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2/3/2010
Rep. Jim Ott: WI Global Warming bill is bad news for WI
As a meteorologist, Rep. Jim Ott (R-Mequon) understands the science behind global warming. As a service to his constituents and others, Ott publishes Hot Air Reports; you can sign up to receive it by contacting Ott’s Madison office.
Below is Ott’s January 27, 2010 testimony before the State Senate Committee on Clean Energy regarding the Governor’s global warming bill (SB 450).
A hearing was held yesterday (Feb. 2) as well; future hearings are scheduled for Feb. 10 (vehicles, fuels, transportation infrastructure, energy efficient buildings and equipment, bioenergy) and Feb. 11 (goals, public education, cap and trade report). The companion Assembly bill (AB 649) will be the subject of hearings Monday, Feb. 15. JAE
Good Morning Chairmen Miller and Plale and committee members. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to testify at today’s hearing on the Clean Energy Jobs Act.
In the political world it’s common to hide the true intent of legislation by calling a bill something that it really isn’t. I would submit that SB 450, and its companion AB 649, is one such bill.
In 2007 Governor Doyle formed his Global Warming Task Force. It was not called the Clean Energy Jobs Task Force. In his mission statement he told the Task Force to come up with strategies to make Wisconsin a leader in the implementation of global warming solutions, because he apparently believes the Earth is overheating.
The Governor’s concern over the warming was so great that he also told the Task Force to not bother doing a cost/benefit analysis and to accept what the Task Force Report calls the “substantial scientific consensus” that “climate change is occurring” and human use of fossil fuels is “major contributor to such change.”
So how do you get the Clean Energy Jobs Bill out of the Global Warming Task Force Report? Why didn’t the authors of this bill call it the global warming bill and why didn’t the Governor mention the terms “global warming” or “climate change” even once in his State of the State address last night when talking about this bill?
Could it be the flawed science that’s been reported lately, like the recent scandal involving the leaked e-mails from the Climate Research Unit in England, and the questions that have been raised in the last week regarding the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration eliminating colder weather stations from their global average temperatures?
If the man-made global warming proponents are so sure of themselves, then why do they feel a need to manipulate data to help make their point? Doesn’t this raise a red flag? Maybe Wisconsin shouldn’t be embarking on a major policy initiative like this bill, when its very basis appears to be seriously flawed.
The recent weather patterns alone should bring pause to anyone who thinks Wisconsin should move forward with the global warming bill. In the beginning of December almost a quarter of Wisconsin’s corn crop was still in the field. That was because our summer was so cool the corn was late in maturing. A report just issued this morning shows that Wisconsin’s apple harvest was down 31% this year and the cranberry harvest down 13%, also because of our unusually cool summer.
And reports of unusually cold-not warm-weather have been coming in from around the world. Earlier this month the citrus crop was damaged in Florida by a severe freeze. Reports from England tell of a shortage of natural gas supplies because of extreme cold and the ice off China’s northeast coast is now the thickest and most extensive in the last 40 years. Ladies and gentlemen, if this is an overheating planet, I wouldn’t want to experience a cooling one!
In fact, global temperatures have not risen in more than a decade and more recently they have shown a downward trend.
So a reasonable question is: How much colder would you like it to be? Remember, that’s the purpose of fighting global warming-to make it colder.
But if the Governor and the authors of this bill want to talk about jobs-then let’s do that. Yes, there may be some “green” jobs created, but many of these will be in the public sector, as in Department of Natural Resource positions to enforce the mandates of this bill. Last year, for the first time, government jobs now exceed manufacturing jobs in Wisconsin. If this bill becomes law, the spread between private sector manufacturing jobs and taxpayer supported government jobs will widen.
In reality, I believe the net loss of jobs in the private sector will be severe. That’s what happens when you mandate dramatically higher energy prices for consumers and manufacturers, and that’s exactly what this bill will produce. This bill will make it much more expensive to manufacture products in Wisconsin. Isn’t that why manufacturers eliminate jobs or move to other areas-because they must make a profit to stay in business?
The public should also be aware of the intrusive regulations that this bill will mandate, on virtually every facet of our lives. How will mandating California emission standards in Wisconsin produce jobs for our citizens?
And what’s the real purpose of this bill? To try to make it colder. And even that attempt will fail, since even if our state could reduce our output of greenhouse gases to zero, there would be no measurable effect on background levels of these gases, and therefore no effect on the climate.
If you want to produce more jobs, repeal the nuclear power moratorium, make our state’s tax structure more business friendly, and develop a sensible energy policy that will carry us into the future.
This bill fails to do that by a long shot, and I urge committee members to vote against it.
Thank you.
Jim Ott is a Republican and serves the constituents of the 23rd Assembly District.
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COMMENTS
"As a meteorologist, Rep. Jim Ott (R-Mequon) understands the science behind global warming"
Jim Ott is entitled to his opinion, however he is not a climatologist. To say he is because he is a meteorologist is similar to claiming a farmer is a geologist.
Is he so ignorant of the size of the current temperture anomaly, now about one degree F, that he really thinks that we can personally detect it? Is he aware that despite the local cool period the globe has indeed warmed?
Dean Weichmann (Thu Feb 04 05:05:43 2010)
@deanweichmann:
Please, if you are going to spout off how the Earth has been warming, at least provide documentation to back up your claims. Everything that Rep. Ott stated in his speech can be backed up and verified, so really, the things he talks about are not opinions, but fact. And since when do you need to be a climatologist to produce fact? Are you a climatologist? You do not state what you do in your comment. The Sun is in fact, the major driver of temperature. Why were the icecaps on Mars melting? As far as I know, there aren't any people living on Mars, but of course, I am just a housewife with a high school education, so maybe I can't state that either. Sunspot activity has been declining and/or not happening at all. Just go over to NOAA and NASA or google "sunspot activity". I am sure you will find lots of enlightening information there.
I urge you to look at Spain's green job model. For every green job produced, it reduced 2.2 other jobs in the country. Each green job cost over $700,000 and only paid out on average $51,000. Where did the rest of the money go?
Global warming is a hoax, just follow the money, it all leads back to the bankers, ie: Rothschild, Rockefeller, and the rest of their ilk.
Cap and trade is just another scam to put more control on the people by controlling their wallet.
Brandi (Thu Feb 04 08:35:33 2010)
Jim Ott may not be a climatologist, but I am sure he and UW Grad Patrick Michaels, who is, studied a lot of the same material. Maybe they were even in the same classes. But climatologist or not, Jim has a brain and can analyze data, as can a lot of us laymen. For example, the very first time I looked at the famous Mann hockey stick and his explanation of it, I recognized it for the fraud that it is. It obliterated 2 well known, well documented climate phenena, namely, the Mideaval Warming Period, (an INCONVENIENT TRUTH that saw temps significantly higher than today for several centuries,) and the Little Ice Age. BTW, when and where did you get your degree in climatology, Dean?
For more on the Climategate Scandal, I refer you to Michaels himself:
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=11022
Interesting article on PSU's investigation on Michael Mann:
http://spectator.org/blog/2010/02/03/psu-investigators-dont-inspire
The above article is not "scientific" to be sure, but is made the more interesting and believable by including links to works that are. Also of interest is that if PSU's investigation into Mann's fraud is not sufficiently punative, others are waiting in the wings to make sure he gets his just desserts, including at least one prosecuting attorney, according to links provided.
CLIMATEGATE IS REAL!!!
WHO ARE THE DENIERS NOW???
Ken Van Doren (Thu Feb 04 11:31:58 2010)
Brandi and Ken; You are right to question my opinion. I should provide some evidence to back what I say. I was pointing out that the same should be required of Jim Ott. He is not a climatologist. He is not an economist either, so why should we take his word for the effects of this bill. As far as my statement that gobal warming is still occurring please go to this link, Or this, or here.
Excerpt:2009 was tied for the second warmest year in the modern record, a new NASA analysis of global surface temperature shows. The analysis, conducted by the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York City, also shows that in the Southern Hemisphere, 2009 was the warmest year since modern records began in 1880." "There's always an interest in the annual temperature numbers and on a given year's ranking, but usually that misses the point," said James Hansen, the director of GISS. "There's substantial year-to-year variability of global temperature caused by the tropical El Nio-La Nia cycle. But when we average temperature over five or ten years to minimize that variability, we find that global warming is continuing unabated.
Dean Weichmann (Fri Feb 05 09:53:53 2010)
Dave- I am not a TRAINED economist either, but can regularly poke holes in the arguments of snake oil salesmen like Paul Krugman and Ben Bernanke, who claim to be.
Given the undeniable fraud that has occurred, it matters less WHO provides the data, than it does how valid and untainted that data is. You cite GISS, and NOAA, and they have been part of the fraud. So how are we to take their evidence seriously? How are we to ever again trust ANYTHING they say? It is one thing to have honest arguments over interpretation of data, quite another to fudge the data in favor of your arguments, as NOAA, NASA, CRU and associated "scientists" have done. Until this matter is settled, all climate related legislation should be put on hold, lest another layer of fraud be committed. And if our legislators knowingly pass fraudulent bills based on fraudulent data, then I think they should be held personally liable. I see my mission as two fold_ inform all so that ignorance is no excuse, and to do what I can to enforce the latter, possibly in civil and criminal court.
Ken Van Doren (Fri Feb 05 10:28:23 2010)
Ken, there is no way you could possibly poke holes in anything Krugman says even if you were a trained economist.
As to your comment "Given the undeniable fraud that has occurred," the fraud is in the portrayal of what these tiny excerpts of private conversations mean. They are taken out of context a twisted to meanings that were never intended.
"It is one thing to have honest arguments over interpretation of data, quite another to fudge the data in favor of your arguments, as NOAA, NASA, CRU and associated "scientists" have done"
It is another to assume guilt and condemn the work of so many people based on sippets of conversation. The data is sound. If that alone does not prove anything to you then explain the change in growing degree days we experince here in Wisconsin. I now plant 105 day corn varieties instead of 95 day. Ask a gardener with some years of experienc if thing are different now.
Dean Weichmann (Fri Feb 05 13:09:56 2010)
I think it's unfortunate that an articulate meteorologist turned politician is gathering so much interest, rather the science behind global warming. Whether or not the legislation is smart, the discussion behind the science is sloppy and risks reducing data and research into ideology. Nothing good can come from that.
David Martin (Fri Feb 19 18:44:31 2010)
The global warming theory seemed to come out of nowhere. I had just recovered from my disappointment over not having a New Ice Age back in the 70s when, only a little over a decade later, along came another "We're all gonna die" warning.
My first question was, "If man caused all this global warming, how did the glaciers melt without our help?" The second question was, "How is it possible to have "a new Ice Age" and "global warming" within 20 years of each other?
I puzzled it over and came up on the side of the deniers.
This website was one that was the impetus to come up on the correct side.
http://petitionproject.com/
It is a petition to the government started in 1998 debunking manmade global warming and was signed by over 31,000 American scientists, over 9,000 of whom are Ph.Ds.
C.R. Stevenson (Tue Feb 23 20:12:35 2010)
Global warming is just one instance of macro-level climate changes that have occurred in the earth's 4.5 billion years. There have been dramatic fluctuations, but none triggered by human activity. Only global warming is triggered by human activity, and that is why scientists are alarmed--correctly so. Sure, initial responses were incorrect. So too were those who were measuring the remaining reserves of fossil fuels. But systems theory tells us that there will be a limited supply of fossil fuels--they are not renewable. Systems theory also tells us that the sudden flurry of human activity releasing carbon dioxide and warming the atmosphere at the pace we are pursuing will have significant consequences.
David Martin (Fri Feb 26 20:37:25 2010)
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