"Clean Energy Standard:" Bad Solution to a Non-Problem (Lindsey Graham rides again)

By E. Calvin Beisner -- January 10, 2011 7 Comments

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has found another disguise for lining the pockets of “alternative energy” producers with consumers’ dollars directed there not by rational economic choices but by government mandate.

Once a supporter of cap and trade, Graham now supports a “Clean Energy Standard” that would require utilities to generate increasingly high percentages of electricity from “renewable” sources like wind, solar, and biofuels, from nuclear, and from coal using “carbon capture and sequestration”—catching the carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted when coal burns and forcing it, under pressure, into deep geological formations for long-term storage to keep it out of the atmosphere.

A variation on that theme suggested by Entergy Corp. head Wayne Leonard in the Wall Street Journal suggests that we begin with the seemingly innocuous step of increasing U.S.…

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'Hey America': 'Wonky' Climate Alarmism Coming at You (Big Science, Big Environment want to scare you into energy, economic retrogression)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- January 4, 2011 2 Comments

 “Hey America! Are you ready to get wonky on global warming? After a year that started with fallout from the “Climategate” e-mail release, saw the cap-and-trade bill die in Congress, and ended with a gang of Republican climate skeptics winning House and Senate seats, global warming experts are going back to basics.”

– Darren Samuelsohn, “Climate PR Effort Heats Up,” Politico, December 31, 2010.

And so we now know. “Environmentalists, scientists and lawmakers have renewed public relations efforts to put global warming plainly before Americans’ eyes and also rebut opponents who say nothing is happening.”

What? Nothing is happening? Who said that? Didn’t uber-alarmist James Hansen say the first rule of climate is that it changes–always has, always will. In his words:

“Climate is always changing.

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Virginia Renewables: Taxpayer Santa

By Charles Battig -- December 29, 2010 2 Comments

Bridging the gap between the insightful analyses at MasterResource and what emanates from the halls of government remains a challenge. No matter how clear the issue might be to those who follow this and similar logic-based web sites, the formulation of public policy seems to rely on overt political calculation and tailored science in the service of a political objective.

Free market logic needs to reach beyond our own “choir of believers.” And this means improving our penetration with the general media, a challenge indeed.

In Hoodwinking the Nation, Julian Simon noted that even after he had so convincingly debunked the “vanishing farm land” scam, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture reversed its original position, the press largely ignored the correction. Simon ruefully noted “false bad news” sells.

In the case of the official position of Virginia, as documented in the 2010 Virginia Energy Plan, one sees the 2007 plan scripted under a Democratic Governor carried forward under a proclaimed conservative Republican governorship.…

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Climate Hearings in the 112th Congress: GOP Chairmen Will Need Talent Like Jim’s

By -- December 14, 2010 6 Comments

Next year, Republicans will be the majority party in the House of Representatives, which means they’ll hold the committee chairmanships and run the hearings. They’ll have opportunities aplenty to review the Obama administration’s global warming policies and the alarmist “science” that supposedly justifies cap-and-trade, renewable energy mandates, and EPA regulation of greenhouse gases. 

They would do well to study how in the 105th and 106th Congresses, a GOP House committee chairman from Missouri single handedly debunked the Clinton-Gore administration’s economic analysis of the Kyoto Protocol. 

Kyotoism: Down but Not Yet Out

Politically, the last eighteen months have been remarkable. In June 2009, the House passed H.R. 2454, the “American Clean Energy and Security Act,” popularly known as the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill. Waxman-Markey’s passage was the culmination of a 20-year PR/lobbying campaign waged by U.N.…

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The New Guard of Climate Questioners: Get Ready for the Next Round of Climate Science Debate

By Chip Knappenberger -- November 22, 2010 8 Comments Continue Reading

Death to the Chicago Climate Exchange ($7.40 to a nickel per CO2 ton, the market has spoken)

By William Griesinger -- November 18, 2010 8 Comments Continue Reading

Judith Curry Looks for Middle Ground in the Contentious Climate Debate (Jerry North, can you help her?)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- August 27, 2010 4 Comments Continue Reading

A Skeptic of Climate Alarmism Speaks: Does Walter Cunningham Have More of a Case than His Critics Contend?

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- August 19, 2010 6 Comments Continue Reading

Texas Fight! What Other States Can Learn from Texas vs U.S. EPA

By Daren Bakst -- August 12, 2010 8 Comments Continue Reading

Authoritarian Science: The Public Wants–and Deserves–Better

By Kenneth P. Green -- August 10, 2010 11 Comments Continue Reading