Energy & Environment News (subscription required) reported this morning that Senate Veterans Affairs Committee Chairwoman Patty Murray (D-WA) purchased 21 iPads for senators and committee staff, in an effort to cut down on paper use. According to the story, “Each is loaded with all the relevant documents” necessary to legislate effectively.
When I read this news, I couldn’t help but think how great it would have been if the House of Representatives had one such iPad, “loaded with all the relevant documents,” on the evening of June 26, 2009*. At the time, the Democrat-controlled House was about to pass the American Clean Energy and Security Act, a cap-and-trade energy-rationing scheme, despite the fact that no one had read the bill. Indeed, it would have been impossible for anyone to have read the bill, because there wasn’t a copy of the legislation available.
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When it comes to global warming mitigation, the European Union is full of sound and fury, but signifies nothing.
Leaders and officials from the 27-nation bloc frequently claim to occupy the moral high ground on climate change policy, due to the fact that the EU has adopted unilateral targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020. While it is true that the EU is more than halfway to achieving this goal, a close look at the numbers shows that the EU’s emissions cuts to date are largely the byproduct of historical happenstance. Also dubious is the EU’s contention that it is implementing “unilateral” emissions reductions. In fact, the EU is trying to coerce international burden-sharing before it makes any real sacrifices of its own on behalf the climate.
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Last week the American Society for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) board issued a statement decrying “attacks on researchers that question their personal and professional integrity.” As an example, the AAAS board cited the American Tradition Institute’s recent Freedom of Information Act request for thousands of emails from Dr. Michael Mann, creator of the disputed “hockey stick” reconstruction of historical global temperatures. Notably, the AAAS board omitted mention of a new Greenpeace report noting that all of the research funding received since 2003 by Dr. Willie Soon, a Harvard astrophysicist and climate skeptic, came from hydrocarbon industries, information that was obtained by a FOIA request. Nor did the AAAS board mention that Greenpeace filed a FOIA request for the financial records of climate skeptic Dr. Patrick Michaels.
The Science and Environmental Policy Project had an interesting take on the AAAS board’s statement in the July 2nd edition of its weekly newsletter, The Week That Was:
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This is the new claim being thrown around by renewable energy proponents with supporting data by the Energy Information Administration (EIA). Check the link here:
During the first quarter of 2011, renewable energy sources (biomass/biofuels, geothermal, solar, water, wind) provided 2.245 quadrillion Btus of energy or 11.73 percent of U.S. energy production. More significantly, energy production from renewable energy sources in 2011 was 5.65 percent more than that from nuclear power, which provided 2.125 quadrillion Btus and has remained largely unchanged in recent years. Energy from renewable sources is now 77.15 percent of that from domestic crude oil production, with the gap closing rapidly.
Looking at all energy sectors (e.g., electricity, transportation, thermal), production of renewable energy, including hydropower, has increased by 15.07 percent compared to the first quarter of 2010, and by 25.07 percent when compared to the first quarter of 2009. Among the renewable energy sources, biomass/biofuels accounted for 48.06 percent, hydropower for 35.41 percent, wind for 12.87 percent, geothermal for 2.45 percent, and solar for 1.16 percent. [click to continue…]
Is Al Gore Bad for Big Environmentalism?
Robert Bradley Jr., Master Resource, 7 July 2011
Chinese Coal Blamed for Global Cooling
Andrew Orlowski, The Register, 5 July 2011
Nic Lewis on IPCC Sensitivity
Steve McIntyre, Climate Audit, 5 July 2011
The Quiet Case for a Rail System of Some Speed
Charlie Cooke, Planet Gore, 1 July 2011
Obama Mandates a Market for His Own Market “Investments”
Henry Payne, The Michigan View, 27 June 2011
This calculation comes from Ken Glozer’s opinion piece in last Thursday’s Washington Times. Here’s the pertinent paragraph:
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On Friday near midnight, a 12-inch pipeline operated by Exxon Mobile ruptured under the Yellowstone River near Billings, Montana, releasing an as yet undetermined amount of crude oil into the river. Read news reports here, here, and here.
It seems to me that there is no shortage of juicy angles for journalists to work on this developing story: Exxon Mobil, a favorite target of the left, is the responsible party; oil is visible miles downstream; aquatic wildlife is endangered; 140 people living near the break in the pipeline were temporarily evacuated due to fumes and the risk of an explosion; and the Yellowstone River, like many in the region, is swelled with snow melt and rain, which has rendered difficult the cleanup. For the Associated Press, however, the story wasn’t juicy enough. Otherwise, the AP write-up would not have included this sensationalist paragraph:
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First, They Came for My Light Bulbs
Matt Patterson, Washington Times, 1 July 2011
Private Oil and Gas for the Public Good
Robert Bradley Jr., Master Resource, 1 July 2011
Corn Ethanol Fiction
Ken Glozer, Washington Times, 30 June 2011
Global Welfaring
Henry Payne, The Michigan View, 28 June 2011
An Inconvenient Fallacy
Bob Carter, Sydney Morning Herald, 27 June 2011
The Environmental Protection Agency on Friday released draft Clean Air Act permits for Shell’s planned oil exploration in federal offshore waters in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas, which are parts of the Arctic Ocean north of Alaska. The draft permits are subject to public comment and will undoubtedly be litigated by environmental pressure groups.
Shell has been trying for more than four years to drill in 10-year lease tracts for which it paid the federal government more than $2 billion. Shell has also invested well over $1 billion in building the infrastructure that offshore exploratory drilling requires. If oil is discovered, then Shell would make huge further investments to begin production and connect the fields to the Trans Alaska Pipeline. Shell would pay a royalty to the federal treasury for every barrel produced.
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