“[T]he impact that emissions reduction efforts in the U.S. will have on global emissions totals–and by extension, global climate–is quickly diminishing.”
The just-released numbers for last year’s carbon dioxide emissions (not including land-use changes) show why forcing large cuts in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions is not very high on the priority list of the U.S. powers-that-be (including voters).
In 2010, the total global CO2 emissions were the highest on record, ~9.1 PgC (33,400 million metric tons). The U.S. contribution was ~1.50PgC, about 16% of the global total—percentage-wise the lowest on record (since 1959) and falling rapidly.
Unilateral U.S. CO2 mitigation strategies, in other words, are doomed to increasing irrelevance–and even unintended consequences should carbon rationing at home result in industrial transfers to less regulated areas.…
Continue Reading“Human beings create more than they destroy.”
– Julian Simon, The Ultimate Resource 2 (Princeton, N.Y.: Princeton University Press, 1996), p. 580.
“People have since antiquity worried about running out of natural resources–flint, game animals, what-have-you. Yet, amazingly, all the historical evidence shows that raw materials–all of them–have become less scarce rather than more…. And there is no reason why this trend should not continue forever.”
– Julian Simon, “The State of Humanity: Steadily Improving,” Cato Policy Report, September/October 1995.
There is only one thing that is going up more than government subsidies for uneconomic wind and solar power: oil, gas, and coal reserves and resources in the United States, according to a new study released yesterday by the Institute for Energy Research (IER) assessing total North American inventory.…
Continue Reading… Continue Reading“You may be interesting [sic] in this snippet of information about Pat Michaels. Perhaps the University of Wisconsin ought to open up a public comment period to decide whether Pat Michaels, [sic] PhD needs re-assessing?”
– Tom Wigley to ‘Folks’, October 14, 2009.
“I consider this to be an extremely serious matter. [The actions and climate views of] Mr. Bradley … may further damage both my personal and your company’s reputation.”
– Tom Wigley to Kenneth L. Lay (Enron), August 26, 1999.
“We sent [our paper] to Journal of Climate. I sent out about 10 copies–one to Wigley. But I requested that he not be used as a referee ‘because of an inexplicable hostility towards us (and possibly everyone else)’.”
– Gerald North to Robert Bradley (Enron), September 1999.