Parting Shots: Global warming claims politicizing the energy debate

Apr 30, 2012 | 07:00 PM | Thomas C. Graham

Tags  Parting Shots, global warming, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Thomas Graham

Claims of global warming and allegations that the burning of fossil fuels sends carbon dioxide "pollution" into the atmosphere are morphing into a potential football of global proportions.

Certainly, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which has assumed the self-appointed role of carbon dioxide police, seems intent on banning the consumption of coal as a fuel for any purpose, while the Energy Department and the Interior Department are throttling back the use of the "evil" energy sources oil and natural gas (by bureaucratically delaying actions) and they lead the continuing headlong rush (with taxpayer money) toward the frenzied development of wind and solar sources. Major tax funding is being used to finance radical battery research to solve the obvious dilemma of what to do with fluctuating supply and demand factors, which plague both wind and solar sources. Government money also is committed to solve the glaring geographic disparity between where wind and solar energy can be generated and where customer demand presently exists. And there is a federal research effort under way seeking a method to strip carbon dioxide from....