You might remember the Heartland Institute’s James Taylor from his assertion that if we are to do something about global warming to make us all feel warm and fuzzy inside, let’s at least not pick something that will devastate our way of life. Well folks, that little tidbit taken from his iVoices podcast was apparently just the tip of the iceberg. On February 22, he gave a presentation to the Professional Engineers of Colorado that could be referred to as, quite possibly, the most devastating global warming smack-down yet. In it he dismantles Governor Ritter’s Climate Action Plan and the pseudo-science behind it. It is 13 pages of left hooks and straight rights to the face of alarmists. I don’t have the time or the attention span to go over all his points, but I would like to share some of the highlights:

-Economic experts have shown that the Climate Action Plan will send over 57,000 people into unemployment, would reduce Colorado’s gross state product by 2.3% per year, and would reduce the purchasing power of the average Colorado household by nearly $1,200 each year. The Congressional Budget Office agrees that reducing greenhouse gasses even modestly reduces household income as well, much more than the alarmists admit. And of course this acts like a regressive tax, hurting the poor much more than wealthy households.
-Temperatures have risen 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit during the entire 20th century. Temperatures have not risen AT ALL since 1998.
-More than 19,000 scientists have signed a petition, “sponsored by a past president of the National Academy of Sciences and co-authored by a professor of astrophysics at Harvard University, stating that scientific evidence does not support alarmist global warming theory.” Hmmm, I have yet to find a small phone booth that could fit over 19,000 people inside, and I’d be willing to challenge Jim Martin to find me one.
-Finally, “a recent survey of more than 500 of the world’s leading climate scientists, conducted by Germany’s Institute of Coastal Research, found that less than half of climate scientists believe that the science justifies turning the global warming issue over to policymakers, such as Governor Ritter and his global warming team.”

I’ll leave you with James’ wonderful concluding paragraph: “Given a choice between backing the misleading science of the Governor’s Climate Action Plan or the findings of more than 19,000 scientists and the consensus of the world’s leading climatologists, I think the answer is quite clear. And if the science doesn’t convince you, then perhaps the economics should.”

Ah, thank you Mr. Taylor, not only for “Fire and Rain,” but for your diligence in disputing the climate hysteria.