A Response from an Allegedly “Abnormal” Skeptic

This week the Administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency implied that climate skeptics (she apparently used the far more pejorative term “climate denier” widely used by alarmists, of course) are abnormal. This seems more than a little odd since it is the climate alarmists (whom I refer to as the Climate Industrial Complex or CIC in my new book, Environmentalism Gone Mad, obtainable from the book website), including the EPA, who are insisting that everyone else pay considerably higher rates for electricity and suffer from decreased reliability of the US electrical system so critical to our economic and human welfare in order to make symbolic reductions in CO₂ emissions from electric power plants in the US. These reductions will have no measureable effects on atmospheric CO₂ levels and thus on climate and extreme weather even according to the at best speculative hypothesis that man-made CO₂ emissions will result in catastrophic changes in the climate or extreme weather.

The most that might possibly be “achieved” by this huge expenditure by ratepayers in both dollars and reliability is that other countries, particularly China and India, may be slightly less inclined to call the US a hypocrite by advocating reductions in their CO₂ emissions without making still further reductions in our own. Even this is quite unlikely since the less developed countries have made it clear that they will not cut their emissions in any meaningful way unless the developed countries pay them at least $100 billion per year through the UN, which would have to be paid by developed country taxpayers. Since this is highly unlikely, the US symbolic cuts are unlikely to result in any real response by the less developed world (the source of most CO₂ emission increases in the world), and thus result in no meaningful reductions in CO₂ emissions.

Now all this symbolism is made even worse by the fact that there is strong evidence that the CIC’s catastrophic anthropogenic global warming hypothesis is scientifically invalid. In other words EPA demands a very large outlay, particularly by the less affluent ratepayers in the US, for no measurable reduction in alleged risks to the US or to anyone else. I would argue that it is the alarmists (CIC) who are “abnormal.” Most normal people would insist on something in return for the sacrifices demanded by EPA, at least for someone, somewhere who will not directly benefit (such as windmill producers). But what EPA is proposing is increased costs with negative benefits (even assuming the wildly speculative health “co-benefits” claimed by EPA).

The basis for these conclusions can be found with extensive documentation in Environmentalism Gone Mad.

Or Is There a More Sinister Explanation?

Or perhaps Administrator McCarthy has more sinister objectives in mind. Those who opposed the Soviet regime were often labelled “abnormal” or worse by government officials and sent to mental hospitals for mind-changing “therapy.” Perhaps this is what Administrator McCarthy is laying the groundwork for by implying that climate skeptics are “abnormal?” Another climate alarmist, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), has already advocated sending climate skeptics to prison using RICO statutes. A more objective analysis of Whitehouse’s proposal can be found here.