Eco-sailors, Free Speech Restrictions and Global Warming Legislation
A group of “eco-sailors” is rescued from dangerous weather conditions by the crew of an oil tanker.
A new bill would punish hostile speech online with up to two years in prison.
Debate rages over controversial global warming legislation sponsored by Reps. Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Ed Markey (D-MA).
For more news, listen to the LibertyWeek podcast here.
1. ENVIRONMENT
A group of “eco-sailors” is rescued from dangerous weather conditions by the crew of an oil tanker.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Senior Fellow Marlo Lewis on the lesson we can learn from the event:
“The irony of an oil tanker rescuing anti-fossil fuel crusaders was of course not lost on the BBC. The moral of the story should be obvious. Environmentalism is a luxury made possible by the comparative wealth and safety of a civilization powered predominantly by coal, oil, and natural gas. Restricting and, ultimately, prohibiting fossil energy use is a recipe for disaster and death.”
2. LEGAL
A new bill would punish hostile speech online with up to two years in prison.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Special Projects Counsel Hans Bader on why the legislation violates the First Amendment:
“The bill is a telling example of how the American Left has turned against free speech and civil liberties. The bill’s sponsor, Linda Sanchez (D-CA), and nearly all of her 14 co-sponsors are liberals. All of them backed the federal hate-crimes bill passed by the House yesterday, which is designed to allow people who have been found innocent in state court to be re-prosecuted in federal court. That bill has been criticized by four members of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, including law professor Gail Heriot, and by civil libertarian Wendy Kaminer. Advocates of the federal hate-crimes bill once cited the defendants in the Duke Lacrosse case, who were innocent, as an example of people who should be prosecuted in federal court.”
3. CONGRESS
Debate rages over controversial global warming legislation sponsored by Reps. Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Ed Markey (D-MA).
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Senior Fellow Marlo Lewis on the effect the Waxman-Markey bill would have on the climate:
“To calculate the climatic effects of the bill, Chip [Knappenberger] uses the…climate model developed by the National Center for Climate Research, and assumes a climate sensitivity of 3°C (in other words, a doubling of atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations above pre-industrial levels is assumed to produce 3°C of warming). [The model] reveals that an 83% reduction in U.S. emissions ‘will only produce a global temperature “savings” during the next 50 years of about 0.05ºC.’ Translating a bit, the temperature reduction is nine hundredths of one degree Fahrenheit, or two years of avoided warming.”
Listen to LibertyWeek, the CEI podcast, here.