2004

Higher enegy prices hurt economy

by William Yeatman on August 3, 2004

in Blog

The slowdown in the growth of the U. S. economy in the second quarter has been put down to rising energy prices. the rate of annual growth in gross domestic product declined from 4.5 percent in the first quarter to 3 percent in the past three months. Consumer spending also dropped from a growth rate of 4.1 percent to a meager 1 percent in the second quarter.

Although economists predict the economy to rebound over the next few months, analysts say rising oil prices are the biggest threat to this recovery. Crude oil is up 35 percent since January 1, at around $44/barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Sung Won Sohn, chief economist at Wells Fargo Bank, told the Boston Globe (July 31), “Rising oil prices are one of the biggest concerns I have. Its like a tax, and that will hurt consumers and the economy in general.” Economists generally agree that long-term high oil prices hurt consumer spending, which is one of the primary drivers of economic growth.

Alarmist Canadian Minister fired

by William Yeatman on August 3, 2004

in Politics

Following his narrow victory in the Canadian general election, Prime Minister Paul Martin has fired global warming alarmist Environment Minister David Anderson from his cabinet.

Mr. Anderson reacted angrily to his rejection. The Vancouver Sun reported (July 30), “The Victoria MP said he believes Mr. Martin’s advisers gave in to demands from the National Post, the Calgary Herald, the Alberta government, and pro-business lobby groups that all wanted him fired from cabinet.”

Terence Corcoran, editor-in-chief of the Financial Post, reacted, “The National Post and the Financial Post have certainly published many columns and commentaries on Mr. Anderson’s global warming crusade, but to imagine that our newspaper also somehow joined a backroom cabal to apply pressure on Mr. Martin to dump Mr. Anderson is sheer fantasy.”

Mr. Anderson has said that he will now work with the left-wing New Democratic Party on certain environmental causes. The new environment minister is Stphane Dion, M.P., a former senior research fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.

UN considering global carbon tax

by William Yeatman on August 3, 2004

in Politics

The United Nations is studying proposals for global taxes as a means to generate sources of financing for development in poor countries. The proposals being considered include a carbon tax on fuel use, a tax on currency transactions (the Tobin tax), an arms sales tax, a global lottery, and a tax on international airline travel.

U. N. Under Secretary-General Jose Antonio Ocampo, head of the department of economic and social affairs (DESA), believes the study will be ready by this September. He recognized that, “Some key countries are very strongly opposed to these proposed global taxes [but] a number of developing countries are giving them careful consideration.”

France and Germany, backed by Chile and U. N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, signed a declaration in January re-launching the concept of taxing arms sales and financial transactions to boost funding for global development efforts in combating poverty and hunger. The declaration also supported the United Kingdoms proposal to “frontload” development aid through capital markets via an International Finance Facility (IFF).

The European Union is divided on the establishment of an IFF, with EU Commissioner Poul Nielsen stating at UNCTAD XI in June 2004 that, “A sleight of hand with the rules of public finance – that mortgages future aid programmes – is no substitute for the hard political task of securing and sustaining the will to provide increased aid, now and for many years to come. This leads me to say that the IFF is really not the right way to go. Fighting global poverty is not something we should leave to be paid for by our children and grandchildren.” (www.ipsnews.net, Aug. 2).

Kerry campaign issues energy plan

by William Yeatman on August 3, 2004

in Politics

The presidential campaign of Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) released a fourteen-page energy policy paper on August 2 that emphasizes reducing Americas dependence on foreign oil. “An Energy Independent America” argues that, “Dependence on foreign oil is a security problem because it forces us to rely on volatile regions ruled by some of the world’s most authoritarian regimes. We believe a strong America must no longer rely on the cooperation of regimes that may not share our values, and we are not willing to risk a future in which our young men and women might have to risk their lives to protect Mideast oil supplies.”

Energy independence has been a favorite rallying cry across the political spectrum for some years, but ignores the fact that crude oil is a global commodity and therefore prices are set in a global market.

The Kerry campaign plan also calls for $10 billion in taxpayer funding for clean coal technology research and the use of “flexible, market-based strategies” to lower nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulfur dioxide (SOx), carbon dioxide (CO2), and mercury emissions from such facilities. “Flexible, market-based strategies” would appear to mean that Kerry supports cap-and-trade programs for carbon dioxide emissions and the various air pollutants. Senator Kerry voted for the Lieberman-McCain Climate Stewardship Act on October 30, 2003, which would have put a cap on CO2 emissions.

The proposal also states that as President Kerry would “update and strengthen” fuel-efficiency standards and provide incentives for automakers to build more efficient automobiles and for consumers to purchase these automobiles. This appears to be a retreat from Kerrys earlier call to increase corporate average fuel efficiency (CAFE) standards to 36 miles per gallon from the current 27.5 mpg by 2015. Such a requirement would place many drivers lives in danger as automakers would be forced to produce smaller, lighter vehicles.

The plan re-iterates Kerrys goal of a 20 percent renewable portfolio standard by 2020 for electric utilities and an expansion of the production tax credit for wind and biomass energy sources (Greenwire, Aug. 3).

On the campaign trail in West Virginia, Senator John Edwards (D-N. C.), Kerrys vice presidential running mate, emphasized the Democratic tickets support for coal. “For us, coal is an enormous part of our energy strategy for America. We need to be investing in clean coal technology, which is not happening now. We want to make sure people who work in coal now keep their jobs (Wheeling News Register, Aug. 1). The Bush campaign suggested that Kerrys “rhetoric doesnt match his actions.”

Guess your liability!

by William Yeatman on August 2, 2004

in Politics, Small business

In these days of corporate scandal, who can argue against full disclosure on financial statements?  But now comes one cockeyed movement that pushes the concept to extremes.  It would require executives to guess potential liabilities from environmental and social problems that just might affect their companies, and list them on balance sheets.

 I can envision, for instance, that an oil company like Royal Dutch/Shell, as supplier of fuels that supposedly contribute to global warming, would have to report the potential environmental liabilities.  How much?  A ready estimate can be derived from the movie The Day After Tomorrow.  As the film ends, half the U.S. population lies frozen beneath a gigantic ice sheet.  So lets say $100 billion.  Or maybe $10 trillion is a better number.

 See how ludicrous this gets?  Remarkably, this movement is drawing support from Wall Street.  In June Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley endorsed a report of the United Nations Global Compact that calls upon regulators to require a minimum degree of disclosure and accountability on environmental, social and governance issues from companies, as this will support financial analysis.

 The Rockefeller Family Fund, the Turner Foundation and the United Steelworkers have also signed on to the balance-sheet responsibility movement. California Treasurer Phil Angelides wants his states public pension funds to push for accurate corporate environmental accounting.  The Rose Foundation for Communities & the Environment, in Oakland, Calif., has already asked the SEC to mandate disclosure of financially significant environmental liabilities.  These activists arent trying to improve the reliability of Moodys bond ratings.  They are out to influence corporate behavior.

 Yes, environmental and social liabilities can be hugewitness Superfund, asbestos and breast-implant costs.  In todays world of strict, joint and several liability, where almost anyone can be assigned fiscal responsibility for almost anything, conservative accounting would seem to require the disclosure of all the future damage that could be done by tort lawyers, The problem is coming up with a number.

 A federal judge in California just gave a green light to a class action on behalf of 1.6 million women who worked at Wal-Mart anytime since December 1998.  The plaintiffs accuse the retailer of denying women equal pay and opportunities for promotion.  Should Wal-Mart have anticipated this suit?  Should its 2004 balance sheet have included a liability of, say, $104 million (the amount Home Depot paid in 1997 to settle similar suits) or maybe $176 million (what Texaco agreed to pay out in 1996 to settle a race-discrimination class action)?  Wal-Marts bigger, though.  How about a few billion dollars?

 Note that American and United Airlines, Boeing and the owners of the World Trade Center are all being sued (by families who opted out of the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund) for failing to take measures to prevent the attacks.  Maybe juries will size up damages in the billions.  Should AMR, UAL, and Boeing be listing massive conditional liabilities on their quarterly reports?

 There are an infinite number of possible futures and thus an infinite number of possible asset/liability estimates.  Which of the myriad low-probability (but possibly high-cost) risks should be incorporated on companies balance sheets?  At what point does the noise introduced by adding more and more low-accuracy valuations destroy the informational value of accounting itself?  In mandating the disclosure of information about less-likely risks, dont we run the risk of omitting information about more-likely risks?

 Assets and liabilities that cant be connected to historical transactions or tradable contracts have no assignable market value.  Goodwill is like that.  If it isnt from an arms-length acquisition, the number you might put on this asset is entirely arbitrary.  So investors are better off if the asset is not counted.  So, too, for liabilities that are to be plucked from the air.  Accounting is not a field in which we want to encourage fanciful thinking.

July 2004 news archive

by William Yeatman on July 22, 2004

Economy slows as energy costs rise
Boston Globe, July 31 2004
The US economy slowed dramatically in the past three months as consumers, battered by higher energy prices, sharply curtailed their spending.

The science isn’t settled: The Limitations of global climate models
Fraser Institute, July 2004
This paper examines two major limitations that hinder the usefullness of climate models to those forming public policy.

Barclays, Shell in landmark carbon emissions deal
Reuters, July 29 2004
Barclays Capital and Shell Trading have completed the first carbon emissions trade using standard terms set out by the International Swaps and Derivatives Association, the two firms said.

President Bush plans trade in methane
Associated Press, July 28 2004
Methane emissions would be harvested by industrial nations and sold to poorer countries for use as a clean-burning fuel under a plan that would also slow global warming, Bush administration officials announced Wednesday.

Global warping
Number Watch, July 28 2004
In a midday presentation on July 28th the BBC broadcast a television programme called Global Warning (the first of three). It was possibly the most one-sided piece of blatant propaganda that has ever been transmitted in Britain in time of peace.

Beyond Kyoto
American Enterprise Institute, July 27 2004
Whether the Kyoto Protocol is ever ratified is fast becoming irrelevant. Many of the European nations that ratified the convention are failing to reach their targets, while developing countries, not required to comply with Kyoto, claim they will never participate in targets and timetables, as it would retard their economic growth.

Malaria experts abuzz on global warming fears
Reuters, July 27 2004
“Temperature is only one of many, many factors in malaria, and in many cases it’s totally irrelevant,” said Paul Reiter, professor of medical entomology at the Pasteur Institute in Paris. “Many climate scientists don’t know anything about the complexities of malaria.”

Warming case uses overheated evidence
Grand Forks Herald, Jul 26 2004
The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change claim that human activities are responsible for nearly all Earth’s recorded warming during the past two centuries is based largely upon the work of Michael Mann of the University of Virginia and Phil Jones of the University of East Anglia in England. But over the past two years, their work has been discredited by five different groups of independent research scientists.

Catching up to the costs of global warming
New York Times, July 25 2004
As regulators around the world move to curb global-warming emissions from cars and improve fuel efficiency, what happens if Wall Street adds up the costs?

Sir David King’s queenie fit: Shutting down dissent
National Review Online, July 23 2004
(Iain Murray) In medieval fashion, adherents of the environmentalist religion have launched an inquisition against scientific views that they consider heretical. Hence, Sir David’s outrageous behavior at the Moscow conference.

Ohio won’t join global warming lawsuit
Dayton Business Journal, July 23 2004
Jim Petro, the state’s attorney general, released a letter Friday that said Ohio is not planning to join the lawsuit that seeks to force five electricity generators to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide.

Cooler Heads Coalition newsletter, July 21 2004
* Attorneys General sue five big electric utilities
* Democratic Party platform drops Kyoto ratification
* Illarionov comments on Russian position on Kyoto
* Three Democrat Senate candidates support ANWR drilling
* European industry waking up to costs of Kyoto
* Schleede examines costs and benefits of wind power
* Extraordinary scenes at Russian conference
* Study rejects anthropogenic origin of mercury
* Global warming creates biodiversity boom

Hot under the collar
Frontiers for Freedom, July 22 2004
(Christopher Horner) – Attorneys Generals Sue, Yet Their States Arent Warming

Now they want to be Caesar
National Center for Public Policy Research, July 21 2004
Court decisions are blunt instruments and ill-suited for determining policies on such matters as global warming, where opinions are constantly undergoing change as new scientific knowledge is gained.

Job advocacy group applauds DNC for opposing Kyoto
United for Jobs, July 20 2004
Today United for Jobs (UFJ) applauded the Democratic Party for dropping their endorsement of the Kyoto Protocol on global warming in the party’s 2004 platform, and called on the U.S. Senate to reject a domestic version of Kyoto proposed by Senators McCain and Lieberman.

Earth observatory receives NASA grant
Rockland Journal News, July 19 2004
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University has received a grant of $671,200 from NASA to map dissolved organic carbon in Eastern coastal waters by using satellite data to interpret the color of the ocean.

The truth about global warming – it’s the Sun that’s to blame
London Telegraph, July 18 2004
Global warming has finally been explained: the Earth is getting hotter because the Sun is burning more brightly than at any time during the past 1,000 years, according to new research.

Academician Izrael: Kyoto Protocol economically hazardous to Russia
Pravda, July 17 2004
The Kyoto Protocol is scientifically ungrounded and economically hazardous to Russia, well-known Russian scholar Academician Yuri Izrael opines in the Nezavisimaya Gazeta. He heads the Global Climate and Ecology Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences…

US-NZ climate change partnership bears fruit
National Business Review [NZ], July 16 2004
Six projects will involve a number of US and NZ agencies working closely together and are part of an enormous climate science inititative funded by the Bush administration.

Europeans still wait for summer weather
Associated Press. July 15 2004
May was fitful, and June promised a summer that could go either way. But except for southern Europe, July has been wet and almost glacial.

Study: Oceans absorb carbon dioxide excess
Associated Press, July 15 2004
Nearly half the excess carbon dioxide spilled into the air by humans over the past two centuries has been taken up by the ocean. . . Christopher L. Sabine of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, reports in Friday’s issue of the journal Science.

Nuance in the atmosphere
San Francisco Chronicle, July 15 2004
If Kerry could fool John Edwards about his support for Kyoto, maybe he can fool the rarified minds of Europe, too.

Effects of elevated CO2 on medicinal substances found in St. John’s wort
CO2science.org, July 14 2004
180% increase in the air’s CO2 content more than doubled the dry mass produced by well-watered and fertilized St. John’s wort plants, while it also more than doubled the concentrations of both hypericin and pseudohypericen.

New twist on the old threat of an imminent release of vast amounts of CO2 from the world’s peatlands
CO2science.org, July 14 2004
Peatlands represent a vital component of the planet’s carbon cycle, and it is important to determine how their carbon balance may change in response to the ongoing rise in the air’s CO2 content.

Breaking the hockey stick
National Center for Policy Analysis, July 12 2004
Michael Mann of the University of Virginia and Phil Jones of the University of East Anglia updated the influential reconstruction of global and hemispheric air temperatures (Geophysical Research Letters, 2003) used in the IPCCs third assessment of climate change. However, five independent research groups have uncovered problems with this reconstruction…

Dems delete support for Kyoto
Frontiers for Freedom, July 9 2004
(Christopher Horner) So far as only reported by the left-wing “DemocracyNow.org,” “In a shift from the party’s 2000 platform, the Democrats have dropped a reference to endorsing the Kyoto treaty on global warming.”

Precipitate modeling
CO2science.org, July 9 2004
While it is true that at any given time many places on earth experience drought or flooding, this reflects normal patterns of climate variability.

Peat bog gases ‘accelerate global warming’
Independent (UK), July 8 2004
Global warming is set to dramatically worsen because of huge amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) being released from the world’s peatlands, a study has found.

Cooler Heads newsletter, July 7 2004
– Second Senate vote on Kyoto-lite bill is delayed again
– Californias auto emissions plan has costs but no benefits
– Blair “Nuclear power an option”
– Three states pass renewable portfolio standards
– SUVs under fire in Europe
– British conservationist dismisses wind farms
– ‘Nature’ corrects temperature record
– Global warming to increase size, strength of coral reefs
– More evidence of weak relationship between temperatures and malaria
– What consensus on sea level rise?
– Satire: New alternative-fuel SUV will deplete world’s hydrogen by 2070

EU countires ‘dragging feet’ on emissions
Scotsman, July 7 2004
The EU head office said today only five EU states are ready to implement a 1997 United Nations accord next year limiting carbon-dioxide emissions and chided other members for dragging their heels.

CO2: The debate heats up
Business Week, July 7 2004
Is carbon dioxide an air pollutant? That will be the key issue in any legal challenge to California’s proposed rules to reduce CO2 in auto exhaust.

EU countires ‘dragging feet’ on emissions
Scotsman, July 7 2004
The EU head office said today only five EU states are ready to implement a 1997 United Nations accord next year limiting carbon-dioxide emissions and chided other members for dragging their heels.

New space-borne instrument to measure greenhouse gases
University of Colorado, July 7 2004
A powerful new instrument heading to space this Saturday is expected to send back long-sought answers about greenhouse gases, atmospheric cleansers and pollutants, and the destruction and recovery of the ozone layer.

CO2: The debate heats up
Business Week, July 7 2004
Is carbon dioxide an air pollutant? That will be the key issue in any legal challenge to California’s proposed rules to reduce CO2 in auto exhaust.

The Economic Hardship Act
TechCentralStation, July 7 2004
Just last week both McCain and Sen. Lieberman took their message to a conference on climate change that was jointly sponsored by Brookings Institute and Pew Center.

New space-borne instrument to measure greenhouse gases
University of Colorado, July 7 2004
A powerful new instrument heading to space this Saturday is expected to send back long-sought answers about greenhouse gases, atmospheric cleansers and pollutants, and the destruction and recovery of the ozone layer.

Climate models: Are they improving?
CO2science.org, July 6 2004
Just because climate models tend to become more complex with the passage of time does not insure they are getting better; they may well be stagnating or actually on a retrograde course …

Sunspots reaching 1,000-year high
BBC, July 6 2004
A new analysis shows that the Sun is more active now than it has been at anytime in the previous 1,000 years. Scientists based at the Institute for Astronomy in Zurich used ice cores from Greenland to construct a picture of our star’s activity in the past. They say that over the last century the number of sunspots rose at the same time that the Earth’s climate became steadily warmer.

Climate: Searching for the ‘dread factor’
United Press International, July 5 2004
The climate change priesthood is looking for something as attention-getting as the ozone hole.

No realistic way to stabilize CO2
Financial Times, July 2 2004
Lord Browne… imagines that the world’s nations, via a series of “small steps”, could stabilize atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) at 500 to 550 parts per million by 2050 “without doing serious damage to the world economy”.  This is pie in the sky.

Purdue global warming center emits hot air, BSU experts say
Indiana Star Press, July 6 2004
Ball State geography professor Dave Arnold, who teaches global climatology, thinks it is jumping to conclusions to say that weather trends in Indiana have become increasingly variable because of global warming.

U.S. energy-related carbon dioxide emissions rise
Reuters, July 2 2004
A colder winter in 2003 helped boost the amount of U.S. energy-related carbon dioxide emissions spewed last year by 0.9 percent to 5,788 million metric tons, the government said on Thursday.

Corrections to the Mann et al (1998) proxy database – UPDATE
Steven McIntyre & Ross McKitrick, July 1 2004
The Corrigendum in Nature today (July 1, 2004) by Professors Mann, Bradley and Hughes is a clear admission that the disclosure of data and methods behind MBH98 was materially inaccurate.

Lamy rejects call to act against non-Kyoto states
Financial Times, July 1 2004
New calls for trade sanctions against countries that spurn the Kyoto global warming treaty have been rejected by Pascal Lamy, the European Union’s trade commissioner. Such action would risk sacrificing the EU’s long-term climate goals “for uncertain and short-term benefits”, he said.

Stop global warming? California’s dreaming
Cato Institute, July 1 2004
California’s newly released regulatory initiative to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from new cars sold in that state represents the triumph of symbolism over substance. It’s an ill-considered gesture that ought to annoy partisans on both sides of the global warming fence.

Promises, promises
CO2science.org, July 1 2004
Scientific research based on factnot ideology is what the Democrats presidential hopeful Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) promises. But there are some pertinent facts about global warming we can probably count on him ignoring.

JUNE 2004 NEWS ARCHIVE

Global warming creates biodiversity boom

by William Yeatman on July 20, 2004

in Science

A recent study published by the Yale Journal of the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies claims a rise in global temperatures is causing a northward shift of vegetation and mammals. The study involved eight U.S. parks, and how a supposed rise in temperatures could entice the movement of species to and from these parks.

The study predicts that the parks they studied stand to gain 92% more mammals through immigration within the next century, and 20% of the mammals to relocate outside of the parks. Oswald Schmitz, professor of population and community ecology, cautions, the species that were in the parks, especially in the northern parks, arent leaving those parks and going even farther north. So this migration crowds species much more (www.vaildaily.com, July 21).

Study rejects anthropogenic origin of mercury

by William Yeatman on July 20, 2004

in Science

A recent study published in Hydrology and Earth System Science has found that high mercury levels in the environment may not be the result of coal-fired power plants.  The paper by E.C. Krug and D. Winstanley of the Illinois State Water Survey, Comparison of mercury in atmospheric deposition and in Illinois and USA soils, comes after the recent emergence of an environmentalist offensive calling for increased regulation of mercury (Hg) emissions from coal-fired power plants.

Krug and Winstanley tested the hypothesis that mercury in Illinois and USA soils is the result of human activities by comparing the rates of atmospheric mercury deposition with soil and Earth crust mercury content. They discovered that, contrary to popular belief, environmentally significant amounts of natural mercury are generally found in soils and quantities of Hg in USA soils are too great to be attributed to anthropogenic atmospheric Hg deposition.

The effort to impose federal regulations to reduce coal-fired power plant mercury emissions is based on the unsubstantiated theory of a direct correlation between power plant locations and high mercury levels.  Krug and Winstanleys paper discredits the environmentalists claim that amounts of mercury in the environment were naturally low before anthropogenic Hg environmental deposition.  Their paper has attracted little major media attention, but was covered in an article by David Wojick appearing in Electricity Daily (www.electricity-online.com, July 14).

Extraordinary scenes at Russian conference

by William Yeatman on July 20, 2004

in Politics, Science

The British scientific establishment reacted so badly to dissenting voices at a Moscow conference on climate change science that they disrupted the event.  The two-day seminar, entitled Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol, had been organized by the Russian Academy of Sciences and was chaired by distinguished climatologist Yuri Izrael, a Vice-Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. 

On being informed that the program would include contributions from scientists who question the effects of global warming, such as Richard S. Lindzen of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Nils-Axel Morner of Stockholm University, and Paul Reiter of the Pasteur Institute, the British delegation, led by Sir David King, objected to their inclusion.  They first delayed the conference, then asked British foreign secretary Jack Straw to exert political pressure in an effort to get the program changed.  When this failed, there were reports that the conference was disrupted on at least four occasions (one reporter asked why security guards did not intervene).  In the end, Sir David, who is on record as judging global warming a worse threat than terrorism, walked out. 

Peter Cox of the U.K.’s Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research attempted to justify the British actions by telling Science magazine (July 16), We knew that we would not get to the scientific issues if we went down every rabbit hole of skepticism.

During the conference, Paul Reiter used a simple experiment to demonstrate the low relevance of climate to the spread of malaria.  He said, When I asked whether any of the Russian Academicians at the symposium had had malaria, nearly all raised their hands.  Several had contracted the disease in Siberia!

The French newspaper Le Figaro in reporting the controversy (July 16) commented, The clash was more than a minor diplomatic incident because it revealed a form of intellectual bullying that is beginning to dominate the scientific community on the question of climate change.

Schleede examines costs and benefits of wind power

by William Yeatman on July 20, 2004

in Blog

In a paper delivered to about 650 member-owners of Associated Electric Cooperative, Inc. at their annual meeting in St. Louis, respected retired energy consultant Glenn Schleede examined some of the arguments routinely made in favor of wind power.  Schleede summarizes:

The paper places the past (1950-2000) and prospective (2010-2025) contribution of wind energy in the context of overall US energy consumption and US electricity generation.  The paper demonstrates that the contribution of wind has been and will be tiny despite the massive subsidies and mandates being provided, unwisely, by federal and state governments.

The paper notes that the wind industry, US Department of Energy (DOE) and DOE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) using our tax dollars  has been highly successful in misleading the media, public, Congress, and other federal and state regulators and legislators about the costs and benefits of wind energy.  The advocates have grossly overstated the benefits of wind energy, and greatly underestimated the environmental, ecological, economic, scenic and property value costs of wind energy.

The false and misleading claims by the advocates have led to government policies, programs and regulations that are detrimental to the interests of consumers and taxpayers.

The paper also admits that it is difficult, given the success of the advocates’ propaganda, to reverse bad federal and state wind energy policies, programs and regulations.  However, it notes that emerging citizen-led efforts around the world (e.g., US, UK, Germany, Denmark, Spain, Italy, Australia, and New Zealand) are beginning to be effective in bringing the TRUTH about wind energy to the attention of the media, public and government officials.

Schleede will deliver a talk based on his paper at a Cooler Heads Coalition briefing on July 23 in Room 628 of the Senates Dirksen Building beginning at noon.  A copy of the paper is available at the Cooler Heads Coalitions web site at http://www.globalwarming.org/article. php?uid=714.

← Previous Entries

Next Entries →