This morning I attended a briefing on “The Renewable Fuel Standard: Pitfalls, Challenges, and the Need for Congressional Action in 2013.” Steve Ellis of Taxpayers for Common Sense moderated a panel of six experts. Although each expert spotlighted a different set of harms arising from the RFS, reflecting the core concern of his or her organization, this was a team effort, with panelists frequently affirming each other’s key points. Collectively, they made a strong case that the RFS is a “costly failure.” The briefing’s purpose was to demonstrate the need for reform rather than outline a specific reform agenda. Panelists nonetheless agreed that, at a minimum, Congress should scale back the RFS blending targets for corn ethanol.

Kristin Sundell of ActionAid explained how the RFS exacerbates world hunger, undermining U.S. foreign aid and international security objectives. The RFS diverts 15% of the world corn supply from food to fuel, putting upward pressure on food prices. A recent Tufts University study estimates that U.S. ethanol expansion during the past 6 years cost developing countries more than $5.5 billion in higher prices for corn imports. In Guatemala, the additional expense ($28 million) in 2011 effectively cancelled out all U.S. food aid and agricultural assistance for that year. Food price spikes, partly due to the RFS, were a factor in the recent turmoil in the Middle East. ”Congress can’t control the weather, but they can control misguided energy policies that could cause a global food crisis,” Sundell said.

Kristin Wilcox of the American Frozen Food Institute discussed the RFS’s impact on food consumers. Corn is both the chief animal feed and an ingredient in about 75% of all frozen foods. Consequently, RFS-induced increases in corn prices drive up “the cost of producing a wide range of foods and leads to higher food bills for consumers.” In addition, when corn prices go up, so do the prices of other commodities that compete with corn such as wheat and soybeans. ”Our position is very simple,” Wilcox said: “food should be used to fuel bodies, not vehicle engines.” She concluded: “Trying to change the price at the pump should not burden consumers with increased prices in the grocery check out aisle.”

Actually, as Geoff Moody of the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers pointed out, the RFS aggravates rather than alleviates pain at the pump. Graphs from the Energy Information Administration show that biofuels are more expensive than gasoline on an energy-content (per-mile) basis. The higher the ethanol blend, the more expensive it is to drive, which is why fewer than 4% of flex-fuel vehicle owners fill up with E85 (motor fuel blended with 85% ethanol).

Moody’s major point was that the RFS is becoming increasingly unworkable. Already the 135 billion gallon U.S. motor fuel market is nearly saturated with E10. By 2022, U.S. motor fuel consumption is projected to be about 25% lower than Congress assumed when it expanded the RFS in 2007. If Congress does not revise the RFS, refiners will have to sell E20 or higher, but the existing retail infrastructure is not equipped to handle blends higher than E10. A typical service station may clear a profit of only $45,000 on motor fuel sales, but replacing pumps and storage tanks to handle higher blends can cost $50,000 to $200,000.

Scott Faber of the Environmental Working Group discussed the RFS program’s environmental impacts, especially changes in land use. From 2008 to 2011, high crop prices and crop subsidies contributed to the conversion of 23 million acres of wetlands and grasslands, an area the size of Indiana. About 8.4 million acres were converted to corn production. “We have lost more wetlands and grasslands in the last four years than we have in the last 40 years,” Faber said. If lawmakers knew in 2007 what we now know about the RFS’s many serious unintended consequences, they would not have enacted the program, Faber opined.

Tom Elam of Farm Econ LLC discussed the RFS program’s impacts on livestock producers and meat and poultry consumers. Since Congress created the RFS in 2005, annual feed costs have increased by $8.8 billion for chicken producers and $1.9 billion for turkey producers. Consequences of those higher costs include an 8 billion pound decline in poultry production, eight major bankruptcies, a half billion dollar loss in farm income, and higher prices for consumers.

Retail broiler prices, for example, increased from $1.74/lb in 2005 to $1.97/lb in December 2012. Turkey prices similarly rose from $1.07/lb in 2005 to $1.80/lb in early 2012. Beef and pork prices too rose along with feed costs, with the result that U.S. per capita meat and poultry consumption declined by about 10% since 2008.

The RFS may be good for corn farmers, but it fosters economic inefficiency. For every $1 of added ethanol production, food production costs increased $2.89. In other words, food producers bear a cost “more than twice the value of the ethanol created.”

Jim Currie of the National Marine Manufacturers Association explained the perils of E15 to the $72 billion per year U.S. recreational boating industry. Boats and other small gasoline-powered engines are designed to run on motor fuels blended with 10% ethanol or less. Consequently, “anything above E10 poses serious problems, including performance issues like stalling, corrosion leading to oil or fuel leaks, increased emissions and damaged valves, rubber fuel lines and gaskets.”

Higher blends are trouble for two reasons. First, ethanol is a solvent and at increased concentrations eats away at engine components. Second, ethanol is an oxygenate, and the higher the oxygen content of a fuel, the hotter the burn. Tests supervised by the Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Lab prove “time and time again that marine engines and, by extrapolation, other types of engines, simply cannot tolerate the high levels of additional oxygen that this fuel blend forces into the engine.” Currie presented lab test photos of such engine damage (pp. 3-7 of this Power Point).

Valve rupture from E15

Touching on the potential risks E15 poses to automobiles, he quoted the AAA’s statement of last December: “Only about 12 million out of the more than 240 million light-duty vehicles on the roads today are approved by manufacturers to use E15 gasoline.”

Currie’s conclusion drew applause from the Hill crowd:

As I am the last presenter today, let me offer a hypothetical scenario, based on what you have heard. Suppose an organization approached the Hill today and said, “We have a great idea for a new policy. It will largely benefit a small number of people in one part of the country, and members of Congress from there will support it wholeheartedly. The downside is that it will hurt the environment; and conservation practices; and will drive up food costs; and hurt people in developing countries; and will potentially damage every small engine in the country, including those in motorcycles and snowmobiles and ATVs and lawnmowers and generators; and it will damage boat engines; and it will potentially damage most automobile engines and will void your engine warranty if you use it. But we want you to enact a law requiring the American consumer to use it anyway.” That’s where we are today, and we think this law needs to be changed.

The UK-based Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) has published prize-winning author Matt Ridley’s A Lukewarmer’s Ten Tests: What It Would Take to Persuade Me that Current Climate Policy Makes Sense. 

For coercive decarbonization to make sense, Ridley argues, climate alarmists would have persuade us of ten things, none of which is plausible in light of either recent science, economic data, or moral common sense.

Such articles of alarmist faith include the propositions that the urban heat island effect has been fully purged from the surface temperature record, water vapor and cloud feedbacks will eventually amplify the modest observed warming trend since 1979, mankind will fail to adapt to climate change even though there has already been a 98% reduction in the probability of death from extreme weather since the 1920s, and today’s relatively poor generation should bear the cost of damages that may not materialize until a far wealthier future generation.

Ridley concludes that the UK’s “current energy and climate policy is probably more dangerous, both economically and ecologically, than climate change itself.”

Ridley is well aware of the argument that “even a very small probability of a very large and dangerous change in the climate justifies drastic action.” But he notes that ”Pascal’s wager cuts both ways.” 

To climate alarmists, Ridley would reply that “a very small probability of a very large and dangerous effect from the adoption of large-scale renewable energy, reduced economic growth through carbon taxes or geo-engineering also justifies extreme caution.” Big picture: “At the moment, it seems highly likely that the cure is worse than the disease. We are taking chemotherapy for a cold.”

President Obama’s second inaugural speech featured climate change more prominently than did his first inaugural address. As Greenwire (subscription required) observed:

Gone was Obama’s roundabout reference to climate change through “the specter of a warming planet” from four years ago. This time, the president put the issue front and center.

Will that make any difference legislatively? Probably not. In the House, Republicans opposed to cap-and-trade, EPA regulation of greenhouse gases (GHGs), and carbon taxes are still in charge.

Is the President’s renewed emphasis on climate change just a sop to his environmentalist base? Doubtful. As a second termer, Obama has less reason politically to restrain his ‘progressive’ impulses. Several regulatory options are now in play:

• The Department of Interior could list more species as threatened or endangered based on climate change concerns.
• The President could finally veto the Keystone XL pipeline — a key objective of the climate alarm movement.
• The EPA could issue GHG performance standards for existing (as distinct from new or modified) coal power plants, as well as GHG performance standards for other industrial categories (refineries, cement production facilities, steel mills, paper mills, etc.).
• The EPA could finally act on petitions pending from the Bush administration to set GHG emission standards for marine vessels, aircraft, and non-road vehicles.
• The EPA could finally act on a December 2009 petition by the Center for Biological Diversity and 350.Org to establish national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) for carbon dioxide (CO2) and other GHGs.

I’ll make one prediction: If Obama does not veto the Keystone XL Pipeline after talking the talk on climate change, green groups will go ballistic (even though, Cato Institute scholar Chip Knappenberger calculates, full-throttle operation of the Keystone XL Pipeline would add an inconsequential 0.0001°C/yr to global temperatures). My colleague Myron Ebell reasonably speculates that Obama’s tough talk on climate was a signal to green groups to organize the biggest anti-Keystone protest ever.

Now let’s examine the climate change segment of Obama’s inaugural speech:

We, the people, still believe that our obligations as Americans are not just to ourselves, but to all posterity.  We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations.  Some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science, but none can avoid the devastating impact of raging fires, and crippling drought, and more powerful storms.  The path towards sustainable energy sources will be long and sometimes difficult.  But America cannot resist this transition; we must lead it.  We cannot cede to other nations the technology that will power new jobs and new industries – we must claim its promise.  That is how we will maintain our economic vitality and our national treasure – our forests and waterways; our croplands and snowcapped peaks.  That is how we will preserve our planet, commanded to our care by God.  That’s what will lend meaning to the creed our fathers once declared.

Taking these statements one at a time, yes, of course, “We, the people” acknowledge obligations to posterity. Among those obligations is to secure the blessings of liberty. Liberty is endangered when non-elected officials like those at the EPA enact climate policy and erode the separation of powers.

Another obligation to posterity is not to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. Federal monetary and housing policies destabilized financial markets in 2008, entitlement spending imperils America’s very solvency, carbon taxes or their regulatory equivalent could inflict huge job and GDP losses by making affordable energy costly and scarce, and the green crusade against coal mining, hydraulic fracturing, unconventional oil, and energy exports threatens one of the few bright spots in the economy today. Posterity will not thank us if policymakers foolishly try to tax, spend, and regulate America back to prosperity.

The U.S. contribution to global warming over the 21st century is projected to be small – about 0.2°C, according to the UN IPCC. Even an aggressive de-carbonization program costing hundreds of billions would theoretically avert only about 0.1°C by 2100. Posterity will not thank us for consuming vast resources with so little benefit to public health and welfare.

“Some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science, but none can avoid the devastating impact of raging fires, and crippling drought, and more powerful storms,” the President says. But even assuming the President is right about the science, since even aggressive emission controls would at best avert only a tiny amount of warming, such policies would afford no protection from fires, drought, or storms.

And what does the President mean by the “overwhelming judgment of science” anyway? Mr. Obama implies that recent fires, drought, and storms would not have occurred but for anthropogenic climate change. That is ideology talking, not science.

That a warmer, drier climate will spawn more frequent forest fires and fires of longer duration is almost a tautology. Nonetheless, some studies find no change in global fire activity over the past century and more. Ocean cycles and forestry practices also influence the frequency and extent of wildfires. Whether recent U.S. wildfires are primarily due to global climate change or other factors is neither obvious nor easily determined.

As for drought, there is no long-term trend in U.S. soil moisture such as might be correlated with the increase in atmospheric GHG concentrations.

Regarding storms, studies find no long-term increase in the strength and frequency of land-falling hurricanes globally over the past 50-70 years and no trend in Atlantic tropical cyclone behavior over the past 370 years.

Hurricane Sandy was a ’super storm’ not because it was an intense hurricane (Sandy was a category 1 before making landfall), but because it was massive in area and merged with a winter frontal storm. The combined storm system contained more integrated kinetic energy (IKE) than Hurricane Katrina. Scientists simply do not know how global climate change affects the formation of such “hybrid” storms.

Inconvenient fact: The USA is currently enjoying the “longest streak ever recorded without an intense [category 3-5] hurricane landfall.”

Explains University of Colorado Prof. Roger Pielke, Jr.: ”When the Atlantic hurricane season starts next June 1, it will have been 2,777 days since the last time an intense (that is a Category 3, 4 or 5) hurricane made landfall along the US coast (Wilma in 2005). Such a prolonged period without an intense hurricane landfall has not been observed since 1900.”

If, as the President seems to assume, all weather anomalies are due to global climate change, then how would he explain the extraordinary 7-year “drought” of intense landfalling U.S. hurricanes?

Mr. Obama says that, “The path towards sustainable energy sources will be long and sometimes difficult.” Indeed. In the famous “Crisis of Confidence“ speech of July 15, 1979, President Jimmy Carter proposed a plan to obtain 20% of America’s energy from solar power by the year 2000. More than three decades later, solar provides 0.25% of U.S. energy (solar contributes 2.5% of all forms of renewable energy combined, which in turn provide 10% of total U.S. energy). Moreover, the piddling contributions of wind, solar power, and biofuels depend on a panoply of government favors: mandates, direct subsidies, and special tax breaks.

The allegedly “sustainable” energy sources championed by the President are not self-sustaining. The main reason is that they are inferior to fossil fuels in terms of energy density (bang for buck) and — in the case of wind and solar power – reliability and dispatchability.

Solyndra, the Obama administration’s mascot solar company that burned through $535 million of the taxpayers’ money before going broke, is not the only failure in the President’s green investment portfolio. The Institute for Energy Research provides information on eight other “stimulosers“ that also “failed, laid off workers, or have a bleak financial outlook.”

Because politicians get to play with other people’s money, hope continually triumphs over experience, and they never learn what three MIT scholars learned from the Carter administration’s energy programs:

If an energy technology is commercially viable, no government support is needed; if it is not commercially viable, no amount of government support can make it so.

The President says that, “America cannot resist this transition; we must lead it. We cannot cede to other nations the technology that will power new jobs and new industries – we must claim its promise.” But that’s just it — how does he know, despite the Solyndra and other failures, the tiny market shares of politically-correct renewables, and the intractable dependence of renewables on policy privileges – that wind and solar power are the future? What information does he have that tens of thousands of savvy investors don’t?

The President alludes to the great clean energy ‘race’ that America supposedly cannot afford to lose. But as my colleague William Yeatman points out, the race is itself a creature of mandate and subsidy. China subsidizes its solar panel manufacturers, for example, because U.S. states establish Soviet-style production quota for renewable energy and EU countries subsidize renewable electricity via feed-in tariffs (FITs). China’s subsidies, in turn, are the official justification for the Stimulus loans to companies like Solyndra. But Beijing is flush with cash; Washington, deep in debt. We cannot outspend China in a subsidy war.

Throwing good money after bad makes even less sense given the global financial crisis and the cutbacks Spain, Germany, France, Greece, Italy, and Ontario (Canada) have been forced to make in their FITs. The renewable market increasingly resembles a bubble (over-investment relative to actual market demand). Yeatman cautions:

When the renewable energy bubble bursts, the global industry leader will be the biggest loser. With that in mind, the supposed race with China for green technological supremacy is one the U.S. would be wise to forfeit.

The climate segment of Mr. Obama’s speech concludes with a theological flourish:

That [investing in clean tech] is how we will preserve our planet, commanded to our care by God.  That’s what will lend meaning to the creed our fathers once declared.

A lot may be implied in those words. Obama refers to the creed — the philosophy of rights and government — articulated in the Declaration of Independence. He seems to suggest that its meaning for our times lies in the doctrine of ‘creation care,’ a green variant of progressive theology. But whereas the Declaration articulated a philosophy of limited government, green theology aims to expand the reach and scope of government. Al Gore gave voice to similar views in his 1992 book on “ecology and the human spirit,” Earth in the Balance. He famously  declared that the time had come to “make rescue of the environment the central organizing principle of civilization.”

Where does Mr. Obama stand on creation care theology and Gore’s central organizing principle? I don’t know but will loudly applaud any journalist who, interviewing the President, has the curiosity and moxie to pursue this line of inquiry.

Cato Institute scholars Patrick Michaels and Chip Knappenberger have produced a layman-friendly yet thoroughly referenced draft report summarizing “the important science that is missing from Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States,” a U.S. Government document underpinning the EPA’s December 2009 endangerment rule, the foundation of all of the agency’s greenhouse gas (GHG) regulations.

Pat and Chip’s draft report, titled Addendum: Climate Change Impacts in the United States, is a sober antidote to the climate fear-mongering patronized by the Obama administration, mainstream media, the U.N., corporate rent seekers, and the green movement. Among the best features are the numerous graphics, some of which I will post here.

Taking these in no particular order, let’s begin with the scariest part of Al Gore’s “planetary emergency”: sea-level rise. Is the rate of sea-level rise dangerously accelerating? No. Over the 20th century, there was considerable decadal variation in the rate of sea-level rise but no long-term trend.

Decadal rate of sea level rise from satellites (red curve) appended to the decadal rate of global sea level rise as determined from a nine-station tide gauge network for the period 1904–2003 (blue curve) and from a 177-station tide gauge network for the period 1948–2002 (magenta). Adapted from Holgate, S.J., 2007: On the decadal rate of sea level change during the 20th century. Geophysical Research Letters, 34, doi:10.1029/2006 GL028492

The UN IPCC Fouth Assessment Report (2007) famously concluded that “most of the observed increase in global average temperature since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations.” However, recent studies attribute components of the observed warming to other factors. Adding up those contributions, Pat and Chip calculate that greenhouse gas concentrations account for less than half of the observed warming since 1950.

“Observed” global average temperature anomalies from 1950–2010 (red) and “adjusted” global temperature anomalies after accounting for non-greenhouse gas influences from a cold bias in sea surface temperatures, a warm bias in land temperatures, increases in stratospheric water vapor, and revised estimates of the warming effect from black carbon aerosols (blue). The trend through the adjusted temperature anomalies is less than half the trend in the original “observed” data series. [Sources provided in footnotes 67-73 on p. 34.] 

Climate models typically overestimate actual warming, indicating that they overestimate climate sensitivity (the amount of warming resulting from a given increase in GHG concentrations).

During the 15 year period from 1997-2011, the observed rate of global warming as derived from the five major compilations of global average surface temperatures (GISS (red), NOAA (green), Hadley Center (dark blue), MSU satellite—University of Alabama version (yellow) and MSU satellite (Remote Sensing Systems version (light blue) falls out in the left-hand tail of the distribution of model projected trends of the same length (grey bars).

Is the recent Midwest drought evidence that our fuelish ways are destabilizing the climate system? No. There is no long-term trend in U.S. soil moisture such as might be correlated with the increase in atmospheric GHG concentrations.

The Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) shows no trend in the area of the nation experiencing drought or excessive wetness over the period of record that begins in 1895.

In fact, throughout the U.S., soil moisture in the 20th century increased in more areas than it declined.

Source: Andreadis, K.M., and D.P. Lettenmaier, 2006: Trends in 20th century drought over the continental United States. Geophysical Research Letters, 33, L10403, doi:10.1029/2006GL025711

Okay, but as the world warms (and as urban heat islands expand), there are going to be more heat waves, and more people will die, right? Yes and no. “Mortality from heat waves declines as heat wave frequency increases, and deaths from extreme cold decline dramatically as cold air preferentially warms.” Cities with the most frequent hot weather, such as Phoenix, AZ and Tampa, FL, have virtually no heat-related mortality.

 Average heat-related mortality in U.S. urban areas has declined nationwide; subsequent research shows this trend continues into the 21st century. [Sources: Davis RE, et al., 2003. Changing Heat-Related Mortality in the United States. Environmental Health Perspectives 111, 1712–18. Kalkstein, L.S., et al., 2011. An evaluation of the progress in reducing heat-related human mortality in major U.S. cities. Natural Hazards 56, 113-129.]

Is global warming spinning up ever more powerful tropical cyclones? In the Atlantic Basin, there has been no long-term trend in the accumulated cyclone energy (ACE) index (which combines the duration and intensity of each storm into a seasonal total).

Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) index for the Atlantic Basin from 1851 through 2010. There is obviously no relationship to long-term temperature rise or GHG concentrations. Data available at http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/tcfaq/E11.html.

Nor has there been a long-term increase in ACE globally since 1970.

Global hurricane activity as measured by the ACE index has been in general decline since the early 1990s and as of 2011 was near its 40-year low. Source: Maue, R.N., 2011: Recent historically low global tropical cyclone activity. Geophysical Research Letters, 38, L14803, doi:10.1029/2011GL047711

Is global warming altering wind patterns such that more hurricanes are striking the U.S.? There has been no long-term trend in the number of hurricanes and major (category 3-5) hurricanes making landfall in the U.S.

U.S. landfalling decadal hurricane counts reached their maximum in the 1940s. Source: Blake, E.S., C.W. Landsea, and E.J. Gibney, 2011: The deadliest, costliest, and most intense United States tropical cyclones from 1851 to 2010 (and other frequently requested hurricane facts). NOAA Technical Memorandum NWS NHC-6, National Weather Service, National Hurricane Center, Miami, FL, http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/pdf/nws-nhc-6.pdf

Okay, but apart from hurricanes, has the area of the U.S. experiencing extreme weather expanded as GHG concentrations have increased? The National Climate Data Center’s Climate Extremes Index (CEI) plots the ”fraction of the area of the United States experiencing extremes in monthly mean surface temperature, daily precipitation, and drought.” The CEI has increased since 1970 but the current weather regime “clearly resembles that of the early 20th century, long before major greenhouse gas emissions.”

Climate extreme index, not counting tropical storms and hurricanes, 1920-2010. Source: Gleason, K.L., et al., 2008: A revised U.S. Climate Extremes Index. Journal of Climate, 21, 2124-2137.

But surely, tornadoes are more frequent now than ever, and what else can explain this except the increase in GHG concentrations? Actually, it’s the ability to detect small tornadoes that has increased. If we consider just the large tornadoes (F3-F5) that have been detectable for decades, there is no trend.

Number of strong U.S. tornadoes, 1950–2011. Source: NCDC, U.S. Tornado Climatology, 7 March 2012, at http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/severeweather/tornadoes.html, visited 11 May 2012.

But tornadoes are killing more people, right? Nope.

U.S. tornado death rate, 1900–2011. Sources: Updated from Goklany (2009a), using USBC (2011); NWS, Hazard Statistics at http://www.weather.gov/os/hazstats.shtml, accessed May 11, 2012; NWS, Storm Prediction Center, Annual U.S. Killer Tornado Statistics, at http://www.spc.noaa.gov/climo/torn/fataltorn.html, accessed May 11, 2012.

The same holds for mortality rates and extreme weather generally:

For the U.S., the cumulative average annual deaths from extreme weather events declined by 6% from 1979–1992 to 1993–2006 (despite a 17% increase in population), while all-cause deaths increased by 14%. [Source: Goklany, I.M. 2009. Deaths and Death Rates from Extreme Weather Events: 1900-2008. Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons 14, 102-09]

Hurricane damages keep going up and up, but that’s due to the ongoing rise in population and development in coastal areas. When hurricane damage is adjusted for changes in population, wealth, and inflation, there is no long-term trend.

U.S. tropical cyclone damage adjusted for inflation, population growth and wealth, 1900-2012 [Note - I am using a more updated graph than the one appearing in Addendum. Source: Pielke et al. 2008. Normalized Hurricane Damage in the United States: 1900-2005, Natural Hazards Review, DOI: 10.1061/1527-6988, 9:1(29), updated 12/31/2012].

Okay, but warmer temperatures mean more photo-chemical smog and worse air pollution, right? Only if air pollutant emissions stay the same, but emissions have declined on average by 67% since 1980. Further declines are projected as auto fleets and capital stock are replaced by newer, cleaner models.

Despite an increasing population, energy consumption, and economic productivity, U.S. pollution emissions declined by 67% since 1980. [Source: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Air Trends, http://epa.gov/airtrends/index.html]

Whatever risks climate change may pose to U.S. agriculture in the future, warming historically has not been associated with reductions in crop yield.

U.S. Cotton, corn and wheat yields, 1866–2010 [Source: National Agricultural Statistics Service, QuickStats 1.0 (2010), available at http://www.nass.usda.gov/Statistics by_Subject/index.php?sector=CROPS, downloaded December 26, 2010]

Remember the U.N. Environment Program’s (UNEP) November 2005 prediction that there would be as many as 50 million climate refugees by 2010? Not only did those displaced populations fail to materialize, some of the areas UNEP supposed would be hardest hit by climate change impacts experienced rapid population increases. Something similar is going on right here in the USA. Decade by decade, millions of Americans vote with their feet to live in warmer climates.

U.S census data show that the largest percent increases in population are in the relatively dry and hot Pacific Southwest, the moist and hot southeast Texas, and the Florida peninsula.

But ‘everybody knows’ that global warming is the worst threat facing humanity. Okay then explain this: Why do U.S. (and global) population, per capita income, and life expectancy keep rising along with carbon dioxide emissions?

U.S. carbon dioxide emissions, population, GDP per capita (affluence) and life expectancy at birth, 1900-2009. [Source: Goklany, I.M. 2009. Have increases in population, affluence and technology worsened human and environmental well-being? The Electronic Journal of Sustainable Development 1(3), updated using the Statistical Abstract of the United States 2011, and National Vital Statistics Report 59 (4): 1; CDIAC (2010); GGDC (2010)]

Well, that should be enough to whet your appetite to read Addendum. I’ll conclude this post by reproducing the draft report’s ”key findings.”

Key Findings:

1. Climate change is unequivocal, and human activity plays some part in it. There are two periods of warming in the 20th century that are statistically indistinguishable in magnitude. The first had little if any relation to changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide, while the second has characteristics that are consistent in part with a changed greenhouse effect. (p. 17)
2. Climate change has occurred and will occur in the United States. U.S. temperature and precipitation have changed significantly over some states since the modern record began in 1895. Some changes, such as the amelioration of severe winter cold in the northern Great Plains, are highly consistent with a changed greenhouse effect. (pp. 38–56, 187–92)
3. Impacts of observed climate change have little national significance. There is no significant long-term change in U.S. economic output that can be attributed to climate change. The slow nature of climate progression results in de facto adaptation, as can be seen with sea level changes on the East Coast. (pp. 48–49, 79–81, 155–58, 173–74)
4. Climate change will affect water resources. Long-term paleoclimatic studies show that severe and extensive droughts have occurred repeatedly throughout the Great Plains and the West. These will occur in the future, with or without human-induced climate change. Infrastructure planners would be well-advised to take them into account. (pp. 57–71)
5. Crop and livestock production will adapt to climate change. There is a large body of evidence that demonstrates substantial untapped adaptability of U.S. agriculture to climate change, including crop-switching that can change the species used for livestock feed. In addition, carbon dioxide itself is likely increasing crop yields and will continue to do so in increasing increments in the future. (pp. 102–18)
6. Sea level rise caused by global warming is easily adapted to. Much of the densely populated East Coast has experienced sea level rises in the 20th century that are more than twice those caused by global warming, with obvious adaptation. The mean projections from the United Nations will likely be associated with similar adaptation. (pp. 173–74)
7. Life expectancy and wealth are likely to continue to increase. There is little relationship between climate and life expectancy and wealth. Even under the most dire climate scenarios, people will be much wealthier and healthier in the year 2100 than they are today. (pp. 139–45, 158–61)
8. Climate change is a minor overlay on U.S. society. People voluntarily expose themselves to climate changes throughout their lives that are much larger and more sudden than those expected from greenhouse gases. The migration of U.S. population from the cold North and East to the much warmer South and West is an example. Global markets exist to allocate resources that fluctuate with the weather and climate. (pp. 154–69)
9. Species and ecosystems will change with or without climate change. There is little doubt that some ecosystems, such as the desert West, have been changing with climate, while others, such as cold marine fisheries, move with little obvious relationship to climate. (pp. 119–38, 208)
10. Policies enacted by the developed world will have little effect on global temperature. Even if every nation that has obligations under the Kyoto Protocol agreed to reduce emissions over 80 percent, there would be little or no detectable effect on climate in the policy-relevant timeframe, because emissions from these countries will be dwarfed in coming decades by the total emissions from China, India, and the developing world. (pp. 28, 211)

On Tuesday, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals denied by 7-1 a petition for a full-court re-hearing of its 2-1 decision last summer to dismiss litigation challenging EPA’s approval of the sale of E15 at retail motor fuel pumps. E15 is a blend of 85% gasoline and 15% ethanol.

In both decisions, Judge Brett Kavanaugh was the sole dissenter, and both times he trounces the majority on the facts and statutory logic.

In a previous post, I reviewed Kavanaugh’s dissent in the August 2012 decision. Herewith a brief recap:

• The 2-1 majority held that petitioners – refiners and livestock producers — would not be injured by the EPA’s grant of a waiver authorizing the sale of E15 and thus lack standing to challenge the agency. The majority somehow missed the obvious.
• There being no commercial substitute for ethanol to meet the ever-increasing production quota established by the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), EPA approval of E15 is a de facto mandate on refiners to increase the blend from E10 to E15 — a roughly 50% increase from about 14 billion gallons to 21 billion gallons annually. That will necessarily impose a cost on refiners. 
• In addition, because virtually all U.S. ethanol is made from corn, approving E15 will increase the demand for and price of corn, imposing a cost on livestock producers, who purchase billions of bushels annually to feed their hogs, cattle, and poultry.
• Clearly, EPA approval of E15 injures both petitioner groups, so the Court should have reviewed the petitions on the merits.
• Section 211(f) of the Clean Air Act (CAA) prohibits the EPA from approving the sale of any fuel additive that causes or contributes to the failure of emission control systems in any vehicle manufactured after 1974. 
• By the EPA’s own admission, E15 can contribute to emission control failures in vehicles manufactured during model years 1975 through 2000.
• Therefore, the EPA lacks authority to approve the sale of E15.

Kavanaugh’s dissent in Tuesday’s decision reiterates those points but also adds some illuminating refinements.

Although the EPA “did not raise a challenge to the standing of the food producers or the petroleum producers,” the 2-1 majority in August dismissed the case on standing grounds. “The panel determined that the food producers have Article III standing but lack prudential standing because, according to the panel, the food producers are not within the zone of interests under the relevant ethanol-related statute. The panel separately held that the petroleum producers lack Article III standing.” In Kavanaugh’s view, ”both groups plainly have standing.”

At this point you may be wondering, what is “prudential standing” and how does it differ from “Article III standing”? Article III of the U.S. Constitution extends (or limits) the judicial power to “cases” and “controversies.” As interpreted by the Supreme Court, this means plaintiffs have standing only if they can demonstrate an injury that is fairly traceable to the defendant’s challenged action. The doctrine of prudential standing is murkier, but basically means courts for prudential reasons may also refuse to adjudicate some claims. In the present case, the majority held that the food producers’ claimed injury does not fall within the “zone of interests” protected by the Clean Air Act provisions establishing the RFS program.

Kavanaugh finds the majority’s opinion incorrect for either of two alternative reasons. First, the “EPA chose not to challenge the food producers’ prudential standing – in other words, because EPA accepted that the food producers were within the zone of interests and therefore an aggrieved party – that issue has been forfeited and is no longer part of the case.”

Second, the “food producers’ case for being within the zone of interests is especially strong here because Congress expressly took account of the interests of food producers, among others, in this ethanol-related statute” [see Clean Air Act § 211(o)(7), which allows the EPA to waive the RFS blending requirements when those would severely harm the economy of a state, region, or the United States].

The 2-1 majority ruled that the petroleum refiners are not injured and hence lack Article III standing to challenge the EPA’s approval of E15. That is ridiculous. In Kavanaugh’s more polite words:

But the petroleum producers are directly regulated parties; and as the Supreme Court has said, when a party “is himself an object of the action” at issue, “there is ordinarily little question that the action” has “caused him injury, and that a judgment preventing” the action “will redress it.” Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 561-62 (1992). Indeed, EPA did not even challenge the petroleum producers’ Article III standing, recognizing at oral argument that the petroleum producers’ standing was “self-evident.” Tr. of Oral Arg. at 30. . . .EPA did not raise Article III standing no doubt because it fully understands how this program actually works, and EPA appreciates that the combination of the statutory renewable fuel mandate and EPA’s E15 waiver will obviously force petroleum producers to refine and sell E15. . . . In fact, the ethanol producers who sought the E15 waiver specifically argued to EPA that the E15 waiver was “necessary” for petroleum producers to meet the renewable fuel mandate. What better evidence do we need?

In short, plaintiffs have standing, the Court should review the case on the merits, the “evidence is undisputed” that approving E15 sales will “cause failure of emissions standards in cars manufactured through 2000,” and, thus, the “EPA’s action simply cannot be squared with the statutory text.”

Heritage Foundation economists David Kreutzer and Nicolas Loris have posted an assessment of the economic impacts of a carbon tax that starts out at $25 per ton and increases by 5% annually (after adjusting for inflation). Rather than use industry data or assumptions, they compare two policy scenarios (“side cases”) from the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) Annual Energy Outlook 2012.

Specifically, Kreutzer and Loris compare projected household income, utility bills, gasoline prices, and job creation in the $25 per ton carbon tax side case and the no-greenhouse-gas-concern side case, a scenario in which energy investors face no risk of a carbon tax or greenhouse gas (GHG) regulation.  

Here’s what they found. A ‘modest’ carbon tax, as described above, would:

• Cut the income of a family of four by $1,900 per year in 2016 and lead to average losses of $1,400 per year through 2035;
• Raise the family-of-four energy bill by more than $500 per year (not counting the cost of gasoline);
• Cause gasoline prices to increase by up to $0.50 gallon, or by 10 percent on an average gallon price; and
• Lead to an aggregate loss of more than 1 million jobs by 2016 alone.

The foregoing numbers do not take into account the economic benefits of a carbon tax that displaces other taxes or that preempts EPA and state-level GHG regulations. But that is fitting and proper, argue Kreutzer and Loris, because a revenue-neutral carbon tax is a political pipedream, and so is a tax-for-regulation swap.

Carbon taxes are in vogue in certain quarters today for one reason only: their obvious potential to feed Washington’s spending compulsion by increasing net tax revenues. “Before carbon tax legislation has even been introduced,” the Heritage analysts note, ”ideas on how to use the revenue already include income transfers, paying for [avoiding?] defense spending cuts, reducing the deficit, transferring money to developing countries to adapt to climate change, and the list goes on.”

Setting a carbon price and letting markets sort out the consequences may appeal to some blackboard economists, but not to the global warming movement, which has continually lobbied for mandates in addition to carbon pricing schemes like cap-and-trade. ”For instance,” Kreutzer and Loris point out, ”the Waxman-Markey bill went on for nearly 700 pages before it even began the cap-and-trade section.”

The Heritage duo let Rep. Henry Waxman have the last word on the likelihood of a tax-for-regulation swap. Asked for his position, Rep. Waxman recently stated: 

A carbon tax or a price on carbon would be a strong incentive for the development of new technologies. But because it’s so complicated, I would not support preempting EPA. EPA can assure us that we can actually get the reductions we need.

On Sunday, the New York Times ran a story about how ethanol mandates are driving up child malnutrition and hunger in Guatemala.  That country now has the fourth-highest rate of child malnutrition in the entire world (higher than in most war-torn African countries):

With its corn-based diet and proximity to the United States, Central America has long been vulnerable to economic riptides related to the United States’ corn policy. Now that the United States is using 40 percent of its crop to make biofuel, it is not surprising that tortilla prices have doubled in Guatemala, which imports nearly half of its corn.

In a country where most families must spend about two thirds of their income on food, ‘the average Guatemalan is now hungrier because of biofuel development.’. . .Roughly 50 percent of the nation’s children are chronically malnourished, the fourth-highest rate in the world, according to the United Nations.

The American renewable fuel standard mandates that an increasing volume of biofuel be blended into the nation’s vehicle fuel supply each year to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels and to bolster the nation’s energy security. Similarly, by 2020, transportation fuels in Europe will have to contain 10 percent biofuel.

Ethanol and biofuel mandates have shrunk the amount of land used for producing food in countries like Guatemala:

Recent laws in the United States and Europe that mandate the increasing use of biofuel in cars have had far-flung ripple effects, economists say, as land once devoted to growing food for humans is now sometimes more profitably used for churning out vehicle fuel.  In a globalized world, the expansion of the biofuels industry has contributed to spikes in food prices and a shortage of land for food-based agriculture in poor corners of Asia, Africa and Latin America because the raw material is grown wherever it is cheapest.

Many small farmers in Guatemala have been displaced, leaving their children hungry and physically stunted:

in rural areas, subsistence farmers struggle to find a place to sow their seeds. On a recent morning, José Antonio Alvarado was harvesting his corn crop on the narrow median of Highway 2 as trucks zoomed by.  “We’re farming here because there is no other land, and I have to feed my family,” said Mr. Alvarado, pointing to his sons Alejandro and José, who are 4 and 6 but appear to be much younger, a sign of chronic malnutrition.

In 2008, a Washington Post editorial by two prominent environmentalists described how ethanol mandates have harmed the environment and spawned hunger across the world.   In “Ethanol’s Failed Promise,” Lester Pearson and Jonathan Lewis observed that “Turning one-fourth of our corn into fuel is affecting global food prices. U.S. food prices are rising at twice the rate of inflation, hitting the pocketbooks of lower-income Americans and people living on fixed incomes.  .  .Deadly food riots have broken out in dozens of nations in the past few months, most recently in Haiti and Egypt. World Bank President Robert Zoellick warns of a global food emergency.” Moreover, they noted,

food-to-fuel mandates are leading to increased environmental damage. First, producing ethanol requires huge amounts of energy — most of which comes from coal. Second, the production process creates a number of hazardous byproducts. . .Third, food-to-fuel mandates are helping drive up the price of agricultural staples, leading to significant changes in land use with major environmental harm. Here in the United States, farmers are pulling land out of the federal conservation program, threatening fragile habitats. . .Most troubling, though, is that the higher food prices caused in large part by food-to-fuel mandates create incentives for global deforestation, including in the Amazon basin. As Time Magazine reported this month, huge swaths of forest are being cleared for agricultural development. The result is devastating: We lose an ecological treasure and critical habitat for endangered species, as well as the world’s largest ‘carbon sink.’ And when the forests are cleared and the land plowed for farming, the carbon that had been sequestered in the plants and soil is released. Princeton scholar Tim Searchinger has modeled this impact and reports in Science magazine that the net impact of the food-to-fuel push will be an increase in global carbon emissions — and thus a catalyst for climate change.

In Human Events, Deroy Murdock chronicled how rising food prices resulting from ethanol forced starving Haitians to literally eat dirt (dirt cookies made of vegetable oil, salt, and dirt), and fueled violent protests in unstable “powder kegs” like Pakistan and Egypt.

The Obama Administration has forced up the ethanol content of gasoline, heedless of the fact that ethanol makes gas costlier and dirtier, increases ozone pollution, and increases the death toll from smog and air pollution. Ethanol mandates also result in deforestation, soil erosion, and water pollution.  By driving up food prices, they have fueled Islamic extremism in Afghanistan, Egypt, Yemen and other poor countries in the Middle East.

The Obama Administration persists in supporting ethanol mandates despite widespread criticism from experts across the political spectrum.  The legislation in Congress that it backed in the name of fighting global warming contained ethanol subsidies, even though ethanol subsidies have been linked to famine, hunger, food riots, and political unrest in poor countries.  That “cap-and-trade” legislation contained so many special-interest giveaways that it would have fleeced American consumers without helping the environment, even while driving industry overseas to countries with less environmental protections.  (In 2008, Obama admitted that “under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.”)

That fossil fuels are bad for people and the planet is a cardinal tenet of both mainstream and radical environmentalism. Cato Institute scholar Indur Goklany offers a dramatically different assessment in Humanity Unbound: How Fossil Fuels Saved Humanity from Nature and Nature from Humanity.

Global average life expectancy (the best single indicator of health) hardly changed through most of human history, averaging 20-25 years during 1 A.D. to 1750. Similarly, global per capita output (the best indicator of material welfare) was equivalent to an estimated $470 in 1 A.D., even lower – $400 — in 1000 A.D., and only $640 in 1750. Through most of human history, the vast majority of people were “mired in poverty.” Thomas Malthus’s gloomy prediction that economic growth would only lead to overpopulation, famine, and death seemed to bespeak the wisdom of the ages.

However, the industrial revolution and the associated advances of science and technology freed humanity from its Malthusean trap. Goklany summarizes:

From 1750 to 2009, global life expectancy more than doubled, from 26 years to 69 years; global population increased 8-fold, from 760 million to 6.8 billion; and incomes increased 11-fold, from $640 to $7,300. Never before had the indicators of the success of the human species advanced as rapidly as in the past quarter millennium.

Fossil fuels are the chief energy source of modern civilization. Accordingly, global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions have increased rapidly along with life expectancy and per capita income. Goklany illustrates these trends with a graph that bears a striking resemblance to a hocky stick.

The most critical way fossil fuels have improved human existence is by increasing global per capita food production. Goklany explains:

Agricultural yields on the farm are driven by fertilizers, pesticides, water, and farm machinery. Each of these inputs depends to some extent on fossil fuels. Fossil fuels provide both the raw materials and the energy for the manufacture of fertilizers and pesticides; farm machinery is generally run on diesel or another fossil fuel; and irrigation, where it is employed, often requires large amounts of energy to operate pumps to move water.

The Haber-Bosch process for manufacturing nitrogen fertilizer is responsible for feeding an estimated 48% of today’s global population, pesticides have reduced crop losses from pests by 26-40%, and average crop yields on irrigated lands are 3.6 times higher than on rain-fed lands.

Agricultural technologies continually improve, so much so that today’s farms are far productive than those of only 50 years ago:

[I]n 2007, the global food and agricultural system delivered, on average, two and a half times as much food per acre of cropland as in 1961. New and improved technologies, coupled with greater penetration of existing technologies since 1961, account for 60 percent of total global food supplies.

Fossil fuels also provide energy for refrigeration and raw material for plastic packaging — technologies critical to limiting food spoilage and waste. Finally, fossil fuels are essential for transporting food from farms to population centers and from surplus to deficit regions.

The explosion in agricultural productivity is not only good for people, it is also good for species and wildlife habitat.

. . . to maintain the current level of food production [without fossil fuels], at least another 2.3 billion hectares of habitat would have had to be converted to cropland. This is equivalent to the total land area of the United States, Canada, and India combined. Considering the threats posed to ecosystems and biodiversity from the existing conversion of 1.5 billion hectares of habitat to cropland, the effect of increasing that to 3.8 billion hectares is inestimable.

The above calculation underestimates the additional habitat that would have to be converted to cropland because it assumes that the additional 2 billion hectares of cropland would be as productive as the current 1.5 billion hectares—an unlikely proposition since the most productive areas are probably already under cultivation.

* * *

Not only have these fossil fuel–dependent technologies ensured that humanity’s progress and well-being are no longer hostage to nature’s whims, but they saved nature herself from being devastated by the demands of a rapidly expanding and increasingly voracious human population.

Fossil fuels are key contributors to a virtuous “cycle of progress,” Goklany argues. A better fed population is healthier and more productive. A larger population produces more ideas and better technology. Electrification extends the work day and powers computers, cell phones, and medical devices. Trade encourages the division of labor and the dissemination of ideas and technology.

Goklany acknowledges it may be possible to replace fossil fuels in the future. But, “as the high subsidies and mandates for renewables attest, renewables are unable to sustain themselves today.” He concludes: ”Perhaps, with help from fossil fuels, new ideas will foster technologies that will enable a natural transition away from such fuels.”

Last week on National Journal’s Energy Experts Blog, 16 wonks addressed the question: ”Is Washington Ready for a Carbon Tax?” Your humble servant argued that Washington is not ready — unless Republicans are willing to commit political suicide. That’s no reason for complacency, because spendaholics have on occasion gulled the Dumb Party into providing bi-partisan cover for unpopular tax hikes. President G.H.W. Bush’s disastrous repudiation of his ‘read-my-lips, no-new-taxes’ campaign pledge is the best known example.

To help avoid such debacles in the future, I will recap the main points of my National Journal blog commentary. Later this week, I’ll excerpt insightful comments by other contributors.

Nearly all Republicans in Congress have signed the Taxpayer Protection Pledge, a promise not to increase the net tax burden on their constituents. Although a “revenue neutral” carbon tax is theoretically possible, the sudden interest in carbon taxes is due to their obvious potential to feed Washington’s spending addiction. If even one dollar of the revenues from a carbon tax is used for anything except cutting other taxes, the scheme is a net tax increase and a Pledge violation. Wholesale promise-breaking by GOP leaders would outrage party’s activist base. 

Even if the Taxpayer Protection Pledge did not exist, the GOP is currently the anti-tax, pro-energy alternative to a Democratic leadership that is aggressively anti-energy and pro-tax. Endorsing a massive new energy tax would damage the product differentiation that gives people a reason to vote Republican. Recognizing these realities, House GOP leaders recently signed a ‘no climate tax’ pledge.

That’s good news. But this is a season of fiscal panic and I was there (in 1990) when the strength of Republicans failed. Perhaps the best time to kick carbon taxes is when they are down. So let’s review additional reasons to oppose a carbon tax.

Carbon taxes are regressive, imposing a larger percentage burden on low-income households. If Republicans support a carbon tax in return for cuts in corporate or capital gains taxes (a popular idea in some circles), they will be pilloried — this time fairly — for seeking to benefit the rich at the expense of the poor.

If, on the other hand, the tax provides “carbon dividends” to offset the impact of higher energy prices on poor households, it will create a new class of welfare dependents. Guess which party is better at organizing people on welfare?

Carbon taxes pose an existential threat to the development of North America’s vast coal, oil, and natural gas deposits — one of the few bright spots in the economy. The core purpose of a carbon tax is to reduce and, ultimately, eliminate carbon doxide-emitting activities. The tax ‘works’ by shrinking the economic base on which it is levied. To keep revenues up, carbon tax rates must continually increase as emissions decline. Likely result: an exodus of carbon-related capital, jobs, and emissions (“carbon leakage”). Problem: Nobody knows how to run a modern economy on cellulose, wind turbines, and solar panels. Bipartisanship on carbon taxes means co-ownership of U.S. economic decline.

In umpteen hearings on the Solyndra debacle, Republicans excoriated the Obama administration for trying to pick energy market winners and losers. A carbon tax is an even more ambitious green industrial policy than the $34.5 billion in loan guarantees  lavished by the Department of Energy (DOE) on a few dozen renewable energy projects. Carbon taxes attempt to pick and losers across the entire economy, handicapping all firms that produce or rely on carbon-based energy. Indeed, central to Solyndra’s business plan and DOE Secy. Chu’s green tech strategy was the bet that Congress would enact cap-and-trade, the regulatory surrogate for a carbon tax.

Some economists say government should tax ‘bads’ like emissions rather than ‘goods’ like labor and capital. This is sloppy thinking. In technical economic terms, only finished products and services are ‘goods.’ Labor and capital are inputs, production factors, or costs. Energy too is a key input. Without energy, most labor and capital would be idle or not even exist. About 83% of U.S. energy comes from carbon-based fuels. So a carbon tax also taxes what these economists loosely call ‘goods.’ Pretending that carbon taxes only tax emissions and nothing of value is free-lunch economics — a recipe for failure and worse.

Some speculate about a grand bargain in which carbon taxes replace carbon regulations — everything from the EPA’s greenhouse gas emission standards to California’s cap-and-trade program to State-level renewable electricity mandates. The EPA, the California Air Resources Board, the major environmental organizations, and the renewable energy lobbies have spent decades building the regulatory programs they administer or influence. They want to add carbon taxes to carbon regulation, not substitute one for the other. Talk a grand bargain is a ploy designed to lure gullible Republicans to the negotiating table. Few if any of the Left’s regulatory sacred cows would be traded away. In the meantime, carbon tax negotiations would divide GOP leaders from their rank and file and demoralize the party’s activist base.

The backlash against GOP leaders’ complicity would be swift and severe. Yet for all the economic pain inflicted and political damage incurred, they would accomplish no discernible environmental gain. As hurricane expert Roger Pielke Jr. points out, even under IPCC assumptions, changes in energy policy “wouldn’t have a discernible impact on future disasters for the better part of a century or more.” Similarly, also using IPCC assumptions, Chip Knappenberger of the Cato Institute Center for the Study of Science calculates that even if the U.S. eliminated all CO2 emissions tomorrow, the impact on global temperatures would be a reduction ”of approximately 0.08°C by the year 2050 and 0.17°C by the year 2100 — amounts that are, for all intents and purposes, negligible.”

Under a carbon tax, the U.S. would keep emitting billions of tons of carbon dioxide annually for a long time – otherwise the tax wouldn’t raise much revenue. So the notion that carbon taxes can measurably reduce extreme weather risk or climate change impacts within any policy-relevant timeframe is ludicrous.

A major disagreement erupted this week in the British government over future onshore windmill installations.  The number two minister in the Department of Energy and Climate Change, John Hayes, MP, declared that “enough is enough,” and that no more wind farms needed to be built in the United Kingdom.  Hayes complained that wind turbines had been “peppered across the country” without regard for public opinion.

Hayes’s boss, Energy Minister Ed Davey, MP, quickly and angrily responded that Hayes’s views are not shared by the Cabinet and that there is no formal change in government policy towards renewable energy.

Davey is a member of the Liberal Democratic Party, which is the junior partner in the Conservative-Liberal Democratic coalition government.  Hayes, a member of the Conservative Party, clearly speaks for the majority of MPs in his party.

In response to a question by Ed Miliband, MP, leader of the Labour Party opposition, Prime Minister David Cameron insisted that government policy had not changed, thereby apparently backing Davey.  But then Cameron said that it was time for a debate about future policy on onshore wind installations.

Official British government policy aims for 13 gigawatts of wind capacity by 2020. Current capacity is 7.3 gigawatts, with hundreds of wind turbines currently under construction.