Voice For Liberty

Tag: Climate change

  • Not all birds are equal, it seems

    Recently ExxonMobil plead guilty to killing 85 birds. It paid $600,000 in fines and fees. An Oregon electric utility paid $1.4 million in fines for killing 232 eagles that had come into contact with poorly-designed power lines.

    Wind energy producers, however, can kill with impunity. That’s the message of the story Windmills Are Killing Our Birds by Robert Bryce.

    A July 2008 study of the wind farm at Altamont Pass, Calif., estimated that its turbines kill an average of 80 golden eagles per year. The study, funded by the Alameda County Community Development Agency, also estimated that about 10,000 birds — nearly all protected by the migratory bird act — are being whacked every year at Altamont.

    Altamont’s turbines, located about 30 miles east of Oakland, Calif., kill more than 100 times as many birds as Exxon’s tanks, and they do so every year. But the Altamont Pass wind farm does not face the same threat of prosecution, even though the bird kills at Altamont have been repeatedly documented by biologists since the mid-1990s.

    Political correctness gone wild? Of course.

  • Waxman-Markey costly, ineffective

    The Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade legislation that is working its way through Congress is ineffective in its stated goal, and will harm the American economy.

    The goal of this bill is to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere, thereby reducing the threat of global warming. The amount of temperature reduction Waxman-Markey might produce is a matter of dispute, but most sources cite a decrease so small that it will be difficult to measure it. Its effect could easily be overwhelmed by something else over which we have no control.

    As bad as this is, the economic effects of this bill are certain, and they are devastating. The Science Applications International Corporation, at the request of the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) and the American Council for Capital Formation (ACCF), has produced an analysis of the effects of this legislation on the United States as a whole, and on each state. The reports may be read by clicking on Economic Impact of the Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy and Security Act.

    At the national level, the economic effect of the Waxman-Markey bill would be to reduce employment by around two million jobs by 2030. Household income would go down, and energy prices would go up. From 2010 to 2030, the nation would lose from two to three trillion dollars of national income.

    For Kansas, the report notes that transportation manufacturing will show decreases in output of 8.0% to 8.4% by 2030. That’s a larger decline that what general manufacturing will experience. Transportation manufacturing, of course, includes the aircraft industry that Wichita depends on.

    This legislation is so bad that even global warming alarmists are necessarily fans of Waxman-Markey. The liberal magazine Mother Jones says this: “First, Waxman-Markey is a kludge of a bill. It’s possible that its cost-benefit is negative, and it’s almost certain that, by itself, its cost benefit is quite small even if it is positive. Second, W-M’s carbon caps by themselves will probably have only a tiny effect on rising temperatures. Third, global warming is a hopeless problem if we don’t get the rest of the world to address it too. If China and India and the rest of the developing world don’t play along, nothing the U.S. and Europe do by themselves will be enough to halt it.”

  • The Cap and Tax Fiction

    There’s been a lot of joy among the radical environmentalists lately since the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) came out with a report that seems to say that the costs of the pending cap and trade legislation — the Waxman-Markey bill — is small.

    At a annual cost of $175 per household, that shouldn’t be much to worry about, should it?

    Sure enough, the report does mention this figure, and if you’re willing to overlook some obvious facts, it’s good news. Here’s what the report states:

    “On that basis, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that the net annual economywide cost of the cap-and-trade program in 2020 would be $22 billion—or about $175 per household.”

    That’s what radical environmentalists are gleefully reporting. As a recent Wall Street Journal editorial explains “The biggest doozy in the CBO analysis was its extraordinary decision to look only at the day-to-day costs of operating a trading program, rather than the wider consequences energy restriction would have on the economy. The CBO acknowledges this in a footnote.”

    Here’s the footnote the Journal article refers to: “The resource cost does not indicate the potential decrease in gross domestic product (GDP) that could result from the cap. The reduction in GDP would also include indirect general equilibrium effects, such as changes in the labor supply resulting from reductions in real wages and potential reductions in the productivity of capital and labor.”

    There’s some other problems with the bill, and the Journal piece reports on them: “The whole point of cap and trade is to hike the price of electricity and gas so that Americans will use less. These higher prices will show up not just in electricity bills or at the gas station but in every manufactured good, from food to cars. Consumers will cut back on spending, which in turn will cut back on production, which results in fewer jobs created or higher unemployment. Some companies will instead move their operations overseas, with the same result.”

    The piece reports that Democrats know that steep price increase in energy are coming: “Even as Democrats have promised that this cap-and-trade legislation won’t pinch wallets, behind the scenes they’ve acknowledged the energy price tsunami that is coming. During the brief few days in which the bill was debated in the House Energy Committee, Republicans offered three amendments: one to suspend the program if gas hit $5 a gallon; one to suspend the program if electricity prices rose 10% over 2009; and one to suspend the program if unemployment rates hit 15%. Democrats defeated all of them.”

    Recently I attended a public information session regarding rate consolidation in Westar, the large electric utility in Kansas. Several speakers spoke of the hardship that higher electricity rates would case. Something tells me that some of the people are in favor of the Waxman-Markey bill and other “green” measures. Are they will to pay the higher energy costs associated with this bill?

  • Global warming testimony released

    In May, Wichita geophysicist Dennis Hedke traveled to Arlington, Virginia to deliver testimony at a public hearing conducted by the Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA. In June he delivered written testimony as part of the procedure for collecting public comment. You can read this document in its entirety at the end of this article. Here are some highlights.

    Regarding the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, perhaps the main organization contributing to global warming alarmism, Hedke writes this:

    The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), as you know, actually has nothing whatsoever in place that would mimic actual “peer-reviewed” architecture. Instead, it operates in total vacuum, and when a real scientist actually raises a challenge, based on factual evidence, he or she is virtually shut out of the ongoing, ultimately published “findings.” … a multitude of highly regarded and internationally respected scientists have chosen to withdraw from the organization because they could no longer tolerate the ongoing wrongdoing that became ever so obvious.

    A major section of the document deals with comparison between EPA findings and the actual data. Hedke presents evidence that “human-induced factors related to the greenhouse effect are minimal.” That’s contrary to the EPA’s findings.

    What about the “hockey stick” graph made famous by Al Gore in his movie? Hedke writes:

    As I’m sure you are aware, [graph creator] Mann’s filtering of the real data was caught by astute researchers Ross McKitrick and Steven McIntyre, both Canadians who just happened to be in the right place at the right time to actually critically review the “science” that the IPCC was only too anxious and willing to share with the world. The eventual removal of the highly fabricated graph by the IPCC was a major source of embarrassment to that political body, proving that it was, indeed, junk science.

    One of the conclusions Hedke states is: “In the broadest sense, I would conclude that the political drivers behind the wheel of this “findings” vehicle have completely overwhelmed any sense of scientific support, or lack thereof, for the myriad of complex conclusions drawn and implied to “endanger” the citizens of this country.”

    The document contains many charts and graphs, along with many references to the sources Hedke uses.

    (This is a Scribd document. Click on the rectangle at the right of the document’s title bar to get a full-screen view.)

  • Global warming to be examined in Wichita

    At this Friday’s meeting of the Wichita Pachyderm Club, Wichita geophysicist Dennis Hedke will present important information about the topics of global warming and climate change. His presentation includes information about the science behind these matters, and also about the politics. That’s important, as it appears now that the driving force behind the Obama administration’s energy and climate policy is politics as much as anything else.

    All are welcome to attend Pachyderm meetings. Lunch is $10, or you may attend the meeting only for $3.

    At Pachyderm meetings, there’s usually plenty of time for the speaker to take questions from the audience. The meeting starts at noon, although those wishing to order lunch are encouraged to arrive by 11:45. The location is Whiskey Creek Steakhouse at 233 N. Mosley in Old Town. You can view a map of this location by clicking on Google map of 233 N. Mosley.

  • In Obama administration, transparency and science take backseat to politics

    President Barack Obama has promised to make transparency the standard for his administration. He also pledged to base decisions such as our nation’s energy policy on science.

    As reported on this site, the Competitive Enterprise Institute uncovered a series of email messages within the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that raise questions as to how seriously these goals are followed.

    What happened is that an EPA analyst prepared a report that challenged the orthodoxy of global warming. His report was suppressed — until CEI uncovered the emails.

    The Wall Street Journal’s Kimberly A. Strassel explains all this very well in her article The EPA Silences a Climate Skeptic.

  • Kansans will be hurt by global warming bill

    The Waxman-Markey climate bill, soon to be considered by Congress, will harm all Americans. Here’s a look at what it would cost Kansans. Two examples:

    Higher cost for energy. “An average family could pay an additional $1,500 a year for energy.”

    Fewer jobs: “For Kansas this could mean a loss of 22 thousand jobs just a few years from now. If those jobs were lost today it would increase Kansas’ unemployment rate from 6.1 percent to 7.6 percent.”

  • EPA suppresses internal global warming study

    Is there any doubt that the crusade against global warming is motivated as much by politics as by anything else?

    The Competitive Enterprise Institute has uncovered an effort within the Environmental Protection Agency to suppress “scientific analysis of climate change because of political pressure to support the Administration’s policy agenda of regulating carbon dioxide.”

    Further: “The study the emails refer to, which ran counter to the administration’s views on carbon dioxide and climate change, was kept from circulating within the agency, was never disclosed to the public, and was not added to the body of materials relevant to EPA’s current ‘endangerment’ proceeding.”

    A CEI official said this: “This suppression of valid science for political reasons is beyond belief. EPA’s conduct is even more outlandish because it flies in the face of the President’s widely-touted claim that ‘the days of science taking a back seat to ideology are over.’”

    A Washington Post headline from March stated “Obama Aims to Shield Science From Politics.” I guess they didn’t read that at the EPA.

    ABC News quoted Obama earlier this year as saying this: “Because the truth is that promoting science isn’t just about providing resources — it’s about protecting free and open inquiry. It’s about ensuring that facts and evidence are never twisted or obscured by politics or ideology.”

    You can read CEI’s testimony, complete with the emails that prove its assertion, by clicking on Proposed Endangerment and Cause or Contribute Findings for Greenhouse Gases under Section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act, Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2009-0171.

  • Earthjustice meddles in Kansas again

    The radical environmentalist group Earthjustice is again meddling in Kansas energy policy. They’ve sent a “warning letter” to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment. You can read it at Proposed Kansas Coal Plant Draws Warning Letter.

    Earthjustice opposes the building of a coal-fired power plant in Kansas. Our former governor Kathleen Sebelius, because she opposed the plant, was a darling of Earthjustice. See Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius at Earthjustice.

    Earthjustice is simply misinformed in many ways. For example, the press release states: “The truth is building a new, dirty coal plant really only serves the interest of a few while overlooking the virtually free wind energy resources of Western Kansas.”

    Consider that the “virtually free” wind energy is supported by a federal subsidy with each spin of the turbine blades.

    Consider that Westar’s investment in wind power plus the natural gas plants necessary to back up the unreliable wind has caused the utility to ask for several rate increases in the past few years.

    What was that about “virtually free” again? The inexpensive energy a coal plant would produce is a benefit to all Kansans, especially low-income Kansans, as they can least afford the expensive energy produced by alternative sources.

    Then, the press release states “The Holcomb coal plant will send most of its power out of state while leaving pollution all over Kansas.”

    The writer doesn’t state specifically what type of pollution she means. But the plant was not refused a permit because of what we traditionally consider pollution: sulfur dioxide, mercury, etc. That’s because coal plants now are quite clean with regard to these pollutants.

    So that leaves carbon dioxide as the “pollutant” in question. Which, of course, isn’t a pollutant at all. And if it’s a problem, it’s a problem on a global scale, not just “all over Kansas.”

    Hopefully our governor will disregard the call of the leftists at Earthjustice and let Kansas get on with its business.