April 2008

Who Needs an Economics Lesson?

by Paul Chesser, Heartland Institute Correspondent on April 1, 2008

in Blog

Paul Chesser, Climate Strategies Watch

A recent opportunity in Minnesota, almost entirely ignored, demonstrates how little the members of these state climate commissions care about costs of their proposals they produce. According to one Burnsville businessman, who served on the Minnesota Climate Change Advisory Group, his colleagues were given the chance to meet with Dr. Margo Thorning of the American Council for Capital Formation for dinner, when she was in the Twin Cities recently. I'll let Jim Marchessault, owner of Business Card Services, tell the rest of the story:

Allow me to introduce myself. I, Jim Marchessault, own a printing company in Burnsville that employs about 140 people. We are a large consumer of electricity and we are always looking for ways to save money. We do this so we can remain competitive in the market place. We were even featured on WCCO's Project Energy. (see link below)
http://wcco.com/seenon/project.energy.renewable.2.372463.html

I also happen to be one of the few consumers on the 55 member Minnesota Climate Change Advisory Group (MCCAG) that met over the last 9 months. Many times, I and others expressed concern about the possible cost impact of the many suggestions that the group came up with.

David Thornton, one of the MCCAG leaders, extended a dinner invitation to meet with Dr. Margo Thorning to the entire 55 member group. She was giving a talk on "Reducing Green House Emissions: What are the Real Economic Costs" on March 6th. Imagine my surprise when I was the only member to show up! This reinforces my feeling that cost to the consumer was not their concern. 

This weekend Dr. Thorning wrote an article that appeared in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. I have attached a PDF of it. I hope you will read it before implementing any of the MCCAG's recommendations.

Thank you very much. 

Mr. Marchessault said he sent this message to all of Minnesota's state legislators. Perhaps some of them will at least give a bit of attention to the economics of greenhouse gas emissions policy.

 

Capital Research on Center for Climate Strategies

by Paul Chesser, Heartland Institute Correspondent on April 1, 2008

in Politics

Paul Chesser, Climate Strategies Watch

The Capital Research Center has just published its latest Organization Trends report, which focuses on the Center for Climate Strategies. Reviewers like me say it is "must reading," "compelling," and that they "couldn't put it down." Of course, I've had an intense interest in this group for at least a year, and it helps that our friend Chris Horner put the piece together. As CRC summarizes:

To use nightmare scenarios to forge national policies the activists have decided to circumvent the outgoing Bush administration – and more to the point, Congress – and get state governors to follow their advice. That’s where the Center for Climate Strategies (CCS) comes in. CCS persuades governors to appoint “study commissions” on global warming, then steers the policy process, rigging commission proceedings to produce a predetermined result: higher energy costs, diminished property and other individual rights, and more Big Government. These undemocratic maneuvers do an end-run around state legislators and should trouble advocates of open government.

Chris does a great job explaining comprehensively how CCS works, how they are funded, and what are the fruits of their efforts. Read it.

 

The Clean Energy Scam

by Julie Walsh on April 1, 2008

in Blog

Carter is not a man who gets easily spooked–he led a reconnaissance unit in Desert Storm, and I watched him grab a small anaconda with his bare hands in Brazil–but he can sound downright panicky about the future of the forest. "You can't protect it. There's too much money to be made tearing it down," he says. "Out here on the frontier, you really see the market at work."

This land rush is being accelerated by an unlikely source: biofuels. An explosion in demand for farm-grown fuels has raised global crop prices to record highs, which is spurring a dramatic expansion of Brazilian agriculture, which is invading the Amazon at an increasingly alarming rate.

Nigeria’s forests to disappear by 2020: expert

by Julie Walsh on April 1, 2008

in Blog

Nigeria will lose all of its remaining forests in the next 12 years if the rate of deforestation remains unchecked, an environmental expert warned Thursday.

Nigeria has the seventh-largest gas reserves in the world but has so far failed to harness them to produce affordable cooking gas, meaning the bulk of the population still relies on wood or charcoal for cooking.

"Now that the forests in the north are gone, attention has shifted to … southern Nigeria where trees are burnt for charcoal. This is more destructive than tree chopping because it is more rapid and kills all the flora and wildlife," Yammama further warned.

 

A Cooler Heads Coalition Briefing: California’s Energy Policies: a Model for the Nation?

by William Yeatman on April 1, 2008

in Events

When: Friday, April 4th

Noon—1:15 PM

Where: Room 1324, Longworth House Office Building, Washington DC

The State of California has developed an array of demand-side energy policies over the past several decades.  More recently, California’s legislature has passed legislation that mandates drastic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.  Key lawmakers are now promoting California’s energy and global warming policies as a model for the federal government and other States to follow.  Thomas Tanton’s talk will review California’s policies and show that they have had significant costs as well as other detrimental effects and are likely to have even higher costs and even worse effects in the future.  California’s policies have led to the highest electricity and gasoline prices in the continental U. S. and contributed to the de-industrialization of California.  While per capita electricity consumption has remained flat, total electricity demand has increased 65% since 1980.

 

Mr. Tanton’s talk is based on his new White Paper for the Competitive Enterprise Institute, California Energy Policy: a Cautionary Tale for the Nation.  Copies will be available at the event and online at www.cei.org.

 

Thomas Tanton is a Fellow in Environmental Studies at the Pacific Research Institute and an Adjunct Scholar at the Institute for Energy Research.  He is also President of T2 & Associates, an energy technology consulting firm.  Mr. Tanton has over 35 years’ experience in the energy, economy, and environmental fields.  As the General Manager at the Electric Power Research Institute from 2000 to 2003, he was responsible for the overall management and direction of collaborative research and development programs in electric generation technologies, integrating technology, market infrastructure, and public policy.

Until 2000, Mr. Tanton was Principal Policy Advisor with the California Energy Commission, where he began his career in 1976.  He developed and implemented policies and legislation on energy issues of importance to California, U.S., and international markets, including electric restructuring, gasoline and natural gas supply and pricing, energy facility siting and permitting, environmental issues, power plant siting, technology development, and transportation.  He served as lead advisor on energy and infrastructure to California's task force on 21st Century development.  He has testified before several state legislatures and Congress, and provided expert witness testimony in power plant siting cases.  

 

 

 

More Campaigns, More Stories

by Paul Chesser, Heartland Institute Correspondent on April 1, 2008

in Politics

Paul Chesser, Climate Strategies Watch

USA Today has a predictably alarming story today by incurious press release rewriter Doyle Rice about the impending devastating effects on the health of Americans, based on "a new campaign announced by the American Public Health Association." I guess this has progressed so far that all that is required to capture the media's attention is for someone to announce a "campaign" (see previous Horner posts on Al Gore) — or in this case with APHA's own words, a "blueprint." The article has the disease and death forecast, while dutiful Doyle cites these experts:

In a telephone conference, report contributor Edward Maibach of George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., said, "Climate change is affecting our health now and will more in the future…."

 

"These are all problems we have today, but they will intensify with climate change," said blueprint lead author Jonathan Patz of the University of Wisconsin.

Maibach is apparently a favorite in the USA Today environmental reporters' Rolodexes, while Patz toils within his university's Nelson Institute Center for Sustainability and Global Environment, which "is supported by government research grants, corporate gifts, and private funds." Last year the Nelson Institute reported nearly $7.5 million in income, including $2.1 million from the state and $3.6 million in federal grants. Of that, $1.6 million fed into the CSAGE. That keeps those Madison profs happy.

Oh, and Patz is "a Lead Author on IPCC reports for 1995, 1998, 2001, and 2007, (and) shares in the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the IPCC and Al Gore." Just tryin' to help ya finish your job, Doyle.

U.S. Rejects China’s Call for Climate Change Funding

by William Yeatman on April 1, 2008

in Blog

The U.S. rejected a Chinese proposal that developed countries should contribute a percentage of their gross domestic product to mitigate the effects of climate change.

 

China, the world's second-biggest emitter of carbon dioxide, called for developed nations to provide financial support of 0.5 percent of their GDP a year to help it and other developing nations fight global warming.

Green Speech

by William Yeatman on April 1, 2008

So Fox called at 6 a.m. – always lovely when there are babies in the house – eager to talk in a few hours about Google’s latest environmental activism. That is of course their plan, working with environmental activists, to arrange 1 million phone calls to Capitol hill on “Earth Day” – which Google regularly celebrates, for example with a melting Google-in-ice. The calls are in support of “eco-friendly measures”. We can only assume by the target audience this means the mandatory sort, pending before Congress in the form of legislation.

The University of Virginia, from which I regularly did television hits for over two years, for the fifth straight time refused me access to their satellite uplink, not just for Fox but Glenn Beck and as I recall one of the GE/NBC cable networks. This practice initiated on the heels of a rare description of me on air as coming out of Charlottesville. Living here, I can assure you that such tawdriness as global warming skepticism doesn’t sit well with the local powers. Just ask son-to-be-former UVa prof. Pat Michaels. Of course, this is speech, and a public university. More on that later.

So Fox apparently really wanted to talk about this. And, by telephone, I hear myself announced as someone “who has issues with” Google enabling 1 million phone calls. Well, no, I don’t really, and that article that got their attention makes clear that IMO they’re just increasingly annoying in their left-wing activism but that’s life. Kathryn Lopez has covered Google’s selective celebrations over at The Corner, as has NewsBusters.

There are however red flags by this now that the “60 Minutes” interview with Al Gore revealed that he somehow got involved in this company in the early days, explaining how his fortune grew from under $2 million when he left office to something over $100 million now. Google of course was made possible not just by a better mousetrap but Silicon Valley investment funds. With which Gore also works, enabling said fortune, and which are heavily invested in companies that only gain real value upon adoption of, well, let’s just call them “eco-friendly measures”. So what followed was a rather confused interview in which I attempted to steer the conversation there, and a resistant Bill Hemmer sought instead to learn what it is I am trying to “do about this.” Which suggestion of course was cut from whole cloth.

Here’s a quick rundown. Google has managed to note St. Patrick’s Day, the first day of Spring, the birthday of Norwegian painter Edvard Munch, the start of the World Cup, Shichi-go-san being celebrated in Japan, the Persian New Year, Louis Braille’s birthday and Korean Liberation Day. But they have a history of snubbing Easter (a bunny or an egg for one of the Os would have been nice), while seizing upon left-wing causes like Earth Day (yes, Lenin’s birthday), and the global warming black-outs. It took being embarrassed by their refusal to recognize Veterans’ Day for that to change just last year.

As Fox reported in February, a journalist had his writings disappear from Google when he persisted in pursuing stories about corruption at the United Nations. Google even sent him a letter saying he was a non-person as far as they were concerned.

When Google found themselves shut down in China, rather than simply refuse they chose to work with the censors on a selective version of the search engine, to keep annoying stories like those about the Dalai Lama and such away from hardworking people who are better off without such distractions. They failed to understand how thugocracies are fought, or appeased and enabled.

Now, that would be nice to “do something about”.

Fourth Gore home located

by Julie Walsh on April 1, 2008

It occurs to me that the Gores fessed up to a fourth spread during this interview.

STAHL: He's also making his parents' farm eco-friendly… oh, so you'll have windmills here?

 GORE: Yep.

This home has apparently been Al’s, as well, since 2004. Windmills are coming, but that footprint just keeps on growing.

A little sunshine, please

by Julie Walsh on April 1, 2008

About those 33 solar panels for that home – their second, an 18-room job, of what would soon be three for our jet-setting power couple – that the Gores purchased after his presidential defeat, and as he ginned up what “60 Minutes” described as a monomaniacal commitment to the global warming cause. Tennessean Bill Hobbs had apparently done the homework for us. In short, if you have to ask, you can’t afford it. Besides, run these numbers and you’ll see it has nothing to do with the economics of the matter.

Of course, it would be silly to wonder if everyone could foot such a monstrous bill, paying that much for so little impact but in order to live in the carbon-constrained world of Gore’s dreams. But a lot of things are silly to you and me that may not occur to people with mansions and multiple, bicoastal homes.

Which reminds us, as I previously noted, that there must really be something to hide about those “private donations from those concerned about solving the climate crisis”, accounting for the bulk of the Gore group’s budget, in order to present this $300 million ad campaign as the Gores’ project

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