ClimateGate, Copenhagen, and the only two questions that really matter

Let’s consider the only two questions that matter regarding global warming in the aftermath of ClimateGate and with the Copenhagen United Nations Climate Change Conference beginning Monday.

1. What if global warming is real?
2. What if global warming is nothing but a great con-job being played on a gullible world population?

I have the same response to either of the above two questions: Alternative energy.

Alternative energy is win-win, the no regrets option; the best of both worlds. If we focus on alternative energy the right way, by which I mean getting governments out of the way of alternative energy development, then humanity wins the global warming debate, no matter the veracity of global warming.

As a result of ClimateGate, climate scientists have now done more to discredit global warming than the best of the climate deniers. Thanks to some of the leading climate scientists, global warming deniers now have plenty of justification for their views. The mess is leaving many former climate supporters confused.

To read the varying scientific view points on global warming with an open mind is to be unsure; unless you are too sure. The emails at the core of ClimateGate make it much worse.

For example, see this excellent piece in favor of immediate action to stem global warming written by Columbia University geochemistry Professor Peter Kelemen, that I found via a link on the site of the excellent free market thinker and writer, the Atlantic’s Megan McCardle.

“Climate models—which represent the good-faith efforts of a lot of very dedicated people to use a combination of physics and observations of past climate to make the best possible projections—predict some very unfavorable outcomes for humans within the next 50 to 100 years, unless we take substantial action to reduce and mitigate CO2 emissions, starting right now. There is plenty of room for uncertainty, but the time to act is now.”

Note that last phrase, “There is plenty of room for uncertainity,” and compare it to, “some very unfavorable outcomes for humans.”

Climate change is based on predictions that can be wrong because the models can’t predict the near future let alone the long term, and past performance is not an indicator of future results. But there’s that phrase Kelemen uses, “very unfavorable outcomes for humans,” that sends chills through me.

The whole climate change debate sounds like a lose-lose situation for humanity. We the human race are damned if we do something to prevent climate change and damned if we don’t do anything. We can spend trillions of dollars on fixes that no one with any common sense really believes will work but everyone that has read even the first chapter of a basic economic text book realizes will slow down the world’s economy. The other option is to ignore the threat by closing our eyes to the potential that this time they got it right and if we don’t act then we the human race will industrialize ourselves out of existence, or at least into great hardship.

There is a better answer. It is alternative energy and it is through freeing our markets not government collusion and centralization.

To climate supporters I say that we need a vibrant economy to reduce and hopefully eradicate hunger, poverty, disease, and warfare. For more on the power of free markets see just about every column I have posted to this site.

To climate deniers; our continued thirst for oil is our greatest threat to national and international security because oil money pays for international terrorism, Iranian nuclear expansion, Iraqi tribal warfare, and this list could go on for days. With all due respect to our largest oil suppliers, Canada and Mexico, if we want world peace, national and international security, we can’t settle for a drill here drill now solution. We have to send oil down the same path as the buggy whip – to near oblivion.

Certainly, both climate supporters and deniers can agree with either one or both of my above statements to climate supporters and deniers. If we can agree, we can go to the next step; alternative energy is an answer to both the needs of supporters and denier — if we approach alternative energy the right way.

Yes, I know that no alternative energy available today comes close to providing the raw power of carbon based fuels. I also know that the cost of converting the world’s transportation infrastructure to other fuels is enormous. Yet…..In 1903 the Wright Brothers made their first flight. Those daring young men in their flying machines were certainly crazy. But just 30 years later, in 1933, the first airliner was launched and today if I want I can buy a ticket via something called the Internet, get on a flying machine and be on the other side of the planet in roughly 20-24 hours. Yes, I believe alternative energies have a future if we just get our governments out of the way.

We haven’t unleashed the power of the free markets on alternative energy yet because the U.S. which should lead the world in alternative energy development hinders development with myriad regulations and taxes (see wind turbines and biofuels). Yet oil and coal producers benefit from powerful lobbies. We bailed out GM yet the folks at Wheego already produce a viable electric car and GM doesn’t. But our President, the one behind the GM bailout, is now off to Copenhagen to work on the environment. Go figure.

Why are U.S. and world leaders forcing us into a giant ponzi scheme called cap and trade, and an international agreement that will sap the world’s economy? The U.S. cap and trade legislation and international carbon commitments will require the creation or expansion of government agencies and huge bureaucracies to manage the regulations. Government agencies will create the detailed rules and regulations that are the natural outgrowth of overarching laws like cap and trade. These agencies and regulations will further stymie businesses and entrepreneurs around the world by forcing them to waste time and resources for compliance instead of R&D and marketing.

We can and should demand better from our leaders. How about a climate resolution like this:

We the concerned nations of the world pledge to return to Copenhagen one year from today to celebrate having reduced by 50% the governmental –i.e., legal, regulatory, and tax—impediments to the development of alternative energies within our respective countries.

We the concerned nations pledge that during the course of the year 2010, we shall appoint commissions whose sole objective will be to find and fix our nation’s legal infrastructure by developing law that is non-partisan, shows no political favoritism, and leaves government as neither barrier nor partner to the energy business. We pledge to seek objective law that protects without hindering. We recognize the power of free markets and their ability to address today’s problems. We understand that this can be done and we pledge to achieve it.

I realize there is nothing in here to give power and control to the world’s political class. But maybe, just maybe, our so called leaders can put aside their personal desires for power in order to consider options that will give us winning opportunities no matter what the real truth is in the global warming debate. Maybe.

Tagged as: alternative energy, cap and trade, carbon, climate, climate change, co2, copenhagen, economy, electric car, electric vehicle, electric vehicle world, environment, evworld, glacier, global warming, GM, green, green energy, I am riding in an electric car, ice cap, melting glacier, obama, plug-in vehicle, pollution, smog, UN, wheego