First of all, Spencer claims that the reason there is so much support for saving the planet is not so much any actual danger, but just some spiritual need to attach one's self to a cause. That has no actual basis in reality, seeing that the claims for global warming are scientific and not based on religious beliefs. This is more of a matter of projection, where Spencer, being the fundamentalist creationist that he is, ASSumes that the other person is just like him. He continues:

After all, who wouldn’t want to Save the Earth? I certainly would. If I really believed that manmade global warming was a serious threat to life on Earth, I would be actively campaigning to ‘fix’ the problem.

But there are two practical problems with the theory of anthropogenic global warming: (1) global warming is (or at least was) likely to be a mostly natural process; and (2) even if global warming is manmade, it will be immensely difficult to avoid further warming without new energy technologies that do not currently exist.

First of all, he lamely admits that Al Gore may well be right all along. But then, he laughably sets himself up as the anti-Obama, if you will -- No We Can't. One of the main reasons for our existence as Americans is the belief that we can succeed where others fail. Nobody thought that we could build a democratic system of government from scratch. The Nazis thought that we could not simultaneously fight them and the Japanese at the same time. Nobody thought that 12 years after the Russians launched the first satellite into space that we would go to the moon. The question I have for Dr. Spencer is, what the hell are we doing on this planet if we do not make the most use of our talents? That is the fundamental question that is begging to be asked.

But he continues:

The Free Market Makes Waxman-Markey Unnecessary

There are several serious problems with cap-and-trade. In the big picture, as Europe has found out, it will damage the economy. This is simply because there are as yet no large-scale, practical, and cost-competitive replacements for fossil fuels. As a result, if you punish fossil fuel use with either taxes or by capping how much energy is allowed to be used, you punish the economy.

First of all, being the creationist that he is, I fail to find where "free markets" are found in the Bible. What I do find is that God gave mankind the responsibility for creation and that therefore, man is responsible for the creation as a matter of stewardship. We are specifically called on to be keepers of our fellow man. We are called on to stewards of God's creation -- for instance, David slept in the fields every night so that he could protect his sheep from predators. Jesus held as a high example of stewardship the man who would go off and leave the 99 sheep so that he could find the one lost sheep and restore it to the flock.

And Spencer is creating the usual Republican false choice between the environment and the economy. He is either ignorant or willfully blind to the existence of the Apollo Alliance, which seeks to combine environmental and economic policy. Whereas Obama told us, "Yes we can," Dr. Roy Spencer tells us, "No we can't." And if Spencer would care to take a look at the DK Greenroots and the DK Environmentalists and thousands of other such groups, he will see for himself that there are plenty of cost-competitive replacements for fossil fuels. Chevy, Ford, and Chrysler all have cars that are going to be much more fuel efficient than today's cars.

He continues:

Now, if you are under the illusion that cap-and-trade will result in the development of high-tech replacements for fossil fuels, you do not understand basic economics. No matter how badly you might want it, you can not legislate a time-travel machine into existence. Space-based solar power might sound really cool, but the cost of it would be astronomical (no pun intended), and it could only provide the tiniest fraction of our energy needs. Wind power goes away when the wind stops, and is only practical in windy parts of the country. Land-based solar power goes away when the sun sets, and is only practical in the sunny Southwest U.S. While I personally favor nuclear power, it takes forever to license and build a nuclear power plant, and it would take 1,000 1-gigawatt nuclear power plants to meet electricity demand in the United States.

And no one wants any of these facilities near where they live.

But in fact, Obama has a plan in place to use offshore wind turbines, where there is enough wind, to power the entire nation.

Wind turbines off U.S. coastlines could potentially supply more than enough electricity to meet the nation’s current electricity demand, the Interior Department reported Thursday.

Simply harnessing the wind in relatively shallow waters—the most accessible and technically feasible sites for offshore turbines—could produce at least 20 percent of the power demand for most coastal states, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said, unveiling a report by the department’s Minerals Management Service that details the potential for oil, gas and renewable development on the Outer Continental Shelf.

The biggest wind potential lies off the Atlantic Coast, which the report estimates could produce 1,000 gigawatts of electricity—enough to meet a quarter of the national demand. The report also notes large potential in the Pacific, including off the California coast, but in much deeper waters that could pose more challenges for turbines.

The train has already left the station, and Dr. Roy Spencer is left parroting arguments that have already been discredited.

If Cap and Trade fails in the Senate, then what we should do is engage in a national effort to make alternative energy more affordable -- if we quadruple our research dollars towards these current programs and we should create more scholarship opportunities for students who demonstrate an ability to provide solutions for our energy crisis. That is something that we can all agree on, and even Dr. Spencer might be receptive to.

Spencer's next argument is that if we pass cap and trade, companies would simply move overseas. But the problem is that we are well behind the rest of the world even though we are one of the biggest polluters -- we were one of the few nations not to sign Kyoto, and we cause 1/4 of the world's pollution even though we have only 3% of the world's population. By passing cap and trade, we are simply putting ourselves in line with the standards of the rest of the world, meaning that it is highly unlikely that companies would leave this country as the result of our passage of cap and trade.

Spencer then argues that cap and trade is vulnerable to gaming the system by cooking the books. But the problem with that argument is that any system is vulnerable to cooking the books without proper safeguards. Any such program will work with proper safeguards; no such program will work without such safeguards. By his logic, we might as well not institute any government programs at all, since one could make that sort of argument about anything under the sun. As long as there is human greed and vice, any system is vulnerable to being gamed. Cap and trade is no different.

Spencer then argues that cap and trade would not accomplish its objective because energy companies would simply pass on their increased costs to their customers. That might happen, but then customers would simply cut back on their energy usage, which is the whole purpose of this bill. Or energy companies could decide that it is no longer affordable to produce dirty forms of energy and produce cleaner forms instead.

Spencer than claims that coal is much more efficient than wind, meaning that it would be grossly inefficient to create 5,000 jobs to create wind farms that you could create 1,000 jobs to create coal energy with. But it turns out that for the first time in history, solar is now cheaper than coal:

Their mission: to deliver cost-efficient solar electricity. The Nanosolar company was founded in 2002 and is working to build the world's largest solar cell factory in California and the world's largest panel-assembly factory in Germany. They have successfully created a solar coating that is the most cost-efficient solar energy source ever. Their PowerSheet cells contrast the current solar technology systems by reducing the cost of production from $3 a watt to a mere 30 cents per watt. This makes, for the first time in history, solar power cheaper than burning coal. These coatings are as thin as a layer of paint and can transfer sunlight to power at amazing efficiency. Although the underlying technology has been around for years, Nanosolar has created the actual technology to manufacture and mass produce the solar sheets. The Nanosolar plant in San Jose, once in full production in 2008, will be capable of producing 430 megawatts per year. This is more than the combined total of every other solar manufacturer in the U.S.

And in parts of Maryland, wind power is already cheaper than coal.

And if Spencer is right about his claim that China would simply manufacture the equipment needed to produce wind and solar due to tougher regulations here, then that is an argument to ease regulations to make it easier to produce solar and wind equipment, not an argument against cap and trade.

So, for Spencer, what is the alternative?

If anthropogenic global warming does end up being a serious problem, then what can be done to move away from fossil fuels? I would say: Encourage economic growth, and burn fossil fuels like there is no tomorrow! Increased demand will lead to higher prices, and as long as the free market is allowed to work, new energy technologies will be developed.

As long a demand exists for energy (and it always will), there will be people who find ways to meet that demand. There is no need for silly awards for best inventions, etc., because the market value of those inventions will far exceed the value of any gimmicky, government-sponsored competitions.

That is what we have been doing for the last few decades. The party's over. And I find it highly ironic that someone who is a promoter of creationism would encourage an ethic of burning stuff like there is no tomorrow, since his own Bible encourages the concept of delayed gratification. Last time I checked, we were supposed to lay up treasures in heaven, not burn stuff like there was no tomorrow. I seem to remember a certain businessman who thought that he had it all and who died that very night.

And it is obvious that Spencer, while purporting to base his beliefs on his creationism, also holds the following radical right-wing notion:

The idea that our government exists to help enable a better life for its citizens might have been true 100 years ago, but today it is hopelessly naïve.

In other words, government is the problem, not the solution. But I would argue that the reality is the opposite -- Spencer is pushing a discredited ideology that was shown to be a failure by the Hoover years. The notion that government has to stay out of the way and do nothing was tried back in the "return to normalcy" 1920's, and it was shown to be a complete failure. All it did was create the cycle of boom and bust that led to the Great Depression. And this notion also drove thousands of farmers out of business in the 1980's and it created the boom and bust of the Bush years where millions of people lost their jobs and homes. The fallout is still continuing today, as evidenced by the rise in the unemployment rate to 9.5%.

Spencer's Jesus is very much different from the Jesus of the Bible -- the Jesus of the Bible stated that he would not hold us accountable for calling him, "Lord, Lord," but by how we treated our fellow man. Paul warns that if we don't provide for our relatives who cannot take care of themselves, then we are worse than an unbeliever; that would mean that we have an obligation to provide a better life for our children and grandchildren than the place we have. And there is no distinction between mankind and government; Amos specifically took the government of the time to task for failing to provide for the poor.