US Government Wasted $79 billion On Climate Change Studies!

This was pointed out on DrudgeReport this week:

The Science and Public Policy Institute announces the publication of Climate Money, a study by Joanne Nova revealing that the federal Government has a near-monopsony on climate science funding. This distorts the science towards self-serving alarmism. Key findings:

Ø The US Government has spent more than $79 billion of taxpayers’ money since 1989 on policies related to climate change, including science and technology research, administration, propaganda campaigns, foreign aid, and tax breaks. Most of this spending was unnecessary. - Link

Notice that the money was not spent trying to directly reduce pollution related to climate change. What a waste. Really, at $5 a bulb, the United States could have given every American 10 energy-saving compact florescent light bulbs for only $15 billion. (Many of these bulbs now cost much less than that.) That is probably enough money to change every incandescent light bulb in American and still would have left $64 billion for other projects.

Hell, given the way that the Government has been trying to bribe people to do stuff, they could have paid people $5 for each bulb they replaced with a (free Government-supplied) CFL and still have close to $50 billion for other carbon-reducing activities.

How big a savings would this mean for the US? Lots:

For two decades, CFLs lacked precisely what we expect from lightbulbs: strong, unwavering light; quiet; not to mention shapes that actually fit in the places we use bulbs. Now every one of those problems has been conquered. The bulbs come on quickly; their light is bright, white, steady, and silent; and the old U-shaped tubes--they looked like bulbs from a World War II submarine--have mostly been replaced by the swirl. Since 1985, CFLs have changed as much as cell phones and portable music players.

One thing hasn't changed: the energy savings. Compact fluorescents emit the same light as classic incandescents but use 75% or 80% less electricity.

What that means is that if every one of 110 million American households bought just one ice-cream-cone bulb, took it home, and screwed it in the place of an ordinary 60-watt bulb, the energy saved would be enough to power a city of 1.5 million people. One bulb swapped out, enough electricity saved to power all the homes in Delaware and Rhode Island. In terms of oil not burned, or greenhouse gases not exhausted into the atmosphere, one bulb is equivalent to taking 1.3 million cars off the roads.

That's the law of large numbers--a small action, multiplied by 110 million.

The single greatest source of greenhouse gases in the United States is power plants--half our electricity comes from coal plants. One bulb swapped out: enough electricity saved to turn off two entire power plants--or skip building the next two.

Just one swirl per home. The typical U.S. house has between 50 and 100 "sockets" (astonish yourself: Go count the bulbs in your house). So what if we all bought and installed two ice-cream-cone bulbs? Five? Fifteen? - Fast Company

Instead, we got nothing. This is what the Government has done for 'Climate change'. Imagine what they will do with health care.

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