By Steve Goreham
Undaunted by Climategate disclosures and the failure to pursue climate legislation in the Senate, the climate movement is stepping up the attack. At an August 10 virtual town hall held by Repower America, former Vice President Al Gore stated, “We are not defeated. We are redoubling our efforts ...We need to solve the climate crisis.” Thousands of supporters listened to the call. Inspired by Mr. Gore, they intend to “roll up their sleeves” and “turn their attention to the future.” Unfortunately, the climate movement is long on enthusiasm and ideology, but short on science and economic sense.
Climatism, the theory that man-made greenhouse gases are destroying Earth’s climate, is increasingly in doubt. It appears that the world jumped to conclusions in 1992 at the Rio de Janiero Earth Summit, when 41 nations signed a treaty pledging to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. For the last eighteen years, political leaders have been arguing about how much to reduce such emissions. But more and more science shows our climate to be dominated by natural cycles of Earth, driven by solar activity. Man-made carbon dioxide emissions play only an insignificant role in global warming.
On September 3, the BlueGreen Alliance completed a 17-state, 30-city bus tour, urging Senate action on comprehensive climate legislation. The BlueGreen Alliance was formed in 2006 by the Sierra Club and the United Steelworkers as a national partnership to work for “expanding the number and quality of jobs in the clean energy economy.” Eight U.S. trade unions, comprising 8.5 million workers, have joined the Alliance and bought into the myth that Cap and Trade legislation will create a green jobs economy. Steel is an energy-intensive industry that would be harmed by legislation to restrict carbon emissions. It’s a mystery why any steel worker would support Cap and Trade.
Economist Milton Friedman, as an advisor to a developing nation, reportedly visited a construction site and asked why laborers were using shovels instead of earth-moving equipment. When told that tractors would eliminate jobs, he said, “Why not give them spoons?” Real economic growth is achieved only by improving the productivity of the work force, not by artificial creation of jobs.
According to analysis from the Institute of Energy Research and the U.K. House of Lords, wind turbines and solar fields are less reliable and two to four times as expensive as traditional hydrocarbon fuels for producing electricity. An even greater deficiency is that wind and solar energy are intermittently generated. In 2009, the 33,000 U.S. wind turbine towers on average delivered only 23% of their rated power. Would you buy a car that starts only one-quarter of the time? Yet government subsidies and mandates are forcing substitution of these green “solutions.” These policies are reducing the productivity of our energy industry, thereby hindering U.S. economic growth and resulting in net job losses. Expensive energy creates jobs only in the energy sector while resulting in greater job losses in the rest of the economy.
Sunday, October 10 will be a big day for the climate movement. The grassroots group 350.org is planning international demonstrations against man-made climate change. Tens of thousands of starry-eyed young people will take to the streets around the globe. Not one in ten will know that water vapor, not carbon dioxide, is Earth’s primary greenhouse gas, but they’ll be shouting for change just the same. These demonstrations are timed to call attention to the Cancun Climate Summit beginning at the end of November.
The United Nations 16th Conference of the Parties on Climate Change will convene in Cancun, Mexico on November 29. A year after the failed negotiations in Copenhagen, 193 nations and thousands of delegates will meet again to try to find a way to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and save the environment. Yet such a meeting is ironic on a massive scale.
As pointed out by geologist Leighton Steward, carbon dioxide is green! Carbon dioxide is plant food. Hundreds of peer-reviewed scientific studies document that increased atmospheric CO2 causes plants and trees to grow faster and larger, increase their root systems, and improve their resistance to drought. Coincidentally, carbon dioxide emissions from our industries have probably done more for greening the Earth than every tree ever planted by a well-meaning environmentalist. Yet, it’s damn the science and economics, full speed ahead. Read post here.
Steve Goreham is Executive Director for the Climate Science Coalition of America and author of Climatism! Science, Common Sense, and the 21st Century’s Hottest Topic
By Paul Chesser
According to the Washington Post Doug McKelway, a reporter for the city’s ABC affiliate WJLA, has been fired after he was suspended last month over a confrontation with his boss. The conflict arose because of a McKelway report about a demonstration by environmental groups, who protested during the BP/Gulf disaster over oil industry campaign contributions to members of Congress. Here is the report he delivered on July 20 from Capitol Hill:
As you see, McKelway was tasked with reporting on a miniscule protest. If it had been pro-life activists or some other conservative cause, he would have been given another assignment. So he made it newsworthy by introducing relevant information such as:
How few demonstrators there were, which in order to be worth reporting, would require the speculation he delivered about “where the movement is headed right now”
Identifying the protestors as representatives of “far left” environmental groups such as Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, which they are. Apparently it is only proper to identify ideology when the groups are “right-wing” or on the “far right”
President Obama’s $77,051 in campaign contributions from BP, leading McKelway to raise the possibility that the environoiacs’ are engaging in a “risky strategy” by accusing Congress members of taking “dirty oil money”
That (publicly) unpopular climate/energy legislation passed by the House faced such a tough road in the Senate that Majority Leader Harry Reid refused to even use the term “cap-and-trade”
That Democrats, as reflected by polls everywhere, face huge losses in Congress in November, which would seem to pertain to whether or not the Senate takes up a vote on cap-and-trade
That the last thing Dems, faced with dim electoral prospects, want to do is pass legislation that “imposes huge escalations in your electricity bill,” which would seem to fit a presidential candidate’s assertion not too long ago that cap-and-trade would make electricity rates “necessarily skyrocket”
WJLA news director Bill Lord cited “insubordination” and “misconduct” in McKelway’s firing. Maybe that was the case, if McKelway’s response crossed the line, but the fact is he was called into the boss’s office for the type of reporting the formerly mainstream media does all the time. See post here.
AUSTIN - The State of Texas today filed four motions to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from implementing new federal regulations that threaten the Texas economy and jeopardize Texas jobs. Specifically, Texas petitioned the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to stay the EPA’s greenhouse gas Endangerment Finding, the Light-Duty Vehicle Rule, the Prevention of Significant Deterioration (PSD) Interpretive Rule, and the Tailoring Rule.
Court documents filed by the State explain that the EPA’s Endangerment Finding is legally unsupported because the agency outsourced its legally mandated “scientific assessment” to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which had the objectivity, reliability and propriety of its scientific assessments called into question after a scandal erupted late last year. The State explained that the IPCC - and therefore the EPA - relied on flawed science to conclude that greenhouse emissions endanger public health and welfare. Because the Administration predicated its Endangerment Finding on the IPCC’s questionable reports, the State is seeking to prevent the EPA’s new Rules - and the economic harm that will result from those regulations - from being imposed on Texas employers, workers and enforcement agencies.
Texas is also seeking to stay the imposition of the Light-Duty Vehicle Rule, which is predicated on the EPA’s flawed Endangerment Finding. The Light-Duty Vehicle Rule attempts to apply new federal emissions regulations to passenger vehicles such as cars and trucks. Court documents filed by the State explain that the Light-Duty Vehicle Rule is flawed because it purports to regulate pollutants that are not even found in vehicle emissions. Further, although federal law requires that new environmental regulations quantify their purported health and welfare benefits, the EPA failed to include that data when the Light-Duty Vehicle Rule was published. Third, despite a national economic downturn, the EPA also failed to adequately consider the harmful economic impact of the mobile source regulations - even though a thorough economic impact analysis is required by the Clean Air Act.
Under the so-called PSD Interpretive Rule - which the State is also challenging - once a substance is regulated for any purpose, all emissions sources are subject to regulation. Thus, because the Light-Duty Vehicle Rule attempts to regulate greenhouse gas emissions for the first time, that Rule extends those regulations to stationary sources such as factories, refineries, large office buildings with boilers - any stationery location that emits greenhouse gases. Although EPA officials plainly knew their regulations would extend to stationery sources, the federal regulator’s Light-Duty Vehicle Rule economic impact analysis failed to consider the economic implications of imposing its greenhouse gas regulations on factories, refineries, and other large employers.
The State is challenging the PSD Interpretive Rule itself because the Rule leads to absurd results. Effective January 2, 2011, the Rule requires that greenhouse gases be automatically regulated pursuant to the Clean Air Act’s statutorily specified emission level requirements. However, the emission levels were written to control toxic pollution - not carbon dioxide and other non-toxic substances. As a result the Clean Air Act contains lower emission levels than are practicable for regulating high-volume, non-toxic greenhouse gases. Thus, by the EPA’s own admission, the PSD Interpretive Rule produces an absurd result.
To solve the “absurd results” problem of its own creation, the EPA promulgated the so-called Tailoring Rule, which purports to limit greenhouse gas permitting and regulation to only the largest emitters. Texas is challenging the Tailoring Rule because the EPA is attempting to ignore the plain language of the Clean Air Act and rewrite the law to advance its regulatory agenda. The Tailoring Rule would require Texas to reinterpret or revise its ‘State Implementation Plan’ - which is the State’s federally-approved Clean Air Act enforcement program - by Jan. 2, 2011. If the State fails to meet the Administration’s requirement, the EPA will impose its own federal implementation plan upon Texas. Thus, today’s court filings challenge the EPA’s attempts to ignore federal law, impose their federally mandated deadlines and force Texas to spend millions of dollars advancing the Administration’s regulatory agenda.
The State’s petitions for stay ask the court to prevent the EPA from imposing their greenhouse gas regulations until the State’s legal challenge is resolved. By granting the State’s motions to stay, the Court will provide greater regulatory certainty, avoid government waste, and protect Texas jobs. See release here.
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California Braces for Showdown on Emissions
By Adam Nagourney, for the New York Times
LOS ANGELES - A ballot initiative to suspend a milestone California law curbing greenhouse gas emissions is drawing a wave of contributions from out-of-state oil companies, raising concerns among conservationists as it emerges as a test of public support for potentially costly environmental measures during tough economic times.
Charles and David Koch, the billionaires from Kansas who have played a prominent role in financing the Tea Party movement, donated $1 million to the campaign to suspend the Global Warming Solutions Act, which was passed four years ago, and signaled that they were prepared to invest more in the cause. With their contribution, proponents of the proposition have raised $8.2 million, with $7.9 million coming from energy companies, most of them out of state.
This latest embrace by the Koch brothers of a conservative cause jolted environmental leaders who are worried that a vote against the law in this state - with its long history of environmental activism - would amount to a powerful setback for emission control efforts in Washington and statehouses across the country.
“It would have big implications,” said George P. Shultz, the former secretary of state, who is a chairman of a campaign to defeat the ballot initiative. “That is one reason why these outside companies are pouring money in to try to derail the same thing. At the same time, the reverse is true: they put this fat in the fire and if we win, that also sends a message.”
Gene Karpinski, president of the League of Conservation Voters, who has been traveling California to rally support against the proposition, called it “by far the single most important ballot measure to date testing public support for continuing to move to a clean energy economy.”
The campaign against California’s greenhouse gas law comes as business groups have invested heavily across the country in trying to defeat members of Congress who voted for a cap-and-trade bill that also mandated emission reductions; the bill passed the House but failed in the Senate in the face of strong opposition from lawmakers in industrial states.
Traditionally, public support for environmental measures suffers during tough economic times. Here in California, backers of the initiative have seized on that anxiety - which is particularly acute in this state, with its 12.3 percent unemployment rate - in search of a victory.
“I believe the battle over cap and trade in America is taking place in California on Nov. 2 of this year,” said Dan Logue, a Republican assemblyman from north-central California who wrote the ballot initiative. He added: “What we’re saying is, this is not the time for political correctness. This is a time for putting America back to work; let the experiments happen later.”
The law in question, known as A.B. 32, mandates slashing carbon and other greenhouse emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, by forcing power companies and industries to cap their emissions and by slashing carbon in gasoline. Some oil industry leaders said it would force them to invest millions of dollars to comply, and asserted that it would force companies to cut jobs and raise the price of gas at the pumps.
Although the vast majority of the money being contributed to fight the law is coming from oil companies, the oil industry is clearly not united in opposition: some major California oil refineries, including Chevron, have notably stayed out of the battle so far.
The ballot initiative, known as Proposition 23, would suspend the law from going into effect as scheduled in 2012 until state unemployment falls to 5.5 percent or lower for at least four consecutive quarters. That has happened only three times over the last 40 years, state officials said; thus, the proposition could have the practical effect of killing the law.
“The company believes that implementing A.B. 32 will cause significant job losses and higher energy costs in California,” said Katie Stavinoha, a spokesman for Flint Hills Resources, the petroleum company in Wichita, Kan., owned by the Koch brothers. “What’s more, the company thinks it sets a bad precedent for other state and federal governments to do the same thing.”
That said, the issue hardly breaks cleanly along business lines, reflecting in part the diverse business environment in California, which has always had a strong research and development sector, powered by venture capitalists ready to finance cutting-edge technology. Many business groups have opposed the drive to suspend the greenhouse law, and the list of of contributors backing the measure is notable for the absence of venture capitalists.
“There is a huge clean energy revolution going on: this is going to happen,” said Thomas F. Steyer, founder of Farallon Capital Management, a hedge fund in San Francisco, and a co-chairman with Mr. Shultz of the campaign to defeat the proposition. “If we’re not careful, it’s just not going to happen in the United States.”
Mr. Steyer has contributed $2.5 million to the effort to defeat the initiative and said he was prepared to contribute an additional $2.5 million.
Mr. Schultz said that since the passage of the law, “a whole industry is developing here, and I might say a lot of jobs are connected with it.” “There’s been a virtual eruption of research and development activities of all kinds on alternate ways to produce and use energy,” he said.
In most years, this should not be a worrisome battleground for environmentalists. The greenhouse gas law enjoyed strong support from the public when it passed four years ago, according polls. The roster of opponents to Proposition 23 includes Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, who views the law as a defining accomplishment of his career here.
Early polling suggests that voters who know about the measure are evenly split. Yet supporters said they were concerned that the proposition could slip through at a time when Democratic spirits are low. More significant is the question of how much more supporters of Prop 23 can raise to finance their campaign. Of the $8.2 million raised so far, $1 million came from the Koch firm, $4 million from the Valero Energy Corporation and $1.5 million from the Tesoro Corporation; both corporations are based in San Antonio.
“We have every reason to believe that they are going to put the money in to run a big television campaign in the most expensive media market in the country,’ said Annie Notthoff, the California advocacy director for the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group. “We certainly are expecting to have a fight on our hands.”
Supporters of the law, if nervous about the proposition, remain optimistic than they can beat it back at the polls in November, and hope that such an outcome would have the opposite effect nationally that opponents of the bill are seeking. “If the proposition loses, the lesson is going to be there’s no going back,” said Wesley P. Warren, director of programs for the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Californians and Texans have a chance to prevent the alternative energy, ‘green job’ failures and economic pains that Europe went through. European countries are running away from the very same programs and efforts the environmentalists and the politicans they so lavishly support are pushing here. If you live in those states make your voices heard.