How Many Trees Can We Plant?

In casual conversations with CARE Members, supporters and energy consumers we find a universal confusion about carbon offsets and carbon credits. We previously featured a great piece on carbon credits. (If you have not read it, please check it out.) Today, this posting came in from one of our energy counsel members: Dennis Avery. If you have ever wondered how many trees you can plant, you find this article fascinating. It answers a lot of questions you may have. Read on and tell us what you think!

Planting Trees To Keep The Lights On
It’s the Christmas season, the UN’s Bali conference has just ended, and we should all have trees in our thoughts. The most popular way for people concerned about global warming to offset their “carbon footprints” is to buy carbon credits earned by planting trees. The additional trees absorb additional CO2 in their leaves, boles, and roots, and keep it from aggravating global warming in the sky. Unfortunately, the realities of tree-growing don’t give much confidence that U.S. forestry will much ease the global warming problem.

In the first place, existing forests don’t count as carbon offsets, because they’re already storing their normal ratios of carbon. The Kyoto treaty counts only trees planted after 1990 for carbon offset—and only on lands that have been treeless for at least 50 years.

America’s western forests are near their natural limits, and our eastern forests are limited by the large amount of farmland needed to grow food—and biofuels. Farmland is scarce. Forest land is scarce too, when you need hundreds of millions of hectares to make a climate impact.

Some optimists have concluded that large-scale forestry projects in the U.S. could offset about one-third of America’s annual CO2 emissions—about 500 million metric tons of carbon per year. However, a more cautious examination of tree growth rates indicates that the United States doesn’t have much additional land available for new forests.

Brandon Scarborough, writing for the Mountain States think-tank PERC, says carbon accumulates in existing forests at up to 0.36 metric tons of carbon per acre per year in the central Rockies and the Southwest, and at 0.64 to 0.91 metric tons per acre in the Pacific Northwest and the Southeast—with lots of regional variation. Plantation forests in the Southeast and the Pacific Northwest sequester the most carbon, but they’re already planted, and already managed for high yields on 40-year rotations.

Scarborough says no more than 25 million acres of currently un-forested U.S. land are able and likely to grow trees in the future, even with the promise of carbon credit payoffs. That’s about one-fourth of Maine’s land area. If those new forests sequester an optomistic one ton of carbon per acre per year, that would offset only about 2 percent of America’s annual CO2 emissions.

That’s assuming no forest fires, of course—which would quickly put most of a forest’s carbon back into the atmosphere.

Corn ethanol produces a net gain of only 50 gallons worth of gasoline per acre per year, against a demand of more than 134 billion gallons annually. That’s essentially no help at all. Hybrid cars are popular, and the Prius gets more than 40 mpg—compared with about 26 for the average car and maybe 18 mpg for the average SUV. But the Kyoto strategy will demand that Americans give up at least 80 percent of their current energy supplies. An 80 percent energy reduction doesn’t say “Prius,” it says “bicycle.”

Solar panels are expensive, and in much of the country there isn’t that much sunshine. Ditto for windmills, unless you live on San Francisco Bay or in North Dakota.

No wonder the world is re-examining nuclear power plants. France gets 80 percent of its electricity from reactors. Finland is building a new nuclear plant, and Eastern Europe is planning dozens. Germany’s prime minister says she will stop her country’s planned nuclear phase-out. China and India are each aiming for 30 nuclear plants in the next 15 years.

If that’s the only way to keep the lights on and the computers running. . . .


DENNIS T. AVERY was a senior policy analyst for the U.S. State Department, where he won the National Intelligence Medal of Achievement. He is the co-author, with atmospheric physicist Fred Singer, of the book, Unstoppable Global Warming—Every 1500 Years, available from Rowman & Littlefield. Readers may write him at the Center for Global Food Issues (http://www.cgfi.org/) Post Office Box 202, Churchville, VA 24421.

The New “Mandates” On Biofuels

Two postings ago, we presented Michael Economides’ quick retort—accompanied by graphics—in response to our question about the recently signed energy bill. With a bit more time and rumination, he offered us these thoughts on the biofuel mandates portion of the energy bill. Read it here first!

In this era of energy and environment polarization if most Democrats and Republicans in Congress agree and then the President signs, it must be a nothing bill. And so the recent Energy Bill came to pass, which will cost only money and will do nothing for either energy independence or green house gases or the environment. And, in the highly unlikely case that it may come close to fulfilling its provisions, it may do a lot more harm than good.

While there are many elements of the bill that could be discussed, here I will just write about the new “mandates” on biofuels.

First, Congress mandated that by 2022, biofuels will provide a total of 36 billion gallons per year. None of these fuels can ever make any market-based sense without government subsidies. Of the total, 15 billion will come from “conventional” biofuels, read corn-based ethanol, with all the often repeated impact on food prices, ground water and contamination of surface waters. The bill suggests that the share of these fuels of the total transportation fuels should increase from about 4% in 2008 (9 out of 220 billion gallons) to about 5.7% by 2022 (15 out of 260 billion gallons.)

I am not even going to apply the multiplier of 0.7 with which ethanol gallons must be multiplied to be compared with e.g., gasoline. What is actually astonishing is that most of the remaining 21 billion gallons will have to come from “cellulosic” biofuels and there is no technology in place or in the horizon to produce them. The mandate in the bill is no different than mandating that all children born in the United States from now on should grow to be 6 ft tall, because it would be better for them as adults. Some yet unknown technology may be able to do that.

Second, let’s address the “energy independence” issue. According to the Energy Information Administration forecast before this bill was signed, by 2022, the demand for conventional transportation fuels (gasoline, diesel and jet fuel) will increase by more than 40 billion gallons from today, about twice as much as the mirage of cellulosic biofuels. America will still need to find oil supplies and if no drilling in ANWAR or offshore is allowed, importing is the only answer. So it may be that instead of importing 256 billion gallons, we will be importing 250 because of all the extra corn-based ethanol.

But then there is a third important issue and as usual, few have thought about it, China. I can understand environmentalists and ideologues ignoring this but where are the pragmatic geopoliticians?

By amazing coincidence, as the Energy Bill was signed, China’s CNPC think tank released their forecast for that country’s demand in all things energy (only until 2015, but enough for our purpose) and from there I gleaned their transportation fuel demand. Extrapolating to 2022 here is how it looks:

China’s transportation fuel demand will grow from about 60 billion today to at least, 130 billion by 2022, a 70 billion gallon increase, almost twice the US increase.

Paying all that money to produce more corn-based ethanol and even more money to chase the elusive cellulosic biofuels is not just a subsidy to special agribusiness interests in the United States. It amounts to a subsidy for China, because it will allow that emerging superpower to seek oil resources unhindered and with diminished competition from the current reigning superpower.

Oil and energy resources in general have defined national power for more than a century with both World Wars and many regional conflicts having a direct link to them. The United States is poised to relinquish a large swath of power by giving China a buy-in the world of superpower competition. Such a voluntary giveaway is unprecedented in modern history.

And with all the above, consider this fact: 21 billion gallons of biofuels that are unlikely to ever materialize are equivalent to 1.4 million barrels of oil per day, well within the most conservative estimates that the US can produce from ANWAR and a very modest increase in offshore oil leases within its own waters.

There are solutions to America’s transportation predicament, such as long-term electrification, but biofuels are not even close to being the answer.

Prof. Michael J. Economides, University of Houston and also Editor-in-Chief Energy Tribune Houston, TX

Confronting The True Costs Of Climate Change “Prevention”

With the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali now complete, we have some commentary for you as to what took place and its potential impact on your life. Consternation about catastrophic climate change was generated, along with demands and ultimately vague promises that we “do something” about “dangerous manmade climate change.” The conference was also characterized by intimidation and censorship of scientists who sought to present different views on these subjects.

This posting calls for careful reflection on the claims and tactics employed by those who insist we must take immediate action to avert a crisis that other experts say is rooted not in scientific evidence—but only in hypotheses and computer models. This is a perspective you are not likely to find in the mainstream media. Give it a look and tell us what you think.

Climate Change Rallies, Realities And Sacrifices

The mantra is repeated daily. There is consensus on climate change. Global warming is real. It will be a disaster. Humans are to blame. We have to do something—immediately.

However, the consensus of 100 scientists is undone by one fact, Albert Einstein noted. The United Nations and its Climate Cataclysm army of 15,000 in exotic Bali clearly understood that.

They were not about to let even one fact prevent them from promoting climate scares and a successor to the Kyoto treaty. Gloom-and-doom scientists and bureaucrats owned Bali’s podiums. Radical environmentalists fumed and staged stunts. Al Gore denounced President Bush, repeated myths that enthralled the Academy and Nobel committees, and demanded sacrifices—by others.

Meanwhile, respected climate scientists were barred from panel discussions, censored, silenced and threatened with physical removal by polizei, if they tried to hold a press conference to present peer-reviewed evidence that contradicts climate disaster claims, such as:

Climate change is natural and recurrent. The human factor is small compared to that of the sun and other natural forces. There has been no overall global warming since 1998, and most local and regional warming trends have been offset by nearby cooling. One degree F of net warming since 1900 (amid many temperature ups and downs) does not foreshadow a catastrophe. Recent glacial retreats, sea-level rise and migrations of temperature sensitive species are all within the bounds of known natural variability.

The best approach is to adapt, as our ancestors did. Money and resources devoted to futile climate prevention actions would be better spent on malaria, AIDS, poverty and other pressing problems. Most important, no country can progress or prosper without abundant, reliable, affordable energy that would be in short supply if draconian climate laws are implemented.

UN alarmists would not tolerate such heresies and inconvenient truths. They blamed every regional weather and climate blip on human emissions, and trotted out computer scenarios that they insist “prove” we must take drastic actions to avert Armageddon.

But computer models do a poor job of incorporating our still poor grasp of complex and turbulent oceanic, atmospheric and solar processes. They are based on conjecture about future technologies and emissions, and cannot predict climate shifts even one year in the future, much less 50 or 100. They simply produce “scenarios” and “projections” of what might happen under assorted assumptions—enabling alarmists to trumpet the most alarming outputs to support drastic action.

Those scenarios are evidence of climate chaos the way “Jurassic Park” proves dinosaurs can be cloned from DNA trapped in prehistoric amber.

However, Bali negotiators insisted that the world faces a climate crisis that can be averted only by slashing greenhouse gas emissions. Ultimately, they agreed only to “deep cuts” by 2050, with definitions to be written later by countries that are not about to commit economic suicide. Many environmentalists and members of Congress nonetheless continue to demand that CO2 be reduced up to 40% below current emission levels by 2020—and 80-95% by 2050.

It’ll be easy, they insist. Rubbish. Even a 25-40% reduction over the next twelve years would impose huge sacrifices on families, workers and communities, especially poor ones—while leaving no room for population or economic growth.

Fossil fuels provide 85% of the energy we use. Slashing emissions by even 25% means slashing the use of these fuels, paying vastly more to control and sequester emissions, and radically altering lifestyles and living standards. Families will do so voluntarily, or under mandatory rationing systems, enforced by EPA, courts, climate police and “patriotic” snitches. Getting beyond 25% would require a “radical transformation” of life as we know it.

Senator Joe Lieberman admits his “climate protection” bill would cost the United States “hundreds of billions” of dollars. Economist Arthur Laffer calculates that “cap-and-trade” schemes would reduce economic growth and penalize average American families $10,800 in lost income by 2020.

That’s on top of the $2000 in higher energy costs that US families have endured since 1998—and the 11% extra that USA Today says average households will pay this winter compared to a year ago. Higher energy costs will increase the price of everything we eat, drive, buy and do.

Reaching or exceeding 25% targets could require transformations like these:

Parking your car—and riding a bike. You’d get to work and the grocery in better shape—and guilt-free if you don’t exhale.

Disconnecting air conditioners and setting thermostats to 50 degrees all winter. Swim suits and UnderArmour are excellent substitutes.

Shutting down coal and gas power plants, and replacing them with new nuclear plants or forests of gargantuan wind turbines. Blanketing Connecticut with turbines could meet New York City’s electricity needs, and covering Texas and Louisiana could satisfy US needs, at least when the wind is blowing (about eight hours a day, on average), says Rockefeller University professor Jesse Ausubel.

Closing paper mills and factories. Perhaps newly unemployed workers could find jobs in China and other developing countries, where the tough emission standards won’t apply—or in the new carbon-free economy that politicians promise will magically arise once energy-killing climate bills are enacted.

Closing dairy and poultry farms. Producing meat accounts for 18% of all greenhouse gas emissions, so this would make both greens and PETA happy.

Eating all leftovers. Seattle has decreed that by 2009 single-family homes must recycle all table scraps—because their decomposition generates greenhouse gases—or have their garbage collection terminated.

Adopting “sustainable green technologies,” like the treadle-powered irrigation pumps environmentalists are sending to poor countries, to replace diesel pumps. An Indian villager toiling on his eco-bicycle for three years could offset the CO2 from one jetliner full of environmentalists heading to Bali.

Requiring that climate confabs be via video-conference—from Albania or Zambia, to discourage attendance by hordes of bureaucrats and activists. We might also insist that Al Gore and other politicians eschew private jets and take Smart Cars to campaign and global warming rallies.

Meanwhile, China is adding the equivalent of another Germany every year to global greenhouse emissions, says climatologist Roger Pielke. Thus, if CO2 really does cause climate change, all these sacrifices might prevent global temperatures from rising 0.2 degrees.

Adapting to whatever heat, cold, floods, droughts and storms nature (or mankind) might bring seems a much saner and less costly course of action.

Paul Driessen is author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power ∙ Black death (http://www.eco-imperialism.com/) and senior policy advisor for the Congress of Racial Equality and Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise, whose new book (Freezing in the Dark) reveals how environmental pressure groups raise money and promote policies that restrict energy development and hurt poor families.

The New US Energy Bill

We at CARE are honored that distinguished expert, Michael Economides, is willing to share his insights with us. Never at a loss for an opinion, the following is what he sent to us when we asked for his response to the energy bill that was signed last week:

“This is one of the silliest and most expensive, compared to the benefits, bills ever. The biofuels that they envisions do not even exist and will not amount to more than the expected INCREASE in conventional motor fuels. Biofuels do nothing for the environment, greenhouse gases or energy independence. Opening up ANWAR of just a little more offshore drilling would readily cover what they are supposed to do at no cost to the public.”

Potential Contributions from Renewables between 2007 and 2022

• Conventional Fuel Increase 18.6%
• Conventional Fuel Increase 15.7%
• Conventional Biofuels (2022) 5.0% – (e.g., corn-base ethanol)
• Total Biofuels (2022) 13.8% – Of which 21 billion gallons of unproven biofuels (1.37 million barrels per day)

Prof. Michael J. Economides, University of Houston and also Editor-in-Chief Energy Tribune Houston, TX

The Truth About “Alternative Energy”

With the passage of the new energy bill requiring increasing use of “alternative energy,” It seems appropriate to look into what all of this is going to cost and who it will impact—what is the energy reality? With that in mind, we at CARE are pleased to have received two specific postings from a couple members of our team of energy experts.

This first piece is from Roy Innis, national chairman of the Congress Of Racial Equality. You might wonder what a civil rights leader has to say about energy, or why he is even involved in this discussion. Think about it. As this posting and one we will post next indicate, there is no “free lunch.” All of this new technology—if it can even be developed—comes with a big price tag. While everyone wants abundant energy and a clean earth, no one wants to hurt the poor, elderly, or minority families. Yet, that is what we have just done with the newly-passed energy bill. Read Roy’s comments and tell us what you think? Does this change your viewpoint at all?

Why Coal-Generated Electricity is Vital to Our Energy Security
We often hear that “clean, free, inexhaustible” renewable energy can replace the “dirty” fossil fuels that sustain our economy. A healthy dose of energy reality is needed.

Fully 85% of America’s total energy comes from fossil fuels. Over half of its electricity comes from coal. Gas and nuclear generate 36% of its electricity.

Barely 1% comes from wind and solar. Coal-generated power typically costs less per kilowatt hour than alternatives–leaving families with more money for food, housing, transportation and healthcare.

By 2020, the United States will need 100,000 megawatts of new electricity, government, industry and utility company analysts forecast. Unreliable wind power simply cannot meet these demands.

Wind farms require big subsidies and vast stretches of land. To meet New York City’s electricity needs alone would require blanketing the entire state of Connecticut with towering turbines, says Rockefeller University Professor Jesse Ausubel. On a scale sufficient to meet the electricity needs of a modern society, wind power is not the silver bullet.

For three decades, US demand for natural gas has outpaced production. In fact, gas prices have tripled since 1998, to $13 per thousand cubic feet today, and every $1 increase costs US consumers an additional $22 billion a year.

With Congress and states making more gas prospects off limits every year, this trend is likely to continue—further driving up prices and forcing the US to import increasing amounts of even more expensive liquefied natural gas.

American consumers simply cannot afford to halt the construction of new coal-fired power plants, though some politicians, activists and even companies are trying to do exactly that.
As Kansas discovered after its environmental chief blocked a proposed new coal generator, coal projects also come with transmission lines to carry wind-generated electricity and more reliable coal-generated power. Wind farms typically do not. Now a dozen Kansas wind projects are also on hold.

Former Clinton Administration environment staffer Katy McGinty engineered the lockup of 7 billion tons of low sulfur Utah coal, worth $1 trillion. Current and proposed regulations would make it even more difficult and expensive to provide adequate coal-fired electricity.

But the facts support more coal use, not less.

Power plants fueled by coal are far less polluting than 30 years ago. Just since 1998, their annual sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions have declined another 28% and 43% respectively, according to air quality expert Joel Schwartz.

Coal-fired power plants are now the primary source of US mercury emissions only because the major sources (incinerating wastes and processing ores containing mercury) have been eliminated. US mercury emissions are now down 82% since the early 1980s, and new rules will eliminate most remaining mercury and other emissions by 2015.

That leaves carbon dioxide and catastrophic climate change as rationales for opposing coal. However, the latest UN-IPCC report again reduces projections for future temperature increases, polar melting and sea level rise. Moreover, increasing scientific evidence suggests only slight warming, climate change controlled primarily by solar cycles, and storm, drought and sea level trends in line with historical experience.

Yet, claims about imminent catastrophes became borderline hysterical, as delegates and activists traveled to the island paradise of Bali to promote a successor to the Kyoto Protocol.
They and the news media ignored the inconvenient truth that climate chaos horror stories are based almost entirely on computer models and digital disaster scenarios. They likewise ignored the fact that their air travel generated nearly 100,000 tons of carbon dioxide.

Meanwhile, US politicians are promoting initiatives like the Lieberman-Warner bill and Midwestern Governors Association climate pact, which they say will prevent a cataclysm, by slashing CO2 emissions by 60-80% and generating “thousands of megawatts” from wind energy.

If these initiatives become law, Senator Lieberman himself admits, they would cost the American economy “hundreds of billions” of dollars. Electricity rates would soar another 50% by 2012. Millions of lost jobs will be lost, labor unions predict, as companies shift operations to foreign countries.

Preeminent alarmists Al Gore and Hillary Clinton emit more CO2 in a week from the private jets they take to campaign, lecture and fund-raising events, than the average American does in a year. And yet the two are demanding a wholesale “transformation” of the US economy and living standards.

Mrs. Clinton says she is switching to compact fluorescent lightbulbs (CFLs), to save a few kilowatts. But CFLs contain mercury, and a nationwide switch to these bulbs could make them a more significant source of mercury than power plants. Mr. Gore justifies his emissions by noting that he gets (free) “carbon offset” indulgences from his company. He’s not offering free indulgences to the rest of us.

China and other rapidly developing countries will build 1,000 new coal plants during the next five years—with few of the pollution controls required in the USA. That means even major sacrifices by American workers and families won’t affect global temperatures, even if CO2 is the primary cause of global warming—which many scientists say is not the case.

We need every energy resource: oil, gas, coal, hydroelectric, nuclear—and wind, solar, geothermal and biomass.

We cannot replace 52% of our electricity (the coal-based portion) with technologies that currently provide only 1% of that power (mainly wind). Wind is a supplement, not an alternative.

We cannot generate electricity with hot air from politicians eager to create tax breaks, subsidies and “renewable energy mandates” for companies that produce alternative energy technologies—in exchange for campaign contributions from those companies.

We cannot afford to trash the energy we have, and substitute energy that exists only in campaign speeches and legislative decrees.

Doing so would leave a huge energy gap between what we need and what we will have. Poor, elderly and minority families can least afford such “energy policies.”

Roy Innis is national chairman of the Congress of Racial Equality, one of America’s oldest and most respected civil rights groups. This article is based on his testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives in December 2007.

The Church of Global Warming

Just when we were about to give up, thinking that the holidays had stifled the energy thinkers, this new piece arrived in CARE’s in-box. You see it had been a couple of weeks since we had received something fresh and new, something to get our collective blood pumping. Fortunately, we had not given up—and we will not (that comment was in jest). If we had, you might have missed out on this priceless gem of commentary Written by Dr. Jack Wheeler on Friday, 7 December 2007 . We have previously posted one of his other articles, which if you have not read it, you should go back and review. This one is classic. We think you’ll laugh out loud and then want to pass it on to everyone you know. If you agree and like it, please let us know. If you hate it and think we are totally off base, please tell us why.

A Religion Far More Dangerous that Romney's
Most religions contain beliefs and practices than adherents of other religions consider off-the-wall weird. But no matter how strange stuff like wearing sacred underwear may seem to some (there's actually an official site explaining it: Mormon Underwear), it's very hard to see how the religion of Mormonism is dangerous to our national security.

Mitt Romney's speech yesterday (12/06) should dispel any real concern that his faith somehow disqualifies him for the presidency. I encourage you to read his speech entire, for it's impressive.

Yet there is a religion that is in fact a grave danger to America, and believing in it should disqualify anyone aspiring to the presidency. It's not an alien faith of foreign invention like Islam, but homegrown, originating right here in the US. Among the members of its church are many of our country's most prominent citizens, including several presidential candidates.

I refer, of course, to the Church of Global Warming.

We've gone over the scientific lunacy of the glowarmers.[1] What needs to be understood is how this Liberal Religion, believed in with all the fanatical passion of true religious zealotry, is so gravely dangerous to America's national security.

Let's take a look, for example, at the deep connection between the threat of "Sharia finance," discussed this week by Frank Gaffney in The Islamofascists' Trillion Dollar Trojan Horse, and glowarm alarmism.

Where do Moslems get a trillion dollars with which to Islamacize our financial institutions? Oil.

Or just how did Vladimir Putin become The World's Richest and Most Dangerous Gangster, enabling Russia to restart the Cold War and become once again a threat to the West? Oil and natural gas.

Or what gives the world's most obnoxious thug, Hugo Chavez, the wherewithal to be Fidel Castro on steroids? Oil.

We import their oil and we give them the money affording them to become our enemies.

So what would any sane rational politician advocate as an energy policy regarding national security? Obviously it would be to promote the increase of domestic oil production, and that of its effective substitutes, coal and natural gas.

And that is precisely what the Democrats in Congress, as members of the Church of Global Warming, are hysterically, fanatically in a true religious sense, opposed to.

Yesterday (12/06), the House passed what its sponsors call the Energy Independence and Security Act by vote of 235-181 (221 Dems/14 Reps yes, 174 Reps/7 Dems no). Its title could not be more Orwellian, the exact opposite of what it claims to be. There is absolutely nothing in the bill to promote the increase of domestic energy production.

Day before yesterday (12/05), the Senate Environment & Public Works Committee rejected the Vitter Amendment, the stated purpose of which is "To reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil by permitting, under certain circumstances, the exploration for natural gas off the coast of certain states."

The bill points out that the US Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) "has enough natural gas to heat 100 million homes for 60 years, and enough oil to drive 85 million cars for 35 years," yet Congress will not permit its extraction.

Just think of how many hundreds of billions of dollars wouldn't go to the Islamofascists, Putins, and Chavezes of the world if Congress lifted its prohibition.

All 10 Democrats on the committee voted against doing so. Of the 9 Republicans, 8 were for it, with 1 (John Warner) voting "present."

In that same E&PW committee meeting, a vote was taken to approve a bill to set caps on U.S. greenhouse gas emissions from electric utility, transportation and manufacturing industries (all Dems+Warner for, 8 Reps against). There simply can not be a more pathological attempt to destroy the American economy than this.

The timing of the vote was to put pressure on the Bush Administration to capitulate to the demands being made right now at the orgy of America-bashing taking place in Bali, Indonesia.

189 countries, including our former friend Australia (now run by glowarmer fanatic Kevin Rudd), are ganging up on us, demanding we castrate our own economy with "mandatory" greenhouse gas cuts.

To his great courageous credit, George Bush instructed his Senior Climate Negotiator, Harlan Watson, to tell the glowarmers in Bali to fugettaboutit. Thanks for sharing is Watson's response.

Yet this is just a holding action, playing defense. And we're not going to have Bush to play even defense for much longer.

The only hope is to have someone in the White House 13 months from now who isn't a member of the Church of Global Warming, understands how dangerous their religion is to our economy and national security, and has the moxie to call for more, lots more coal, oil, and gas production in the US, not less.

Well, that lets McCain and Huckabee out - both card-carrying members of the CoGW.

Fred Thompson? Mr. "Climate change is real"? Rudy Giuliani? Mr. "I do believe there's global warming"?

Nonetheless, Rudy is quoted as saying:"

America has more coal reserves than Saudi Arabia has oil reserves. Aren't we safer and better off relying on our own coal reserves than on a part of the world that is a threat to us?"

And Mitt? While he seems to buy into the ethanol scam (need the votes of those corn farmers in Iowa), he asserts:

"I believe we have to be developing more energy sources ourselves, which would include offshore drilling and drilling in ANWR, nuclear power, biodiesel, biofuel, ethanol, cellulosic ethanol, probably liquefied coal. We have enormous supplies of coal."

But what is not needed is what media reports say both Romney and Giuliani advocate: "an effort to make the United States energy independent that will be on the scale of putting a man on the Moon or the race to build an atomic bomb."

Great. Another gigantic government mega-project. What is needed is to get the government out of the way, and let domestic energy producers get the stuff out of the ground or off our shores that we need to run and expand our economy.

What is needed most of all is to expose the Democrat presidential candidates and the leaders of the Democrat Party as glowarmer religious kooks. The closest any of our guys have come is for Ron Paul to denounce global warming alarmism in general as "fearmongering," and Tom Tancredo to answer, when asked what was the last fiction book he's read, "Algore's An Inconvenient Truth."

Only when Americans realize that the most dangerous religion in America is the Church of Global Warming, and that the real Church-State issue is the attempt by the Church's high priests in the Democrat Party to impose their religion upon us all by government force and guns, will we be able to protect ourselves from Islamofascist crazies and other global thugs.

Written by Dr. Jack Wheeler