The Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions (AWED) is an informal coalition of individuals and organizations interested in improving national, state, and local energy and environmental policies. Our premise is that technical matters like these should be addressed by using Real Science (please consult WiseEnergy.org for more information).

A key element of AWED’s efforts is public education. Towards that end, every three weeks we put together a newsletter to balance what is found in the mainstream media about energy and the environment. We appreciate MasterResource for their assistance in publishing this information.

Some of the more important articles in this issue are:
How AWEA misrepresents the cost of wind energy
California raises the caution flag on ‘green jobs’
Sometimes, a greener grid means a 40,000% spike in power prices
McKinsey Report: Renewables Threaten German Economy & Energy Supply
12 Reasons Why Wind & Solar Power Make No Sense
Russia Announces Plans for Coal-Digging Surge
Good Short Video: Battery Fantasy
Letter: Transitioning to a Non-Fossil Fuel Economy
Renewables Reality: Isn’t It Time We Faced Up to It?…

“The caterwauling from the mainstream media – and claims that 2019’s hot summer was part of human-caused CO2-fueled global warming and a direct cause of alleged extreme maximum temperatures – are just not true. Analysis of the claims and events reveals these were simply hot weather events in a warm summer; claims of new extremes are far-fetched and fade under scrutiny.”

“[T]he BBC report quotes Cambridge University Botanic Garden director Beverley Glover: ‘However, we can’t help but feel dismay at the high temperature recorded and the implication that our local climate is getting hotter, with inevitable consequences for the plants and animals around us.’ If you look at the data you see that this was a one-day weather event; the summer of 1976 was a lot hotter and occurred during the 1970s ice age scare.”

“In the year 2000, the solar water heater behind me, which is being dedicated today, will still be here supplying cheap, efficient energy.” [Reagan removed the panels six months later.]

“A generation from now, this solar heater can either be a curiosity, a museum piece, an example of a road not taken, or it can be a small part of one of the greatest and most exciting adventures ever undertaken by the American people.” [It is a museum piece.]

– President Jimmy Carter, June 20, 1979

Historical evidence and understanding is part of the intellectual case for free-market energy policy, which is simply letting consumers decide for themselves the best energies and keeping taxpayers neutral. A free society, not surprisingly has chosen the dense, most affordable, storable energies over dilute, intermittent, expensive ones.…

This continues my three-part review of Andrew Dessler’s primer on the physical science and political economy of climate change, Introduction to Modern Climate Change (2nd edition: 2016).

Part I, “Suggestions for More Interdisciplinary Scholarship, Less Advocacy,” brought attention to the uneven treatment of issues in science, economics, and public policy that tainted the primer. I questioned the Deep Ecology assumption of optimal nature, wherein, according to Dessler, “any change in climate, either warming or cooling, will result in overall negative outcomes for human society” (p. 146).

This seems exactly wrong in our interglacial period when climate-related fatalities have fallen dramatically and agricultural production has soared thanks to warmth but particularly to fossil-fueled capitalism. Incentives and wealth have proven more than a match for the vicissitudes of weather and climate. As Alex Epstein (The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels, pp.…