On a visit to DC’s Cosmos Club last week, I checked out its impressive wall of photographs of club members who had won Nobel Prizes.  I was looking for one of Michael Mann, who, in his defamation complaint against CEI, refers to himself three times as a “Nobel prize recipient”.  (See, for example, page 3 of the Complaint.)

Try as I might, I simply could not find his photo.   I wonder why.  Maybe he’s not a Cosmos Club member.

(I should mention that, if you’re new to this story, there is an alternative explanation.)

…namely, milking the phrase like there’s no tomorrow. To wit, see the results below of a Google search for the terms “Scientific American” and “tipping point”:

My letter in today’s Wall Street Journal:

Cheap Gasoline and Human Rights

The notion of $2.50 gasoline would not only be a “veritable policy revolution” domestically (“Newt Is Right About Gas Prices” by Holman W. Jenkins, Jr., Business World, March 10), it would be a gutsy display of American exceptionalism for the rest of the world. This is not because Americans are divinely entitled to federally subsidized fuel (they’re not), but because they do have a right to gas prices that aren’t artificially jacked up by government drilling restrictions and taxes.

Americans aren’t the only ones. As booming car ownership in India and China demonstrates, automobility satisfies some pretty basic human needs and desires. Unfortunately for central planners around the world, there’s nothing worse than a technology that lets people go where they want to, when they want to. For an American leader of whatever party to take the lead in shedding gasoline’s sin-product status would be downright revolutionary.

In the early 1800s, as railroads spread across Britain, the Duke of Wellington supposedly sneered that trains would “only encourage the common people to move about needlessly.” Aristocrats could always move about; only when the rest of us were able to do so did this become a so-called problem. A decade ago our aristocrats looked down on SUVs; today they look down on affordable gas. Either way, their attitudes toward mobility are no different than the Duke’s views two centuries ago, and no less backward.

Sam Kazman
Competitive Enterprise Institute
Washington, D.C.

As my colleague Myron Ebell reported earlier this week, Joe Romm pulled out of a scheduled debate on climate policy last Friday with the Heritage Foundation’s David Kreutzer.

Given the last-minute nature of Romm’s cancellation, the host of the debate initially used a bottle of Corona Light to symbolically take Romm’s place at the podium.  I thought the beer bottle was a poor substitute, and replaced it with a plate of ice cubes.  As the photo below shows, by the end of the event the ice cubes had undergone significant melting.  There was, however, no suggestion that anthropogenic warming was the cause.  On the other hand, I’m not sure there were any climate modelers in attendance.

Fitch today reconfirmed its AAA credit rating for the US.  Why isn’t Paul Krugman blasting them?

On August 5th, the day Standard & Poors issued its downgrade for the US, Krugman attacked it and its cohorts as unreliable miscreants.  In his words, “it’s hard to think of anyone less qualified to pass judgment on America than the rating agencies. The people who rated subprime-backed securities are now declaring that they are the judges of fiscal policy?  Really?  …  In short, S&P is just making stuff up — and after the mortgage debacle, they really don’t have that right.”

But as Krugman admits, when it came to those mortgage-backed securities Fitch performed as poorly as S&P.  By Krugman’s logic, Fitch’s action today, in sticking to its AAA rating, is just as unreliable as was S&P’s downgrade last week.  So why isn’t Krugman going after Fitch as well?

Something tells me I shouldn’t hold my breath.  In attacking S&P, Krugman was engaging in his typical defense of big government.  On the other hand, assailing Fitch would entail just the opposite.

And that, to borrow Krugman’s own recent characterization of another controversy, would be a wee bit too “inconvenient”.

Great news–the Federal Trade Commission is reexamining its textile care labeling regulation!  This is the rule, first issued in 1971, that requires those little labels in clothing that tell you “dry clean only” or “wash in cold water” or whatever else is appropriate.  Some people find certain of these labels irritating—literally irritating, that is, like when they’re made of stiff fabric that rubs against your neck.  Personally, I find them pretty handy, though I’m not sure we need a federal rule to guarantee their presence.

The FTC says its reexamination is part of its systematic review of all its regs.  It’s not clear whether the end result will be better or worse.  Right now the rule actually prohibits any reference to “professional wetcleaning” in a label (that’s the allegedly eco-friendly water-based type of commercial cleaning, as opposed to traditional solvent-based drycleaning).  Perhaps that will change.  On the other hand, the FTC is also considering whether to mandate care instructions in foreign languages.  That’s sure to make those itchy labels even itchier.

Here’s my suggestion:  any label that states that an item can be home-laundered should also state the following, “If your washing machine is a newly-manufactured conventional top-loader, don’t even bother trying to wash this or any other article of clothing.”  This would reflect the fact that, as Consumer Reports found several months ago, these washing machine models are now “often mediocre or worse.”  

The reason for this degraded performance is the Department of Energy and its increasingly stringent energy efficiency standards.  A new fabric label rule pointing this out would be a great way for the FTC to prove that it’s an independent agency.  Of course, it would also make those labels itchier too, and for that I apologize.

Send your comments to the FTC by September 6, in as many languages as you wish.

Quick, which one of these statements does NOT come from George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four?

WAR IS PEACE

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

INCANDESCENT BULBS AREN’T GETTING BANNED…IN FACT, THEY ARE GETTING BETTER.

Tough choice?  OK—take a few more seconds.

Time’s up.  The answer is number 4—it’s from a new mass email from ACEEE (the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy—see below), urging readers to oppose a bill in Congress that would rescind the upcoming federal ban on conventional incandescent bulbs.  Under that ban, the production of regular 100-watt incandescents will become illegal on Jan. 1, 2012, followed by 75-watts bulbs in 2013 and 60- and 40-watt bulbs a year later.

ACEEE and other supporters of the law claim that consumers will supposedly benefit from all the new lighting technologies being spurred into development.  I’ve never understood this line of argument.  If these new lights (such as compact fluorescents, LEDs, high-efficiency halogens) are so great, then why do we need a federal law forcing us to buy them?

In fact, lots of people have lots of good reasons for not buying them—they hate the quality of fluorescent light, they hate the high purchase costs, they distrust the claims that the bulbs will last very long, they don’t want to follow EPA’s 4-step guidelines for dealing with broken compact fluorescents, etc.  And for those who do like these bulbs, they’re available in just about every supermarket, drugstore, and hardware shop in the country.

In terms of the material that’s come out favoring the incandescent ban, ACEEE’s email isn’t very unusual, though you’ve got to smile at its pointing to the support of the lighting industry.  Yes, big corporations support the law, since it wipes out competition from low-priced bulb manufacturers.  (Hmm—does this mean that ACEEE is in the pocket of Big Bulb?)

But what is unusual is ACEEE’s Orwellian corruption of language—its claim that the law doesn’t ban incandescents but rather makes them “better”. The law, the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA 2007), isn’t a soft exhortation for industry self-improvement; it depends on stiff civil penalties for noncompliance, and the Department of Energy has, in its own words, “ramped up” its enforcement of these penalties.  Last December DOE boasted about how it had socked Westinghouse with a $50,000 fine for failing to comply with the light bulb standards.

ACEEE, perhaps, would argue that Westinghouse wasn’t fined; rather, it was “enhanced”.

Doublethink has been defined as “the manipulation of language so that expressions hold two contradictory ideas at once”.  ACEEE, which has long claimed to “protect” consumers by limiting their choice, is turning this manipulation into a fine art.  In line with its claim that incandescents are getter better rather than getting banned, perhaps we’ll soon see such other rhetorical gems as:

“You’re not being jailed; you’re being improved”; or

“You’re not being taxed; you’re being enriched.”

If you’ve got more suggestions in this vein, please email them to us.  We’d love to see them.

ACEEE’s email is available online here, and it is reprinted below.

Next week, the House of Representatives is expected to vote on the “BULB Act” (H.R. 91), which would repeal the energy efficiency standards for light bulbs that Congress enacted in 2007, standards that are already helping American households save money every month on their energy bills. Let your Representative know that you oppose the repeal of this energy- and money-saving legislation.

Tell your Representative to oppose the BULB Act or other bills that repeal light bulb energy efficiency standards!

More Options, Better Bulbs, Less Energy Used

Proponents of the BULB Act claim the standards they want to repeal amount to a light bulb “ban” that limits consumers’ choices.  That couldn’t be further from the truth.

The Facts:

Incandescent bulbs aren’t getting banned… in fact, they are getting better. Manufacturers are already making a variety of new energy-saving bulbs for homes, including more efficient incandescent bulbs.

The new incandescent bulbs look, light, and turn on exactly like the bulbs we have been using for decades, but are 28 to 33 percent more energy efficient and are available in stores now.

Consumers aren’t required to “retire” bulbs or to purchase only CFL or LED light bulbs —- consumers can use existing bulbs until they burn out and when a bulb burns out consumers can choose between efficient incandescent lamps or even more efficient CFL or LED light bulb options.

The lighting industry supports this standard, along with efficiency, consumer, and environmental advocates.

Energy-efficient lighting saves consumers money, creates jobs, and benefits the environment. At a time when families are struggling with high energy costs, efficient lighting will save the average American family $50-100 every year on the electric bill (about $12 billion nationwide), and save enough energy annually to power all the homes in Pennsylvania and Tennessee.

Phasing-in energy-efficient light bulbs means more choices and more ways to save on energy. We urge you to write your Representative and let him/her know you strongly oppose repeal of the light bulb efficiency standards.

Tell your Representative to oppose the BULB Act and similar bills!

Thank you for your support!

Sincerely,

ACEEE

Yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling on carbon dioxide provided some welcome relief to those concerned that the Court might say something, deliberately or otherwise, that would buttress the claims of global warming alarmists.  The Court said no such thing.  In fact, it seemed to step back from the suggestions in its 2007 Massachusetts v. EPA ruling that the scientific debate over anthropogenic warming had largely been settled.  Yesterday’s ruling does mention hurricanes and heat-related deaths and melting ice-caps, but only in characterizing EPA’s view of global warming, not the Court’s.  And the Court quickly distances itself from EPA’s views with an interesting footnote:

“For views opposing EPA’s, see, e.g., Dawidoff, The Civil Heretic, N. Y. Times Magazine 32 (March 29, 2009). The Court, we caution, endorses no particular view of the complicated issues related to carbon dioxide emissions and climate change.”

The second line of that footnote would have sufficed all by itself to make clear that this ruling was not about global warming science.  But the Court went beyond that to cite a 2009 N.Y. Times Magazine cover story about award-winning physicist Freeman Dyson and his skepticism about anthropogenic warming.  Alarmists had been up in arms when that story was published, arguing that it would give the skeptics unwarranted respectability.

Now bear in mind that the N.Y.Times article appeared before the Alan Carlin-EPA whistleblower scandal, before ClimateGate, and before the subsequent series of embarrassments regarding the IPCC report (which itself was repeatedly cited by the 5-4 majority in Massachusetts v. EPA).  One can speculate on why, of all the articles available to it, the Court chose to single out this one.  But regardless—I’m glad that all those angered by the Times story two years ago now have reason to get angry all over again.

[Correction: As several comments below point out, Freeman Dyson has won many awards but the Nobel Prize is not among them. The above post has been corrected accordingly.]

Bedbugs are finding their way from more and more hotels into more and more homes.  One way to get rid of them is to wash infested bedding and clothes in hot water.  Hot means at least 118 degrees F; a warm water wash of  only 104 degrees will kill only ten percent of the critters.

An extended bout of high-temperature drying is also recommended.

But with laundry machines and dryers coming under increasingly stringent federal energy efficiency regulations, sufficiently hot wash and dry cycles are becoming a thing of the past.  Many new washers have thermostatically controlled mixing valves, which adjust wash water temperatures to levels set by the manufacturer.  That high-tech feature isn’t aimed at satisfying market demand, but at meeting either the efficiency regs or the criteria for special manufacturer tax credits (yet another program to boost energy efficiency at all costs).

Since hot water accounts for most of the energy used in laundering, these programs all aim at restricting it.  Could there be a bedbug lobby at work here?

As for dryers, many new models have “eco-cycles” that run at lower temperatures.  Whether you can still get a sufficiently hot drying cycle will depend on the particular model.  As they say, results may vary.

And so while politicians satisfy their itch to control, we’re left scratching ourselves.  Call it an eco-rash.

My thanks to New York landscape designer Cynthia Gillis for raising this problem.

The head of General Motors, Dan Akerson, has called for an increase in the gasoline tax of up to one dollar a gallon.  Akerson’s proposal illustrates, in a nutshell, the perversity of the federal government’s fuel economy standards for new vehicles.

The program is known as CAFE (for Corporate Average Fuel Economy).  CAFE has been criticized on several grounds:  it limits consumer choice; it jacks up the price of new vehicles; it forces new fuel-saving technologies to be rapidly employed without adequate testing; and, worst of all, it increases traffic fatalities by forcing cars to be made smaller and lighter, reducing their crashworthiness.  CAFE’s advocates claim that the law saves consumers money in the long run by reducing their gasoline costs, but if that’s true then we wouldn’t need a federal law imposing these technologies on the public.

But Akerson’s proposal highlights yet another destructive aspect of CAFE:  how it drives a wedge between the incentives of manufacturers and the desires of consumers.  That’s already happened with such humdrum products as washing machines, where energy-efficiency rules and manufacturer tax credits for ultra high-efficiency models are leading the industry to produce washers that many people hate.  And now there’s the prospect that it might happen with cars, as the feds consider boosting their fuel economy standards yet again, possibly up to the stratospheric level of 62 mpg.

Faced with such standards, the last thing a carmaker wants is low-priced oil, because that makes it even harder to sell small, expensive high-efficiency cars to consumers.  The irony, however, is that low-priced oil is exactly what the carmaker’s customers want.

One wonders whether GM has taken the lead on higher gas taxes because its bailout ties to the feds have created a more government-oriented corporate culture.  But regardless of that; when carmakers push to raise to raise the cost of the very substance that fuels their products, we have a serious problem.  They’re serving the government rather than the public, and that does not bode well either for the vehicles they’ll be producing or for the policies they’ll be pushing.