A Free-Market Energy Blog

Stop the Scare! (GIGO climate models vs. human needs)

By Willie Soon and Christopher Monckton of Brenchley -- September 19, 2014

“Misuse of climate models as false prophets is costly in lives as well as treasure. To condemn the poorest of India’s poor to continuing poverty is to condemn many to an untimely death. India Prime Minister Narendra Modi is right to have no more to do with such murderous nonsense. It is time to put an end to climate summits. Real-world evidence proves they are not needed.”

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi sensibly refuses to attend yet another climate summit – this one called by Ban Ki-Moon in New York for September 23 under the auspices of the United Nations, which profits handsomely from the much-exaggerated climate scare.

Environmentalists have decried Mr. Modi’s decision. They say rising atmospheric CO2 will cause droughts, melt Himalayan ice, and poison lakes and waterways across the Indian subcontinent.…

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James Hansen’s Tax-Tariff-Reparations Climate Policy

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- September 18, 2014

In a recent blog,  The People’s March (August 29, 2014), James Hansen urges his readers to join the New York City March this Sunday (September 21st).

“[B]efore plainly stating why the March is important, let me address several issues,” he writes. Here are Hansen’s issues–the good, the bad, the ugly, the uglier–by quotation from his recent post.

Reject CO2 Cap-and-Trade (The Good)

“The ineffectual UN Kyoto cap-and-trade scheme was doomed from the start. A ‘cap’ approach inevitably raises 190 fights about each nation’s cap. Countries must be bribed to accept a low cap, governments at home often refute them, and even ineffectual caps are unenforceable.”

“Regulations are not a solution….”

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Are California Municipal Water Rates Too Low to Spur Conservation?

By -- September 17, 2014

“The popular explanation for the water crisis –- lack of rain -– is clearly inadequate…. But why do Californian’s use so much water? An underappreciated explanation is simple: Water prices have been held down below cost by political forces and by past water infrastructure subsidies covered by taxpayers across the country….“A better solution than water policing? Raise water prices until they hurt (or at least go high enough that Californians notice) – and spur conservation.”

— Kathryn Shelton and Richard B. McKenzie, “The California Water Crisis: Policing or Pricing?”, September 1, 2014.

Water economists from both sides of the political spectrum are claiming that one reason California water use has actually increased one percent in a drought this year is that municipal water rates are too low. Free-market think-tank scribes and water economists, joining with those who advocate government solutions to drought, have called for higher water prices not by market but by government coercion.

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Motor Trends: More Cars, More Miles, Less Usage per Mile (Jevons Paradox at work)

By -- September 16, 2014
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Auto Bubble? Easy Credit Might Be Bad Credit (politically low interest rates at work)

By -- September 15, 2014
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Houston Climate Conference Sept. 25/26: Unsettled Science Trending Optimistically

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- September 12, 2014
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Demythologizing California’s Drought ‘Demythologizers’

By -- September 11, 2014
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30-Year Eagle Kill Permits: Comment to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service on Windpower

By Sherri Lange -- September 10, 2014
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AWED Energy & Environmental Newsletter: September 8, 2014


By -- September 9, 2014
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“Population: The Ultimate Resource” (2000): Introduction by Barun Mitra

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- September 8, 2014
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