“Has Big Environmentalism increased net CO2 emissions by retiring existing or discouraging new nuclear (and hydro) capacity that would have produced more kilowatt hours than that being generated by new wind and solar capacity? It is time to do the hard math. Let the games begin!”
James Hansen is an energy realist amid his climate alarmism. And fortunately, we can use the analysis of the former to debunk the politics of the latter. And even more fortunately, the physical science of man-made climate change is moving away from Hansen’s high-sensitivity estimates to “global lukewarming” (the analysis of Chip Knappenberger, Roy Spencer, John Christy, and others—seconded by the very influential Judith Curry in numerous blogs for the mainstream.
In his just released analysis, “Renewable Energy, Nuclear Power and Galileo: Do Scientists Have a Duty to Expose Popular Misconceptions?,…
Continue Reading“The real problem is that the price of water in California, as in most of America, has virtually nothing to do with supply and demand…If water was priced to reflect scarcity, a decrease in supply would lead to an increase in price, and people would demand less… My system is designed to reduce demand rather than cover costs.” – David Zetland, The Water Shortage Myth (Forbes, 2008)
In Part I of this series we discussed how a proposed Drought Environmental Water Market does not meet the criteria of a market nor would the prices produced from such a system reflect Fair Market Value. The proposal for an environmental water market by a group of experts from the University of California, Davis, the Public Policy Institute of California and law schools at the University of California and Stanford (the “U.C.…
Continue Reading“The U.C. Davis proposal to establish an environmental water market partly induced by environmental regulatory drought does not hold water. And we find pricing environmental water sales by auctions to reflect inflated non-market prices derived from the “project influence” of inducing a water shortage as a result of the San Joaquin River Restoration Settlement Project of 2009 …. Nonetheless, we welcome the opportunity to open up a discussion of how markets might alleviate drought hardship on farmers and, wherever possible, on the environment.”
Road sign on rural highway in Kern County, California, erected in 2010:
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KERN & KINGS COUNTY FARMS PAID 100% 35% in 2008 50% in 2010 updated |