The Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions (AWED) is an informal coalition of individuals and organizations interested in improving national, state, and local energy & environmental policies. Our basic position is that technical matters like these should be addressed by using Real Science. It’s all spelled out at WiseEnergy.org, which is a wealth of energy and environmental resources.

A key element of AWED’s efforts is public education. Towards that end, every three weeks this newsletter is compiled to balance what is found in the mainstream media about energy and environmental matters.

Some standout articles in this issue, are:

An exceptional TV interview about journalistic incompetence (think AGW, Wind Energy, etc.)

Scientists Say New Study Is A ‘Death Blow’ To Global Warming Hysteria

Dr. Curry on: Draft APS Statement on Climate Change

How Colleges Are Becoming Greenhouses for Sustainability Indoctrination

Wind Turbine Leaseholders May be on the Hook for Billions

What’s the True Cost of Wind Power?…

“Any party which takes credit for the rain must not be surprised if its opponents blame it for the drought”

– Dwight Morrow, American businessman and diplomat, quoted in Outlook and Independent, Vol. 156 (1930), p. 289. Ascribed to an October 1930 speech in The Encarta Book of Quotations (2000), p. 672.

In California the Democratic Party, in near monopoly power in the state, have for the past two decades been underfunding big water infrastructure projects and diverting water from farms to fish. They have been taking credit for the moral high ground of allegedly saving a few fish from threatened extinction at the cost of four billion gallons of water per fish.

But now that there is four-year long green drought they want to place blame for it on others.…

[Editor note: Political capitalism, aka crony capitalism, is a major theme at MasterResource because special government favor enables three major energies: ethanol, wind power, and on-grid solar power. Gabriel Kolko, a socialist-leaning historian, popularized the term political capitalism — and concluded, with few exceptions, that business led government, rather than government (reformers) led industry, into interventionism. Kolko overstated his case, however, as this post contends, misleading free-market proponents of Kolko and political capitalism.]

“Bradley and Donway closely analyze Gabriel Kolko’s contention that nineteenth-century railroad officials sought regulation, identifying mistaken notions about private property and capitalism, as well as Kolko’s uncritical reliance on railroad statements that were coerced by the threat of legislation, weak citations, and misquotes.”

We can thank New Left historian Gabriel Kolko for the modern concept of “political capitalism” and its offspring, “regulatory capture.”…

“Rhode Island Department of Health, the Department of Environmental Management (DEM) director Janet Coit met with and expressed sympathy for the pipeline protestors’ cause. Remember, this is the state that will be hosting the first offshore wind energy project that will have the highest cost electricity in the continental United States at 24.4 cents per kilowatt-hour.”

“The governors of the states seem to have awakened to the economic benefits of utilizing more clean-burning, low-cost natural gas. Let’s hope they don’t cave into the politically expedience of bowing to more high-cost renewable energy.”

New England’s just-ended abnormally cold winter sent electricity and heating demand skyward, bringing into focus the battle over expanding natural gas pipeline capacity to the region. While there are two significant proposed pipeline expansions seeking FERC approval, environmentalists have become more militant.…