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Relevance | DateDeath Spiral for Climate Alarmism Continues (A Year Later)
By Kenneth P. Green -- May 4, 2011 6 CommentsFor two years now, I’ve made a case that climate alarmism – which I define as the reflexive tendency to assume worst-case scenarios generated by climate models are true (and warrant public policy based on that belief) – is in a death spiral.
Climate alarmists, I documented, were losing their fight for legislation, regulation, and public opinion. It’s clear that I was right on at least two counts: nobody thinks legislation to control greenhouse gases is on the horizon, and President Obama won’t even talk about climate change, preferring to hide the ball in talk about “clean energy,” instead.
The public is also turning away: a new Gallup poll, conducted in 111 countries, found that fewer Europeans and Americans consider climate change a serious threat than they did before.…
Continue ReadingCall for Comments: Proposed U.S. National Clean Energy Standard
By John Droz, Jr. -- April 7, 2011 1 CommentThe U.S. Senate Energy Committee has recently issued a white paper about a proposed Clean Energy Standard (CES). If enacted, the CES would profoundly affect the future of all energy matters in the U.S. The committee is having a short public comment period, which ends on Monday April 11th.
They are looking for inputs on six aspects of this proposed measure. Reading over the white paper (see Appendix below), I am encouraged that they are at least asking some good questions. As such I am hopeful that they get intelligent responses to balance out those that will inevitably come from rent-seekers.
Since I am advocating the Big Picture approach, my strategy is going to respond to the Executive Summary part only (and then elaborate a bit on an Additional document).…
Continue ReadingHassling Electricity: EPA's Proposed MACT Rules
By Paul Driessen -- March 30, 2011 1 CommentPresidential candidate Barack Obama promised that his policies would cause electricity rates to “skyrocket” and “bankrupt” any company trying to build a coal-fired generating plant. This is one promise he and his über-regulators are keeping.
President Obama energetically promotes wind and solar projects that require millions of acres of land and billions of dollars in subsidies to generate expensive, intermittent electricity and create (really centrally plan) jobs that cost taxpayers upwards of $220,000 apiece – most of them in China.
His Interior Department is locking up more coal and petroleum prospects, via “wild lands” and other designations, and dragging its feet on issuing leases and drilling permits.
Meanwhile, his Environmental Protection Agency is challenging shale gas drilling and fracking, and imposing draconian carbon dioxide (CO2) emission rules, now that Congress and voters have rejected cap-tax-and-trade.…
Continue ReadingEnergy Debates in Wonderland: Let's Go for the Kill Against GasWind (Part I)
By Jon Boone -- March 28, 2011 5 CommentsMarch Hare (to Alice): Have some wine.
(Alice looked all round the table, but there was nothing on it but tea.)
Alice: I don’t see any wine.
March Hare: There isn’t any.
Alice: Then it wasn’t very civil of you to offer it.
March Hare: It wasn’t very civil of you to sit down without being invited.
— From Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland
Energy journalist Robert Bryce in Power Hungry foretells an electricity future anchored by natural gas that will bridge the transition to nuclear power. With his third book in less than a decade, Bryce is now a leading light of the energy policy debate, appearing regularly on op-ed pages and on news shows.
Bryce recently participated in two debates. In one hosted by The Economist, he argued for the proposition that “natural gas will do more than renewables to limit the world’s carbon emissions.”…
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