A Free-Market Energy Blog

‘The Greening of Planet Earth’ (the 1992 video, updated in 1998, needs another update)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- June 25, 2013

“[M]any industry groups have maintained that putting carbon dioxide in the air would produce a general ‘greening’ of the planet. In fact, that’s the thesis of a famous 1992 video, “The Greening of Planet Earth,” which riled the environmental community more than just about anything else [because] … big-name scientists were willing to appear and argue that carbon dioxide will enhance global plant growth.”

– Patrick Michaels, Global Warming Produced a Greener, More Fruitful Planet, September 13, 2001.

Today, President Obama sounds the climate alarm and calls for more regulation of carbon dioxide (CO2). Throwing bad regulation after bad in the name of climate change is all about costs without commensurate benefits. Simple math shows that unilateral action by California or the U.S. or North American will not have a discernible influence on climate decades out.

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AWED Newsletter: June 24, 2013

By -- June 24, 2013

The Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions (AWED) is an informal coalition of individuals and organizations interested in improving national, state, and local energy & environmental policies. Our basic position is that technical matters like these should be addressed by using real science.

Instead of a science-based approach, our energy and environmental policies are typically written by those who stand to economically or politically profit from them. As a result, anything genuinely science-based in these policies is usually inadvertent and accidental.

A key element of AWED’s efforts is public education. Towards that end, every 3 weeks we put together a newsletter to balance what is found in the mainstream media about energy and environmental matters. We appreciate MasterResource for their assistance in publishing this information.

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Quiz: See how many of the “Mad Men you know.

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Global Savings: Billion-Dollar Weather Events Averted by Global Warming

By Chip Knappenberger -- June 21, 2013

“For every billion-dollar weather disaster identified as being ‘consistent with’ human-caused global warming, there are probably several other potential billion-dollar weather disasters that human-caused global warming averted.”

Last week, the government’s National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) finalized its list of “Billion Dollar Weather/Climate Disasters” for 2012. They reported 11 such events with the combined loss exceeding $110 billion, making it the second costliest year since their compilation began in 1980.

Since the number of billion dollar weather disasters has been increasing over time, the temptation to point a finger at anthropogenic global warming is too great for many global warming addicts to resist, despite the known problems with the list (for example, the lack of proper accounting for changing population demographics—a factor which explains virtually all of the increase).

It seems folks are extremely creative at coming up with reasons why virtually every weather disaster is “consistent with” human-caused climate change and how things will get worse in the future.…

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Carbon Tax: Vote and Eviscerate (depoliticize, not repoliticize, energy)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- June 20, 2013
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American Lung Association’s Misguided Support for Wind Power

By -- June 19, 2013
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Frac Exaggeration, Wind Blindness: Southern Environmental Law Center’s Double Standard

By Charles Battig -- June 18, 2013
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FERC’s Wellinghoff: An Energy Technocrat Steps Down

By -- June 17, 2013
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Windaction News

By -- June 15, 2013
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The Mighty Bakken (Resourceship in action: II)

By Fred Lawrence -- June 14, 2013
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Ecological Oil Drilling: Addressing Oil Seepage in California

By Greg Rehmke -- June 13, 2013
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