A Free-Market Energy Blog

AWED Energy & Environmental Newsletter (June 3, 2013)

By -- June 3, 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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How To Humble A Wingnut is about an interesting study that pertains to our energy and environmental business.

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Rice’s Baker Institute Climate Embarrassment (Sass’s ad hominem response to Rep. Smith)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- May 31, 2013

“The Baker Institute has some truing up to do in the multi-disciplinary field of climate change. Playing to its strengths, Rice University and Baker should host its third climate conference, titled something like ‘New Developments in the Physical Science of Climate Change.’

[Professor] Ronald Sass in his recent op-ed called for an ‘open, national debate on climate change.’ May Rice University and the Baker Institute lead the way.”

The Houston Chronicle this week ran opposing opinion-page editorials on the climate-change issue, one by Lamar Smith of the U.S. House of Representatives and the other by Ronald Sass, Fellow in Global Climate Change at Rice University’s James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy.

Politician Smith politely makes multi-disciplinary arguments assuming the best intentions of his opponents. Academic Sass goes ad hominem on the Keystone XL pipeline issue and refers vaguely to a scientific consensus for his position.

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Beyond Furloughs: Ax EPA Climatism

By -- May 30, 2013

“We need to save our environment from environmentalists and EPA – and safeguard our liberties, living standards and lives against the arrogance of too-powerful politicians and bureaucrats. How we will be able to do that is one of the greatest challenges we face today.”

Imagine if instead of ten furlough days for each of the 17,000 employees of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the department let employees choose which programs to eliminate from EPA’s $8.5 billion annual budget.

Assuming the most agenda-driven, anti-environmental programs were chosen, down the climate-change rathole the cutters would go, leaving the real air and water areas for continued EPA focus.

Good Timing

A strong case can be made to cut climate first. Numerous articles document how European climate policies have been disastrous for affordable energy, economic growth, entire industries, people’s jobs and welfare, wildlife habitats and human lives.…

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Keystone XL Deserves a Presidential “Yes” (consumers, citizens, labor all in support)

By Mark Green -- May 29, 2013
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The Ungreening of Windpower: Dina Cappiello (AP) Blows the Whistle on Big Wind (and others are following)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- May 28, 2013
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Happy Highway Freedom Weekend (it’s summer, let’s go!)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- May 25, 2013
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Carbon Taxation: Just Say No (NAM-led letter represents a broad business front)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- May 24, 2013
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‘Deep Ecology’ versus Energy (McKibben’s virus understood)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- May 23, 2013
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“Dirty, Dangerous, and Run Amok:” The Sierra Club’s War on Gas in their Own Words

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- May 22, 2013
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Draft National Assessment on Climate Change: Politicization of the Scientific Method (“1,200 horror-studded pages … of pseudoscience”)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- May 21, 2013
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