March 2009

Where is Public Opinion?

by Paul Chesser, Heartland Institute Correspondent on March 13, 2009

in Blog

As I suggest today in an American Spectator piece, we may be to the point where public opinion is completely out of sync with how the best known (at least historically) news outlets are covering the global warming issue. Witness:

  • A poll from last summer found that the vast majority of Americans opposed Lieberman/Warner and would not be willing to pay higher prices for electricity or gasoline to combat global warming.
  • Pew found in January that of 20 policy issues it asked people to place in order of importance, global warming ranked last.
  • A series of recent Rasmussen polls determined: that more respondents believed global warming was due to planetary trends than by human causes; that voters are evenly divided over whether immediate action on global warming is necessary; that 46 percent believe giving government greater control over the economy to fight global warming will be bad for America; and that a majority (54 percent) believe the media exaggerates the dangers of global warming.
  • This week Gallup found a record-high 41 percent believe the media exaggerates the threat of global warming. “This represents the highest level of public skepticism about mainstream reporting on global warming seen in more than a decade of Gallup polling on the subject,” the polling firm reported.

So what does this say after 20+ years of irresponsible media exaggeration of the issue? It tells me a few things: that there is no such thing as a dominant “mainstream media” any more that captivates the news-consuming public. That while it’s nice to have one of these news outlets do your story, it’s not vital, and it’s not necessary to agonize over whether they do so or not. That these historically well-known news outlets are not only losing readership and revenues because of advertising losses, but because of credibility loss and disconnect with their communities. News consumers are smarter these days and know how to detect biased reporting, and they are not buying the product any more. With the speed and efficiency of the Web, it almost doesn’t matter any more where your information gets published; it’s that it does get published, gets found by a few key constituents, and gets launched from there. Can anyone purchase a Sunday paper in any city these days and honestly say it was worth the money?

Yet too many in political activism, public relations, and business believe that if your message hasn’t penetrated these media dinosaurs, then you’ve failed. Well, as the global warming issue illustrates, the skeptics are at least tied with the alarmists if they are not outright winning, despite the lack of respect and attention from the dying news giants. The polls show it clearly. So if the big businesses (you know who you are) who are in bed with the cap-and-taxers in big government and big environmentalism only so they can reap benefits for themselves, while passing costs to consumers and electricity users, you risk a backlash from those who will pay the bill. You are believing the wrong messengers and the evidence is clear.

In the News

by William Yeatman on March 12, 2009

in Blog

Why Going Green Means Making Green
Tim Carney, DC Examiner, 12 March 2009

“Big business is increasingly embracing green legislation – and taking advantage of opportunities for big profits for companies with a strong lobbying presence in Washington and in state capitals.”

The Climate Scare Is a Media Driven Scare
Roger Helmer, Conservative Home, 12 March 2009

“I’ve just got back to Strasbourg from the Heartland Institute’s International Climate Conference in New York (Subtitled “Global Warming: was it ever Really a Crisis?”), which brought together around 800 scientists, politicians and commentators from across the USA and around the world, all of a broadly climate-realist disposition.  This was the second Manhattan Climate Conference, and 2009 attracted about double the attendance of the 2008 event.”

America, China Taking Different Paths on Energy
Thomas Pyle, DC Examiner, 12 March 2009

“In spite of the fact that gasoline prices are nearly halved from last summer’s highs, the American people still overwhelmingly support offshore energy exploration and production.”

Senate: Obama’s Climate Policy Dead on Arrival
Walter Alarkon, The Hill, 11 March 2009

“President Obama’s budget doesn’t have enough support from lawmakers to pass, the Senate Budget Committee chairman said Tuesday.”

The Crumbling Case for Global Warming
Peter Foster, National Post, 10 March 2009

“One young radical turned up at the Heartland Institute’s climate change skeptics’ conference in New York this week to declare that he had never witnessed so much hypocrisy. How, he asked the panelists of a session on European policy, could they sleep at night? Clearly puzzled, one of the panelists asked him with which parts of their presentations he disagreed. “Oh,” he said “I didn’t come here to listen to the presentations.”

Cooler Heads Digest 6 March 2009

by William Yeatman on March 11, 2009

in Blog

Announcements

  • Sign up here for the Cato Book Forum on “Climate of Extremes: Global Warming Science They Don’t Want You to Know” on Thursday, March 12, 2009 at 12:00 PM (Luncheon to Follow). The Forum features “Climate of Extremes” coauthor Patrick J. Michaels, Senior Fellow in Environmental Studies at the Cato Institute with comments by David Legates, Delaware State Climatologist and Director of the Delaware Environmental Observing System.
  • The Cooler Heads Coalition and the Science and Public Policy Institute will sponsor a briefing by Joanne Nova and David Evans on Friday, 13 March, from noon to 1 PM in 406 Senate Dirksen Office Building. Nova and Evans are prominent global warming skeptics in Australia. RSVP to Julie Walsh at jwalsh@cei.org.
  • The Cooler Heads Coalition and the Science and Public Policy Institute will host a talk by Christopher Monckton (third Viscount Monckton of Brenchley) titled “Global Warming Apocalypse? No!” on Monday, 16 March, in 1334 Longworth House Office Building, from Noon to 1:30 PM.  Lunch will be served.  Rsvp to William Yeatman at wyeatman@cei.org.
  • RSVP here for “An Update on the Science, Economics, and Geopolitics of Global Warming,” featuring Christopher Monckton, Chief Policy Advisor of the Science and Public Policy Institute, and hosted by Ben Lieberman, the Heritage Foundation’s Senior Policy Analyst for Energy and the Environment. The event will be held at noon on Wednesday, March 18th at the Heritage Foundation.

In the News

Climate Change Lobby Has Regrets
Kimberley Strassel, Wall Street Journal, 6 March 2009

Gore Dodges Climate Policy Debate with Lomborg (Again)
Keith Johnson, Environmental Capital, 5 March 2009

Wind: Energy Past, Not Energy Future
Robert Bradley, Master Resource, 4 March 2009

Hansen Belittles Models, Cap-and-Trade; Calls for Coal-Destroying Carbon Tax
Marlo Lewis, Open Market, 3 March 2009

Kyoto’s Failure Means Heat Is on True Believers
Debra Saunders, San Francisco Chronicle, 3 March 2009

Podcast: Deconstructing Alarmism
Patrick Michaels, Cato Daily Podcast, 3 March 2009

Obama’s Cap-and-Trade Scheme Imposes Huge Energy Tax
Chris Horner, Human Events, 2 March 2009

A Tax To Weaken America
Iain Murray, DC Examiner, 2 March 2009

Using the Polar Bear To Impose Costly Measures
Ben Lieberman, Heritage WebMemo, 2 March 2009

The Anti-Green Ecologist
Myron Ebell, Standpoint, 1 March 2009

Congress Abandons Carbon Neutral Effort
David Fahrenthold, Washington Post, 1 March 2009

News You Can Use

Now He Tells Us!

At Junkscience.com, CEI Adjunct Scholar Steven Milloy reports that Senator John Kerry (D-Mass) said “the best” climate regulations would fail to stop “catastrophic and irreversible climate change.” While we can all agree with Mr. Kerry that climate regulations are useless, his alarmism is unfounded. After all, it hasn’t warmed in almost a decade, despite a steady increase in greenhouse gas emissions, and now the Discovery Channel reports that scientists are saying it won’t warm for another 30 years.

Inside The Beltway

CEI’s Myron Ebell

Reid Plans a Two-fer

Darren Samuelsohn and Ben Geman reported today in Environment and Energy Daily (subscription req.) that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) confirmed in an interview that he planned to wrap cap-and-trade legislation into a larger anti-energy bill and try to bring it to the floor before the end of the year. The larger bill would include, most notably, a renewable portfolio standard for electric utilities. Reid had said several times in the past few weeks that cap-and-trade and other anti-energy provisions would be brought to the floor in three separate bills. His reversal puts the Senate on the same track as the House, where Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), Chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, has convinced Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to put all the energy-rationing legislation produced by the several committees of jurisdiction into one big bill. There are differing views of what this means for the prospects for enacting cap-and-trade. My own view is that cap-and-trade is sinking fast and that putting it into a larger bill might make it slightly easier to pass.

Failed Advice

A team of prominent European promoters of energy rationing and global warming alarmism came to Washington this week to speak at a conference on Capitol Hill, give briefings to members of Congress, and meet with Obama Administration officials. They included Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Yvo de Boer, the head of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, and Edward Miliband, the UK’s climate minister. No doubt they explained how well the European Union is doing reducing its emissions while maintaining economic growth. The current economic downturn is already so severe that emissions probably are falling rapidly, which means that many EU countries now have a chance of meeting their Kyoto targets. As I told the Washington Post, the only thing that’s been demonstrated to reduce emissions is economic collapse.

Showdown at the Capitol Power Plant

Capitol Climate Action held a “massive” anti-coal protest in front of the Capitol power plant on Monday. Six to seven hundred people, most of them university students, marched down the street and shouted while the snow fell. The Capitol Police were out in force, and the organizers’ intention to provoke them into arresting the demonstrators was not realized. About thirty of us gathered on the sidewalk right next to the Greenpeace truck and trailer (yes, sad to say, but Greenpeace prefers motorized vehicles to bullock carts) for a counter-demo to Celebrate Coal and Keep Energy Affordable! The Greenpeace truck had a big solar panel, but it was covered with three or four inches of snow, so they had to run a generator instead to power the PA system.

A number of groups belonging to the Cooler Heads Coalition besides CEI were represented at Celebrate Coal!, including the National Center for Public Policy Research, Freedom Works, and Americans for Prosperity. Also attending were Ann McElhinney and Phelim McAleer, the Irish film makers whose new documentary about global warming, Not Evil Just Wrong, will premiere in the next month or two.  In terms of comparing our per capita carbon footprints, most of the Capitol Climate Action protesters were university students who flew to Washington for the protest and also to attend the Power Shift 2009 conference last weekend. Most of us took the subway and a few walked to our Celebrate Coal! rally.

Unfortunately, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) wrote a letter to the anti-coal zealots last Friday announcing that they would direct the Capitol power plant to switch over to run entirely on natural gas. This will increase the cost of the electricity and heat used by the Congress substantially, but I guess the only people who might care about that are taxpayers.

Around the World

Obama “Climate Envoy”: Bush’s Climate Approach Is Too Ambitious

CEI’s Chris Horner, Planet Gore

According to the Wall Street Journal, Obama “climate envoy” Todd Stern “said the road map of greenhouse-gas emission reductions laid out at a 2007 summit in Bali was simply too ambitious. ‘We need to be very mindful of what the dictates of science are, and of the art of the possible,’ he said. The Bali targets – a 25% to 40% cut by industrialized nations by 2020 – were simply too ambitious. ‘It’s not possible to get that kind of number. It’s not going to happen’.”

“Bali” would be the “Bali roadmap” that the Bush administration agreed to as a parting shot. Was this merely some cheeky move by Bush to leave his successor with a pickle?

No. It’s a double standard. The first confirmation of this was found within weeks of the election, when UN officials said that of course Obama wouldn’t be held to the standard to which Team Global Governance had–sometimes with extreme nastiness–held the Bush administration for eight years: you must sign on to a global warming treaty now or the world will end and you killed it . . . and, well, you know the rest, if you weren’t living on an island somewhere, enjoying a nice warm climate during the Bush-era global cooling….

Click here to read the rest of Horner’s piece at Planet Gore

Across the States

Arizona

Arizona State Representative Andy Biggs (R) this week introduced a bill to remove Arizona from the Western Climate Initiative, a regional cap-and-trade energy rationing scheme. Seven states and four Canadian provinces have agreed to participate in the WCI, but Rep. Biggs wants Arizona to withdraw because it would increase energy prices for consumers. According to a study by the Western Business Roundtable, the WCI would cost the average family $2,300/year by 2020. Governor Jan Brewer (R) has since said that Arizona will continue to participate and that the legislature must approve the State’s participation in a cap-and-trade.

California

California State Senator Bob Dutton (R) this week introduced a bill that would delay implementation of AB 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act. AB 32 mandates a 20% reduction in greenhouse gases by 2020. Like all greenhouse gas reduction policies, however, it is designed to raise the price of energy, and Senator Dutton argues that expensive energy policies are unwarranted at a time when the state’s unemployment rate is above 10%.

Maryland

The Maryland State Senate passed Governor Martin O’ Malley’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Act this week. The bill mandates steep greenhouse gas reductions that would result in a net economic benefit for the State’s economy. Of course, that’s impossible, because the “solution” to climate change is expensive energy, which is a job killer.

Well, Duh

by Paul Chesser, Heartland Institute Correspondent on March 10, 2009

Today’s News & Observer of Raleigh (one of McClatchy’s tanking newspapers) reports that one of North Carolina’s two investor-owned utilities, Progress Energy (Duke Energy is the other major one), has announced that it will not be able to meet renewable portfolio standard mandates enacted by the state a couple of years ago:

The Raleigh power company has reviewed more than 100 proposals to generate electricity from renewable resources such as solar energy, wind power and agricultural waste. The costs proposed so far are four times as high as Progress had expected, officials said in a meeting with News & Observer editors and writers.

The company will use all of the money it is allowed to spend and hit up against cost caps included in the 2007 state law that requires that more of North Carolina’s electricity come from renewables.

State lawmakers included the cost cap because renewables typically cost more than conventional power plants, and the extra costs would be charged to customers in monthly bills.

The report says state regulators concurred that it is impossible for Progress Energy to meet its targets. As usual environmentalists are in denial about costs for renewables while they reject options that would help produce energy that is cleaner and more affordable:

Customers would pay even more if Congress passed federal renewable mandates that are stricter than North Carolina’s, which are being debated now, (Progress CEO Bill) Johnson said.

Progress would have to pay penalties for noncompliance, passing on the costs to customers. The company estimates that bills in Congress could cost Progress’ residential customers as much as $6 a month, much of it in penalties.

Environmentalists have long contended that utility companies in this state overestimate the cost and downplay the availability of renewable resources. But since the cost proposals submitted to Progress and Duke are confidential, few have seen the numbers.

Progress executives said they have a better way to cut greenhouse gases: by building new nuclear plants. Johnson said new nuclear plants, which don’t burn fossil fuels to generate electricity, will do more to advance the nation’s goal of reducing greenhouse gases than renewables.

Johnson also noted a reality most people understand if they took an Economics 101 course:

Johnson said that biomass — agricultural waste, wood chips and animal droppings — are the state’s biggest renewable fuel resources, but the price is still too high.

“If renewables were easy, effective and plentiful, we’d be doing them,” he said.

Great News: Already, Obama Is Backtracking on Climate

by William Yeatman on March 6, 2009

in Blog

A month ago, I coined the term “envoy of disappointment” to described Todd Stern, who had been chosen to become the State Department’s roving ambassador on climate change, a new position created by the Obama administration. The label reflected the reality that the U.S. will remain unwilling to put its economy at a competitive disadvantage by signing an international treaty to fight the supposed threat of climate change*, no matter what kind of “hope” and “change” Obama brings to Washington.

Recent evidence suggests I was right.

Obama is a scant 5 weeks into his Presidency, and already the backtracking on climate change has begun. According to Russel Gold at the Wall Street Journal’s Environmental Capital,

Mr. Stern said the road map of greenhouse-gas emission reductions laid out at a 2007 summit in Bali was simply too ambitious. “We need to be very mindful of what the dictates of science are, and of the art of the possible,” he said. The Bali targets – a 25% to 40% cut by industrialized nations by 2020 – were simply too ambitious. “It’s not possible to get that kind of number. It’s not going to happen,” he said.

*It hasn’t warmed in 7 years. Al Gore, hypocrite alarmist, says that “there is one relationship that is more powerful than all the others and it is this: When there is more carbon dioxide, the temperature gets warmer.” Well, emissions keep going up, yet temperatures stay the same. Where’s the warming, Al?

Why Alarmism?

by William Yeatman on March 3, 2009

in Blog

When it comes to global warming, dire predictions seem to be all we see or hear. But is the alarmism justified?

In today’s Cato Daily Podcast, climatologists Patrick Michaels explains why the news and information we receive about global warming have become so apocalyptic. According to Michaels, a Cato senior fellow in environmental studies, science itself has become increasingly biased, with warnings of extreme consequences from global warming becoming the norm. That bias is then communicated through the media, who focus on only extreme predictions.

Click here to listen to this insightful commentary. It is likely to change the way you perceive the media’s portrayal of global warming.

Cooler Heads Digest, 27 February 2009

by William Yeatman on March 3, 2009

Announcements

  • The Heartland Institute’s International Conference on Climate Change is March 8-10 in New York City. You can sign up for “Global Warming: Was It Ever Really a Crisis?” here.
  • Cato Book Forum on “Climate of Extremes: Global Warming Science They Don’t Want You to Know”
    Thursday, March 12, 2009
    12:00 PM (Luncheon to Follow)
    Featuring coauthor Patrick J. Michaels, Senior Fellow in Environmental Studies at the Cato Institute with comments by David Legates, Delaware State Climatologist and Director of the Delaware Environmental Observing System.

In the News

Politicians are Playing Word Games with Energy Plans
Dan Kish, DC Examiner, 27 February 2009

Video: Myron Ebell on Obama’s Green Energy Plan
Fox Business, “Money for Breakfast” show, 25 February 2009

NASA’s Chief Climate Scientist Stirs Controvery with Call to Civil Disobedience
Joshua Rhett Miller, Fox News, 27 February 2009

Obama Counting on Cap and Trade
Tom LoBianco, Washington Times, 25 February 2009

The Climate Change Lobby Explosion
Marianne Lavelle, The Center for Public Integrity, 24 February 2009

The Doomsday Bias
William Yeatman and Jeremy Lott, The American Spectator, 25 February 2009

In Climate Debate, Exaggeration is a Pitfall
Andrew Revkin, The New York Times, 24 February 2009

Obama Needs a ‘Not To Do’ List
Holman Jenkins, Wall Street Journal, 25 February 2009

Carbon Trading to Raise Consumer Energy Prices
Stephen Power, Wall Street Journal, 27 February 2009

Inside the Beltway

CEI’s Myron Ebell

Obama Scores Zero on Econ 101

In his first address to Congress on Tuesday night, President Obama said that the “stimulus” legislation and other short-term economic policies were necessary to prevent a decade-long recession.  He then went on to advocate energy and global warming policies that will foster a perpetual recession.  First, he promised that federal funding and mandates will make the United States the world leader in renewable energy technologies.  As an article that might have been published in the Onion but actually appeared in the Los Angeles Times last week noted, the only thing holding renewable energy technologies back is a number of necessary technological breakthroughs that will make them work.  Apparently, our President is too young to have learned that the federal government has been throwing taxpayer money at renewables since the 1970s.

The President then called on the Congress to send him cap-and-trade legislation that would make renewable energy profitable by raising the price of conventional energy produced from burning coal, oil, and natural gas.  Yes, renewable energy will become profitable, many jobs will be created, and we’ll have to settle for a significantly lower standard of living as a result.  On Wednesday, the Administration sent their budget proposals to Congress for FY 2010.  Included were revenue projections from auctioning rationing coupons under a cap-and-trade scheme to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.  The Office of Management and Budget assumes that $78.7 billion will be raised in 2012 and a total of $645.7 billion by 2019.  My colleague Iain Murray has some comments here.  My comment is that it’s a sad fact that the new Administration has some highly-regarded establishment Democratic economists in it, but is for some reason pursuing economically illiterate and consequently disastrous policies.

Stars Come Out for House and Senate Hearings

Last week I reported that the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee would hold a hearing featuring the Chairman of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Dr. Rajendra K. Pachauri.  I didn’t know at the time that the House was planning a hearing this week as well with a prominent witness. As it turned out, the House and the Senate held competing A-list hearings on global warming on Wednesday at 10AM.  Testifying before the House Ways and Means Committee was Dr. James E. Hansen, whom the committee described as an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University’s Earth Institute.  He is of course also Director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies.  I tried to watch both hearings on the internet and thereby undoubtedly missed a lot of good stuff as I switched back and forth.  Interestingly, Pachauri, an economist and engineer, talked mostly about global warming science, while Hansen, an astronomer, talked mostly about economics.  Pachauri was utterly dreary.  Hansen was an interesting mix.  He inveighed against cap-and-trade as an ineffective scam designed to pay off big business.  He instead endorsed a stiff carbon tax with 100% of revenues rebated to consumers.

When asked by Rep. Earl Pomeroy (D-ND) about what would happen to North Dakota and its near-total reliance on lignite (brown coal) for producing electricity, Hansen said that employment in the lignite industry would go down, but that North Dakota had lots of potential for wind power and potentially for growing well-designed bio-fuels.  He observed that these new industries might create more jobs than would be lost in the coal industry.  That is true.  One of the ways to create jobs is to make production and use of capital less efficient.  For example, there would be tens of millions, probably even hundreds of millions, of new jobs in North Dakota and throughout rural America if mechanized agriculture were banned.

The Republican witnesses-Professor William Happer at the Senate hearing and Professor John Christy at the House hearing-were articulate, intelligent, and scientifically accurate.  Christy made a strong case against energy poverty.  Naturally, most Senators and Representatives were unimpressed and unhappy with them.

Around the States

Kansas

The Kansas House of Representatives passed a bill today that allows Sunflower Electric Power Company to build two coal-fired power plants. Governor Kathleen Sibelius will veto the bill after it passes the Senate, but House Speaker Mike O’Neal believes he will be able to get the five more votes necessary for an override. Forrest Knox, the Republican who led the House debate, explained, “This is about doing business in Kansas…. The bottom line is our energy needs will not be met without conventional energy production.”

Across the World

Australia

Bushfires in the Victoria region of Australia have now killed over 200 people and have released over 550 million tons of carbon dioxide. In 2003, Australia reported that bushfires had released 190 million tons of CO2-equivalent, roughly a third of the nation’s total greenhouse gas emissions for the year. And yet, it was green policies that kept many Australians from being able to clear the brush amd trees around their homes that posed a fire risk.

Hansen belittles models, carbon trading, Kyoto; calls for coal-destroying carbon tax

by Marlo Lewis on March 3, 2009

in Blog

Last week’s House Ways & Means Committee hearing on “scientific objectives for climate change legislation” contained much grist for skeptical mills.

Dr. James Hansen did not challenge any of Dr. John Christy’s specific arguments that UN climate models overestimate climate sensitivity. Instead, he advised Congress to ask the National Academy of Sciences for an “authoritative” assessment, because the science is “crystal clear.”

Hansen was quite harsh in criticizing Kyoto (an “abject failure”) and carbon trading (a politically unsustainable hidden tax for the benefit of special interests). He outlined a proposal for what he calls carbon “Tax & Dividend,” whereby 100% of the revenues would be refunded to the American people via monthly deposits to their bank accounts.

As I discuss here, Hansen’s beguiling proposal could decimate coal-based power in a decade or two, pushing electricity prices up faster than dividend payments increase, and saddling the economy with a growth-chilling energy crisis.

Why Is the Chicago Tribune in Bed with T Boone Pickens?

by William Yeatman on March 3, 2009

Why is the Chicago Tribune again allowing its editorial page to shill for T Boone Pickens? For the second time in 5 months, the Tribune has published a self-serving opinion piece by Mr. Pickens (Our Energy Future, 16 November 2008; Solving Our Nation’s Energy Predicament, 24 February 2009).

Remove the rhetoric, and T Boone’s plan is quite simple. He wants the government to (1) force taxpayers to subsidize his wind power; (2) force taxpayers to pay for the transmission lines to deliver his wind power; (3) force consumers to buy his wind power; (4) force consumers to buy T Boone’s natural gas “saved” by using  his wind power to power their cars.

America gets expensive energy and T Boone Pickens gets rich. As CEI’s Marlo Lewis artfully put it: “This T Boone-doggle Pickens your pocket.”

Ironic Snowfall for Resource-Rich Greenies

by Silvia Santacruz on March 2, 2009

in Blog

Environmentalists characterize themselves as petite Davids battling gargantuan corporate Goliaths in order to grab media attention.  But hundreds of green activists demonstrated today to raise awareness of global warming and against coal production in front of the Capital Power Plant in southeast Washington D.C.  The group had plenty of resources ranging from a raised stage with microphones, to trucks loaded with food and coffee, to green plastic helmets, all the way down to fluorescent caps and fancy colored anti-industry signs.

We, the counter protesters, were comprised about 25 to 30 Davids.  Participants hailed from the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI)—the event organizers—as well as the producers of the film Not Evil Just Wrong, the National Mining Association (NMA), American for Prosperity (AFP), the National Center for Public Policy Research, Conservative Caucus and others.  All of us proudly held our no-frills signs celebrating coal, highlighting its importance to electricity generation and the nation’s economy.

Despite the disparity between the number of anti-coal demonstrators and the “Celebrate Coal” participants, the weather proved to be a major ally: the nation’s capital was anything but warm today, making the global warming argument sound absurd.  In fact, Americans needed a lot of affordable coal-generated electricity today to heat their homes.

One of my favorites images of today’s dual protest (see picture above) was a Greenpeace activist seen cleaning snow from the top of his solar-powered truck with a metal sign that read, “Stop Global Warming Now”.  One of my colleagues couldn’t resist and asked, “How is that global warming sign working with cleaning out the snow?”

The greenie was too ashamed to continue, and left.

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