States’ Climate Manager Gets Economic Scrutiny

by Paul Chesser, Heartland Institute Correspondent on January 10, 2008

in Blog

Yesterday the Center for Climate Strategies finally got their standard stock of alleged greenhouse gas-reducing ideas evaluated by real economists, and it isn’t pretty.

In an apparent attempt to blunt criticisms from folks like the free-market, limited-government John Locke Foundation (until recently my employer) in Raleigh, CCS enlisted the Energy Center at Appalachian State University to do what they call an economic analysis of a batch of CCS’s recommendations in North Carolina. In 2005 ASU had come up with a study model – called the North Carolina Energy Scenario Economic Impact Model (NC-ESEIM) — to analyze effects on jobs, incomes, Gross State Product and energy use. This was not, as CCS executive director Tom Peterson recently said in a legislative committee meeting, a cost-benefit analysis, but simply a study to try to determine the impacts on employment and GSP.

CCS and ASU, thanks to their economic model, made ludicrous claims that forcing the use of huge energy inefficiencies would also add 23,500 jobs annually to the economy and raise Gross State Product by $1.47 billion. Knowing this was not possible, the Locke Foundation called upon the Beacon Hill Institute’s PhD economists to do a peer review of the ASU economic model, and not surprisingly, BHI found their methodology lacking:

The NC-ESEIM also makes unduly optimistic assumptions about the future course of cost reductions in the production of energy from renewable sources, and is too sanguine about the potential for state spending to trigger private investment, and influence individual behavior, in energy conservation.

We are just beginning the great debate about the extent to which, and how, state governments should pursue policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Appropriate formal models to measure the economic impact of such policies will have an important role to play in this process, but it is essential that such models be credible and testable. The NC-ESEIM model falls short of this standard.

This is what happens when, as ASU has done, you have a political science graduate student as the chief author of your economic study. The full BHI peer review is online at the Locke Foundation Web site.

Cooler Heads Digest

by William Yeatman on January 10, 2008

in Cooler Heads Digest

News Highlights

 

John Tierney, New York Times, 10 January 2008
 
Steve Hargreaves, CNNmoney, 9 January 2008
 
Louise Story, New York Times, 9 January 2008
 
Ronald Bailey, Reason Online, 8 January 2008
 
Assembly News Release, 7 January 2008
 
Mark Beunderman, Euobserver.com, 7 January 2008
 
Jeff Jacoby, Boston Globe, 7 January 2008
 
Harriet Johnson, Heartland Institute, 3 January 2008
 
Steve Milloy, Foxnews.com, 3 January 2008
News You Can Use
Alarmism Sells Papers
 
According to the blog Reference Frame, 17 major mainstream media outlets, including the New York Times, USA Today, BBC, and MSNBC, reported, in early 2007, that 2007 would be the warmest on record. In fact, 2007 was the coldest year of our young century.
 
Inside the Beltway
CEI’s Myron Ebell
 
The U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced on Monday that it would not meet a January 9th court-ordered deadline to decide whether to list the polar bear as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. But a decision could be made in the next month or two.
The biggest booster within the Bush Administration to list the polar bear is Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne, with strong support from Interior's number two, Lynn Scarlett. The obstacle is that bear populations are not threatened and in fact have increased dramatically since 1950, partly or even largely as a result of less hunting.
 
The basis for listing the bear comes from computer models that predict that global warming will cause widespread melting of the Arctic sea ice in the summer. Polar bears are strong swimmers, but need some sea ice in order to get to their major food source, seals. The general circulation models used were not designed to have predictive capacity and in fact do not have predictive capacity. However, under the peculiar rules of the Endangered Species Act, these models may have to be deferred to as the best scientific evidence available.
 
If Secretary Kempthorne gets his way, the polar bear listing will become a powerful tool to stop hydrocabon energy use. Every proposal to build something that would increase greenhouse gas emissions that comes before a local zoning or planning commission could be challenged on the grounds that greenhouse gas emissions increase global warming, which in turn threatens the survival of polar bears. If the planning or zoning body went ahead and approved the permit, then it would likely be challenged in federal court.
Past experience suggests that the Endangered Species Act has such unlimited regulatory reach that most federal judges would decide that it requires them to rule against almost any alleged threat to a protected species.
 
This is clearly a train wreck in the making, and it can only be hoped that responsible adults in the administration decide to rely on the real science and therefore to squash Kempthorne's effort.
 
Across the States
CEI
 
According to the Washington Times, Maryland state lawmakers have indicated that a proposal to cap carbon emissions stands to become the most ambitious bill of the General Assembly session.
 
The carbon bill would call for greenhouse gas emissions reductions of 25 percent by 2020 and 90 percent by 2050, and was written by a task force appointed by Gov. Martin O'Malley. Maryland’s proposed emissions reduction target, if enacted, would be the nation's strongest carbon-reduction plan (currently, California has the most stringent plan, which calls for 80% reductions by 2050.)
 
Paul Chesser’s investigative journalism has shown that Maryland’s record-breaking target was created by a task force of laypeople (not scientists) funded by environmental extremists. To read more, click here.
 
Around the World
CEI’s Marlo Lewis
 
The European Commission, the Executive Branch of the European Union responsible for proposing legislation, is “considering proposing a carbon dioxide tariff on imports from states failing to tackle greenhouse gas emissions,” reports Mark Beunderman of Euobserver.
 
Under the draft proposal, the tariff would force EU firms to buy additional emission permits if they import products made in countries lacking mandatory carbon-reduction policies.
That politicians in Kyoto-constrained countries want to tax goods made in non-Kyoto-constrained countries, comes as no surprise. Most of the emissions growth during the 21st century is projected to come from developing countries. The Kyoto Protocol’s ultimate objective—the stabilization of atmospheric CO2 levels—is not even remotely attainable unless China, India, and other developing nations also adopt carbon controls (see p. 7 of this report).
 
Up to now, developing countries have refused to restrict their use of fossil energy, because they fear poverty more than global warming. So sooner or later, the EU must impose trade penalties on developing nations that refuse to cap their emissions, or Kyoto will collapse. Without such trade penalties, energy-intensive production will migrate from the EU to less regulated economies like China and the United States. Europe will lose production, exports, and jobs, yet emissions will be redistributed globally rather than reduced.
 
Only one thing seems certain—if the EU slaps carbon tariffs on Chinese goods, China will challenge the legality of the tariffs before the World Trade Organization.
 
Consumer Corner
CEI’s Julie Walsh
 
From the January 1st issue of Vegetarian Times:
“Benevolent Balms”
You'll do more than pay lip service to saving the planet with your purchase of Lip Action. One dollar of each $3.49 sale of Kiss My Face's Lip Action line of lip balms supports the Alliance for Climate Protection , founded by Nobel Peace Prize-winner Al Gore. With eco-aware names like Berry Warm and Glacial Mint, the SPF 15 balms shield against the blast of UV rays while aloe and cocoa butter help smooth and soothe. kissmyface.com
It looks like the $210 million-dollar-funded agenda is hard up for cash!

New Nuclear Will Add Little to UK Bills – Source

by Julie Walsh on January 9, 2008

in Blog

Britain expects the cost of handling the waste and decommissioning of a new generation of nuclear reactors to add about one percent to the cost of power produced, a source familiar with government thinking said.

And the amount trickling down to consumers' bills will be smaller still.

F.T.C. Asks if Carbon-Offset Money Is Well Spent

by Julie Walsh on January 9, 2008

in Blog

Corporations and shoppers in the United States spent more than $54 million last year on carbon offset credits toward tree planting, wind farms, solar plants and other projects to balance the emissions created by, say, using a laptop computer or flying on a jet.

But where exactly is that money going?

Who Controls the Thermostat in Cali?

by William Yeatman on January 9, 2008

According to an article in today’s North County Times (San Diego), California is considering a measure by which “California utilities would control the temperature of new homes and commercial buildings in emergencies with a radio-controlled thermostat…”

By “emergencies,” California regulators mean power crunches.

To recap the madcap, the State of California, has decided to dictate the room temperature of its citizens instead of increasing energy supply to meet increasing demand. What kind of energy policy is this?

The Law of Unintended Consequences and Biofuels Subsidies

by Julie Walsh on January 9, 2008

in Blog

Researchers at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) argue that American biofuel subsidies are boosting deforestation in the Amazon. How? STRI's staff scientist William Laurance explains the cascade of effects that occur as the result of $11 billion per year in corn subsidies.

Alarmism Sells Papers

by William Yeatman on January 9, 2008

Check out this great post from Reference Frame, a blog operated former Harvard Physics Professor Luboš Motl. Motl tallies the number of mainstream media outlets that had predicted that 2007 would be the warmest on record. The list includes America’s two most prominent dailies, USA Today and the New York Times, among other august news sources.

In fact, 2007 was the coldest year of our young century.

 

Statements are like…

by William Yeatman on January 9, 2008

Everybody's got one.  The American Meteorological Society has one, too, having thrown its lot in with The Weather Channel, the UK’s Royal Society, and others in pursuing the “global warming” gravy train.  It recently issued its own updated, alarmist statement on the matter, widely touted as representing the views of its membership which actually was never asked its opinion or agreement (as is the case with the National Academies’ statement(s), that of the American Geophysical Union, and so on).  This caused no small amount of discomfort and objection among the AMS’s members who protested, in what one AMS Council member told me, were “record numbers”, to no avail, as Roger Pielke, Sr., detailed here and here.

 

I have recently had this AMS statement tossed at me by alarmists in tv debates, the intellectually sloppy “appeal to authority” as proof of the validity of an argument the individual is apparently unable to make.  That made it ever more odd that the alarmists dismissed the inclusion of meteorologists in the Sen.. Inhofe et al. compilation of more than 400 scientists (remember, they also assailed economists and engineers being included, who actually are among the more highly trained plurality of none other than the IPCC’s “two thousand leading scientists”).

 

To wit, notice the wonderful reply by Grist Magazine’s Dave “Nuremberg-style trials for these [deleted]s” once the alarmists take power, in a Hannity and Colmes hit we shared:

“if you want to know what climate scientists think, you should ask climate scientists, not weathermen. They don’t study climate science in meteorology, this school.”

Got it.  Yet one more alarmist says the IPCC is unqualified to speak to the matter.  Of course, James Hansen is an astronomer, former IPCC head Robert Watson an atmospheric chemist, the current IPCC head – “the UN’s chief climate scientist” according to the AP, NY Times and USA Today, is, ahem, an economist and engineer (but he did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night).  

 

I tend to agree about the IPCC, now that we see that among the world’s leading scientists are anthropology TAs.

UN Climate Chief to Visit Antarctica

by William Yeatman on January 9, 2008

in Blog

Kyoto, We Have a Problem

by William Yeatman on January 8, 2008

As I have previously noted, every possible benchmark that can be applied to the European Union’s carbon cap-and-trade scheme is pointing downward. Still, supporters of imposing Kyoto-style cap-and-trade schemes in the U.S. insist, against all evidence, that after three years of operation “it is too early to call Europe’s ETS a failure.”

So what constitutes failure?

Maybe this. We now can add to the pile of evidence a remarkable report of how cap-and-trade is subject to rampant rent-seeking. According to the AP, well-heeled lobbying interests (much like those pushing for such a scheme here, come to think of it) have made tens of millions of dollars in pure windfall by working their pals in government and gaming the greenhouse gas regulatory regime.

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