October 2008

Anti-Energy Collaborative Effort in Colorado

by Paul Chesser, Heartland Institute Correspondent on October 31, 2008

in Politics

Paul Chesser, Climate Strategies Watch

Over at my Web site I've posted a long, blow-by-blow account of how Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter and his administration repeatedly enlisted the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation to pay for his global warming alarmist agenda (a "new energy economy") and for his efforts to keep the federal Bureau of Land Management from leasing for oil and gas exploration on the Roan Plateau. It's sometimes a dry recitation but there are a ton of documents linked that I obtained from the governor's office and from CDNR.

The quick-'n-dirty summary: Almost immediately after he took office Ritter had a "Climate Action Plan" he wanted to pursue, which included two new positions in his administration: a cabinet-level climate policy adviser to create "a bold and visionary climate action policy," and a liaison to the Public Utilities Commission to "develop a climate-wise utility policy." He asked for, and got, two annual grants from Hewlett for $200,000 ($400,000 total) to fund the positions. Ritter worked through Hewlett's environmental program director Hal Harvey — a far-left, Obama-supporting (and -contributing) environmental extremist who founded the Energy Foundation and is president of the crackpot enviro/population control-advocating New-Land Foundation — to pay for his climate people. I guess the state budget process would not come up with the money fast enough for Ritter.

Within a few months Ritter had another environmental cause to fight: obstructing and delaying the Bureau of Land Management from leasing the rights to oil and natural gas exploration on the rich Roan Plateau. It had been ten years already since BLM was given the mandate to lease the Naval Oil and Shale Reserves, and it was finally ready to start doing so after years of environmental study and review. But that still wasn't long enough for Ritter, his eco-cronies, Reps. Mark Udall and John Salazar, and Sen. Ken Salazar (pictured). All got involved in trying to further delay BLM.

Part of the strategy was for Ritter's administration to make the case for much slower "phased leasing" of acreage on the Roan, as opposed to the BLM's somewhat quicker but still limited and methodical approach. The governor's Department of Natural Resources sought out (and found) a cheap economist who would be willing to put together a vague case that showed phased leasing was a better idea that would reap better revenues for the state. And can you guess who they asked to pay for said cheap economist? Yep — the Hewlett Foundation, with Hal Harvey more than happy to help out. In fact, Harvey wanted to help so much that he gave campaign contributions to both Salazars and Udall as well.

The congressmen worked at the federal level to implement Ritter's phased leasing goals, with Sen. Salazar's legal counsel begging for the suspect economic analysis to buttress his case. But the congressmen's and Ritter's efforts fell short of their goals, as BLM moved forward with the leasing, which netted nearly $114 million for both the federal and state governments — "the highest grossing onshore oil and natural gas lease sale in BLM history in the lower 48 states."

Nevertheless, it's a sorry tale of how environmental extremists will fight together to the death for measures that would cripple our access to our own sources of affordable energy.

Cooler Heads Digest

by William Yeatman on October 31, 2008

in Cooler Heads Digest

In the News

MIT Scientists Baffled by Sudden Rise in Greenhouse Gas
Rick C. Hodgin, TG Daily, 30 October 2008

Green Energy Crashes
Reuters, 30 October 2008

Stranger than Fiction
Brendan O Neil, Planet Gore, 29 October 2008

San Francisco: The Epicenter of Stupid Ideas
Alan Caruba, Canadian Free Press, 26 October 2008

News You Can Use

On October 29, the U. S. broke 168 cold-temperature records and 63 snowfall records. The first snowfall in October in London since 1934 started at about ten PM on October 28, just as the British House of Commons passed a new climate bill that mandates 80% cuts in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

Inside the Beltway
CEI’s Myron Ebell

Washington remains quiet as everyone awaits the election returns. Environmentalists are talking about making any second stimulus bill that may be taken up by Congress in its lame duck session (scheduled for the week of November 17th) into a “green stimulus” package. Lots of new money for make-work “green jobs,” new and higher subsidies for “green energy,” and so on.  It should be fun to watch the pushing and shoving at the trough, but the outcomes of these spending sprees are always depressing. It’s hard to see how wasting money and replacing lower-cost energy with higher-cost energy can revive the economy.

T. Boone Pickens will probably be back in Washington rattling his tin cup. The Charlotte Observer reports that Pickens is scaling back his plans to build a wind farm in Texas because of a lack of financing.  

The other way of looking at a “green stimulus” is that it indicates that the air has been sucked out of the climate issue by the credit crunch and looming recession. Cap-and-trade legislation now looks less likely to be a front-burner issue in the next Congress. So the environmental pressure groups are left to scramble for anything they can get. They should take comfort in the fact that global greenhouse gas emissions are certain to decline for as long as the recession lasts.

Political Science
CEI’s Julie Walsh

Climate science has been politicized more thoroughly than most people realize, as Richard S. Lindzen, Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at MIT, enumerates in his recent paper, “Climate Science: Is it currently designed to answer questions?” A few revelations from it include:

•    The primary spokesman for the American Meteorological Society in Washington is Anthony Socci, who is neither an elected official of the AMS nor a contributor to climate science. Rather, he is a former staffer for Al Gore.
•    John Firor was the administrative director for the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and frequently spoke as an NCAR expert on the dangers of global warming.  But he didn’t mention that he also served as chairman of the board of Environmental Defense,
•    The UK Meterological Office’s board’s chairman, Robert Napier, was previously the chief executive for World Wildlife Fund – UK.
•    Bill Hare, a lawyer and campaign director for Greenpeace, frequently speaks as a scientist representing the Potsdam Institute, one of Germany’s leading global warming research centers.
•    Michael Oppenheimer is now a professor at Princeton University and is often referred to as a leading climate scientist.  Oppenheimer previously occupied the Barbra Streisand Chair at Environmental Defense.  His scholarly publication record does not include any significant contributions to climate science.
•    The myth of scientific consensus is perpetuated in the web’s Wikipedia where climate articles are edited by William Connolley, who regularly runs for office in England as a Green Party candidate. No deviation from the politically correct line is permitted.
•    The National Academies of Science had a “Temporary” Nominating Group for the Global Environment which bypassed the usual procedures for vetting candidates and thereby provided a back door for the election of candidates who were prominent environmental activists but otherwise fell short of the qualifications necessary for election. Lindzen details how many of these new Academicians exerted control over the NAS and were elected to high positions.

More highlights from Lindzen’s paper will be noted in future issues. 

Around the World

EU

The European Union’s climate agenda further disintegrated this week after member states watered down a major renewable energy law. In 2007, EU countries agreed to ambitious greenhouse gas emissions cuts of 20% below 1990 levels by 2020. In early 2008, the EU Commission developed a comprehensive strategy to achieve the emissions targets, which must be accepted by member states before it is implemented. Like all policies that call for significant greenhouse gas emissions reductions, the EU Commission’s climate plan is economically harmful—Open Europe, an independent think tank, estimates that the Commission’s policies would cost the EU $93 billion a year by 2020. With that much at stake, member states have spent all of 2008 protecting their economic interests by weakening the Commission’s strategy with exceptions and exemptions.

First, Germany and France agreed to weaken the fuel efficiency standards in order to protect Germany’s powerful auto industry. Next, Germany unilaterally declared that it would exempt its energy-intensive industries from the most onerous provisions of a continent wide cap-and-trade scheme. Last month, Poland led a group of coal-dependent states including Greece, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania and Bulgaria, opposing the Commission’s proposal to price coal out of the electricity generation market by 2013. These rebellious states have since been joined by Italy, which fears that the EU’s climate plan would harm the competitiveness of Italian industry on the international market. Together, these states won the right to amend the Commission’s plan to make it more “cost-effective.”

And this week, member states significantly weakened a directive to generate 20% of the EU’s energy from renewables by 2020 by allowing for a progress review in 2014. The review would allow member states to pull the plug on the directive if the directive proves too expensive because the technology is not yet there.

China

Last week the EU signaled that they expect significant greenhouse gas emissions reductions from developing countries before the EU will sign onto an international treaty to fight climate change. This week, China countered. On Monday, Chinese officials announced that China would cooperate, but only if developed nations spend 1% of their collective GDP—about $300 billion—on the transfer of clean energy technologies to developing countries. To lend urgency to this demand, China also released a white paper warning of the catastrophic impact that climate change has already had on the Middle Kingdom. China has long held that historical emissions from developed countries are responsible for climate change, so the implication of the government study is that wealthy countries have harmed China.

UK

On Monday, the British House of Commons passed the Climate Change Bill, marking a solemn undertaking to reduce British emissions by 80% by mid-century (unless decided otherwise) by the clear majority of 403 to 3. The bill is designed to make hydrocarbon energy sources like oil and gas more expensive, so that consumers use less and emit less. Yesterday, the British Chancellor of the Exchequer (finance minister) demanded that oil companies reduce the price of gasoline.

In the Community

The Texas Public Policy Foundation this week released a major study on wind energy, “Texas Wind Energy: Past, Present, and Future,” by Drew Thornley. To read the document, click here.

 

Right Hand and Left in Communications Breakdown

by Iain Murray on October 30, 2008

in Politics

On Monday, the British House of Commons passed the Climate Change Bill, marking a solemn undertaking to reduce British emissions by 80% by mid-century (unless decided otherwise) by the clear majority of 403 to 3.

Today, the British Chancellor of the Exchequer (finance minister) demanded that oil companies reduce the price of gasoline.

There's "joined-up government" for you.

London Gets 1st October Snow in 8 Decades as MPs Debate Climate Bill

by William Yeatman on October 30, 2008

in Blog

Snow fell as the House of Commons debated Global Warming yesterday – the first October fall in the metropolis since 1922. The Mother of Parliaments was discussing the Mother of All Bills for the last time, in a marathon six hour session.

China Goes on the Offensive

by William Yeatman on October 29, 2008

China presents a unique problem for proponents of an international treaty to fight climate change. On the one hand, it’s the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, building three coal fired power plants every two weeks, and putting millions of newly affluent motorists on the road each year. On the other, there are still 300 million Chinese who live in wretched poverty, and economically harmful policies to fight climate change would retard growth, thereby prolonging their human misery.

For fifteen years, the U.S. and Europe disagreed on how to address this dichotomy. The EU wanted wealthy nations to act first on climate change, and set a moral example for developing countries to follow. The U.S., however, viewed China as a strategic competitor, and resisted any intentional climate commitments that would harm the U.S. economy but allowed the Chinese economy to grow unencumbered. The result was a stalemate: the EU would not act without the U.S., which refused to act without China, which prioritized economic growth over climate change. This dynamic is the fundamental reason why the Kyoto Protocol, the first international climate treaty, is such a debacle. 

But everything changed last week, when the EU signaled that it expects significant greenhouse gas emissions reductions from developing countries before it signs onto an international treaty to fight climate change. It was a profound diplomatic shift, one that aligned the EU with the U.S., and it put China squarely on the defensive. Suddenly, there was no diplomatic gridlock to protect China from emissions commitments.

This week, China countered. On Monday, Chinese officials announced that China would cooperate, but only if developed nations spent 1% of their collective GDP—about $300 billion—on the transfer of clean energy technologies to developing countries. To lend urgency to this demand, China also released a white paper warning of the catastrophic impact that climate change has already had on the Middle Kingdom. China has long held that historical emissions from developed countries are responsible for climate change, so the not-so-subtle implication of the government study is that wealthy countries have harmed China.

China looks unlikely to budge, so it appears that the EU versus U.S. versus China gridlock will give way to an EU and US versus China gridlock. For climate realists, this is bad news, because it means that there is less room for maneuver.  A party of three is much more conducive to   wrangling and intrigue of the sort that leads to prolonged inaction, whereas a party of two is a more rigid interstate relationship.

Green Energy Crash

by William Yeatman on October 29, 2008

in Blog

"Going green" doesn't have quite the cachet it used to, at least on Wall Street.

China Demands $300 Billion/yr To Reduce Emissions

by William Yeatman on October 29, 2008

in Blog

China raised the price of its co-operation in the world's climate change talks yesterday by calling for developed countries to spend 1 per cent of their domestic product helping poorer nations cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Stranger Than Fiction

by William Yeatman on October 28, 2008

in Blog

Earlier this year, I wrote an eco-satirical column under the pseudonym Ethan Greenhart, in which I (or rather, Ethan) called upon Greens everywhere to pray for an economic downturn. The column argued that nothing would benefit our human-ravaged planet more than a “big, beautiful, stock-crashing, Wall Street–burning, consumer-baiting, home-evicting, bank-busting recession.”

Thank God He Has No Real Power

by William Yeatman on October 28, 2008

On a visit to Tokyo, Prince Charles explained to reporters that while “the credit crunch is rightly a preoccupation of vast significance and importance," it shouldn’t trump the “climate crunch.”

 

An OPEC for Natural Gas?

by William Yeatman on October 28, 2008

Russia, Qatar and Iran met in Tehran last Tuesday to discuss the formation of a natural gas cartel. Although the three countries account for 60% of the world’s natural gas reserves, they would not be capable of manipulating the global market for natural gas in the same way that OPEC influences the global oil prices, because the logistics are markedly different: Whereas a barrel of oil is easily shipped across oceans, natural gas must first be compressed into a highly volatile liquid before it can be shipped in large volumes. Because natural gas is moved from producing countries to consuming countries mostly by pipeline, pricing is regional. That’s why a gas cartel made up of Asian countries would not immediately affect U.S. energy consumers, who get their gas from North American producers. Europe, however, gets a significant share of its natural gas from Russia and Iran, so European energy consumers would face the prospect of price manipulation. Accordingly, EU Commission spokesman Ferran Tarradellas Espuny told reporters that “the Commission may review its energy policy,” if such a cartel is created.

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