Kamis, 26 Maret 2009

Is This Happening in Your State?

by Paul Chesser, Climate Strategies Watch
March 25, 2009 @ 10:34 am

Last fall my Carolina Journal colleague David Bass reported about how North Carolina’s Division of Air Quality (and their counterparts in other states) recruited companies they regulate to “voluntarily” become members of the nonprofit Climate Registry, and pay for the privilege of reporting their greenhouse gas emissions (again, no pressure!). Brock Nicholson, NCDAQ’s deputy director at the time, helped launch the Registry, joined its board, got NCDAQ to pay $100,000 for it, traveled on its behalf, and recruited other states to join — all on the North Carolina taxpayers’ dime.

Last month David explained in more detail Nicholson’s activities on behalf of the Registry.

Today his latest story is posted, in which David explains how half of North Carolina’s contribution to the Registry was paid for out of state gas tax revenues:

Former DAQ deputy director Brock Nicholson, who served on the Climate Registry’s board of directors and executive committee, said the funds paid by DAQ were temporary.

“Those were up-front fees to help seed the registry. We don’t anticipate that will ever be paid again,” he said.

Nicholson said North Carolina is benefiting from its partnership with the registry. “This is the foundational work for a program to identify emissions, and then therefore emissions reductions projects that [have] monetary value to our sources in North Carolina,” he said.

So, while North Carolina’s decaying road system continues to fall into disrepair amid cries that gas tax revenues are insufficient to maintain it, environmental bureaucrats are taking it upon themselves to use those same public funds to “seed” an outside, faux-regulatory agency that is unaccountable to voters/citizens/taxpayers. Oh, and an agency that will accomplish nothing to improve human health conditions.

It’s very likely this has happened in your state also.

From http://www.globalwarming.org/

Chris Horner to Debate in Denver area

by Paul Chesser, Climate Strategies Watch
March 25, 2009 @ 1:23 pm

Not Al Gore, but a local alarmist:

“Global Warming: Is the Kyoto Agenda Warranted?”
Noted Scholars Debate the Environmental, Economic, and Political Impact of Past and Present International Climate Efforts

March 25, 2009 – This April, the public is invited to hear Dr. James White and Christopher Horner discuss opposing views on the global climate debate, specifically in regard to the Kyoto Protocol. Sponsored by the Centennial Institute of Colorado Christian University, the debate is scheduled for April 8, 7:30-9:00 p.m., in the Lakewood Cultural Center, 470 S. Allison Pkwy., Lakewood, 80226.

The debate topic will be “Global Warming: Is the Kyoto Agenda Warranted?” Dr. White, taking the affirmative, is a professor of geological sciences as well as a fellow and the director of INSTAAR at the University of Colorado-Boulder. He specializes in global change, paleoclimate dynamics, and biogeochemistry. Christopher Horner, taking the opposite position, is a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) in Washington, D.C. As an attorney, he has represented CEI, scientists, and members of the U.S. House and Senate on matters of environmental policy in federal courts, and he is the author of two books on the climate issue.

Ought to be at least as good as William Schlesinger vs. John Christy.

From http://www.globalwarming.org/

$2 Trillion Tax from Obama: Hidden Costs of “Cap-and-Trade” Scheme

by Hans Bader
March 24, 2009 @ 3:00 pm

Obama’s proposed “cap-and-trade” carbon tax on energy use and utility bills is expected to raise up to $2 trillion, more than the $646 billion the Administration earlier estimated. The Washington Examiner’s Tim Carney explains how this hidden tax works.

(Before his election, Obama explained that electricity bills would “skyrocket” under his Administration, but the press by and large wasn’t interested in reporting it).

The $2 trillion raised by Obama’s cap-and-trade scheme may be dwarfed by the money made, at consumers’ expense, by well-connected corporations that have learned how to game such schemes.

It won’t put much of a dent in the $4.8 trillion in additional debt resulting from Obama’s proposed budget, or the $8 trillion in spending commitments incurred by the Obama Administration (not counting another trillion dollars for the toxic-asset buy-up program and $800 billion for the economy-shrinking “stimulus” package), all of which contradict Obama’s campaign pledge of a “net spending cut.”

But you sure will notice it in your electric bills if it becomes a reality.

From http://www.globalwarming.org/

Selasa, 24 Maret 2009

A Global Green New Deal - What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

by Iain Murray
March 19, 2009 @ 9:31 am

Showing that he believes Al Gore’s typical misunderstanding that the Chinese word for crisis is made up of the characters for threat and opportunity (it isn’t), Achim Steiner, head of the UN Environment Program, has said that the global financial crisis provides an opportunity for a global green new deal:

The UNEP report said investments of one percent of global gross domestic product, or about $750 billion, could bankroll a “Global Green New Deal” inspired by the “New Deal” of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt that helped end the depression of the 1930s. [sic]

Investments should be split between more energy efficient buildings, renewable energies, better transport, improved agriculture and measures to safeguard nature — such as fresh water, forests or coral reefs, it said.

The $750bn bill would be paid for by - you guessed it - a tax on oil in rich countries:

“If, for argument’s sake, you were to put a five-year levy in OECD countries of $5 a barrel, you would generate $100 billion per annum. It translates into roughly 3 cents per liter,” he said.

“It would be almost, if not totally, unnoticed by the consumer,” he said, especially since oil prices have fallen from more than $140 a barrel at mid-2008 peaks to about $40.

A barrel of oil contains 158 liters and OECD consumption is about 20 billion barrels a year, he said. “This is just one example, there may be many others,” of funding, he said.

Ah, the “unnoticable” tax - the revenue stream with no consequences, the Holy Grail of socialists and their fellow travelers. While perhaps not noticable at the gas pump, such a tax would be noticable at the aggregate level of the economy. But why worry about a few jobs lost there, a few families forced into poverty here? It all leads to a much better world in terms of renewable energy, no?

Well, no. As is beginning to dawn on some people, the scale of the problem when it comes to CO2 is far beyond the ability of current renewable technology to solve:

The world used 14 trillion watts (14 terawatts) of power in 2006. Assuming minimal population growth (to 9 billion people), slow economic growth (1.6 percent a year, practically recession level) and—this is key—unprecedented energy efficiency (improvements of 500 percent relative to current U.S. levels, worldwide), it will use 28 terawatts in 2050. (In a business-as-usual scenario, we would need 45 terawatts.) Simple physics shows that in order to keep CO2 to 450 ppm, 26.5 of those terawatts must be zero-carbon. That’s a lot of solar, wind, hydro, biofuels and nuclear, especially since renewables kicked in a measly 0.2 terawatts in 2006 and nuclear provided 0.9 terawatts. Are you a fan of nuclear? To get 10 terawatts, less than half of what we’ll need in 2050, [Cal Tech scientist Nate] Lewis calculates, we’d have to build 10,000 reactors, or one every other day starting now. Do you like wind? If you use every single breeze that blows on land, you’ll get 10 or 15 terawatts. Since it’s impossible to capture all the wind, a more realistic number is 3 terawatts, or 1 million state-of-the art turbines, and even that requires storing the energy—something we don’t know how to do—for when the wind doesn’t blow. Solar? To get 10 terawatts by 2050, Lewis calculates, we’d need to cover 1 million roofs with panels every day from now until then. “It would take an army,” he says. Obama promised green jobs, but still.

In other words, this global green new deal will solve no problems, while exacerbating the current problem of too little money to go around by extracting more money from the viable economy. Just like the original New Deal, then.

From http://www.globalwarming.org/

Regarding the Economics of Environmentalism, A Response to CAP’s Brad Johnson

by William Yeatman
March 20, 2009 @ 4:26 pm

Over at the Center for American Progress, Brad Johnson, my sometimes interlocutor, takes issue with a recent Gallup poll for giving a “false choice between environmental protection and economic growth.” The subject of Johnson’s analysis is a report on the Gallup website that says,

“For the first time in Gallup’s 25-year history of asking Americans about the trade-off between environmental protection and economic growth, a majority of Americans say economic growth should be given the priority”

Mr. Johnson asserts that the Gallup’s poll is flawed because the question is inaccurate. According to Mr. Johnson, there is no trade-off between economic growth and environmental protection. We can have our cake and eat it, too, implies Mr. Johnson, and he cites two studies to prove his point.

His evidence, however, is far from convincing.

He first notes a UC-Berkeley study that claims “California’s Green Policies Have Created 1.5 Million Jobs and Added $45 Billion to The Economy.”

Yet the results of this study have been contested by many knowledgeable sources, among them the Pacific Research Institute’s Tom Tanton, who formerly served on the California Energy Commission, as well as Dr. David Kreutzer, an economist at the Heritage Foundation.

Tanton and Kreutzer are colleagues and friends of CEI, so some readers might mistakenly fault their excellent work on account of the ideological affinities of the organizations for which they work.

But if you are inclined to discount these studies, then you must also discard Mr. Johnson’s second piece of evidence, “A National Green Economy Creates Millions of New Jobs,” which was authored by Greenpeace International.

In any case, the most damning indictment of the UC-Berkeley study is the fact that its author, Professor David Roland-Holst, ran one of the two models used in an analysis commissioned by the California Air Resources Board to measure the economic impact of AB 32, California’s 2006 global warming law. The CARB study concluded that reducing greenhouse gas emissions about 20% by 2020 would increase economic growth in the Golden State. A non-partisan peer-review promptly ripped the study to pieces for being wrong and politically motivated.

Fighting the supposed problem of “global warming” might or might not be a good idea. After all, it hasn’t warmed in almost a decade, despite a steady increase in global greenhouse gas emissions. The much-vaunted “scientific consensus” failed to predict steady global temperatures, and they can’t explain it, either.

So it seems there is some uncertainty on global warming. What is certain, however, is that reducing emissions also reduces economic growth, by making energy more expensive.

From http://www.globalwarming.org/

Alarmists turn blind eye to global warming benefits–again

by Marlo Lewis
March 23, 2009 @ 10:03 am

Tomorrow, the House Foreign Affairs Committee will hold a hearing on the national security threats from melting Arctic ice. Greenwire (subscription required), the Online environmental news service, explains the rationale for the hearing:

In a report last year, the European Commission warned that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization must be prepared for an intensified “scramble for resources” as melting glaciers and sea ice open up previously inaccessible areas to exploitation. The report explicitly expressed concerns over “long term relations with Russia,” (ClimateWire, April 2, 2008).

Now, opening up ”previously inaccessible” areas to oil and gas development could also be a font of economic and national security benefits. One thing we know for sure about Arctic mineral resources–they aren’t owned by Saudi Arabia, Iran, or Venezuela, and never will be controlled by OPEC.

Yes, there will be competition for those resources, but since when is competition an automatic negative for the USA?

Clearly, there are opportunities here as well as risks–opportunities to create thousands of high-paying U.S. jobs, boost GDP by tens to hundreds of billions of dollars, and generate billions in deficit-reducing tax revenues and royalties.

More pertinently, exploitation of previously inaccessible resources could significantly diversify U.S. oil and gas–a longstanding objective of U.S. energy security policy.

But Gorethodoxy demands blind obedience by its votaries. Discussing the potential benefits of global warming is strictly verboten.

From http://www.globalwarming.org/

U.S. Chamber unveils NIMBY Watch Web site

by Marlo Lewis
March 23, 2009 @ 11:40 am

Last week, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce unveiled a NIMBY-Watch Web site called Project No Project .

With case studies from more than 30 states, Project No Project chronicles how NIMBY (”not in my backyard”) activists “block energy projects by organizing local opposition, changing zoning laws, opposing permits, filing lawsuits, and bleeding projects dry of their financing.” Many of the projects blocked are not coal plants but alternative energy projects or infrastructure often touted as “green.”

The site invites readers to provide examples from their own locales of NIMBY efforts to block or stall energy-related projects.

Proponents of “green jobs” should be concerned as much as free-market and property-rights advocates, because ”stimulus” projects are vulnerable to the same NIMBY tactics that, for example, have immobilized the Cape Wind Project in Nantucket, Mass.

Although Project No Project does not mention it, we also know from comments submitted by the U.S. Chamber and allied groups on EPA’s Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, that NIMBY forces will aquire powerful new litigation tools if EPA, in response to the Supreme Court’s Massachusetts v. EPA decision, establishes greenhouse gas (GHG) emission standards for new motor vehicles. (For more background, see my recent post on MasterResource.Org.)

In a nutshell, vehicular GHG emission standards will make carbon dioxide (CO2) a “regulated air pollutant” under the Clean Air Act (CAA). That, in turn, will automatically make CO2 “subject to regulation” under the Act’s Prevention of Significant Deterioration (PSD) pre-construction permitting program.

The cutoff for regulation as a “major stationary source” under PSD is a potential to emit 250 tons per year (TPY) of a CAA-regulated air pollutant. Approximately 1.2 million previously unregulated entities (office buildings, hotels, big box stores, enclosed malls, even commercial kitchens) actually emit 250 TPY. All would be vulnerable to new regulation, monitoring, paperwork, controls, and penalties if EPA establishes GHG emission standards for new motor vehicles.

To qualify for a PSD permit, major stationary sources must comply with “best available control technology” (BACT) standards. Even part from any investments required for BACT compliance, the PSD permitting process is costly and time-consuming. In 2007, each permit on average cost $125,120 and 866 burden hours for a source to obtain. No small business could operate subject to the PSD administrative burden.

So NIMBY forces must be licking their chops at the prospect that EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson plans on April 30 to issue an “endangerment finding” for GHGs. An endangerment finding is the prerequisite to establishing GHG emission standards for new motor vehicles and, thus, the critical first step to making CO2 a CAA-regulated “air pollutant.”

When and if EPA regulates CO2, expect a surge of litigation demanding that EPA impose PSD and BACT requirements on developers proposing to build or renovate big box stores, strip malls, fast-food restaurants, or other projects NIMBYites deem undesirable or contrary to “smart growth.”

Bottom line: Applying PSD and BACT to CO2–the inexorable consequence of establishing vehicular GHG emission standards–will turn the CAA into a gigantic Anti-Stimulus package. Is Team Obama paying attention?

From http://www.globalwarming.org/

Human Achievement Hour

by Michelle Minton
March 23, 2009 @ 12:09 pm

This week CEI announced the creation of Human Achievement Hour (HAH) to be celebrated at 8:30pm on March 28th 2009 (the same time and date of Earth Hour).

Our press release described ways people might celebrate the achievements of humanity such as eating diner, seeing a film, driving around, keeping the heat on in your home—all things that Earth Hour celebrators, presumably, should be refraining from. In the cheekiest manner, we claimed that anyone not foregoing the use of electricity in that hour is, by default, celebrating the achievements of human beings. Needless to say, the enviros in the blogosphere didn’t take to kindly to our announcement.

Matthew Wheeland, an environmental journalist called the holiday “mind-blowingly strange” and pondered if Earth hour folks are including in their numbers people in countries that don’t have enough electricity to make the choice to turn out their lights. Of course, they don’t have the choice to acquire electricity whereas anyone can choose to stop using human technology if they wish.

In fact, one might even say that they are seething about it–lighting up the various green-oriented blogs with comments such as this sarcastic gem from Jon Petherbridge:

Human achievement hour. Another great idea. I’ll remember how great we all are as I watch the heat mirages rising from the surrounding hoods as my arm hangs out the window during my next July traffic jam.

Or maybe I’ll remember it the next time an American attack aircraft blows up a wedding party in Afghanistan. At least in that example we don’t have to feel bad for the dead Afghanis as they have a sexist culture that we are morally obligated to obliterate, quite literally if necessary. I reckon I’ll celebrate human achievement hour when everybody’s divorced or bisexual and drinking coca-cola in traffic jams on their way to work folding sandwiches for the lawyers and the bankers who we will worship for allowing us to support them by paying on our credit cards.

Go human achievement hour. Pile it on. Diversify, equalize, refinance and over qualify.

I’m feeling better already.

I love and will not give up my electric toothbrush.

They are also attempting to erase any attention directed at HAH, such as the Wikipedia article.

Of course, there are people out there who appreciate what we are trying to say. For example, Rajesh in India writes on his blog:

Coming from India where we routinely suffer power cuts due to mixed-market policies of the government, I found this post from The New Clarion fantastic…Lets use the wavelength of both light and philosophy to keep darkness at bay.

Green and private conservation are fine. We have no problem with an individual (or group) that wants to sit naked in the dark without heat, clothing, or light. Additionally, we’d have no problem with the group holding a pro-green technology rally. That’s their choice. But when this group stages a “global election” with the express purpose of influencing “government policies to take action against global warming,” we have every right as individuals to express our vote for the opposite

If our Human Achievement Hour is at all a dig against Earth Hour, it is so only by the fact that we are pointing out what Earth Hour truly is about: it isn’t pro-earth, it is anti-man and anti-innovation. So, on March 28th I plan to continue “voting” for humanity by enjoying the fruits of man’s mind.

From http://www.globalwarming.org/

Selasa, 17 Maret 2009

Alarmism increasing twice as fast as predicted

by Myron Ebell
March 13, 2009 @ 3:35 pm

The Independent in London this week ran with the latest claim about sea level rise. Their headline illustrated perfectly how ridiculous predictions quickly transform into facts. The story was headlined, “Sea levels rising twice as fast as predicted.” The first sentence did not agree with the headline: “Sea levels are predicted to rise twice as fast as was forecast by the United Nations only two years ago….” That is, the soothsayers have read their chicken entrails again and decided that their previous divinations were not dire enough. This has nothing to do with actual sea level rise. For the past several years, sea level rise has been below the average rate of the twentieth century, which in total was about seven inches.

From http://www.globalwarming.org/

Where is Public Opinion?

by Paul Chesser, Climate Strategies Watch
March 13, 2009 @ 2:41 pm

As I suggest today in an American Spectator piece, we may be to the point where public opinion is completely out of sync with how the best known (at least historically) news outlets are covering the global warming issue. Witness:

* A poll from last summer found that the vast majority of Americans opposed Lieberman/Warner and would not be willing to pay higher prices for electricity or gasoline to combat global warming.
* Pew found in January that of 20 policy issues it asked people to place in order of importance, global warming ranked last.
* A series of recent Rasmussen polls determined: that more respondents believed global warming was due to planetary trends than by human causes; that voters are evenly divided over whether immediate action on global warming is necessary; that 46 percent believe giving government greater control over the economy to fight global warming will be bad for America; and that a majority (54 percent) believe the media exaggerates the dangers of global warming.
* This week Gallup found a record-high 41 percent believe the media exaggerates the threat of global warming. “This represents the highest level of public skepticism about mainstream reporting on global warming seen in more than a decade of Gallup polling on the subject,” the polling firm reported.

So what does this say after 20+ years of irresponsible media exaggeration of the issue? It tells me a few things: that there is no such thing as a dominant “mainstream media” any more that captivates the news-consuming public. That while it’s nice to have one of these news outlets do your story, it’s not vital, and it’s not necessary to agonize over whether they do so or not. That these historically well-known news outlets are not only losing readership and revenues because of advertising losses, but because of credibility loss and disconnect with their communities. News consumers are smarter these days and know how to detect biased reporting, and they are not buying the product any more. With the speed and efficiency of the Web, it almost doesn’t matter any more where your information gets published; it’s that it does get published, gets found by a few key constituents, and gets launched from there. Can anyone purchase a Sunday paper in any city these days and honestly say it was worth the money?

Yet too many in political activism, public relations, and business believe that if your message hasn’t penetrated these media dinosaurs, then you’ve failed. Well, as the global warming issue illustrates, the skeptics are at least tied with the alarmists if they are not outright winning, despite the lack of respect and attention from the dying news giants. The polls show it clearly. So if the big businesses (you know who you are) who are in bed with the cap-and-taxers in big government and big environmentalism only so they can reap benefits for themselves, while passing costs to consumers and electricity users, you risk a backlash from those who will pay the bill. You are believing the wrong messengers and the evidence is clear.

From http://www.globalwarming.org/

Jumat, 13 Maret 2009

Peter Foster: The crumbling case for global warming



Posted: March 10, 2009, 8:05 PM by NP Editor
Peter Foster, climate change

Voters should ask politicians one simple question: ‘Why do you want to raise my energy prices?’

By Peter Foster

One young radical turned up at the Heartland Institute’s climate change skeptics’ conference in New York this week to declare that he had never witnessed so much hypocrisy. How, he asked the panelists of a session on European policy, could they sleep at night? Clearly puzzled, one of the panelists asked him with which parts of their presentations he disagreed. “Oh,” he said “I didn’t come here to listen to the presentations.”

The conference — titled “Global Warming: Was it ever really a crisis?” — attracted close to 700 participants. Most of those I met displayed almost joy at being among people who dared to stand up to the mindless climate “consensus” and the refusal to debate, or even look at, the facts, as typified by that righteous young radical.

President Obama is considering a cap-and-trade system with which Canada would be forced to co-ordinate its own policies. The conference made clear how damaging and pointless such a policy would be.

Vaclav Klaus, the professorial president of both the Czech Republic and the European Union, pointed out at the conference’s first session on Sunday evening that the global political establishment was still in the grip of thinking reminiscent of the Communism under which he once lived. He noted that few if any politicians seemed even aware of, or interested in, either the shortcomings of officially cooked climate science, or the potential disasters of climate policy.

Professor Richard Lindzen, one of the world’s leading climatologists, also stressed that climate alarmism was a political and not a scientific matter. Particular worrying, he said, was that various scientific bodies had been seized by alarmists, who now issued statements without polling the members. This played into the appeal to authority rather than science. He called climate modelling “unintelligent design” and global warming a “postmodern coup d’état.” He stressed that “Nature hasn’t followed the models” used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. There has been no global warming for 10 or 15 years. Countering all the blather about Exxon’s (former) support for Heartland that appeared in coverage of the conference by climate-change cheerleaders at The New York Times and The Guardian, he noted that skeptics in fact had minimal resources to rectify the incipient policy horrors.

Asked why the skeptics had so much trouble in presenting a unified front, Professor Lindzen stressed that there was no “skeptical solidarity.” But Joseph Bast, head of the Heartland Institute, pointed out that such diversity was a sign of free inquiry, as opposed to bogus claims that the science was “settled.”

The sessions indicated the huge potential costs of the Obama administration’s commitment to cap and trade, regulation and the promotion of renewables, effectively rationing energy as a way of grabbing revenue. Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, who takes pride in having been dubbed a “climate criminal” by Greenpeace, noted that the political struggle had to keep the message simple. Voters should ask politicians one simple question: “Why do you want to raise my energy prices?” Since the one issue on which there truly is consensus is that Kyoto would have had little or no impact on global temperatures, it is a question for governments around the world, not least that of the government of Ontario, which has just introduced its draconian Green Energy Act.

Indur Goklany, an expert on globalization and a contributor to the IPCC, noted, using the UN’s own figures, that global warming was by no means the threat conventionally portrayed. Indeed, the UN even acknowledged its benefits, although to establish that fact you had to read the documents “like a lawyer.”

The session interrupted by the callow youth outlined the disaster of the EU’s emissions trading system, and of its climate change policies in general. The good news, as Benny Peiser of John Moores University in Liverpool, and editor of the influential CCNet science network, suggested, was that the green movement was collapsing in Europe and becoming increasingly unpopular, as its enormous costs and minimal results were becoming apparent. The attempt to “rebrand” Europe as the “Environmental Union” had fallen apart and was now causing increasing discord both between and within countries.

Europe was now desperate for the United States, China and India to share its self-inflicted pain in time for the next great UN expense-fest in Copenhagen, but it was unlikely to happen.

One of the most devastating presentations came from Gabriel Calzada, a Spanish economist who indicated how Spain’s “leadership” in subsidizing wind and solar power — which had been praised by President Obama — had produced enormous costs, no benefits and was now falling apart. “Green jobs” were calculated not only to cost around half-a-million Euros a pop, they came at the expense of two “normal” jobs. And they were now disappearing as the renewables bubble collapsed.

A questioner asked why European governments continued to promote such destructive and pointless policies. Roger Helmer, a member of the European Parliament, said it was a matter of inertia, plus the fact that there was no “Plan B.”

The task of the brave skeptics who appeared at Heartland this week is to find out how to ditch Plan A. There could be no better stimulus to the global economy.

From http://www.globalwarming.org/

Obama budget lacks votes



By Walter Alarkon
Posted: 03/10/09 08:13 PM [ET]

President Obama’s budget doesn’t have enough support from lawmakers to pass, the Senate Budget Committee chairman said Tuesday.

Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) said he has spoken to enough colleagues about several different provisions in the budget request to make him think Congress won’t pass it.

Conrad urged White House budget director Peter Orszag not to “draw lines in the sand” with lawmakers, most notably on Obama’s plan for a cap-and-trade system to curb carbon emissions.

“Anybody who thinks it will be easy to get the votes on the budget in the conditions that we face is smoking something,” Conrad said.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, when asked Tuesday about the Democratic criticism of the budget, told reporters that it wasn’t unusual. He noted that lawmakers and the president often have competing agendas.

“I don’t think, ultimately, the criticism is surprising,” Gibbs said. “That certainly happens and is all part of a process.”

Conrad joined Sen. Judd Gregg (N.H.), the top Republican on the Budget Committee, and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) in criticizing the administration’s cap-and-trade proposal for not doing enough to counterbalance increases in energy costs that will be felt by consumers and companies, especially those in energy states such as North Dakota.

Conrad said that it would be a “distant hope” to expect the climate change plan to pass unless it includes help for industries that would be hit hard by limits on carbon emission production.

The North Dakota Democrat also knocked the Obama administration’s plan to cut subsidies for farmers with incomes of more than $500,000. He noted that Congress just rewrote its agricultural policies last year in a bill that received 81 votes in the Senate. The administration has said that it could save taxpayers nearly $10 billion over the next decade from stopping direct federal payments to wealthy farmers, but Conrad denied that the farm policies were not fiscally responsible.

“The Farm Bill was paid for. We made a lot of tough choices. We raised money. We made spending reductions,” Conrad said. “Those who suggest that was not fiscally responsible — I don’t think they’re very aware of the history of how we got a Farm Bill passed.”

Conrad said that he hopes the administration understands that “accomplish[ing] big things takes compromise around here.”

Orszag acknowledged concerns over the budget and added that the budget plan represents the administration’s “best judgments.”

“We look forward to working with you,” he said.

Conrad and Gregg also pressed the Obama administration not to stick controversial bills on carbon emissions and healthcare reform in special budget reconciliation bills.

Gregg said that attaching a cap-and-trade or healthcare plan to reconciliation bills, which need only a simple majority to pass, would be an “outright act of violence” against the Senate, where most contentious legislation needs 60 votes to advance. Using the special process would also hinder the administration’s ability to win votes from centrist GOP senators such as Lamar Alexander (Tenn.), who has supported limits on carbon emissions in the past, Gregg said.

Orszag, however, didn’t rule out the use of reconciliation bills.

“We would prefer not to start there, but we’re not taking anything off the table at this point,” he said.
Gregg, who nearly joined Obama’s administration as Commerce secretary, also criticized the president’s budget plan for failing to include enough detail. The Republican, who withdrew his nomination over ideological differences with Obama, counted three questions that Orszag deferred answers on until a more detailed budget proposal was unveiled next month.

Orszag said that first-year administrations usually put forth a budget outline that they later fill in, but Gregg said lawmakers want more information soon.

“I would think it would be incomplete if you’re not going to put the meat on the bones before you have the votes,” he said.

From http://thehill.com/

America, China take radically different paths on energy

By Thomas Pyle, OpEd Contributor
- | 3/12/09 6:14 AM

KEY DATA: Expanded off-shore energy production would create 1.2 million new jobs, generate $2.2 trillion in new government revenues and $8 trillion I economic output.

TAKE HOME: China and other foreign nations are investing billions in new energy resources, while the U.S. keeps its vast, untapped off-shore energy resources off-limits.

President Barack Obama has taken some heat recently for the expensive and unproven energy policies he has promoted. But whether his trillion-dollar government giveaways prove effective or not, Obama deserves credit for one thing - he promised us change and he delivered.

In a mere four weeks, he’s changed the face of the entire relationship between government and the private sector. With the possible exception of the financial services industry, nowhere is this more evident than in our energy policy, especially in the form of restrictions to our ability to secure affordable and reliable energy to meet our future needs and fuel America’s economic growth.

A series of recent energy events signal that Obama will apply his big-spending approach to any problems America faces. The Department of Interior, for instance, wasted no time delaying action on offshore energy production and closing oil and gas exploration leases in Utah, both of which would have employed thousands of American workers and provided homegrown energy.

In spite of the fact that gasoline prices are nearly halved from last summer’s highs, the American people still overwhelmingly support offshore energy exploration and production.

This long overdue policy change would create 1.2 million jobs, $2.2 trillion in government revenue, $70 billion in additional annual wages, $8 trillion in economic output, and affordable energy right here at home. Instead, Obama instead offers us taxpayer subsidized “green jobs” that will increase the cost of energy.

It is interesting to think about the alternative to Obama’s approach. In the same week he traveled to Denver to investigate subsidized solar panels and signed the budget-busting economic recovery spending package, China’s leaders - who own the interest on most of our national debt - took a noticeably different path.

In one month alone, China spent $41 billion on new oil investments. First, China loaned $25 billion to Russia to develop their oil fields to secure more energy for China’s growing economy.

China’s Vice Premier followed that deal with a visit to Hugo Chavez’s oil rich Venezuela. On the way home, he stopped in Brazil - a nation that is quickly becoming an energy superpower as it develops its offshore energy resources - to cut a $10 billion deal in exchange for long-term oil supply.

Over the past 28 years, the U.S. government has kept off limits the vast taxpayer-owned energy resources that lie underneath our shores. This failed policy has led to increased oil imports, exported trillions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of jobs, and has left America a hollowed-out nation when it comes to domestic energy production.

Instead of following the will of the American people and securing long-term affordable energy for America, Obama’s primary concern has been to throw more money on an already heavily subsidized industry that currently generates less than 4 percent of our electricity.

Over the last month, it has been interesting to witness this tale of two leaders. China’s leaders demonstrated the importance of investing in the energy it needs to fuel its ambitious plans for economic growth.

Our leaders, on the other hand, have placed obstacles in the path of accessing our own energy, doubled down on the subsidies for inefficient, expensive, and unreliable forms of energy, and have guaranteed that we won’t see changes in this arena for quite some time.

Thomas Pyle is president for the Institute for Energy Research, a not-for-profit foundation that conducts intensive research and analysis on the functions, operations and government regulation of

From http://www.dcexaminer.com/

Roger Helmer MEP: The whole climate alarmist scare is a media-driven frenzy



Roger Helmer is a Conservative MEP in the East Midlands and chairman of the Freedom Association. He writes here about a recent meeting of climate realists in New York, where he is pictured, right, with the Czech President, Vaclav Klaus.

I've just got back to Strasbourg from the Heartland Institute's International Climate Conference in New York (Subtitled "Global Warming: was it ever Really a Crisis?"), which brought together around 800 scientists, politicians and commentators from across the USA and around the world, all of a broadly climate-realist disposition. This was the second Manhattan Climate Conference, and 2009 attracted about double the attendance of the 2008 event.

We had an impressive array of scientists, including Professor Richard Lindzen of MIT; Professor Fred Singer (University of Virginia); Ross McKitrick (who exposed the IPCC's Hockey Stick graph, widely seen as the most discredited artefact in the history of science); Professor Tom Segalstad of the University of Oslo; Professor David Douglas (University of Rochester); Prof Bob Carter of James Cook University of Queensland, Australia; and Benny Peiser of Liverpool John Moores University, who publishes CCNet. Not impressed yet? Google them and check their CVs! Plus a host of others.

I had been invited to speak on the EU's experience of Emissions Trading (or as people at the Conference called it, "Tax'n'Trade"). I explained what a disaster it had been, drawing heavily on the excellent work of Open Europe in a series of papers. My speech is available online here.

Our keynote speech was given on Sunday evening by Vaclav Klaus, President of the Czech Republic, which by a deliciously ironic coincidence, currently holds the Presidency of the uber-alarmist European Union. Klaus pulled no punches. He has seen the light on the climate issue, and has written an excellent book on it, Blue Planet in Green Shackles (he kindly quotes my work in a footnote on page 34!). But he also understand the politics. Climate alarmism is driven by the people who hate freedom, who hate prosperity and growth and consumption -- the same people who worked for the hard left in earlier decades, or supported the Club of Rome when it declared that we should run out of resources by the seventies and die of starvation in the eighties.

Climate alarmism is about more power for governments and supra-national institutions like the EU and the UN. It is about higher taxes. It is, says Klaus rightly, profoundly illiberal.

I seem to have been following President Klaus around recently: I heard him speak in the European parliament a few weeks back when he told them a few home truths, causing dozens of federalist MEPs to walk out in protest, while I and fellow-sceptics cheered him to the echo.

The consensus of the Conference was straightforward: that the small increase in mean global temperature over the last century (< 1 degree C) is entirely consistent with well-established, long-term natural climate cycles (the same cycles that gave us the Roman Optimum, the Medieval Warm period, and the little Ice Age -- indeed the warming we saw recently is the recovery from the little Ice Age, as we move into what may be a new 21st Century Optimum). There is no need of any exceptional explanation, and no evidence that the warming we see is caused by human activity. It is impossible to prove that there is no human impact on climate, but if there is, it is so small that it is lost in the noise of random variation, and cannot be identified in the data.

It is straightforward to prove the lack of human/CO2 impact. All the CO2 models (as set out by the IPCC, no less) predict a "hot-spot" in the troposphere, at about 5 to 10 kms high, and in the tropics. This is a distinct feature or "signature" of CO2-based climate models. Yet we have a wealth of data over decades from meteorological balloons and from satellites, and the hot-spot, the signature, is simply not there. This in itself is sufficient to disprove the anthropogenic/CO2 hypothesis.

I recently wrote to the European Commission, challenging their stated objective to bring global temperatures "back to pre-industrial levels" (How's that for hubris?), pointing out that in the last thousand years before the pre-industrial era, temperatures varied widely and at different times were both warmer and cooler than today. Their reply said that they had no doubt that the current warming was anthropogenic, as "it was faster than any natural warming". In fact they are quite wrong. At the end of the Lower Dryas cool period (around 15000 BC) temperatures rose several degrees C in sixty years -- much faster than in the last century. In fact the rate of rise in the 20th century is very comparable to that leading to the Roman Optimum and the Medieval Warm Period.

I thought I had a good understand of the climate issue, but I gained two new insights from the Conference. First, I guess I'd just assumed that any CO2 we choose to emit simply adds to atmospheric CO2. But of course we have a carbon cycle, and it's reasonable to suppose that the level of atmospheric CO2 might affect the rate of absorption of CO2 by the biosphere and/or the oceans. This indeed seems to be the case, since over the last decade emissions have grown faster than the IPCC's highest-range estimate, while the actual level of atmospheric CO2 has risen slower than the IPCC anticipated. We saw evidence that CO2 is reabsorbed typically in around five to seven years, and that biomass creation and crop yields (suggesting increased up-take of CO2) have increased as a result of the higher atmospheric level.

The second point was presented by Lord (Christopher) Monckton. He presented a detailed argument to make a case that the sensitivity factor for the greenhouse effect of CO2 used by the IPCC may be exaggerated by an order of magnitude -- a factor of ten. That might just be his opinion versus the IPCC, but for two experimental results that appear to support Lord Monckton's position. First, applying the equation to the rise of temperature and CO2 over the whole of the twentieth century supports the lower figure for sensitivity. Secondly, we can use satellites to measure the heat radiated from the earth. If increasing CO2 acts as a blanket holding heat in (the greenhouse effect) we should expect to see a corresponding reduction in out-going radiation. And indeed we do, but apparently the reduction is much lower than the IPCC numbers would suggest, and tends to confirm Lord Monckton's lower sensitivity figure.

The whole climate alarmist scare is a media-driven frenzy, very comparable to other media scares like CJD and Y2K (and Christopher Booker was also in New York -- his book Scared to Death analyses the anatomy of media scares over the past three decades). We need to forget the hype and the propaganda and look at the science and the facts. Alarmism is simply mistaken, and it follows that the policy prescriptions proposed to deal with it are wrong too.

In New York, we also had news of a major new film about to be released entitled AL GORE: Not Evil, Just Wrong. I can't wait to see it.

From http://conservativehome.blogs.com/

When going green means making green



By Timothy P. Carney
Examiner Columnist 3/12/09

Big business is increasingly embracing green legislation — and taking advantage of opportunities for big profits for companies with a strong lobbying presence in Washington and in state capitals.

The motivations vary for companies that are going green, said Ben Lieberman, environmental policy expert at the conservative Heritage Foundation. “For some it is just public relations, [but] it’s pretty clear that the companies and legislators focus on whatever benefits them,” Lieberman said.

General Electric may be the most prolific at seeking ways to profit from environmental laws. When GE Chief Executive Officer Jeff Immelt began his “Eco-magination” initiative in 2005, he declared, “It’s no longer a zero-sum game — things that are good for the environment are also good for business.” But he added that this would only work if business was about to “work in concert with government.”

The company has founded a joint venture that invests in greenhouse gas credits and plans to manage the trade in these credits. President Barack Obama’s plan to curb greenhouse emissions would instantly create demand for the credits and thus business for GE. Already, GE benefits from federal subsidies for windmills, which are touted as a clean energy.

On the score of windmills, the champion may be Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens, who owns the largest wind farm in America. He has become a vocal advocate of more wind subsidies, citing environmental benefits as a justification for his “Pickens Plan.”

Turning environmental policy into profit sometimes pits partners against one another. Fuel economy standards may make life difficult for automakers, but their suppliers can find profit in stricter rules. For instance, aluminum giant Alcoa, which has lobbied Congress for tighter Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards, benefits because these standards force carmakers to turn toward aluminum frames, which are lighter but more expensive than steel.

Goldman Sachs’ bets that green investments are profitable are also based on expected or existing environmental regulations. The company in 2007 helped pass federal mandates for cellulosic ethanol — fuel made from grass, wood chips or similar materials — after investing in a Canadian cellulosic ethanol firm, which set up its U.S. headquarters in the D.C. area.

The Biotechnology Industry Organization, which includes many agricultural companies as members, is also a leading lobbyist for additional ethanol subsidies. Corn ethanol today has many environmentalist critics who point to the land, soil, fertilizer and water costs of growing corn as fuel, but it was long touted as the green replacement for gasoline.

Even the coal industry is seeing profits from the green surge. Obama supports federal subsidies for experiments on making coal burn cleaner, but the Sierra Club and other environmental groups argue that “there’s no such thing as ‘clean coal.’ ”

Nonetheless, last month’s stimulus bill included $1 billion for a clean coal plant, money that is expected to benefit an Illinois-based partnership of eight prominent coal companies.

Will these green bets pay off? In the case of climate change legislation, Heritage’s Lieberman doesn’t think so. “I don’t know whether these guys are fully taking into account the fact that cap-and-trade [climate regulations] will really hurt the economy.”

From http://www.dcexaminer.com/

In the News



by William Yeatman
March 12, 2009 @ 9:16 am

Why Going Green Means Making Green
Tim Carney, DC Examiner, 12 March 2009

“Big business is increasingly embracing green legislation - and taking advantage of opportunities for big profits for companies with a strong lobbying presence in Washington and in state capitals.”

The Climate Scare Is a Media Driven Scare
Roger Helmer, Conservative Home, 12 March 2009

“I’ve just got back to Strasbourg from the Heartland Institute’s International Climate Conference in New York (Subtitled “Global Warming: was it ever Really a Crisis?”), which brought together around 800 scientists, politicians and commentators from across the USA and around the world, all of a broadly climate-realist disposition. This was the second Manhattan Climate Conference, and 2009 attracted about double the attendance of the 2008 event.”

America, China Taking Different Paths on Energy
Thomas Pyle, DC Examiner, 12 March 2009

“In spite of the fact that gasoline prices are nearly halved from last summer’s highs, the American people still overwhelmingly support offshore energy exploration and production.”

Senate: Obama’s Climate Policy Dead on Arrival
Walter Alarkon, The Hill, 11 March 2009

“President Obama’s budget doesn’t have enough support from lawmakers to pass, the Senate Budget Committee chairman said Tuesday.”

The Crumbling Case for Global Warming
Peter Foster, National Post, 10 March 2009

“One young radical turned up at the Heartland Institute’s climate change skeptics’ conference in New York this week to declare that he had never witnessed so much hypocrisy. How, he asked the panelists of a session on European policy, could they sleep at night? Clearly puzzled, one of the panelists asked him with which parts of their presentations he disagreed. “Oh,” he said “I didn’t come here to listen to the presentations.”

From http://www.globalwarming.org/

Minggu, 08 Maret 2009

Something Rotten in the NYT

by Chris Horner
March 27, 2008 @ 6:32 am

Tuesday’s New York Times ran an op-ed by sociology professor Monica Prasad, "On Carbon, Tax and Don’t Spend," which singled out Denmark as a model for how the U.S. should proceed on carbon-dioxide regulation. I have watched Denmark’s policies with particular interest — since marrying a Dane, and now having two little half-Danes here and a host of family there — and have been a regular visitor to that country.

Denmark’s domestic press hangs its head quite a bit over the fact that the proudly “green” country (home to the European Environment Agency) is among Europe’s biggest Kyoto violators — a failure facilitated by the absurd promise made by Socialist minister Sven Aukend to match whatever reductions Germany promised (-21% below 1990, averaged over 2008-2012), despite the fact that Denmark did not have the luxury of shutting down filthy Jutland industrial capacity as Germany did, post-reunification.

Therefore certain of the piece’s claims struck me as a bit of a surprise — for example: “The one country in which carbon taxes have led to a large decrease in emissions is Denmark"; and “Denmark accomplished this while posting a remarkably strong economic record and without relying on nuclear power.”

Something smelled a little rotten in this cheerleading, as I know full well that the Danes benefit from Swedish nuclear power, despite also regularly banging on about how the Swedes need to shut down the reactor just across the Straight. Then again, who are we to begrudge them such hypocrisy, with California being so bossy while relying on atoms smashed and coal burned in other states?

So I turned to the World Nuclear Association. Suddenly the bloom falls off the morally superior rose.

"The 7.64 billion kWh [NB: that equals > 16% of how much electricity DK produces on its own, domestically] imported from Sweden in 2005 is almost half nuclear and half hydro, the power (5 billion kWh in 2003, 0.6 billion kWh in 2005) imported from Germany is largely generated by brown coal and nuclear power (Germany itself imports 15 to 20 billion kWh/yr from France, which is 80% nuclear)…

Conclusion:

Nuclear power provides an essential part of Denmark's electricity…Using 2005 data, with production of 36.3 TWh, consumption of 34 TWh, exports of 12.9 and imports of 10.4 from Germany and 0.7 from Sweden, it would seem that 3 TWh used is nuclear, about 9% of total."

So much for not relying on nuclear. The U.S. also relies on nuclear, for about twice Denmark's percentage of its electricity. But we also have not (yet) embraced Denmark’s windmill boondoggle, that after hundreds of millions of dollars leaves them “selling” wind to the Swedes for about 0 cents per Kwh.

What about this notion that a carbon tax caused Denmark’s emissions to drop? I turned to the European Environment Agency for a little straight talk – something you won’t hear me say very often. According to Denmark’s submission to the EEA, Denmark's main emissions-reduction strategy is to import electricity rather than create it.

About its "Past emissions: Denmark’s GHG emissions were 6.3 % below those of 2004 and 7.8 % below base-year levels in 2005. The main factor for decreasing emissions with regard to 2004 was a decrease of fossil fuel combustion in electricity and heat production partly due to higher electricity imports."

About their projected 2010 emission total of 20.6 MMT: "*The Danish Energy Authority estimates that approximately 5.0 of the 20.6 million tones CO2 annually will be offset by increased electricity exports based on the calculation assumptions of the climate strategy."

Ms. Prasad’s claim is false: a carbon tax didn't cause the Danes’ emissions to drop; almost the entire reduction came in one year and as a result of importing electricity, i.e., paying someone else to emit CO2.

It also turns out that the carbon tax Ms. Prasad praises is just one of five taxes cited in the seven "measures" Denmark cites: mineral oil tax, gas tax, coal tax, electricity tax, CO2 tax, (the sixth being Emissions Trading Schemea tax; and the seventh, the wealth transfer of buying JI and CDM credits). These come on top of a vehicle-registration tax touted as a GHG-reduction scheme that doubles the price of cars — the joke in Denmark is that it's a good thing that they don't have all the cars they've paid for; not to mention another GHG tax on HFCs, a weight- and volume-packaging tax, and a waste tax, among the other measures.

Meanwhile, of course, the European Parliament and Commission are busy trying to find ways to impose EU-wide taxation to install a “Kyoto tax” on top of all the other taxes that have, as we know, failed to reduce EU member-state emissions.

In truth, cap-and-trade means cap, trade and tax. Answering the NYT's false claims only confirms that.

From http://www.globalwarming.org/

Ironic Snowfall for Resource-Rich Greenies



by Silvia Santacruz
March 02, 2009 @ 7:39 pm

Ironic Snowfall for Resource-Rich Greenies Environmentalists characterize themselves as petite Davids battling gargantuan corporate Goliaths in order to grab media attention. But hundreds of green activists demonstrated today to raise awareness of global warming and against coal production in front of the Capital Power Plant in southeast Washington D.C. The group had plenty of resources ranging from a raised stage with microphones, to trucks loaded with food and coffee, to green plastic helmets, all the way down to fluorescent caps and fancy colored anti-industry signs. We, the counter protesters, were comprised about 25 to 30 Davids. Participants hailed from the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI)—the event organizers—as well as the producers of the film Not Evil Just Wrong, the National Mining Association (NMA), American for Prosperity (AFP), the National Center for Public Policy Research, Conservative Caucus and others. All of us proudly held our no-frills signs celebrating coal, highlighting its importance to electricity generation and the nation’s economy. Despite the disparity between the number of anti-coal demonstrators and the “Celebrate Coal” participants, the weather proved to be a major ally: the nation’s capital was anything but warm today, making the global warming argument sound absurd. In fact, Americans needed a lot of affordable coal-generated electricity today to heat their homes. One of my favorites images of today’s dual protest (see picture above) was a Greenpeace activist seen cleaning snow from the top of his solar-powered truck with a metal sign that read, “Stop Global Warming Now”. One of my colleagues couldn’t resist and asked, “How is that global warming sign working with cleaning out the snow?” The greenie was too ashamed to continue, and left.

From http://www.globalwarming.org/

Why Is the Chicago Tribune in Bed with T Boone Pickens?



by William Yeatman
March 03, 2009 @ 11:43 am

Why Is the Chicago Tribune in Bed with T Boone Pickens? Why is the Chicago Tribune again allowing its editorial page to shill for T Boone Pickens? For the second time in 5 months, the Tribune has published a self-serving opinion piece by Mr. Pickens (Our Energy Future, 16 November 2008; Solving Our Nation’s Energy Predicament, 24 February 2009). Remove the rhetoric, and T Boone’s plan is quite simple. He wants the government to (1) force taxpayers to subsidize his wind power; (2) force taxpayers to pay for the transmission lines to deliver his wind power; (3) force consumers to buy his wind power; (4) force consumers to buy T Boone’s natural gas “saved” by using his wind power to power their cars. America gets expensive energy and T Boone Pickens gets rich. As CEI’s Marlo Lewis artfully put it: “This T Boone-doggle Pickens your pocket.”

From http://www.globalwarming.org/

Hansen belittles models, carbon trading, Kyoto; calls for coal-destroying carbon tax



by Marlo Lewis
March 03, 2009 @ 12:11 pm

Last week’s House Ways & Means Committee hearing on “scientific objectives for climate change legislation” contained much grist for skeptical mills.

Dr. James Hansen did not challenge any of Dr. John Christy’s specific arguments that UN climate models overestimate climate sensitivity. Instead, he advised Congress to ask the National Academy of Sciences for an “authoritative” assessment, because the science is “crystal clear.”

Hansen was quite harsh in criticizing Kyoto (an “abject failure”) and carbon trading (a politically unsustainable hidden tax for the benefit of special interests). He outlined a proposal for what he calls carbon “Tax & Dividend,” whereby 100% of the revenues would be refunded to the American people via monthly deposits to their bank accounts.

As I discuss here, Hansen’s beguiling proposal could decimate coal-based power in a decade or two, pushing electricity prices up faster than dividend payments increase, and saddling the economy with a growth-chilling energy crisis.

From http://www.globalwarming.org/

Inside the Beltway

CEI’s Myron Ebell
Obama Scores Zero on Econ 101

In his first address to Congress on Tuesday night, President Obama said that the “stimulus” legislation and other short-term economic policies were necessary to prevent a decade-long recession. He then went on to advocate energy and global warming policies that will foster a perpetual recession. First, he promised that federal funding and mandates will make the United States the world leader in renewable energy technologies. As an article that might have been published in the Onion but actually appeared in the Los Angeles Times last week noted, the only thing holding renewable energy technologies back is a number of necessary technological breakthroughs that will make them work. Apparently, our President is too young to have learned that the federal government has been throwing taxpayer money at renewables since the 1970s.

The President then called on the Congress to send him cap-and-trade legislation that would make renewable energy profitable by raising the price of conventional energy produced from burning coal, oil, and natural gas. Yes, renewable energy will become profitable, many jobs will be created, and we’ll have to settle for a significantly lower standard of living as a result. On Wednesday, the Administration sent their budget proposals to Congress for FY 2010. Included were revenue projections from auctioning rationing coupons under a cap-and-trade scheme to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The Office of Management and Budget assumes that $78.7 billion will be raised in 2012 and a total of $645.7 billion by 2019. My colleague Iain Murray has some comments here. My comment is that it’s a sad fact that the new Administration has some highly-regarded establishment Democratic economists in it, but is for some reason pursuing economically illiterate and consequently disastrous policies.
Stars Come Out for House and Senate Hearings

Last week I reported that the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee would hold a hearing featuring the Chairman of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Dr. Rajendra K. Pachauri. I didn’t know at the time that the House was planning a hearing this week as well with a prominent witness. As it turned out, the House and the Senate held competing A-list hearings on global warming on Wednesday at 10AM. Testifying before the House Ways and Means Committee was Dr. James E. Hansen, whom the committee described as an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University’s Earth Institute. He is of course also Director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies. I tried to watch both hearings on the internet and thereby undoubtedly missed a lot of good stuff as I switched back and forth. Interestingly, Pachauri, an economist and engineer, talked mostly about global warming science, while Hansen, an astronomer, talked mostly about economics. Pachauri was utterly dreary. Hansen was an interesting mix. He inveighed against cap-and-trade as an ineffective scam designed to pay off big business. He instead endorsed a stiff carbon tax with 100% of revenues rebated to consumers.

When asked by Rep. Earl Pomeroy (D-ND) about what would happen to North Dakota and its near-total reliance on lignite (brown coal) for producing electricity, Hansen said that employment in the lignite industry would go down, but that North Dakota had lots of potential for wind power and potentially for growing well-designed bio-fuels. He observed that these new industries might create more jobs than would be lost in the coal industry. That is true. One of the ways to create jobs is to make production and use of capital less efficient. For example, there would be tens of millions, probably even hundreds of millions, of new jobs in North Dakota and throughout rural America if mechanized agriculture were banned.

The Republican witnesses-Professor William Happer at the Senate hearing and Professor John Christy at the House hearing-were articulate, intelligent, and scientifically accurate. Christy made a strong case against energy poverty. Naturally, most Senators and Representatives were unimpressed and unhappy with them.

Around the States
Kansas


The Kansas House of Representatives passed a bill today that allows Sunflower Electric Power Company to build two coal-fired power plants. Governor Kathleen Sibelius will veto the bill after it passes the Senate, but House Speaker Mike O’Neal believes he will be able to get the five more votes necessary for an override. Forrest Knox, the Republican who led the House debate, explained, “This is about doing business in Kansas…. The bottom line is our energy needs will not be met without conventional energy production.”

Across the World
Australia


Bushfires in the Victoria region of Australia have now killed over 200 people and have released over 550 million tons of carbon dioxide. In 2003, Australia reported that bushfires had released 190 million tons of CO2-equivalent, roughly a third of the nation’s total greenhouse gas emissions for the year. And yet, it was green policies that kept many Australians from being able to clear the brush amd trees around their homes that posed a fire risk.

From http://www.globalwarming.org/

Why Alarmism?



by William Yeatman
March 03, 2009 @ 5:31 pm

When it comes to global warming, dire predictions seem to be all we see or hear. But is the alarmism justified?

In today’s Cato Daily Podcast, climatologists Patrick Michaels explains why the news and information we receive about global warming have become so apocalyptic. According to Michaels, a Cato senior fellow in environmental studies, science itself has become increasingly biased, with warnings of extreme consequences from global warming becoming the norm. That bias is then communicated through the media, who focus on only extreme predictions.

Click here to listen to this insightful commentary. It is likely to change the way you perceive the media’s portrayal of global warming.

From http://www.globalwarming.org/

Great News: Already, Obama Is Backtracking on Climate



by William Yeatman
March 06, 2009 @ 11:35 am

A month ago, I coined the term “envoy of disappointment” to described Todd Stern, who had been chosen to become the State Department’s roving ambassador on climate change, a new position created by the Obama administration. The label reflected the reality that the U.S. will remain unwilling to put its economy at a competitive disadvantage by signing an international treaty to fight the supposed threat of climate change*, no matter what kind of “hope” and “change” Obama brings to Washington.

Recent evidence suggests I was right.

Obama is a scant 5 weeks into his Presidency, and already the backtracking on climate change has begun. According to Russel Gold at the Wall Street Journal’s Environmental Capital,

Mr. Stern said the road map of greenhouse-gas emission reductions laid out at a 2007 summit in Bali was simply too ambitious. “We need to be very mindful of what the dictates of science are, and of the art of the possible,” he said. The Bali targets - a 25% to 40% cut by industrialized nations by 2020 - were simply too ambitious. “It’s not possible to get that kind of number. It’s not going to happen,” he said.


*It hasn’t warmed in 7 years. Al Gore, hypocrite alarmist, says that “there is one relationship that is more powerful than all the others and it is this: When there is more carbon dioxide, the temperature gets warmer.” Well, emissions keep going up, yet temperatures stay the same. Where’s the warming, Al?

From http://www.globalwarming.org/