For anyone worried about climate change, Jerry Taylor is an intriguing figure. He “spent years as a professional climate denier at the Cato Institute, arguing against climate science, regulations, and treaties in op-eds, speeches, and media appearances”… But then Taylor began to change his mind…. [David Leonhardt (New York Times), “Conservatives for the Climate.” April 25, 2019]

[NOTE: This begins my two-part series on the fake conversion of Jerry Taylor. Part II is tomorrow.]

Yesterday’s post described two columnists at the New York Times, Bret Stephens and Ross Douthat, who have editorialized against climate alarmism. In a debate/discussion with Douthat, fellow columnist David Leonhardt highlighted the conversion experience of Jerry Taylor, founder and head of the Niskanen Center, which advertises itself as “Improving Policy, Advancing Liberty.”…

“The greatest threat we face — which will test our country, our democracy, every single one of us — is climate change. We have one last chance to unleash the ingenuity and political will of hundreds of millions of Americans to meet this moment before it’s too late.” (Robert O’Rourke, April 29, 2019)

Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke was facing criticism for being all meet-and-greet but with no ideas in his first month as a presidential nominee. “The big idea? Beto doesn’t have one,” opined David Siders at Politico. But a big idea would come two weeks later, supplementing the campaigner’s standard Obama-like fare of just favoring wind, solar, energy efficiency, electric vehicles, the Clean Power Plan, and the Paris climate accord. [1]

O’Rourke was a closeted keep-it-in-the-ground, anti-fossil-fuel Progressive during his unsuccessful Texas campaign for the US Senate last year.…

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (2005) is amending its interconnection regulations to require public utilities to follow special rules to interconnect wind energy facilities. Wind energy is allowed to behave differently, while other kinds of electricity generation continue to act according to the old rules designed to protect the reliability of the electrical grid.

 – Tom Tanton, Distorting the Wealth of Nature, PERC, September 1, 2005.

Having only entered the fray over electricity system regulation and markets in 2007, I have little context or detail for the above quotation, which appears at the end of the first section of the referenced article.

But I know enough about regulation to know that “special rules” means  propping up the wind energy relative to its more concentrated, dispatchable competitors on the electricity grid.…

“All economic pain and no environmental gain is bad politics coming and going. The Democrats do not seem to want to touch it, if their vote on the Green New Deal was any indication.”

” … history will judge the climate alarm as exaggerated, CO2 as the gas of life, and carbon-based energy and modern living as heaven on earth. Governor Abbott, thank you.”

During the day, Houston, Texas, bustles as the oil and gas capital of the world. The daily business fare as reported by the hometown Houston Chronicle is a new offshore project here, new refinery or petrochemical plant there, new onshore production plays elsewhere.

And then there is a whole new industry within an industry, LNG exports from Texas and Louisiana to distant ports–and even LNG tank cars crossing into Mexico.…