Happy Halloween!

The latest news:

Scientists at MIT have recorded a nearly simultaneous world-wide increase in methane levels. This is the first increase in ten years, and what baffles science is that this data contradicts theories stating man is the primary source of increase for this greenhouse gas. It takes about one full year for gases generated in the highly industrial northern hemisphere to cycle through and reach the southern hemisphere. However, since all worldwide levels rose simultaneously throughout the same year, it is now believed this may be part of a natural cycle in mother nature – and not the direct result of man’s contributions.

Hat tip: Marc Morano, who hat-tipped Tom Nelson.

Well, Investors Business Daily isn’t pulling punches this morning:

The gap between the presidential candidates’ policies is as wide as the chasm between their parties. McCain prefers proven sources while Obama supports the fantasies pushed by environmentalists.

Think all efforts to reduce carbon are good? Think again. David Kreutzer and Karen Campbell crunched some numbers regarding the potential fallout from the EPA’s Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, which could end up regulating just about everything in our lives — from lawnmowers to supertankers, according to Heritage. More specifically, they find:

1. Cumulative gross domestic product (GDP) losses are nearly $7 trillion by 2029 (in infla tion-adjusted 2008 dollars), according to The Heritage Foundation/Global Insight model (described in Appendix A).
2. Single-year GDP losses exceed $600 billion (in inflation-adjusted 2008 dollars).
3. Annual job losses exceed 800,000 for several years.
4. Some industries will see job losses that exceed 50 percent.

“Ugg” doesn’t begin to cover the misery. Read the whole Heritage article for more.

David Ridenour argues:

In the United Kingdom, green tariffs already account for 14% of the average electricity bill. Yet only 2% of Britain’s energy needs are met by renewables.

To meet its renewable target of 15%, these fees will have to be raised even further, increasing the number of Britons suffering from “fuel poverty,” defined as spending 10% or more of income on energy. Over 4 million Britons currently qualify as fuel-impoverished.

Imposing such costs on Americans promises to do for the economy what Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae did for banking. We should bail out before it’s too late. Let’s hope that this is one bailout plan all Americans can get behind.

Just thought we’d pass this along:

Trade aside, no issue is of greater consequence to FedEx than energy policy. FedEx consumes 1.3 billion gallons of jet fuel a year, and is the largest user of energy in the world next to the U.S. military. Mr. Smith sits on the board of the Energy Security Leadership Council, which issued a report a few months ago advocating a huge expansion of domestic energy supply. How do we do this?

“Two things,” he insists. “The first is we should maximize oil production in the United States in every respect. Everything, offshore, Alaska, shale, nonconventional, coal to liquid, gas to liquid, and nuclear. Let the market work.

“Second, and this is where I am an apostate on the free market, and also where I disagree in the main with, with Boone Pickens,” Mr. Smith adds. “The United States has only one real way to reduce our dependence on foreign petroleum, in terms of reducing demand while we’re increasing our domestic supply, and that is to electrify the short haul transportation system, to go to battery powered cars. The technology that brought us laptops and cell phones has reached a point where these lithium ion batteries can now produce cars like the Chevy Volt and the new plug-in Toyota Prius.” Many FedEx trucks are already using this technology, though he admits they aren’t yet cost efficient but are 42% more fuel efficient.

Joseph Rago today:

Cap and trade. Mr. McCain’s cap-and-trade stance is more market friendly: He would allow its built-in incentives to motivate the investments and behavioral changes necessary for a postcarbon economy. Mr. McCain would also include offsets, which allow businesses to meet their emissions targets by paying someone else to reduce carbon usage. Offsets would reduce the overall burden of a carbon program but would also result in fewer real emission cuts.

Mr. Obama is stricter, overlaying his cap-and-trade agenda with an array of federal mandates, regulations and subsidies. He would increase the ethanol and biofuel production requirement to 60 billion gallons a year by 2030 — 67% higher than the current goal. Mr. Obama would also double fuel-economy standards for cars and trucks; mandate that all new vehicles are flex-fuel, which means able to run on any blend of gasoline and ethanol; require that all new buildings are carbon-neutral by 2030, in addition to multiple other efficiency rules to discourage energy consumption; and detail a 10-year, $150 billion project of government-directed research into alternative energy technologies.

It’s worth clicking over for the whole article, which covers global warming, carbon auctions, nuclear power, coal, and fossil fuels.

Let’s wait and see how the global warming alarmists at Greenpeace, who also hate nuclear energy, feel about this notion:

Nuclear-powered aircraft may sound like a concept from Thunderbirds, but they will be transporting millions of passengers around the world later this century, the leader of a Government-funded project to reduce environmental damage from aviation believes.

The consolation of sitting a few yards from a nuclear reactor will be non-stop flights from London to Australia or New Zealand, because the aircraft will no longer need to land to refuel. The flights will also produce no carbon emissions and therefore make no contribution to global warming.

Will misguided global warming “solutions” be sweet investments or bitter disappointments?  That’s the question from our latest GoredEarth.com cartoon. Please pass it around with a link!

• Brr, Global Warming Sought … Record low temps in 10 states
• Story Worried That Global Warming Lights A Reef-er: “New Study Says Global Warming Heaping More Pressure On Fragile Coral Reefs”
  
• Company rushes to cash in on global warming fears … news at 11
• Deniers Author Larry Solomon: Oversold environmentalism about to take a tumble
• Environmental reporter says scientists don’t know as much as he does about global warming
• Wind warning: “What the citizens of San Francisco and, for that matter, the rest of the nation, don’t understand is that even in the best locations, wind turbines produce power only about one third of the time”