Many Californians are concerned about the continuing economic viability of the Golden State, especially with the impending implementation of the California Global Warming Solutions Act, also known as AB (Assembly Bill) 32. The goal of the act is to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, through a program administered and enforced by the California Air Resources Board (CARB).
Almost all economic modeling of GHG emissions regulations find that the costs of such programs outweigh their benefits. The estimates have come from a wide spectrum of organizations, including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Energy Information Administration, Brookings Institution, consulting-firm Charles River Associates, and others.
Contrary to the economic consensus, CARB has gone the other direction and argues that command-and-control and cap-and-trade will so increase the efficiency of energy use that Californians will benefit substantially by 2020.…
Continue ReadingOctober 16th is World Food Day, an annual event that was inaugurated in 1979 by the Conference of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to mark its founding date in 1945. This year’s theme, “United against Hunger,” harks back to the FAO’s original mission. So what exactly are the central food planners and the anti-industrial Left thinking about food-for-all these days?
Demonizing Capitalism’s Food Bonanza
With the advent of the “foodie” fad and the rise of celebrity chefs, discussions about the most effective ways to address hunger in poor countries have increasingly fallen out of fashion among advanced economies’ food activists. Indeed, in a world where no good deed goes unpunished, the individuals most responsible for producing ever-growing amounts of food at ever more affordable prices – from large scale farmers, professional plant breeders, synthetic pesticide and fertilizer manufacturers to agricultural equipment manufacturers, commodity traders, logistics industry workers and packaging manufacturers – have increasingly been demonized as poor stewards of the Earth, if not outright public health threats.…
Continue Reading[Editor’s note: The feasibility and desirability of aggressively pursuing offshore wind turbines has entered the national discussion. This post by Lisa Linowes, executive director of Industrial Wind Action Group, contributes to this debate.]
We were treated this week to the Department of Energy’s latest advocacy on wind energy: a new report proclaiming the benefits and feasibility of developing wind power along the coastal waters of the United States. The report adds little to the claims touted in DOE’s “20% Wind Power by 2020” (2008), but this time the focus is on 54,000 megawatts of electrical wind capacity off our eastern seaboard, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Great Lakes. Water depths on the Pacific Coast, according to the DOE, still pose a “technology challenge”. [1]
Offshore Wind in the U.S.…
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