Voice For Liberty

Tag: Environment

  • Physics for future presidents is for all of us

    In the most unlikely of all cities, at the most unlikely of all universities, Richard A. Muller tries to a inject a dose of sanity into science, especially the debate over climate change.

    “Surrounded by tree-hugging academics at UC Berkeley, he dares to argue that coal and nuclear fission are good sources of energy.”

    The Forbes Magazine article A Berkeley professor dares to debunk the popular wisdom about the future of energy reports, and it’s essential reading. It explains his criticism of Al Gore and the New York Times’ Tom Friedman.

    The website supporting the Muller’s popular class Physics for future Presidents includes podcasts of lectures, and the complete chapter on climate change from the textbook. This easy-to-read-chapter presents a reasonable and balanced view of the science and some of the politics and economics of climate change.

    Global warming alarmists say that those who don’t agree with their doomsday scenarios are denying science. It turns out, however, that not all scientists agree, especially with the recommendations that will destroy our standard of living in America.

  • Academic Study Challenges Projections of Green Jobs

    Global warming alarmists often argue that transforming our economy to reliance on “green” sources of energy is good because millions of jobs will be created. These new green jobs, it is claimed, will drive our economy forward and create wealth.

    In Kansas, our governor believes in green jobs. She was a keynote speaker at a recent “Good jobs, green jobs” conference. Our likely incoming governor Mark Parkinson speaks the same language.

    A just-released study from the University of Illinois adds to the critical body of evidence that shows that many of the claims made about green jobs aren’t true. From the press release announcing this study:

    While acknowledging the importance of energy conservation and ongoing research and investment into new technologies, the authors set out to evaluate the fundamental soundness of green job claims. In aggregate, the academic team’s study concludes that a lack of sound research methods, erroneous economic assumptions and technological omissions have routinely been utilized to lend support, rather than provide legitimate analysis, to major public policies and government spending initiatives. Furthermore, the reports that were reviewed have been issued without the benefit of peer-reviewed analysis or transparency of their models and calculations. (emphasis added)

    Furthermore:

    Key findings of the study show that no definition for green jobs exists causing great discrepancy in how numbers are counted; that green job estimates often include huge numbers of clerical, bureaucratic and administrative positions that do not produce goods or services for consumption; and that problematic assumptions are made about economic predictions, prices and technology advancements leading some to ultimately favor mandates over free market realities. These serious flaws, as well as the failure to include technical data, render the prevailing green job estimates virtually unreliable.

    These are the myths identified by the authors:

    • Everyone understands what a “green job” is.
    • Creating green jobs will boost productive employment.
    • Green jobs forecasts are reliable.
    • Green jobs promote employment growth.
    • The world economy can be remade by reducing trade and relying on local production and reduced consumption without dramatically decreasing our standard of living.
    • Government mandates are a substitute for free markets.
    • Imposing technological progress by regulation is desirable.

    The study comes out of the University of Illinois College of Law. An article about the study with an easy-to-read (short) summary of the myths may be read by clicking on 7 Myths About Green Jobs. The full study is at Green Jobs Myths.

  • Wichita Eagle letter: coal and recycling

    A letter in the Wichita Eagle by a Mr. Steve Otto of Wichita (March 16, 2009) makes a few claims that require critical examination.

    The letter claims that “the rest of the nation is staying away from coal-burning plants.” Actual figures present a different story.

    In the document Tracking New Coal-Fired Power Plants from the National Energy Technology Laboratory, we see there are 28 coal plants under construction, 7 near construction, and 13 that have been permitted. That’s a total of 48 plants. Additionally, 47 plants have been announced.

    Otto also laments Wichita’s low participation in recycling, and refers to a study in Wichita comes in last. Ranking last in this regard, however, would be something to be ashamed of if it was actually bad to not recycle.

    My posts Recycle, If You Wish and No Recycling Mandates in Sedgwick County, Please shows some ways in recycling is harmful and a waste of time.

    The price system tells us all we need to know about the relative merits of recycling. In some cases the price system tells us that recycling is a beneficial use of resources. About 75% of automobiles are recycled, and used cardboard is often recycled in commercial settings. That’s because the price paid for these recycled items is high enough that, in these contexts, recycling can be profitable. That’s the price system at work. It tells us that the best use of an old car is to recycle it, and the same goes for cardboard boxes at the grocery store.

    A household setting is different. Households usually have to pay to engage in recycling. The prices that recyclers can get for these recycled goods doesn’t cover the cost of collecting them from households, as evidenced by the fact that in Wichita households must pay someone to pick up recyclables (although this may have recently changed as described in the news story Get paid to recycle. Residents pay a monthly fee, but earn points based on how much they recycle.). That’s the price system at work again. Its sober assessment is that in the context of households, recycling is a waste of resources.

    There is also the loss of personal liberty. With forced recycling, people have to give up activities that they value more than recycling to comply with the mandate. Additionally, we have to pay recycling fees or additional taxes to cover the costs of money-losing recycling efforts.

    So I’ll have to disagree with Otto that Wichita ranking last on this last is a bad thing.

  • Articles of Interest

    Electric cars, Obama and education reform, Kansas online records, Proposition K

    Could the Volt Jump-Start GM? (Washington Post) The Volt is Chevrolet’s plug-in hybrid, meaning it has no gasoline engine, running solely on electricity. The problem is that the car’s price may be $40,000. My question is where will we get the electricity to charge these cars on calm days if we don’t build more baseline electricity generation capacity?

    No Picnic for Me Either (David Brooks in the New York Times) An overview of President Obama’s attitudes towards public schools in America. Can the president successfully challenge the government school lobby and its entrenched interests, those often at odds with the interests of schoolchildren? Brooks doesn’t seem hopeful: “The problem is that as our ability to get data has improved, the education establishment’s ability to evade the consequences of data has improved, too. Most districts don’t use data to reward good teachers. States have watered down their proficiency standards so parents think their own schools are much better than they are.”

    Online records convenient, but cost more (Deb Gruver in the Wichita Eagle). Contains an overview of some of the sites in Kansas where you can look at government records. Kansas charges for many records that other states provide at no cost.

    State tax change sought (Tim Carpenter in the Topeka Capital-Journal) “It has been denounced by state and county officials and greeted with skepticism by Democratic lawmakers.” That’s Proposition K, of course. I would say that when lobbyists for local governments are worried about their sources of revenue, that’s good for everyone else.

  • Increased number think global warming is “exaggerated”

    A new Gallup poll shows that the trend in thinking among Americans over the past few years is that the news about global warming is exaggerated. “This represents the highest level of public skepticism about mainstream reporting on global warming seen in more than a decade of Gallup polling on the subject.”

    Even more Democrats are starting to believe that new about global warming is exaggerated.

    The poll, including charts, be be read by clicking on Increased Number Think Global Warming Is “Exaggerated.”

    I do sense a bit of bias in the story. Here’s a passage: “Americans generally believe global warming is real. That sets the U.S. public apart from the global-warming skeptics who assembled this week in New York City to try to debunk the science behind climate change.” (emphasis added.)

    Why did the story use the word try? Did Gallup cover the conference and make this judgment?

  • New York Times covers climate change conference before the event

    The New York Times reports on the International Conference on Climate Change before the event starts, and declares that “global warming’s skeptics are showing signs of internal rifts and weakening support.”

    Some of the Times’ criticism seems to flow from the fact that there is diversity in the ranks of climate skeptics. That seems to be more desirable than the lockstep in which warming extremists operate. After all, the science surrounding climate change is not at all certain, so to act as though the issue is settled is quite dangerous.

    The Times also criticizes the event by calling attention to who isn’t attending.

    But even this advance downplaying of the conferences isn’t enough for some Times readers. A comment left on one of the Times’ blogs said “The impetus for that probably came from the beancounters at the Times — it’s hard to believe their editors are that lame.”

    The Times blogs are the only place where the actual conference is covered. The “news” article Skeptics Dispute Climate Worries and Each Other was published before the conference opened. There doesn’t seem to be any reporting in the Times on what actually happened at the conference.

    Related: Read the opening remarks to the conference, delivered by Heartland Institute president Joseph L. Bast. More information about the conference and its proceedings may be read and viewed by clicking here.

  • Just a pause in warming?

    The Washington Post’s George F. Will reminds us that not too long ago — about 30 years — the New York Times was warning us of “the near certainty of calamitous global cooling.”

    Now Will alerts us to a Times story which tell us that “that the last decade, which passed without warming, was just ‘a pause in warming.’”

    But do we really know? The data is subject to a variety of interpretations, and as Will tells us, that data itself is often suspect:

    On Feb. 18 the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center reported that from early January until the middle of this month, a defective performance by satellite monitors that measure sea ice caused an underestimation of the extent of Arctic sea ice by 193,000 square miles, which is approximately the size of California. The Times (“All the news that’s fit to print”), which as of this writing had not printed that story, should unleash Revkin and his unnamed experts.

    Read it all by clicking on Climate Science in A Tornado.

  • Cap-and-trade costs consumers

    To solve the global warming crisis — to the extent that such crisis is real — alarmists often propose a cap-and-trade scheme. It seems like a reasonable solution, using the power of markets to let carbon emitters decide their preference between emitting carbon vs. reducing emissions.

    But it’s not so simple. As George Will has written: “Speaking of endless troubles, ‘cap-and-trade’ comes cloaked in reassuring rhetoric about the government merely creating a market, but government actually would create a scarcity so that government could sell what it had made scarce. The Wall Street Journal underestimates cap-and-trade’s perniciousness when it says the scheme would create a new right (‘allowances’) to produce carbon dioxide and would put a price on the right. Actually, because freedom is the silence of the law, that right has always existed in the absence of prohibitions. With cap-and-trade, government would create a right for itself — an extraordinarily lucrative right to ration Americans’ exercise of their traditional rights.”

    This benefit to government comes at a price to consumers. The George C. Marshall Institute has just released a study that estimates some of the increased costs that consumers will pay under likely cap-and-trade plans. It’s a lot. “Put another way, the cap-and-trade approach is the equivalent of a permanent tax increase for the average American household, which was estimated to be $1,100 in 2008, would rise to $1,437 by 2015, to $1,979 in 2030, and $2,979 in 2050.”

    To place these increased costs in perspective, last year the electric utility Westar proposed a rate increase of $10 per month for the average household in Kansas. That was met with strong resistance from consumer groups. When the City of Wichita proposed a $1 per month extra fee on water bills, one city council member worried about its effect on her constituents. These increases are far, far less than the extra costs cap-and-trade will impose.

    Read the short introduction to the Marshall Institute study by clicking on The Cost of Climate Regulation for American Households. A link to the entire study is there.

  • Where’s the dirtiest coal plant in Kansas?

    Right north of Lawrence, home to many of our state’s global warming alarmists, stands a very dirty coal-fired power plant. James Meier explains and describes the irony in the video commentary Most Polluting Regions Among Greatest Objectors to Coal Plants.

    Which Kansas power plant was ranked the state’s dirtiest by the Environmental Integrity Project? The answer might surprise you.

    Since, the Sebelius administration blocked the Holcomb Plant Expansion, there has been a flood of special interest money attempting to influence the political process.

    Many of the activists from Lawrence don’t want the plant built because they insist there will be environmental problems that would affect the rest of the state, all coal power plants in Kansas, except Holcomb, are located in eastern Kansas .

    Pollution knows no boundaries, and yet common sense dictates those closest to a plant will experience the most adverse effects. which power plant is the state’s dirtiest?

    Westar’s Lawrence Energy Center produced over 4 million tons of carbon dioxide and 3 million megawatts of electricity in 2006 to be ranked the 12th dirtiest in the nation per kilowatt hour.