Voice For Liberty

Tag: Environment

  • More myths of green jobs

    On its surface, a seemingly strong argument for adopting a national policy of increasing reliance on renewable energy is all the jobs and economic growth that will result. It’s claimed by some that the switch to so-called “green” sources of energy will pay for itself this way.

    But there are many doubters. Here, the Property and Environment Research Center — “the nation’s oldest and largest institute dedicated to improving environmental quality through markets and property rights” — publishes a report titled 7 myths about green jobs.

    Here are some excerpts:

    The costs of the green jobs programs proposed by various interest groups are staggering. For example, the UNEP (2008, 306) report concludes that “No one knows how much a full-fledged green transition will cost, but needed investment will likely be in the hundreds of billions, and possibly trillions, of dollars.”

    The scale of social change that would be imposed is also immense. Green jobs advocates propose dramatic shifts in energy production technologies, building practices, food production, and nearly every other aspect of life. These calls for radical economic changes are wrapped in green packaging. The promise is not only a revolution in our relationship with the environment, but the employment of millions in high paying, satisfying jobs. Unfortunately, the analysis provided in the green jobs literature is deeply flawed, resting on a series of myths about the economy, the environment, and technology.

    To attempt to transform modern society on the scale proposed by the green jobs literature is an effort of staggering complexity and scale. To do so based on the wishful thinking and bad economics embodied in the green jobs literature would be the height of irresponsibility. There is no doubt that significant opportunities abound to develop new energy sources, new industries, and new jobs. A market-based discovery process will do a far better job of developing those energy sources, industries, and jobs than can a series of mandates based on flawed data. The policy debate should be open so we can dispel the myths and focus on facts and analysis.

    Like they say, economics is the “dismal science.” There really is no such thing as a free lunch. Wishing otherwise can’t make it so.

  • Why climate models are wrong

    Could the science behind all the models that predict global warming be wrong? Dr. Roy Spencer believes it is.

    His article A Layman’s Explanation of Why Global Warming Predictions by Climate Models are Wrong takes a while to read, but it’s worth the time and effort. It all comes down to this:

    Thus, the most important debate is global warming research today is the same as it was 20 years ago: How will clouds (and to a lesser extent other elements in the climate system) respond to warming, thereby enhancing or reducing the warming? These indirect changes that further influence temperature are called feedbacks, and they determine whether manmade global warming will be catastrophic, or just lost in the noise of natural climate variability.

    It turns out that “all 23 climate models tracked by the IPCC now exhibit positive cloud and water vapor feedback.” Spencer believes that there is a “mix-up between cause and effect” that results in a positive bias in temperature change. According to his research, publication forthcoming, the feedback is actually negative. In his words, “The negative feedback was so strong that it more than canceled out the positive water vapor feedback we also found.”

    He concludes:

    While there are a number of other potentially serious problems with climate model predictions, the mix-up between cause and effect when studying cloud behavior, by itself, has the potential to mostly deflate all predictions of substantial global warming. It is only a matter of time before others in the climate research community realize this, too.

    Currently we’re being asked to accept huge increases in taxes and energy costs all in the name of saving the planet from global warming. It’s already started, as our local electric utility in Wichita has had to ask for several rate increases to support its efforts in renewable energy — costs it would not have incurred if not pressured by threats from politicians.

    Now it turns out that the science behind these decisions is likely wrong.

    The problem of global warming, to the extent it truly exists and is caused by man, is a problem with a very long time horizon for its solution. We need to slow down and make sure we truly understand the problem and its causes before we make drastic policy changes that will harm our economy and our prosperity.

  • Another Kansas electricity rate hike

    Kansas customers served by electric utility Westar are facing another rate increase.

    It’s a “follow-up” rate increase, coming after several other recent rate increases. The purpose is to pay for “the second phase of its Emporia Energy Center and two Westar-owned wind farms.”

    The rate increase is 1.5%. It amounts to around a dollar or so per month for the average residential customer.

    Westar has described the Emporia plant this way: As a ‘peaking plant,’ Emporia Energy Center is intended to operate during Westar Energy’s highest customer demand conditions, primarily on hot summer days.” Also from Westar: “Our Emporia Energy Center is excellent for following the variability of wind production.”

    This rate increase plus its predecessors are evidence of the fact that renewable energy is expensive. Not only must wind farms be built — that’s the primary expression of renewable energy in Kansas — backup generation must be provided, too.

    That’s because wind power suffers from variability, as Westar admits. In particular, the time when when we need it most (hot summer afternoons) is precisely the time when the wind is least available. So we must plan for how much electricity we will want to have available, and then build conventional generating capacity to meet that need. Wind and solar power can’t be counted in this calculation.

    So it’s just a dollar a month. What’s the problem?

    The dollar per month is just for a residential bill, and just for this rate increase, which is just one of several to pay for wind power. Commercial electricity bills are rising too, which increases costs to business. That means that firms will try to pass along costs to customers. Or firms may look to look to reduce their costs, which usually means layoffs.

    Last year Westar proposed a rate increase of $10 per month for the average household in Kansas. Oletha Faust-Goudeau, at that time campaigning for the Kansas Senate, was quoted as saying “When I’m (campaigning) door-to-door, people say they need help with the utilities.”

  • Another Evangelical’s view of creation

    Below, Wichita Geophysicist Dennis Hedke explains the problems with the beliefs held by radical environmentalist Rev. Richard Cizik. This is the unabridged version of a letter that appeared in the Wichita Eagle.

    I was in attendance Wednesday evening where Rev. Richard Cizik spoke to an audience largely supportive of his view of “Creation Care” (Wichita Eagle, May 28, 2009). I too, am an Evangelical Christian, and I take issue with a number of his suppositions. I would immediately cite Genesis 1: 26-29, wherein the Creator gave man specific dominion over every creature in the animal kingdom, as well as that of the entire plant kingdom. He certainly charged man to be a good steward of all that He assigned for man’s dominion, and we must not take that responsibility lightly.

    Rev. Cizik mentions the “snake oil of climate skeptics”, and I will oppose any notion that mankind is largely responsible for earth’s dramatic decline, because the scientific evidence is far and wide in dispute of such a proposition. We have real problems and real pollution to clean up. However, the current drive to legislate fossil fuel-based emissions control is utterly out of touch with scientific reality. The legislation (HR 2454), which has now passed out of the House Committee on Commerce and Energy for Senate consideration, would strive to achieve the following: more than 80% reduction of “anthropogenic CO2”, as compared to 2005 benchmark
    levels. It is projected that if they could accomplish the feat, which I suggest will be impossible, the net temperature “savings” by year 2050 would be about 0.18 degree Fahrenheit. By some estimates, the price tag would exceed $11 trillion (Science and Public Policy Institute, May 19, 2009).

    Rev. Cizik writes that major segments of Earth are dying as a result of these emissions issues, yet he provides no facts, nor any data to support his contention. You need to know this: the CO2 concentration in earth’s atmosphere is 385 parts per million (ppm), less than 0.04%. The CO2 concentration in US submarines routinely reaches 8,000 ppm, and no officials are rushing to rescue the American sailor “enduring” that terrible climate. What the actual data tells us is that the hoped for “greenhouse signature hotspot” over the Tropics related to CO2 is nowhere to be found. That’s right, it does not exist, and it has been hunted for years.

    Rev. Cizik also stated, via James Hansen, a NASA scientist who is unfortunately becoming well known for making outlandish, unsupported statements, “carbon dioxide that we put in the air … will stay there … more than 500 years”. That simply is not true, in reality it dissipates in 5 years,or less, according to some 50 independent researchers.

    The population of this planet now exceeds 6.6 billion people. Does man have influence on climate? Yes, but a substantial body of data tells us the influence is minimal. The approximate 100 ppm increase in CO2 in the atmosphere over the past 150 years is dominated by oceanic and land-based carbonate (limestone) sources, which are very specifically derived from the sun’s enormous influence on heating the entire planet. We have been experiencing a warming trend since the end of the Little Ice Age around 1750 AD.

    I would respectfully recommend that all mankind pay special heed to 2 Timothy 4: 3-4. We have no more room for myths, and the truth is scarce, indeed.

  • Clinton Concedes Spain’s Green Jobs Program “Has Cost Many Jobs”

    From the Institute for Energy Research.

    Washington, DC — Spain’s decade-long program to subsidize the creation and continued existence of so-called green jobs through a massive infusion of taxpayer resources “has cost many jobs,” former President Bill Clinton admitted to a Spanish audience at the European University of Madrid this week, according to the Spanish daily newspaper El Mundo (a translated version of the piece can be found below).

    The statement mirrors closely the findings of a recent study authored by Professor Gabriel Calzada of Spain, a report that has attracted attention in the United States as the current president continues to cite Spain as a model to be followed in promoting a similar green jobs plan here at home.

    In response to former President Clinton’s comments, Institute for Energy Research (IER) president Thomas J. Pyle issued the following statement:

    “Though efforts continue to be made in the United States to discredit the Spanish green jobs study, and even personally attack its author, President Clinton’s affirmation of its core findings serves as just the latest reminder that the facts are what they are — and they aren’t pretty. More than 10 years and nearly $40 billion in public investment later, Spain still only acquires less than one percent of its power from solar, and the vast majority of the so-called green jobs created by the government to support that industry are no longer in existence today. If this is the model for near-term economic growth and long-term energy security that President Obama envisions for our country, we may be in for a longer, more severe recession than we know.”

    Please find below the translated version of the El Mundo article:
    –
    Clinton: Green Energy “Has Cost Many Jobs”

    J. G. Gallego/C. Caballero
    El Mundo, p. 46
    May 23, 2009

    Madrid — Former US President turned ecologist Bill Clinton is aware of the impact on employment by the development on renewable energy. Even though he is, as a former dweller of the White House, one of the most visible supporters in that industry, the US Democrat recognized yesterday that clean energies “have cost many jobs” in Spain.

    Though without citing it directly, Clinton was acknowledging yesterday during his conference in Madrid that the study about the impact of public support on renewable energies, released by Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, has very valid conclusions.

    That report, which has received enormous coverage in US media and been used against Barack Obama’s energy policy, argues that every job in renewable energies created in Spain in the year 2000 has cost 571138 Euros and has been the cause of the loss of 2.2 jobs elsewhere in the economy.

    Bill Clinton recognized yesterday that “this commitment to clean energy has cost many jobs” while at the same time calling for Spain to intensify investment in this industry to be able to turn high costs into new jobs.

  • Chemical Facility Security Authorization Act threatens American economy

    Update: Let your elected representatives in Washington know about this legislation. Send them a message by clicking here.

    Earlier this week I reported on legislation being considered by Congress that would, under the lofty goal of national security, impose a huge burden on the American chemical industry. (Chemical security law goes beyond protection)

    Our agricultural industries need to be concerned, too. The article Homeland Security To Regulate Farm and Ranch Inputs? details some of the harm that excessive government interference will cause.

    For example, the legislation “proposes to mandate the government to take a large measure of control over products and processes in the chemical industry, much like it has taken over leadership, compensation and control functions at some banks, insurance and auto companies. … A government bureaucracy would be given power to mandate product substitutions, formulation changes and changes in processes … But interference with product formulation and the complicated processes worked out scientifically over years of research and experience is not the proper purview of government security regulators or environmental activists. It is a separate issue from security and terrorism. Such interference is more likely to create new manufacturing and worker safety hazards.”

    This article gives us a hint at what may be the real motivation behind this legislation: “Interestingly, it is environmental activist groups, many of whom oppose mainstream agriculture’s use of any chemical fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides and fossil fuels to produce America’s robust food supply, who are pushing this legislative reach to mandate private industry’s products and processes.”

    Wrapping an extremist environmental agenda in the trappings of national security may be an effective scare tactic, but it’s not a good way to formulate national policy.

  • Chemical security law goes beyond protection

    Congress is about to consider legislation that, on the surface, seems like it implements an important goal. Its name — Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards — suggests something that no one could oppose.

    The proposed legislation, however, would extend government control into another of our nation’s most important industries. It would require companies to change their manufacturing processes and substitute products in the name of safety. But the legislation may not produce its intended effect. As the letter below states: “Congressional testimony found that this could actually increase risk to the businesses that the bill intends to protect.”

    If you need to know just how bad this bill is, consider that the Center for American Progress, founded by Herbert M. Sandler and Marion O. Sandler, is squarely behind it.

    Radical environmentalists seek to destroy American industry any way they can. Using an unimpeachable issue — our national security and anti-terrorism — to advance their goals is just another of their tools.

    Following is a letter from a coalition of industry groups that explains some of the issues surrounding this legislation.

    Dear Member of Congress,

    We represent American businesses and local city services that provide millions of jobs and our national infrastructure. Protecting our communities and complying with federal security standards is a top priority for us.

    We support straightforward legislation to reauthorize the DHS chemical facility security standards enacted by Congress in 2006. We also support Congress enacting into statute the regulatory framework that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) carefully established and is now enforcing, known as the “Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards.” Removing the sunset date and making the chemical security regulations permanent would provide the certainty needed to both protect our citizens and enable our economic recovery.

    However, we strongly urge you to oppose disrupting this security program by adding provisions that would mandate government-favored substitutions, weaken protection of sensitive information, impose stifling penalties for administrative errors, create conflicts with other security standards or move away from a performance (or risk-based) approach.

    For example, last year’s “Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Act” could have caused disruptions of new federal security standards and reduced jobs in the short term, and in the long term weakened infrastructure protection and economic stability.

    Our top concern is that legislation could go beyond security protections by creating a mandate to substitute products and processes with a government-selected technology. Congressional testimony found that this could actually increase risk to the businesses that the bill intends to protect. Such a standard is not measurable and would likely lead to confusion, loss of viable products, prohibitive legal liability, and business failures.

    We ask that you ensure that any security legislation avoid overlap and conflict with existing federal security requirements, such as the U.S. Coast Guard’s “Maritime Transportation Security Act.” Any proposal must also protect from release any sensitive security information on site vulnerability.

    Companies in thousands of communities are complying with the landmark new DHS chemical security standards while continuing to provide essential products and services for our daily lives. We believe that counter-productive adjustments to the current law would undermine security and endanger businesses in communities all around the country. Thank you for your consideration of our views.

    Update: Let your elected representatives in Washington know about this legislation. Send them a message by clicking here.

  • Kansas coal still generates discussion

    The recent decision in Kansas to proceed with the building of a coal-fired power plant still generates discussion. Today’s Wichita Eagle carries a letter to the editor that deserves discussion of its claims.

    The main focus of today’s letter is that we as a state missed out on an opportunity to “produce thousands upon thousands of new jobs in the green-energy manufacturing and operation sector.”

    This writer has obviously bought into the notion that creating jobs for the sake of reducing carbon emissions is a good thing. So we first need to look at the worthiness of the goal of reducing carbon emissions. When you do that, you realize that mankind’s contribution to global warming is minor at best, and that even the most ambitious plans to reduce carbon emissions would produce changes in temperature that are so small, they’d be difficult to measure.

    This tiny reduction in carbon emissions would come at a great cost to our economy, as the writer rightly notes, although inadvertently. It’s true that the shift to a so-called green economy would require many new jobs to be created. These jobs would create no more energy than we presently produce. But the cost of energy would increase, and that would lead to a decrease in wealth.

    The new “green” workers are merely an illusion that masks what’s really happening, which is that they displace other workers.

    The myth of the green job is one that deserves study. A recent publication titled Green Jobs: Fact or Fiction? An Assessment of the Literature makes this assessment:

    Unfortunately, it is highly questionable whether a government campaign to spur “green jobs” would have net economic benefits. Indeed, the distortionary impacts of government intrusion into energy markets could prematurely force business to abandon current production technologies for more expensive ones. Furthermore, there would likely be negative economic consequences from forcing higher-cost alternative energy sources upon the economy. These factors would likely increase consumer energy costs and the costs of a wide array of energy-intensive goods, slow GDP growth and ironically may yield no net job gains. More likely, they would result in net job losses.

    If we really wanted to turn our energy policy into a jobs creation program, we could do what George Reisman suggests, somewhat tongue-in-cheek:

    Or is it the case perhaps that this problem is to be taken as an opportunity for even greater gains in employment in connection with wind and solar power? These might be achieved if, in all those times when the wind does not blow or the sun does not shine, human beings were employed in rotating copper-clad generator shafts, in a manner similar to that of rotating a grindstone in a gristmill, only in the presence of surrounding magnets, so that electricity could be produced by the rotation. (I don’t know how much, if any, electricity might actually be produced in this way. But it would provide at least the appearance of employment in the attempt, which is all that many other “stimulus” programs accomplish.)

    The best energy policy is one that provides the energy we want at a low price. Anything else reduces our country’s wealth.

  • Geophysicist to testify before EPA

    Today Wichita Geophysicist Dennis Hedke is in Arlington, Virginia to testify before the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regarding the science of global warming, or climate change.

    Hedke says “The EPA’s findings present serious conflicts and discrepancies with very well documented data related to such issues as the human-induced contribution of CO2 to the greenhouse gas mix, recent temperature history of the earth and projected temperature / CO2 linkages, projections of sea level rise, oceanic pH conditions projected to disrupt calcification and coral growth, misinformation with respect to projected hurricane intensity and overall precipitation events. These opinions reach further into the political domain, implying national security to be at risk if we do not act immediately to curtail the impacts of their climate change predictions.”

    Following are a press release and Hedke’s testimony. More information from Hedke on this important topic may be read by clicking on Wichita Geophysicist explains climate science data.

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

    Dennis Hedke press release regarding EPA testimony, May 18, 2009

    Dennis Hedke EPA testimony, May 18, 2009