Lawrence Solomon, FP Comment
A wind farm in the U.K., which now has 12 million people living in fuel poverty.
Climate mania impoverishes electricity customers worldwide
Global-warming-related catastrophes are increasingly hitting vulnerable populations around the world, with one species in particular danger: the electricity ratepayer. In Canada, in the U.K., in Spain, in Denmark, in Germany and elsewhere the danger to ratepayers is especially great, but ratepayers in one country - the U.S. - seem to have weathered the worst of the disaster.
America’s secret? Unlike leaders in other countries, which to their countries’ ruin adopted policies as if global warming mattered, U.S. leaders more paid lip service to it. While citizens in other countries are now seeing soaring power rates, American householders can look forward to declining rates.
The North American exemplar of acting on the perceived threat of global warming is Ontario, which dismantled one of the continent’s finest fleets of coal plants in pursuit of becoming a green leader. Then, to induce developers to build uneconomic renewable energy facilities, the Ontario government paid them as much as 80 times the market rate for power. The result is power prices that rose rapidly (about 50% since 2005) and will continue to do so: Ontarians can expect power prices that are 46% higher over the next five years, according to a 2010 Ontario government estimate, and more than 100% higher according to independent estimates. The rest of Canada may not fare much better - the National Energy Board forecasts power prices 42% higher by 2035, while some estimates have Canadian power prices 50% higher by 2020.
The story throughout much of Europe is similar. Denmark, an early adopter of the global-warming mania, now requires its households to pay the developed world’s highest power prices - about 40¢ a kilowatt hour, or three to four times what North Americans pay today. Germany, whose powerhouse economy gave green developers a blank cheque, is a close second, followed by other politically correct nations such as Belgium, the headquarters of the EU, and distressed nations such as Spain.
The result is chaos to the economic well-being of the EU nations. Even in rock-solid Germany, up to 15% of the populace is now believed to be in “fuel poverty” - defined by governments as needing to spend more than 10% of the total household income on electricity and gas. Some 600,000 low-income Germans are now being cut off by their power companies annually, a number expected to increase as a never-ending stream of global-warming projects in the pipeline wallops customers. In the U.K., which has laboured under the most politically correct climate leadership in the world, some 12 million people are already in fuel poverty, 900,000 of them in wind-infested Scotland alone, and the U.K. has now entered a double-dip recession.
The U.S., in contrast, will see power rates decline starting next year, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, dropping by more than 22% by the end of the decade and then staying flat to 2035. Why the fall? Mainly because the U.S. will rely overwhelmingly on fossil fuels in the years ahead, not just coal, which dominates the current power system, but increasingly natural gas, which is expected to account for 60% of all new generating capacity in the future. Thanks to fracking, the U.S. effectively has limitless amounts of inexpensive natural gas to add to its limitless coal.
While the rest of the developed world was in thrall to global-warming rhetoric, the U.S. talked the talk but balked at following through. In 1997, then president Bill Clinton and his vice-president, Al Gore, happily signed on to the Kyoto Treaty, which coerced the countries of the developed world into compromising their economies in order to save the planet. While other nations then dutifully complied, the U.S. Senate - as Clinton and Gore knew it would - refused to ratify Kyoto by a 95-0 vote. Clinton’s successor, George W. Bush, did an equally superb job of talking but balking at taking economy-killing measures. Bush successor Barack Obama, although a global-warming true believer, also put global warming on the back burner, preferring to make Obamacare, rather than climate change, his signature issue.
With the Republicans all but certain to control the purse strings following the November elections by dint of a majority in the House of Representatives, European-style legislation in the U.S. in aid of global warming will be impossible, even if the Republicans don’t also capture the Senate and the White House, as polls now indicate they will. In the event of a Republican sweep, the gap between power prices in the U.S. and the rest of the developed world will increase even more as “Drill, baby, drill” Republicans remove the existing restraints on the U.S. fossil-fuel industry, and slash the remaining subsidies on the U.S. renewable-energy industry.
At the Heartland Conference in Chicago this morning, four of the forty-nine signers of the March letter to NASA Administrator Charles Bolden (discussed at WUWT) appeared to discuss their reasons for signing that letter and to announce a second letter responding to NASA’s response. The text of that letter is reproduced below:
May 11, 2012
The Honorable Charles Bolden, Jr.
NASA Administrator
NASA Headquarters
Washington, D.C. 20546-0001
Dear Charlie:
In our letter of March 28, 2012, we, the undersigned, respectfully requested that NASA and the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) refrain from including unproven remarks in public releases and websites.
On April 11th, Dr. Waleed Abdalati responded, holding that: “As an agency, NASA does not draw conclusions and issue ‘claims’ about research findings.”
Eight days later, at a senate hearing, Dr. Abdalati, did just that, concluding that Sea-Level rise within the next 87 years projects within a range of 0.2 meters to 2 meters, with lower ranges less likely while “the highest values are based on warmest of the temperature scenarios commonly considered for the remainder of the 21st century.” Abdalati added: “The consequences of a 1 meter rise in sea level by the end of this century would be very significant in terms of human well-being and economics, and potentially global socio-political stability.”
The range and imprecision of this conclusion is astounding!
“Commonly considered?’ Is this science by poll? If hard data points to a provable rise, it should be stated with its probability. Can you imagine one of your predecessors, Dr. Thomas Paine, declaring, “Our Apollo 11 Lunar Lander’s target is the Sea of Tranquility, but we may make final descent within a range that includes Crater Clavius”?
We are not trying to stifle discourse, but undisciplined commentary, lacking in precision, is wholly inappropriate when NASA’s name and reputation is attached.
This letter should end the discussion, as a protracted discourse on this topic is not in NASA’s interest, but a commitment from you to equal or exceed the agency’s reputation for careful reliance upon rigorous science and accurate data most certainly is!
Join us, please, in encouraging your colleagues to achieve the level of excellence the world has come to expect from America’s National Aeronautics and Space Administration!
Waiting to do so is not an option!
[signed 41]
PS Waiting to send was not an option either - we have fewer signatures than the first, as not everyone was reachable and only one opted out.
/s/ Jack Barneburg, Jack - JSC, Space Shuttle Structures, Engineering Directorate, 34 years
/s/ Larry Bell - JSC, Mgr. Shuttle Cargo Engineering, Crew Syst. Div. 32 years
/s/ Jerry C. Bostick - JSC, Director of Mission Support, 23 years
/s/ Dr. Phillip K. Chapman - JSC, Scientist - astronaut, 5 years
/s/ Michael F. Collins, JSC, Chief, Flight Design and Dynamics Div., MOD, 41 years
/s/ Dr. Kenneth Cox - JSC, Chief Flight Dynamics Div., Engr. Directorate, 40 years
/s/ Walter Cunningham - JSC, Astronaut, Apollo 7, 8 years
/s/ Dr. Donald M. Curry - JSC, Mgr. Shuttle Leading Edge, Thermal Protection Sys., Engr. Dir., 44 years
/s/ Leroy Day - Hdq. Deputy Director, Space Shuttle Program, 19 years
/s/Charles F. Deiterich - JSC, Mgr., Flight Operations Integration, MOD, 30 years
/s/ Dr. Harold Doiron - JSC, Chairman, Shuttle Pogo Prevention Panel, 16 years
/s/ Grace Germany - JSC, Program Analyst, 35 years
/s/ Richard Gordon - JSC, Astronaut, Gemini Xi, Apollo 12, 9 years
/s/ Gerald D. Griffin - JSC, Apollo Flight Director, and Director of Johnson Space Center, 22 years
/s/ Thomas M. Grubbs - JSC, Chief, Aircraft Maintenance and Engineering Branch, 31 years
/s/ David W. Heath - JSC, Reentry Specialist, MOD, 30 years
/s/ Miguel A. Hernandez, Jr. PE - JSC, Flight crew training and operations, 14 years
/s/ Enoch Jones - JSC, Mgr. SE&I, Shuttle Program Office, 26 years
/s/ Dr. Joseph Kerwin - JSC, Astronaut, Skylab 2, Director of Space and Life Sciences, 22 years
/s/ Jack Knight - JSC, Chief, Advanced Operations and Development Div., MOD, 40 years
/s/ Dr. Christopher C. Kraft - JSC, Apollo Flight Director and Director of Johnson Space Center, 24 years
/s/ Paul C. Kramer - JSC, Ass’t. for Planning Aeroscience and Flight Mechanics Div., Egr. Dir., 34 years
/s/ Dr. Lubert Leger - JSC, Ass’t. Chief Materials Div., Engr. Directorate, 30 years
/s/ Dr. Humbolt C. Mandell - JSC, Mgr. Shuttle Program Control and Advance Programs, 40 years
/s/ Donald K. McCutchen - JSC, Project Engineer - Space Shuttle and ISS Program Offices, 33 years
/s/ Richard McFarland -ARC, Mgr. Tech development VMS & Motion Simulators, 28 years
/s/ Thomas L. (Tom) Moser - Hdq. Dep. Assoc. Admin. & Director, Space Station Program, 28 years
/s/ Dr. George Mueller - Hdq., Assoc. Adm., Office of Space Flight, 6 years
/s/ James Peacock - JSC, Apollo and Shuttle Program Office, 21 years
/s/ Alex Pope - JSC, Aerospace Engineer, Engr. Directorate, 44 years
/s/ Joseph E. Rogers - JSC, Chief, Structures and Dynamics Branch, Engr. Directorate,40 years
/s/ Bernard J. Rosenbaum - JSC, Chief Engineer, Propulsion and Power Div., Engr. Dir., 48 years
/s/ James R. Roundtree - JSC, Sim. Dev. Branch Chief, Systems Dev. Div., Mission Support Dir., 26 years
/s/ Dr. Harrison (Jack) Schmitt - JSC, Astronaut Apollo 17, 10 years
/s/ Kenneth Suit - JSC, Ass’t Mgr., Systems Integration, Space Shuttle, 37 years
/s/ Robert F. Thompson - JSC, Program Manager, Space Shuttle, 44 years
/s/ Frank Van Renesselaer - Hdq. - Dir. Expendable Equipment (Ext. Tank, Solid Boosters, & Shuttle Upper Stages), 20 years
/s/ James Visentine - JSC Materials Branch, Engr. Directorate, 30 years
/s/ Manfred (Dutch) von Ehrenfried - JSC, Flight Controller; Mercury, Gemini & Apollo, MOD, 10 years
/s/ Al Worden - JSC, Astronaut, Apollo 15, 9 years
/s/ Thomas (Tom) Wysmuller - ARC, GSFC, Hdq. - Meteorologist, 5 years
By Caroline May, The Daily Caller
The Congressional Research Service estimates that since 2008 the federal government has spent nearly $70 billion on “climate change activities.”
Oklahoma Republican Sen. James Inhofe presented the new CRS report on the Senate Floor Thursday to make the point that the Obama administration has been focused on “green” defense projects to the detriment of the military.
The report revealed that from fiscal years 2008 through 2012 the federal government spent $68.4 billion to combat climate change. The Department of Defense also spent $4 billion of its budget, the report adds, on climate change and energy efficiency activities in that same time period.
Inhofe, the Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works and a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, argued that the expenditures are foolish at a time when the military is facing “devastating cuts.”
“[E]veryone agrees that energy efficiency in the military is a worthy goal,” he said. “In fact, I have been a strong supporter of some of DoD’s alternative energy solutions that are affordable and make sense, including their initiatives on non-algal bio-fuels and natural gas. But forcing our military to take money away from core programs in order to invest in unproven technologies as part of a failed cap-and-trade agenda is not only wrong, it’s reckless.”
Inhofe, who believes climate change is an unproven scientific theory at best and a hoax at worst, expressed concern about recent statements by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta expressing the department’s focus on making and keeping the military “green.”
Panetta’s comments came just two weeks prior to the Senate Armed Services Committee’s markup of the current Defense Authorization bill. During that markup, Inhofe said he plans to “put the spotlight on President Obama forcing his costly green agenda on DoD while [Obama] is gutting the defense budget.” He added his intention to introduce amendments to stop the administration’s green military plans.
Inhofe noted “drastic” cuts in personnel, brigade combat teams, tactical fighters, and airlift aircraft DoD has undergone in the last four years, along with the cancellation or postponement of specialized ship and aircraft construction.
“hich would you rather have? Would you rather spend $4 billion on Air Force Base solar panels, or would you rather have 28 new F-22s or 30 F-25s or modernized C-130s?” asked. “ould you rather have $64.8 billion spent on pointless global warming efforts or would you rather have more funds put towards modernizing our fleet of ships, aircraft and ground vehicles to improve the safety of our troops and help defend our nation against the legitimate threats that we face?”
According to Inhofe, Panetta’s focus on greening the military was a direct order from the White House -an order he should disobey.
“President Obama can write press releases for his lackeys but Secretary Panetta has an important job to do and doesn’t have time to be pandering to President Obama’s global warming fantasies or his ongoing war on affordable energy. He has a real war to win,” Inhofe concluded.
“As President Obama’s war on affordable energy wages on there are real threats out there, and, contrary to Secretary Panetta’s remarks, man-made catastrophic global warming isn’t one of them,” Inhofe said.
The Oklahoma senator added that Panetta’s green focus reveals the administration’s true feelings about energy development.
“Secretary Panetta’s commitment of a billion dollars for alternative fuels makes clear that, despite President Obama’s recent change in rhetoric for his re-election campaign, he remains fully determined to implement his all-out attack on traditional American energy development - and the military is one place where he can force it to happen,” he said. Link.
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The President repeats his now famous crotch salute to the flag in a military ceremony.
