Quick, which one of these statements does NOT come from George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four?
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
INCANDESCENT BULBS AREN’T GETTING BANNED…IN FACT, THEY ARE GETTING BETTER.
Tough choice? OK—take a few more seconds.
Well, what many predicted has come true, subsidies for ethanol aren’t actually going away:
Ethanol advocates Sens. John Thune (R-S.D.) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), meanwhile, won multi-year extensions of tax credits for producing “cellulosic” ethanol — which isn’t made from corn — and installing ethanol blender pumps at gas stations.
The deal will steer $1.33 billion — two-thirds of the savings from ending the blenders’ subsidy — into deficit reduction, while the balance of $668 million would support the other incentives, according to the lawmakers.
Any rational proposal for the future of ethanol should aggravate industry trade groups, and they’re predictably cheer-leading about how they’re being fiscally responsible, fueling our freedom, and all that other nonsense. It seems as if they saw the light at the end of the tunnel was fading fast, and they hopped on a train that would funnel a remaining 600 million into the industry. [click to continue…]
The Obama Car
Eric Peters, American Spectator, 7 July 2011
Snoopy and the Green Baron
Peter Foster, Financial Post, 6 July 2011
Washington Post: ‘Misinformation and Outright Lies about Climate Change’
Chris Horner, Big Government, 6 July 11
Science by Artillery Shell? Or Science by Cooperation?
James Taylor, Forbes, 6 Jul7 2011
Michael Mann and the Climategate Whitewash, Part 2
Larry Bell, Forbes, 5 July 2011
Swiss Re, one of two global re-insurance titans, yesterday issued a report, “The hidden risks of climate change: An increase in property damage from drought and soil subsidence in Europe,” suggesting that global warming could “magnify” the risks of property damage caused by soil subsidence. In 2010, the other global re-insurance titan, Munich Re, concluded that, “The only plausible explanation for the rise in weather-related catastrophes is climate change.”
The above claim made by Munich Re is a favorite of global warming alarmists. For example, it was cited by former Vice President Al Gore in a high-profile Rolling Stone article published two weeks ago. No doubt, yesterday’s Swiss Re study also will prove to be an oft-mentioned talking point for green special interests. Environmental extremists dismiss virtually all science that is skeptical of catastrophic climate change as being “industry funded,” so it is interesting that they are quick to embrace “evidence” produced by insurance companies, for which there is a clear profit motive at stake. After all, insurance is the business of pricing risk. Swiss Re and Munich Re therefore have an incentive to incorporate into their assessments an allegedly significant, yet amorphous, source of risk like global warming. By doing so, they can jack up premiums and make a mint.
Farhad Manjoo of Slate is convinced that a new L.E.D light bulb being produced will look similar to incandescent lighting and still save consumers money over the life of the bulb, according to their predictions and his calculations:
[…] On average, an incandescent bulb lasts about 1,000 hours—that’s about a year, if you keep it on for about three hours a day. Electricity in America also costs about 11 cents per kilowatt hour (that’s the average; it varies widely by region). In other words, a 50-cent, 60-watt incandescent bulb will use about $6.60 in electricity every year. Switch’s 60-watt-equivalent LED, meanwhile, uses only 13 watts of power, so it will cost only $1.43 per year. The Switch bulb also has an average lifespan of 20,000 hours—20 years. If you count the price of replacing the incandescent bulb every year, the Switch bulb will have saved you money by its fourth year. Over 20 years, you’ll have spent a total of about $142 for the incandescent bulbs (for electricity and replacement bulbs) and less than $50 for Switch’s 60-watt bulb. (I made a spreadsheet showing my calculations.) [click to continue…]
Energy & Environment News (subscription required) reported this morning that Senate Veterans Affairs Committee Chairwoman Patty Murray (D-WA) purchased 21 iPads for senators and committee staff, in an effort to cut down on paper use. According to the story, “Each is loaded with all the relevant documents” necessary to legislate effectively.
When I read this news, I couldn’t help but think how great it would have been if the House of Representatives had one such iPad, “loaded with all the relevant documents,” on the evening of June 26, 2009*. At the time, the Democrat-controlled House was about to pass the American Clean Energy and Security Act, a cap-and-trade energy-rationing scheme, despite the fact that no one had read the bill. Indeed, it would have been impossible for anyone to have read the bill, because there wasn’t a copy of the legislation available.
There Has Been No Global Warming Since 1998
James Delingpole, Telegraph, 6 July 2011
Global Warming? New Ice Age? The Only Certainty Is That YOU’RE Paying for Hysteria
Christopher Booker, Daily Mail, 6 July 2011
Wind Energy: A Review of Health and Safety Concerns
John Droz Jr., Master Resource, 6 July 2011
UN Climate Initiative Is a Nightmare
Caroline May, Daily Caller, 6 July 2011
No Need for ‘Compromise’ in Trimming Ethanol Subsidies
Washington Post editorial, 5 July 2011
When it comes to global warming mitigation, the European Union is full of sound and fury, but signifies nothing.
Leaders and officials from the 27-nation bloc frequently claim to occupy the moral high ground on climate change policy, due to the fact that the EU has adopted unilateral targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020. While it is true that the EU is more than halfway to achieving this goal, a close look at the numbers shows that the EU’s emissions cuts to date are largely the byproduct of historical happenstance. Also dubious is the EU’s contention that it is implementing “unilateral” emissions reductions. In fact, the EU is trying to coerce international burden-sharing before it makes any real sacrifices of its own on behalf the climate.
Last week the American Society for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) board issued a statement decrying “attacks on researchers that question their personal and professional integrity.” As an example, the AAAS board cited the American Tradition Institute’s recent Freedom of Information Act request for thousands of emails from Dr. Michael Mann, creator of the disputed “hockey stick” reconstruction of historical global temperatures. Notably, the AAAS board omitted mention of a new Greenpeace report noting that all of the research funding received since 2003 by Dr. Willie Soon, a Harvard astrophysicist and climate skeptic, came from hydrocarbon industries, information that was obtained by a FOIA request. Nor did the AAAS board mention that Greenpeace filed a FOIA request for the financial records of climate skeptic Dr. Patrick Michaels.
The Science and Environmental Policy Project had an interesting take on the AAAS board’s statement in the July 2nd edition of its weekly newsletter, The Week That Was:
This is the new claim being thrown around by renewable energy proponents with supporting data by the Energy Information Administration (EIA). Check the link here:
During the first quarter of 2011, renewable energy sources (biomass/biofuels, geothermal, solar, water, wind) provided 2.245 quadrillion Btus of energy or 11.73 percent of U.S. energy production. More significantly, energy production from renewable energy sources in 2011 was 5.65 percent more than that from nuclear power, which provided 2.125 quadrillion Btus and has remained largely unchanged in recent years. Energy from renewable sources is now 77.15 percent of that from domestic crude oil production, with the gap closing rapidly.
Looking at all energy sectors (e.g., electricity, transportation, thermal), production of renewable energy, including hydropower, has increased by 15.07 percent compared to the first quarter of 2010, and by 25.07 percent when compared to the first quarter of 2009. Among the renewable energy sources, biomass/biofuels accounted for 48.06 percent, hydropower for 35.41 percent, wind for 12.87 percent, geothermal for 2.45 percent, and solar for 1.16 percent. [click to continue…]
RSS Updates 
RSS E-Mail Updates 
CEI.org