“Those rejecting just and reasonable (i.e. ‘rule of law’) fossil-fuel decision-making in the name of ‘climate change, global warming, an ‘”abundance of caution'” or other alibis’, are either ignorant of the realities laid out above or treacherously aware of their effort to undermine the public interest in pursuit of their own accumulation of power.”

In a recent Calgary Herald editorial, Chris Nelson takes on the Quebec hypocrites and enviroactivists stonewalling TransCanada’s Energy East Pipeline Project, a 2,858-mile pipeline that would carry 1.1-million barrels/day of crude oil from Alberta and Saskatchewan to refineries in Eastern Canada. Part of the project converts TransCanada’s underutilized natural gas facilities to oil.

Here we stand: the powers out of Quebec have decided to block a market-supported oil pipeline to Alberta, and Edmonton could retaliate by banning Alberta from buying British Columbia’s excess electricity until the national government reverses its pipeline obstructionism.…

“Audubon’s equivocal policy on wind power ostensibly calls on wind energy developers to consider planning, siting, and operating wind farms in a manner that avoids bird carnage and supports ‘strong enforcement’ of laws protecting birds and wildlife. On the other hand, the same Audubon policy speaks about ‘species extinctions and other catastrophic effects of climate change’ and ‘pollution from fossil fuels’.”

The cover of the January-February 2016 issue of Audubon Magazine  proclaims: Arctic on the Edge: As global warming opens our most critical bird habitat, the world is closing in. In reality, it is the magazine’s writers and editors who have gone over the edge with their misleading reports on the Arctic.

This magazine is so awash in misstatements of fact and plain ignorance of history, science, and culture, that they must not go unchallenged – especially since they epitomize the false and misleading claims that have characterized far too much of the U.S.…

“Your paper inspired me to re-review some of the congressional testimony of the renewable interests to see whether the litmus test of success was a cost target or more generally, competitiveness and market penetration. I think it is clearly the latter.”

“Imagine the coach of a football team justifying a perennial losing record by telling the administration that his players are getting bigger and faster …. Surely the administration would respond—’yes, we know the general trend and our participation in it. But we want real victories, not moral victories’.”

– Letter from Robert Bradley to Dallas Burtraw, January 1999.

It was arguably the very top intellectual research paper to justify past and continuing U.S. government support for renewable energies at the time of its publication (1999). I had a chance to rebut, working at Enron (as director, public policy analysis) that was a financial supporter of Resources for the Future (RFF), as well as a business leader in renewables.…

[Editor Note: This post originally appeared at MasterResource during Holiday Week 2009. Perhaps the update to this six years later is ‘only more so’ with the statistics of improvement and the case for energy optimism given the increasing sustainability of fossil fuels.]

Environmentalists critical of electrified America must have mixed emotions this time of the year. It may be the season of good cheer and goodwill toward all, but it is also the time of the most conspicuous of energy consumption. America the Beautiful is at her best in December when billions of tiny stringed light bulbs turn the mundane or darkness itself into magnificent beauty and celebration. Holiday lighting is a great social offering—a positive externality in the jargon of economics—given by many to all.

While energy doomsayers such as Paul Ehrlich have railed against “garish commercial Christmas displays,” today’s headline grabbers (Grist, Climate Progress, where are you?)…