Cooler Heads Digest 9 October 2009

In the News

Energy Secretary Chu Should Resign
Marlo Lewis, GlobalWarming.org, 9 October 2009

Horsepower Sure Beats Horses!
Robert Bradley, MasterResource.org, 9 October 2009

California Scheming
Chris Horner, Planet Gore, 9 October 2009

Capping and Trading for Profit
Jack Duckworth, Washington Times, 9 October 2009

Rationalizing Rationing
Marlo Lewis, Washington Times, 8 October 2009

European Green Schemes Push Industry East
Carl Mortished, The Times, 7 October 2009

Locals Try To Sink Plans To Store Carbon Underground
Guy Chazan, Wall Street Journal, 6 October 2009

UN’s Carbon Sequestration Program at Risk from Organized Crime
John Vidal, Guardian, 5 October 2009

Hot Air Hits the Schools
Paul Chesser, Boston Herald, 3 October 2009

Green Jobs Subsidies Destroy More Jobs than They Create
Ben Lieberman, The Monitor, 2 October 2009

News You Can Use

Cities Ignore Kyoto Commitments

Scott Smith, Mayor of Mesa, Arizona, last week became the 1,000^th mayor to agree to meet the goals of the Kyoto Protocol by reducing greenhouse gas emissions 7% below 1990 levels by 2012. However, evidence suggests that these are empty promises. A 2007 study by the Institute for Local Self Reliance reported that the 355 cities committed to the Kyoto target (at the time), “will miss their goals.”

Countries Ignore Kyoto Commitments

Karl Falkenberg, director-general for environment at the European Commission, this week told reporters that, “We look at the Kyoto Protocol, but since it came into force we have seen emissions increase. It has not decreased emissions.”

Inside the Beltway

Myron Ebell

CEI Petitions EPA over Flawed Science

The Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Sam Kazman this week petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency to re-open its rulemaking to declare that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare and therefore must be regulated under the Clean Air Act. The petition is based on the fact that key scientific data underlying the endangerment finding doesn’t exist. CEI’s press release summarizes the reasons for seeking to re-open the public comment period on the proposed rule: “In mid-August the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (CRU) disclosed that it had destroyed the raw data for its global surface temperature data set because of an alleged lack of storage space. The CRU data have been the basis for several of the major international studies that claim we face a global warming crisis. CRU’s destruction of data, however, severely undercuts the credibility of those studies.” CRU’s incompetence is explained in an article by Dr. Patrick Michaels of the Cato Institute, “The Dog Ate My Climate Homework.”

Energy Rationing Stagnant in Senate

The draft of the Kerry-Boxer energy-rationing bill was released last week, but the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, which Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) chairs, has not yet scheduled a hearing.  There have been reports of attempts to gain support by adding nuclear power and offshore drilling titles to the bill.  My guess is that the committee won’t hold a hearing until after the off-year elections on 3rd November and then will mark up and vote out the bill before the Thanksgiving recess.

In last week’s issue I quoted Senator John Kerry’s (D-Mass.) remarkable admission, “I don’t know what cap-and-trade means.”  That’s why he’s calling it “pollution reduction and investment.”  I know what pollution reduction and investment means.  It means rationing, which is an indirect tax.  Here’s another remarkable statement from Kerry: “The United States has already this year alone achieved a 6 percent reduction in emissions simply because of the downturn in the economy, so we are effectively saying we need to go another 14 percent.”  Nick Loris of the Heritage Foundation points out that what Kerry is really saying is, “If you enjoyed this year’s recession, just wait for cap-and-trade.” Loris calculates that if emissions declined 6 percent while unemployment increased by 3.5%, we can reach the full twenty percent target by pushing unemployment to 18%.  Given the policies being pursued the Obama Administration and the Congress, that doesn’t sound out of reach.

Around the World

Climate Diplomacy Regresses

Diplomats met in Bangkok this week for the final round of major negotiations before the 15th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change this December in Copenhagen, where environmentalists hope the world will agree to a climate change mitigation treaty to succeed the failed Kyoto Protocol.

The Guardian headline says it all: “Bangkok Climate Talks End in Recrimination.” The sub-headline also is illuminating: “Bitter delegates say no agreement on money or emissions cuts means a deal at Copenhagen will be weak at best.”

What follows is a quick breakdown of the disparate negotiating positions that resulted in “recrimination” among “bitter delegates.”

• Economically-developed countries won’t commit to a treaty that doesn’t include major emitters such as China and India.

• China, India and other rapidly developing countries won’t accept costly carbon controls unless they receive hundreds of billions of dollars each year to finance green energy technologies.

• Economically-developed countries refuse to pay for a global conversion to green energy (which would cost $45 trillion, according to the International Energy Agency).

The Cooler Heads Digest is the weekly e-mail publication of the Cooler Heads Coalition. For the latest news and commentary check out the Coalition’s website, www.globalwarming.org.