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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.

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.”

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 18^th 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.

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?

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.

A study by Carnegie Mellon finds that the Chevy Volt, GM’s rechargeable battery-driven car designed to go 40 miles on electricity,  is “not cost effective in any scenario,” Bloomberg reports.  

There appear to be two main problems, cost and durability. Says Bloomberg:

A battery big enough to propel a car for 40 miles, such as the 400-pound pack for Volt, may cost $16,000, based on current industry and academic estimates. The price of the car isn’t set, though GM backed off last year from an initial goal of less than $30,000 when the Volt reaches the U.S. market in late 2010.

$16K for a battery is a huge expense, especially if the battery has to be replaced. K.G. Duleep, a researcher on plug-ins, told Bloomberg he is “very skeptical” about the near-term durability of the batteries.  “Even in the lab they aren’t lasting more than 7 years,” Dunleep said.

I’ll be sorry for GM if the Volt proves to be the next Edsel or EV-1. But the Carnegie Mellon study, as summarized by Bloomberg, is a sobering reminder that a “beyond petroleum” transport system will arrive when and as economic and technological reality permits, not when green political agendas or CO2-suppression mandates dictate.

In a magnificent display of self-delusion, the green movement is holding a demonstration at the Capitol’s power plant today to protest the continued use of coal to keep people warm. Although I’d love to put the continued operation of Congress at the mercy of the weather, there is a more important point here. Coal is Affordable energy increases people’s income, keeps them in jobs, and keeps them alive. Here is a brief summary of some important research on the subject.

The Human Consequences of Global Warming Alarmism

• Raising energy costs kills. According to a Johns Hopkins study, replacing ¾ of US coal-based energy with higher priced energy would lead to 150,000 extra premature deaths annually in the US alone.
• Reducing emissions hits the poorest hardest. According to the recent report by the Congressional Budget Office, a cap and trade system aimed at reducing emissions by just 15 percent will cost the poorest quintile 3 percent of their annual household income, while benefiting the richest quintile.
• Raising energy costs loses jobs. According to a Penn State study, replacing 2/3 of US coal-based energy with higher priced energy will cost almost 3 million jobs, and perhaps over 4 million.

More detailed points

• We are already seeing the adverse effects of global warming policies in the ethanol debacle. Ethanol mandates have not just contributed to the spike in the price of gas, but have also increased food prices. Steaks are up 5.5% from a year ago, chickens up 7.7%. These increased costs force the poorest to make hard choices.
• The ethanol mandates also demonstrate that consumer behavior can’t be fine tuned. As fuel and food prices increased, the choices people made showed that they sacrifice food for fuel. A survey by the Food Marketing Institute found that more than 40% of consumers changed their food-buying habits in response to high gas prices. That illustrates that energy is one of the most important purchases they make.
• Coal production is also fundamental to the US economy. The Penn State study found that by 2015, coal production, transportation and consumption will contribute $1 trillion to the US economy and provide 6.8 million jobs and $362 billion in household income.
• That same study shows pronounced regional variations. If coal production was curtailed by 2/3rds, California would be hard hit. It would lose $58 million in economic activity. California households would lose $22 million a year. And 339,000 Californians would lose their jobs.
• But the states of the Central US would be worst hit – Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Texas would lose 1.5 million jobs between them.
• Legislators must consider the unintended effects of their actions. If coal production is to be stamped out, the railroad industry in this country would probably collapse along with it. Without rail transport, other bulk commodities would rise in price. And they would increase congestion on the roads, which don’t have enough capacity to deal with freight transport as it is.

Background: Lives Lost

The Johns Hopkins study (Harvey Brenner, “Health Benefits of Low Cost Energy: An Econometric Case Study,” Environmental Manager, November 2005) found the following:

An econometric model was applied to a hypothetical regulatory case study, whereby U.S. coal was replaced by alternative higher-cost fuels such as natural gas for the purpose of electricity generation. The model was used to estimate the premature mortality associated with increased unemployment and reduced personal income. The adverse impacts on household income and unemployment due to the substitution of higher-cost energy sources were estimated to result in 195,000 additional premature deaths annually

The results from this hypothetical case study may be scaled to apply to specific policy initiatives affecting the U.S. coal-based electricity generation sector. For example, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates that climate change bills currently before the U.S. Congress—such as Senate Amendment No. 2028, rejected by the Senate in 2003 and again in June 2005—could result in the displacement of up to 78% of U.S. coal-based electricity generation with higher-cost energy sources. The methodology employed here suggests that, absent any direct mitigation measures to offset expected decreases in employment and income, implementation of such measures could result in an annual increase of premature mortality rates by more than 150,000.

Background: Job, Income and Economic Impacts

The Penn State study (Rose, A.Z., and Wei, D., “The Economic Impact of Coal Utilization and Displacement in the Continental United States, 2015,” Pennsylvania State University, July 2006) found the following:

Assigning equal weight to each of the two energy price scenarios, we estimate that U.S. coal-fueled electric generation in 2015 will contribute:

• $1.05 trillion (2005 $) in gross economic output;
• $362 billion in annual household incomes, and
• 6.8 million jobs.

We also estimated the prospective net economic impacts of the “displacement” of coalfueled electricity generation at assumed levels of 66% and 33% from a projected 2015 base.

These levels of displacement are consistent with some of the potential impacts of major environmental policy initiatives in climate change or other areas. In these cases, we again calculated backward linkage and price differential effects to determine potential negative impacts on each state’s economy.

Additionally, we calculated potential positive economic benefits due to the operation of replacement electricity generation of various types. In all states, the net effect of displacing coal-based electricity was negative for the “high-price” scenarios, and in nearly all states, the net effect was negative for the “low-price” scenarios…

Assigning equal weight to the high- and low-price scenarios, we estimate the average impacts of displacing 66% of coal-fueled generation in 2015 at:

• $371 billion (2005 $) reduction in gross economic output;
• $142 billion reduction of annual household incomes; and
• 2.7 million job losses.

Assigning equal weight to the high- and low-price scenarios, we estimate the average impacts of displacing 33% of coal-based generation in 2015 at:

• $166 billion (2005 $) reduction in gross economic output;
• $64 billion reduction of annual household incomes; and
• 1.2 million job losses.