Inferior Holiday Lighting: Another Cost of the Futile Climate Crusade? (Malthusianism is gloomy in practice, not only theory)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- December 22, 2009 7 Comments

“[LEDs are] not the same. They’re weird-looking. They’re sized different and have these unusual ripples. If you have those interspersed with your traditional lights, they’re going to look dumb.”

– Interviewed consumer, AP Piece, December 21, 2009

An AP piece yesterday by by Sean Murphy, Many Take Dim View of New-Fangled Christmas Lights, is another example of some of the problems that occur when an (inferior) product is forced on consumers in the name of “energy sustainability” (aka, the futile climate crusade).

Small, unsafe, high-insurance-premium micro cars are bad enough (do these things work on the highway?). But also troubling is the assault on quality lighting–and more lighting per se–that hinder those whose mood is elevated by brightness and the many who have trouble coping with the dark. (Of course some can go too far with holiday lighting, as with any pleasurable activity.)…

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Electricity for the Poor – What Copenhagen Really Needs to Confront

By Donald Hertzmark -- December 9, 2009 2 Comments

When you fly overnight from Johannesburg to Europe the lights become thin just north of Lusaka, Zambia, a few more in Zambia’s Copper Belt and then nothing (and I mean nothing) until the North African coastline. For most of this 11-12 hour flight there are no artificial lights below. From the Sahara on south, but excluding South Africa, a region that is home to more than 400 million people consumes less electricity than New York City.

The World At Night (courtesy of Bert Christensen. Click to enlarge.)

  • And yet this area includes major oil producers:
    Nigeria produces 2.1 million b/d oil and consumes 19 billion kWh/y
    Angola produces 2.0 million b/d oil and consumes 3.2 billion kWh/y
    Equatorial Guinea produces 0.36 million b/d and consumes 26 million kWh/y
    Other sub-Saharan Africa oil producers supply more than 1 million b/d to world markets.
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Climategate Did Not Begin With Climate (Remembering Julian Simon and the storied intolerance of neo-Malthusians)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- December 8, 2009 9 Comments

A powerful argument against climate alarmism is the failed worldview of modern neo-Malthusianism, which has promoted fear after fear with an intolerant, smartest-guys-in-the-room mentality. Remember the “population bomb” where many millions would die in food riots? Well, obesity turned out to be the real problem.

Remember the Club of Rome’s resource scare? In 1972, 57 predictions of exhaustion were made regarding 19 different minerals. All either have been falsified or will be.

Remember the global-cooling scare promoted by, among others, the Obama administration’s science czar, John Holdren? (Yes, global cooling was a big deal, although it was not a “consensus.”)

And all of the above doom merchants were uber-confident and still are loath to admit they were ever wrong. Holdren, for example, is sticking to his prediction that as many as one billion people could die by 2020 from (man-made) climate change.…

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Ethanol: Unintended Consequences

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- December 7, 2009 6 Comments

“[Government] intervention that impinges on complex market forces can produce both unpredicted and unpredictable results.”

– Robert Bradley, Oil, Gas, and Government: The U.S. Experience (vol. 2), p. 1791.

Of all the environmental boondoggles of recent years, the biggest must be corn ethanol. As MasterResource’s Ken Green wrote in an article summarizing ethanol’s impact on the environment:

Contrary to popular belief, ethanol fuel will do little or nothing to increase our energy security or stabilize fuel prices. Instead, it will increase greenhouse gas emissions, local air pollutant emissions, fresh water scarcity, water pollution (both riparian and oceanic), land and ecosystem consumption, and food prices.

In a recent speech, Green elaborated, pointing out

the absolute fiasco of corn ethanol, which has caused increases in air pollution, water pollution, freshwater consumption, coastal pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, and food prices.

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Power Politics: Enron Lives! (From Ken Lay’s “natural gas standard” to cap & trade today)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- December 5, 2009 2 Comments Continue Reading

James Hansen on Cap-and-Trade & Copenhagen

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- November 30, 2009 13 Comments Continue Reading

A Death Spiral for Climate Alarmism, Redux?

By Kenneth P. Green -- November 27, 2009 6 Comments Continue Reading

Climate Politics: Running Scared in the EU (even before Climategate)

By Carlo Stagnaro -- November 25, 2009 6 Comments Continue Reading

Origins of the Gasoline Tax (Part II of “Political Capitalism: Understanding the Beast that Broke the Cage”)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- November 18, 2009 3 Comments Continue Reading

Wind Integration: Incremental Emissions from Back-Up Generation Cycling (Part II)

By Kent Hawkins -- November 16, 2009 7 Comments Continue Reading