By Joe Petrowski
Economists, business people scientists and public policy makers are chastised as luddites, non-believers, unscientific and worse when we take caution against significant and costly changes in energy policy that demonize hydrocarbons and embrace green energy with religious fervor. Let’s deal with the facts and examine the dangers.
Yes the earth is warming (slightly and there is little doubt humans are a contributing factor (in the spirit of full disclosure I like humans and believe in freedom of travel, economic development and moderating the climate using energy). But the extrapolation of global temperatures is extreme and far from “certain.” In fact the earth has alternately warmed and cooled over 100,000 years and there is some evidence that it may be entering a cooling phase given the growth in the Greenland sheet.
Also, humans are not only not the sole cause of warming, but may not even be the greatest influence among volcanoes, methane vents, solar radiation and even bovines and organic decay. Further, in the broad scope of history cold, rather than heat, has been the greatest threat to humans. And while there are risks to certain third-world countries and coastal inhabitants, there are benefits to much of North America, The USSR and North Asia from increasing growing seasons.
A recent UN report stated that North American Agriculture actually produced more oxygen and removed more CO2 than the Amazon rain forest. And as to “certainty”–every decent forecaster knows the danger of certainty of long dated events and the history of scientific certainty. For example: bloodletting, injecting bleach into tumors, the coming ice age, that horse manure production would overwhelm New York City, “Famine 1975,” we will run out of petroleum… It is simply non-numeric and non-probabilistic and not unscientific to be skeptical of the extrapolated predictions 50 years out. Similarly, it’s no unscientific to be skeptical of their affect and the cure (limiting human advancement and freedom and economic development).
Call me a skeptic but I need to be suspicious (why I have never donated to the Clinton Foundation) when the cure for this “danger” is always among:
1) More government power and control
2) Higher Taxes
3) 88 billion subsidies in the US per year for political contributors shaded green ($3,000 per second) and 5 trillion world wide
4) Wealth transfer from the United States to third world countries
5) Reliance on compliance from other industrial powers like the Chinese (yeah that is a real Gucci Bag and Rolex watch)
It is reasonable to embrace policies that remove particulates, nitrous- oxide and sulfur- dioxide from the air and water but to spend $200,000 per second worldwide, kill entire industries and arrest economic development and human advancement over a substance that comes out the front end of a human and back end of a farm animal seems simply daffy (apologies to Disney). Also, to support natural gas, hydrogen efficiency and biofuels, which I do, is not inconsistent. Diverse domestic fuels is in the nation’s economic and security interest, and research and development and higher productivity is always beneficial when it originates from the private sector for wealth creation.
This is not unscientific but just common sense from someone who has spent a lifetime forecasting and seeing how policy and laws are made.
Joe Petrowski has had a long career in international commodity trading, energy and retail management and public policy development. In 2005, he was named President and CEO of Gulf Oil LP and elected to the Gulf Oil LP Board of Directors. In October of 2008 he was named CEO of the now combined Gulf Oil and Cumberland Farms whose annual revenues exceed $11 billion and that now operates in 27 states. In September 2013, Petrowski stepped down as CEO of The Cumberland Gulf Group. He is now managing director of Mercantor Partners, a private equity firm investing in convenience and energy distribution, and a member of the Gulf board.
