Voice For Liberty

Category: Environment

  • Temperature Errors and Response Raise Doubts

    More coverage of errors in global climate data appears in The Telegraph. The errors were in Russian data, where apparently the September temperature figures were used again for October.

    A GISS spokesman lamely explained that the reason for the error in the Russian figures was that they were obtained from another body, and that GISS did not have resources to exercise proper quality control over the data it was supplied with. This is an astonishing admission: the figures published by Dr Hansen’s institute are not only one of the four data sets that the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) relies on to promote its case for global warming, but they are the most widely quoted, since they consistently show higher temperatures than the others.

    If there is one scientist more responsible than any other for the alarm over global warming it is Dr Hansen, who set the whole scare in train back in 1988 with his testimony to a US Senate committee chaired by Al Gore. Again and again, Dr Hansen has been to the fore in making extreme claims over the dangers of climate change. … Yet last week’s latest episode is far from the first time Dr Hansen’s methodology has been called in question.

    Source: The world has never seen such freezing heat.

  • It’s colder in Russia in October than in September

    Or at least it should be, unless you’re a global warming alarmist. Then it’s okay to use September temperatures for missing October observations.

    That’s what the Investor’s Business Daily editorial Cold, Hard Facts reports happened. Really.

    The editorial is based on Steve McIntyre’s research, reported on his site Climate Audit in the post Did Napoleon Use Hansen’s Temperature Data?

  • The Fallacy of “Green Jobs”

    Does climate change offer an opportunity to spend ourselves out of a possible recession? John Stossel doesn’t think so, and in his piece The Fallacy of “Green Jobs” he lays out the case.

    Key points:

    “The fallacy is the same in every case: Even if the program creates jobs building bridges or windmills, it necessarily prevents other jobs from being created. This is because government spending merely diverts money from private projects to government projects.” Stossel relies on Frederic Bastiat and his explanation of the broken window fallacy for support. This fallacy is expertfully explained by Henry Hazlitt, and I quote him extensively in my post Henry Hazlitt Explains Frederic Bastiat, or, A Broken Window Really Hurts No Matter What the New York Times Says. Hazlitt also has much to say about the folly of creating jobs through public works projects.

    “Governments create no wealth. They only move it around while taking a cut for their trouble. So any jobs created over here come at the expense of jobs that would have been created over there.” Advocates of government allocation of jobs usually claim that this control is necessary because of market failure. In other words, left to their own, investors can’t figure out where investment is most valued. Government “wisdom” is required.

    “Politicians have a lousy record trying to make ‘strategic investments.’ President Jimmy Carter’s Synthetic Fuels Corporation cost taxpayers at least $19 billion but failed to give us alternative fuels.”

    And this very important point:

    One reason decentralized markets are preferable to government central planning is that human beings are fallible. Mistakes are inevitable. Some investments will be errors. Mistakes in the market tend to be on a comparatively small scale. If one company invests in plug-in hybrids and it goes bust, only a relatively few people suffer. The assets of the bankrupt firm pass into more capable hands.

    But decisions by government, especially the federal government, affect all of us. When government makes a mistake, the bureaucracy can’t go bankrupt. Instead, it will use its failure to justify increased appropriations in the next budget.

    This is perhaps the most important insight in this article. Government programs tend to be monolithic, and once started are difficult to modify in light of changing conditions or things learned. We need entrepreneurs with their dynamic discovery process rather than government bureaucrats and politicians to guide this process.

  • A Change in Climate for Climate Change Policy

    From our friends at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, one of the many outstanding state-level research institutes working for liberty and free markets.

    A Change in Climate for Climate Change Policy
    By Kathleen Hartnett White
    November 5, 2008

    Come what dramatic political and economic changes may occur, a refrain persists within the media, industry, and the U.S. Congress that onerous federal mandates to regulate carbon dioxide (CO2) are inevitable. I don’t think so.

    In less than a year, many unanticipated developments have complicated the political dynamics of “ending the era of fossil fuels” through the enactment of carbon reduction mandates. Consider six such developments that may give pause to policymakers otherwise inclined to support these measures:

    • When the price of oil topped $4.00 a gallon and food inflation reached almost 8 percent, most voters got it: price and security first! At least a dozen recent polls show that three-fourths of likely voters put far more importance on the U.S. oil supply than global warming. This prevalent public opinion dissolved the U.S. Congress’ long and intransigent opposition to increased domestic oil production. In late September, the 30-year bans on offshore oil production expired. The rapid decline in the price of oil, as a result of economic slowdown, has not yet squelched broad support for more domestic oil production.
    • Energy independence has become a battle cry across the political spectrum. The painfully high price of oil increased the public’s recognition that there are no near-term, realistic alternatives to the dominance of fossil fuels in the U.S. energy supply. American dependence on unreliable, if not inimical, sources of foreign oil worries Main Street far more than it used to.
    • The European Union’s (EU) Emission Trading System (ETS), once the model for a U.S. program, continues to fail. Europe’s program is not reducing CO2 and has lead to higher energy costs. The U.S. has reduced more CO2 by market efficiencies and without any complicated cap-and-trade programs. Growing numbers of EU member countries, including Italy, now want to delay (read: scratch) the ETS because of economic woes approaching crisis proportions.
    • By the time the Lieberman-Warner bill (S.2191) made it to the U.S. Senate floor last summer, the veil on its staggering cost had been lifted. The world’s most ambitious, enforceable carbon regime to date, S.2191 would impose exorbitant costs and require unprecedented expansion of the federal control, but would yield no measurable effect on global climate unless China and India undertook similarly draconian programs.
    • Far more substantial climate science emerges and is a game-changer for the reigning science from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Observational evidence from NASA satellites indicates little to no heat-forcing effect from manmade CO2. This NASA data is empirical science, far superior to the uncertain IPCC computer models.
    • And the clincher: the specter of global recession. Worldwide financial turmoil presents the most hard-hitting obstacle to mandatory CO2 reduction. While figures may differ, no one doubts that CO2 reduction mandates would lead to far higher prices for fuel, power, food, and other basic consumer goods. Until the U.S. and global economies stabilize, the least prudent among us might delay CO2 regulations that would overturn our energy economy.

    Amidst the current economic maelstrom, some congressional leaders perversely cling to carbon regulation as a new federal revenue source to compensate for a reduced tax base. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the federal government’s auction of carbon allocations, e.g., power companies forced to buy permission to keep generating electricity, could generate trillions in revenue. Inconvenient facts, however, may have changed the political climate necessary for major CO2 reduction programs absent available control technology.

    In the last year, many policy makers and voters have learned some hard facts about energy and the economy. If an ounce of reason might prevail, climate change policymakers would acknowledge that mandates are premature and impracticable. Immediate steps should be toward extending the new empirical climate science and market-based development of energy efficient technologies.

    Natural variability — or change, simply speaking — is the hallmark of climate and politics; not easy to predict and never inevitable.

    Kathleen Hartnett White is Director of the Center for Natural Resources at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a non-profit, free-market research institute based in Austin. She is the former Chair of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.

  • Climate change resource center launched

    When evaluating the claims of radical environmental extremists, people need accurate and reliable information about global warming and climate change. To this end, I’ve started a Climate Change Resource Center page, where readers can find links to reliable sources of information.

    If you know of other sources or articles that should be listed, please send them to me.

  • Tax incentive for wind energy producers set to expire

    Kansas Liberty posts Tax incentive for wind energy producers set to expire.

    This post explains that without subsidy, wind power generation facilities will likely not be built. Supporters of these tax credits, which are payments from the federal government through the tax system. These payments, termed “incentives” by their supporters, make wind power economically feasible. Without it, wind power wouldn’t be built.

    These incentives come with a cost. Calling them tax credits makes it seem, to many people, that there is no cost in granting them. But there is. See Wind Production Tax Credits Aren’t Free of Cost.

    Further, even with the production tax credits, wind power costs. Westar, our local electric utility, is requesting a rate increase partly because of the costs of wind power generation. See Kansas Electric Rates Increase Because of Wind Power Generation.

  • Cap-and-trade harmful to Kansas

    An op-ed in the Wichita Eagle (Amy J. Blankenbiller: Cap-and-trade would be harmful to Kansans) makes the case that some cures for global warming may cause more harm than good.

    The author warns that “we could be heading toward ‘solutions’ that are much more harmful to Kansas consumers and businesses than the environmental benefits they aim to provide.”

    Specifically, prices for the forms of energy that most Americans use — electricity, natural gas, and gasoline — would rise rapidly. If we need any evidence that increases in energy prices are harmful, consider the reaction to a proposal to increase electricity rates in Wichita by a relatively modest amount. (See Kansas Electric Rates Increase Because of Wind Power Generation.)

    The important questions: “With Kansas accountable for only 0.25 percent of total greenhouse-gas emissions, the real questions become: What impact did we have on global climate change? And at what cost?”

  • Wind Power: Why Special Tax Treatment?

    A recent article in USA Today (Renewable energy firms clamor for tax breaks) reports on the uncertainty of whether the U.S. Congress will extend the tax credits that subsidize solar and wind power investment. From the article:

    Some $500 million in investment and production tax credits will expire Dec. 31 unless Congress renews them. Without that help, solar and wind power companies say they will reverse planned expansions and, in many cases, cut payrolls and capital investment.

    Commenting on this article, The Foundation for Economic Education wondered “If they need special tax treatment to survive, what does that tell you?”

    It tells me that wind and solar power are not economically viable at the moment. The only way to induce people to invest in these forms of power generation is to give them money.

    To learn more about the economics of wind and other forms of power generation, I suggest these articles: Wind Production Tax Credits Aren’t Free of Cost, Mandating Renewable Energy: It’s Not Easy Being Green, Hot Air and Wind, and Energy Independence Isn’t Very Green.

  • The Problem of Environmental Calculation

    One of the things about radical environmentalists is that they seem to learn a lesson, only to fail to learn from it. What do I mean?

    Recently, New York Times writer David Pogue rehashed in a column titled The Bottom Line of the Eco Balance Sheet the “calculus of green” as it relates to the age-old eco-awareness question, “Paper or plastic?”

    He runs through the pros and cons of each type of bag, finally concluding: “The real answer to that question, of course, is ‘neither—bring your own reusable bags.’”

    Having complained of the complexity of the “calculus of green” and having run through both sides of the paper-plastic argument, he suddenly proclaims the answer. Without any supporting evidence.

    Reading this column, I realized the source of the problem: Mr. Pogue has no respect for private property rights, and for their power to regulate behavior and stewardship of the environment.

    For example, one side of the paper-plastic argument is that plastic bags “choke the oceans and sea life.” Well, who owns the seas? If someone owned a portion of a sea, would he allow others to harm it with discarded plastic bags?

    “Creating paper bags creates 70 percent more air pollution.” The courts have decided that people don’t own the air on their property, and that others are allowed to pollute it.

    There are other examples.

    Lack of private property rights leads to the very calculation problems that Mr. Pogue describes. Instead of relying on markets — free people trading freely, taking into account all the costs their actions create — we rely on government, which has a very poor record with regard to the environment.

    You can learn more about free markets and their ability to promote environmental stewardship in Richard Stroup’s article Environmentalism, Free-Market, a good place to start. At YouTube, you can watch a lecture-interview by Walter Block about Free market environmentalism.