Los Angeles Times

California deregulated its electricity industry in 1998, and shortly afterward the lights went out. Apparently, regulators hadn’t realized how easy it would be for unscrupulous traders such as Enron to manipulate the state’s power market once it was open to competition; the results were rolling blackouts and skyrocketing electricity charges. Californians are for all this—in many areas, power bills are inflated with extra fees to cover bonds and other expenses incurred during the disastrous experiment.

We bring up this painful history because the state is about to embark on a new program that will radically impact utility regulation. This time, it’s being driven by an environmental imperative: With the effects of global warming becoming more apparent daily, the state has committed to cut its greenhouse gases 25% by 2020, and electricity generation is the state’s second-biggest source of greenhouse emissions after the transportation sector. To spur the needed changes, regulators are designing a cap-and-trade program, in which carbon emissions are capped and power generators can trade carbon credits—permits to pollute—among themselves. This is a staggeringly complex undertaking that will once again create opportunities for dishonest traders to manipulate the market. In other words, unless the cap-and-trade program is designed extraordinarily well, we could be looking at deregulation deja vu. And the consequences won’t just be higher power bills. Read more here.

By Marc Morano

Scientists skeptical of man-made climate fears meeting at the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change in New York City described the “absolute horror stories” about how some scientific journals have engaged in “outrageous and unethical behavior” in attempting to suppress them from publishing their work in peer-reviewed journals. The March 2-4 groundbreaking conference, which featured about 100 speakers with over 500 people attending, presented the report of a team of international scientists who formed a group to counter the UN IPCC.  [Note: The author of this report attended and participated in the conference.]

The event, which garnered significant international and U.S. media attention, featured many current and former UN IPCC scientists from around the world. (See: “Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate” and see climate declaration signed by the scientists at the conference here.)

During the conference, scientists revealed the lack of tolerance science journals and institutions have exhibited for skeptical climate views. “We [fellow skeptical scientists] talked mostly of work and upcoming papers and went through the standard ritual of griping about journal editors and the ridiculous hoops we sometimes have to jump through to get papers published. But some of the guys had absolute horror stories of what happened to them when they tried getting papers published that explored non-’consensus’ views. Really outrageous and unethical behavior on the parts of some editors. I was shocked,” wrote conference participant Dr. William M. Briggs, a climate statistician who serves on the American Meteorological Society’s Probability and Statistics Committee and is an Associate Editor of Monthly Weather Review, on his blog on March 4. 

Prominent Hungarian Physicist Dr. Miklos Zagoni, a former global warming activist who recently reversed his views about man-made climate fears and is now a skeptic, presented scientific findings at the conference refuting rising CO2 fears. Zagoni’s scientific mentor Hungarian scientist, Dr. Ferenc Miskolczi, an atmospheric physicist, resigned from his post working with NASA because he was disgusted with the agency’s lack of scientific freedom. Miskolczi, who also presented his peer-reviewed findings at the conference, said he wanted to release his new research that showed “runaway greenhouse theories contradict energy balance equations,” but he claims NASA refused to allow him. “Unfortunately, my working relationship with my NASA supervisors eroded to a level that I am not able to tolerate.  My idea of the freedom of science cannot coexist with the recent NASA practice of handling new climate change related scientific results,” Miskolczi said according to a March 6 Daily Tech article.

Dr. Briggs summarized the opinion of many present very well “It is my belief that the strident and frequent claims of catastrophes caused by man-made global warming are stated with a degree of confidence not warranted by the data. Too many people are too confident about too many things. That was the simple message of the Heartland conference, and one that I hope sinks in.” Read full conference summary here.

2008 International Conference on Climate Change
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We, the scientists and researchers in climate and related fields, economists, policymakers, and business leaders, assembled at Times Square, New York City, participating in the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change

Resolving that scientific questions should be evaluated solely by the scientific method;

Affirming that global climate has always changed and always will, independent of the actions of humans, and that carbon dioxide (CO2) is not a pollutant but rather a necessity for all life;

Recognising that the causes and extent of recently observed climatic change are the subject of intense debates in the climate science community and that oft-repeated assertions of a supposed ‘consensus’ among climate experts are false;

Affirming that attempts by governments to legislate costly regulations on industry and individual citizens to encourage CO2 emission reduction will slow development while having no appreciable impact on the future trajectory of global climate change. Such policies will markedly diminish future prosperity and so reduce the ability of societies to adapt to inevitable climate change, thereby increasing, not decreasing, human suffering;

Noting that warmer weather is generally less harmful to life on Earth than colder:

Hereby declare:

That current plans to restrict anthropogenic CO2 emissions are a dangerous misallocation of intellectual capital and resources that should be dedicated to solving humanity’s real and serious problems.

That there is no convincing evidence that CO2 emissions from modern industrial activity has in the past, is now, or will in the future cause catastrophic climate change.

That attempts by governments to inflict taxes and costly regulations on industry and individual citizens with the aim of reducing emissions of CO2 will pointlessly curtail the prosperity of the West and progress of developing nations without affecting climate.

That adaptation as needed is massively more cost-effective than any attempted mitigation and that a focus on such mitigation will divert the attention and resources of governments away from addressing the real problems of their peoples.

That human-caused climate change is not a global crisis.

Now, therefore, we recommend

That world leaders reject the views expressed by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as well as popular, but misguided works such as “An Inconvenient Truth.”

That all taxes, regulations, and other interventions intended to reduce emissions of CO2 be abandoned forthwith.

Agreed at New York, 4 March 2008. See the Manhattan Declaration here.