy-efficient products and services that will help businesses and consumers offset higher energy costs. Other winners will be those in the renewable energy business hawking wind, solar and geothermal. There may even be a resurgent role for some nuclear as well.
The largest and most obvious targets are coal-fired power plants, as they’re the single largest source of CO2 releases, along with refineries and paper and steel mills and virtually any facility with an industrial boiler or process heater. But that’s not all. EPA’s also targeting facilities that release these other GHGs:
- methane
- nitrous oxide
- hydrofluorocarbons
- perfluorocarbons, and
- sulfur hexafluoride.
What’s so dangerous about these emissions? The problems, detailed in EPA’s so-called “endangerment” finding, include fears that the global warming (aka climate change) phenomenon will lead to:
- increased drought
- heavier storms and flooding
- more frequent and intense heat waves and wildfires
- rising sea levels, and
- a variety of harm to water resources, agriculture, wildlife and ecosystems.
The range of facilities to be regulated is huge, and it includes semiconductor plants, ceramic tile manufacturers, food processors, transportation hubs, warehouses, schools, universities and even shopping malls. Essentially, any facility with an industrial boiler or process heater powered by coal, oil or natural gas is ripe for direct GHG emission control regulations.
To review EPA’s justifications for all the coming regulations, click here.
Tags: carbon dioxide, cow tax, endangerment, EPA, greenhouse gas
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April 22nd, 2009 at 12:00 pm
Since water vapor makes up the bulk of greenhouse gasses, does this mean they plan on banning that?
April 22nd, 2009 at 1:38 pm
I would like to see the findings done by an independent scientist. I am tired of hearing about emissions pollution and and what we need to do about it. What are other countries doing to battle this so called Global Warming??
April 22nd, 2009 at 2:49 pm
More anti-capitalist, anti-ifree enterprise propaganda from the leftist environmental wackos. Global warming has yet to be proven as man-caused. These wackos will do anything to thwart capitalist free enterprise.
April 22nd, 2009 at 2:57 pm
I think it is just another way to get more money for the money changers in Washington.
They are going to regulate this country out of exsistance.
April 22nd, 2009 at 3:09 pm
Specious science. Conjecture. And in some case out right rubbish
April 22nd, 2009 at 3:18 pm
Here we go … Based on some questionable science. We are now going to have every facet of business and our lives regulated ( controlled) by unelected , self appointed know it alls. If you think things are bad now – just wait ….. Change is coming in the worse way. How have we survived all these 100′s of years?
April 22nd, 2009 at 3:26 pm
This is fine, but until they make every country in the world reduce emissions what good will it do??? Look back at the pictures of China before the Olympics. You couldn’t see the buildings some days. They were hoping for the wind to blow from the “right” direction during the outdoor competitions.
April 22nd, 2009 at 4:02 pm
It seems clear feom the documents gererated by the EPA that they are inhaling to many toxic gases of their own and not relping on scietific evidence what so ever. As the earth continues to cool now in a period of solar minimums do you think they will ever rethink their position? I don’t. Not until it snows in July in Washinton, which it has in the past and will do again.
April 22nd, 2009 at 4:22 pm
Greenhouse gases are interesting, but please get the EPA to control some real problems:
1 Tornadoes in Texas and Oklahoma
2 Hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico and the U.S. EastCoast
3 Volcanic Eruptions both on land and under the oceans.
Always thinking of the EPA and Government control opportunities.
Regards, Norm Ofstad
April 22nd, 2009 at 5:48 pm
Time has come to tell the truth about Greenhouse Gas and global warming. The only hot air is coming from polititans who spew hot air about global warming. Global warming is only a tool for goverment to control more of the economy and most of all increase taxes to support the latest social program.
Earths history confirms one certainty, there is know certainty about Earth’s climate.
Earth’s climate has ebbed and flowed, with dramatic 2 mile thick ice over where Chicago sits today just 50,000 years ago with the ice redeeding and returning a couple of more time up until the last 10,000 years.
Prior to the Little Ice Age that lasted 450 years from 1400 to 1850 the Vikings had settled the southern tip of Greenland starting in the late 1100 for the next 200 years.
Once the Little Ice Age kicked in, southern Greenland became inhabital due to the inability to cultivate crops.
Southern Greenland today is still unhabital for the cultivation of crops.
The Earth’s climate is dynamic and the two most importent climate change components are almost never discussed at length regarding our current warming period.
The astronomical side of global heating and cooling. The Sun’s out put is not static is ebbs up and down in long cycles.
Along with the suns cycles are the changes in Earths orbit varies over long periods of time
around the Sun.
Secondly, Earths vast oceans are the single largest moderator of Earth climate with water having huge capcity to absorb heat. See how long it takes to heat a gallon of water on your stove.
Lastly the folly of Greenhouse gases is the propotion we are talking about in Earth’s atmosphere.
Scientist say at the turn of the century 1900 CO2 comprised 288 parts and now were at 333 parts.
Parts per what? 333 parts per 1,000,000 is CO2. CO2 is a trace gas in Earths atmosphere and cannot have the impact that is being spouted.
That is like saying in a city with a population of 1,000,000 we now have a crisis because there are 333 people in the City not 288 and our city is out of control. The numbers just are not there.
The only thing being spouted today is HOT AIR from the government to get more in tax dollars.
April 23rd, 2009 at 6:55 am
First of all regardless of whether you think global warming exists or not, you must believe pollution is bad. The problem with the EPA mandates is that it just moves the production to places like China, who don’t care about polluting the earths atmosphere. Look at pictures of Shanghai and Hong Kong, they make LA look like one of the cleanest cities on earth.
April 23rd, 2009 at 8:14 am
Believe it or not. Change is here, dramatic and non yielding. do nothing and pay the price, do too little and pay the price. do everything you can… we will still pay the price but maybe, just maybe we will have bought a little time to lessen the pain.
April 23rd, 2009 at 9:06 am
Meanwhile, back in the real world . . .
The case about global warming and climate change was made by climate scientists over the course of the last twenty to thirty years and the only serious disputes about it currently are how much effect we are having on the earth’s climate and how bad the these effects are going to hurt us. Governments, the insurance industry, and rationally run corporations have been setting policy and making choices based on the reality of global warming for most of the last decade. If you still don’t believe in it, get with the program. Your denial is only going to hurt your company and your career prospects.
The EPA officially recognizing that excessive CO2 emissions are a hazard to health is a long overdue step. It gives the government the means to level the playing field so polluters are penalized and well-run companies aren’t penalized for responsible policies.
Getting China to go fall in line with the rest of the world is going to be a chore, but now that the United States is finally dealing with its decade-long denial on climate change issues, we have some leverage to use on them. That, and the Chinese people’s increasing awareness that they are being poisoned by their own air and water, are our best hope for getting China to conform with world practice.
Dealing with climate change isn’t going to be easy or cheap, but American technology and American companies are in a good strategic position to provide solutions and prosper while doing so. We have a good domestic market for green machinery, plenty of government support (finally!) for our efforts, and any ideas that test well here for cost-effective results are going to export well.
April 23rd, 2009 at 10:09 am
Some bad science is hard to quickly refute, some is easy . . .
“Prior to the Little Ice Age that lasted 450 years from 1400 to 1850 the Vikings had settled the southern tip of Greenland starting in the late 1100 for the next 200 years.
Once the Little Ice Age kicked in, southern Greenland became inhabital due to the inability to cultivate crops . . . Southern Greenland today is still unhabital for the cultivation of crops.”
Jared Diamond covered this issue nicely in Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
Greenland did not have a climate suitable for the cultivation of crops when the Vikings settled it. It did grow quite a bit of grass, and the Icelanders and Norwegians who built farms there raised hay and milked cows for most of their sustenance. Because Greenland is a fringe climate zone, its grasslands were easily overgrazed and subject to droughts. When the Little Ice Age cut Greenland off from supplies of tools and iron from Europe, the productivity of its farms shrank and a couple of bad famine years killed off the settlers.
Modern Greenland supports a number of sheep-farmers, but they are also overgrazing their pastures and maintain themselves only with government subsidies.
A parable that baffles historians to this day: soon after settling Greenland, the Viking colonists stopped eating fish. Fish is a staple food for people who live in sub-arctic climates, since they can be caught in any season wherever the ocean doesn’t completely freeze over. Even today, the salmon are so docile in Greenland you can catch them by hand.
Why the local chiefs made this decision, no one knows, but they obstanitely stuck to their viewpoint, denying reality, even as climate change was destroying their people.
April 23rd, 2009 at 10:15 am
Of the industrialized nations, America is already doing more to minimize the pollution output than any other industrialized nation. Mexico and China have deplorable air quality because they have little regulations in place to require companies to reduce its pollution output.
If laws are put in place that will tax American companies out of existence, then China and Mexico (among other countries) will take up the slack and produce the products we used to produce. Let American businesses continue to voluntarily reduce emissions, not penalize them for what they will inevitably produce given the nature of their business.
April 23rd, 2009 at 10:18 am
Keep drinking the kool-aid Jay and living in your artificially created real world.
You gotta love scientists (majority of who depend on public government dollars to continue their work) who go around railing about Global Warming and then alter their banter to Climate Change (Normal cycling of the environment), which is their way of saving face since the earth has been cooling since its peak in ’98. Not my opinion (although I do agree), that was stated by the founder of the Weather Channel on a recent radio interview. 1998 was the hottest on record (recordable history) and the earth has since been trending into a cooling cycle ever since. Now why would he not be on board with all those brilliant climate scientists? Maybe because he doesn’t depend on government money to support his job so he is not persueded to sell out his integrity in order to keep his job.
April 23rd, 2009 at 11:57 am
That’s all this is about – getting into our pockets more – and making the US weaker.
April 23rd, 2009 at 1:08 pm
Is this a website for right wing concervative retards or what? Cleaning the air we breath, the water we drink, and at the same time slowing the effects of global warming which is an ABSOLUTE FACT is a bad thing??????? I hope they tax the coal plants to death and use the money to build as many solar geothermal and wind palnts as possible for you and me to live happy healthy lives. The age of unregulated capitalism is over and thank god! No more greed, corruption, lies, scandals and illegal wars that only make billionars more rich. YAY!! I feel sorry for all of you, it must suck to be brainwashed into thinking pulling oil out of the ground and burning it into the atmosphere is a good thing. I can’t believe the amount of stupidity I’m reading here you deserve eight more years of Bush, then you could all see him finish the job of destroying the world that he already started. And if you can’t see how bad Bush made it and McCain would have made it, then the amount of damage to your brain can’t be fixed so you should probably kill yourself.
April 23rd, 2009 at 1:45 pm
If you remember a few years ago, FDA put out a guide which listed how many insect parts and mouse droppings were acceptible in various food products. Some of the previous commenters seem to think that if a few mouse droppings were okay, then a few more won’t hurt anything, and trying to screen them out is only about putting more money in the pockets of exterminators. Global warming is happening, and seems to be progressing faster than the experts predicted. Like the folks along the Mississippi River, we can decide to pile sandbags or we can shrug and say there’s no point in trying to stop a flood. Personally, I’d rather do what I can whether it makes a difference in the end or not.
April 23rd, 2009 at 1:47 pm
The science supporting global climate change is irrefutable.
The economic benefits of going green are irrefutable.
If you don’t understand the science and economics, you need to continue to educate yourself.
April 23rd, 2009 at 2:52 pm
If anyone has a spare hour you should view the documentary film An Inconvenient Truth by Nobel Prize winner Al Gore.
The Nobel Peace Prize 2007 “for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change”
They don’t hand these things out like M&M’s, there is truth in the data and it is irrefutable, and if you try after watching the film you are in denial. It’s time to wake up people, think globally act locally and make a difference.
April 24th, 2009 at 8:49 am
Bernie: “An Inconvenient Truth” has seven factual errors in it. I am sorry they gave Al Gore the Nobel Peace Prize for that fictional mockumentary. The Nobel Peace Prize that year should have gone to Irena Sendler who saved many Polish Jews during the Holocaust.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irena_Sendler
I am for controlling CO2 emissions as much as possible, but we need to get other countries to do their part.
April 24th, 2009 at 9:47 am
If the EPA is going to start getting stricter, maybe they better look into the weather modification projects going on in our military and in our states. I had my eyes opened to the advanced scientific experiments and projects going on in our country. Rosalnd Peterson’s SkyWatch California website has doucments showing these projects. It is a good site. See the following from her site:
“Weather Modification & Mitigation Climate Change Bills Set for Passage Early in 2009
One or more experimental weather modification/mitigation bills could be passed by the U.S. Senate or the U.S. House of Representatives early in January 2009. It is time to take action and use this toll free number 1-866-220-0044 (Eastern Time), to contact your Senators and U.S. Representatives in Washington, D.C.
California Senator Boxer, Connecticut Senator Lieberman, Nevada Senate Leader Reid, Texas Senator Hutchison, and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi intend to drive Climate Change Legislation (Cap & Trade Bills), through Congress early in January 2009.
NOAA (U.S. Department of Commerce), lists more than sixty current and ongoing weather modification programs being implemented across the United States on a yearly basis. (Click map to enlarge). In addition to the programs listed by NOAA, there are private, university, military, and ongoing government sponsored atmospheric testing and heating programs underway in Alaska and across the United States.
Artificial weather modification can impact all of us by chemically polluting our water supplies, changing agricultural crop production cycles and micro-climates, reducing crop production, and water availability. Since most experimental weather modification programs use chemicals released into the atmosphere the public could be subjected to increasingly toxic or unknown substances that could adversely impact agricultural crops, pollute drinking water supplies, and cause declining tree health.
If the weather is changed in one state, region or county it changes local micro-climates needed for agricultural crop production. These changes can cause dramatic shifts in weather conditions in other locations both nearby and thousands of miles away. And who is going to decide the type of weather modification experimentation and who will benefit or suffer from the adverse consequences of these programs? Who will be responsible for studying the synergistic effects of these programs or pay for unintended disasters created by this experimentation?
If these programs change growing seasons and interrupt the pollination process, crop losses could be substantial.”
April 24th, 2009 at 10:06 am
Tom, This post has turned into a very interesting discussion. You’ve received some comments from
those who like to politicize everyhing which I believe is counter productive on this subject.
My uncle lived in the Silver Lake Reservoir area on the West side of L.A. in 1955 and from his deck
you could not see the mountains to the East due to tha L.A. basin smog. The EPA and industry worked together to address this smog issue and I worked for an Engineering Construction firm that designed and constructed many Sulfur Recovery Units. As a result by 1975 the mountains were visible to the East after removing 2000 tons or so of sulfur per day from the L.A. atmosphere.
On the subject of Global Warming, two years past I read a treatise written by British Scientists who monitor the change in deep ocean water warming due to many under sea volcanic eruptions. Even tho the temperature rises are small the Scientists propose that the increased evaporation of the ocean water will increase the atmospheric moisture and will precipitate increased 12 inch rainfalls and 12 foot snowfalls leading toGlobal Cooling. The past two Winters I have noted the extreme weather actions in the U.S. and there have been some record rainfalls and snowfalls. However, Austailia has had extreme droughts !
My suggestion is that we hang around for a 100 years or so and we’ll know whether the Global Warming or Global Cooling pundits or good old Mother Nature win the argument.
Regards, Norm Ofstad
April 24th, 2009 at 10:55 am
Quote:
The science supporting global climate change is irrefutable.
The economic benefits of going green are irrefutable.
If you don’t understand the science and economics, you need to continue to educate yourself.”
The National Weather Service refuses to say that humans cause global climate change. They all work for Obama. THERE IS NO CONSENCES. THERE IS NO SCIEnCE. THERE ARE NO MODELS THAT WORK. Al Gore has made millions of dollars by lying to dolts like you. Wake up and see you are being raped by hucksters.
The economics of us going “Green” while China India and much of the developing world thumb their nose is the further offshoring of millions of jobs. All that will be left is sorter in the recyclce plant before the waste is shipped overseas to be made into salable products and the hambuger flipper flipping tofu burgers because cattle emit methane gas so no hamburger.
April 29th, 2009 at 7:38 am
Global warming, climate change, global iceage, the audacity of man to think we are in any way powerfull enough to change the earth in any way is way out in left field. Have we turned to gods, or is there a golden pot awaiting the end of the green rainbow that Mr. Gore seems to have a monetary investment that will most assuredly payoff when the government finds new and better ways to throw money at the problem.
Unless it could be proved otherwise, and it can’t, I’ll believe that God is in control of the earth and all this hype is just playing off the fears of those weakminded enough to believe Mr. Gore and the movie-star experts.
May 1st, 2009 at 10:44 am
Tom is right on! Bernie must still believe oil comes from decomposing Barneys. We’re all being “Gored” to death by bull at our expense which won’t be able to be afforded pretty soon because there won’t be any jobs or economy.
May 1st, 2009 at 11:46 am
Thank you, Mr. Allen! I’ve been preaching that exact sentiment for most of my 30 years. How can we possibly think that the “problem” of global warming has started from the overuse of Big Mac containers and hairspray? Remember the hype over the use of styrofoam containers in the 1980′s? How come I can still go to just about any takeout eatery EXCEPT Mc D’s and still get served a heaping helping of fries in a large styrofoam box if there is such a problem with them? Corporate responsibility to the environment is only as fastidious as the monetaryrestitution that they recei from either the government or in increased sales to bleeding heart liberals. Just think, ONE active volcano produces more environmentally harmful emissions in one hour than all the automobiles and internal combustion engines in the world do in one year! If the dinosaurs had banned volcanoes, maybe we wouldn’t be having this conversation. (sic) I was recently approached at a fuel station by a woman handing out environmental activism pamphlets, who criticized my ownership of a large van for commercial use. I proceeded to (accurately) deride her by saying that she should be grateful for people like me who come to her house to repair things that she cannot fix for herself, and that I could not do those things efficiently without the van. She replied by asking me what I would do if the earth heated up by 10 degrees or more in the future. “Ma’am”, I said, “Given the cyclical nature of ice ages in the recent past, I’d be more worried about freezing to death.” Enough said.
May 1st, 2009 at 12:20 pm
Sun spots- the earth warms when the sun is active, the earth cools when the sun is less active. 35000+ scientists agree.
Global warming / Climate change- losing scientific support daily, making Al Gore and Green businesses a lot of money.
Al Gore- Did win Nobel peace prize, scientist that provided most of Gores fact has admitted falsifying data. Woman who lost out to Gore for Nobel peace prize saved 25000 children from the Nazi’s.
June 18th, 2009 at 11:09 am
I live in Northern Illinois. This past winter and summer has been consistently colder than the last 20 years.
This entire movement is nothing more than an attack on our Freedoms. When are people going to learn Money = Freedom = Liberty. Without the ability to make money on your own, and do with it what you please, you have no Freedom. Which is ultimately what this is all about: Control and Power. Everyone needs to be aware that Chicken Little has a motive.
-Jim
June 22nd, 2009 at 1:11 pm
By EPA’s scientist own assement over the next 30 years and if Cap and Trade were inacted the TRILLION’s of tax dollars being taken out of the economy over the projected reduction in global temperatures will be LESS than 1/2 degree. Is that worth the cost?
Cap and trade legislation is a goverment fund raiser and economy killer with the economy in the balance.
The current generations now have experience almost 30 + years of continous economic expansion never seen in US history. That economic growth will end if goverment takes control of energy production, distribution and rationing of its use.
If gobal warming is such a problem why is nuclear being ignored and chastised? The answer is nuclear does not fit into the model the overal plan by the “left” by taking control of the economy over the bogus premise of CO2 emissions that nuclear does not fit into.