A Free-Market Energy Blog

Latest on the Death Spiral of Climate Alarmism (Is it time to focus on real environmental problems and not CO2?)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- August 26, 2010

Ken Green at MasterResource published an influential post, The Death Spiral for Climate Alarmism Continues (June 2, 2010), that began with two quotations:

“We have at most ten years—not ten years to decide upon action, but ten years to alter fundamentally the trajectory of global greenhouse emissions.”

– James Hansen, “The Threat to the Planet,” New York Review of Books, July 13, 2006.

“Desperation is setting in among climate alarmists who by their own math can see that the window is rapidly closing on ’saving the planet’.”

– Kenneth Green, ”A Death Spiral for Climate Alarmism, Redux?” MasterResource, September 30, 2009.

And what was true in June is even more true today as the failure to price carbon dioxide (CO2) is leaving Europe as the sacrificial lambs on an altar of climate-change inconsequentiality.…

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The Catastrophe That Wasn’t: The Gulf Oil Spill in Perspective

By Paul Schwennesen -- August 25, 2010

Picture your neighbor’s pool.  Unless you live in Malibu, it’ll contain about 6,000 gallons.  That’s the “Gulf” for purposes of discussion.  Now go to your garage, get a quart of oil and pour it in when he’s not looking.  Pretty good sense of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, right?

Nope, not even close.  Put a drop of that oil onto a sheet of paper and carefully cut it in half.  Now do it again and toss that quarter of a drop into the deep end.  Even this quarter droplet (about the size of the comma in this sentence) is about 10% too large, but NOW you have a sense of what 4.9 million barrels of oil in the Gulf looks like.[1]

Now that we’ve grappled with the issue of scale, let’s look at the aftermath of this ‘catastrophe.’ …

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Rent Seeking with Global Warming: From Enron to California AB 32

By Tom Tanton -- August 24, 2010

Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, is a co-chair of the committee supporting the California citizens’ ballot initiative, Proposition to suspend California’s Global Warming Solutions Act (AB32).

The mainstream media has perpetuated a misperception that the Proposition 23 to suspend AB 32 is the work of, and funded by, sinsiter out-of-stater parties. That’s neither a real issue (what happens in California affects everybody) nor factually correct.

I can attest to the homegrown nature, having been involved for over four years—essentially since AB32 was first passed in 2006, as have others. The funding for opposition to the initiative has gotten very little attention by MSM, a phenomenon Mr. Coupal begins to correct in his featured column, reproduced below with permission, on the popular website FlashReport.

His editorial links Enron to regulating carbon dioxide (CO2).…

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Carol Browner Knows the Drill (a surprising advocate of hydraulic fracturing of gas)

By Chris Tucker -- August 23, 2010
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(Book Review) James Hansen’s “Storms of My Grandchildren: The Truth About the Coming Climate Catastrophe and Our Last Chance to Save Humanity” (alarmism on steroids)

By Jim Hollingsworth -- August 20, 2010
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A Skeptic of Climate Alarmism Speaks: Does Walter Cunningham Have More of a Case than His Critics Contend?

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- August 19, 2010
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Obama Gives Oil and Gas a Cold Shoulder (Ducking Houston on his recent visit)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- August 18, 2010
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Is GOP Opposition to Cap-and-Trade Self-Contradictory?

By -- August 17, 2010
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The Economic Costs of an Offshore Drilling Moratorium: A Summary of the Mason Study

By Eric Lowe -- August 16, 2010
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The New “Skeptical Science” Website: What is Going On Here?

By -- August 13, 2010
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