“Ronald Sass noted that ‘scientists should agree, not debate,’ a statement puzzling to me. He did agree that we do not yet have enough data. To which I comment: why promote uncertain science and political policy that might do more harm than adapting to real (versus computerized) futures?”

Little did I realize that in moving to Houston, Texas I would soon witness a rare climatic event. It was not another hurricane like Ike, snow in summer, nor any other such rarity. I would be able to attend a climate debate in a welcoming and civil atmosphere between two opposing debaters well qualified in their particular fields of climate research.  Such open debates are a rarity in the current emotionally defined microcosm of consensus science and settled science. The PC thought police, including at the  James A.…

“Overwhelming evidence has been formally brought forward to the OPSB concerning possible and inevitable damage to the fragile ecosystems of Lake Erie. This ‘incubator’ project is intended to spawn more like projects, up to, we hear, 1,700 industrial machines in this one Lake or any of the Great Lakes.”

Members of the Great Lakes Wind Truth group for years have pointed to the fact that there are tens of millions of migrating birds and bats, possibly billions, that would be seriously impacted by even the six-to-nine industrial wind turbines at Cleveland. The Hawk Migration Association of North America and Rick Unger, past president and current advisor, of the Lake Erie Charter Boat Association, also expressed concerns to the OPSB.

Additionally, quoted in the joint letter of 2014, is a statement about

staggering environmental damages.

“Groups fighting any industrialization of the Lakes … are requesting that federal funding for this expensive boondoggle, estimated to eventually run up to $125 million, or about $25 million for each turbine, be immediately truncated, and that a complete audit of existing monies granted be undertaken with fulsome reporting to taxpayers.”

“There is absolutely NOTHING ecologically friendly about an industrial wind turbine. It is designed for one thing: profits.”

The Icebreaker Windpower project, proposed by the Norway-based Fred. Olsen Renewables, would be the first proposed freshwater wind turbine project in the United States. The proposal, however, is running into serious opposition from ratepayer, taxpayer, and environmental groups.

As an offshore project (six turbines about seven miles off the shore of Cleveland Ohio), it should be compared to the $0.24/kWh cost debacle of Rhode Island’s Deepwater Wind project that is about to begin production.…

“Economists may not know much. But we know one thing very well: how to produce surpluses and shortages. Do you want a surplus? Have the government legislate a minimum price that is above the price that would otherwise prevail…. Do you want a shortage? Have the government legislate a maximum price that is below the price that would otherwise prevail.”

– Milton and Rose Friedman, Free to Choose (1979), p. 219.

Tomorrow (October 5, 2016), a book seminar will be held at Resources for the Future [register here] to revisit the lessons from the 1970s energy crisis. Panic at the Pump: The Energy Crisis and the Transformation of American Politics in the 1970s by Meg Jacobs will receive comments from three RFF scholars.

The Princeton historian and author usefully provides a good deal of archival documentation surrounding the ill-fated attempt by federal authorities to regulate the price and allocation of crude oil and oil products in the 1971–1981 era. …