“We in the petroleum industry are not dismissing the global climate change issue. But I don’t believe anyone should have the moral authority to deny people the opportunity to improve their way in life by arbitrarily depriving them of the means…. I hope that the governments of this region will work with us to resist policies that could strangle economic growth.”

– Lee Raymond, CEO, ExxonMobil (2010) [1]

Think Progress (the successor to the Joe Romm-founded Climate Progress at the Center for American Progress) published a recent piece by Mark Hand, “Industry Opposition Leads ALEC to Withdraw Anti-Climate Resolution,” subtitled “Right-wing lobbying group fails to pass resolution targeting EPA finding.”

Some excerpts from Hand’s piece follow:

A secretive right-wing lobbying group failed to pass a resolution this week that called upon the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to withdraw its 2009 finding that greenhouse gases are endangering the planet.

“Why bad news and bad news only? Don’t the very reporters and staffers at InsideClimate News want to add optimism to their professional lives? Or is climate alarmism just a day job, a 9-to-5 gig, after which the real world comes into focus?”

“What would happen if some intrepid reporter or story gatherer broke the mold and reported on global lukewarming or on the benefits of CO2? What would his or her boss say? What would the head of fundraising say? What would the donors say?”

I read InsideClimate News (ICN) daily. And I am perplexed to see a nonprofit writing/information organization claiming the mantle of “clear,” “objective,” “independent,” and “non-partisan” dish up 100% climate alarmism and ad hominem argument against critics of the same. One would think that voluntary transactions between consenting adults, the ebb and flow of science, and skepticism against intellectual and political elites would be enough to investigate such topics as:

• Controversial US wind power projects
• Rent seeking in the US energy market (fossil fuel and renewables)
• Cronyism at the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA)
• Cronyism at the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA)
• Etc.,

“To many of us, our current spending of fossil fuels appears as morally correct as did human slavery to the Romans or the Atlantic slave trade to seventeenth-century British businessmen.”

– Andrew Nikiforuk, The Energy of Slaves: Oil and the New Servitude (Vancouver: Greystone Books, 2012), p. xi.

A ran across a 2012 book by Andrew Nikiforuk, The Energy of Slaves: Oil and the New Servitude, sponsored by the David Suzuki Foundation and published by Greystone Books.

In it, I encountered a unique (okay, strange) application of Malthusianism to energy. And I found the author taking the present author head on. I like that, good or bad.

The thesis of Nikiforuk’s book is that yes, fossil fuels (and oil in particular) has greatly enabled mankind in a multitude of tasks.…

The Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions (AWED) is an informal coalition of individuals and organizations interested in improving national, state, and local energy and environmental policies. Our premise is that technical matters like these should be addressed by using Real Science (please consult WiseEnergy.org for more information).

A key element of AWED’s efforts is public education. Towards that end, every three weeks we put together a newsletter to balance what is found in the mainstream media about energy and the environment. We appreciate MasterResource for their assistance in publishing this information.

Some of the more important articles in this issue are:

Four people die in helicopter crash near major NC wind project

PhD: Massachusetts wind turbine study is junk science

Alert: Integrating the Social Cost of Carbon into NYS Utility Pricing

Societal Benefits of Fossil Fuels

Study: Hidden consequences of intermittent electricity production

Study: Vermont Energy Goal Numbers Don’t Add up

Unwinding Failing Renewables Policies

The EPA Needs to Stick to its Knitting

Global Warming: Who Are The Deniers Now?…