Red Clay Citizen

Drilling and ANWR

The good people over at The Weekly Standard's blog have a great reminder of what a "pristine environment" ANWR really is.  Just look at the picture!

Basnight, Bottles and Economic Backwardness

Okay. Let's suppose, as Mark Binker suggests in this piece, that neither Marc Basnight, nor his colleagues, nor his party received any campaign contributions (or benefitted in any way from) for the wacky environmental provision in the budget that would create a veritable bottling monopoly for the producer of "biodegradable" bottles in Winston Salem. Public Choice analysis shows that, if you follow the money, somebody will be benefitting from these kinds of Bootleggers and Baptists relationships. But again: let us suppose for the sake of argument that Marc Basnight is driven purely by someone's crazy idea of good intentions--perhaps even his own (which would be rare for a politician). Does such a move make economic sense?

How long and by what process does such a bottle biodegrade? If it's 100 years, so what? How much more expensive is it for people to support this legislated monopoly? While Basnight might think that random powerplays based on economically backwards whims help his state, he's almost always wrong compared to the market. In other words, in whatever he's trying to achieve with this legislation (which is difficult to tell), it probably won't work in the way he hopes and may even run counter to his intentions.

For example, is he hoping that there will be fewer plastic bottles in landfills? If so, why? Isn't he creating an incentive for people to throw them away rather than recycling them? If ordinary bottles ever become worth anything (i.e. because petroleum prices are rising), people will mine landfills for those bottles. What about the petroleum use? Oil resins for plastic feedstocks aren't used in our cars, so it wouldn't effect the price of gas to any appreciable degree, if at all. If you start to look at WHY he's doing this, there really isn't any plausible theory--plausible from the standpoint of basic economics or environmental protection.

But then again, Marc Basnight has never cared about economics. He believes he can suspend market laws with the power of enlightened legislation. He's wrong. (That's why I suspect we should go back to following the money.)
-Max Borders

More Goofy Green in the Budget

Check this out. To me it's self-evidently wacky:

STATE AGENCIES TO PURCHASE WATER IN BIODEGRADABLE
8 BOTTLES
9 SECTION 19.3.(a) The General Assembly finds that the sale and use of
10 bottled water in plastic bottles derived from petroleum products negatively impacts the
11 State's solid waste stream and reliance upon imported fossil fuels.
12 SECTION 19.3.(b) G.S. 143-64 reads as rewritten:
13 "§ 143-64. Beverages contracts.
14 (a) In order to encourage the use of biodegradable plastic bottles derived from
15 renewable resources as a substitute for traditional plastic bottles manufactured from
16 petroleum products, and notwithstanding any other provision of law, single serving
17 bottled water purchased by State departments, agencies, boards, and commissions shall
18 be packaged in bottles made of biodegradable materials.
19 (b) Notwithstanding any other provision of law, local school administrative units,
20 community colleges, and constituent institutions of The University of North Carolina
21 shall competitively bid contracts that involve the sale of juice or bottled water.
22 Contracts for the sale of juice and contracts for the sale of bottled water shall each be
23 bid separately from each other and separately from any other contract, including
24 contracts for other beverages or vending machine services. The local school
25 administrative units, community colleges, and constituent institutions may set quality
26 standards for these beverages, and these standards may be used to accept or reject a
27 bid."
28 SECTION 19.3.(c) This section becomes effective October 1, 2008, and
29 applies to purchases of bottled water on or after that date.
(HT: Chris Hayes)

Climate Change: Why Lieberman-Warner Won't Work

Here's why.
-Max Borders

Recycling Destroys Wealth

As you can see from this article, the costs of recycling idiocy are going up and up.
-Max Borders

Recycling Plastic Bags: Goofy Reasoning

(Update: The perils of not reading the whole article. I was hasty. See Elma's post below.)

Representative Pricey Harrison (D) has introduced a bill that would force stores to recycle plastic bags. Now, here's what the News & Record says about it (followed by my commentary) - though the N&R still doesn't agree with Rep. Harrison's legislation:

• "Plastic bags burden landfills: It's estimated Americans discard 100 billion of these bags annually. Because they don't easily biodegrade, they are likely to be plaguing us for centuries."

Actually, since plastics are petroleum products, and the price for petroleum is nearing record levels, it may eventually be cost-effective not only to pay people to bring their bags back, but to strip mine the landfills for plastics... But even if they aren't mined, why would a landfill "plague" anyone for centuries? It's not like people live in landfills. If they live near them, a plastic bag isn't going to creep out and attack them. This makes no sense.

• Plastic bags waste finite resources: Less than .5 percent of a barrel of oil or unit of natural gas goes toward making plastic bags, but that still is significant.

I, of course, make this point above, but add some rational economic analysis. So why should we worry? Price signals change behavior; not regulations. That's what you get when journalists weigh in on things they don't understand, which happens all too often.

• Plastic bags harm wildlife. It's thought that plastic bags contribute to the deaths of birds and sea mammals.

I'll pass over the fact that wind turbines harm birds significantly more than plastic bags - the former which the News & Record vociferously advocates - but there is no reason to think that they're less likely to harm a bird flying out of the back of someone's pickup truck on the way to being recycled. At least with the landfill, we know where it's going.

Here's why the N&R doesn't agree (again, my apologies for being hasty):

"Still, we don't support Harrison's legislation, which requires retailers of more than 10,000 square feet to provide a collection site for plastic bags and to arrange for the bags' recycling.

People who want to recycle plastic bags already have ample opportunity to do so through the voluntary recycling programs run by major grocery store chains in our state. Also, if enacted, Harrison's bill wouldn't reduce plastic bag use by 75 percent, the legislation's intended goal. Officials in San Francisco estimate a similar program in that city resulted in only about 1 percent of bags getting recycled. That city now has banned retailers from using plastic bags.

A less Draconian but effective measure is taxing bags. That's what Ireland has done (and what Seattle is considering doing). After Ireland put a tax on plastic bags (the rate is now 22 euro cents per bag), consumers began carrying reusable ones -- reducing the use of plastic bags there 95 percent. (And paper bags, which have their own baggage, weren't allowed to be substituted: The government said it would tax them if retailers tried to switch.)"

-Max Borders

Global Warming? Cooling? So Much for Consensus

It appears that the scientists can't even agree on the temperature over the last ten years, much less what it will be 50 years into the future. Warming or Cooling?
-Max Borders

Big Green Lobby (sung to "Big Yellow Taxi")

by Ken Green

(with apologies to Joni Mitchell)

They paved paradise
And built a bunch of a biofuel plants
Making ethanol fuel using coal
On their government grants

Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got
Till it’s gone!
They paved paradise
And put up ugly biofuel plants

Then they cut down all the trees
And planted lots of biofuel crops
Now the fertilizer runoff is
Causing giant ocean dead spots

Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got
Till it’s gone!
They ploughed paradise
To supply all the biofuel plants

Hey farmer farmer
Put away that subsidy now
Just grow the corn for tortillas
And leave me some pesos for cheese
Please!

Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got
Till it’s gone
They ploughed paradise
To supply all the biofuel plants

Late last night
I heard the screen door slam.
And a big yellow lobby
Took cheap food away.

Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got
Till its gone!
They paved paradise
To supply all the biofuel plants

Climate Change: What Will Future Generations Say?

As MIT professor of atmospheric science Richard Lindzen observes:  "Future generations will wonder in bemused amazement that the early 21st century's developed world went into hysterical panic over a globally averaged temperature increase of a few tenths of a degree, and, on the basis of gross exaggerations of highly uncertain computer projections combined into implausible chains of inference, proceeded to contemplate a roll-back of the industrial age."

Ethanol Pro v. Con

Here's Newt Gingrich prostituting for ethanol.
Here's David Ridenour making sense. Love the phrase "fuel to nowhere."
-Max Borders

Happy Earth Day...The Lorax: An Alt Interpretation

Have you been thinking of “going green”? Do you consider yourself a Dr. Seuss fan? If yes to either of these, maybe you’ve heard of The Lorax—a popular Dr. Seuss children’s story that is held up by greens as a kind of environmentalist’s manifesto.  But what if I told you The Lorax was just as much a paean to property rights and free trade. Would you think me crazy?

For those who haven’t read The Lorax, the story goes something like this:

A character called the “Once-ler” discovers land rich with Trufula Trees, a resource that can be made into almost anything – at least when the Once-ler applies his ingenuity to creating the things his customers value. However, wildlife like brown bar-ba-loots and Swomee-Swans depend on the Trufula Trees for food and habitat. Once the Once-ler gets started harvesting the trufula trees for his lucrative enterprises (whose biggering seems never to end), the bar-ba-loots and the Swomee-Swans rapidly begin losing habitat. There is pollution, too (Gluppity Glupp and Shloppity Shlopp). Our protagonist, the Lorax, appears and begins trying to shame the Once-ler. But the profits roll in and the Once-ler ignores the Lorax’s warnings.  Then the worst comes to pass:

“And at that very moment, we heard a loud whack!/From outside in the fields came a sickening smack
of an axe on a tree. /Then we heard the tree fall./The very last Truffula Tree of them all!”

The genius of this story is that Dr. Seuss describes in simple and enjoyable terms a phenomenon called the Tragedy of the Commons, which was set out in detail by Garett Hardin in a seminal 1968 essay. Hardin uses a number of examples of showing how property owned in common (either by no one or by everyone) will tend to be overexploited. Why? Because no one has an incentive to conserve resources, since each person reasons: “if I don’t use it, the next guy will.”

We can think of a lot of examples of these tragedies:  two siblings sharing a milkshake with two straws; a pizza at a fraternity party; the Amazon Rainforest; a common pasture for grazing lifestock; the ivory of African elephants. In all of these situations, overconsumption is a result of nobody owning the resource in question and everyone racing to use it before someone else does.  A perverse result. So how do you stop the tragedy of the commons? Well, private property rights, of course.

For example, North America has more trees today than in over a century, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, yet we probably consume more timber and paper products than ever. How is this possible? Private timber companies have an incentive not to over-consume trees and to replant whatever they harvest to ensure future returns on their stock of resources.

In Africa, a successful program called CAMPFIRE enabled villages to have property rights in elephants of their region. The villagers allowed limited hunting – but only to paying customers, not poachers. The villages, once desperate, profited.  Elephant populations soared.

Examples of how property rights ensure resource conservation abound. I need only mention Ducks Unlimited or the Nature Conservancy when discussing some of the nation’s most cherished private wildlife habitats. And what about pollution? Fishermen in the UK had rights to a stretch of river being polluted by a factory. The fishermen sued, which required the factory cease and desist—and clean up to stay in business.

So how do I know that The Lorax is not merely anti-industrialist screed, but a nod to responsible capitalism bolstered by property rights?  I read this:

“And all that the Lorax left here in this mess/was a small pile of rocks, with one word...UNLESS.
…
SO... Catch! calls the Once-ler./He lets something fall./It's a Truffula Seed./It's the last one of all!/You're in charge of the last of the Truffula Seeds./And Truffula Trees are what everyone needs.”

A pile of rocks? OK, so it helps that the illustrator shows the rocks in a circle around the last seed. But could this symbol be of property rights? It's not common property so keep off! -- that says to me. Overconsumption due to tragedy of the commons can be remedied easily with both property rights and a robust common law system to bring suits against those who would gluppity glup on our property. Now, I realize that not all environmental problems are so easily dealt with via property rights and conservation. But certainly 95 percent of them are. Sadly, environmentalists today would not only abandon private property rights for draconian regulation and state ownership of property, but many would cannibalize their own agenda for the sake of global warming (just look at ecological damage ethanol has wrought).

(Thanks to Paul Feine for introducing me to this great story and to pointing out this interpretation.)
-Max Borders

Does Rail Transit Save Energy or Reduce GHGs?

Nope.

Free-Market Environmentalism in Action

Great story from Canada showing how markets can and do protect the environment.

The community coalition and the Land Conservancy of B.C. did not hold protests or appeal to government to preserve the rain forest. They engaged in a form of collective capitalism in which everyone from local schoolchildren to senior citizens pooled their resources to buy the land from the developer.

If you want to learn more about FME, click here, here, and here.
If you want to support non-coercive environmentalist causes, try here, here, and here. (I didn't put the Nature Conservancy in here, because they turn over much of their land to the public sector, which costs taxpayers dearly in management fees. But let's not quibble. They do good stuff, too, on a whole.)

The Climate Bet

Remember the Julian Simon/Paul Ehrlich bet? Here's one by a Wharton prof proposed for Al Gore. Check it out. And gotta love this query for Gore: “When and under what conditions would you be willing to engage in a scientific test of your forecasts?” (HT: Brian Balfour)

BTW, if anyone wants a friendly side action, lemme know. I'm looking at you, progressives.
-Max Borders

Google's Green Parody

I can think of no more fitting irony than this "awareness raising" initiative by Google. Why such smart people at such a great company would get into this kind of goofy greenwashing? Anyway, this sums up the irony:

"As to why we don't do this permanently - it saves no energy; modern displays use the same amount of power regardless of what they display." This is pretty much analogous to all the (marginal) energy conservation programs like NC Greenpower. In other words, it's sort of like this: if everyone stopped using Google to educate themselves on how to use fewer Google searches (and it worked) Google would have fewer incentives to invest in new algorithms and technologies for Web searches. 'But the human mind is an unlimited resource and fossil fuels are not' Google might reply.

The late great Julian Simon argued they - human ingenuity linked to the use of resources - are one in the same. Resources never run out. I think I'll leave my computer on all night tonight.
-Max Borders

Rush to Biofuels Tempered in Europe?

A case of common sense overtakes Prime Minister Gordon Brown in the UK, while in the US (including NC) we're going corn-liquor crazy. From the Guardian:

In an outspoken attack on a policy which comes into force next week, Professor Bob Watson, the chief scientific adviser at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, said it would be wrong to introduce compulsory quotas for the use of biofuels in petrol and diesel before their effects had been properly assessed.

"If one started to use biofuels ... and in reality that policy led to an increase in greenhouse gases rather than a decrease, that would obviously be insane," Watson said. "It would certainly be a perverse outcome."
(HT: Jeff Mixon)
-Max Borders

Climate Change: Politicians Better Back Off

"Forty-eight percent of Americans are unwilling to spend even a penny more in gasoline taxes to help reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, according to a new nationwide survey released today by the National Center for Public Policy Research.

The poll found just 18% of Americans are willing to pay 50 cents or more in additional taxes per gallon of gas to reduce greenhouse emissions. U.S. Representative John Dingell (D-MI), chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, has called for a 50 cent per gallon increase in the gas tax." (NCPPR release.)
-Max Borders

Climate Change: Jim Rogers Bootlegger & Baptist

He's a bootlegger and baptist wrapped up in one. Check out this malarky on CEO Jim Rogers who apparently attended some climate alarmist meeting in Brussels:

But one of the people most talked about behind his back was Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers.

People were stunned by his candor and apparent strong commitment to climate change action. His first line when he spoke at the Forum yesterday was to tell the audience to focus on the numbers 3, 12 and 41.

He said that Duke Energy was the third largest emitter of carbon in the United States and the twelfth in the world -- and if considered an independent nation, Duke Energy would be 41st in the world -- so carbon emissions is a huge issue for him and his firm and wants to turn that around.

Jim Rogers ain't no angel people. He's not atoning for anything. What he knows (just like Paul Anderson knew) is that if Duke Energy has to compete in a carbon tax environment, then they'll kill their competition. Duke has huge interests in nuclear and natural gas. Competitors are not in such a good position. So don't be fooled. Jim Rogers wants to kill his competitors with climate change regs. He may have convinced himself that it's the "right thing" but he's a bootlegger and a Baptist all in one.
-Max Borders

Climate Change? Ah, Water Markets

Read Jonathan Adler's paper on water marketing as an adaptive tool for changes in climates like, oh, I don't know, droughts?
-Max Borders

Climate Change: Settled Science?

More bad news for the "consensus":

The expert jury is divided, with 26 per cent attributing global warming to human activity like burning fossil fuels and 27 per cent blaming other causes such as volcanoes, sunspots, earth crust movements and natural evolution of the planet [solar radiation].

A 99-per-cent majority believes the climate is changing. But 45 per cent blame both human and natural influences, and 68 per cent disagree with the popular statement that "the debate on the scientific causes of recent climate change is settled."

Ouch.
-Max Borders

Demanding Action but Not Participating -- NC GreenPower

Friday's News & Observer had an article on a presentation by Progress Energy to its analysts' meeting detailing how its polling revealed that 79 percent Progress' customers think "global warming requires immediate and drastic action."

Yet when presented with an opportunity to pay just a scant $4 per month to have a portion of their electricity produced from renewable sources through a program called NC GreenPower, only 12,940 customers in all of North Carolina have signed up.

So the message is "we want action on global warming, but we don't want to pay for it?"

I think this is another one of those polls where respondents give the "socially responsible" answer, but really don't feel very strongly about the issue.  79 percent of people supposedly say that global warming requires drastic action, yet less than 0.4% of households are willing to put their money where their mouth is and back up their opinion.

Sounds like empty environmentalism if you ask me.

Great New "Resource"

People interested in energy and environmental issues - but are put off by climate alarmism and anti-market biofuels special interests - will appreciate this information rich new site. Explore.
-Max Borders

Green Agenda Unraveling?

Articles like this in the Wall Street Journal suggest that people are starting to cotton onto the notion that ethanol was never green, but a boondoggle concocted by the corn-lobby. Groups like the NRDC should be ashamed for ignoring the evidence, ignoring the warnings.

North Carolina's enviro-ag nexus has gotten in on the special interest free-for-all. The next time you hear a leftist even breath a word about corporatations, remind them that their ilk sold out to special interests a long time ago--evidence be damned.
-Max Borders

Climate: Emerging Issues Forum (Policy Questions)

Part Deux - Questions in absentia (policy):

6) Will climate policies mitigate global warming, or merely hurt our economy and thus our ability to adapt? Can we offer proof that any policy such as taxes, caps, or renewable subsidies that would actually result in mitigation rather than symbolic gestures and a hobbling of the U.S. economy?

7) Can we guarantee that any federal taxes or caps will pre-empt other regulations and subsidies? Subsidies are generally viewed by economists as a special interest smorgasbord that keeps zombie industries dependent on taxpayers. Taxes or caps will have a much greater mitigation effect compared to subsidies. Will renewables subsidies and state regulations pass away with the implementation of a blanket federal policy that at least builds in the efficiencies of the market?

8) After any proposed tax or cap is implemented, can we guarantee that any US GDP growth dipping below 2 percent would trigger any taxes or caps to be rescinded?

9) How can we guarantee global unanimity for climate agreements? Where worldwide unanimity would be required to slow climate change, can we guarantee developing nations would not defect from global agreements -- despite very strong incentives to do so? (For example, if China and India defect, climate change will get worse, no matter what we do – as energy companies will migrate to their shores and they’ll go right on emitting.)

10) Why not adaptation? Can we show conclusively that local-level adaptation to changing climate is be inferior to national or international command-and-control regulation as a strategy for dealing with climate change? After all, wealthier is healthier.
-Max Borders

Climate: Emerging Issues Forum (Science Questions)

Questions in absentia (on the science):

1) Can we offer substantive proof that warming is mostly manmade? That is, can we prove warming is not due to natural climate variability (e.g. the earth’s orbit, cosmic rays or solar radiation)? For example, can we do more research to confirm or disconfirm evidence suggesting a similar warming trend on neighboring planets like Mars or the Jovian moons? How do we explain warming periods that occurred prior to the era of fossil fuels?

2) Can we trust the accuracy of climate forecasting? Simulations are not reality, nor are they crystal balls. Wealth managers use sophisticated techniques when attempting to forecast a client's portfolio, 5-to-10 years from now. But these predictions are vague and lose resolution the further into the future the forecaster aims. Why should we trust climate models any more than we do any other kind of computer model—particularly when recent evidence doesn’t match the predictions at all. For example, computer models that form the basis for future global warming predictions have projected significantly more warming in recent years than has actually occurred, according to the authors of a recent study in the International Journal of Climatology. Indeed, the earth is a complex system. Why should we expect static variables that feed computer models to give us anything of substance? As computer geeks are fond of saying: junk in, junk out.

3) Is there likely to be catastrophic harm from climate change? A majority of economists surveyed by Wake Forest economics professor Robert Whaples believes that modest climate change could result in a net benefit to the globe. Why are all the speculations we hear negative, when there is virtually no evidence for such predictions? Is it media hype? Political alarmism?

4) What is the historical relationship between temperature and CO2? That is: some like Al Gore argue that, historically, temperature went up during past warming periods due to increases in carbon dioxide (CO2). But an equally plausible explanation is that increased temperature causes CO2 to rise from the heated oceans—in fact, the evidence seems to show CO2 follows temperature. Does warming cause increased CO2 concentrations or the reverse? Could the process be self-reinforcing?

5) Shouldn’t we know more about the science? According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), we know little about 75 percent of the factors that scientists believe influence global temperature, including: solar irradiance, linear contrails, aerosol cloud albedo effect and so on. Shouldn't we know more about these processes and how they affect the totality of weather phenomena before rushing to judgment? Could these factors be the reason why the models aren’t working?
-Max Borders

Climate Change: Another "So What?" Argument

From the Austin Chronicle.
(Important graphic.)
-Max Borders

Climate Change : Leftwing Iconoclast

Alexander Cockburn is a voice of reason on the left when it comes to climate change:

This turn to climate catastrophism is tied into the decline of the left, and the decline of the left’s optimistic vision of altering the economic nature of things through a political programme. The left has bought into environmental catastrophism because it thinks that if it can persuade the world that there is indeed a catastrophe, then somehow the emergency response will lead to positive developments in terms of social and environmental justice.

This is a fantasy. In truth, environmental catastrophism will, in fact it already has, play into the hands of sinister-as-always corporate interests. The nuclear industry is benefiting immeasurably from the current catastrophism. Last year, for example, the American nuclear regulatory commission speeded up its process of licensing; there is an imminent wave of nuclear plant building. Many in the nuclear industry see in the story about CO2 causing climate change an opportunity to recover from the adverse publicity of Chernobyl.

We might instinctively quibble with Cockburn's assessment of nuclear power and corporate interests, not because those interests exist - they do - but because Chernobyl was an aberration, an aberration that Soviet (i.e. leftist) planning gave rise to. Corporate interests and yours and mine make the world go 'round. I'll pass over the myth of Three Mile Island.

But Cockburn is right about how climate catastrophism is being used by special interests - corporate and environmental - to further their agendas. Perhaps climate change is the issue that will send him, like islamic terrorism and the left's lukewarm response to l'affaire Salman Rushdie did Christopher Hitchens, running ... from egalitarian utopianism, central planning, and leftist wishes fathering leftist lies.
-Max Borders

Climate Change: No Comment Necessary

For once, a politician tells the truth.
-Max Borders

Smithsonian: We're Still in an Ice Age

Jeff Bennett, a Julian Simon fellow at PERC, took two interesting pictures of a display at the Smithsonian Institution. Now, he's taking bets on when those displays will be taken down given the 'climate' of global warming alarmism. Check 'em:

Now, either these old displays are old news and no longer accepted science (the truth is, no one knows the degree to which climate change is due to natural variability), or they're solid as oak. Either way, when the nation's premier nature museum is telling us and our kids that we're in an ice age (and that warming may be due to our coming out of said ice age), we'd better reevaluate something.

My bet? I'm thinking they'll come out by the time we have a new president.
-Max Borders

Cost-Effective Way to Turn Down the Temp?

Whether climate changes in the Northern Hemisphere are caused by natural climate variability or by anthropogenic greenhouse gases, there may be a low-cost way of turning down the thermostat. David Schnare's Senate testimony linked to geoengineering looks promising on its face. A sliver:

I testified that the oceans will not rise and flood the bay because before that can happen, before the Greenland Ice Sheet can melt, someone is going to employ "geo-engineering" to turn down the global temperature.  They will do that by replicating what volcanos do.  They will put small reflective particles into the troposphere that will create a sunscreen that will stabilize the global temperature at a level that will prevent melting of the glaciers and thus prevent a rise in ocean level.  They will do this because it will be one one-thousandth less expensive than trying to control emission of greenhouse gases.  They will do this because it means they will be able to grow their economies, develop their nations and still not suffer the worst effects of climate change.  They will do it so that they, and the rest of the world, will have a few centuries to find a way to transition to non-carbon energy sources.

-Max Borders

IPCC Folks May be in Job Hunt Soon

According to the authors of a new study in the International Journal of Climatology:

- Model results and observed temperature trends are in disagreement in most of the tropical troposphere, being separated by more than twice the uncertainty of the model mean.
- In layers near 5 kilometers, the modeled trend is 100 to 300 percent higher than observed, and, above 8 km, modeled and observed trends have opposite signs.

Further:

- Satellite data and independent balloon data agree that atmospheric warming trends do not exceed those of the surface.
- Greenhouse models, on the other hand, demand that atmospheric trend values be 2-3 times greater.
- Satellite observations suggest that greenhouse models ignore negative feedbacks, produced by clouds and by water vapor, that diminish the warming effects of carbon dioxide.

Zing. So much for the debate being over. (HT: NCPA)
-Max Borders

ASU Study: Not so HOT HOT HOT!

Group skewers ASU's renewables study.
-Max Borders

Public Enemy #1

According to UK based environmental outfit Carbon Trust (article here), this man is the world's biggest threat.

He sure is a menacing looking figure, set to destroy the world.  Well, he is here to convert Americans to soccer, so to some, that could make him evil.

Burning Gas and Oil to Save Silicon and Paper

Recycling: the absurdity continues.
-Max Borders

Tragedy of the Coastal Commons?

If there is, indeed, a winter bluefin rush, we had better think of ways to conserve the scarce resource. In fact, we'd better be thinking along these lines for any commons (that is, unowned resource).

Property rights give people positive incentives to conserve. That's why we (well, reasonable people) don't worry about tree shortages, because timber is privately managed. Only in the developing world - where property rights are up for grabs - do you get the awful clearcutting you hear mainstream environmentalists bang on about.

In any case, our coasts are unowned commons... So you'd think there'd be no property rights solution. But there is (tradable fishing permits/quotas). BTW, 90 percent of environmental problems can be solved by applying property rights and the common law.
-Max Borders

Big Green is Buying Your Thoughts

Global warming alarmists, having bought off all the IPCC "scientists," are now buy $100 million worth of global warming "education" (read: propaganda). Who benefits?  Follow the money.
-Max Borders

Climate Change: What's Wrong with the Sims?

OK, so they (IPCC modelers) tell us the earth's "fever" (average global tempurature) is going to keep going up. But it's not. And it hasn't since 2001. What gives?
-Max Borders

Climate Change: the Counter-Consensus

This new report by the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works is staggering. Basically, it looks like they have put together the counter-consensus -- i.e. those who are skeptical of the IPCC and the notion of man-made global warming as it is presented by the UN and Al Gore.

Remember, the UN has lots of money (billions) invested in this climate narrative. So why wouldn't they exclude any and all skeptics to create groupthink? At the risk of wearing my tinfoil hat, I'd say this is the wedge the UN would like to use to being taxing (cap and trade), and then governing the world.
-Max Borders

Road to Reform?

I'd love to hear your thoughts and comments about some of the ideas for transportation in this piece from today's N&O.

Despite my hostility towards wasteful light rail, I wanted to add a few points: a) that under the scheme outlined here, you'd get a lot of environmental benefit in rural and natural areas -- particularly as we focus more resources around urban areas; b) that tracking vehicle usage could amount to a tool for central planners and state nannies, but perhaps such tracking could be administered by a private third party, much in the same way our cellphones are; and c) can you imagine a free-market type suggesting a czar? What can I say, I'm a pragmatist, too.
-Max Borders

Right Hand, Left Hand

What is a state to do when it tries to serve two masters?

One one hand, those in charge are trying to "do something" about global warming and limit the use of coal-fired power plants.

On the other hand, others in charge are trying to "do something" about economic development and use corporate welfare to create jobs.

Thus, we get this situation where the Division of Air Quality must decide whether to allow the expansion of Duke Power's Cliffside power plant near Charlotte.

The problem is, the company who will do the construction of the expansion, Shaw Power Group, just received incentives from the state to expand their operations.  So how do they add jobs if the power plant isn't allowed to expand?

Who will win the battle between environmentalism and corporate welfare?  I don't know, but it's going to be fun to watch the Dept. of Commerce and the Division of Air Quality squirm their way through this.

Bali: Behind all the Hissing and Booing

Apparently there was tumultuous end to the Bali meeting, which resulted in the US being booed and hissed. The US - rationally - wanted developing nations to be bound to any climate agreement. So, if you believe that climate change is anthropogenic and that carbon reduction targets will help mitigate it (all of which is beyond belief -- particularly the latter premise), then you still have the problem of defection.

See, if China, India and other developing nations get to opt out of any agreement, the rest of the world suffers economically while these countries reap all the gains as legacy energy migrates to their shores. Since they're not bound, why would they comply? They're getting richer as we speak and they know they won't get rich if they artificially drive up the price of the master resource. Now, all the booing and hissing is coming from countries that stand to benefit from carbon sink schemes. It's an end-run around traditional foreign aid channels. And who pays (again)? That's right: we do.

So as you listen to all the environmental posturing and moralizing, remember that behind any boo or hiss are a bunch of greedy b*#@rds ("bootleggers") trying to benefit from green regulation that will do nothing to abate climate change (that is, if it's, indeed, human-caused).
-Max Borders

So Much for Renewables...

From today's Charlotte Business Journal:

Duke Energy Carolinas is seeking permission from N.C. regulators to build two combined-cycle, natural-gas-fired generating units.

Good to see them taking steps towards building those renewable baseload generation plants...

Climate Change: The Burning Question

So when is NASA going to explain away the apparent planetary warming trends of our solar system neighbors? NASA has been almost as outspoken about global warming as the IPCC (both of whom have billion dollar budgets that depend on their being at the forefront of this issue). So why haven't they drawn the simple inferences about the possibility of natural variability? I think I answered my own question above.
-Max Borders

Climate Change Self-Parody

What does climate change cause? Enjoy.

Climate Change: Technology or Regulation?

If (and that's a big if) man is causing global warming... and if such warming would actually result in negative or catastrophic consequences, should we allow for technological solutions that will arise from prosperity and innovation, or should we regulate ourselves into an economic recession?
-Max Borders

Climate Change Wisdom

Those interested in climate change will find much to think about in this report.
-Max Borders

Testing Progressive 'Principles'

I recall an old Ali G episode where Ali asks an animal rights activist/moral philosopher if he would eat a chicken to save the life of a chicken. If there is any such animal as a progressive principle, such will be tested in the coming months and years with commitments to environmentalism.

In this post, I highlighted a rare overlap between progressives and free-marketeers (MFs) -- that is, neither of us likes corporate welfare. But what happens when progressive hostility towards corporate welfare runs smack into Green fetishism? In other words, will progressives be silent on incentives if they go to support companies that recycle? Quite the conundrum.

(My guess is that recycling has become such a religion for progressives that they'll escort the pigs to the trough without a peep of protest.)
-Max Borders

Progressive "Realism"

Here we have a leftish type at NC Policy Watch demanding more aid so that low income can afford to pay for heating -- what with energy being so costly.

Here we have a leftish type at NC Policy Watch writing in support of measures that will increase energy rates.

Just like with affordable housing and open space, it's another example of how environmental silliness works at odds with concern for the poor. That's the eat-cake/have-cake logic of the left. I guess we MFs just don't understand all the nuances of the Rube Goldberg-style government they're trying to build.
-Max Borders

Suppose Al Gore is Right

Even if Al Gore is right, we are confronted with a rather stark set of choices:

First, no climate mitigation strategy as yet proposed will make a dent in warming (that's assuming it's anthropogenic). Second, wealthier nations tend to fare much better and to adapt better when confronted with any sort of extreme weather conditions, climate change, or related effects. [Note: even Bangladesh fared better during Sidr, for example, than it would have thirty years ago.] So, this comes down to draconian mitigation vs. local adaptation, even if the greenhouse effect is occuring and it's caused largely by humans.

I highly recommend this article and others by Indur Goklany (pdf) on the question of adaptation, opportunity costs, and other strategies to deal with climate change. I prefer Goklany's work to that of Lomborg, for example. While the latter has done more to quiet the alarmism, the former is more nuanced and not as concerned with offering centralized (UN-style) solutions to problems around the globe.
-Max Borders

Can Freedom Abate Global Warming?

Gene Callahan has a good piece in the Freeman, which I think is a very good complement to a piece I had in there a while back. Here's a nice sum-up sliver from his:

As in all debates over public versus private choice, it’s inappropriate to measure a realistic free-market response to global warming against an idealized government program. We must try to envision what real people would do if their property rights were respected and compare that scenario with the probable outcome of actual politicians in today’s world being given a blank check in the name of saving the earth.

Blank check, indeed. And in a federalist system, that blank check is currently being written at all levels of government.
-Max Borders

Carbon Tax: Once was Lost, Now Found...

Interesting mea culpa from Robert Bryce on carbon taxes.
-Max Borders

Tragedy of the Commons: Bruce Yandle

One of my heroes, Bruce Yandle, has a podcast on the tragedy of the commons. Every environmentalist and concerned citizen should understand this concept, as the phenomenon is responsible for 98 percent of all environmental issues -- from pollution to over-fishing. Bruce is a scholar and a gentleman. Enjoy.

(Update: pay close attention to his wisdom on incorporation and use of the Common Law versus top-down regulation.)
-Max Borders

Climate Change Poppycock: N.C. Neck Deep in It

So stunning in its stupidity, so ridiculously far-fetched in its claims, it's verging on one of those big lies a la Josef Goebbels we've been talking about:

North Carolina could net more than 300,000 new jobs by 2020 by implementing energy efficiency programs and using more renewable energy, according to a report presented Tuesday to the Legislative Commission on Global Climate Change. The preliminary report is an attempt to quantify the economic result of more than 30 policy options suggested by an advisory committee established to help lawmakers develop a global warming response plan. All the recommendations of the Climate Action Plan Advisory Group, if approved, are expected to return the state to 1990 levels of greenhouse gas emissions within 13 years. (10/23 Associated Press)

The reporter reports as if there were no smile to be cracked, no snort to be swallowed, nor guffaw to be stifled. 300,000 new jobs? Surely they don't mean net jobs (well they can't mean that).

How many times do we have to remind people that we can "create" thousands of jobs in the glassmaking industry by breaking windows around the state. The costs will be displaced, and thus jobs lost (or never even created) somewhere else in the economy.

Then, with these prosperity-destroying policies, we'll achieve "1990 levels of greenhouse gas emissions within 13 years"? I don't know whether to laugh or cry. And I'm not the only one giggling through my tears, read this from a "green" economist -- one who is normally way too charitable to carbon-neutrality enterprise to begin with.

I just wish any economist - much less these rent-seeking enablement committee - would or could explain to me with a shred of earnestness how they expect this clusterf*%#$ of Pigovian taxes, subsidies, fees, and other assorted technocratic measures are going to save the planet when we don't even know whether the warming of 1 or 2 degrees will harm the planet to start with (nevermind the issue of whether humans are causing the warming).
-Max Borders

(Update: Roy Cordato not only slams the N&O for its irresponsible coverage but the team of "experts" that released the report and their dubious funding sources.)

The Environmental Movement in a Nutshell

In this interview, Steve Hayward of AEI puts Gore's Nobel prize in perspective with this classic summation:

"Gore's prize is another phase of the climate silly season that we've been in for several years now."

Hayward proceeds to dissect the motives of the left-wing enviro-Nazis with one telling paragraph:

"Gore exemplifies the urge most environmentalists have to exert ever greater political control over resources. Some environmentalists want to do this because they believe we use "too many" natural resources and want to be in charge of rationing them; others believe the rationalist fallacy that government can direct better use of resources than private individuals and the marketplace. To be sure, resource scarcity can be a source of conflict and war, but democracies and nations with market economies seldom have to go to war to resolve such conflicts."

Climate Change Prisoner's Dilemma

Ben Lieberman explains one of the problems of trying to control carbon from the top-down, revealing an international prisoner's dilemma for the ages:

It is important to note that China isn't slowly edging past America; it is roaring ahead. Emissions of carbon dioxide, the byproduct of fossil-fuel combustion and the greenhouse gas of greatest concern, are exploding along with China's economy. New coal-fired power plants are reportedly being added in China at the rate of about one per week, and these facilities are less efficient and higher-emitting than their western counterparts. According to the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, which believes China has already surpassed America, emissions in China rose 9-percent in 2006, on top of a 12-percent increase in 2005. Meanwhile, America's emissions have been growing much more slowly, averaging little more than 1-percent per year. They actually declined by 1.3-percent in 2006, according to the Department of Energy.

The U.S. was easily the biggest emitter during the 20th century, but future carbon-dioxide emissions will come less from American sources, and more from Chinese ones. Even if the U.S. saddled itself with economy-damaging energy constraints, it would barely begin to offset China's projected increases. But so far, China has adamantly refus