Alarmists Get Their Wish

by Paul Chesser, Heartland Institute Correspondent on April 9, 2009

in Blog

The bad economy is helping global warming alarmists accomplish their goal of reduced greenhouse gas emissions, says USA Today:

From the United States to Europe to China, the global economic crisis has forced offices to close and factories to cut back. That means less use of fossil fuels such as coal to make energy. Fossil-fuel burning, which creates carbon dioxide, is the primary human contributor to global warming.

A recession-driven drop in emissions “is good for the environment,” says Emilie Mazzacurati of Point Carbon, an energy research company. “In the long term, that’s not how we want to reduce emissions.”

Whether the warmers want to acknowledge it or not, a recessionary economy is how they want to reduce emissions. Whether you limit inexpensive, efficient energy usage or you tax it, you raise costs and therefore inhibit consumption and growth.

Bonus journalistic boner observation #1 from the USA Today article: Reporter Traci Watson writes, “As carbon dioxide builds in the atmosphere, it traps heat and warms the Earth. The result: melting glaciers, rising seas and fiercer droughts.” Why hasn’t that been the case in this decade, Traci?

Bonus journalistic boner observation #2 from the USA Today article: Traci sez, “European nations face a 2012 deadline to cut their emissions under the Kyoto Protocol, a global-warming treaty written in 1997 and renounced by President George W. Bush in 2001.” Why jump to 2001, Trace? What about the Clinton administration (never submitted the protocol to the Senate for ratification) and the U.S. Senate (who voted unanimously that they would not support ratification)?

CBO catches up with CEI on ethanol

by Fran Smith on April 9, 2009

in Blog

Well.  The Congressional Budget Office has finally caught up with what CEI has been saying for years –  misguided ethanol policies cause higher food prices without providing significant environmental benefits.  In a report released yesterday, CBO noted this about food prices:

CBO estimates that the increased use of ethanol accounted for about 10 percent to 15 percent of the rise in food prices between April 2007 and April 2008.

And what about ethanol’s highly touted reduction of  greenhouse-gas emissions? Here’s what CBO found:

Last year the use of ethanol reduced gasoline usage in the United States by about 4 percent and greenhouse-gas emissions from the transportation sector by less than 1 percent.

In the long run, if increases in the production of ethanol led to a large amount of forests or grasslands being converted into new cropland, those changes in land use could more than offset any reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions—because forests and grasslands naturally absorb more carbon from the atmosphere than cropland absorbs.

Dennis Avery in a 2006 CEI study pointed this out,  as did this CEI 2007 report on unintended consequences of ethanol policy.  Also see CEI’s website on ethanol.

Ethanol Folly

by Paul Chesser, Heartland Institute Correspondent on April 9, 2009

The Congressional Budget Office has now weighed in on ethanol mandates so I guess now it makes it official: they drive up food prices and do nothing for greenhouse gas emissions. The Washington Times reports:

Federal ethanol-fuel policies forced consumers to pay an extra 0.5 percent to 0.8 percent in increased food prices in 2008, and the government itself could end up paying nearly $1 billion more this year for food stamps because of ethanol use, according to a new government report.

The report by the Congressional Budget Office helps answer questions raised by Congress last year as food prices shot up, and some lawmakers questioned the effects of government policies, such as the ethanol mandate….

Also, government-sponsored subsidies and mandates for ethanol to be mixed with gasoline are supposed to help foster U.S. energy independence and to cut down on greenhouse-gas emissions, but only have reduced greenhouse-gas emissions by less than one-third of 1 percent.

CBO also noted that pushing for ethanol could actually increase greenhouse gas emissions, with deforestation being one reason among many for that consequence. Even the New York Times figured that out a long time ago.

One Down, Six to Go!

by Fred Smith on April 8, 2009

in Blog

Oh the Worries of Our Modern Malthusians! In Washington this week, the Anarctica and Arctic Councils met for the first time.  Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, used the occasion to discuss the problems that global warming was “causing” in these areas.  Among the myriad disasters is the possibility that the region’s energy resources will become available and that an all-year passage around the pole might open.  

As I recall my history, European explorers spent centuries searching for a Northwest Passage.  Given the massive increases in global trade, the efficiencies that this would provide could give our flagging global economy a significant boost – and reduce energy use also.  And increasing access to new secure energy reserves (especially given that Norwegian and Alaskan activities have already shown we can extract such resources safely) would do much to address energy security concerns.  But to our Modern Malthusians, these are problems! 

As I remember geography there were seven continents – North and South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia/New Zealand, and Anarctica.   Since humanity never reached the latter continent, it had no real defenders and, thus, in 1959, the global Antarctic Treaty, transformed it forever into a ward of the United Nations.  The treaty suggests the global goals of our Modern Malthusians. 

There is a total ban on economic activity, even though continental drift over the eons has meant that Anarctica might well have extensive fossil fuel reserves.  The treaty forbids almost all economic activities but does authorize residency by “scientists.”  This illustrates another bias of the left – “Research good, technology bad!”  In her speech however, Hillary went further calling for tourist restrictions (so much for eco-tourism).  One begins to understand – to protect the planet, we must wall it off from humanity!  

An ambitious goal but one that shouldn’t be ignored.  Malthusians have now captured one continent – only six to go!

Myron Ebell on Cap and Trade

by Richard Morrison on April 7, 2009

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42AyuNKMFM4 285 234]

India calls carbon tariffs protectionist

by Fran Smith on April 7, 2009

At the Bonn, Germany, UN meetings on global warming issues, India urged rich countries not to use “green” protectionism by imposing carbon tariffs on carbon-intensive products from poor countries.  India’s special envoy to the talks, Shyam Saran, was quoted as saying:

“That is simply not acceptable, that is protectionism.”

“We should be very careful that we don’t start going in that direction. We welcome any kind of arrangement … where there can be a sharing of experience or best practices for any of these energy-intensive sectors.”

Earlier, China’s top climate change official had warned about possible retaliation if carbon tariffs were assessed, as was suggested by the U.S. Secretary of Energy.  Sounds like this issue is shaping up as the rich against the poor, i.e., already industrialized and developed countries attempting to penalize those emerging economies dependent on energy use for their continued economic growth.

DeSmogBlog: What About Me?

by William Yeatman on April 7, 2009

Yesterday DeSmogBlog added 7 more entries to its Global Warming Denier Database, which is touted as “an extensive database of individuals involved in the global warming denial industry.”

I took a look at the Database, and I am outraged. Why I am I not on the list!!??

Not only am I an unabashed global warming denier*, I personally contribute almost as much carbon dioxide to the atmosphere as mega-emitter Al Gore, alarmist hypocrite.

I understand that I might be too small a fish to warrant entry onto the list. After all, I am a lowly policy analyst. That said, the author of the Global Warming Denier Database, Kevin Grandia, lists “event planning” as an area of expertise, and I’ve been a caterer, so perhaps I am suitably qualified.

In any case, if you are reading this, please contact DeSmogBlog (here) and demand that I, William Yeatman, join the list of global warming deniers.

* It hasn’t warmed in 7 years. Al Gore 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?

LibertyWeek 37: Slicin’ and Dyson

by Richard Morrison on April 6, 2009

Your host Richard Morrison sits down this week with special guest co-hosts Michelle Minton and William Yeatman for LibertyWeek 37 (regular co-host Cord Blomquist is on the road). We start off with a profile of visionary physicist and global warming skeptic Freeman Dyson, then spend some time WILBing around to improve our productivity at the office, and move on to sixteen full ounces of barkeeper honesty. Finally we take a look at the Chicago factor in Olympic News.

The newest altruist: Fidel Castro

by Julie Walsh on April 6, 2009

in Blog

“The financial crisis is not the only problem. There’s another worse one, because it has to do not with the means of production and distribution but with our very existence. I’m referring to climate change. Both are here and will be discussed simultaneously,” Castro said in the latest of his commentaries on current events.,” according to the Latin American Herald Tribune.

He’ll fit right in with the altruistic designers and promoters of the Waxman-Markey bill, which is “modeled closely on the recommendations of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP)”  industry lobbying organization.

Cooler Heads Digest 3 April 2009

by William Yeatman on April 6, 2009

in Cooler Heads Digest

Announcements

  • You can now receive tweets on the global warming battle by following cooler_heads on Twitter! You’ll receive links to new blog posts on globalwarming.org and thoughts and links from CEI’s global warming team experts.
  • The George C. Marshall Institute has released two new studies on the Economic, Environmental, and Energy Security Consequences of a National Low Carbon Fuel Standard.

In the News

Video: Marc Morano debating Joe Romm on RollCallTV
Part 1: Starts at 3:45 min.
Part 2: Starts immediately

Congress Balks at Obama’s Cap and Trade Proposal
Wall Street Journal, 3 April 2009

Technology is the Answer to Climate Change
Representative F. James Sensenbrenner, Wall Street Journal, 3 April 2009

Embracing Trendy Green Policies did not Help the British Tories
Iain Murray and Matthew Sinclair, National Review Online, 1 April 2009

Wall Street Sees “Bucks to be Made” in House Climate Plan
Nathanial Gronewald, New York Times, 2 April 2009

Enviro Group Sues Obama Administration Over New CAFE Standards
Business Week, 2 April 2009

Is Our President a “Carbon Communist”?
Chris Horner, Human Events, 1 April 2009

We’re Experiencing a Very Deep Solar Minimum
NASA, Science.NASA.gov, 1 April 2009

Climate Change Scepticism is Going Mainstream
Chris Ayres, TimesOnline, 1 April 2009

The Obama Administration Risks a Cap and Trade War
Wall Street Journal, 30 March 2009

News You Can Use

We listed the New York Times Sunday Magazine’s March 29 cover story on Freeman Dyson in last week’s news stories, but we want to mention it again.  Nicholas Dawidoff’s fascinating profile of the great physicist focuses on the fact that Dyson is a “Global-Warming Heretic” even though his political views are orthodox left.  The alarmist community is not pleased.

Inside the Beltway

Myron Ebell

Waxman and Markey Roll Out Monstrosity

The House Energy and Commerce Committee this week released a draft of the energy-rationing bill that Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Beverly Hills) and Energy and Environment Subcommittee Chairman Edward Markey (D-Mass.) plan to mark up in May. The official summary of the bill can be found here and the text of the draft bill here.  A summary analysis by the Heritage Foundation can be found here. The centerpiece of the 648-page bill is a cap-and-trade program, but it contains many other provisions designed to constrict energy supplies and raise prices.

These include: a renewable mandate for electric utilities; funding for carbon capture and storage technology research and a performance standard for new coal-fired power plants; a low carbon transportation fuel standard; new emissions standards for trains, ships, and heavy equipment; developing a smart grid that can control your thermostat; and new energy efficiency standards for buildings, appliances, utilities, industries, and government facilities. All this is quite surprising.  A cap-and-trade program works best if there aren’t a lot of other overlapping programs. Adding all these new programs means that emission reductions achieved by cap-and-trade would come at a much higher cost. It also implies that Representatives Waxman and Markey don’t have much faith in cap-and-trade, which suggests that they have been paying attention to the failing European Union’s Emissions Trading Scheme.

Also of note is a requirement that utilities “must demonstrate that its customers have achieved a required level of cumulative electricity or natural gas savings relative to business-as-usual projections.”  It sounds like the bill would do for the family home what the Obama Administration has done to General Motors.

Instead of pre-empting California ‘s emission standards for new vehicles, Waxman and Markey would direct the executive branch to negotiate to try to harmonize federal and conflicting state auto fuel economy programs. However, the draft bill does pre-empt the Environmental Protection Agency from using the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. That is a notable recognition that doing so would create a regulatory nightmare.

The cap-and-trade provisions are peculiar and complicated and will require much closer study than I have given them.  The baseline year is 2005, and the targets for emissions reductions are -3% by 2012, -20% by 2020, -42% by 2030, and -83% by 2050.  It appears that the initial reductions could be met through the current economic downturn and by buying a few carbon offsets rather than by making emissions reductions.  Indeed, the carbon offset provisions are remarkably generous.  The cap-and-trade title would also create a huge “strategic reserve” of rationing coupons that could be sold “in case prices rise faster than expected.”  The draft bill does not say how many of the rationing coupons would be given away for free and how many would be auctioned.  That decision will apparently be made later after the various special interests have a chance to threaten and plead.

Waxman and Markey also include provisions to create a trade war and destroy the World Trade Organization. They call it “ensuring domestic competitiveness.”  Similar provisions to “assist” consumers with higher energy bills were left blank and are to be filled in later.

The most astonishing thing in the Waxman-Markey draft is that they state openly that the cap-and-trade provisions “are modeled closely on the recommendations of the U. S. Climate Action Partnership.”  That is to say, the powerful big business special interests that are to be regulated got to write their own regulations. I wonder who will benefit from that, consumers or the big companies that belong to US CAP?  I seem to recall that Chairman Waxman has criticized and even investigated Republicans who introduced bills that were written by outside special interests. That was different, I guess. The second most astonishing thing is how little attention the mainstream media and environmental pressure groups have given to this fact that the regulated are being allowed to write the regulations.

Senate Budget Resolution Includes Good Intentions

Senators passed their version of the budget resolution by a 55-43 margin on Thursday. Several amendments related to the President’s budget proposal to raise $646 billion in federal revenues from a cap-and-trade program were voted and adopted.  The Senate agreed on a 67 to 31 vote to an amendment offered by Senators Mike Johanns (R-Neb.) and Robert Byrd (D-WV) that says that cap-and-trade should not be included in budget reconciliation legislation.  Reconciliation bills cannot be filibustered and so require only a simple majority to pass.

Senator Barbara Boxer’s (D-Calif.) amendment that states that revenues derived from selling rationing coupons under cap-and-trade should be used to help people pay their higher energy bills was passed by a 54 to 43 vote.  But then the Senate passed a competing amendment from Senator John Thune (R-SD) by an 89 to 8 margin.  It states that any energy-rationing legislation passed should not raise energy or gasoline prices. And by a 54 to 44 vote, Senators agreed to an amendment offered by Senator Christopher Bond (R-Mo.) that urges that any climate legislation passed does not cause significant job losses.

Some people are claiming that passing the Thune amendment means that cap-and-trade is dead in the Senate because cap-and-trade would only work if it raised energy prices. But all these votes are hortatory and non-binding on future Senate votes.  The unavoidable reality is that the colossal revenues that can be generated by auctioning cap-and-trade rationing coupons are an irresistible prospect for many in Congress. Senator Benjamin Cardin (D-Md.) told the Washington Post that cap-and-trade was “the most significant revenue-generating proposal of our time” (you can almost hear his lips smacking). Or as I have been putting it, “the biggest tax increase in history.” So a House-Senate conference committee on the budget could still decide to use budget reconciliation to sneak cap-and-trade through the Senate.

Around the World

Though the G-20 countries decided on a $1.1 trillion package, no agreements were made in regard to climate change. Greenpeace executive director John Sauven’s angst is noted: “Tacking climate change on to the end of the communique (two short paragraphs) as an afterthought does not demonstrate anything like the seriousness we needed to see. Hundreds of billions were found for the IMF and World Bank, but for making the transition to a green economy there is no money on the table, just vague aspirations, talks about talks and agreements to agree.” (parenthetical added)

China now calls for developed countries to give a full 1 percent of their GDPs to developing nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

In April, the President will host a Major Economies Meeting to lay the groundwork for an international agreement at Copenhagen later this year. This is the new name for the process set up by President George W. Bush, which he called the Major Emitters Meeting.

In the States

California

The California Senate voted this week to increase the state’s renewable power mandate to from 20% to 33% of total load by 2020. However Sen. John Benoit ( R-Palm Desert ) said the increased mandate for solar, wind and geothermal power will not only hurt residents who are already having trouble paying their bills, but will also drive manufacturing firms out of the state. “We are going to make ourselves the greenest Third World economy in the world,” he said.

Tennessee

Last Saturday while climate realists were celebrating Human Achievement Hour, some climate alarmists were refraining from using energy for Earth Hour. But not all. Although Al Gore turned off most of his lights, the blue hue from the use of televisions or computers and brightly-lit trees in his garden evidenced his Do As I Say mentality.

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