No Global Warming Pause! (NOAA study captures media, including WSJ)

By E. Calvin Beisner -- June 8, 2015 2 Comments

That’s how most of the media are treating a new study, anyway. Even the Wall Street Journal ran a news piece titled “Study Finds No Pause in Global Warming.”

The source? “Possible artifacts of data bias in the recent global surface warming hiatus,” published this week in Science, by long-time global warming alarmist Tom Karl et al.

Abstract:

Much study has been devoted to the possible causes of an apparent decrease in the upward trend of global surface temperatures since 1998, a phenomenon that has been dubbed the global warming “hiatus.” Here we present an updated global surface temperature analysis that reveals that global trends are higher than reported by the IPCC, especially in recent decades, and that the central estimate for the rate of warming during the first 15 years of the 21st century is at least as great as the last half of the 20th century.

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Self-Service Becomes Institutionalized: 1971–84 (Part 4 of 4)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- May 29, 2015 16 Comments

[Editor note: This post completes a four-part history of the rise of self-service filling stations in the United States. Part I examined the discovery and early regulation of this new marketing strategy; Part II covered 1947–51; Part III reviewed the period 1950–70).]

“Government intervention unintentionally promoted self-service. The gasoline shortage of 1974 educated motorists to serve themselves to reduce waiting in line, and the seller’s market deteriorated the quality of service. Regulatory minimum wage and overtime pay scales, which had been steady for years, jumped 25 percent in 1974 and covered more stations.”

Prior to regulation under the Economic Stabilization Act and the Emergency Petroleum Allocation Act (1973–81), independent gasoline retailers were foiling the ambitious expansion plans of the majors with their low-cost service and discount prices. Central to this success was self-service. …

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Self-Service Takes Hold: 1950–70 (Part 3 of 4)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- May 28, 2015 1 Comment

“In the late 1960s, Mobil, Humble, Sun, Texaco, and Cities Service began self­-serve experiments. A reason behind the move to (capital-intensive) self-serve marketing by majors was the increasing cost of labor from the manpower drain of the Vietnam War and minimum wage and hour regulations.”

“More and more self-service bans were being challenged; five had been rescinded in 1968, and maverick dealers were converting to self-serve in illegal states to dare a court suit. By 1970, it was just a matter of time before motorists had the self-serve option coast to coast.”

In the 1950s, independent marketers of privately branded gasoline effectively competed against high quality, well adver­tised major brands by offering lower prices and maintaining high-volume, low-cost operations. It was the independent that popularized the tracksider, self-service, multi-bay pumps, and, now, premiums.  …

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Self-Service Gasoline: Legalizing Freedom (New Jersey, Oregon hold out)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- May 26, 2015 1 Comment

“For years, the lobby of small gas station owners worried they would be crushed by big oil companies, which then owned most stations, and could afford to install the modern pumps and canopies self-service demanded. ‘They would have been 10 or 15 cents a gallon less than mine, so they would have buried me,’ said Sal Risalvato, who opened a station in Paramus [New Jersey] in the late 1970s.”

– Kate Zernike , “Drop That Gas Nozzle: New Jersey Is Full-Service Island, and Likes It,” New York Times, May 23, 2015, A1.

Saturday’s New York Times front-page article, Drop That Gas Nozzle: New Jersey Is Full-Service Island, and Likes It, brought the peculiar politics of New Jersey’s ban on self-service gasoline/diesel to a national audience. Fines for self-pumping start at $50 and grow to $500 for repeat offenders.…

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Resurrecting ‘Limits to Growth’: Dead Men Walking

By -- May 4, 2015 5 Comments Continue Reading

Rebutting NRDC on California’s Drought

By -- April 27, 2015 No Comments Continue Reading

Dear Gina (and Jerry): Where’s the Climate Science Behind Your Plan (Carbon Tax)?

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- April 3, 2015 9 Comments Continue Reading

Crisisology: The Climate/Everything Nexus

By -- March 10, 2015 3 Comments Continue Reading

‘The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels’ Revisited (book review)

By Ari Armstrong -- March 3, 2015 No Comments Continue Reading

Demand-Side Planning: Utility Rent-Seeking Meets Ecostatism

By Jim Clarkson -- January 29, 2015 No Comments Continue Reading