Dem's appoint “leading environmentalist” to platform committee

This week, in a concession to Presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders, the Democratic National Committee announced that one of his five appointees to the party’s platform committee would be “leading environmentalist” and 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben, a noted climate change theory evangelist and leader in the “keep it in the ground” movement. Alex Epstein of the Center for Industrial Progress said the movement should be called, “put people in the ground,” as these policies will directly lead to incalculable premature deaths. According to the non-partisan Energy Information Agency, world energy consumption in 2040 will be 30 percent petroleum and other liquid fuels, 26 percent natural gas, and 22 percent coal. Secretary Jewell is right, this stuff is not going away anytime soon. The EIA predicts 16 percent of energy consumption will be renewables and nuclear will account for about 6 percent in 2040. By the way, the EIA also recently announced that energy-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions fell in 2015 and are now 12 percent below the 2005 levels, mostly because of changes in the electric power sector. The problem is that the facts do not support the President in this regard. In a recent hearing House Science Committee Chairman Lamar Smith said that the president attempts to justify his actions with “scare tactics, worst-case scenarios and biased data.” Specifically, statements that attempt to link extreme weather events to climate change are unfounded. Smith said, “The lack of evidence is clear: no increased tornadoes, no increased hurricanes, no increased droughts or floods. The United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) found that there is “low confidence” that drought has increased in intensity or duration. The same lack of evidence can be found in the IPCC reports for almost every type of extreme weather...more