It’s a familiar story: A promising kid gets in with the wrong crowd, ends up joining a gang, and wastes his life away in addiction and futility. In this case, the addiction is to expensive foreign oil and the gangsters are the Senate’s so-called Gang of 20, who are pushing a potentially disastrous energy package that amounts to near-complete capitulation to the anti-drilling, anti-energy crowd. The promising kid is John McCain. And the bad influence? His name is Sen. Lindsey Graham.
September 2008
The other night when House Democrats appeared to reverse their long-standing ban on offshore oil drilling, the electorate was again hoodwinked. At least the Democratic leadership hoped the electorate was hoodwinked.
After a five-week paid vacation, Democrats are back in Washington and claiming that they want to do something about oil prices.
British climate and energy policy is incoherent and needs an overhaul, dumping carbon targets and building more coal and nuclear power stations to stop the lights going out, a pro-nuclear scientist said.
Paul Chesser, Climate Strategies Watch
The John Locke Foundation (my former employer and current office landlord) hosted University of Alabama-Huntsville research scientist Roy Spencer at a luncheon (full video presentation is linked) in Raleigh yesterday, where he spoke about his book "Climate Confusion." Our local, ever-dwindling McClatchy rag (The News & Observer) sent a reporter over to cover his presentation, and gave Roy a fair shake, while also getting the obligatory opposition quote:
Bill Chameides, dean of Duke University's Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences, said Spencer's arguments are what magicians call "ignoratio elenchi" or logical fallacy.
"We've looked at every possible form of heat, including clouds, and the only source of heat is greenhouse gases," he said, adding it's insulting that Spencer would suggest scientists are paid to come to this conclusion. "Scientists make their reputation on debunking theories."
I doubt even the IPCC would agree that greenhouse gases are the "only source of heat."
Paul Chesser, Climate Strategies Watch
I was not surprised when I received documents from the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science this week that showed a cozy relationship with their publicity arm at the Baltimore Sun. To remind you, over a month ago a report (PDF) with alarming supermodeled conclusions about future global warming in the state was leaked to the newspaper. A day after the Sun's unbalanced (after all, critics are only fringe "deniers") and strategically limited article (the UMCES leakers, as well as four environmental activist groups, were not identified), I requested immediately from UMCES a copy of the report that they had provided for the news story. UMCES's Dave Nemazie denied my request, stating it would be released publicly in conjunction with the Maryland Commission on Climate Change's recommendations in a few weeks. As I wrote at the time, this information that is the citizens' property was withheld from all but UMCES's compliant mouthpiece.
Well, I decided then to request under Maryland's Public Information Act all correspondence between UMCES and the Sun's reporters with regard to the alarmist report. The documents provided consisted of a string of emails (PDF), mostly between the Sun's environmental reporter Timothy Wheeler and UMCES's communications director Chris Conner. They begin with a request (at the end of the day on July 31) from Wheeler for graphics information based on the report, which likely followed a phone conversation the two had. Excerpts:
Wheeler: I have 2-3 specific graphics we'd like more on.
Conner (answered toward the end of the business day): Still here. Which ones do you need?
(Wheeler explains what he needs)
Conner: Thanks Tim. I'll add them to the list. BTW – when do you think it'll run?
Wheeler: Looking at this [weekend].
Conner: Thanks…I"ll get our graphics folks crackin.' (Within a half-hour Conner had the graphics Wheeler wanted (PDF), and Nemazie delivered them to him the following morning)
Wheeler: Great, thanks again, Chris. Since you're off tomorrow, is there someone I can be in touch [with]?
Conner: Please feel free to try me first — I'll have my cell and blackberry on me most of the day.
If I don't get back to you quick enough, please try Dave Nemazie at [number redacted by me, although I don't know why I'm being so nice]…
Wheeler: I'll try not to be too much of a noodge. Enjoy your day off.
Quite a contrast between that friendly exchange and the one I had with Nemazie. Quite a difference between the obvious service-with-a-smile from Conner, who bent over backwards to deliver everything Wheeler wanted within hours so as to get their friendly story out, compared to how Nemazie responded to me when I simply requested a copy of the report. And it's quite impressive that the Sun published its story so quickly — on Sunday, August 3, following rapid-fire information exchanges that started only Thursday — and so helpfully (to UMCES) omitted the fact that far-left enviro groups both co-wrote (World Wildlife Fund and National Wildlife Federation) and funded (the Town Creek Foundation and the Keith Campbell Foundation for the Environment) the report.
The Axis of Weasels named in the title of this blog post have become so predictable that they make my job way too easy, but I do appreciate that they help keep me employed.
Update 5:10 p.m.: It was brought to my attention that Wheeler is president of the Society of Environmental Journalists, where the extent of reporting balance among their members is to track down those who fund global warming skeptics but ignore the overwhelming amount of government and leftist dollars that pay for alarmist research.
Months had passed since we last talked with Ms. Henny-Penny, whose famous declaration — "the sky is falling!" — electrified the world. At the time, her barnyard colleagues quickly fell into line with her, save one, Chicken Little, who demurred. When last Ms. H-P and I talked, she scoffed at her former friend as a "denier."
Congress will attempt to pass a key energy bill this week, testing its ability to deliver on a promise of action on oil as the Sept. 26 deadline edges closer.
James Taylor, in an article in Environment News, testifies to what will happen when States are forced to use renewable energies in their power mix: “Florida Power & Light (FPL) customers are being hit with a 16 percent hike in electricity prices as the utility company invests more heavily in solar power.” Florida has a law requiring that regulators establish a minimum renewable energy portfolio standard.
The federal flood insurance program is a great example of how government meddling in the market leads to unexpected, unwelcome results. Americans should keep this in mind when their representatives in Washington take up climate legislation that would have the federal government seize the reins of energy production in the United States.
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